The control must be exercised by some governmental tribunal, and it must be real and effective. Doubtless there will be risk that occasionally, if an unfit President is elected, this control will be abused; but this is only another way of saying that any adequate governmental power, from the power of taxation down, can and will be abused if the wrong men get control of it.
The details must rest with the lawmakers of the two Houses of Congress; but about the principle there can be no doubt. Hasty or vindictive action would merely work damage; but in temperate, resolute fashion, there must be lodged in some tribunal the power over rates, and especially over rebates—whether secured by means of private cars, of private tracks, in the form of damages, or commissions, or in any other manner—which will protect alike the railroad and the shipper, and put the big shipper and the little shipper on an equal footing. Doubtless no law would accomplish all that enthusiasts hope; there is always disappointment over results of such a law among the oversanguine; but very real and marked good has come from the legislation and administration of the last few years; and now, as part of a coherent plan, it is entirely possible, and, indeed, necessary to enact an additional law which will mean further progress along the same lines of definite achievement in the direction of securing fair dealing as between man and man.
In some such body as the Interstate Commerce Commission there must be lodged in effective shape the power to see that every shipper who uses the railroads and every man who owns or manages a railroad shall on the one hand be given justice and on the other hand be required to do justice. Justice—so far as it is humanly possible to give and to get justice—is the foundation of our Government. We are not trying to strike down the rich man; on the contrary, we will not tolerate any attack upon his rights. We are not trying to give an improper advantage to the poor man because he is poor, to the man of small means because he has not larger means; but we are striving to see that the man of small means has exactly as good a chance, so far as we can obtain it for him, as the man of larger means; that there shall be equality of opportunity for the one as for the other.
We do not intend that this Republic shall ever fail as those republics of olden times failed, in which there finally came to be a government by classes, which resulted either in the poor plundering the rich or in the rich exploiting and in one form or another enslaving the poor; for either event means the destruction of free institutions and of individual liberty. Ours is not a Government which recognizes classes. It is based on the recognition of the individual. We are not for the poor man as such, nor for the rich man as such. We are for every man, rich or poor, provided he acts justly and fairly by his fellows, and if he so acts the Government must do all it can to see that inasmuch as he does no wrong, so he shall suffer no wrong.
ADDRESS AT THE LINCOLN DINNER OF THE REPUBLICAN CLUB OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL, FEB. 13, 1905
Mr. President, and you, my Fellow-Members of the Republican Club, and you, my Fellow-Guests of the Republican Club:
In his second inaugural, in a speech which will be read as long as the memory of this Nation endures, Abraham Lincoln closed by saying:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; ... to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”
Immediately after his re-election he had already spoken thus:
“The strife of the election is but human nature practically applied to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this case must ever recur in similar cases. Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged.... May not all having a common interest reunite in a common effort to (serve) our common country? For my own part, I have striven and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man’s bosom. While I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of a re-election, and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their own good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or pained by the result.