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Home  »  Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen  »  Page 388

Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.

Page 388

upon this theory, of securing fair treatment alike for labor and capital.”
  That is all, and nothing has been done that is not in that spirit. Perhaps it is natural that a corporation like the Standard Oil Company, which has amassed enormous wealth through a monopoly that enabled it to dictate its own freight rates to the utter annihilation of its competitors, should object to have the government step in and try to curtail unfair profits. Perhaps it is natural for it to object to the antirebate law, though it comes too late to check its greed.
  Perhaps it is natural for some speculating concerns to wish to keep their business to themselves; but it seems to me we have seen enough swindling exposed, to be plain about it, these last few months, to make a good many people wish there had been some way of finding out the facts before it was too late. That, again, is all there is to that. Nobody is to be hurt, nobody can be hurt, except the one that deserves to be. I have faith enough in the American people to believe that the time has not yet come, and will not soon come, when the speculators can defeat a man running for the Presidency