in a public service corporation we have no right to allow such excessive profits as will necessitate rates being unduly high and wages unduly low. Again, while in all proper ways rates must be kept low, we must always remember that we have no right and no justification to reduce them when the result is the,reduction of the wages of the great army of railroad men. A fair working arrangement must be devised according to the needs of the several cases, so that profits, wages and rates shall each be reasonable with reference to the other twoand in wages I include the properly large amounts which should always be paid to those whose masterful ability is required for the successful direction of great enterprises. Combinations which favor such an equitable arrangement should themselves be favored and not forbidden by law; although they should be strictly supervised by the Government through the Interstate Commerce Commission, which should have the power of passing summarily upon not only the question of the reduction but the raising of rates.

This railroad problem is itself one of the phases of one of the greatest and most intricate problems of our civilization; for its proper solution we need not merely honesty and courage, but judgment, good sense, and entire fairmindedness. Demogogy in such a matter is as certain to work evil as corruption itself. The man who promises to raise the wages of the railroad employees to the highest point and at the same time to reduce rates to the lowest point is promising what neither he nor anyone else can perform; and if the effort to perform it were attempted disaster would result to both shipper and wage-worker, and ruin to the business interests of the country. The man to trust in such a matter as this is the man who, like Judge Taft, does not promise too much, but who could not be swayed from the path of duty by any argument, by any consideration; who will wage relentless war on the successful wrongdoer among railroad men as among all other men; who will do all that can be done to secure legitimately low rates to shippers and absolute evenness among the rates thus secured; but who will neither promise nor attempt to secure rates so low that the wageearner would lose his earnings and the shareholder, whose money built the road, his profits. He will not favor a ruinous experiment like government ownership of railways; he will stand against any kind of confiscation of honestly acquired property; but he will work effectively for the most efficient type of government supervision and control of railways, so as to secure just and fair treatment of the people as a whole.

What is here said as to his attitude on the railway question applies to the whole question of the trusts. He will

promise nothing on this subject unless he firmly believes he can make his promise good. He will go into no chimerical movement to destroy all great business combinations; for this can only be done by destroying all modern business; but he will in practical fashion do everything possible to secure such efficient control, on behalf of the people as a whole, over these great combinations as will deprive them of the power to work evil. Mr. Taft's decision in the Addystone Pipe Line case while on the bench is proof, by deeds not by words, of the far-sighted wisdom with which he serves the interests of the whole people even when those of the most powerful corporations are hostile thereto.

If there is one body of men more than another whose support I feel I have a right to challenge on behalf of Secretary Taft it is the body of wage-workers of the country. A stauncher friend, a fairer and truer representative, they cannot find within the borders of the United States. He will do everything in his power for them except to do that which is wrong; he will do wrong for no man, and therefore can be trusted by all men. During the ten years of my intimate acquaintance with him, since I have myself, as Governor and President, been obliged to deal practically with labor problems, he has been one of the men upon whose judgment and aid I could always rely in doing everything possible for the cause of the wage-worker, of the man who works with his hands, or with both hands and head.

Mr. Taft has been attacked because of the injunctions he delivered while on the bench. I am content to rest his case on these very injunctions; I maintain that they show why all our people should be grateful to him and should feel it safe to entrust their dearest interests to him. Most assuredly he never has yielded and never will yield to threat or pressure of any sort as little if it comes from labor as if it comes from capital; he will no more tolerate the violence of a mob than the corruption and oppression and arrogance of a corporation or of a wealthy man. He will not consent to limit the power of the courts to put a stop to wrongdoing wherever found. This very fact should make the labor people. feel a peculiar confidence in him. He has incurred the bitter hostility of foolish and bigoted reactionaries by his frank criticism of the abuse of the power of injunction in labor disputes, and he is pledged to do all he can to put a stop to the abuses in the exercise of the power of injunction. He will never promise anything that he will not do all in his power to perform. He can always be trusted to do a little better than his word, and the fact that before election he will not promise the impossible is in itself a guaranty that after election all that is possible will be done.

