two phases of feeling that seemed contradictory. In the first place,
wherever I went I found the man who felt that he had been unjustly
treated in life looking eagerly toward this country as a country where
the ideal of justice between man and man had been at least partially
realized. And everywhere I went I found also, oh, my friends, a very
different feeling, a feeling of doubt and mistrust among our friends
and admirers because of what they had heard of our lack of integrity
and honesty in public and in business affairs. I wish that our people
could realize that every time word is sent abroad of political or
business corruption or mob violence in this country, it saddens the
heart of all believers in popular government, everywhere; and it is
a subject for sneering mirth to every reactionary, to every man who
disbelieves that the people can control themselves and do justice
both to themselves and to others. I do not suppose that if we come
short in our duty, if we are uninfluenced by the appeal made to us for
our own sakes and for the sake of our children, we can be moved by an
appeal made for other people. Yet I believe that every man who has the
inestimable privilege of living here in our free land should feel in
his soul, deep in the marrow of his being, that not only are we bound
to act justly and honorably and honestly as a nation for our own sakes,
not only are we bound so to act for the sake of the children who are to
come after us, but that we are also bound thus to act because all over
the world the peoples are looking eagerly at this great experiment in
popular government; and shame to us, woe to us, if our conduct dims the
golden hope of the nations of mankind.
THE SHAPING OF PUBLIC OPINION AND THE NINTH COMMANDMENT
Today in making my last speech to you I wish to thank you from my heart
for the way in which you have listened to me.
It had not occurred to me that people would come in numbers sufficient
to fill every corner of this theatre. You have made me both very
grateful and a little embarrassed. You have made me feel more than a
little humble; because each time I saw the audience I was afraid that
they would go away feeling that they had not received just what they
had a right to expect; because, friends, after all, the message I have
to give to you is so very simple, and its worth depends so purely upon
the spirit in which I give it and you take it.
What I have to say amounts to absolutely nothing if it does not
represent at least an honest effort on my part to live up to what
I preach, and if it does not represent a purpose on your part to
act on whatever of my words you think it worth while to applaud. Of
course, what I have to say is simple because the great facts of life
are simple; and I am speaking to you, my fellow citizens, my fellow
Americans, whom I trust and in whom I believe, about the elemental
needs that are common to all of us, and vital to all of us.
A cultivated and intellectual paper once complained that my speeches
lacked subtlety. So they do! I think that the command or entreaty
to clean living and decent politics should no more be subtle than a
command in battle should be subtle. You veterans, over there, what you
wanted to have your officer say, when in a tight place was “Come on,
boys”; and it was no use his saying it unless he went himself. The most
admirable address that could possibly be delivered by an officer on the
field would be hopelessly marred if immediately afterwards the officer
went to the rear; and no heartiness of enthusiasm on the part of the
soldiers who listened to the address would atone if they then failed to
go forward.
The purpose of the command or the entreaty or the adjuration of the
officer was to make his men go forward. The exact language that
Sheridan used when he came back from Winchester and met his men going
the wrong way matters little from the classical standpoint; the point
was that after hearing it the men began to go the right way; and they
would not have gone the right way if he had not been going the right
way himself. In war, and in peace also, words are of use only as they
are translated into deeds.
All I have to say to you here is very simple; and yet it is all
important. Any good that will come from it to you will come only if you
really do think of what I have said, and then, if it agrees with your
judgment, if you try to act a little closer to the right standard than
hithertofore you have been doing. And right here I want to say that you
in your turn have put me under a bond of obligation; for after having
spoken to you as I have spoken for these five days I realize that I
must myself try to make my conduct square absolutely with my words and
I realize also that I have more to learn than to teach.
