the fullest
protection that the Government could afford it. On the other hand, if
a corporation were found seeking profit through injury or oppression
of the community, by restricting production through trick or device,
by plot or conspiracy against competitors, or by oppression of
wage-workers, and then extorting high prices for the commodity it had
made artificially scarce, it would be prevented from organizing if its
nefarious purpose could be discovered in time, or pursued and suppressed
by all the power of Government whenever found in actual operation. Such
a commission, with the power I advocate, would put a stop to abuses of
big corporations and small corporations alike; it would draw the line on
conduct and not on size; it would destroy monopoly, and make the biggest
business man in the country conform squarely to the principles laid down
by the American people, while at the same time giving fair play to the
little man and certainty of knowledge as to what was wrong and what was
right both to big man and little man.

Although under the decision of the courts the National Government had
power over the railways, I found, when I became President, that
this power was either not exercised at all or exercised with utter
inefficiency. The law against rebates was a dead letter. All the
unscrupulous railway men had been allowed to violate it with impunity;
and because of this, as was inevitable, the scrupulous and decent
railway men had been forced to violate it themselves, under penalty of
being beaten by their less scrupulous rivals. It was not the fault of
these decent railway men. It was the fault of the Government.

Thanks to a first-class railway man, Paul Morton of the Santa Fe, son of
Mr. Cleveland's Secretary of Agriculture, I was able completely to stop
the practice. Mr. Morton volunteered to aid the Government in abolishing
rebates. He frankly stated that he, like every one else, had been guilty
in the matter; but he insisted that he uttered the sentiments of
the decent railway men of the country when he said that he hoped the
practice would be stopped, and that if I would really stop it, and not
merely make believe to stop it, he would give the testimony which would
put into the hands of the Government the power to put a complete check
to the practice. Accordingly he testified, and on the information which
he gave us we were able to take such action through the Inter-State
Commerce Commission and the Departm