THE ITHACA DAILY JOURNAL MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 24, 1910
COLONEL ROOSEVELT IS GIVEN
BIG OVATION HERE
Speaks at Ithaca Hotel before Leaving on Auto Trip
Colonel Roosevelt said, in part: "On Thursday night last, I charged Mr. Dix with being a director of the Standard Wall Paper company, at a time when it was a member of a trust the Continental Wall Paper Company, which Judge Lurton has stigmatized as one of the most oppressive monopolies ever created and one which tended to raise prices, to an improper height and therefore to do great harm to persons who used a necessity of life.
Mr. Walker had already written on October 21, to Mr. Dix, asking him if he was connected with this trust? Mr. Walker never received an answer to his letter from Mr. Dix, but yesterday after I had made my statement, Mr. Dix published in the daily papers a letter purporting to have been sent to Mr. Walker before I made my statement. In this letter Mr. Dix states that he became a director of the Standard Wall Paper company in June 1907, and in his letter conveys the impression that the Standard Wall Paper company has not since then been a portion of the trust, and states that he is against trusts.
This statement of Mr. Dix's (is completely misleading.) Either he knows nothing about what the company of which he is a director has been doing or he is into frank in his answer. If you will turn to pages 227 to 274, inclusive, of volume 212 of the U.S. Reports, you will find the final decision of 1909, over a year and half after Mr. Dix states that he became a director of the of the companies which was in the trust. In the volume to which I refer is found a copy of the contract between the Continental Wall Paper Company, the Trust and the Standard Wall Paper Company, Mr. Dix's company, which was one of those in the trust.
Justice Harlan speaking for the court, stated that the Continental Wall Paper combination was a clear violation of the Sherman Law and he quotes as approved by the Supreme Court, Judge Lurton's language abut this, wall paper trust, which runs in part as follows: This is the language of the Supreme court of the United States in denouncing the trust, of which one of the component elements was the company whereof Mr. Dix had by his own statement then been eighteen months a direct. Had the decision been favorable to the trust, Mr. Dix's company and Mr. Individually would have shared in the money recovered, so that his interest was direct and personal. Mr. Dix was a director for eighteen months while the prosecution was pending. If he and those associated with him did not desire the trust to be alive and active, then it was his and their clear duty to stop the lawsuit which they were conducting for the recovery of money from a recalcitrant member of the trust. But although the suite had been decided adversely to the trust by Judge Lurton in 1905, it was prosecuted through by the trust to the final decision by the Supreme Court in 1909, over a year and a half after Mr. Dix became a director of the Standard. Mr. Dix's partner in the Standard Wall Paper Company, Mr. Julius Jackson was the president of the trust.
If Mr. Dix could be so ignorant of what was going on his own private business of which he was a director and so ignorant of partner in that private business was doing and so ignorant of what the Supreme Court of the United States definitely decided in reference to that business, then all I can say is that he is altogether too innocent to be trusted in public office as a subordinate partner of so able and astute a gentleman as Mr. Murphy, the boss of Tammany Hall. If he could for eighteen months be so wholly ignorant of what his partners were doing his own private business it would certainly take him more than two years which includes the term of a Governor, to find out what Mr. Murphy was doing."
Colonel Roosevelt then went over some of the ground he has already covered in previous speeches. He first turned his attention to what Judge Parker has been saying about Stimson having received such an "enormous" fee for his services in the sugar trust case. He said: "Stimson was overpaid because Parker lost his suit. Stimson turned back into the United States treasury over $4,00,000. His salary was very small pay when you consider what he accomplished in the restitution of money to the United States. "Naturally both the sugar trust and the sugar trusts attorney are against Stimson. Judge Parker ought to learn to keep his mouth shut. Mr. Stimson was paid very moderately for the most important victory ever won for the people of the United States."
The Colonel then sailed into those who are crying that Stimson would be influenced by saying: "I know Harry Stimson. In the first place I should not try to influence him and in the next place I couldn't if I did. I appointed him district attorney because I wanted a man to press a big suit against one of the biggest institutions in the land. I got the best man I could think of for the position. Stimson took the position with the understanding that he was to have a free hand in the work. That is the only way he could take it and that is why I wanted him. "Dix refers to me as the enemy of the prosperity. Now I am not running on the ticket. Mr. Stimson is running and it must be he who would be enemy to prosperity. It is like calling a policemen an enemy of prosperity when he takes a watch from a man which he does not own. Because Mr. Stimson is the enemy of the crooked politician and business man is he to be dreaded by the straight politician and business man? The way to get straight business men is to drive out the crooked ones. Drive out the dishonest corporations. Mr. Stimson has shown that he is for the straight business man by his achievements against the dishonest men."
The Colonel reviewed his former remarks on the conduct of the two state conventions, saying he had his fight on the floor of the convention hall and won by a majority of the votes of the delegates, while the Democrats got all of their instructions from room 212 of the Seneca Hotel in Rochester. He also repeated his distinction between leaders and bosses, declaring that a leader was one who appeals to the conscience of those who support him, while the boss gets his support through fears of punishment from the men higher up. He said the Rochester convention was like a lot machine, where you put in nickel and something comes out. He said Murphy sent I the instructions and candidates came out. It is only natural that most of the New York papers are supporting Dix, he said, because most of them are owned by the Wall Street crowd.
He said it was natural that these crooked business men should want the state legislature and closed by saying: It would be a disgrace to the people of New York State if they vote to put this combination into office. We have the right to ask all who believe in principle to support our state ticket. We have a candidate who is high minded and one on whom the people can rely to look after their interests."
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