As I say, I would like you to test what I have to say by your own
experiences. The first day I spoke of applied ethics, of realizable
ideals. I spoke in favor of having a lofty ideal which could be lived
up to. Let me apply what I have to say by instances taken from the
Civil War, from the experience of the men in blue and the men in
gray--for they are all brothers now. It was of no use for a man to
enter the army if he was not actuated by a lofty ideal; unless he had
the right kind of ideal of personal conduct, unless he was ashamed to
flinch, ashamed to disgrace himself in battle or on the march, then he
was of no use in the army. It was necessary that he should have the
right kind of ideal. But it was even more necessary that he should
apply that ideal in practice. I do not care how lofty his theory of
conduct was, that theory was useless if when he heard the bullets he
was unable to control his tendency to run away. The soldier needed a
lofty ideal, and he needed to apply that ideal. It had to be an ideal
that he could measurably realize on the field of battle. It must be
just so with us in civil life. We must have a lofty ideal of conduct;
and we must strive to realize that ideal in practice. That was my first
day’s lecture.
The tone of my second lecture was that the man must do well in his
own home before he can do well outside; that the man must be a decent
husband and father, decent in the performance of his duty toward those
with whom he is most intimately brought into contact, before he can
hope to amount to anything in the world at large.
On the third day I spoke of what has been for many centuries the great
guide to righteousness and clean living.
Yesterday I spoke of the public man, of his cardinal virtue, honesty,
and of the relations of the public to the public man. Let me again
there take an example from the army. I spoke of the right feeling
to have toward the successful man and of the right feeling for the
individuals in the community to bear towards one another. They are just
such feelings as the soldiers of the Civil War bore to their chiefs
and to one another. No soldier worth his salt grudged the preference,
the honor, the reward that came to great Generals such as Grant and
Sheridan and Sherman, such as Lee and Johnson and Stonewall Jackson.
They not only did not grudge any reward that came to a man because he
earned it, but they scorned the creature who did grudge such reward.
It was not only a matter of justice, it was to their own interest to
see the fighting General, the General who could carry on a campaign
and fight a battle successfully put high up. It was to the interest of
the army and the country that that man should be rewarded. What the
soldiers grudged was a reward coming to a man who had not earned it, a
reward coming to a General, not because he was a first class General
in the field, but because he had pulled wires in Washington, because
he was so and so’s friend and had such and such influences behind him,
so that he was shoved up over the head of a better man. That type of
promotion they grudged because that type of promotion was not earned by
service.
It is just so with us in private life and in public life. It is a
scandal and a shame to grudge the reward that comes to the big man who
earns a fortune by rendering service to his fellows, service of such
a kind that for every dollar he gets he has done at least a dollar’s
worth of good to someone else. It is to the interest of all of us
to encourage that man. It is eminently to our interest, however, to
discourage the man whose fortune represents not serving the public but
swindling the public. And again it is to our interest to discourage
the fortune that represents service, but service overpaid ten or
one hundred times. So much for the men at the top. Now for the men
in the ranks. What the soldier--whether he wore the uniform of the
Northerner or the Southerner, whether he served in the Federal or in
the Confederate armies--what the soldier was concerned with knowing
about his bunky, about the man who stood by him, who marched by him was
not whether he was a banker or a bricklayer--he had no concern as to
whether the comrade had much money or little, as to how he earned his
livelihood, or how he worshipped his Creator--but only whether that man
when an emergency came would “stay put.” When the fight came he did
not wish to have to look over his shoulder to see if his comrade was
still there; he wished to be certain on that point, and to be able to
devote his undivided attention to the enemy. In camp and on the march
he wished to be sure that the man who was his comrade would not shirk
part of the job. If this man acted up to the requirements of a good
comrade, if he was a man to be trusted in battle and on the march, if
he was a man who could be counted upon to do his part and a little more
than his part in whatever emergency arose, then the soldier worth his
salt, stood by his comrade and recognized in him a man entitled to be
trusted in battle and on the march. If the comrade was a man who could
be counted upon to do his part, and a little more than his part, in
whatever emergency arose, then the other stood by him and recognized in
him a man entitled to every demand that comradeship could exact.
