YALE UNIVERSE

r\

CONFIDENTIAL

The following* letter of
to ConradJKohrs, of H
for publication in m
of Monday, Septemb

esident Roosevelt
lena, Montana, is
rning newspapers
14, and MUST be

held in confidence until that dat<

Mr. Conrad JCohrs, of Helena, Montana, is an ol/ time Montana
cattle man an$F one of the most/ prominent citiz#is of Montana.
He and the President came into dlose relationship more than twenty
years ago w|fen they were bom members of tjfe Montana Stock
Growers Association, the President being at thajftime the represen
tative of thafLittle Missouri S/ock Growers in me association. The
intimacy has been kept up |^er since. Mr. Mohrs is one of the
pioneer citfcens of the Normern Rocky Mountain region and one
of the meilwho has taken a' leading part in its treat development.

Sagamore Hill,
Oyster Bay, N. Y, September 9, 1908.
My Dear Mr. Kohrs :
I have received your letter about the candidacy of Mr. Taft, the
man who I feel is in an especial sense the representative of all that
in which I most believe in political life.
Every good citizen should desire to see both prosperity and jus
tice, prosperity and fair and righteous dealing as between man and
man, obtain permanently in this great republic. As a people we are
justly proud of our business industry, of our energy and intelligence
in our work; and it is entirely right that we should ask ourselves
as to any given course of conduct, "Will it be profitable?" But it
is also no less emphatically true that the bulk of our people, the
plain people who found in Abraham Lincoln their especial champion
and spokesman, regard the question, "Is this morally right?" as
even more important than the question, "Is this profitable?" when
applied to any given course of conduct. Indeed, in the long run
our people are sure to find that in all dealings, alike in the business

cU£>
2L5t>

and the political world, what is really profitable is that which is
morally right. The last few years have seen a great awakening
of the public conscience and the growth of a stern determination
to do away with corruption and unfair dealing, political, economic,
social. It is urgently necessary that this great reform movement
should go on. But no reform movement is healthy if it goes on by
spasms; if it is marked by periods of frenzied advance, followed,
as such periods of frenzied advance must alway be followed, by
equally violent periods of reaction. The revolutionary and the re
actionary really play into one another's hands, to the extent that
each by his excesses necessarily tends to arouse such disgust, such
a feeling of revolt, in the minds of quiet people, as temporarily to
restore the other to power. To permit the direction of our public
affairs to fall alternately into the hands of revolutionaries and re
actionaries, of the extreme radicals of unrest and of the bigoted
conservatives who recognize no wrongs to remedy, would merely
mean that the nation had embarked on a feverish course of violent
oscillation which would be fraught with great temporary trouble,
and would produce no adequate good in the end. The true friend
of reform, the true foe of abuses, is the man who steadily perse
veres in righting wrongs, in warring against abuses, but whose char
acter and training are such that he never promises what he cannot
perform, that he always a little more than makes good what he
does promise, and that, while steadily advancing, he never permits
himself to be led into foolish excesses which would damage the very
cause he champions. In Mr. Taft we have a man who combines all
of these qualities to a degree which no other man in bur public life
since the Civil War has surpassed. To a flaming hatred of injustice,
to a scorn of all that is base and mean, to a hearty sympathy with
the opprest, he unites entire disinterestedness, courage both moral
and physical of the very highest type, and a kindly generosity of
nature which makes him feel that all of his fellow-countrymen are
in very truth his friends and brothers, that their interests are his,
and that all his great qualities are to be spent with lavish freedom
in their service. The honest man of means, the honest and law-
abiding business man, can feel safe in his hands because of the
very fact that the dishonest man of great wealth, the man who
swindles or robs his fellows, would not so much as. dare to defend
his evil-doing in Mr. Taft's presence. The honest wage-worker,
the honest laboring man, the honest farmer, the honest mechanic
or small trader, or man of small means, can feel that in a peculiar
sense Mr. Taft will be his representative because of the very fact
that he has the same scorn for the demagog that he has for the
corruptionist, and that he would front threats of personal violence

