ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AT KEOKUK, IOWA [Illustration] OCTOBER 1, 1907 [Illustration] WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1907 MEN AND WOMEN OF IOWA: I am glad indeed to see you and to speak to you in this thriving city of your great and prosperous State. I believe with all my heart in the people of Iowa, for I think that you are good, typical Americans, and that among you there has been developed to a very high degree that body of characteristics which we like to regard as distinctively American. During the last few years we of the United States have been forced to consider very seriously certain economic problems. We have made a beginning in the attempt to deal with the relations of the National Government――that is, with the relations of the people of the country――to the huge and wealthy corporations, controlled for the most part by a few very rich men, which are engaged in interstate business――especially the great railway corporations. You know my views on this matter. You know that I believe that the National Government, in the interests of the people, should assume much the same supervision and control over the management of the interstate common carriers that it now exercises over the national banks. You know furthermore that I believe that this supervision and control should be exercised in a spirit of rigid fairness toward the corporations, exacting justice from them on behalf of the people but giving them justice in return.