The new freedom : $b a call for the emancipation of the generous energies of a peopleWilson, Woodrow
History
The new freedom : $b a call for the emancipation of the generous energies of a people
Wilson, Woodrow
United States -- Politics and government -- 1913-1921; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
And I warn every progressive Republican that by lending his assistance to
this program he is playing false to the very cause in which he had
enlisted. That cause was a battle against monopoly, against control,
against the concentration of power in our economic development, against
all those things that interfere with absolutely free enterprise. I believe
that some day these gentlemen will wake up and realize that they have
misplaced their trust, not in an individual, it may be, but in a program
which is fatal to the things we hold dearest.
If there is any meaning in the things I have been urging, it is this: that
the incubus that lies upon this country is the present monopolistic
organization of our industrial life. That is the thing which certain
Republicans became "insurgents" in order to throw off. And yet some of
them allowed themselves to be so misled as to go into the camp of the
third party in order to remove what the third party proposed to legalize.
My point is that this is a method conceived from the point of view of the
very men who are to be controlled, and that this is just the wrong point
of view from which to conceive it.
I said not long ago that Mr. Roosevelt was promoting a plan for the
control of monopoly which was supported by the United States Steel
Corporation. Mr. Roosevelt denied that he was being supported by more than
one member of that corporation. He was thinking of money. I was thinking
of ideas. I did not say that he was getting money from these gentlemen; it
was a matter of indifference to me where he got his money; but it was a
matter of a great deal of difference to me where he got his ideas. He got
his idea with regard to the regulation of monopoly from the gentlemen who
form the United States Steel Corporation. I am perfectly ready to admit
that the gentlemen who control the United States Steel Corporation have a
perfect right to entertain their own ideas about this and to urge them
upon the people of the United States; but I want to say that their ideas
are not my ideas; and I am perfectly certain that they would not promote
any idea which interfered with their monopoly. Inasmuch, therefore, as I
hope and intend to interfere with monopoly just as much as possible, I
cannot subscribe to arrangements by which they know that it will not be
disturbed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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