3
from a mob with the unquailing and lofty indifference with which
he would front the bitter anger of the wealthiest and most powerful
corporations. Broad tho his sympathies are, there is in him not
the slightest tinge of weakness. No consideration of personal in
terest, any more than of fear for his personal safety, could make
him swerve a hair's breach from the course which he regards as
right and in the interest of the whole people.
I have naturally a peculiar interest in the success of Air. Taft,
and in seeing him backed by a majority in both houses of Con
gress which will heartily support his policies. For the last ten
years, while I have been Governor of "New York and President, I
have been thrown into the closest intimacy with him, and he and
I have on every essential point stood in heartiest agreement,
shoulder to shoulder. We have the same views as to what is de
manded by the national interest and honor, both within our own
borders, and as regards the relations of this nation with other
nations. There is no fight for decency and fair dealing which I
have waged in which I have not had his heartiest and most effective
sympathy and support, and the policies for which I stand are his
policies as much as mine.
It is not possible in the space of this letter to discuss all the
many and infinitely varied questions of moment with which Mr.
Taft as President would have to deal; let him be judged by what
he has himself done, and by what the administration, in which he
has played so conspicuous a part, has done. But to illustrate just
what his attitude is, let me touch on two matters now prominent in
the public mind.
Mr. Taft can be trusted to exact justice from the railroads for
the very reason that he can be trusted to do justice to the railroads.
The railroads are the chief instruments of interstate commerce in
the country, and they can neither be held to a proper accountability
on the one hand nor given proper protection on the other, save by the
affirmative action of the Federal Government. The law as laid
down by the Federal courts clearly shows that the States have not
and cannot devise laws adequate to meet the problems caused by
the great growth of the railroads doing an interstate commerce busi
ness, for more than four-fifths of the business of the railroads is
interstate, and under the Constitution of the United States only
the Federal Government can exercise control thereover. It is
absolutely necessary that this control should be affirmative and thoro-
going. All interstate business carried on by the great corporations
should, in the interest of the whole people, be far more closely
supervised than at present by the National Government; but this
is especially true of the railroads, which cannot exist at all save by

4
the exercise of powers granted them on behalf of the people, and
which, therefore, should be held to a peculiar accountability to the
people. It is in the interest of the people that they should not be
permitted to do injustice; and it is no less to the interest of the
people that they should not suffer injustice. Their prime purpose
is to carry the commodities of the farmers and the business men;
they could not be built save for the money contributed to them by
their shareholders ; they could not be run at all save for the money
paid out in wages to the railroad employees; and, finally, they
could not be run judiciously, or profitably to any one, were it not
for the employment by them of some masterful guiding intelligence,
whether of one man or of a group of men. There are therefore
several sets of interests to be considered. Each must receive proper
consideration, and when any one of them selfishly demands exclusive
consideration the demand must be refused. Along certain lines all
of these groups have the same interests. It is to the interest of
shipper, farmer, wage-worker, business man, honest shareholder,
and honest manager alike that there should be economy, honesty,
intelligence, and fair treatment of all. To put an effective stop to
stock watering would be a benefit to everybody except the swindlers
who profit by stock watering; it would benefit, the honest share
holder because honest investments would not be brought into com
petition with mere paper ; it would benefit the wage-worker because
when the money earned does not have to go to paying interest on
watered capital, more of it is left, out of which to pay wages; it
would benefit the shipper because when only honest stockholders
have to be paid interest, rates need not be improperly raised; it
would benefit the public because there would be ample money with
which to give efficient service. Similarly, the prevention of favorit
ism as among shippers does no damage to any one who is honest,
and confers great good upon the smaller business man and the
farmer, whom it relieves of oppression. Again, such supervision of
accounts and management as will prevent crookedness and op
pression works good, directly or indirectly, to all honest people.
Therefore everything that can be done along all these lines should be
done : and no man's legitimate interest would thereby be hurt. But
after this point has been reached great care must be exercised not
to work injustice to one class in the effort to show favor to another
class, and each class naturally tends to remember only its own needs.
The stockholders must receive an ample return on their investments,
or the railroads cannot be built and successfully maintained; and
the rates to shippers and. the wages to employees, from the highest
to the lowest, must all be conditioned upon this fact. On the other
hand, in a public service corporation we have no right to allow such

