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PRESIDENTIAL
ADDRESSES AND
STATE PAPERS
OF
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
FROM MARCH 4, 1909, TO MARCH 4, 1910
VOLUME ONE
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1910




ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
(rj tR,(fGT, I910, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER. 1910




CONTENTS
PAGE
1. Speech of Acceptance.....      3
(Cincinnati, Ohio, July 28, 1908.)
2. The Republican Party's Appeal...    43
(Published in The Independent, October 15, 1908.)
3. Inaugural Address.....    53
(March 4, 1909.)
4. Message Convening Congress in Extra Session.       69
(March 16, 1909.)
5. Grover Cleveland Memorial....    71
(Carnegie Hall, New York City, March 18, 1909.)
6. Message to Congress on proposed Tariff Revision
Law of 1909 for the Philippine Islands..    78
(April 14, 1909.)
7.  Government of the District of Columbia.    80
(Board of Trade and Chamber of Commerce Banquet,
Washington, D. C., May 8, 1909.)
8. Message to Congress Concerning Affairs in
Porto Rico.....              88
(May 10, 1909.)
9. Unveiling of the Pennsylvania Memorial, at
Petersburg, Virginia....    97
(May 19, 1909.)
v


A A




vi                    CONTENTS
PAGE
10. Mecklenburg Declaration.                   101
(Charlotte, N. C., May 20, 1909.)
11. The Negro and the South....   111
(Howard University, Washington, D. C., May 26, 1909.)
12. Rodelph Shalom Temple...   117
(Pittsburg, Pa., May 29, 1909.)
13. The Regular Army of the United States..   119
(Gettysburg, Pa., May 31, 1909.)
14. An Answer to Panama Canal Critic..   124
(Published in McClure's Magazine, May, 1909.)
15. Judicial Decisions as an Issue in Politics.   142
(Published in McClure's Magazine, June, 1909.)
16. Message to Congress Concerning the Government of Cuba.....        164
(June 5, 1909.)
17. Message to Congress Concerning Tax on Net
Income of Corporations...     166
(June 16, 1909.)
18. Unveiling of Memorial to Dr. Benjamin F. Stephenson, Founder of the Grand Army of the
Republic.......    170
(Washington, D. C., July 3, 1909.)
19. Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the
Founding of Norwich, Conn....   173
(July 5, 1909.)




CONTENTS                          vii
PAGE
20.  Catholic Summer School of America..   178
(Cliff Haven, N. Y., July 7, 1909.)
21. Boston Chamber of Commerce..         182
(September 14, 1909.)
22. Labor and the Writ of Injunction...   191
(Orchestra Hall, Chicago, September 16, 1909).
23. Postal Savings Banks..                    201
(Milwaukee, Wis., September 17, 1909.)
24.  The Tariff...                              209
(Winona, Minn., September 17, 1909.)
25.  Amendment of Interstate Commerce Law               231
(Des Moines, Iowa, September 20, 1909.)
26.  Corporation and Income Taxes...   245
(Auditorium, Denver, Col., September 21, 1909.)
27. A Soft Answer Turneth Away Wrath, but Grievous Words Stir Up Anger....   258
(Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, September 26,1909.)
28.  Young Men's Christian Association                  268
(Salt Lake City, September 26, 1909.)
29.  Conservation of National Resources.         270
(Spokane, Washington, September 28, 1909.)
30.  Alaska.......   281
(Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Seattle, Washington,
September 29, 1909.)




viii                      CONTENTS
PAGE
31.  Alaska, Merchant Marine and Subsidy..   290
(The Armory, Tacoma, Washington, October 1, 1909.)
32.  The Tariff, Income and Corporation Taxes.   302
(The Armory, Portland, Ore., October 2, 1909.)
33.  St. Mary's Academy....   320
(Portland, Ore., October 3, 1909.)
34.   Laying of Cornerstone of the Universalist Church     322
(Irvington, Portland, Ore., October 3, 1909.)
35.   Subsidy, Merchant Marine and Conservation of
National Resources.....   325
(Hotel Fairmont, San Francisco, Cal., October 5, 1909.)
36. He Who Conquers Himself is Greater than He
Who Taketh a City....   335
(Union Religious Service, City Hall Park, Fresno, Cal.,
October 10, 1909.)
37.  Panama Canal and Merchant Marine.      341
(Banquet of Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles, Cal.,
October 11, 1909.)
38.   Missions......   349
(Glenwood Mission Inn, Riverside, Cal., October 12, 1909.)
39.  Statehood......   353
(City Hall, Phoenix, Arizona, October 13, 1909.)
40.   Statehood.....    356
(Prescott, Arizona, October 13, 1909.)




CONTENTS                          ix
PAGE
41. Interview of President Taft with President Diaz
of Mexico.....            360
(Chamber of Commerce Building, El Paso,Texas, and
Federal Custom House, Juarez, Mexico, Oct. 16, 1909.)
42. Toast of President Diaz and Response of President Taft.......  364
(Banquet at Custom House, Juarez, Mexico, Oct. 16,1909.)
43. Dedication o? Gift Chapel to U. S. Army           366
(Fort Sam Houston, Texas, October 17, 1909.)
44. Conservation of National Resources and Waterways.......   371
(Corpus Christi, Texas, October 22, 1909.)
45. Conservation of National Resources and Irrigation.......   379
(Banquet by Citizens of Dallas, Texas, October 23, 1909.)
46. Conservation and Waterways                        385
(Coliseum, St. Louis, October 25, 1909.)
47. Waterways Convention.....   390
(Athenaeum, New Orleans, La., October 30, 1909.)
48. Woman's Education.....   396
(State Institute and College, Columbus, Miss., November
2, 1909.)
49. The Development of the South...   399
(Banquet of Chamber of Commerce, Birmingham, Ala.,
November 2, 1909.)
50. Wisdom and Necessity of Following the Law.   403
(State Fair Grounds, Macon, Ga., November 4, 1909.)




X


CONTENTS


PAGE
51. Trip of the President and Hospitality of the
South.....         409
(Banquet tendered by the Citizens of Charleston, S. C.,
November 5, 1909.)
52.  South Carolina and Her Traditions..   415
(Luncheon tendered by South Carolinians in the House of
Representatives of the State Capitol, Columbia, S. C.,
November 6, 1909.)
53.  Sanitation and Health of the South..   418
(Georgia-Carolina Fair, Augusta, Ga., November 8, 1909.)
54. A Review of Legislation to be Enacted by Congress......   44
(Auditorium, Richmond, Va., November 10, 1909.)
55.  Laymen's Missionary Movement...   432
(Continental Memorial Hall, Washington, D. C., November 11, 1909.)
56.   Golden   Jubilee   Dedication   of St. Aloysius
Church.......   439
(Washington, D. C., November 14, 1909.)
57.  Waterways......   440
(Norfolk, Va., on the occasion of the Convention of the
Atlantic Deeper Waterways Association, November
19, 1909.)
58.  Industrial Education of the Negro...   444
(Hampton Institute, Hampton, Va., November 20,1909.)
7 59.    Message to Congress at Opening         of Second
Session of the Sixty-first Congress..   447
(December 7, 1909.)




CONTENTS


xi


PAGE
60. Sixth Annual Convention of the National Rivers
and Harbors Congress....        490
(New Willard, Hotel, Washington, December 8, 1909.)
61. Ohio Valley Improvement Association..   498
(White House, Washington, December 9, 1909.)
62. Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterways Association         501
(White House, Washington, December 9, 1909.)
63. Diamond Jubilee of Methodist Episcopal Missions in Africa.....         503
(Carnegie Hall, New York, December 13, 1909.)
64. New Bowery Mission.....   510
(New York City, December 13, 1909.)
65. Message to Congress on Interstate Commerce
and Anti-Trust Law and Federal Incorporation      513
(January 7, 1910.)
66.  Message to Congress on Conservation of National
Resources.                                       537
(January 14, 1910.)
67. Uniformity of State Legislation...   549
(National Civic Federation, at Belasco Theatre, Washington, January 17, 1910.)
68.  Uniformity of State Legislation...   555
(Conference of Governors at White House, Washington,
January 18, 1910.)
69. The Philippine Islands.....   559
(Banquet of the Washington Corral of the Military Order
of the Carabao, New Willard Hotel, Washington, January 22, 1910.)


A




xii                    CONTENTS
PAGE
70. The Republican Party's Promises...   568
(Lincoln Birthday Banquet of the Republican Club of
the City of New York, February 12, 1910.)
71.  Government Expenses and Economies..   587
(Banquet of Board of Trade, Newark. N. J., February
23, 1910.)
Index....    599




Presidential Addresses and State Papers




I




Presidential Addresses
and State Papers
I
SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE
(DELIVERED AT CINCINNATI, OHIO,
ON TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1908)
Senator Warner and Gentlemen of the Committee:
AM deeply sensible of the honor which the Republican National Convention has conferred on me in
the nomination which you formally tender. I accept it
with full appreciation of the responsibility it imposes.
REPUBLICAN STRENGTH IN MAINTENANCE OF ROOSEVELT
POLICIES
Gentlemen, the strength of the Republican cause in the
campaign at hand is in the fact that we represent the policies essential to the reform of known abuses, to the continuance of liberty and true prosperity, and that we are
determined, as our platform unequivocally declares, to
maintain them and carry them on. For more than ten
years this country passed through an epoch of material
development far beyond any that ever occurred in the
world before. In its course, certain evils crept in. Some
prominent and influential members of the community,
spurred by financial success and in their hurry for greater
wealth, became unmindful of the common rules of business
3




4


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


honesty and fidelity and of the limitations imposed by law
upon their action. This became known. The revelations
of the breaches of trust, the disclosures as to rebates and discriminations by railways, the accumulating evidence of the
violation of the anti-trust law by a number of corporations,
the overissue of stocks and bonds on interstate railways for
the unlawful enriching of directors and for the purpose of
concentrating control of railways in one management, all
quickened the conscience of the people, and brought on a
moral awakening among them that boded well for the future
of the country.
The man who formulated the expression of the popular
conscience and who led the movement for practical reform
was Theodore Roosevelt. He laid down the doctrine that
the rich violator of the law should be as amenable to
restraint and punishment as the offender without wealth
and without influence, and he proceeded by recommending
legislation and directing executive action to make that principle good in actual performance. He secured the passage
of the so-called rate bill, designed more effectively to
restrain excessive and fix reasonable rates, and to punish
secret rebates and discriminations which had been general
in the practice of the railroads, and which had done much
to enable unlawful trusts to drive out of the business their
competitors. It secured much closer supervision of railway transactions and brought within the operation of the
same statute express companies, sleeping car companies,
fast freight and refrigerator lines, terminal railroads and
pipe lines, and in order to avoid undue discrimination, forbade in future the combination of the transportation and
shipping business under one control.
President Roosevelt directed suits to be brought and
prosecutions to be instituted under the anti-trust law,
to enforce its provisions against the most powerful of the
industrial corporations.  He pressed to passage the pure
food law and the meat inspection law in the interest of the
health of the public, clean business methods and great ulti



AND STATE PAPERS


5


mate benefit to the trades themselves. He recommended
the passage of a law, which the Republican Convention has
since specifically approved, restricting the future issue of
stocks and bonds by interstate railways to such as may be
authorized by Federal authority. He demonstrated to the
people by what he said, by what he recommended to Congress, and by what he did, the sincerity of his efforts to command respect for the law, to secure equality of all before the
law, and to save the country from dangers of a plutocratic
government, toward which we were fast tending. In this
work Mr. Roosevelt has had the support and sympathy
of the Republican party, and its chief hope of success in
the present controversy must rest on the confidence which
the people of the country have in the sincerity of the party's
declaration in its platform, that it intends to continue his
policies.
NECESSARY TO DEVISE SOME     MEANS OF PERMANENTLY
SECURING PROGRESS MADE
Mr. Roosevelt has set high the standard of business
morality and obedience to law. The railroad rate bill was
more useful possibly in the immediate moral effect of its
passage than even in the legal effect of its very useful provisions. From its enactment dates the voluntary abandonment of the practice of rebates and discriminations by the
railroads and the return by their managers to obedience
to law in the fixing of tariffs. The pure food and meat
inspection laws and the prosecutions directed by the President under the anti-trust law have had a similar moral effect
in the general business community and have made it now
the common practice for the great industrial corporations
to consult the law with a view to keeping within its provisions. It has also had the effect of protecting and encouraging smaller competitive companies so that they have been
enabled to do a profitable business.
But we should be blind to the ordinary working of human
nature if we did not recognize that the moral standards




6          PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
set by President Roosevelt will not continue to be observed
by those whom cupidity and a desire for financial power
may tempt, unless the requisite machinery is introduced
into the law which shall in its practical operation maintain
these standards and secure the country against a departure
from them.
CHIEF FUNCTION OF NEXT ADMINISTRATION TO CLINCH WHAT
HAS BEEN DONE
The chief function of the next Administration, in my
judgment, is distinct from, and a progressive development
of, that which has been performed by President Roosevelt.
The chief function of the next Administration is to
complete and perfect the machinery by which these
standards may be maintained, by which the lawbreakers may be promptly restrained and punished, but
which shall operate with sufficient accuracy and dispatch to interfere with legitimate business as little as
possible. Such machinery is not now adequate. Under
the present rate bill, and under all its amendments,
the burden of the Interstate Commerce Commission in
supervising and regulating the operation of the railroads of this country has grown so heavy that it is
utterly impossible for that tribunal to hear and dispose
of, in any reasonable time, the many complaints, queries
and issues that are brought before it for decision.  It
ought to be relieved of its jurisdiction as an executive,
directing body, and its functions should be limited to the
quasi-judicial investigation of complaints made by individuals and made by a department of the Government
charged with the executive business of supervising the
operation of railways.
There should be a classification of that very small percentage of industrial corporations having power and opportunity to effect illegal restraints of trade and monopolies,
and legislation either inducing or compelling them  to
subject themselves to registry and to proper publicity




AND STATE PAPERS


7


regulations and supervision of the Department of Commerce
and Labor.
CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF NEXT ADMINISTRATION TO ORGANIZE SUBORDINATE AND ANCILLARY MACHINERY TO
MAINTAIN STANDARDS ON ONE HAND, AND NOT TO
INTERFERE WITH BUSINESS ON THE OTHER
The field covered by the industrial combinations and by
the railroads is so very extensive that the interests of the
public and the interests of the businesses concerned
cannot be properly subserved except by reorganization
of bureaus in the Department of Commerce and Labor,
Agriculture, and Justice, and a change in the jurisdiction
of the Interstate Commerce Commission. It does not
assist matters to prescribe new duties for the Interstate
Commerce Commission which it is practically impossible for it to perform, or to denounce new offenses with
drastic punishment, unless subordinate and ancillary legislation shall be passed making possible the quick enforcement
in the great variety of cases which are constantly arising,
of the principles laid down by Mr. Roosevelt, and with
respect to which only typical instances of prosecution with
the present machinery are possible. Such legislation
should and would greatly promote legitimate business by
enabling those anxious to obey the Federal statutes to know
just what are the bounds of their lawful action. The practical constructive and difficult work, therefore, of those who
follow Mr. Roosevelt is to devise the ways and means by
which the high level of business integrity and obedience
to law which he has established may be maintained and
departures from it restrained without undue interference
with legitimate business.
RAILWAY TRAFFIC AGREEMENTS APPROVED BY COMMISSION
SHOULD BE VALID
It is agreeable to note in this regard that the Republican platform expressly, and the Democratic platform
impliedly, approve an amendment to the Interstate Con



8


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


merce Law, by which interstate railroads may make useful traffic agreements if approved by the Commission. This
has been strongly recommended by President Roosevelt
and will make for the benefit of the business.
PHYSICAL VALUATION OF RAILWAYS
Some of the suggestions of the Democratic platform
relate really to this subordinate and ancillary machinery to
which I have referred. Take for instance the so-called
"physical valuation of railways."  It is clear that the sum
of all rates or receipts of a railway, less proper expenses,
should be limited to a fair profit upon the reasonable value
of its property, and that if the sum exceeds this measure,
it ought to be reduced. The difficulty in enforcing the
principle is in ascertaining what is the reasonable value
of the company's property, and in fixing what is a fair profit.
It is clear that the physical value of a railroad and its
plant is an element to be given weight in determining its full
value; but as President Roosevelt in his Indianapolis speech
and the Supreme Court have in effect pointed out, the
value of a railroad as a going concern, including its good
will, due to efficiency of service and many other circumstances, may be much greater than the value of its tangible
property, and it is the former that measures the investinent on which a fair profit must be allowed. Then, too,
the question, "What is a fair profit," is one involving not only
the rate of interest usually earned on normally safe investments, but also a sufficient allowance to make up for the
risk of loss both of capital and interest in the original outlay.
These considerations will have justified the company in
imposing charges high enough to secure a fair income on
the enterprise as a whole. The securities at market prices
will have passed into the hands of subsequent purchasers
from the original investors. Such circumstances should
properly affect the decision of the tribunal engaged in determining whether the totality of rates charged is reasonable
or excessive. To ignore them might so seriously and unjustly




