and legal paradoxes as American business suffers
from can be found nowhere else in the world. Rival nations do not fasten
legal ball and chain upon their business--no, they put wings on its
flying feet. Rival nations do not tell their business men that if they
go forward with legitimate enterprise the penitentiary may be their
goal. No! Rival nations tell their business men that so long as they do
honest business their governments will not hinder but will help them.

But these rival nations do tell their business men that if they do any
evil that our business men do, prison bars await them. These rival
nations do tell their business men that if they issue watered stock or
cheat the people in any way, prison cells will be their homes.

Just this is what all honest American business wants; just this is what
dishonest American business does not want; just this is what the
American people propose to have; just this the national Republican
platform of 1908 pledged the people that we would give them; and just
this important pledge the administration, elected on that platform,
repudiated as it repudiated the more immediate tariff pledge.

Both these reforms, so vital to honest American business, the
Progressive party will accomplish. Neither evil interests nor reckless
demagogues can swerve us from our purpose; for we are free from both and
fear neither.

We mean to put new business laws on our statute books which will tell
American business men what they can do and what they cannot do. We mean
to make our business laws clear instead of foggy--to make them plainly
state just what things are criminal and what are lawful. And we mean
that the penalty for things criminal shall be prison sentences that
actually punish the real offender, instead of money fines that hurt
nobody but the people, who must pay them in the end.

And then we mean to send the message forth to hundreds of thousands of
brilliant minds and brave hearts engaged in honest business, that they
are not criminals but honorable men in their work to make good business
in this Republic. Sure of victory, we even now say, "Go forward,
American business men, and know that behind you, supporting you,
encouraging you, are the power and approval of the greatest people under
the sun. Go forward, American business men, and feed full the fires
beneath American furnaces; and give employment to every American laborer
who asks for work. Go forward, American business men, and