I am reluctant to say anything whatever about President Wilson at the outset of his Administration unless I can speak of him with praise.  I have scrupulously refrained from saying or doing one thing since election that could put the slightest obstacle, even of misinterpretation, in his path.  It is to the interest of the country that he should succeed in his office.  I cordially wish him success, and I shall cordially support any policy of his that I believe to be in the interests of the people of the United States.  But when Mr. Wilson, after being elected President, within the first fortnight after he has been inaugurated into that high office, permits himself to be betrayed into a public misstatement of what I have said, and what I stand for, then he forces me to correct his statements.

Mr. Wilson opens his article by saying that the Progressive “doctrine is that monopoly is inevitable, and that the only course open to the people of the United States is to submit to it.”  This statement is without one particle of foundation in fact.  I challenge him to point out a sentence in the Progressive platform or in any speech of mine which bears him out.  I can point him out any number which flatly contradict him.  We have never made any such statement as he alleges about monopolies.  We have said:  “The corporation is an essential part of modern business.  The concentration of modern business, in some degree, is both inevitable and necessary for National and international business efficiency.”  Does Mr. Wilson deny this?  Let him answer yes or no, directly.  It is easy for a politician detected in a misstatement to take refuge in evasive rhetorical hyperbole.  But Mr. Wilson is President of the United States, and as such he is bound to candid utterance on every subject of public interest which he himself has broached.  If he disagrees with us, let him be frank and consistent, and recommend to Congress that all corporations be made illegal.  Mr. Wilson’s whole attack is largely based on a deft but far from ingenuous confounding of what we have said of monopoly, which we propose so far as possible to abolish, and what we have said of big corporations, which we propose to regulate; Mr. Wilson’s own vaguely set forth proposals being to attempt the destruction of both in ways that would harm neither.  In our platform we use the word “monopoly” but once, and then we speak of it as an abuse of power, coupling it with stock-watering, unfair competition and unfair privileges.  Does Mr. Wilson deny this?  If he does, then where else will he assert that we speak of monopoly as he says we do?  He certainly owes the people of the United States a plain answer to the question.  In my speech of acceptance I said:  “We favor strengthening the Sherman Law by prohibiting agreements to divide territory or limit output; refusing to sell to customers who buy from business rivals; to sell below cost in certain areas while maintaining higher prices in other places;