His record as a judge makes the whole country his debtor. His actions and decisions are part of the great traditions of the bench. They guaranteed and set forth in striking fashion the rights of the general public as against the selfish interests of any class, whether of capitalists or of laborers. They set forth and stand by the rights of the wage-workers to organize and to strike, as unequivocally as they set forth and stand by the doctrine that no conduct will be tolerated that would spell destruction to the nation as a whole. As for the attack upon his injunctions in labor disputes, made while he was on the bench, I ask that the injunctions be carefully examined. I ask that every responsible and fairminded labor leader, every responsible and fairminded member of a labor organization, read these injunctions for himself. If he will do so, instead of condemning them he will heartily approve of them and will recognize this further astonishing fact that the principles laid down by Judge Taft in these very injunctions, which laboring peoplė are asked to condemn, are themselves the very principles which are now embodied in the laws or practices of every responsible labor organization. No responsible organization would now hesitate to condemn the abuses against which Judge Taft's injunctions were aimed. The principles which he therein so wisely and fearlessly laid down serve as a charter of liberty for all of us, for wage-workers, for employers, for the general public; for they rest on the principles of fair dealing for all, of even-handed justice for all. They mark the judge who rendered them as standing for the rights of the whole people; as far as daylight is from darkness, so far is such a judge from the time-server, the truckler to the mob, or the cringing tool of great, corrupt and corrupting corporations. Judge Taft on the bench-as since, in the Philippines, in Panama, in Cuba, in the War Department— showed himself to be a wise, a fearless, and an upright servant of the whole people, whose services to the whole people were beyond all price. Moreover, let all good citizens remember that he rendered these services, not when it was easy to do so, but when lawless violen was threatened, when malice, domestic and civic disturbance threatened the whole fabric of our government and of civilization; his actions showed not only the highest kind of moral courage but of physical courage as well, for his life was freely and violently threatened.

Let all fair-minded men, wage-workers, and capitalists alike, consider yet another fact. In one of his decisions upon the bench Judge Taft upheld in the strongest fashion, and for the first time gave full validity to, the principle of the employers' liability for injuries done workmen. This was

before any national law on the subject was enacted. Judge Taft's sense of right, his indignation against oppression in any form, against any attitude that is not fair and just, drove him to take a position which was violently condemned by short-sighted capitalists and employers of labor, which was so far in advance of the time that it was not generally upheld by the State courts, but which we are now embodying in the law of the land. Judge Taft was a leader, a pioneer, while on the bench, in the effort to get justice for the wageworker, in jealous championship of his rights; and all upright and far-sighted laboring men should hold it to his credit that at the same time he fearlessly stood against the abuses of labor, just as he fearlessly stood against the abuses of capital. If elected, he has shown by his deeds that he will be President of no class, but of the people as a whole; he can be trusted to stand stoutly against the two real enemies of our democracy-against the man who to please one class would undermine the whole foundation of orderly liberty and against the man who in the interest of another class would secure business prosperity by sacrificing every right of the working people.

I have striven as President to champion in every proper way the interests of the wage-worker; for I regard the wageworker, excepting only the farmer, the tiller of the soil, as the man whose well-being is most essential to the healthy growth of this great nation. I would for no consideration advise the wage-worker to do what I thought was against his interest. I ask his support for Mr. Taft exactly as I ask such support from every far-sighted and right-thinking American citizen; because I believe with all my heart that nowhere within the borders of our great country can there be found another man who will as vigilantly and efficiently as Mr. Taft support the rights of the working man as he will the rights of every man who in good faith strives to do his duty as an American citizen. He will protect the just rights of both rich and poor, and he will war relentlessly against lawlessness and injustice whether exercised on behalf of property or of labor.

On the bench Judge Taft showed the two qualities which make a great judge; wisdom and moral courage. They are also the two qualities which make a great President.

Sincerely yours,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

MR. CONRAD KOHRS.

Helena, Montana.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S LETTER TO CHAIRMAN MCKINLEY ON THE NECESSITY OF ELECTING A REPUBLICAN HOUSE.

SAGAMORE HILL,

OYSTER BAY, N. Y., September 9, 1908.

MY DEAR SIR: I have received your letter of August 28th. I agree with all that you say as to the amount of affirmative and constructive legislation for the social and economic benefit of our people which has been accomplished by the Congress during the last seven years. The law establishing a national system of irrigation was of vital importance and stands in its line as second only to the homestead law. The interstate commerce law has been amended so as to make it a new law, with three-fold the efficiency of the old law. The enactment of the pure food law was of almost or quite equal importance. The creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor, together with the creation of Bureau of Corporations, which marks the beginning of Federal control over the huge corporations doing an interstate business, the employers' liability law, the safety appliance law, the law limiting the working hours of railways employees, the meat inspection law, the denatured alcohol law, the anti-rebate law, the law increasing the powers of the Department of Justice in dealing with those, regardless of wealth and power, who infract the law, the law making the Government liable for injuries to its employees, the laws under which the Panama Canal was acquired and is being built. the Philippines administered and the navy developed, the laws creating a permanent Census Bureau and reforming the consular service and the system of naturalization, the law forbidding child labor in the District of Columbia, the law providing a commission under which our currency system can be put on a thoroughly satisfactory basis, the laws for the proper administration of the forest service, the laws for the admission of Oklahoma and the development of Alaska, the great appropriations for the development of agriculture, the legal prohibition of campaign contributions from corporationsall these represent but a portion of what has been done by Congress, and form a record of substantial legislative achievement in harmony with the best and most progressive thought