I am in a city at the eastern gateway of this State with the great railroad systems of the State running through it. On the western edge of this State in Puget Sound I have seen the homing places of the great steamship lines, which, in connection with these great railroads, are doing so much to develop the Oriental trade of this country and this State. Washington will owe no small part of its future greatness, and that greatness will be great indeed, to the fact that it is thus doing its share in acquiring for the United States the dominance of the Pacific. Those railroads, the men and the corporations that have built them, have rendered a very great service to the community. The men who are building, the corporations which are building the great steamship lines have likewise rendered a very great service to the community. Every man who has made wealth or used it in developing great legitimate business enterprises has been of benefit and not harm to the country at large. This city has grown by leaps and bounds only when the railroads came to it, when the railroads came to the State; and if the State were now cut off from its connection by rail and by steamship with the rest of the world its position would of course diminish incalculably. Great good has come from the development of our railroad system; great good has been done by the individuals and corporations that have made that development possible; and in return good is done to them, and not harm, when they are required to obey the law. Ours is a government of liberty by, through and under the law. No man is above it and no man is below it. The crime of cunning, the crime of greed, the crime of violence, are all equally crimes, and against them all alike the law must set its face. This is not and never shall be a government either of a plutocracy or of a mob. It is, it has been, and it will be, a government of the people; including alike the people of great wealth and of moderate wealth, the people who employ others, the people who are employed, the wage-worker, the lawyer, the mechanic, the banker, the farmer; including them all, protecting each and every one if he acts decently and squarely, and discriminating against any one of them, no matter from what class he comes, if he does not act squarely and fairly, if he does not obey the law. While all people are foolish if they violate or rail against the law—wicked as well as foolish, but all foolish—yet the most foolish man in this Republic is the man of wealth who complains because the law is administered with impartial justice against or for him. His folly is greater than the folly of any other man who so complains; for he lives and moves and has his being because the law does in fact protect him and his property.
We have the right to ask every decent American citizen to rally to the support of the law if it is ever broken against the interest of the rich man; and we have the same right to ask that rich man cheerfully and gladly to acquiesce in the enforcement against his seeming interest of the law, if it is the law. Incidentally, whether he acquiesces or not, the law will be enforced, and this whoever he may be, great or small, and at whichever end of the social scale he may be.
I ask that we see to it in our country that the line of division in the deeper matters of our citizenship be drawn, never between section and section, never between creed and creed, never, thrice never, between class and class; but that the line be drawn on the line of conduct, cutting through sections, cutting through creeds, cutting through classes; the line that divides the honest from the dishonest, the line that divides good citizenship from bad citizenship, the line that declares a man a good citizen only if, and always if, he acts in accordance with the immutable law of righteousness, which has been the same from the beginning of history to the present moment, and which will be the same from now until the end of recorded time.
FROM ADDRESS AT COLUMBIA GARDENS, BUTTE, MONT., MAY 27, 1903
Mr. Chairman, and you, my Fellow-Citizens:
It would have been a great pleasure to come to Butte in any event; it is a double pleasure to come here at the invitation of the representatives of the wage-workers of Butte. I do not say merely workingmen, because I hold that every good American who does his duty must be a workingman. There are many different kinds of work to do; but so long as the work is honorable, is necessary, and is well done the man who does it well is entitled to the respect of his fellows.
I have come here to this meeting especially as the invited guest of the wage-workers, and I am happy to be able to say that the kind of speech I will make to you, I would make just in exactly the same language to any group of employers or any set of our citizens in any corner of this Republic. I do not think so far as I know that I have ever promised beforehand anything I did not make a strong effort to make good afterward. It is sometimes very attractive and very pleasant to make any kind of a promise without thinking whether or not you can fulfil it; but in the after event it is always unpleasant when the time for fulfilling comes; for in the long run the most disagreeable truth is a safer companion than the most pleasant falsehood.
To-night I have come hither looking on either hand at the results of the enterprises which have made Butte so great. The man who by the use of his capital develops a great mine, the man who by the use of his capital builds a great railroad, the man who by the use of his capital either individually or joined with others like him does any great legitimate business enterprise, confers a benefit, not a harm, upon the community, and is entitled to be so regarded. He is entitled to the protection of the law, and in return he is to be required himself to obey the law. The law is no respecter of persons. The law is to be administered neither for the rich man as such, nor for the poor man as such. It is to be administered for every man, rich or poor, if he is an honest and law-abiding citizen; and it is to be invoked against any man, rich or poor, who violates it, without regard to which end of the social scale he may stand at, without regard to whether his offence takes the form of greed and cunning, or the form of physical violence; in either case if he violates the law, the law is to be invoked against him; and in so invoking it I have the right to challenge the support of all good citizens and to demand the acquiescence of every good man. I hope I will have it; but once for all I wish it understood that even if I do not have it I shall enforce the law.
The soldiers who fought in the great Civil War fought for liberty under, by, and through the law; and they fought to put a stop once for all to any effort to sunder this country on the lines of sectional hatred; therefore their memory shall be forever precious to our people. We need to keep ever in mind that he is the worst enemy of this country who would strive to separate its people along the lines of section against section, of creed against creed, or of class against class. There are two sides to that. It is a base and an infamous thing for the man of means to act in a spirit of arrogant and brutal disregard of right toward his fellow who has less means; and it is no less infamous, no less base, to act in a spirit of rancor, envy, and hatred against the man of greater means, merely because of his greater means. If we are to preserve this Republic as it was founded, as it was handed down to us by the men of ’61 to ’65, and as it is and will be, we must draw the line never between section and section, never between creed and creed, thrice never between class and class; but along the line of conduct, the line that separates the good citizen wherever he may be found from the bad citizen wherever he may be found. This is not and never shall be a government of a plutocracy; it is not and never shall be a government by a mob. It is as it has been and as it will be, a government in which every honest man, every decent man, be he employer or employed, wage-worker, mechanic, banker, lawyer, farmer, be he who he may, if he acts squarely and fairly, if he does his duty by his neighbor and the State, receives the full protection of the law and is given the amplest chance to exercise the ability that there is within him, alone or in combination with his fellows as he desires. My friends, it is sometimes easier to preach a doctrine under which the millennium will be promised off-hand if you have a particular kind of law, or follow a particular kind of conduct—it is easier, but it is not better. The millennium is not here; it is some thousand years off yet. Meanwhile there must be a good deal of work and struggle, a good deal of injustice; we shall often see the tower of Siloam fall on the just as well as the unjust. We are bound in honor to try to remedy injustice, but if we are wise we will seek to remedy it in practical ways. Above all, remember this: that the most unsafe adviser to follow is the man who would advise us to do wrong in order that we may benefit by it. That man is never a safe man to follow; he is always the most dangerous of guides. The man who seeks to persuade any of us that our advantage comes in wronging or oppressing others can be depended upon, if the opportunity comes, to do wrong to us in his own interest, just as he has endeavored to make us in our supposed interest do wrong to others.