The "Abyssinian Treatment" Of Standard Oil
Performed by Theodore Roosevelt
Recorded September 22, 1912
What was really interesting
in their testimony, however, was the sidelight it
cast on their own motives and standard of propriety,
and incidentally, an unwitting tribute to the attitude
of my administration. If you will turn to Page 133
of the Record. (You can get the record, I will say
incidentally, from your senator, unless hes
a stands-pat senator in which place, you probably
cant get it from him.) If you will turn to Page
133 of the Record, you will find where Mr. Archbold
says, substantially, "Darkest Abyssinia can show
nothing to compare with the treatment administered
to the Standard Oil Corporation during the administration
of President Roosevelt." In this instance, Mr.
Archbold is testifying to what is quite correct. I
did administer the Abyssinian treatment to the Standard
Oil Corporation while I was president. I administered
it because I thought The Standard Oil needed it. And
if ever I am president again, and the Standard Oil
or any other corporation acts as the Standard Oil
then did, Ill administer the Abyssinian treatment
to it again. Thats why Mr. Archbold and Mr.
Penrose are trying to beat me and to beat the Progressive
party. You may notice that Mr. Archbold doesnt
complain that the present administration ever administered
the Abyssinian treatment to the Standard Oil Company.
Not a bit of it. Mr. Archbold has no fear that either
the Democratic or Republican parties, if successful
at the next election, would administer the Abyssinian
treatment to the Standard Oil Corporation or to any
other of the big law breaking trusts. Mr. Archbold
knows that the Standard Oil could make its peace with,
could come to an agreement with, the men who manage
the Republican party or the men who manage the Democratic
party, but he also knows that he could make no peace
with the leaders of the Progressive party, and he
could make no peace with the Progressive party itself
because it is in very fact the party of the people
of the United States. Again, on the next page of the
testimony, you will find where Mr. Bliss is quoted
by Mr. Archbold as saying that he had no influence
with me. That he could not stop my proceedings at
the time when, as Mr. Archbold says, I was engaged
in administering the Abyssinian treatment to the Standard
Oil Corporation.