Teddy Roosevelt

But the good sense and self-restraint of the average American citizen falsified these prophecies.

These men have left us of the younger generation not merely the memory of what they did in war, but of what they did in peace.

You colored men who show in business life both ability and a high order of integrity are real benefactors not only of your race but of the whole country.

The standing of the bank which in this city is managed by colored men should give genuine pride to all the colored men of this country.

Our ideal must be the effort to combine all proper freedom for individual effort with some guarantee that the effort is not exercised in contravention of the eternal and immutable principles of justice.

The laws must be conceived and executed in a spirit of sanity and justice, and with exactly as much regard for the rights of the big man as for the rights of the little man—treating big man and little man exactly alike.

Of course there is always the danger of abuse if legislation of this type is approached in a hysterical or sentimental spirit, or, above all, if it is approached in a spirit of envy and hatred toward men of wealth.

Normally we help the wage-worker, we help the man of small means, by making conditions such that the man of exceptional business ability receives an exceptional reward for that ability.

If, under such circumstances, the less fortunate man is moved by envy of his more fortunate brother to strike at the conditions under which they have both, though unequally, prospered, he may rest assured that while the result may be…

In speaking against the abuses committed by certain very wealthy corporations or individuals, and of the necessity of seeking so far as it can safely be done to remedy these abuses, there is always danger lest what is said may be…

Now the benefits which corporations engaged in interstate trade enjoy under the United States Government are incalculable; and in respect of such trade the jurisdiction of the Federal Government is supreme when it chooses to exercise it.

The enormous increase in interstate trade, resulting from the industrial development of the last quarter of a century, makes it proper that the Federal Government should, so far as may be necessary to carry into effect its national policy…

I believe that all corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be under the supervision of the National Government.

Some great corporations resort to every technical expedient to render enforcement of the law impossible, and their obstructive tactics and refusal to acquiesce in the policy of the law have taxed to the utmost the machinery of the…

But the great corporations are themselves to blame if by their opposition to what is legal and just they foster the popular feeling which calls for such drastic action.

Personally, I think our people would be most unwise if they let any exasperation due to the acts of certain great corporations drive them into drastic action, and I should oppose such action.

Either they will have to submit to reasonable supervision and regulation by the national authorities, or else they will ultimately have to submit to governmental action of a far more drastic type.

Very many of these men seem to think that the alternative is simply between submitting to the mild kind of governmental control we advocate and the absolute freedom to do whatever they think best.

If so, it must be distinctly understood that it will be because of the stubborn determination of some of the great combinations in striving to prevent the enforcement of the law as it stands, by every device, legal and illegal.

Moreover, if the existing law proves to be inadequate, so that under established rules of evidence clear violations may not be readily proved, defiance of the law must inevitably lead to further legislation.

The Government has very properly exercised moderation in attempting to enforce the criminal provisions of the statute; but it has become our conviction that in some cases, such as that of at least certain of the beef packers recently…

The violations of the law known as the anti-trust law, which was meant to meet the conditions thus arising, have more and more become confined to the larger combinations, the very ones against whose policy of monopoly and oppression the…

The consolidation, in the form of what are popularly called trusts, of corporate interests of immense value has tended to produce unfair restraints of trade of an oppressive character, and these unfair restraints tend to create great…

Not only the men in control of these corporations, but the business world generally, ought to realize that such conduct is in every way perilous, and constitutes a menace to the Nation generally, and especially to the people of great…

Many corporations show themselves honorably desirous to obey the law; but, unfortunately, some corporations, and very wealthy ones at that, exhaust every effort which can be suggested by the highest ability, or secured by the most lavish…