It should be just so in civil life. Shame to our people if they
ever come to pay loyalty to cast or class ahead of loyalty to
good citizenship. I have no patience with the man, whether a
multi-millionaire or a wage-worker, whether the member of a big
corporation or the member of a labor union, who does not recognize
the fact that as an American citizen his first loyalty is due to the
nation, and to his fellow citizens no matter what position they occupy
as long as those fellow citizens are decent men. His first loyalty must
be to the nation and to decency in citizenship. He cannot be a good
citizen if he puts loyalty to any other organization above loyalty
to the nation, if he puts loyalty to any class above loyalty to good
citizenship as such.
Having spoken yesterday of the public men and the eighth commandment
today I speak about the disseminator of information to the public and
the ninth commandment.
The public man occupies a very important position, a very responsible
position. He deserves cordial praise if he does well, and the
heartiest condemnation if he does badly. But after all, in a country
like ours, where public opinion rules, he does not occupy quite so
important a position as the shaper of public opinion, that is, as
the man who by speech or writing--especially in the magazines and
newspapers--seeks to tell his countrymen what the facts are about
public and private questions, about public and private men.
The cardinal sin of the public man is theft. The cardinal sin of the
public writer is mendacity. I abhor a thief, and I abhor a liar as
much as I abhor a thief. I abhor the assassin who tries to kill a
man; I abhor almost equally the assassin of that man’s character. The
infamy of the creature who tries to assassinate an upright and honest
public servant doing his duty is no greater than the infamy of the
creature who tries to assassinate an honest man’s character, and who
irretrievably damages the public by destroying their faith in the man
who should have their confidence, and mind you, when I speak of the
wrong done by this type of slanderous perverter of truth, I wish to
dwell upon the fact that I am not concerned primarily with the wrong
done to the man whom he slanders. That is bad enough; but my chief
concern is the wrong he does to the public whom he teaches to think
crookedly.
The newspaper man or writer in a magazine who sustains the crook
shares the crook’s guilt. The newspaper which upholds the briber, the
corrupter of legislators, the man who buys a seat in a legislative
body, or buys an executive position--the newspaper man who upholds
the crooked judge, the crooked legislator or executive officer, who
upholds the public servant who betrays his duty, that newspaper writer
or magazine writer is himself as guilty morally as the man whom he
defends. No more praise-worthy, no more indispensible service can be
rendered than that of the man who truthfully and fearlessly exposes
corruption in the high places of political and business life. But
remember also that the converse is true. Evil though dishonesty is, it
is hardly worse than false accusation of dishonesty against the honest
man. I am speaking only from the standpoint of the honest man who is
falsely accused. The honest man of strength and courage is probably
fairly well able to take care of himself. If the honest man is fit
for public life he will have a fairly thick skin and will view with
a certain grim contempt the accusations of the men who, we know, have
either been bought to accuse him or are earning their livelihood in
the lowest and meanest of all ways, by the practice of mendacity for
hire--and incidentally, the offense is just as great if they lie to
gratify the spirit of sensationalism as if they lie because they are
bought.
Muckrakers who rake up much that ought to be raked up deserve well
of the community and the magazines and newspapers who publish their
writings do a public service. But they must write the truth and the
service they do must be real. The type of magazine which I condemn
is what may be called the Ananias muckraker type. No paper bought
and owned by the special interests can be viler, or can play a more
contemptible part in American politics, than the Ananias muckraker
type of magazine, the type of magazine where the proprietor, editor
and writer seek to earn their livelihood by telling what they know
to be scandalous falsehoods about honest men. No boodling Alderman,
no convicted private or public thief serving his term in stripes in
the penitentiary is a baser and more degraded being than the writers
of whom I speak. And they render this ill service, this worst of bad
services to the public; they confuse the mind of the public as between
honest and dishonest men. Every time that an honest man is falsely
accused of dishonesty you give heart to every rogue. There is nothing
that a dishonest man revels in more than a false accusation against his
honest compeers; for if you attack enough honest men with sufficient
violence you finally utterly confuse the public mind, you make the
average decent citizen wholly unable to tell the true attack from the
false, the honest public servant from the dishonest public servant; and
in the end you get him to believe that the white men are not white and
that the black men are not black, but that they are all gray, and that
it does not make much difference which of them you support.