5
excessive profits as will necessitate rates being unduly high and
wages unduly low. Again, while in all proper ways rates must be
kept low, we must always remember that we have no right and no
justification to reduce them when the result is the reduction of the
wages of the great army of railroad men. A fair working ar
rangement must be devised according to the needs of the several
cases, so that profits, wages and rates shall each be reasonable with
reference to the other two — and in wages I include . the properly
large amounts which should always be paid to those whose master
ful ability is required for the successful direction of great enter
prises. Combinations which favor such an equitable arrangement
should themselves be favored and not forbidden by law; altho they
should be strictly supervised by the Government thru the Interstate
Commerce Commission, which should have the power of passing
summarily upon not only the question of the reduction but the
raising of rates.
This railroad problem is itself one of the phases of one of the
greatest and most intricate problems of our civilization; for its
proper solution we need not merely honesty and courage, but judg
ment, good sense, and entire fairmindedness. Demagogy in such a
matter is as certain to work evil as corruption itself. The man who
promises to raise the wages of railroad employees to the highest
point and at the same time to reduce rates to the lowest point is
promising what neither he nor anyone else can perform ; and if the
effort to perform it were attempted disaster would result to both
shipper and wage-worker, and ruin to the business interests of the
country. The man to trust in such a matter as this is the man who,
like Judge Taft, does not promise too much, but who could not be
swayed from the path of duty by any argument, by any considera
tion; who will wage relentless war on the successful wrongdoer
among railroad men as among all other men ; who will do all that
can be done to secure legitimately low rates to shippers and abso
lute evenness among the rates thus secured; but who will neither
promise nor attempt to secure rates so low that the wage-earner
would lose his earnings and the shareholder, whose money built the
road, his profits. Pie will not favor a ruinous experiment like
government ownership of railways ; he will stand against any kind
of confiscation of honestly acquired property; but he will work
effectively for the most efficient type of government supervision and
control of railways, so as to secure just and fair treatment of the
people as a whole.
What is here said as to his attitude on the railway question
applies to the whole question of the trusts. He will promise noth
ing on this subject unless he firmly believes he can make his promise

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good. He will go into no chimerical movement to destroy all great
business combinations ; for this can only be done by destroying all
modern business; but he will in practical fashion do everything
possible to secure such efficient control, on behalf of the people as
a whole, over these great combinations as will deprive them of the
power to work evil. Mr. Taft's decision in the Addystone Pipe
Line case while on the bench is proof, by deeds not by words, of the
far-sighted wisdom with which he serves the interests of the whole
people even when those of the most powerful corporations are hostile
thereto. If there is one body of men more than another whose support
I feel I have a right to challenge on behalf of Secretary Taft it is .
the body of wage-workers of the country. A stauncher friend, 3
fairer and truer representative, they cannot find within the borders
of the United States. He will do everything in his power for them
except to do that which is wrong.; he will do wrong for no man,
and therefore can be trusted by all men. During the ten years of
my intimate acquaintance with him, since I have myself, as Gov
ernor and President, been obliged to deal practically with labor
problems, he has been one of the men upon whose judgment and
aid I could always rely in doing everything possible for the cause
of the wage-worker, of the man who works with his hands, or with
both hands and head.
Mr. Taft has been attacked because of the injunctions he de
livered while on the bench. I am content to rest his case on these
very injunctions ; I maintain that they show why all our people
should be grateful to him and should feel it safe to entrust their
dearest interests to him. Most assuredly he never has yielded and
never will yield to threat or pressure of any sort, as little if it comes
from labor as if it comes from capital ; he will no more tolerate the
violence of a mob than the corruption and oppression and arrogance
of a corporation or of a wealthy man. He will not consent to limit
the power of the courts to put a stop to wrongdoing wherever
found. This very fact should make the labor people feel a peculiar
confidence in him. He has incurred the bitter hostility of foolish
and bigoted reactionaries by his frank criticism of the abuse of the
power of injunction in labor disputes, and he is pledged to do all he
can to put a stop to the abuses in the exercise of the power of in
junction. He will never promise anything that he will not do all
in his power to perform. He can always be trusted to do a little
better than his word, and the fact that before election he will not
promise the impossible is in itself a guaranty that after election all
that is possible will be done.
His record as a judge makes the whole country his debtor. His