AND STATE PAPERS


9


impair settled values as to destroy all hope of restoring
confidence and forever to end the inducement for investment in new   railroad construction which, in returning
prosperous times, is sure to be essential to our material
progress. As Mr. Roosevelt has said in speaking of this
very subject:
"The effect of such valuation and supervision of securities can not be retroactive. Existing securities should be
tested by laws in existence at the time of their issue. This
Nation would no more injure securities which have become
an important part of the National wealth than it would
consider a proposition to repudiate the National debt."
The question of rates and the treatment of railways is
one that has two sides. The shippers are certainly entitled
to reasonable rates; but less is an injustice to the carriers.
Good business for the railroads is essential to general prosperity. Injustice to them is not alone injustice to stockholders and capitalists, whose further investments may
be necessary for the good of the whole country, but it directly
affects and reduces the wages of railway employees, and
indeed may deprive them of their places entirely.
From what has been said, the proper conclusion would
seem to be that in attempting to determine whether the
entire schedule of rates of a railway is excessive, the physical valuation of the road is a relevant and important but
not necessarily a controlling factor.
PHYSICAL VALUATION PROPERLY USED WILL NOT GENERALLY
IMPAIR SECURITIES
I am confident that the fixing of rates on the principles
suggested above would not materially impair the present
market values of railroad securities in most cases, for I
believe that the normal increase in the value of railroad
properties, especially in their terminals, will more than
make up for the possible overcapitalization in earlier years.
In some cases, doubtless, it will be found that overcapital



10


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


ization is made an excuse for excessive rates, and then
they should be reduced; but the consensus of opinion seems
to be that the railroad rates generally in this country arc
reasonably low. This is why, doubtless, the complaints
filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission against
excessive rates are so few as compared with those against
unlawful discrimination in rates between shippers and
between places. Of course, in the determination of the
question whether discrimination is unlawful or not, the
physical valuation of the whole road is of little weight.
CONCLUSION THAT THERE SHOULD BE PHYSICAL
VALUATION
I have discussed this with some degree of detail, merely
to point out that the valuation by the Interstate Commerce
Commission of the tangible property of a railroad is proper
and may from time to time be necessary in settling certain
issues which may come before them, and that no evil or
injustice can come from valuation in such cases, if it be understood that the result is to be used for a just purpose, and
the right to a fair profit under all the circumstances of the
investment is recognized. The Interstate Commerce Commission has now. the power to ascertain the value of the
physical railroad property, if necessary, in determining the
reasonableness of rates. If the machinery for doing so
is not adequate, as is probable, it should be made so.
The Republican platform recommends legislation forbidding the issue in the future of interstate railway stocks
and bonds without Federal authority. It may occur in
such cases that the full value of the railway, and, as an
element thereof, the value of the tangible property of the
railway, would be a relevant and important factor in assisting the proper authority to determine whether the stocks
and bonds to be issued were to have proper security behind
them, and in such case, therefore, there should be the
right and machinery to make a valuation of the physical
property.




AND STATE PAPERS


11


NATIONAL CONTROL OF INTERSTATE COMMERCE CORPORATION
Another suggestion in respect to subordinate and ancillary machinery necessary to carry out Republican policies is
that of the incorporation under National law or the licensing
by National license or enforced registry of companies engaged
in interstate trade. The fact is that nearly all corporations
doing a commercial business are engaged in interstate
commerce, and if they all were required to take out a
Federal license or a Federal charter, the burden upon the
interstate business of the country would become intolerable.
SHOULD BE LIMITED TO SMALL PERCENTAGE       BY
CLASSIFICATION
It is necessary, therefore, to devise some means for classifying and insuring Federal supervision of such corporations as have the power and temptation to effect restraints
of interstate trades and monopolies. Such corporations
constitute a very small percentage of all engaged in interstate business.
MR. ROOSEVELT'S PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION
With such classification in view, Mr. Roosevelt recommended an amendment to the anti-trust law, known as the
Hepburn Bill, which provided for voluntary classification,
and created a strong motive therefor by granting immunity
from prosecution for reasonable restraints of interstate
trade to all corporations which would register and submit
themselves to the publicity regulations of the Department
of Commerce and Labor.
THE DEMOCRATIC PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION
The Democratic platform suggests a requirement that
corporations in interstate trade having control of 95 per
cent. of the products in which they deal shall take out a
Federal license. This classification would probably include
a great many small corporations engaged in the manu



12


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


facture of special articles, or commodities whose total value
is so inconsiderable that they are not really within the purview or real evil of the anti-trust law.
It is not now necessary, however, to discuss the relative
merit of such propositions, but it is enough merely to affirm
the necessity for some method by which greater executive
supervision can be given to the Federal Government over
those businesses in which there is a temptation to violations of the anti-trust law.
CONSTRUCTION OF ANTI-TRUST LAW - POSSIBLE NECESSITY
FOR AMENDMENT
The possible operation of the anti-trust law under existing rulings of the Supreme Court has given rise to suggestions for its necessary amendment to prevent its application
to cases which it is believed were never in the contemplation of the framers of the statute. Take two instances:
A merchant or manufacturer engaged in a legitimate business that covers certain states, wishes to sell his business
and his good will, and so in the terms of the sale obligates
himself to the purchaser not to go into the same business
in those states. Such a restraint of trade has always been
enforced at common law. Again, the employees of an
interstate railway combine and enter upon a peaceable
and lawful strike to secure better wages. At common law
this was not a restraint of trade or commerce or a violation
of the rights of the company or of the public. Neither
case ought to be made a violation of the anti-trust law.
My own impression is that the Supreme Court would hold
that neither of these instances is within its inhibition, but,
if they are to be so regarded, general legislation amending
the law is necessary.
DEMOCRATIC PLANK TO LIMIT CORPORATIONS TO OWNERSHIP of 50 PER CENT. OF PLANT AND PRODUCT FAULTY
The suggestion of the Democratic platform that trusts
be ended by forbidding corporations to hold more than




AND STATE PAPERS


13


50 per cent. of the plant in any line of manufacture is made
without regard to the possibility of enforcement or the
real evil in trusts. A corporation controlling 45 or 50 per
cent. of the products may by well-known methods frequently
effect monopoly and stamp out competition in a part of
the country as completely as if it controlled 60 or 70 per cent.
thereof.
COMPULSORY   SALE  OF   PRODUCTS  AT   FIXED  PRICE
IMPRACTICAL
The proposal to compel every corporation to sell its commodities at the same price the country over, allowing for
transportation, is utterly impracticable. If it can be shown
that in order to drive out competition, a corporation owning a large part of the plant producing an article is selling
in one part of the country, where it has competitors, at a
low and unprofitable price, and in another part of the
country, where it has none, at an exorbitant price, this is
evidence that it is attempting an unlawful monopoly, and
justifies conviction under the anti-trust law; but the proposal to supervise the business of corporations in such a
way as to fix the price of commodities and compel the sale
at such price is as absurd and socialistic a plank as was
ever inserted in a Democratic political platform.
DIFFERENCE   BETWEEN   REPUBLICAN  AND   DEMOCRATIC
POLICIES AND PLATFORMS: FORMER PROGRESSIVE AND
REGULATIVE; LATTER RADICAL AND DESTRUCTIVE
The chief difference between the Republican and the
Democratic platforms is the difference which has heretofore been seen between the policies of Mr. Roosevelt and
those which have been advocated by the Democratic candidate, Mr. Bryan. Mr. Roosevelt's policies have been progressive and regulative; Mr. Bryan's destructive. Mr.
Roosevelt has favored regulation of the business in which
evils have grown up so as to stamp out the evils and permit the business to continue. The tendency of Mr. Bryan's




14         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
proposals has generally been destructive of the business
with respect to which he is demanding reform. Mr. Roosevelt would compel the trusts to conduct their business in
a lawful manner and secure the benefits of their operation
and the maintenance of the prosperity of the country of
which they are an important part; while Mr. Bryan would
extirpate and destroy the entire business in order to stamp
out the e:ls which they have practised.
ADVANTAGE OF COMBINATION OF CAPITAL
The combination of capital in large plants to manufacture goods with the greatest economy is just as necessary
as the assembling of the parts of a machine to the economical and more rapid manufacture of what in old times was
made by hand. The Government should not interfere with
one any more than the other, when such aggregations of
capital are legitimate and are properly controlled, for they
are then the natural results of modern enterprise and are
beneficial to the public. In the proper operation of competition the public will soon share with the manufacturer the
advantage in economy of operation and lower prices.
WHAT IS AN UNLAWFUL TRUST?
When, however, such combinations are not based on any
economic principle, but are made merely for the purpose of
controlling the market, to maintain or raise prices, restrict
output and drive out competitors, the public derives no
benefit and we have a monopoly. There must be some
use by the company of the comparatively great size of its
capital and plant and extent of its output, either to coerce
persons to buy of it rather than of some competitor or to
coerce those who would compete with it to give up their
business. There must usually, in other words, be shown an
element of duress in the conduct of its business toward
the customers in the trade and its competitors before mere
aggregation of capital or plant becomes an unlawful
monopoly. It is perfectly conceivable that in the interest of




AND STATE PAPERS


15


economy of production a great number of plants may be
legitimately assembled under the ownership of one corporation. It is important, therefore, that such large aggregations of capital and combinations should be controlled so
that the public may have the advantage of reasonable prices
and that the avenues of enterprise may be kept open to
the individual and the smaller corporation wishing to engage
in business.
MERE AGGREGATION OF CAPITAL NOT A VIOLATION OF
ANTI-TRUST LAW
In a country like this, where, in good times, there is an
enormous floating capital awaiting investment, the period
before which effective competition, by construction of new
plants, can be introduced into any business, is comparatively short, rarely exceeding a year, and is usually even
less than that. Existence of actual plant is not, therefore,
necessary to potential competition. Many enterprises have
been organized on the theory that mere aggregation of all,
or nearly all, existing plants in a line of manufacture, without regard to economy of production, destroys competition.
They have, most of them, gone into bankruptcy. Competition in a profitable business will not be affected by the
mere aggregation of many existing plants under one company,
unless the company thereby effects great economy, the benefit of which it shares with the public, or takes some illegal
method to avoid competition and to perpetuate a hold on
the business.
PROPER TREATMENT OF TRUSTS
Unlawful trusts should be restrained with all the efficiency
of injunctive process, and the persons engaged in maintaining them should be punished with all the severity of
criminal prosecution, in order that the methods pursued
in the operation of their business shall be brought within
the law. To destroy them and to eliminate the wealth they
represent from the producing capital of the country would




16


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


entail enormous loss, and would throw out of employment
myriads of workingmen and workingwomen. Such a
result is wholly unnecessary to the accomplishment of the
needed reform, and will inflict upon the innocent far greater
punishment than upon the guilty.
DESTRUCTIVE POLICY OF DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM
The Democratic platform does not propose to destroy
the plants of the trusts physically, but it proposes to do
the same thing in a different way. The business of this
country is largely dependent on a protective system of
tariffs. The business done by many of the so-called " trusts "
is protected with the other business of the country. The
Democratic platform proposes to take off the tariff on all
articles coming into competition with those produced by
the so-called "trusts," and to put them on the free list. If
such a course would be utterly destructive of their business,
as is intended, it would not only destroy the trusts, but all
of their smaller competitors. The ruthless and impracticable character of the proposition grows plainer as its
effects upon the whole community are realized.
EFFECT OF DEMOCRATIC PLANS ON BUSINESS
To take the course suggested by the Democratic platform
in these matters is to involve the entire community, innocent as it is, in the punishment of the guilty, while our policy
is to stamp out the specific evil. This difference between
the policies of the two great parties is of especial importance in view of the present condition of business. After
ten years of the most remarkable material development
and prosperity, there came a financial stringency, a panic
and an industrial depression. This was brought about
not only by the enormous expansion of business plants and
business investments which could not be readily converted,
but also by the waste of capital, in extravagance of living,
in wars and other catastrophes. The free convertible
capital was exhausted. In addition to this, the confidence




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17


of the lending public in Europe and in this country had been
affected by the revelations of irregularity, breaches of trust,
overissues of stock, violations of law, and lack of rigid State
or National supervision in the management of our largest
corporations. Investors withheld what loanable capital
remained available. It became impossible for the soundest
railroads and other enterprises to borrow money enough
for new construction or reconstruction.
WILL DELAY RESTORATION OF PROSPERITY
Gradually business is acquiring a healthier tone. Gradually all wealth which was hoarded is coming out to be
used. Confidence in security of business investments is
a plant of slow growth and is absolutely necessary in order
that our factories may all open again, in order that our
unemployed may become employed, and in order that we
may again have the prosperity which blessed us for ten years.
The identity of the interests of the capitalist, the farmer,
the business man and the wage-earner in the security and
profit of investments cannot be too greatly emphasized.
I submit to those most interested, to wage-earners, to farmers,
and to business men, whether the introduction into power
of the Democratic party, with Mr. Bryan at its head, and
with the business destruction that it openly advocates as
a remedy for present evils, will bring about the needed
confidence for the restoration of prosperity.
REPUBLICAN DOCTRINE OF PROTECTION
The Republican doctrine of protection, as definitely
announced by the Republican Convention of this year and
by previous conventions, is that a tariff shall be imposed on
all imported products, whether of the factory, farm or mine,
sufficiently great to equal the difference between the cost
of production abroad and at home, and that this difference
should, of course, include the difference between the higher
wages paid in this country and the wages paid abroad, and
embrace a reasonable profit to the American producer.




18


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


A system of protection thus adopted and put in force has
led to the establishment of a rate of wages here that has
greatly enhanced the standard of living of the laboring
man. It is the policy of the Republican party permanently
to continue that standard of living. In 1897 the Dingley
Tariff Bill was passed, under which we have had, as already
said, a period of enormous prosperity.
NECESSITY FOR REVISION OF TARIFF
The consequent material development has greatly changed
the conditions under which many articles described by the
schedules of the tariff are now produced. The tariff in a
number of schedules exceeds the difference between the cost
of production of such articles abroad and at home, including
a reasonable profit to the American producer. The excess
over that difference serves no useful purpose, but offers a
temptation to those who would monopolize the production
and the sale of such articles in this country, to profit by the
excessive rate. On the other hand, there are some few other
schedules in which the tariff is not sufficiently high to give
the measure of protection which they should receive upon
Republican principles, and as to those the tariff should be
raised. A revision of the tariff undertaken upon this principle, which is at the basis of our present business system,
begun promptly upon the incoming of the new administration, and considered at a special session with the preliminary investigations already begun by the appropriate
committees of the House and Senate, will make the disturbance of business incident to such a change as little as
possible.
DEMOCRATIC TARIFF PLAN AND ITS BAD EFFECT ON BUSINESS
The Democratic party in its platform has not had the courage of its previous convictions on the subject of the tariff,
denounced by it in 1904 as a system of the robbery of the
many for the benefit of the few, but it does declare its intention to change the tariff with a view to reaching a revenue




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19


basis and thus to depart from the protective system. The
introduction into power of a party with this avowed purpose
can not but halt the gradual recovery from our recent financial depression and produce business disaster compared
with which our recent panic and depression will seem
small indeed.
THE FARMER AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
As the Republican platform  says, the welfare of the
farmer is vital to that of the whole country. One of the
strongest hopes of returning prosperity is based on the
business which his crops are to afford. He is vitally interested in the restraining of excessive and unduly discriminating railroad rates, in the enforcement of the pure food
laws, in the promotion of scientific agriculture, and in increas4
ing the comforts of country life, as by the extension of free
rural delivery.  The policies of the present Administration, which have most industriously promoted all these
objects, can not fail to commend themselves to his approval;
and it is difficult to see how with his intelligent appreciation
of the threat to business prosperity involved in Democratic
success at the polls he can do otherwise than give his full
and hearty support to the continuation of the policies of
the present Administration under Republican auspices.
LABOR AND WHAT THE REPUBLICAN       PARTY HAS DONE
FOR IT
We come now to the question of labor. One important
phase of the policies of the present Administration has been
an anxiety to secure for the wage-earner an equality of
opportunity and such positive statutory protection as shall
place him on a level in dealing with his employer. The
Republican party has passed an employers' liability act
for interstate railroads, and has established an eight-hour
law for government employees and on government construction. The essence of the reform effected by the former
is thle abolition of the fellow-servant rule, and the intro



