FRANCHISE TAX FREE SPEECH
should pay a tax on their franchises, inasmuch as they
did nothing that could be considered as service rendered
the public in lieu of a tax. This seemed to me so
evidently the common sense and decent thing to do that
I was hardly prepared for the storm of protest and anger
which my proposal aroused. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII,
342; Nat. Ed. XX, 292.
____________. On the one hand we have the perfectly
simple savage who believes that you should tax
franchises to the extent of confiscating them, and that it
is the duty of all railroad corporations to carry
everybody free and give him a chromo.
On the other, we have the scarcely less primitive
mortal who believes that there is something sacred in a
franchise and that there is no reason why it should pay
its share of the public burdens at all.
Now, gentlemen, remember that the man who
occupies the last position inevitably tends to produce
the man who occupies the first position, and that the
worst enemy of property is the man who, whether from
unscrupulousness or from mere heedlessness and
thoughtlessness, takes the ground that there is
something sacrosanct about all property, that the
owners of it are to occupy a different position in the
community from all others and are to have their
burdens not increased, but diminished, because of their
wealth. (Before Independent Club, Buffalo, N. Y., May
15, 1899.) Mem. Ed. XVI, 487; Nat. Ed. XIV, 326.
FRANCHISE TAX-CONSTITUTIONALITY OF. I
have just received a telegram to the effect that the
Franchise Tax Law in New York has been declared
constitutional by the Supreme Court. This was
something very near my heart for I felt that the
Franchise Tax Law was the most definite and important
contribution to decent and intelligent government made
by me while I was Governor. I am, therefore, very
much pleased with the news. . . . The courts can be
educated just as the public can be educated, and the
suits you have carried on and the decisions you have
secured in the United States Courts have had, I am
convinced, a very profound effect elsewhere. Unless I
am greatly mistaken one of the places where this effect
is visible is this Franchise Tax decision. (To Philander
C. Knox, April 28, 1903.) Mem. Ed. XXIII, 214; Bishop
New York in dealing with these big corporations, and it
has been declared constitutional by the highest court in
the land. (To Lawrence F. Abbott, November 27, 1907.)
Mem. Ed. XXIV, 62; Bishop II, 53.
FREDERICK THE GREAT. As a soldier Frederick
the Great ranks in that very, very small group which
includes Alexander, Caesar, and Hannibal in antiquity,
and Napoleon, and possibly Gustavus Adolphus, in
modern times. He belonged to the ancient and
illustrious house of Hohenzollern, which, after playing
a strong and virile part in the Middle Ages, and after
producing some men, like the great Elector, who were
among the most famous princes of their time, founded
the royal house of Prussia two centuries ago, and at last
in our own day established the mighty German Empire
as among the foremost of world powers. . . .
Not only must the military scholar always turn to
the career of Frederick the Great for lessons in strategy
and tactics; not only must the military administrator
always turn to his career for lessons in organizing
success; not only will the lover of heroism read the tales
of his mighty feats as long as mankind cares for heroic
deeds; but even those who are not attracted by the valor
of the soldier must yet, for the sake of the greatness of
the man, ponder and admire the lessons taught by his
undaunted resolution, his inflexible tenacity of purpose,
his farsighted grasp of lofty possibilities, and his
unflinching, unyielding determination in following the
path he had marked out. (At unveiling of statue of
Frederick the Great, Washington, D. C., November 19,
1904.) Presidential Addresses and State Papers III,
101-103.
FREE COINAGE. See SILVER.
FREE INSTITUTIONS. See DEMOCRACY;
GOVERNMENT; POPULAR RULE; SELF-GOVERNMENT .
FREE SPEECH. Free speech, exercised both
individually and through a free press, is a necessity in
any country where the people are themselves free. (May
7, 1918.) Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, 148.
____________. One of our cardinal doctrines is
freedom of speech, which means freedom of speech
about foreigners as well as about ourselves; and,
inasmuch as we exercise this right with complete
absence of restraint, we cannot expect other nations to
hold us harmless unless in the last resort we are able to
make our own words good by our deeds. One class of
I, 187.
____________. The great measure of my
administration as Governor was the franchise tax. It
was far more bitterly fought than the public-utilities
bill; and mind you, it broke ground for the first time in
our
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