Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/146

110 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS completely as it was in the case of the murder of the governor of Idaho some years earlier. Rich and poor become dangerous alike when ever they are able to defy the law (as the rich at tempted in the Northern Securities) or to make the law not apply to themselves (as in the exemp tion of labor unions from the operation of the Sherman anti-trust law the very same which the rich finally had to obey in the Northern Securities case) ; it is neither riches nor poverty, but un checked power, which constitutes the evil and the menace to the State. If analysis of Mr. Roose velt s enemies be made to-day, these will be found to fall into two chief groups, apparently contra dictory; one of money and one of labor, one whose flag may be symbolized by the tape that flows from the stock-broker s "ticker," and one that waves the red flag of general destruction. But these two are not really contradictory. In their excess they are identical. It is at their excess that Mr. Roosevelt struck. By all these excessives is he hated, by the Harrimans who would be above the law, by the Haywoods who would destroy the law. Certain recurrent features necessarily mark all administrations, certain similar laws and treaties, which continue to be made because they continue in the nature of things to be required; an account of these would hardly distinguish one president from another. Apart from the foreign treaties ratified