20         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
duction of the comparative negligence theory by which an
employee injured in the service of his employer does not
lose all his right to recover because of slight negligence on
his part. Then there is the act providing for compensation
for injury to government employees, together with the various
statutes requiring safety appliances upon interstate commerce
railroads for the protection of their employees, and limiting
the hours of their employment. These are all instances
of the desire of the Republican party to do justice to the
wage-earner. Doubtless a more comprehensive measure
for compensation of government employees will be adopted
in the future; the principle in such cases has been recognized, and in the necessarily somewhat slow course of legislation will be more fully embodied in definite statutes.
INTERESTS OF EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE ONLY DIFFER IN
RESPECT TO TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT
The interests of the employer and the employee never
differ except when it comes to a division of the joint profit
of labor and capital into dividends and wages. This
must be a constant source of periodical discussion between
the employer and the employee, as indeed are the other
terms of the employment.
ADVANTAGE OF UNION
To give to employees their proper position in such a controversy, to enable them to maintain themselves against
employers having great capital, they may well unite,
because in union there is strength and without it each individual laborer and employee would be helpless. The
promotion of industrial peace through the instrumentality
of the trade agreement is often one of the results of such
union when intelligently conducted.
OTHER LABOR
There is a large body of laborers, however, skilled and
unskilled, who are not organized into unions. Their rights




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before the law are exactly the same as those of the union
men, and are to be protected with the same care and watchfulness.
RIGHTS OF LABOR
In order to induce their employer into a compliance with
their request for changed terms of employment, workmen
have a right to strike in a body.  They have a right to
use such persuasion as they may, provided it does not reach
the point of duress, to lead their reluctant co-laborers to
join them in their union against their employer, and they
have a right, if they choose, to accumulate funds to support
those engaged in a strike, to delegate to officers the power
to direct the action of the union, and to withdraw themselves
and their associates from dealings with, or giving custom
to, those with whom they are in controversy.
WHAT LABOR CAN NOT LAWFULLY DO
What they have not the right to do is to injure their
employer's property, to injure their employer's business by
use of threats or methods of physical duress against those
who would work for him, or deal with him, or by carrying
on what is sometimes known as a secondary boycott against
his customers or those with whom he deals in business.
All those who sympathize with them may unite to aid them
in their struggle, but they may not through the instrumentality of a threatened or actual boycott compel third persons
against their will and having no interest in their controversy
to come to their assistance. These principles have for a
great many years been settled by the courts of this country.
Threatened unlawful injuries to business, like those
described above, can only be adequately remedied by an
injunction to prevent them. The jurisdiction of a court of
equity to enjoin in such cases arises from the character of
the injury and the method of inflicting it and the fact that
suit for damages offers no adequate remedy. The unlawful injury is not usually done by one single act, which might




22       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
be adequately compensated for in damages by a suit at
law, but it is the result of a constantly recurring series of
acts, each of which in itself might not constitute a substantial injury or make a suit at law worth while, and all of
which would require a multiplicity of suits at law. Injuries
of this class have since the foundation of courts of equity
been prevented by injunction.
It has been claimed that injunctions do not issue to protect anything but property rights, and that business is not
a property right; but such a proposition is wholly inconsistent with all the decisions of the courts. The Supreme
Court of the United States says that the injunction is a
remedy to protect property or rights of a pecuniary nature,
and we may well submit to the considerate judgment of all
laymen whether the right of a man in his business is not as
distinctly a right of a pecuniary nature as the right to his
horse or his house or the stock of goods on his shelf; and
the instances in which injunctions to protect business have
been upheld by all courts are so many that it is futile further
to discuss the proposition.
It is difficult to tell the meaning of the Democratic platform upon this subject. It says:
"Questions of judicial practice have arisen especially in
connection with industrial disputes. We deem that the parties to all judicial proceedings should be treated with rigid
impartiality, and that injunctions should not be issued in
any cases in which injunctions would not issue if no industrial dispute were involved."
This declaration is disingenuous. It seems to have been
loosely drawn with the especial purpose of rendering it
susceptible to one interpretation by one set of men and
to a diametrically opposite interpretation by another. It
does not aver that injunctions should not issue in industrial
disputes, but only that they should not issue merely because
they are industrial disputes, and yet those responsible for
the declaration must have known that no one has ever




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23


maintained that the fact that a dispute was industrial gave
any basis for issuing an injunction in reference thereto.
The declaration seems to be drawn in its present vague
and ambiguous shape in order to persuade some people
that it is a declaration against the issuing of injunctions
in any industrial dispute, while at the same time it may
be possible to explain to the average plain citizen who
objects to class distinction that no such intention exists
at all. Our position is clear and unequivocal. We are
anxious to prevent even an appearance of any injustice
to labor in the issuance of injunctions, not in a spirit of
favoritism to one set of our fellow citizens, but of justice
to all of our fellow citizens. The reason for exercising or
refusing to exercise the power of injunction must be found
in the character of the unlawful injury and not in the character or class of the persons who inflict this injury.
The man who has a business which is being unlawfully
injured is entitled to the remedies which the law has always
given him, no matter who has inflicted the injuries. Otherwise, we shall have class legislation unjust in principle and
likely to sap the foundations of a free government.
NOTICE AND HEARING BEFORE ISSUE OF INJUNCTION
I come now to the question of notice before issuing an
injunction. It is a fundamental rule of general jurisprudence that no man shall be affected by a judicial proceeding
without notice and hearing. This rule, however, has sometimes had an exception in the issuing of temporary restraining
orders commanding a defendant in effect to maintain the
status quo until a hearing. Such a process should issue
only in rare cases where the threatened change of the status
quo would inflict irreparable injury if time were taken
to give notice and a summary hearing. The unlawful
injury usual in industrial disputes, such as I have described,
does not become formidable except after sufficient, time in
which to give the defendants notice and a hearing. I do
not mean to say that there may not be cases even in indus



24


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


trial disputes where a restraining order might properly be
issued without notice, but, generally, I think it is otherwise.
In some State courts, and in fewer Federal courts, the practice of issuing a temporary restraining order without notice,
merely to preserve the status quo on the theory that it will
not hurt anybody, has been too common. Many of us recall
that the practice has been pursued in other than industrial
disputes, as, for instance, in corporate and stock controversies
like those over the Erie Railroad, in which a stay order
without notice was regarded as a step of great advantage
to the one who secured it, and a corresponding disadvantage to the one against whom it was secured. Indeed,
the chances of doing injustice on an ex parte application
are much increased over those when a hearing is granted,
and there may be circumstances under which it may affect
the defendant to his detriment. In the case of a lawful strike,
the sending of a formidable document restraining a number
of defendants from doing a great many different things
which the plaintiff avers they are threatening to do, often
so discourages men always reluctant to go into a strike from
continuing what is their lawful right. This has made the
laboring man feel that an injustice is done in the issuing
of a writ without notice. I conceive that in the treatment
of this question it is the duty of the citizen and the legislator to view the subject from the standpoint of the man
who believes himself to be unjustly treated, as well as from
that of the community at large. I have suggested the remedy
of returning in such cases to the original practice under the
old statute of the United States and the rules in equity
adopted by the Supreme Court, which did not permit the
issuing of an injunction without notice. In this respect,
the Republican Convention has adopted another remedy,
that, without going so far, promises to be efficacious in
securing proper consideration in such cases by courts, by
formulating into a legislative act the best present practice.
Under this recommendation, a statute may be framed
which shall define with considerable particularity, and




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emphasize the exceptional character of the cases in which
restraining orders may issue without notice, and which shall
also provide that when they are issued, they shall cease to
be operative beyond a short period, during which time
notice shall be served and a hearing had unless the defendant
desires a postponement of the hearing. By this provision
the injustice which has sometimes occurred by which a
preliminary restraining order of widest application has
been issued without notice, and the hearing of the motion
for the injunction has been fixed weeks and months after
its date, could not recur.
SMALL NUMBER OF CASES FURNISH GROUNDS FOR COMPLAINT
The number of instances in which restraining orders
without notice in industrial disputes have issued by Federal
courts is small, and it is urged that they do not therefore
constitute an evil to be remedied by statutory amendment.
The small number of cases complained of above shows
the careful manner in which most Federal judges have
exercised the jurisdiction, but the belief that such cases are
numerous has been so widespread and has aroused such
feeling of injustice that more definite specification in procedure to prevent recurrence of them is justified if it can
be effected without injury to the administration of the law.
NO PROVISION IN DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM AS TO NOTICE
With respect to notice, the Democratic platform contains
no recommendation. Its only intelligible declaration in
regard to injunction suits is a reiteration of the plank in the
platforms of 1896 and 1904 providing that in prosecutions
for contempt in Federal courts, where the violation of the
order constituting the contempt charged is indirect, i.e.,
outside of the presence of the court, there shall be a jury trial.
DANGEROUS ATTACK ON POWER OF COURTS
This provision in the platform of 1896 was regarded then
as a most dangerous attack upon the power of the courts




26         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
to enforce their orders and decrees, and it was one of the
chief reasons for the defeat of the Democratic party in that
contest, as it ought to have been. The extended operation
of such provision to weaken the power of the courts in the
enforcement of its lawful orders can hardly be overstated.
EFFECT OF JURY TRIAL
Under such a provision a recalcitrant witness who refuses
to obey a subpoena may insist on a jury trial before the court
can determine that he received the subpoena. A citizen
summoned as a juror and refusing to obey the writ when
brought into court must be tried by another jury to determine whether he got the summons. Such a provision
applies not alone to injunctions, but to every order which
the court issues against persons. A suit may be tried in
the court of first instance and carried to the Court of Appeals,
and thence to the Supreme Court, and a judgment and decree
entered and an order issued, and then if the decree involves
the defendant's doing anything or not doing anything, and
he disobeys it, the plaintiff who has pursued his remedies
in lawful course for years must, to secure his rights, undergo
the uncertainties and the delays of a jury trial before he can
enjoy that which is his right by the decision of the highest
court of the land. I say without hesitation that such a change
will greatly impair the indispensable power and authority
of the courts. In securing to the public the benefits of the
new statutes enacted in the present Administration, the ultimate instrumentality to be resorted to is the courts of the
United States. If now their authority is to be weakened
in a manner never known in the history of the jurisprudence
of England or America, except in the constitution of Oklahoma, how can we expect that such statutes will have efficient
enforcement? Those who advocate this intervention of
a jury in such cases seem to suppose that this change in some
way will inure only to the benefit of the poor workingman.
As a matter of fact, the person who will secure chief advantage from it is the wealthy and unscrupulous defendant,




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able to employ astute and cunning counsel and anxious to
avoid justice.
I have been willing, in order to avoid a popular but
unfounded impression that a judge, in punishing for contempt of his own order, may be affected by personal feeling,
to approve a law which should enable the contemnor upon
his application to have another judge sit to hear the charge
of contempt, but this, with so many judges as there are
available in the Federal court, would not constitute a delay
in the enforcement of the process. The character and efficiency of the trial would be the same. It is the nature and
the delay of a jury trial in such cases that those who would
wish to defy the order of the court would rely upon as a
reason for doing so.
MAINTENANCE OF FULL POWER OF COURTS NECESSARY TO
AVOID ANARCHY
The administration of justice lies at the foundation of
government. The maintenance of authority of the courts
is essential unless we are prepared to embrace anarchy.
Never in the history of the country has there been
such an insidious attack upon the judicial system as the
proposal to interject a jury trial between all orders of
the court made after full hearing and the enforcement of
such orders.
THE CURRENCY SYSTEM
The late panic disclosed a lack of elasticity in our financial system. This has been provisionally met by an act
of the present Congress permitting the issue of additional
emergency bank notes, and insuring their withdrawal when
the emergency has passed, by a high rate of taxation. It
is drawn in conformity with the present system of banknote currency but varies from it in certain respects by
authorizing the use of commercial paper and bonds of good
credit, as well as United States bonds, as security for its
redemption. It is expressly but a temporary measure and




28   ~  PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
contains a provision for the appointment of a currency
commission to devise and recommend a new and reformed
system of currency. This inadequacy of our present currency system, due to changed conditions and enormous
expansion, is generally recognized. The Republican platform well states that we must have a "more elastic and
adaptable system to meet the requirements of agriculturists,
manufacturers, merchants and business men generally,
w-i; i: must be automatic in operation, recognizing the fluctuation- in interest rates," in which every dollar shall be
as good a: gold, and which shall prevent rather than aid
financial striinency in bringing on a panic.
POSTAL SAVINGS BANK AND ITS ADVANTAGES
In addition to this, the Republican platform recommends
the adoption of a postal- savings - bank system in which,
of course, the Government would become responsible
to the depositors for the payment of principal and interest.  It is thought that the government guaranty will
bring out of hoarding - places much money which may
be turned into wealth-producing capital, and that it
will be a great incentive for thrift in the many small
places in the country having now no savings-bank facilities, which are reached by the Post Office Department.
It will bring to every one, however remote from financial centers, a place of perfect safety for deposits, with
interest return. The bill now pending in Congress, which
of course the Republican Convention had in mind, provides for the investment of the money deposited in National banks in the very places in which it is gathered,
or as near thereto as may be practicable.  This is an
answer to the criticism contained in the Democratic platform that under the system the money gathered in the
country will be deposited in Wall Street banks. The system
of postal savings banks has been tried in so many countries
successfully that it cannot be regarded longer as a new and
untried experiment.




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OB.JECTIONS TO DEMOCRATIC PROPOSAL TO ENFORCE INSURANCE OF BANK DEPOSITS
The Democratic platform recommends a tax upon
National banks and upon such State banks as may come in,
in the nature of enforced insurance, to raise a guaranty
fund to pay the depositors of any bank which fails. How
State banks can be included in such a scheme under the
Constitution is left in the twilight zone of State's rights and
Federalism so frequently dimming the meaning and purpose of the promises of the platform. If they come in under
such a system, they must necessarily be brought within the
closest National control, and so they must really cease to
be State banks and become National banks.
The proposition is to tax the honest and prudent banker
to make up for the dishonesty and imprudence of others.
No one can foresee the burden which under this system
would be imposed upon the sound and conservative bankers
of the country by this obligation to make good the losses
caused by the reckless, speculative and dishonest men who
would be enabled to secure deposits under such a system
on the faith of the proposed insurance; as in its present
shape the proposal would remove all safeguards against
recklessness in banking, and the chief, and in the end probably the only benefit, would accrue to the speculator, who
would be delighted to enter the banking business when it
was certain that he could enjoy any profit that would accrue,
while the risk would have to be assumed by his honest and
hard-working fellow. In short, the proposal is wholly
impracticable unless it is to be accompanied by a complete
revolution in our banking system, with a supervision so
close as practically to create a government bank. If the
proposal were adopted exactly as the Democratic platform
suggests, it would bring the whole banking system of the
country down in ruin, and this proposal is itself an excellent
illustration of the fitness for National control of a party
which will commit itself to a scheme of this nature without




30


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


the slightest sense of responsibility for the practical operation of the law proposed.
POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS MUCH TO BE PREFERRED
The Democratic party announces its adhesion to this
plan, and only recommends the tried system of postal savings banks as an alternative if the new experimental panacea
is not available. The Republican party prefers the postal
savings bank as one tried, safe, and known to be effective,
and as reaching many more people now without banking
facilities than the new system proposed.
VOLUNTARY PLAN FOR GUARANTY
A plan for guaranty of deposits by the voluntary act
of the banks involved has been favorably reported to the
House of Representatives. This is, of course, entirely
different from the scheme in the Democratic platform,
omitting, as it does, the feature of compulsory participation.
This proposition will unquestionably receive the thoughtful
consideration of the National Monetary Commission.
REPUBLICAN POLICIES AS TO DEPENDENCIES
The Republican party has pursued consistently the policy
originally adopted with respect to the dependencies which
came to us as the result of the Spanish war.
PORTO RICO
The material prosperity of Porto Rico and the progress
of its inhabitants toward better conditions in respect to
comfort of living and education, should make every American proud that this nation has been an efficient instrument
in bringing happiness to a million people.
CUBA
In Cuba, the provisional government established in order
to prevent a bloody revolution has so administered affairs




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and initiated the necessary laws as to make it possible to
turn back the island to the lawfully elected officers of the
Republic in February next.
PHILIPPINES
In the Philippines the experiment of a national assembly
has justified itself, both as an assistance in the government
of the islands and as an education in the practice of selfgovernment to the people of the islands. We have established a government with effective and honest executive
departments, and a clean and fearless administration of
justice; we have created and are maintaining' a comprehensive school system which is educating the youth of the
islands in English and in industrial branches; we have
constructed great government public works, roads and harbors; we have induced the private construction of eight
hundred miles of railroad; we have policed the islands so
that their condition as to law and order is better now than
it ever has been in their history. It is quite unlikely that
the people, because of the dense ignorance of 90 per cent.,
will be ready for complete self-government and independence before two generations have passed, but the policy of
increasing partial self-governmenL step by step as the people
shall show themselves fit for it should be continued.
PROPOSITION OF DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM MEANS CHAOS
The proposition of the Democratic platform is to turn
over the islands as soon as a stable government is established. This has been established. The proposal then is
in effect to turn them over at once. Such action will lead to
ultimate chaos in the islands and the progress among the
ignorant masses in education and better living will stop.
We are engaged in the Philippines in a great missionary
work that does our nation honor, and is certain to promote in a most effective way the influence of Christian
civilization. It is cowardly to lay down the burden until
our purpose is achieved.




