An Autobiography

but to make them more obscure. If these attempts to refute his misrepresentation of my attitude towards the trusts should result in making his own clear, then this discussion will have borne fruits of substantial value to the country. If Mr. Wilson has any plan of his own for dealing with the trusts, it is to suppress all great industrial organizations⁠—presumably on the principle proclaimed by his Secretary of State four years ago, that every corporation which produced more than a certain percentage of a given commodity⁠—I think the amount specified was twenty-five percent⁠—no matter how valuable its service, should be suppressed. The simple fact is that such a plan is futile. In operation it would do far more damage than it could remedy. The Progressive plan would give the people full control of, and in masterful fashion prevent all wrongdoing by, the trusts, while utilizing for the public welfare every industrial energy and ability that operates to swell abundance, while obeying strictly the moral law and the law of the land. Mr. Wilson’s plan would ultimately benefit the trusts and would permanently damage nobody but the people. For example, one of the steel corporations which has been guilty of the worst practices towards its employees is the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bryan’s plan would, if successful, merely mean permitting four such companies, absolutely uncontrolled, to monopolize every big industry in the country. To talk of such an accomplishment as being “The New Freedom” is enough to make the term one of contemptuous derision.

President Wilson has made explicit promises, and the Democratic platform has made explicit promises. Mr. Wilson is now in power, with a Democratic Congress in both branches. He and the Democratic platform have promised to destroy the trusts, to reduce the cost of living, and at the same time to increase the well-being of the farmer and of the workingman⁠—which of course must mean to increase the profits of the farmer and the wages of the workingman. He and his party won the election on this promise. We have a right to expect that they will keep it. If Mr. Wilson’s promises mean anything except the very emptiest words, he is pledged to accomplish the beneficent purposes he avows by breaking up all the trusts and combinations and corporations so as to restore competition precisely as it was fifty years ago. If he does not mean this, he means nothing. He cannot do anything else under penalty of showing that his promise and his performance do not square with each other.

Mr. Wilson says that “the trusts are our masters now, but I for one do not care to live in a country called free even under kind masters.” Good! The Progressives are opposed to having masters, kind or unkind, and they do not believe that a “new freedom” which in practice would mean leaving four Fuel and Iron Companies free to do what they like in every industry would be of much benefit to the country. The Progressives have a clear and definite program by which the people would be the masters of the trusts instead of the trusts being their masters, as Mr. Wilson says they are. With practical unanimity the trusts supported the opponents of this program, Mr. Taft and Mr. Wilson, and they evidently dreaded our program infinitely more than anything that Mr. Wilson threatened. The people have accepted Mr. Wilson’s assurances. Now let him make his promises good. He is committed, if his words mean anything, to the promise to break up every trust, every big corporation⁠—perhaps every small corporation⁠—in the United States⁠—not to go through the motions of breaking them up, but really to break them up. He is committed against the policy (of efficient control and mastery of the big corporations both by law and by administrative action in cooperation) proposed by the Progressives. Let him keep faith with the people; let him in good faith try to keep the promises he has thus repeatedly made. I believe that his promise is futile and cannot be kept. I believe that any attempt sincerely to keep it and in good faith to carry it out will end in either nothing at all or in disaster. But my beliefs are of no consequence. Mr. Wilson is President. It is his acts that are of consequence. He is bound in honor to the people of the United States to keep his promise, and to break up, not nominally but in reality, all big business, all trusts, all combinations of every sort, kind, and description, and probably all corporations. What he says is henceforth of little consequence. The important thing is what he does, and how the results of what he does square with the promises and prophecies he made when all he had to do was to speak, not to act.

Appendix C

The Blaine Campaign

In The House of Harper, written by J. Henry Harper, the following passage occurs: “Curtis returned from the convention in company with young Theodore Roosevelt and they discussed the situation thoroughly on their trip to New York and came to the conclusion that it would be very difficult to consistently support Blaine. Roosevelt, however, had a conference afterward with Senator Lodge and eventually fell in line behind Blaine. Curtis came to our office and found that we were unanimously opposed to the support of Blaine, and with a hearty goodwill he trained his editorial guns on the ‘Plumed Knight’ of Mulligan letter fame. His work was as effective and deadly as any fight he ever conducted in the Weekly.” This statement has no foundation whatever in fact. I did not return from the convention in company with Mr. Curtis. He went back to New York from the convention, whereas I went to my ranch in North Dakota. No such conversation as that ever took place between me and Mr. Curtis. In my presence, in speaking to a number of