Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/410

386 policy which of all policies proposed would be surest to hurt the Trusts in their really vulnerable point. And he covers this surrender with an argument which, I regret to say, looks like a subterfuge.

He says in substance that if we withdraw tariff protection from Trust-made articles we shall, indeed, by making their production less profitable, hurt the Trusts, but we shall at the same time hurt, and probably ruin, the smaller establishments which manufacture the same articles in competition with the Trusts; and this must not be done.

But Mr. Roosevelt leaves out of due consideration that the Trust and the small competitor are not the only parties concerned in this business. There is a third party whose interests are infinitely more important. This third party is the general public. The general public suffer from the extortions to which the Trusts have subjected them, and justly demand to be relieved of those extortions. The withdrawal of tariff protection from the Trust-made goods would inevitably force down the extortionate prices, and thus afford that relief, and it is cruelly unjust to deny this boon to the people on the singular ground that by depriving the Trusts of their tyrannical power we might also possibly hurt a comparatively small number of persons competing with them. Thus, by opposing the policy which would be most sure effectually to weaken the Trusts, President Roosevelt has actually arrayed himself on the side of monopoly against the people. He may yet have to learn that in serving high protection he serves a set of hard, grasping, merciless taskmasters, who will make him do things which the legendary Roosevelt never would have dreamed of. I do not think it impossible that even the present Roosevelt, if kept in power, will be driven to rebel against their exactions, and that he may then return to the views and purposes of earlier and better days.