play, is to be found in the measure of what he actually achieved.
He did arouse the popular mind and sting the popular conscience
broad awake. He did enforce the law without fear or favor. He did
leave upon the statute-book and in the machinery of government
new means and methods for the control of business and for the
protection of the general welfare against predatory wealth.



CHAPTER VIII. THE SQUARE DEAL FOR LABOR

It should go without saying that Roosevelt was vigorously and
deeply concerned with the relations between capital and labor,
for he was interested in everything that concerned the men and
women of America, everything that had to do with human relations.
>From the very beginning of his public life he had been a
champion
of the workingman when the workingman needed defense against
exploitation and injustice. But his advocacy of the workers'
rights was never demagogic nor partial. In industrial relations,
as in the relations between business and the community, he
believed in the square deal. The rights of labor and the rights
of capital must, he firmly held, be respected each by the other--
and the rights of the public by both.

Roosevelt believed thoroughly in trade unions. He realized that
one of the striking accompaniments of the gigantic developments
in business and industry of the past few generations was a gross
inequality in the bargaining relation between the employer and
the individual employee standing alone.