THIRTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 207 



ience I should judge that it is going to take considerable time to per- 

 form that task; and while that time is going by, if I mistake not, you 

 peop'e and other folks over this country are going to demand that we 

 shall have regulation of all big business; and I suggest to your minds one 

 principle that shall guide in that kind of legislation. I suggest to you 

 that whenever a business becomes dominated by a monopoly, just that 

 soon it shall be regulated, and the prices it charges shall be regulated. 

 Somebody said to me, when I suggested that principle to him: "I sup- 

 pose you would have them trying to regulate the price of potatoes in 

 Bird'seye, Iowa, and Houston, Texas, and Blue Grass, Nebraska?" Well, 

 I will tell you that if the day ever comes when a small group of men 

 can get together, like that Western Classification Committee that I told 

 you about, in a room in Chicago, and can fix the price on potatoes in 

 Bird'seye, Iowa, and Houston, Texas, and Blue Grass, Nebraska, and every 

 other town and village in the western half of the United States, I will say, 

 just that instant we must have regulation of the price of pota- 

 toes. I don't think it will ever be possible for that day to come. I 

 don't think the farmers of the country can ever get together and agree 

 as to the price of grain and live stock, because you will always have 

 competition in the production of these necessaries of life, and because it 

 only takes a small investment to produce them. Anybody can go into 

 business and become a competitor; but it takes quite a little investment 

 nowadays to produce an investment to compete with the Standard Oil 

 Company. 



I don't want to leave the impression on your minds that tnis is going 

 to be a continual fight as far as I am concerned. Mr. Whitenton said he 

 wasn't a fighter. I am in hopes that the day will come when we can 

 all sit down in peace and quiet, love and charity. And in regard to these 

 big problems, I think while here and there there are abuses, yet I be- 

 lieve we are getting closer together. I know it is not my ambition at all 

 to hurt capital. I want to see capital have an adequate return, and it is 

 return that the companies want. They are not giving this service out of 

 philanthropy; it is the rates that they are after; it is their revenue they 

 want to protect; and I am perfectly willing and anxious that it shall be 

 protected and that capital shall have an abundant return; because when 

 you prevent these railroad companies from getting a reasonable return, 

 it means that they can not get capital to build better cars, better road- 

 beds, better engines; and it is up to us to see that they shall have abun- 

 dance, in order to make their investments attractive so that they can get 

 the capital to give us better facilities that we are demanding of them. 

 And then, do you know, I think after this commerce counsel department 

 is thoroughly developed and has abundance of employes provided by the 

 state, and after I am not prosecuting cases any more, Mr. Whitenton, 

 but just hear people try cases before me, I sort of believe that I will quiet 

 down and get peaceable-like. I have thought, too, that there was a cer- 

 tain salve that you might rub on my sore spots and relieve the situation 

 a little. I don't know whether you have heard about the great American 

 salve or not. I told these gentlemen about it once, a long time ago, and 

 I am going to tell it again, so that you can hear it. 