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


HOPE OF PROSPERITY IN CHANGE IN TARIFF RECOMMENDED
BY REPUBLICAN PLATFORM
Many unfortunate circumstances beyond human control
have delayed the coming of business prosperity to the
islands. Much may be done in this regard by increasing
the trade between the islands and the United States, under
tariff laws permitting reciprocal free trade in the respective
products of the two countries, with such limitations as to
sugar and tobacco imported into the United States as will
protect domestic interests. The admission of 350,000 tons
of sugar from the Philippine Islands in a foreign importation of 1,600,000 tons, will have no effect whatever upon
the domestic sugar interests of the United States, and yet
such an importation from the Philippine Islands, not likely
to be reached in ten years, will bring about the normal
state of prosperity in these islands in reference to sugar
culture.
The same thing is true of a similar limitation on the
importation of tobacco. It is not well for the Philippines
to develop the sugar industry to such a point that the business of the islands shall be absorbed in it, because it makes
a society in which there are wealthy landowners, holding
very large estates, with valuable and expensive plants, and
a large population of unskilled labor. In such a community there is no  farming or middle class tending
to build up a conservative, self-respecting community,
capable of self-government. There are many other products, notably that of Manila hemp, to which the energy
of the islands can be, and is being, directed, the cultivation of which develops the class of small and intelligent
farmers.
MISCONCEPTION AS TO ANNUAL COST OF PHILIPPINES
One misconception of fact with respect to our Philippine
policy is that it is costing the people of the United States
a vast annual sum. The expenses of the war in the Philip



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33


pines from 1898 to 1902 involved the Government in an
expenditure of less than $175,000,000. This was incident
to war. The fact is that since the close of the war in 1902
and the restoration of order in the islands, the extra cost
of the American troops of the regular army in the islands,
together with that of maintaining about 4,000 Philippine
scouts as a part of the regular army, does not exceed
$6,000,000 annually. This is all the expense to which the
United States has been put for five or six years last past.
The expenses of the Civil Government in the islands since
its establishment have been met entirely from the proceeds
of taxes collected in the islands, with but one notably generous and commendable exception when the Congress of the
United States appropriated $3,000,000 in 1902 to relieve
the inhabitants of the islands from the dangers of famine
and distress caused by the death from rinderpest of threefourths of the cattle of the islands.
VETERANS OF COUNTRY S WARS
Both platforms declare, as they should, in favor of
generous pensions for the veterans of the Civil and Spanish
wars. I stop to note the presence here of a body of veterans of Ohio, and to express my thanks for the honor
they do me in coming. I am lacking in one qualification
of all Republican Presidents since Lincoln, that of having
been exposed to danger and death on the field of battle in
defense of our country. I hope that this lack will not make
the veterans think I am any less deeply thrilled by the
memory of their great comrades gone before -Grant,
Hayes, Garfield, Harrison and McKinley- all sons of
Ohio, who left records reflecting glory upon their State
and Nation, or that my sympathies with the valor and
courage and patriotism of those who faced death in the
country's crises are any less earnest and sincere than they
would be had I the right to wear a button of the Grand
Army or of the veteran association of any of our country's
wars.




34


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


THE RIGHTS AND PROGRESS OF THE NEGRO
The Republican platform refers to the amendments
to the Constitution that were passed by the Republican
party for the protection of the Negro. The Negro, in the
forty years since he was freed from slavery, has made
remarkable progress. He is becoming a more and more
valuable member of the communities in which he lives.
The education of the Negro is being expanded and improved
in every way. The best men of both races, at the North
as well as at the South, ought to rejoice to see growing up
among the Southern people an influential element disposed
to encourage the Negro in his hard struggle for industrial
independence and assured political status. The Republican platform, adopted at Chicago, explicitly demands
justice for all men without regard to race or color, and
just as explicitly declares for the enforcement, and without
reservation, in letter and spirit, of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
It is needless to state that I stand with my party squarely
on that plank in the platform, and believe that equal justice
to all men, and the fair and impartial enforcement of these
amendments is in keeping with the real American spirit
of fair play.
ARMY AND NAVY
Mr. McKinley and Mr. Roosevelt, and the Republican
party, have constantly advocated a policy with respect to
the Army and Navy that will keep this Republic ready at
all times to defend her territory and her doctrines, and to
assure her appropriate part in promoting permanent tranquillity among the nations. I welcome from whatever motive
the change in the Democratic attitude toward the maintenance and support of an adequate Navy, and hope that
in the next platform the silence of the present platform, in
respect to the Army, will be changed to an acquiescence
in its maintenance to the point of efficiency in connection




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with the efficiently reorganized militia and the National
volunteers, for the proper defense of the country in time
of war, and the discharge of those duties in time
of peace for which the Army, as at present constituted,
has shown itself so admirably adapted in the Philippines,
in San Francisco, in Cuba, and elsewhere. We are a world
power and cannot help it, and, although at peace with all
the world and secure in the consciousness that the American
people do not desire and will not provoke a war with any
other country, we must be prudent and not be lulled into
a sense of security which would possibly expose us to national
humiliation. Our best course, therefore, is to insist on a
constant improvement in our navy and its maintenance
at the highest point of efficiency.
PROTECTION OF CITIZENS ABROAD
The position which our country has won under Republican administrations before the world should inure to the
benefit of every one, even the humblest of those entitled
to look to the American flag for protection, without regard
to race, creed or color, and whether he is a citizen of the
United States or of any of our dependencies. In some
countries with which we are on friendly terms, distinctions
are made in respect to the treatment of our citizens travelling
abroad and having passports of our Executive, based on
considerations that are repugnant to the principles of our
Government and civilization. The Republican party and
administration will continue to make every proper endeavor
to secure the abolition of such distinctions, which in our
eyes are both needless and opprobrious.
ASIATIC IMMIGRATION
In the matter of the limitation upon Asiatic immigration,
referred to in the Democratic platform, it is sufficient to
say that the present Republican Administration has shown
itself able, by diplomatic negotiation, and without unnecessary friction with self-respecting governments to minimize




36         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
the evils suggested, and a subsequent Republican Administration may be counted on to continue the same policy.
CONSERVATION OF NATIONAL RESOURCES
The conservation of National resources is a subject to
which the present Administration has given especial attention. The necessity for a comprehensive and systematic
improvement of our waterways, the preservation of our soil,
and of our forests, the securing from private appropriation
the power in the navigable streams, the retention of the
undisposed-of coal lands of the Government from alienation,
all will properly claim from the next Administration earnest
attention and appropriate legislation.
NATIONAL HEALTH BUREAU
I have long been of the opinion that the various agencies
of the National Government established for the preservation of the National health, scattered through several departments, should be rendered more efficient by uniting them
in a bureau of the Government under a competent head,
and that I understand to be, in effect, the recommendation
of both parties.
PUBLICITY OF CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS AND
EXPENDITURES
Another plank of the Democratic platform refers to the
failure of the Republican Convention to express an opinion
in favor of the publicity of contributions received and expenditures made in elections. Here again we contrast our
opponents' promises with our own acts. Great improvement has taken place under Republican auspices in respect
to the collection and expenditure of money for this purpose.
The old and pernicious system of levying a tax on the salaries
of Government employees in order to pay the expenses of
the party in control of the Administration has been abolished
by statute. By a law passed by the Republican Congress
in 1907, contributions from corporations to influence or
l*




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pay the expenses connected with the election of presidential
electors or of members of Congress, is forbidden under
penalty.
A resident of New York has been selected as treasurer
of the Republican National Committee, who was treasurer
of the Republican State Committee when Governor Hughes
was elected in New York, and who made a complete statement within twenty days after the election, as required by
the New York law, of the contributions received by him
and the expenditures made by him or under his authority
in connection with that election. His residence and the
discharge of his duties in the State of New York subject
him to the law of that State as to all receipts of the treasury
of the National Committee from whatever source, and as
to all its disbursements. His returns will be under the
obligations and penalties of the law, and a misstatement
by him or the filing of a false account will subject him to
prosecution for perjury and violation of the statute. Of
course, under the Federal law, he is not permitted to receive
any contributions from corporations.
If I am elected President, I shall urge upon Congress,
with every hope of success, that a law be passed requiring
the filing in a Federal office of a statement of the contributions received by committees and candidates in elections
for members of Congress, and in such other elections as are
constitutionally within the control of Congress. Meantime the Republican party by the selection of a New York
treasurer has subjected all its receipts and expenditures
to the compulsory obligation of such a law.
INCOME TAX
The Democratic platform demands two constitutional
amendments, one providing for an income tax, and the
other for the election of Senators by the people. In my
judgment, an amendment to the Constitution for an income
tax is not necessary. I believe that an income tax, when
the protective system of customs and the internal revenue




38         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
tax shall not furnish income enough for governmental
needs, can and should be devised which under the decisions of the Supreme Court will conform to the Constitution.
ELECTION OF SENATORS
With respect to the election of Senators by the people,
personally I am inclined to favor it, but it is hardly a party
question. A resolution in its favor has passed a Republican House of Representatives several times and has been
rejected in a Republican Senate by the votes of Senators
from both parties. It has been approved by the Legislatures of many Republican States. In a number of States,
both Democratic and Republican, substantially such a
system now prevails.
INACCURACY AND INSINCERITY OF DEMOCRATIC CIARGES OF
EXTRAVAGANCE IN INCREASE OF OFFICES
AND EXPENDITURES
Our opponents denounce the Republican party for
increasing the number of offices 23,000, at a cost of sixteen
millions of dollars, during the last year. Such denunciation is characteristic of the Democratic platform. It fails
to specify in any way what the offices are, and leaves the
inference that the increase was resisted by the representatives of Democracy in Congress. As a matter of fact, the
net number of offices increased was just about half the
number stated; the increase was due chiefly to the enlargement of the Navy, the construction of the Panama Canal,
the extension of the Rural Free Delivery, and to the new
offices necessary in the enforcement of the pure food, meat
inspection, railroad rate regulation, arid land reclamation,
forest preservation and other measures which Congress
passed with almost unanimous popular approval. The
Democratic platform so far from attacking any of this
legislation specifically approves much, and condemns none
of it, and it is of course disingenuous to claim credit for




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approving legislation and yet to denounce the expenditures
necessary to give it effect.
CHARGE OF DEFICIT
Again, it charges that a deficit of sixty millions of dollars between the receipts and expenditures during the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1908, occurred. As explained by the
Secretary of the Treasury, at least half of this deficit is
only an apparent one. The falling off in receipts was, of
course, occasioned by the unusual panic, but there is ample
free money in the Treasury to meet the difference, and the
difference itself is not half of it properly a deficit, because
involved in it was the retirement of some thirty-three millions of the bonds of the Government.
During the past seven years the income and expenditures of the Government have been nearly equal, some
years showing a surplus, and others, fewer in number, a
deficit. Taking one year with another, including this year,
there has been an average surplus.  The surplus last year,
for instance, was greater than the deficit this year, so that,
in fact, under the present administration there has been no
deficit, but a surplus, which is actually in the Treasury.
The Democratic platform nowhere points out the expenditures which might be reduced or avoided. It would be
found generally that to the increases which have occurred,
Democratic representatives in Congress made no opposition, but rather supported the measures providing them,
and now the party has not the courage to indicate what
part of Government cost it would end. It joins the
Republican party specifically in approving the outlay of
$1 50,000,000 as pensions. It expressly favors also the
cost of greatly increased River and Harbor improvements,
the cost of doubling the Navy, and of many other enterprises to which it urges the Government. Its attack, therefore, has nothing in it either of fairness or sincerity.
The truth is that it is known of all fair-minded men
that there never has been an administration in the Govern



40         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
ment more efficiently conducted, more free from scandal,
and in which the standard of official duty has been set higher
than in the present Republican Administration, which the
Democratic platform has thus denounced. It has had to
meet the problems arising from the enormous expansion
of Government functions under the new legislative measures
as well as in the new dependencies, and in the greatest
constructive work of modern times, the Panama Canal,
and its members may well feel a just pride in the exceptional
record for efficiency, economy, honesty and fidelity which
it has made. We may rely upon our record in this regard
in an appeal to the American people for their approval.
The foreign policy of this country under the present
Administration has greatly contributed to the peace of the
world. The important part the Administration took in
bringing about an end of the Russian-Japanese War by a
treaty honorable to both parties, and the prevention of wars
in Central America and Cuba are striking instances of this.
The arbitration treaties signed with all the important
nations of the world mark a great step forward in the development of the usefulness of The Hague tribunal. The
visit of Secretary Root to South America emphasized our
friendship for our sister republics which are making such
strides in the southern hemisphere, and met with a most
cordial and gratifying response from our Latin-American
colleagues. The assistance which we are rendering in Santo
Domingo to enable that Government to meet its obligations and avoid anarchy is another instance of successful
work of this Administration in helping our neighbors.
This Administration has by the promptness, skill and
energy of its negotiations secured dominion in the Canal
Zone of the Isthmus of Panama, without which the construction of the canal would have been impossible. It
has subdued the heretofore insurmountable obstacle of disease and made the place of work healthy. It has created
such an organization that in six years certainly, and probably in less, the Atlantic and Pacific will be united, to the




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everlasting benefit of the world's commerce, and the effectiveness of our Navv will be doubled.
The mere statement of the things actually done by this
Administration at home, in our dependencies, and in foreign
affairs shows a marvel of successful accomplishment, and if
ever a party has entitled itself to the approval of its works
by a renewed mandate of power from the people whom it
served, it is the Republican party in the present campaign.
The only respect in which nothing has been done is in
the development of our foreign marine. As long as we
uphold the system of protection for our home industries we
must recognize that it is ineffectual to assist those of our
citizens engaged in the foreign shipping business, because
there is no feasible means of excluding foreign competition,
and that the only other method of building up such a business is by direct aid in the form of a mail subsidy. I am in
favor of the bill considered in the last Congress as a tentative step. The establishment of direct steamship lines
between our Atlantic ports and South America would certainly do much to develop a trade that might be made far
greater. On the Pacific, the whole shipping trade threatens
to pass into the control of Japan, Something ought to be
done, and the bill which failed was a step in the right direction.
INDEPENDENT DEMOCRATS
The Democratic party under its present leadership
in previous campaigns has manifested a willingness to
embrace any doctrine which would win votes, with little
sense of responsibility for its practical operation. In
its striving for success it has ignored the business prosperity
of the country, has departed from sound economic and
governmental principles, and has reversed its own traditional
views of constitutional construction. Patriotic members
of the party have refused to be controlled by party ties,
and have either refrained from voting or have supported
the Republican candidate. May we not appeal to these




412       PPRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
courageous and independent citizens again to give us their
support in this campaign, because the reasons for their
breaking the bonds of party are stronger to-day than ever
before?
LENGTH OF SPEECH MADE NECESSARY BY NUMEROUS ISSUES
I have now reviewed at great length the principles at
issue between the two parties. When I began the preparation of this speech of acceptance I had hoped to make it
much briefer than it is, but I found on an examination of
the platform and on a consideration of the many measures
passed during the present Administration and the issues
arising out of them, that it was impossible to deal with the
subjects comprehensively with proper explanation and
qualification in a short discussion. This is my excuse.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PARTIES: PROSPERITY WITH REPUBLICAN SUCCESS; BUSINESS DISASTER WITH
DEMOCRATIC VICTORY
I have pointed out that the attitude of the Republican
party with reference to evils which have crept in, due to
the enormous material expansion of this country, is to continue the Roosevelt policies of progress and regulation,
while the attitude of the Democratic party under its present leadership is the change for the sake of change to the
point of irresponsible destruction, and that there is no hope
whatever of a restoration of prosperity in returning it to
power. As said in our platform, we Republicans go before
the country asking the support, not only of those who have
acted with us heretofore, but of all our fellow citizens who,
regardless of past political differences, unite in the desire to
maintain the policies, perpetuate the blessings and make
secure the achievements of a greater America.