Such a feeling is absolutely fatal to the achievement of good
citizenship. If you once get the public so thoroughly confused and
disheartened and skeptical that on the one hand it does not believe
that any man is good, and on the other hand tends to excuse every bad
man on the ground “Oh, well, I guess he’s no worse than the rest,
they are all pretty bad;” if you once get the public in such a frame
of mind you have done more than can be done in any other way towards
ruining our citizenship, towards ruining popular and governmental
honesty and efficiency.
I hope and believe that, as the people at large more and more take
into their own hands the shaping of legislation, and try to shape
legislation directly, they will recognize the fact that the man who
poisons their minds is as thoroughly reprehensible a scoundrel--and
when I say scoundrel I am speaking with scientific precision and with
moderation--as the man who poisons their bodies.
President Wheeler alluded to the fact that I had been able to get
through the Pure Food Law. It was one of the achievements during my
administration of which I felt we all had a right to be proud. We got
it through in the teeth of the opposition of the multitude of men who
were making fortunes by the sale of adulterated foods, and who owed
much of their wealth to the fact that in the absence of law they could
sell their goods by a label which did not correspond to the contents of
the package. We had to face the opposition not only of the men in that
business themselves but of the newspapers and the magazines which did
the advertising for that kind of business; and the opposition was so
powerful that it was six years before I was able to secure the passage
of a law which gave us a reasonable chance to see that if food was
bought for a baby the food was not poisoned.
Now I hope in the end to see legislation which will punish the
circulation of untruth, and above all of slanderous untruth, in a
newspaper or magazine meant to be read by the public; which will punish
such action as severely as we punish the introduction into commerce of
adulterated food falsely described and meant to be eaten by the public.
At present men sufficiently wealthy to pay for slander and libel and
the other men wishing to earn a base livelihood by pandering to the
taste of those who like to read slander and libel can undoubtedly do
an enormous quantity of damage to the upright public servant. But
keep in mind that I am not concerned with him; I am speaking from the
standpoint of the public. The enormous damage, the incredible damage,
is done to the public, by completely misinforming them as to the
character of the decent public servant, and also misinforming them as
to the character of that man in public life who is an unworthy public
servant. I will give you an example out of my own personal experience
during the last three years to show the kind of conduct with which we
have to reckon on the part of some of the newspapers.
One of the papers of notoriety in New York is the “New York Herald;”
it is published by Mr. James Gordon Bennett. Whatever distinction it
has is implied in its being the founder, the beginner, of the school
of purely sensational yellow journalism in New York. Mr. James Gordon
Bennett was born in America. He possesses one redeeming characteristic,
he lives abroad; he lives in Paris. While I was President and while I
had as District Attorney in New York a man named Harry Stimson--one of
the best public servants in the country--all kinds of cases of very
great importance came up for action in his district. I put Harry
Stimson in as District Attorney because I knew we would have to take
action against a number of very powerful corporations and individuals,
who would have at their command the very best legal talent that money
could get. I wanted to be sure that when the trial day came Uncle Sam’s
man would be just as good as the men against him.
We did various things. You may recollect that about eight years ago
they used to say that you couldn’t put a rich man in the penitentiary.
