of their friends and abettors which can not be too harshly stigmatized. The one hope for the honest railroad man, for the honest investor, is in the extension and perfection of the system inaugurated by that law; in the absolute carrying out of the law at present and in its strengthening, if possible, at the next session of Congress so as to make it even more effective.

"I will not deviate one hand's breadth from the course I have marked out, and anything I may say will contain this explicit statement. Moreover, it is an act of sheer folly and short-sightedness on the part of the railway men not to realize that I am best serving their interests in following out precisely this course. I have never seen more foolish and hysterical speeches and acts than those of the so-called industrial leaders during the past few months. At one moment they yell that I am usurping the rights of the States. The next they turn around in literally a panic frenzy and beseech me to make some public utterances forbidding the States to do the very things they have just asserted the States alone had the power to do."

On March 12, J. Pierpont Morgan visited the White House and had a long interview with the President, giving out for publication afterwards a statement in which he said he “had suggested to the President that it would be greatly to the public interest if he would see the railway presidents and confer with them as to what steps might be taken to allay the public anxiety now threatening to obstruct railway investment and combination, and especially to allay public anxiety as to the relations between the railways and the Government. The President had said that he would be glad to see them with this end in view."

When this suggestion was communicated to the presidents of the great railway systems they said they would go to see the President if he would invite them to do so. This he declined to do. Finally, one of them, President Mellen of the New Haven system, alone went. Writing to

Jacob Schiff of New York, March 28, 1907, the President explained his attitude on the subject:

"It is difficult for me to understand why there should be this belief in Wall Street that I am a wild-eyed revolutionist. I can not condone wrong, but I certainly do not intend to do aught save what is beneficial to the man of means who acts squarely and fairly. When I see you I will explain at length why I do not think it advantageous from any standpoint for me to ask any railroad man to call upon me. I can only say to you, as I have said to Mr. Morgan when he suggested that he would like to have certain of them call upon me (a suggestion which they refused to adopt, by the way), that it would be a pleasure to me to see any of them at any time. Sooner or later I think they will realize that in their opposition to me for the last few years they have been utterly mistaken, even from the standpoint of their own interests; and that nothing better for them could be devised than the laws I have striven and am striving to have enacted. I wish to do everything in my power to aid every honest business man, and the dishonest business man I wish to punish simply as I would punish the dishonest man of any type. Moreover, I am not desirous of avenging what has been done wrong in the past, especially when the punishment would be apt to fall upon innocent third parties. My prime object is to prevent injustice and work equity for the future.”

A leading figure in the assaults upon the President was E. H. Harriman of the Union Pacific lines. On April 2, 1907, a discharged employee in the Harriman service published a letter written by Harriman in which Harriman asserted that the President in the campaign of 1904 had sought his aid in raising a $250,000 campaign fund to aid in Roosevelt's election to the Presidency. When this was published the President gave out to the press a letter that he had written on October 8, 1906, to the Hon. J. S. Sherman, who was then chairman of the Republican Congressional Committee, in which he had denied Harriman's as

sertion about the $250,000 campaign fund as "a deliberate and wilful untruth," and had stated in detail his relations with Harriman, giving the text of various letters that had passed between them. These showed conclusively that his communications with Harriman related solely to the State campaign in New York in 1904, and not at all to the Presidential campaign of that year. A phrase in one of the President's letters to Harriman "You and I are practical men' was seized upon by the President's regular opponents in and out of the press as evidence of guilty partisan complicity with Harriman and it was in quite constant use for many months, and spasmodically for years afterwards, though the context of the letter showed clearly that such an interpretation was distortion of the President's meaning.

Other letters revealing the calm he maintained under the fierce storm which raged about him are appended.

To Hon. T. M. Patterson, Denver, Colorado:

April 8, 1907.

"The real trouble with Harriman and his associates is that they have found themselves absolutely powerless to control any action by the National Government. There is no form of mendacity or bribery or corruption that they will not resort to in the effort to take vengeance. The Harriman-Standard Oil combination and the other owners of predatory wealth hate me far more than they do those who make a profession of denouncing them, because they have learned that while I do not attack them in words as reckless as those often used against them, I do try to make my words bear fruit in deeds. They have never before been obliged really to reckon with the Federal Government. They have never before seen practical legislation such as the rate bill, the beef inspection bill and the like become laws. They have never before had to face the probability of adverse action by the courts and the possibility of being put in stripes. Such being the case, and inasmuch as they have no moral scruple of any kind whatsoever, it is not to be

wondered at that they should be willing to go to any length in the effort to reverse the movement against them." OYSTER BAY, August 16, 1907. To President David Scull, Bryn Mawr College, Overbrook, Penn.: "You have written frankly to me and you are entitled to frankness in return. You say that you have been a supporter of my course until within the last few days; but that you have now changed and are an opponent. You seem to think that your change is due to some change on my part; but as my attitude now is practically what it has been for the last six years it is perfectly obvious that the change is in you. You do not surprise me in the least when you tell me that many men have experienced such a change. The very word 'panic' denotes a fear so great as to make those who experience it to become for the time being crazy; and when crazy with fear men both say and do foolish things, and, moreover, always seek for some one to hold responsible for their sufferings-usually without any regard as to whether he is or is not responsible. At the time of the flurry in stocks last March I received hundreds of letters exactly like yours. I am receiving plenty of letters like it to-day. These good people are ignorant, as you evidently are, that the trouble we have had here has been paralleled by similar troubles on the bourses in Berlin and Paris; they are ignorant, as you evidently are, that British consols are now selling lower than ever before in their history, and that the railway securities in England and Canada have also fallen, altho not to the same degree as ours. Surely, you can hardly believe that all this is due to my action in enforcing the law against wealthy wrongdoers.

"That some trouble has been caused by the action I have taken against great and powerful malefactors, I have no doubt; and in any such case there are always people of little faith who at once scream in favor of a continuance of corruption and dishonesty rather than see any unsettlement of values because of the enforcement of the principles of

honesty. I shall pay no heed whatever to these people, whose attitude I regard as profoundly foolish and profoundly immoral. In other words, their attitude is precisely like that of a man who, having a cancer which can be cured by the use of the knife, nevertheless screams and refuses to submit to an operation because he knows that there will be temporary pain and discomfort.

"You say that there should be 'severe proceedings against' and 'punishment of' a few prominent financiers. You describe exactly the action I have been taking. Do you suppose that Mr. Rockefeller is giving out interviews denouncing me because of his altruistic devotion to small outsiders? Certainly not; he has been attacking me because he has been hurt; and because he believes that by working on your fears he can count upon the support of you and men like you. You protest against my policy of 'prosecuting the railroads where evidences of criminal action on their part is obtained,' on the ground that, as you say, I have made no effort to show the 'limitations' of my 'intended course.' You might just as well ask a district attorney to make a statement as to the 'limitations' of his 'intended prosecutions' against liquor sellers who are guilty of illegal conduct. If people will obey the law they can count on my doing all I can to further their interests, but I will no more countenance crimes of greed and cunning by men of property than crimes of brutality and violence against property.

"Let me in closing point out that when you advocate, as you do in your letter to me, a policy of connivance at or condonation of law-breaking by men of wealth on my part, you advocate precisely the principles which have made certain corrupt political organizations in our cities by-words among the people, and you put yourself upon the level of politicians who have controlled them. How you can reconcile such an attitude with that of teaching young Americans respect for law and for proper ideals of justice, I am wholly unable to understand. But, this being your attitude, you are quite right in assailing me; for during the