Roosevelt Opens Campaign To-day.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 16, 1912:
He Takes a Parting Shot at Democratic Party, Its Candidate and Platform.
AND AT ANTI-TRUST LAW, TOO
Ridicules Attitude of Taft and Wickersham — To Gun at Tariff In Providence to-night.
Special to The New York Times.
    OYSTER BAY, N. Y., Aug. 15.— Col. Roosevelt starts campaigning to-morrow when he goes into the New England States to deliver addresses at Providence, R.I., to-morrow evening, and at Revere Beach, near Boston, Sunday afternoon. To-day he took a parting shot at the Democratic Party and its platform, and in a dictated statement attacked the Sherman anti-trust law, ridiculing the attitude of President Taft and Attorney General Wickersham. This statement was in reply to an interview by ex-Senator Edmunds of Vermont, in which he came to the defense of the Sherman law.
    Col. Roosevelt will take up the tariff in his speech at Providence. He pointed out to-day that Rhode Island was the "home of the wool schedule," and that he wanted to give that his particular attention. In his address at Revere Beach. which Roosevelt considers his first big campaign speech, he will deal with the attitude of the Progressive Party to the Judiciary.
    The Colonel is watching with great interest each step taken by Gov. Wilson, who, he believes, has about "shot his bolt" as a Progressive, and has been warned that he must do something to hold the conservative element in the party in line. Whatever Gov. Wilson does Roosevelt points out that he himself has blazed the trail in the Progressive movement by his primary fight and his "confession of faith" at the Chicago Convention.
    The Colonel is refraining from personal references of too bitter a nature to Gov. Wilson. Such attacks might be disastrous, his managers have told him. He let it be known to-day, however, that he considered the platform adopted by the Progressives at Chicago a programme which he wants the people to adopt. This is a somewhat different attitude, he said, than Gov. Wilson took in regard to the Democratic platform in his speech of acceptance. Wilson did not father it as a complete programme. The Wilson acceptance speech, Mr. Roosevelt feels, does not meet the issues in the right way.

Phone Call from Sheldon.
    While the Colonel was talking to the newspaper men to-day, he received a telephone message from George R. Sheldon, Treasurer of the National Republican Committee in the campaign of 1904, in regard to the testimony of ex-Gov. Odell concerning the $240,000 campaign fund the late K. H. Harriman raised for the 1904 campaign.
    "George Sheldon just called me up," said he, "to say that before he testified he had shown the letter, to Mr. Odell and that Mr. Odell had told him at that time that the facts contained in the letter were substantially correct."
    It was Mr. Sheldon who came to the defense of Mr. Roosevelt in the Harriman controversy, allowing to be made public a letter which was greatly at variance with the testimony given by ex-Gov. Odell Wednesday before the Senate committee investigating campaign contributions.
    When Mr. Roosevelt heard the Odell testimony yesterday he quickly elected the former Governor to the Ananias Club and pointed to the Sheldon letter as corroborating what he himself had said about the fund.
    He received a telegram to-day from Brand Whitlock, dated Toledo, which read as follows;
    The representative here tells me to-night that The New York Evening Post of Monday, Aug. 12. published an interview with John B. Friend of this city, in which he claims to represent me in some political capacity, I knew not what, and says that you told me on several occasions that you would not accept a nomination for the Presidency, if Gov. Wilson ran, &c. I have not seen the interview, but lest Friend's statements should be more seriously regarded abroad than they are at home, I hasten to assure you that he is in no way authorized to speak for me or represent me in any manner whatsoever. It is, of course, entirely unnecessary to add that you never told me any such thing or that I never told anybody that you did.
    Here is Mr. Roosevelt's statement. on the Sherman law in reply to ex-Senator Edmunds:

    Senator Edmunds is in thorough accord with Mr. Rockefeller and the American Tobacco Trust people. He takes precisely their view. They are even better contented with the method of enforcement of the antitrust law, of which he approves, than he is himself. I do wonder that Senator Edmunds and Mr. Rockefeller and the Tobacco Trust people feel that all that is necessary to continue without comment.
    One of the most significant features of the present situation is the way in which all the big trusts, all the corporation lawyers representing big trusts, and every public man who now represents or has represented the cause of reaction and privilege in public life should rally to the defense of the present Administration's method of enforcing the anti-trust, law and admiringly approve of the position held by Mr. Taft, Mr. Edmunds, Mr. Rockefeller, and all other trust magnates and trust lawyers that no further legislation is needed.
    Mr. Edmunds's proposal is in the interests of every great corrupt organization and against the interest of every honest business man. He cannot be ignorant of the fact that the enforcement of the anti-trust law by Messrs. Taft and Wickersham against the Standard Oil and Tobacco Trusts has resulted in an enormous rise in the value of the stock held by Mr. Rockefeller and his allies in the tobacco deal, while the price of the commodities to the consumer has slightly gone up and the competing concerns are left wholly at the mercy of the two trusts.
    Mr. Edmunds must know this; he must know that while the Supreme Court has unsparingly condemned the Standard Oil and the Tobacco people the only result has been to add to the already swollen and ill-gotten gains of the offenders, and still further to deny justice to the general public. Mr. Edmunds with his eyes open appears as the apologist and defender of the men and practices against whom and which it was originally supposed the anti-trust law was aimed. Every crooked corporation lawyer and every crooked head of a corporation will follow Mr. Edmunds's lead in this matter and naturally and properly will oppose the attitude taken by the Progressives, for our attitude and our attitude alone offers the chance of really grappling with and solving the problem of really controlling the trusts in the interests of the people as a whole and in the interests of the honest business men.
    The Progressive platform is explicit and my speech before the Progressive Convention was explicit. Every sincere man who has studied the subject and is honestly desirous of putting a stop to the corrupt practices which, under Mr. Edmunds's plan, are perpetuated and rewarded, will join with us. Every great malefactor will support the Edmunds-Taft-Wickersham view, for he knows that if that view prevails he is certain of immunity and that the only people jeopardized are the honest business men who do not wish for immunity baths but who do wish to have a rational law, to know what the law is, and then to obey it.

    The Colonel said to-night that he did not expect any visitors before starting for Providence. He will motor into town to catch a train at 1 o'clock in the afternoon.