Address of President Roosevelt at Chautauqua, New York, August 11, 1905

by Theodore Roosevelt

Under the course taken, stability and order and all the benefits of peace are at last coming to Santo Domingo, all danger of foreign intervention has ceased, and there is at last a prospect that all creditors will get justice, no more and no less. If the arrangement is terminated, chaos will follow; and if chaos follows, sooner or later this Government may be involved in serious difficulties with foreign governments over the island, or else may be forced itself to intervene in the island in some unpleasant fashion. Under the present arrangement the independence of the island is scrupulously respected, the danger of violation of the Monroe Doctrine by the intervention of foreign powers vanishes, and the interference of our Government is minimized, so that we only act in conjunction with the Santo Domingo authorities to secure the proper administration of the customs, and therefore to secure the payment of just debts and to secure the Santo Dominican Government against demands for unjust debts. The present method prevents there being any need of our establishing any kind of protectorate over the island and gives the people of Santo Domingo the same chance to move onward and upward which we have already given to the people of Cuba. It will be doubly to our discredit as a nation if we fail to take advantage of this chance; for it will be of damage to ourselves, and, above all, it will be of incalculable damage to Santo Domingo. Every consideration of wise policy, and, above all, every consideration of large generosity, bids us meet the request of Santo Domingo as we are now trying to meet it.

So much for one feature of our foreign policy. Now for one feature of our domestic policy. One of the main features of our national governmental policy should be the effort to secure adequate and effective supervisory and regulatory control over all great corporations doing an interstate business. Much of the legislation aimed to prevent the evils connected with the enormous development of these great corporations has been ineffective, partly because it aimed at doing too much, and partly because it did not confer on the Government a really efficient method of holding any guilty corporation to account. The effort to prevent all restraint of competition, whether harmful or beneficial, has been ill-judged; what is needed is not so much the effort to prevent combination as a vigilant and effective control of the combinations formed, so as to secure just and equitable dealing on their part alike toward the public generally, toward their smaller competitors, and toward the wage-workers in their employ.

Under the present laws we have in the last four years accomplished much that is of substantial value; but the difficulties in the way have been so great as to prove that further legislation is advisable. 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 expenditure of money, to defeat the purposes of the laws on the statute books.

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 property.

I earnestly believe that this is true of only a relatively small portion of the very rich men engaged in handling the largest corporations in the country; but the attitude of these comparatively few men does undoubtedly harm the country, and above all harm the men of large means, by the just, but sometimes misguided, popular indignation to which it gives rise. 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 artificial monopolies. 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 policy of the law was chiefly directed. Many of these combinations by secret methods and by protracted litigation are still unwisely seeking to avoid the consequences of their illegal action. 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 indicted in Chicago, it is impossible longer to show leniency. 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. This legislation may be more drastic than I would prefer. 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. 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. They are greatly in error. 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. 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. But the great corporations are themselves to blame if by their opposition to what is legal and just they foster the popular feeling which tells for such drastic action.

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 Department of Justice. In my judgment Congress may well inquire whether it should not seek other means for carrying into effect the law. I believe that all corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be under the supervision of the National Government. I do not believe in taking steps hastily or rashly, and it may be that all that is necessary in the immediate future is to pass an interstate-commerce bill conferring upon some branch of the executive government the power of effective action to remedy the abuses in connection with railway transportation. But in the end, and in my judgment at a time not very far off, we shall have to, or at least we shall find that we ought to, take further action as regards all corporations doing interstate business. 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, assume a degree of administrative control of these great corporations.

It may well be that we shall find that the only effective way of exercising this supervision is to require all corporations engaged in interstate commerce to produce proof satisfactory, say, to the Department of Commerce, that they are not parties to any contract or combination or engaged in any monopoly in interstate trade in violation of the anti-trust law, and that their conduct on certain other specified points is proper; and, moreover, that these corporations shall agree, with a penalty of forfeiture of their right to engage in such commerce, to furnish any evidence of any kind as to their trade between the States whenever so required by the Department of Commerce.

It is the almost universal policy of the several States, provided by statute, that foreign corporations may lawfully conduct business within their boundaries only when they produce certificates that they have complied with the requirements of their respective States; in other words, that corporations shall not enjoy the privileges and immunities afforded by the State governments without first complying with the policy of their laws. 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.

When, as is now the case, many of the great corporations consistently strain the last resources of legal technicality to avoid obedience to a law for the reasonable regulation of their business, the only way effectively to meet this attitude on their part is to give to the Executive Department of the Government a more direct and therefore more efficient supervision and control of their management.