104 Presidential Addresses 



corporations become so very powerful alike for 

 beneficent work and for work that is not always 

 beneficent. It is idle to say that there is no need 

 for such supervision. There is, and a sufficient 

 warrant for it is to be found in any one of the 

 admitted evils appertaining to them,. 



We meet a peculiar difficulty under our system 

 of government, because of the division of govern 

 mental power between the Nation and the States. 

 'When the industrial conditions were simple, very 

 little control was needed, and the difficulties of ex 

 ercising such control under our Constitution were 

 not evident. Now the conditions are complicated 

 and we find it hard to frame national legislation 

 which shall be adequate ; while as a matter of prac 

 tical experience it has been shown that the States 

 either can not or will not exercise a sufficient control 

 to meet the needs of the case. Some of our States 

 have excellent laws laws which it would be well 

 indeed to have enacted by the National Legislature. 

 But the widespread differences in these laws, even 

 between adjacent States, and the uncertainty of the 

 power of enforcement, result practically in alto 

 gether insufficient control. I believe that the nation 

 must assume this power of control by legislation; 

 if necessary by constitutional amendment. The im 

 mediate necessity in dealing with trusts is to place 

 them under the real, not the nominal, control of 

 some sovereign to which, as its creatures, the trusts 

 shall owe allegiance, and in whose courts the sov 

 ereign's orders may be enforced. 