II


THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S APPEAL *
THE Independent asks me to write on the issues of the
campaign. My time is so occupied that I must do
it in great haste. To my mind, the issues of the campaign
are not different from those which arise in every Presidential
election, to wit, whether the work of the existing Administration shall be approved by continuing in power the same
party, or shall be condemned by turning the administration
of the country's affairs over to the Democratic party.
It can hardly be denied that the administration of the
Republican party under Mr. McKinley and under Mr.
Roosevelt has been a wonderful series of successes in meeting
the new and unprecedented problems which have presented
themselves in that period. The successful carrying on of the
Spanish War, the establishment of the Cuban Government,
and its re-establishment just now promising entire success,
the carrying on of the Philippine War, the suppression of the
rebellion and the establishment of tranquillity and of a
government which is working great good in the Islands, the
successful elaboration of the reclamation of arid lands in the
West, the enactment of the pure food and meat inspection
laws, the enlargement of the navy, the reorganization and
great improvement of the army, the continuation of the coast
defenses, the successful organization and rapid work toward
completion of the Panama Canal, the establishment of the
position of this nation as one of the most influential in the
world, and the use of the influence thus gained to promote
the peace of the world, as shown in the close of the RussianJapanese War, the settlement of Central American wars,
* Written by Mr. Taft as candidate of the Republican party for President of the
United States, and published in The Independent, Oct. 15, 1908.
[Reprinted by permission of The Independent.]
43




44         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
and the making closer the bonds between this country and
the South American republics, are all definite things done
under the administration of the Republican party which
entitle it to the confidence of the people and their belief in its
courage and efficiency as an agency in government to effect
results.
After the disastrous operation of the Gorman-Wilson
Tariff Bill, the Republican party became responsible for
the passage of the Dingley Bill, and under that bill, whether
it was the sole cause or not, the country was enabled to enjoy
a prosperity and an expansion of wealth and material progress
never before seen in the world.
It is said now, and truly said, that the tariff rates are
generally in excess of what is required by the principle of
protection, to wit, they exceed the difference in the cost of
production of the same class of articles in this country and
abroad. The Republican party is pledged, at a special
session of Congress, to take up the tariff schedules and to
modify them, so that they shall no longer be excessive; but
it also pledges itself to maintain the protective system, upon
which a great part of the manufacturing industries of this
country and the whole business system rests.
In the course of the unprecedented prosperity and expansion, evils crept into our community, consisting of the violation of the anti-trust law and the illegal creation of unlawful
monopolies which were fostered by combining a large part
of the plants engaged in the production of the article in
question, and by the use of secret rebates and unlawful discriminations in the matter of transportation by the railroads,
so as to render helpless the less powerful competitors of the
illegal monopoly. More than this, in railroad circles it
became clear that the power of issuing stocks and bonds of
a par value far in excess of the real value of the property
represented by such securities had been used by unscrupulous
railroad managers to combine railroad properties and concentrate the control of them in the hands of one man or a
few men. These evils, which forced themselves upon public




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notice most emphatically because of revelations the result
of official investigation by State and National authority, were
at once taken up by the Republican Administration under
Mr. Roosevelt. A railroad rate law was passed, giving greatly
increased power to the Interstate Commerce Commission,
and prosecutions under the anti-trust law were begun and
pressed with a vigor never before shown.  The time was
ripe, because the construction of the anti-trust law by the
slow course of judicial decision had finally become sufficiently
clear to make successful prosecutions possible. At the same
time with the railroad rate bill were enacted the measures
already referred to, the pure food law and the meat inspection law. All these encountered the strongest kind of opposition from the leading corporations, from the railroads and
the corporations peculiarly affected by the other two laws.
Two of the measures failed of passage in one Congress, though
recommended by the President, but in the next Congress
they were passed after a hard fight, by the full support of the
Republican majorities.
Mr. Roosevelt recommended the Federal restriction of the
issue of stocks and bonds on interstate railways for the purpose of preventing future overissue; but this was not taken
up at the last session of Congress, to which the recommendation was made. It is, however, a part of the pledge of the
Republican platform that such a measure will be passed, and
there is no reason to doubt that the Republican majorities,
with this direction from the party in convention assembled,
will comply with its behest.
The Republican platform also recommends legislation
for the purpose of controlling corporations engaged in carrying on interstate commerce which are so large and powerful
as to make it a temptation for them, unless restrained by law,
to attempt illegal monopolies. The proposed plan is to
subject the business of such corporations to the close supervision of the Federal authorities, so as to make their regulation and a keeping of them within the law possible. All
these provisions of the Republican platform are in accord




46         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
with the recommendations of Mr. Roosevelt and Congress,
and are a proper and emphatic compliance with his
policies.
The action of Mr. Roosevelt and the Republican party
in this last Administration has called a halt in the evils and
abuses which crept in during the enormous expansion of
business during the last twelve years. The rate bill marked
a moral revulsion and a purification of business methods in
the matter of railway rebates and in the matter of complying
with the anti-trust law which are notable in the economic
and moral history of the country, and the most important
steps now to be taken are those which shall make secure the
progress made and clinch it, so that when prosperity is
resumed the community shall not again be subjected to such
evils and to the growth of enormous fortunes due to the
perpetuation of such abuses.
The real issue of the campaign, therefore, is whether the
Republican party, because of the record of the administrations
of Mr. McKinley and of Mr. Roosevelt in the last twelve
years, with this most remarkable array of arduous tasks
performed, shall be given a vote of confidence and be
entrusted with the further work needed, or whether the
country shall be turned over to a party which, under its
present leadership, has been doing everything by turns and
nothing long. It was a party which proposed to relieve the
disaster from which the country suffered during the four
years of the operation of the Gorman-Wilson Tariff Bill,
not by a new tariff bill, but by adopting a monetary standard
of value which would in effect have scaled the debts of all
debtors and of the nation as well by 50 per cent., and which
would have sullied the honor of the nation as one which
repudiated its obligations and enabled its citizens to do the
same.
Again, in 1900, instead of recommending a change of
tariff or suggesting any other of the remedies as paramount
which it now proposes, it continued to insist on the adoption
of free silver coinage, and attacked the policy of the Govern



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ment in dealing with its problems which came from the
Spanish War, as imperialistic.
Again, in 1904, under a somewhat different leadership,
but still claiming to be the same party, it made the paramount
issue the executive usurpation of Mr. Roosevelt and
attempted to avoid the fear that it might change the tariff
by inviting attention, through the letter of its candidate, to
the fact that the Republican Senate would prevent any change
in the tariff at all. Now that the Republican party has
pledged itself to revise the tariff and reduce the excessive
rates which have arisen by a change of conditions since 1896,
the Democratic party seeks to make the tariff one of the
issues of the campaign, after twelve years of what may be
described as a substantial ignoring of the issue.
The Democratic party, through its present leader, Mr.
Bryan, now claims to be the real successor of Mr. Roosevelt
in the purpose and policy to eliminate from our economic
system illegal monopolies and railroad rebates, and unlawful discriminations and excessive rates. In other words,
having introduced into the last three campaigns issues as of
paramount importance of an entirely different character
from the trust issue and the railroad issue, and after Mr.
Roosevelt and the Republican party have taken long strides
toward the remedy of the evils which gave rise to these issues,
Mr. Bryan and the Democratic party step forward, and
claim, with a courage which in a different cause might well
command admiration, that they are the true exponents of
the Roosevelt policies, and that they only can be trusted to
carry them out, and this in the face of the fact that their
remedies as proposed in their platform are exactly the remedies which Mr. Roosevelt, in his message in 1904 and ever
since, has consistently pointed out are not the remedies which
ought to be pursued. The two remedies which they make
prominent are the remedy of putting every article of merchandise made and controlled by a trust upon the free list,
a remedy which would totally destroy the industries depending upon the manufacture of such an article, render the




48         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
capital invested therein and the plant in which it is expended
utterly worthless, destroy all the smaller competitors of
the trust, greatly injure the prosperity of the country, and
throw out of work millions of workingmen and workingwomen.
The second remedy is the revision of the tariff- not on
protection lines, but on the lines of a revenue tariff, or on
free trade principles. This was attempted in a partial way
in the Gorman-Wilson Bill, and resulted most disastrously
to the business interests of the country. It means the introducing of such a transition and change in the manufacturing
business of this country as to close a very large part of the
factories and productive enterprises, and even if theoretically,
after the transition and change had been made, the rate of
wages would be restored - an assumption I cannot admit
- certainly, the transition and change would so halt the
business of the country and involve such a paralysis while the
change was being effected, that the losses and stagnation
in business and the number of men thrown out of employment can hardly be exaggerated. More than this, the
Democratic party has so long been engaged in devising
sophistical theories upon which to attract votes, rather than
in the preparation of practical statutes by which to effect
results, that the public may well pause and hesitate to entrust
to it any serious, sober work that requires for its accomplishment a strong sense of responsibility to the business interests
of the country, in the prosperity of which the comfort and
well-being of all classes, farmers, wage-earners and business
men alike, are inseparably involved.
The issue in which laboring men are supposed to be
particularly interested in this campaign is with respect to
injunctions in industrial disputes. The Republican party
proposes to meet the objection to the issuing of temporary
restraining orders without notice in industrial disputes, which,
though only in rare instances, have put at an improper disadvantage men engaged in a lawful strike, by defining the best
practice in the issuing of such injunctions in all cases by stat



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ute, and limiting the operation of the injunction without
notice to a very short period, within which a hearing must be
had or the injunction cease to have effect. The Democratic
platform recommends no action with respect to notice at
all, adopts an enigmatical plank on injunctions in industrial
disputes that has practically no meaning, but does recommend the introduction of a jury in all indirect contempt
proceedings. This would seriously weaken the power of the
court, not alone in industrial disputes, but in all cases both
of temporary orders and final judgments, and the Republican
party is determined that the power of the courts shall be
maintained.
The other issue most closely affecting labor is that of
the protective tariff and the proposition to change the system
from a protective tariff to a revenue tariff, and drive out
business industries that are now really dependent upon
protection for their maintenance. This, as already said,
would so affect the business of the country, so reduce the
number of enterprises that could be carried on in the transition proposed as to throw out of employment millions of
workingmen. The question which the laboring man has
to answer is, whether the advantage to him and his fellows
of a change in the judicial procedure as to injunctions and
contempt is so great as to outweigh the public injury arising
from a weakening of the power of the courts and the disaster
to the wage-earner and the business community which would
follow the adoption of the other Democratic economic
proposals.
I have omitted from this review the proposition of the
Democratic party to give to the Philippines immediate
independence, and to initiate a system of enforced guaranty
of bank deposits. I have no space to elaborate either proposition, except to say that the first is intended to, and if carried
out will, defeat a plan of the Republican Administration to
uplift an unfortunate people, to teach them the power of
self-government, and to make greatly for the spread of
Christian civilization in the Orient. The second is one of




50         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
those sophistical financial propositions so dear to Mr. Bryan,
plausible on its face, but utterly at variance with sound
principle. It is supposed to prevent entirely any loss of
deposits in all banks to the depositors, and thus to prevent
panics. As a matter of fact, it will stimulate reckless and
dishonest use of deposits in bank investments, it much
reduces the motive for conservative and honest banking in a
community, and it would not in the slightest degree prevent
runs on banks during panics, for which it is supposed to be
a panacea. It imposes upon the honest and conservative
banker an obligation to answer for the default of his unscrupulous or inexperienced fellow, without any means on his
part of supervising the work of the person whose honest and
careful conduct lie insures.
The country is just now slowly recovering from a financial
depression and a panic which came to us in October and
November of last year. It is different from all the other
panics in our history, and there are many indications that
all that is needed to bring back good conditions is the restoration of confidence on the part of the investing public. It is
submitted that for twelve years Mr. Bryan has been upholding financial and economic theories which were calculated
to frighten all sound, conservative business men. His free
silver and free trade doctrines, with a touch of "greenbackism" in some of his proposals, his quickness to seize upon any
remedy, however drastic and impossible, which would
please the crowd, and the utter instability of his views on
any subject of a financial or economic character, would make
his election to the Presidency a menace to prosperity. The
necessary capital would be withheld and we should probably
have a continuation of the present depression for the coming
four years. It is Mr. Bryan's record in the last twelve years
that makes this a necessary result of his election. Mr. Bryan
says that the argument of the full dinner pail has been worked
overtime. The argument of the full dinner pail is just as
apt and just as relevant to the present situation as it has
been in previous campaigns. As it is, two things can be




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affirmed of the Democratic party under the leadership of
Mr. Bryan: First, that all who have anything to invest
distrust him because of his unstable and unsound economic
and financial views; and second, that they are justified in
their lack of confidence. For that reason, those who wish
a restoration of prosperity in the country should vote against
the Democratic ticket.
These are the issues of the campaign as I understand them.
Mr. Bryan charges that the Republican party is controlled
by the corporations through campaign contributions. The
record of the present Administration is a complete refutation
of that charge. The adoption of statutes which met bitter
corporate opposition is utterly inconsistent with it, and his
assumption that the use of money in a campaign election
can control elections is a charge of venality against the
American electorate that has no foundation in fact.
Mr. Bryan says that there is no hope of a genuine revision
of the tariff, because he says the Republican party is dependent for its campaign contributions upon the beneficiaries of
the excessive rates under the tariff, and therefore that the
only possible hope of a reduction in tariff schedules is from
the Democratic party. I wish to deny this with the utmost
emphasis. It is doubtless true that business men interested
in a restoration of prosperity will some of them contribute to
Republican   campaign  funds.  Campaign   funds   are
necessary in order to pay the legitimate expenses of a campaign. Certainly the extent of the contributions from any
source in this campaign is not enough to indicate such a
pecuniary interest in the success of the Republican party as
would exist if Mr. Bryan's charges were true. Speaking for
myself, as the temporary leader of the party, and as the next
President if the party is successful in November, I wish
to affirm that no effort of mine will be spared to make the
revision of the tariff under Republican auspices and within
the conservative protective lines as thorough and as impartial
between the consumer and the manufacturing interests as
possible.  I believe that there are many schedules that ought




52,        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
to be reduced. I believe that there are a few, and only a few,
that ought to be raised, but on the whole the revision should
be a revision downward and not a revision upward. I am
convinced that the people of the country desire such a
revision. I am convinced that their representatives coming
back to Congress will be imbued with that sentiment, and
that no successful obstruction can be placed in the way of
such Congressional action.
To restate the issue of the campaign, it is whether the
administrations of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, in their wonderful record of meeting new problems and
solving them by things done and statutes passed, shall be
endorsed by the people, and the progress made assured by
proper legislation, or whether there shall be put in power a
party the chief characteristic of which in the last twelve
years has been that of hunting an issue and seeking a sophistical theory which would attract votes with but little regard
for its practical operation, and with but a small sense of
responsibility to the business and labor interests of the
country.




