The torch was passed to a new generation of Americans. The President died, shot by an assassin in the Vice-President's home state. The winds of war were blowing in Asia. At home the economy was in a straight jacket, at the mercy of innovative financiers bound in a net of interlocking directorships, new corporate entities and purchased political power. The new President was of a different generation than his predecessor. No longer did a veteran of the last Great War occupy the Whitehouse. Time, it was a changing. So were the slogans. The new President summed up America's foreign policy simply; "Speak softly and carry a big stick." then sent the Great White Fleet around the world to carry his message. At home he set out to put reins on the "malefactors of great wealth".

Medical manufacturers were dosing the public with compounds of alcohol, opium and cocaine with doubtful medical value but big profits. Combines and mergers had concentrated control of the nation's transportation system in the Big Four's boardrooms on Wall Street. The core of the nation's economy - energy - was concentrated in the hands of two men, John D. Rockefeller and Thomas A. Edison. A relatively unknown Theodore Roosevelt came to the Presidency with his hands full. The result was the Pure Food and Drug Act, the Sherman Anti-trust Act and the birth of regulated capitalism. It would come to maturity only during the Presidency of his nephew three decades later when halters were placed on the bankers and stock speculators as well. We come to today after two decades of loosening those reins and slipping the halters.

What has been the result? The nation's transportation system is in a shambles concentrated in a Big Four of American, United, Delta and Continental. Air fares are higher, service is abysmal and they all claim to be losing money. The concept of public utilities as regulated natural monopolies has been forgot. Television has been flooded with drug company ads promising the public to cure the most pernicious of ailments on a scale not seen since Lydia Pinkum's Vegetable Compound and Dr. Caldwell's Syrop of Pepsin filled the pages of Godey's Ladies Book. Energy is controlled by the Enrons of Wall Street while we see the price at the pump alternately swell and sink upon a sea of speculation and not in response to supply and demand in the market place.

We have been returning the economy to the 19th Century and reaping the result. Our President carries the biggest stick in the history of the world but can't seem to lower his voice. Where is Teddy Roosevelt now that we need him again?

Mr. Ming says, "Find the old man and have him bring back that stuffed bear."