Well, we put several rich men in the penitentiary. Harry Stimson put
the wealthy man, Morse, in the penitentiary. He brought to a successful
conclusion the proceedings against the Sugar Trust, partly for rebates
and partly for swindling the United States Government by debauching
Custom House employees; he recovered, and had paid into the United
States Treasury, between two and three millions of dollars in fines
from the Sugar Trust for its misconduct. (It is perhaps unnecessary
to add that when Stimson ran for Governor last year the Sugar Trust
and every kindred business organization in Wall Street stated that he
was “unsafe for the business interests”). He conducted several of such
suits. Among other matters his attention was brought to the fact that
the “New York Herald” was carrying a “personal” column of the vilest
description. He sued in person James Gordon Bennett, the editor and
proprietor of the “Herald” for violation of the law against circulating
obscene literature through the mails. Mr. Bennett was living in Paris.
As soon as it became evident that we intended to fight the suit to a
conclusion it also became evident that we would obtain the verdict.
Every effort was made to avoid having Bennett brought in person to
New York City to plead. Every species of pressure and influence was
brought to bear on Stimson, and ultimately on me, to get Stimson to
permit the plea to be entered in Bennett’s absence and not make him
cross the water. I speak of what I know at first hand, when I say
that every effort was made to obtain this favor; it was represented
that if we would agree to do this the “Herald” would be most friendly
with us, that the “Herald” was very influential, that we ought not to
anger it, that to do so would be a very bad thing politically, etc.,
etc. And Stimson answered that when he came to enforce the criminal
law he knew no distinction between criminals, and that, just as the
poorest and most friendless wrongdoer would have to appear in person
to answer to a criminal charge, so the editor of the greatest and most
wealthy newspaper would have to appear in just the same fashion. And
Mr. Bennett came back from France, crossed the ocean to the land of his
nativity, stayed long enough to appear in court and plead guilty, and
then went back to France. He paid over $30,000 in fines for what he had
done; and never again has that type of personal column appeared in the
“Herald.”
The significant thing in connection with the case was the action of the
other New York papers. They kept the public in ignorance of what we
were doing with the “New York Herald.” No attention was paid to the
suit or to the judgment, beyond the two or three lines, put in some
obscure part of the paper, and usually with the names suppressed. The
average decent citizen was kept in ignorance of what had occurred and
is to this day in ignorance why the “Herald” has ever since followed
with envenomed hostility, not only the then administration, but
especially Stimson.
Conduct such as I have described on the part of the “New York Herald”
is conduct just as base as the conduct of the worst public servant
in any municipality, in any state or in the nation can possibly be.
Conduct such as that represents the effort to poison the sources
of information, to poison the minds of our people, to put them in
such shape that they cannot form a correct opinion upon the men who
represent them in public life. No greater crime can be committed
against the body politic; and particularly in this case, where the
action that we took against the “Herald” was not an action for
political wrong doing; it was an action against the “Herald,” against
Mr. Bennett, for that species of crime that eats into our vitals, that
eats into the home life, that eats like an acid into the moral fibre
of our people. Yet the press and the magazines, with but one or two
exceptions, paid no attention whatever to what had been done, made no
attempt to discriminate against the “Herald” for the conduct of which
it had been guilty; and by their silence left the public in ignorance
so that it might readily fall a victim to the studied and envenomed
misrepresentations and falsehoods of the “Herald” about the men who had
thus brought it to justice.
You may remember that a high officer of the Sugar Trust once testified
before a committee in Congress that the Trust subscribed heavily to
campaign committees, and that it subscribed to the Republican Party in
a Republican state and to the Democratic Party in a Democratic state.
The Sugar Trust was non-partisan in its attitude. In your turn, I ask
you people here, whatever your politics may be, to be non-partisan when
the question of honesty is involved. A certain type of big corrupt
corporation cares nothing whatever for political parties when its
interests are at stake; and labor unions of the same type act in the
same fashion. And I ask the people, in their turn, to pay no heed to
parties when the great fundamental issues of honesty and decency, as
against dishonesty and indecency are involved; only let them act in
the reverse way from the action of the corporations and unions in
question. When it comes to the question of a crook I will respect party
feeling to just this extent: if there are two crooks, one of my party
and one of another party, I will cinch the crook of my party first
because I feel a shade more responsible for him.