III


INAUGURAL ADDRESS
(MARCH 4 1909)
My Fellow Citizens:
A   NY one who has taken the oath I have just taken
must feel a heavy weight of responsibility. If not,
he has no conception of the powers and duties of the office
upon which he is about to enter, or he is lacking in a proper
sense of the obligation which the oath imposes.
The office of an inaugural address is to give a summary
outline of the main policies of the new administration, so
far as they can be anticipated. I have had the honor to be
one of the advisers of my distinguished predecessor, and, as
such, to hold up his hands in the reforms he has initiated. I
should be untrue to myself, to my promises, and to the declarations of the party platform upon which I was elected
to office, if I did not make the maintenance and enforcement of those reforms a most important feature of my administration. They were directed to the suppression of the
lawlessness and abuses of power of the great combinations
of capital invested in railroads and in industrial enterprises
carrying on interstate commerce. The steps which my
predecessor took and the legislation passed on his recommendation have accomplished much, have caused a general halt in the vicious policies which created popular alarm,
and have brought about in the business affected a much
higher regard for existing law.
To render the reforms lasting, however, and to secure
at the same time freedom from alarm on the part of those
pursuing proper and progressive business methods, further
legislative and executive action is needed. Relief of the
53




54         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
railroads from certain restrictions of the anti-trust law have
been urged by my predecessor and will be urged by me.
On the other hand, the administration is pledged to legislation looking to a proper federal supervision and restriction
to prevent excessive issues of bonds and stocks by companies owning and operating interstate-commerce railroads.
Then, too, a reorganization of the Department of Justice, of the Bureau of Corporations in the Department of
Commerce and Labor, and of the Interstate Commerce
Commission, looking to effective cooperation of these agencies
is needed to secure a more rapid and certain enforcement
of the laws affecting interstate railroads and industrial
combinations.
I hope to be able to submit at the first regular session of
the incoming Congress, in December next, definite suggestions in respect to the needed amendments to the anti-trust
and the interstate-commerce law and the changes required in
the executive departments concerned in their enforcement.
It is believed that with the changes to be recommended,
American business can be assured of that measure of stability
and certainty in respect to those things that may be done
and those that are prohibited which is essential to the life
and growth of all business. Such a plan must include the
right of the people to avail themselves of those methods of
combining capital and effort deemed necessary to reach the
highest degree of economic efficiency, at the same time
differentiating between combinations based upon legitimate
economic reasons and those formed with the intent of creating monopolies and artificially controlling prices.
The work of formulating into practical shape such changes
is creative work of the highest order, and requires all the
deliberation possible in the interval. I believe that the
amendments to be proposed are just as necessary in the
protection of legitimate business as in the clinching of the
reforms which properly bear the name of my predecessor.
A matter of most pressing importance is the revision of
the tariff. In accordance with the promises of the platform




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55


upon which I was elected, I shall call Congress into extra
session to meet on the 15th day of March, in order that consideration may be at once given to a bill revising the Dingley
Act. This should secure an adequate revenue and adjust
the duties in such a manner as to afford to labor and to all
industries in this country, whether of the farm, mine, or
factory, protection by tariff equal to the difference between
the cost of production abroad and the cost of production here,
and have a provision which shall put into force, upon executive determination of certain facts, a higher or maximum
tariff against those countries whose trade policy toward us
equitably requires such discrimination. It is thought that
there has been such a change in conditions since the enactment of the Dingley Act, drafted on a similarly protective
principle, that the measure of the tariff above stated will
permit the reduction of rates in certain schedules and will
require the advancement of few, if any.
The proposal to revise the tariff made in such an authoritative way as to lead the business community to count upon
it necessarily halts all those branches of business directly
affected; and as these are most important, it disturbs the
whole business of the country. It is imperatively necessary,
therefore, that a tariff bill be drawn in good faith in accordance with promises made before the election by the party
in power, and as promptly passed as due consideration will
permit. It is not that the tariff is more important in the
long run than the perfecting of the reforms in respect to
anti-trust legislation and interstate-commerce regulation,
but the need for action when the revision of the tariff has
been determined upon is more immediate to avoid embarrassment of business. To secure the needed speed in the
passage of the tariff bill, it would seem wise to attempt no
other legislation at the extra session. I venture this as a
suggestion only, for the course to be taken by Congress, upon
the call of the Executive, is wholly within its discretion.
In the making of a tariff bill the prime motive is taxation
and the securing thereby of a revenue. Due largely to the




56         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
business depression which followed the financial panic of
1907, the revenue from customs and other sources has
decreased to such an extent that the expenditures for the
current fiscal year will exceed the receipts by $100,000,000.
It is imperative that such a deficit shall not continue, and the
framers of the tariff bill must, of course, have in mind the
total revenues likely to be produced by it and so arrange
the duties as to secure an adequate income. Should it be
impossible to do so by import duties, new kinds of taxation must be adopted, and among these I recommend a graduated inheritance tax as correct in principle and as certain
and easy of collection.
The obligation on the part of those responsible for the
expenditures made to carry on the Government, to be as
economical as possible, and to make the burden of taxation as light as possible, is plain, and should be affirmed
in every declaration of government policy. This is especially true when we are face to face with a heavy deficit.
But when the desire to win the popular approval leads to the
cutting off of expenditures really needed to make the Government effective and to enable it to accomplish its proper
objects, the result is as much to be condemned as the waste
of government funds in unnecessary expenditure.  The
scope of a modern government in what it can and ought to
accomplish for its people has been widened far beyond the
principles laid down by the old "laisser-faire" school of political writers, and this widening has met popular approval.
In the Department of Agriculture the use of scientific
experiments on a large scale and the spread of information
derived from them for the improvement of general agriculture must go on.
The importance of supervising business of great railways
and industrial combinations and the necessary investigation and prosecution of unlawful business methods are
another necessary tax upon Government which did not
exist half a century ago.
The putting into force of laws which shall secure the con



AND STATE PAPERS


57


servation of our resources, so far as they may be within the
jurisdiction of the Federal Government, including the most
important work of saving and restoring our forests and the
great improvement of waterways, are all proper government functions which must involve large expenditure if
properly performed. While some of them, like the reclamation of arid lands, are made to pay for themselves, others
are of such an indirect benefit that this can not be expected
of them. A permanent improvement, like the Panama
Canal, should be treated as a distinct enterprise, and should
be paid for by the proceeds of bonds, the issue of which will
distribute its cost between the present and future generations
in accordance with the benefits derived. It may well be
submitted to the serious consideration of Congress whether
the deepening and control of the channel of a great river
system, like that of the Ohio or of the Mississippi, when
definite and practical plans for the enterprise have been
approved and determined upon, should not be provided
for in the same way.
Then, too, there are expenditures of Government absolutely necessary if our country is to maintain its proper place
among the nations of the world, and is to exercise its proper
influence in defense of its own trade interests in the maintenance of traditional American policy against the colonization of European monarchies in this hemisphere, and in the
promotion of peace and international morality. I refer
to the cost of maintaining a proper army, a proper navy,
and suitable fortifications upon the mainland of the United
States and in its dependencies.
We should have an army so organized and so officered
as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with
the national militia and under the provisions of a proper
national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to
furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the
maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears
the name of President Monroe.




58         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
Our fortifications are yet in a state of only partial completeness, and the number of men to man them is insufficient.
In a few years, however, the usual annual appropriations
for our coast defenses, both on the mainland and in the
dependencies, will make them sufficient to resist all direct
attack, and by that time we may hope that the men to man
them will be provided as a necessary adjunct. The distance of our shores from Europe and Asia of course reduces
the necessity for maintaining under arms a great army, but
i' does not take away the requirement of mere prudence --
/ that we should have an army sufficiently large and so constituted as to form a nucleus out of which a suitable force
can quickly grow.
What has been said of the army may be affirmed in even
a more emphatic way of the navy. A modern navy can not
be improvised. It must be built and in existence when the
emergency arises which calls for its use and operation. My
distinguished predecessor has in many speeches and messages set out with great force and striking language the necessity for maintaining a strong navy commensurate with
the coast line, the governmental resources, and the foreign
trade of our Nation; and I wish to reiterate all the reasons
which he has presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our peace
with other nations and the best means of securing respect
for the assertion of our rights, the defense of our interests,
and the exercise of our influence in international matters.
Our international policy is always to promote peace. We
shall enter into any war with a full consciousness of the
awful consequences that it always entails, whether successful or not, and we, of course, shall make every effort consistent with national honor and the highest national interest to avoid a resort to arms. We favor every instrumentality, like that of The Hague Tribunal and arbitration
treaties made with a view to its use in all international controversies, in order to maintain peace and to avoid war.
But we should be blind to existing conditions and should




AND STATE PAPERS


59


allow ourselves to become foolish idealists if we did not
realize that with all the nations of the world armed and prepared for war, we must be ourselves in a similar condition,
in order to prevent other nations from taking advantage of
us and of our inability to defend our interests and assert
our rights with a strong hand.
In the international controversies that are likely to arise
in the Orient growing out of the question of the open door
and other issues the United States can maintain her interests intact, and can secure respect for her just demands.
She will not be able to do so, however, if it is understood
that she never intends to back up her assertion of right and
her defense of her interest by anything but mere verbal
protest and diplomatic note. For these reasons the expenses
of the army and navy and of coast defenses should always
be considered as something which the Government must
pay for, and they should not be cut off through mere consideration of economy. Our Government is able to afford
a suitable army and a suitable navy. It may maintain them
without the slightest danger to the Republic or the cause of
free institutions, and fear of additional taxation ought not to
change a proper policy in this regard.
The policy of the United States in the Spanish war and
since has given it a position of influence among the nations
that it never had before, and should be constantly exerted to
securing to its bona fide citizens, whether native or naturalized, respect for them as such in foreign countries. We
should make every effort to prevent humiliating and degrading prohibition against any of our citizens wishing temporarily to sojourn in foreign countries because of race or
religion. 
The admission of Asiatic immigrants who cannot be
amalgamated with our population has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in our treaties and statutes
or of strict administrative regulation secured by diplomatic negotiation. I sincerely hope that we may continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immi



60         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
gration without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between self-respecting governments. Meantime we
must take every precaution to prevent, or failing that,
to punish, outbursts of race feeling among our people against
foreigners of whatever nationality who have by our grant
a treaty right to pursue lawful business here, and to be protected against lawless assault or injury.
This leads me to point out a serious defect in the present
federal jurisdiction, which ought to be remedied at once.
Having assured to other countries by treaty the protection
of our laws for such of their subjects or citizens as we permit to come within our jurisdiction, we now leave to a
State or a city, not under the control of the Federal Government, the duty of performing our international obligations
in this respect. By proper legislation we may, and ought
to, place in the hands of the Federal Executive the means
of enforcing the treaty rights of such aliens in the courts
of the Federal Government. It puts our Government in a
pusillanimous position to make definite engagements to
protect aliens and then to excuse the failure to perform
those engagements by an explanation that the duty to keep
them is in States or cities not within our control. If we
would promise we must put ourselves in a position to perform our promise. We can not permit the possible failure
of justice, due to local prejudice, in any State or municipal
government to expose us to the risk of a war which might
be avoided if federal jurisdiction was asserted by suitable
legislation by Congress and carried out by proper proceedings instituted by the Executive in the courts of the National
Government.
One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is a change of our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of
currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations
of law from operating to increase the embarrassments
of a financial panic. The monetary commission, lately
appointed, is giving full consideration to existing conditions




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61


and to all proposed remedies, and will doubtless suggest one
that will meet the requirements of business and of public
interest.
We may hope that the report will embody neither the narrow view of those who believe that the sole purpose of the
new system should be to secure a large return on banking
capital or of those who would have greater expansion of currency with little regard to provisions for its immediate redemption or ultimate security. There is no subject of economic
discussion so intricate and so likely to evoke differing views
and dogmatic statements as this one. The commission, in
studying the general influence of currency on business and
of business on currency, have wisely extended their investigations in European banking and monetary methods. The
information that they have derived from such experts as
they have found abroad will undoubtedly be found helpful
in the solution of the difficult problem they have in hand.
The incoming Congress should promptly fulfil the promise of the Republican platform and pass a proper postalsavings bank bill. It will not be unwise or excessive paternalism. The promise to repay by the Government will
furnish an inducement to savings deposits which private
enterprise can not supply and at such a low rate of interest as not to withdraw custom from existing banks. It will
substantially increase the funds available for investment as
capital in useful enterprises. It will furnish the absolute
security which makes the proposed scheme of government
guaranty of deposits so alluring, without its pernicious
results.
I sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive,
as it should be, to the importance of our foreign trade and of
encouraging it in every way feasible. The possibility of
increasing this trade in the Orient, in the Philippines, and
in South America is known to every one who has given the
matter attention. The direct effect of free trade between
this country and the Philippines will be marked upon our
sale of cottons, agricultural machinery, and other manu



62         PRS      NT        DDRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
factures. The necessity for the establishment of direct lines
of steamers between North and South America has been
brought to the attention of Congress by my predecessor
and by Mr. Root before and after his noteworthy visit
to that continent, and I sincerely hope that Congress may be
induced to see the wisdom of a tentative effort to establish
such lines by the use of mail subsidies.
The importance which the Departments of Agriculture
and of Commerce and Labor may play in ridding the markets of Europe of prohibitions and discriminations against
the importation of our products is fully understood, and it
is hoped that the use of the maximum and minimum feature of
our tariff law to be soon passed will be effective to remove
many of those restrictions.
The Panama Canal will have a most important bearing
dpon the trade between the eastern and the far western
sections of our country, and will greatly increase the facilities for transportation between the eastern and the western seaboard, and may possibly revolutionize the transcontinental rates with respect to bulky merchandise. It
will also have a most beneficial effect to increase the trade
between the eastern seaboard of the United States and the
western coast of South America, and, indeed, with some
of the important ports on the east coast of South America
reached by rail from the west coast.
The work on the canal is making most satisfactory progress. The type of the canal as a lock canal was fixed by
Congress after a full consideration of the conflicting reports
of the majority and minority of the consulting board, and
after the recommendation of the War Department and the
Executive upon those reports. Recent suggestion that something had occurred on the Isthmus to make the lock type
of the canal less feasible than it was supposed to be when
the reports were made and the policy determined on, led to
a visit to the Isthmus of a board of competent engineers
to examine the Gatun dam and locks, which are the key of
the lock type. The report of the board shows that nothing




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63


has occurred in the nature of newly revealed evidence which
should change the views once formed in the original discussion. The construction will go on under a most effective
organization controlled by Colonel Goethals and his fellow
army engineers associated with him, and will certainly be
completed early in the next administration, if not before.
Some type of canal must be constructed. The lock type
has been selected. We are all in favor of having it built
as promptly as possible. We must not now, therefore, keep
up a fire in the rear of the agents whom we have authorized
to do our work on the Isthmus. We must hold up their
hands, and speaking for the incoming administration I wish
to say that I propose to devote all the energy possible and
under my control to pushing this work on the plans which
have been adopted, and to stand behind the men who are
doing faithful, hard work to bring about the early completion of this, the greatest constructive enterprise of modern
times.
The governments of our dependencies in Porto Rico and
the Philippines are progressing as favorably as could be
desired. The prosperity of Porto Rico continues unabated.
The business conditions in the Philippines are not all that we
could wish them to be, but with the passage of the new tariff
bill permitting free trade between the United States and the
archipelago, with such limitations in sugar and tobacco as
shall prevent injury to domestic interests on those products,
we can count on an improvement in business conditions in
the Philippines and the development of a mutually profitable trade between this country and the islands. Meantime
our Government in each dependency is upholding the traditions of civil liberty and increasing popular control which
might be expected under American auspices. The work
which we are doing there redounds to our credit as a Nation.
I look forward with hope to increasing the already good
feeling between the South and the other sections of the
country. My chief purpose is not to effect a change in the
electoral vote of the Southern States. That is a secondary




64         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
consideration. What I look forward to is an increase in the
tolerance of political views of all kinds and their advocacy
throughout the South, and the existence of a respectable
political opposition in every State; even more than this, to
an increased feeling on the part of all the people in the South
that this Government is their Government, and that its
officers in their States are their officers.
The consideration of this question can not, however, be
complete and full without reference to the Negro race, its
progress and its present condition. The thirteenth amendment secured them freedom; the fourteenth amendment, due
process of law, protection of property, and the pursuit of
happiness; and the fifteenth amendment attempted to secure
the Negro against any deprivation of the privilege to vote
because he was a Negro. The thirteenth and fourteenth
amendments have been generally enforced and have secured
the objects for which they were intended. While the fifteenth amendment has not been generally observed in the
past, it ought to be observed, and the tendency of southern
legislation to-day is toward the enactment of electoral qualifications which shall square with that amendment. Of
course, the mere adoption of a constitutional law is only
one step in the right direction. It must be fairly and justly
enforced as well. In time both will come. Hence it is clear
to all that the domination of an ignorant, irresponsible element can be prevented by constitutional laws which shall
exclude from voting both Negroes and whites not having
education or other qualifications thought to be necessary
for a proper electorate. The danger of the control of an
ignorant electorate has therefore passed. With this change,
the interest which many of the southern white citizens take
in the welfare of the Negroes has increased. The colored
men must base their hope on the results of their own industry, self-restraint, thrift, and business success, as well as
upon the aid and comfort and sympathy which they may
receive from their white neighbors of the South.
There was a time when Northerners who sympathized with




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65


the Negro in his necessary struggle for better conditions
sought to give to him the suffrage as a protection and to
enforce its exercise against the prevailing sentiment of the
South. The movement proved to be a failure. What
remains is the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution and
the right to have statutes of States specifying qualifications
for electors subjected to the test of compliance with that
amendment. This is a great protection to the Negro. It
never will be repealed, and it never ought to be repealed. If
it had not passed, it might be difficult now to adopt it; but
with it in our fundamental law, the policy of Southern legislation must and will tend to obey it, and so long as the statutes
of the States meet the test of this amendment and are not
otherwise in conflict with the Constitution and laws of the
United States it is not the disposition or within the province
of the Federal Government to interfere with the regulation
by Southern States of their domestic affairs. There is in the
South a stronger feeling than ever among the intelligent,
well-to-do, and influential element in favor of the industrial education of the Negro and the encouragement of the
race to make themselves useful members of the community.
The progress which the Negro has made in the last fifty
years, from slavery, when its statistics are revealed, is marvellous, and it furnishes every reason to hope that in the next
twenty-five years a still greater improvement in his condition as a productive member of society, on the farm, and in
the shop, and in other occupations may come.
The Negroes are now Americans. Their ancestors came
here years ago against their will, and this is their only country
and their only flag. They have shown themselves anxious
to live for it and to die for it. Encountering the race feeling
against them, subjected at times to cruel injustice growing
out of it, they may well have our profound sympathy and aid
in the struggle they are making. We are charged with the
sacred duty of making their path as smooth and easy as we
can. Any recognition of their distinguished men, any
appointment to office from among their number, is properly