7
actions and decisions are part of the great traditions of the bench.
They guaranteed and set forth in striking fashion the rights of the
general public as against the selfish interests of any class, whether
of capitalists or of laborers. They set forth and stand by the rights
of the wage-workers to organize and to strike, as unequivocally as
they set forth and stand by the doctrine that no conduct will be
tolerated that would spell destruction to the nation as a whole. As
for the attack upon his injunctions in labor disputes, made while
he was on the bench, I ask that the injunctions be carefully examined.
I ask that every responsible and fairminded labor leader, every re
sponsible and fairminded member of a labor organization, read these
injunctions for himself. If he will do so, instead of condemning
them he will heartily approve of them and will recognize this
further astonishing fact that the principles laid down by Judge Taft
in these very injunctions, which laboring people are asked to con
demn, are themselves the very principles which are now embodied
in the laws or practices of every responsible labor organization. No
responsible organization would now hesitate to condemn the abuses
against which Judge Taft's injunctions were aimed. The principles
which he therein so wisely and fearlessly laid down serve as a
charter of liberty for all of us, for wage-workers, for employers,
for the general public ; for they rest on the principles of fair dealing
for all, of even-handed justice for all. They mark the judge who
rendered them as standing for the rights of the whole people ; as
far as daylight is from darkness, so far is such a judge from the
time-server, the truckler to the mob, or the cringing tool of great,
corrupt and corrupting corporations. Judge Taft on the bench — as
since, in the Philippines, in Panama, in Cuba, in the War Depart
ment — showed himself to be a wise, a fearless, and an upright ser
vant of the whole people, whose services to the whole people were
beyond all price. Moreover, let all good citizens remember that he
rendered these services, not when it was easy to do so, but when
lawless violence was threatened, when malice, domestic and civic
disturbance threatened the whole fabric of our government and of
civilization; his actions showed not only the highest kind of moral
courage but of physical courage as well, for his life was freely, and
violently threatened.
Let all fairminded men, wage-workers and capitalists alike, con
sider yet another fact. In one of his decisions upon the bench Judge
Taft upheld in the strongest fashion, and for the first time gave full
vitality to, the principle of the employers' liability for injuries done
workmen. This was before any national law on the subject was
enacted. Judge Taft's sense of right, his indignation against op
pression in any form, against any attitude that is not fair and just,

drove him to take a position which was violently condemned by
short-sighted capitalists and employers of labor, which was so far
in advance of the time that it was not generally upheld by the State
courts, but which we are now embodying in the law of the land.
Judge Taft was a leader, a pioneer, while on the bench, in the effort
to get justice for the wage-worker, in jealous championship of his
rights; and all upright and farsighted laboring men should hold
it to his credit that at the same time he fearlessly stood against the
abuses of labor, just as he fearlessly stood against the abuses of
capital. If elected, he has shown by his deeds that he will be
President of no class, but of the people as a whole; he can be
trusted to stand stoutly against the two real enemies of our democ
racy — against the man who to please one class would undermine the
whole foundation of orderly liberty, and against the man who in the
interest of another class would secure business prosperity by sacri
ficing every right of the working people.
I have striven as President to champion in every proper way
the interests of the wage-worker; for I regard the wage-worker,
excepting only the farmer, the tiller of the soil, as the man whose
well-being is most essential to the healthy growth of this great
nation. I Would for no consideration advise the wage-worker to do
what I thought was against his interest. I ask his support for
Mr. Taft exactly as I ask such support from every farsighted and
right-thinking American citizen ; because I believe with all my heart
that nowhere within the borders of our great country can there be
found another man who will as vigilantly and efficiently as Mr.
Taft support the rights of the working man as he will the rights
of every man who in good faith strives to do his duty as an Ameri
can citizen. He will protect the just rights of both rich and poor,
and he will war relentlessly against lawlessness and injustice whether
exercised on behalf of property or of labor.
On the bench Judge Taft showed the two qualities which make
a great judge: wisdom and moral courage. They are also the two
qualities which make a great President.
Sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
Mr. Conrad Kohrs,
Helena, Montana.

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