66


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


taken as an encouragement and an appreciation of their
progress, and this just policy should be pursued when suitable occasion offers.
But it may well admit of doubt whether, in the case of any
race, an appointment of one of their number to a local office
in a community in which the race feeling is so widespread and
acute as to interfere with the ease and facility with which
the local government business can be done by the appointee
is of sufficient benefit by way of encouragement to the race
to outweigh the recurrence and increase of race feeling which
such an appointment is likely to engender. Therefore, the
Executive, in recognizing the Negro race by appointments,
must exercise a careful discretion not thereby to do it more
harm than good. On the other hand, we must be careful not
to encourage the mere pretense of race feeling manufactured
in the interest of individual political ambition.
Personally, I have not the slightest race prejudice or feeling, and recognition of its existence only awakens in my
heart a deeper sympathy for those who have to bear it or
suffer from it, and I question the wisdom of a policy which
is likely to increase it. Meantime, if nothing is done to
prevent it, a better feeling between the Negroes and the
whites in the South will continue to grow, and more and
more of the white people will come to realize that the future
of the South is to be much benefited by the industrial and
intellectual progress of the Negro. The exercise of political
franchises by those of his race who are intelligent and well-todo will be acquiesced in, and the right to vote will be withheld only from the ignorant and irresponsible of both races.
There is one other matter to which I shall refer. It was
made the subject of great controversy during the election
and calls for at least a passing reference now. My distinguished predecessor has given much attention to the cause
of labor, with whose struggle for better things he has shown
the sincerest sympathy. At his instance Congress has passed
the bill fixing the liability of interstate carriers to their
employees for injury sustained in the course of employment,




AND   STATE PAPERS                  67
abolishing the rule of fellow servant and the common-law
rule as to contributory negligence, and substituting therefor
the so-called rule of "comparative negligence."  It has
also passed a law fixing the compensation of government
employees for injuries sustained in the employ of the Government. It has also passed a model child-labor law for
the District of Columbia. In previous administrations an
arbitration law for interstate-commerce railroads and their
employees, and laws for the application of safety devices
to save the lives and limbs of employees of interstate railroads had been passed. Additional legislation of this kind
was passed by the outgoing Congress.
I wish to say that, in so far as I can, I hope to promote
the enactment of further legislation of this character. I am
strongly convinced that the Government should make itself
as responsible to employees injured in its employ as an
interstate-railway corporation is made responsible by federal
law to its employees; and I shall be glad, whenever any additional reasonable safety device can be invented to reduce
the loss of life and limb among railway employees, to urge
Congress to require its adoption by interstate railways.
Another labor question has arisen which has awakened
the most excited discussion. That is in respect to the power
of the federal courts to issue injunctions in industrial disputes. As to that, my convictions are fixed. Take away
from the courts, if it could be taken away, the power to
issue injunctions in labor disputes, and it would create a
privileged class among the laborers and save the lawless (
among their number from a most needful remedy available
to all men for the protection of their business against unlawful invasion. The proposition that business is not a property or pecuniary right which can be protected by equitable injunction is utterly without foundation in precedent or
reason. The proposition is usually linked with one to make
the secondary boycott lawful. Such a proposition is at variance with the American instinct, and will find no support, 
in my judgment, when submitted to the American people.




68         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
The secondary boycott is an instrument of tyranny, and
ought not to be made legitimate.
The issue of a temporary restraining order without notice
has in several instances been abused by its inconsiderate
exercise, and to remedy this, the platform upon which I was
elected recommends the formulation in a statute of the conditions under which such a temporary restraining order
ought to issue. A statute can and ought to be framed to
embody the best modern practice, and can bring the subject so closely to the attention of the court as to make abuses
of the process unlikely in the future. The American people,
if I understand them, insist that the authority of the courts
shall be sustained, and are opposed to any change in the
procedure by which the powers of a court may be weakened and the fearless and effective administration of justice
be interfered with.
Having thus reviewed the questions likely to recur during
my administration, and having expressed in a summary way
the position which I expect to take in recommendations to
Congress and in my conduct as an Executive, I invoke the
considerate sympathy and support of my fellow citizens and
the aid of Almighty God in the discharge of my responsible
duties.




IV


MESSAGE CONVENING CONGRESS
IN EXTRA SESSION
(MARCH 16, 1909)
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
HAVE convened the Congress in this extra session in
order to enable it to give immediate consideration to
the revision of the Dingley Tariff Act. Conditions affecting
production, manufacture, and business generally, have so
changed in the last twelve years as to require a readjustment and revision of the import duties imposed by that Act.
More than this, the present tariff act, with the other sources
of Government revenue, does not furnish income enough to
pay the authorized expenditures. By July 1st next the
excess of expenses over receipts for the current fiscal year
will equal $100,000,000.
The successful party in the late election is pledged to a
revision of the tariff. The country, and the business community especially, expect it. The prospect of a change in
the rates of import duties always causes a suspension or
halt in business because of the uncertainty as to the changes
to be made, and their effect. It is, therefore, of the highest
importance that the new bill should be agreed upon and
passed with as much speed as possible consistent with its
due and thorough consideration. For these reasons, I have
deemed the present to be an extraordinary occasion, within
the meaning of the Constitution, justifying and requiring
the calling of an extra session.
In my inaugural address I stated in a summary way the
principles upon which, in my judgment, the revision of the
tariff should proceed, and indicated at least one new source
69




70         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
of revenue that might be properly resorted to in order to
avoid a future deficit. It is not necessary for me to repeat
what I then said.
I venture to suggest that the vital business interests of the
country require that the attention of the Congress in this
session be chiefly devoted to the consideration of the new
tariff bill, and that the less time given to other subjects of
legislation in this session, the better for the country.




V


GROVER CLEVELAND
(ADDRESS DELIVERED BY THE PRESIDENT AT THE CLEVELAND
MEMORIAL EXERCISES, HELD IN CARNEGIE HALL,
NEW YORK CITY, MARCH 18, 1909)
G   ROVER CLEVELAND was as completely American
in his character as Lincoln. Without a college education, he prepared himself for the Bar. His life was confined to western New York. His vision of government and
of society was not widened by foreign travel. He was a
pure product of the village and town life of the Middle
States, affected by New England ancestry and the atmosphere of a clergyman's home. His chief characteristics
were simplicity and directness of thought, sturdy honesty,
courage of his convictions and plainness of speech, with a
sense of public duty that has been exceeded by no statesman within my knowledge. It was so strong in him that he
rarely wrote anything, whether in the form of a private or
public communication, that the obligation of all men to
observe the public interest was not his chief theme.
His career was a most remarkable one. By his administration of the affairs of his city as its Mayor, he showed his
power of resistence to, and of overcoming, the influences
that made for corruption and negligence in city government, both in his own party and in the party of his opponents.
His reputation in this regard spread over his native state of
New York at a time when such an attitude as his seemed
exceptional, and his standing before the cummunity became
a political asset for the Democratic party, that even those
who had but little sympathy with his principles were glad to
seize upon as a means of getting into power. Accordingly,
71




r72       PPRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
he was nominated for the Governorship, and was elected
by the votes not only of his own party but of hundreds of
thousands of the Republican party. The discharge of his
duties as Governor confirmed and strengthened the reputation that he had acquired as a Mayor. Before he had ceased
his office as Mayor, he had been elected Governor. Before
he had ceased his office as Governor, he had been elected
President of the United States.
The presidential campaign of 1884 degenerated into
one of slander, scandal and abuse, but Mr. Cleveland came
through it, retaining the confidence of the American people
in his courage and honesty and his single purpose to better
the public service.
Mr. Cleveland was a Democrat. IHe was a partisan. He
believed in parties, as all men must who understand the
machinery essential to the success and efficiency of popular
government. His impulses were all toward the merit system of appointments in the public service, and against the
spoils system; but he had a practical, common-sense view
of the problems before him. He dealt with the instruments
which lhe had, and he not infrequently was obliged, in order
to accomplish greater objects, to yield to the demands of
those who had no ideals, and who were impatient of
anything but the use of government offices as a purely
political reward. Every time that opportunity offered, however, and there was not some greater object in immediate
view, he strengthened and assisted the movement toward
the merit system.
Mr. Cleveland's political career was so short that he had
a great advantage over the prominent men of his party whose
records reached back into, and were governed by, the bitter
quarrels of the Civil War. As a political quantity, his history began during the corruption and demoralization in the
Republican party which were a necessary result of continued
power during the war and the decade succeeding it. He
represented in a sense a new Democracy, about which all
the older elements rallied, both those strongly in sympathy




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with his reform views, as well as those elements without
such sympathy, who were anxious to secure party power.
At the end of his first term, he was renominated, but
was beaten by General Harrison in a close vote. By that
time, the politicians of the old school in the Democratic
party had drawn away from him, and had no desire to continue his leadership. But so strong a hold had he upon the
affections and confidence of the rank and file of his party,
and so sure were they that he was stronger than the party
in an electoral contest, that he was nominated in the National
Convention against the desires of most of the state organization leaders; and in the election which followed, he led his
party to the greatest victory in its history.
In this campaign Mr. Cleveland stood for an affirmative
idea, that of a reduction of the tariff, so as to make it a
tariff for revenue. He attacked the protective theory
and system. He stood for something aggressive and affirmative. It was in accordance with the ancient traditions of
the party.
I do not need to enter into a discussion of the merits of the
issue, but comment on it only as illustrating Mr. Cleveland's
character. He was positive. He was affirmative. He was
courageous. He believed in parties. He believed in party
policies, and he believed in consistency in regard to them,
and he did not believe in trimming down a policy to catch the
votes of those who really did not agree with it.
The first time Mr. Cleveland was in power he was opposed
by a Republican Senate. This gave little opportunity for
any radical change by legislation in the previous policies of
Republican administrations, but it did offer an opportunity
for Mr. Cleveland to point out to the country the fact that our
government is a government of three distinct branches, the
Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial, and that the
Executive has a sphere which the Legislative branch has no
right to invade.
We hear much in these days of the usurpation of the
Legislative jurisdiction by the Executive branch. As long




74


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


as the Legislative branch has the power of the purse, the
danger of Executive usurpation is imaginative. The real
danger arises from the disposition of the Legislative branch
to assume that it has the omnipotence of Parliament and
may completely control the discretion conferred upon the 1
Executive by the Constitution. The country is under obligation to Mr. Cleveland for having pointed out in his controversy with the Republican Senate, some of the limitations
that there are in the Constitution upon attempted Legislative action to restrict Executive discretion. In the end Mr.
Cleveland won in his controversy with the Senate. Whether
he might have done so, had both the House and the Senate 
been against him, is a matter of doubt. The history of
Andrew Johnson's controversy with Congress shows how far
a partisan legislature may be induced to go in an unconstitutional attempt to cut down Executive power. The limit
of Legislative restriction upon Executive action is a difficult
line to define. Any one who attempts to do more than to pass
on single instances as they arise may find himself in great
difficulty, but as such instances are considered and decided,
the limits are gradually being defined. We owe to Mr.
Cleveland and his courage in dealing with the Senate of the
United States, the establishment of some useful precedents.
In Mr. Cleveland's second term, there was a large majority of his party in the House and a working majority in the
Senate, so that the whole responsibility of Government fell
upon the Democracy, with Mr. Cleveland at its head. The
significance of his second administration centers about three
issues. The first was the tariff; the second, free silver, and
the third, the suppression of lawlessness directed against
Federal authority by use of the process of Federal courts
and by Federal troops. The same influences in his own
party which had sought to defeat Mr. Cleveland for nomination in his third canvass, he found intrenched in the Senate
so strongly as to be able to defeat the declared policy of his
party in favor of a revenue tariff, and he refused to sign the
Gorman-Wilson Bill but allowed it to become a law after




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denouncing it as the result of perfidy and dishonor. This
was doubtless the greatest disappointment of his political
life, for it destroyed the opportunity to test the wisdom of
the party policy advocated by him and declared in the party
platform, while the business depression which existed before
and after its passage furnished ammunition to his political
opponents who did not hesitate to argue that the prospect
of a revenue tariff on the one hand and the passage of the
actual Gorman-Wilson Bill on the other had paralyzed the
industries of the country. Whatever one's views upon the
tariff, whether he be a protectionist or a free-trader, he
B cannot but have the deepest sympathy with Mr. Cleveland
in his deep indignation at the party disloyalty which defeated
the Wilson Bill as it passed the House, and gave us the nondescript bill which became the law.
But there was rising in the Democratic party at the time,
especially in the western and southern parts of the country,
a desire for economic remedy which should cure everything
in our business and body politic. This was the movement
in favor of the free coinage of silver. The Republican
party and some of its leaders in the west and south had not
been free from weakness in this respect, and the law for the
monthly purchases of $2,000,000 of silver hung like a stone
around the neck of the country. Mr. Cleveland used all the
authority that he could command as the Executive to bring
about a repeal of this law, and he finally succeeded. The
deep gratitude of the country is due to him for this result.
Without it disaster would have come. Without it the credit
of the country could not have been sustained and there would
have been a blot on our financial escutcheon. But when
Mr. Cleveland succeeded in securing the repeal of the
Sherman Act, it seemed as if his control over the party with
respect to the monetary issue had been exhausted. His
party became hopelessly divided, and the majority of it
declared in favor of the free coinage of silver, a policy
which we know to-day, and which we ought to have known
then, was nothing but a policy of repudiation. It was a




76         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
policy completely contrary to the ancient and traditional
views of the old Democratic party. It was a departure
from the plainest principles of honesty to those who foresaw
its effect in the repudiation and scaling down of public and
private debts by legislative fiat. It was a policy which has 
taken away from the Democratic party the confidence of the
business community, whether previously Democratic or
Republican. It presented a moral issue so sharp, so clear,
as completely to destroy party fealty and party attachments. It took away from   the Democratic party that
strong, conservative element of which Mr. Cleveland was
the leader, and it made it for the time a party which seemed 4
to threaten the foundation of honest business and of honest
government. It seemed to make its campaign in 1896 and
1900, an assault upon that which was best in our civilization. In my judgment, the safety of the Republic was
threatened by the breaking up of the Democratic party
into its radical and conservative elements.
In the campaigns of Mr. Blaine and Mr. Cleveland and
of Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Iarrison, every one felt, however
deep his partisan desires, that the institutions of the country,
as established by the fathers, would be preserved under the
leadership of either party, but in the campaign of 1896,
and the one which followed it, there was certainly no such
confidence on the part of the men who voted for Mr. McKinley. It seemed to be an issue in which the permanence
of our institutions was involved.
In this light, it was an unfortunate day for the Republic
when the leadership of the Democracy passed from Mr.
Cleveland.
The patriotic spirit which moved those under Mr. Cleveland's leadership to break from party ties and save the
country from repudiation, entitled them and him to our
everlasting gratitude.
Another great debt which the country owes to Mr. Cleveland is the assertion, made through him as its Chief Executive, of the power of the Federal Government directly to




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defend the Federal jurisdiction through the process of
Federal courts and by Federal troops, against the lawless
invasion of a mob. Mr. Cleveland was a Democrat and of
course respected the traditional construction of the Constitution by that party; but no fear of apparent inconsistency
prevented him from asserting the full Federal power to maintain its authority to suppress lawlessness when directed
against Federal right and Federal jurisdiction; and so he instituted proceedings in the Federal courts to restrain the Debs'
boycott of the country, the tying up of interstate commerce,
and the interference with the mails, and he sent the troops
under General Miles to Chicago to make his assertion of the
power effective. It cost him the support of the thoughtless
whose sympathy against the unjust aggressions of corporate
power and wealth make them wink at the lawless invasion of
vested rights. But he succeeded in stopping what had
really grown to the proportions of an insurrection. The
highest tribunal created by the Constitution to fix the limits
of State and National authority completely sustained his
course. There were other issues in his administration;
there were other controversies in which he took part in his
political life, but time permits me only to discuss those which
I have referred to.
Grover Cleveland earned the sincere gratitude of his countrymen and justified recurring memorial occasions like the
one in which we are taking part. He was a great President,
not because he was a great lawyer, not because he was a brilliant orator, not because he was a statesman of profound
learning, but because he was a patriot with the highest sense
of public duty, because he was a statesman of clear perceptions, of the utmost courage of his convictions, and of great
plainness of speech; because he was a man of the highest
character, a father and husband of the best type, and because
throughout his political life he showed those rugged virtues
of the public servant and citizen, the emulation of which
by those who follow him will render progress of our political
life toward better things a certainty.




VI


PROPOSED      TARIFF-REVISION       LAW    OF   1909
FOR THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
(THE WHITE HOUSE, APRIL 14, 1909)
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
TRANSMIT      herewith  a communication from   the
Secretary of War, inclosing one from the Chief of the
Bureau of Insular Affairs, in which is transmitted a proposed tariff-revision law for the Philippine Islands.
This measure revises the   present Philippine tariff,
simplifies it, and makes it conform  as nearly as possible to the regulations of the customs laws of the United
States, especially with respect to packing and packages.
The present Philippine regulations have been cumbersome
and difficult for American merchants and exporters to
comply with. Its purpose is to meet the new conditions
that will arise under the section of the pending United
States tariff bill which provides, with certain limitations, for free trade between the United States and the
islands. It is drawn with a view to preserving to the
islands as much customs revenue as possible, and to protect in a reasonable measure those industries which now
exist in the islands.
The bill now transmitted has been drawn by a board of
tariff experts, of which the insular collector of customs,
Colonel George R. Colton, was the president. The board
held a great many open meetings in Manila, and conferred
fully with representatives of all business interests in the
Philippine Islands. It is of great importance to the welfare
of the islands that the bill should be passed at the same time
78




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES                79
with the pending Payne Bill, with special reference to the
provisions of which it was prepared.
I respectfully recommend that this bill be enacted at the
present session of Congress as one incidental to and required
by the passage of the Payne Bill.




VII
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT TAFT AT THE BANQUET GIVEN IN HIS HONOR BY THE BOARD
OF TRADE AND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
OF WASHINGTON, D. C., AT THE
NEW WILLARD
(MAY 8, 1909)
Mr. Chairman and the Solid Men of Washington:
WISH to thank you from the bottom of my heart for
the courtesy that you have extended to me this evening in this magnificent banquet, and in your coming here
to take part in this occasion. I am proud of it, if it be
the case, and I must believe it from the assurances given
to-night, that this is the first time that a President of the
United States has ever had the pleasure of meeting on such
an occasion and under such circumstances, the business men
of Washington. I hope for close intimacy; I hope that we
may come together and we may discuss these things, because
certainly we need it. I take the utmost personal pride
in the City of Washington. It thrills my heart every day
to look out of the back windows of the White Housefor the short time I have been there - and whenever I get
the opportunity, to see this beautiful city in which we are
permitted to live - these avenues and streets constructed
on a magnificent plan, looking forward for centuries; these
trees planted with great foresight to make every part of
Washington a park; these vistas into which always creeps
unbidden that beautiful shaft that marks the memory of
the founder of the city.
I have not been here very long in the City of Washington,
80




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


81


as some men count it long. I was here two years between
1890 and 1892; four years from 1904 to 1908 - but that is
a little bit longer than Justice Stafford. I have been a
tax-payer; I have invested some money in land in Washington and have not seen a dollar come out of it; I have sent
my children to the public schools; I have hung to straps in
street cars, going both ways to the Capitol; I have bathed
in the Potomac mud- in a bathtub; I have lunched at
Harvey's on those steamed oysters. and I have been a fan
with my friend "Sunny Jim" at the base-ball park and have
had a love, and cultivated it with him, for tail-enders. And
therefore, I claim that I have been through experiences that
ought to give me some of the local atmosphere and some of
the local feeling of Washington. And yet, with all that,
gentlemen, as I look about here into these smiling faces,
these somewhat rotund forms that give evidence of prosperity, it is a. little difficult for me to realize that it was about
those "caitiffs" and those "slaves" that Mr. Justice Stafford spoke.
In spite of my experience in Washington, I am a nationalist. This city is a home of the government of a nation, and
when men who were just as much imbued with the principles of civil liberty as any who have come after, Washington
at the head, put into the Constitution the provisions with
reference to the government of the District of Columbia,
they knew what they were doing, and spoke for a coming
possible eighty millions of people, who should insist that the
home of their government should be governed by their representatives; and that if there were in that eighty millions
of people men who desired to come and share in the grandeur
of that capital and live in a city of magnificent beauty as this
was and enjoy all the privileges, then they come with their
eyes open as to the character of the government that they
are to have, and they must know that they must depend
not upon the principles ordinarily governing in popular
government, but that they must trust, in order to secure their
liberty -to get their guaranties - they must trust to the




82         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
representatives of eighty millions of people selected under
that Constitution.
I want to say, with deference to this discussion, that if
this meeting (or subsequent meetings) is to be devoted to
securing an amendment to the Constitution, by which you
are going to disturb the principle of two Senators from
every State, and you are going to abolish the provision that
was put in there ex industria by George Washington, you
will not get ahead in the matter of better government in
Washington by such meetings. I do not want to seem to
be abrupt, but I believe it is possible by such meetings as
this to arouse the interest of Congress and the Executive 
to the necessity of consulting the people of Washington,
to let them act as Americans act when they don't have the
right of suffrage - let them act by the right of petition; and
are they not exercising that right all the time? Isn't it possible to determine on the part of the committees of the House
and the Senate what the attitude of the Washington citizens
is? Why, the government that we have to-day in Washington
everybody admits is a good government. Has it not been
brought about through the aid of those very committees in
the House and Senate who you say know nothing about
Washington, and who make their knowledge, or lack of
knowledge, ridiculous by showing it? We are all imperfect.
We can not expect perfect government, but what we ought
to do is to pursue practical methods, and not, I submit with
deference to Justice Stafford, make it seem as if the people
of Washington were suffering some great and tremendous
load and sorrow, when as amatter of fact they are the envy
of the citizens of other cities.
Washington intended this to be a Federal city, and it is
a Federal city, and it tingles down to the feet of every man,
whether he comes from Washington State, or Los Angeles,
or Texas, when he comes and walks these city streets and
begins to feel that "this is my city; I own a part of this
Capital, and I envy for the time being those who are able to
spend their time here," I quite admit that there are defects




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in the system of government by which Congress is bound to
look after the government of the District of Columbia. It
could not be otherwise under such a system, but I submit
to the judgment of history that the result vindicates the foresight of the fathers.
Now, I am opposed to the franchise in the District; I
am opposed, and not because I yield to any one in my support and belief in the principles of self-government; but
principles are applicable generally, and then, unless you
make exceptions to the application of those principles, you
will find that they will carry you to very illogical and absurd
results. This was taken out of the application of the principle of self-government in the very Constitution that was
intended to put that in force in every other part of the country,
and it was done because it was intended to have the representatives of all the people in the country control this one city,
and to prevent its being controlled by the parochial spirit
that would necessarily govern men who did not look beyond
the city to the grandeur of the nation, and this as the representative of that nation.
I have gotten over being frightened by being told that I am
forgetting the principles of the fathers. The principles of
the fathers are maintained by those who maintain them
with reason, and according to the fitness of the thing, and
not by those who are constantly shaking them before the
mass of the voters when they have no application.
Now, the question arises: What shall we do with the
government of Washington? Shall we have the present
board of three; shall we have one or shall we have some
other form? I confess I do not know. My predecessor
has recommended a change of the present form so as to give
the responsibility to one, with the view to visiting that one
with the responsibility. On the other hand, it is said that
three have worked well; that it gives more opportunity, possibly, for counsel, and that it takes away the bureaucratic
character of the government. As I have said, I have reached
no conclusion as to what recommendation I shall make to




84         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
Congress on the subject. I fully concur with Justice Stafford
in thinking that it would be most unwise to introduce into
the District what I understand to be a bureaucratic form of
government. That is right. A bureaucratic form of government is one which, as he very well described it, would make
the War Department look after the streets; Dr. Wiley, possibly, look after the health- the Agricultural Department
through him - and the Treasury Department look after
the finances. And so as to each branch of the government
you should go to the head of that particular department in
the general government. I think that would be a very
burdensome, a very awkward, a very clumsy system of gov- 
ernment. I am strongly in favor of retaining the municipal
form, so that everything which shall affect the city of Washington shall be (lone under the chief executive of that city,
and by that chief executive. In other words, I would give
an entity to the city of Washington, or the District of Columbia, and take all of that entity out of the operation of the
bureaus of the general government. That is what I understand to be the government to-day, and the only question
that has been mooted is really whether one man should be
put at the head of that government as a mayor, or whether
you should have three.  I agree that probably three men
are better, where you have real legislative functions to perform. I am inclined to think that, where the legislative
functions are reduced to a minimum and consist in little more
than mere executive regulation, possibly tie one-headed
form is the better, for executive purposes and to fix the
responsibility; but I am only thinking out loud, and only
because we are here talking right out in meeting I am telling you the reasons as they have been brought to me.
Now I want to talk about the future. And the future of
Washington! What an enormous development is before us!
Why, I am not an imaginative man, but I would like to come
back here a hundred years hence and see the beauties of
which this city is capable! Right here, under our noses for a
time, under our very eyes, are those beautiful Potomac




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flats that are going to make as fine parks and parkways as
there are in the world! Those parks ought to be connected
with the Rock Creek Park by means of the mouth of Rock
Creek, or otherwise; and then through them all there ought
to be carried a park clear around, including the Soldiers'
Home, and completing the circuit with Rock Creek at the
other end. Then, too, there is the development in Anacostia
and along the Eastern Branch. Then, the opportunities
for playgrounds that there are in Washington! It just
makes my mouth water for my poor city of Cincinnati, when
I look out and can see clear down to the Potomac and see
six and seven baseball matches going on with all the fervor
of Young America, and nobody to say them nay! And to
think - to think that we had a genius a hundred years ago,
almost, in his way, as matchless as Washington, to make the
plan for a great Capital, whose remains were buried here the
other day, and whose plans were hardly changed in the new
plan made by Burnham and his associates. I know there
has been discussion as to that plan. There has been a feeling that perhaps it was slipped on to us at one time,
and at another; but we all know, even my dear friend,
good old Uncle Joe, knows, that we are going to build up to
that plan some day. It is not coming at once, but we ought
to thank God that we have got a plan like that to build to
so that when we go on with the improvement every dollar
that we put in goes to make Washington beautiful a hundred years hence.
Then, Justice Stafford, in his very eloquent remarks,
called attention to the fact that in 1846 - I am sorry to say
it ought to be characterized, at least as far as that is concerned, as a day of small things - when the Congress could
have recited this: "Whereas, no more territory ought to
be held under the exclusive legislation given to Congress
over the District, which is the seat of the general government, than may be necessary and proper for the purposes of
such a seat. Therefore"-we give back all that we got from
Virginia. It is true the early statute said that no buildings




86        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
should be put on anything but the Maryland side of the
river, and perhaps they felt that as we were not going to use
that side for buildings, they did not need it at all. I have
never been able to satisfy myself that that retrocession was
within the power of Congress to make. They did attempt
to settle it once in the Supreme Court, but the Supreme
Court has a facility in avoiding the main question, born
of long practice. And when a gentleman who is paying taxes
on this side asks that they be extended to the other side, on
the ground that that retrocession did not carry Virginia, so
that he might have his taxes reduced, the Supreme Court
says that he can not do it in a collateral way; says that,
as both parties to the transaction seem to be satisfied up to
this time, they do not intend to investigate or seek any burdens that their salaries do not require them to meet. We
have never had that question tested. I believe we ought
to look forward to a great city of Washington, and while
the Anglo Saxon   and especially the Anglo Saxon in
Virginia -holds on to territory as long as he can, it might
be possible by agitating the question in a legal way to induce
another settlement by which we should get the only part
of that that we really would like to have, the part that we
own now in fee, the eleven hundred acres of the Arlington
estate, and a great deal that is unoccupied, leaving Alexandria out, and Falls Church, and taking in only that that is
uninhabited, so that we may have in this District, under our
fostering control, where we can build roads and make the
District still more beautiful, that bank of the Potomac on the
other side, as you go up toward Cabin John Bridge. We
will need it; the city will continue to grow. It may be, as
Justice Stafford has said, that there will be inaugurated a
protest by the people living here that they have not political
power; but I think that the Justice will find, when he comes
to looking into the hearts of the American people, that they
will not be convinced when they come to Washington that the
Washingtonians are suffering to that degree that requires a
reversal of the policy adopted, with entire clearness of mind




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by the framers of the Constitution. Washington, who
doubtless inserted that particular provision in the Constitution, through his influence, also had L'Enfant draw the
plans of Washington, and the plans of Washington were not
adapted to a village like Alexandria and the village that was
in the District at the time we came here - that was adapted
to a city of magnificent distances, and to a city of millions
of inhabitants; and therefore the clause was adopted, knowing that just such a city we would have here, and just such a
city would have to get along, relying upon the training in
self-government of the representatives of eighty millions of
people to do justice by it and its residents.
Now, my dear friends, I want to say to you that I have
got into a constitutional discussion here that I did not anticipate, but I hope it has not clouded my meaning, which I
intended to make as clear as possible, that I am deeply interested in the welfare of the District, I am deeply interested
in securing good government to every man, woman and child
in this District, and to secure so far as is possible, with the
original plan under the Constitution, such voice as the
people of the District may require in their local matters.
But, when it comes to defining how that is to be given, I can
not be more explicit than to say it must rest ultimately on
the right of petition. I do not see how you can do anything else. I am sure that if you will constantly agitate,
and if you will have as eloquent an orator as Justice Stafford talk to the committees of the House and Senate every
year, he will rouse them to such a desire to save you from
the "slavery" that he has pictured, that you will get the
attention you deserve.




VIII


MESSAGE     CONCERNING       AFFAIRS    IN
PORTO RICO
(MAY 10, 1909)
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
A  N EMERGENCY has arisen in Porto Rico which makes
it necessary for me to invite the attention of the Congress to the affairs of that island, and to recommend legislation at the present extra session amending the act under which
the island is governed.
The regular session of the legislative assembly of Porto
Rico adjourned March 11th last without passing the usual
appropriation bills. A special session of the assembly was
as once convened by the governor, but after three days, on
March 16th, it again adjourned without making the appropriations. This leaves the island government without provision for its support after June 30th next. The situation
presented is, therefore, of unusual gravity.
The present government of Porto Rico was established
by what is known as the Foraker Act, passed April 12, 1900,
and taking effect May 1, 1900. Under that act the chief
executive is a governor appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. A secretary, attorney-general, treasurer, auditor, commissioner of the interior, and commissioner
of education, together with five other appointees of the
President, constitute the executive council. The executive
council must have in its membership not less than five native
Porto Ricans. The legislative power is vested in the
legislative assembly, which has two coordinate branches.
The first of these is the executive council just described, and
the second is the house of delegates, a popular and repre88




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


89


sentative body, with members elected by the qualified electors
of the seven districts into which the island is divided.
The statute directing how the expenses of government
are to be provided leaves some doubt whether this function
is not committed solely to the executive council, but in practice the legislative assembly has made appropriations for all
the expenses other than for salaries fixed by Congress, and
it is too late to reverse that construction.
Ever since the institution of the present assembly, the
house of delegates has uniformly held up the appropriation
bills until the last minute of the regular session, and has
sought to use the power to do so as a means of compelling
the concurrence of the executive council in legislation which
the house desired.
In the last regular legislative assembly, the house of delegates passed a bill dividing the island into several counties
and providing county governments; a bill to establish manual-training schools; a bill for the establishment of an agricultural bank; a bill providing that vacancies in the offices
of mayors and councilmen be filled by a vote of the municipal councils instead of by the governor, and a bill putting in the control of the largest taxpayers in each municipal
district the selection in great part of the assessors of property.
The executive council declined to concur in these bills.
It objected to the agricultural bank bill on the ground that
the revenues of the island were not sufficient to carry out
the plan proposed, and to the manual-training-school bill
because in plain violation of the Foraker Act. It objected
to the change in the law concerning the appraisement of
property on the ground that the law was intended to put too
much power, in respect of the appraisement of property
for taxation, in the hands of those having the most property
to tax. The chief issue was a bill making all the judges in
municipalities elective. Under previous legislation there
are twenty-six municipal judges who are elected to office.
By this bill it was proposed to increase the elective judges
from twenty-six to sixty-six in numbe.r, and at the same




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


time to abolish the justices of the peace. The change was
objected to on the ground that the election of municipal
judges had already interfered with the efficient and impartial
administration of justice, had made the judges all of one
political faith and mere political instruments in the hands of
the central committee of the Unionist or dominant party.
The attitude of the executive council in refusing to pass
these bills led the house of delegates to refuse to pass the
necessary appropriation bills.
The facts recited demonstrate the willingness of the representatives of the people in the house of delegates to subvert
the government in order to secure the passage of certain
legislation. The question whether the proposed legislation
should be enacted into law was left by the fundamental act
to the joint action of the executive council and the house of
delegates as the legislative assembly. The house of delegates proposes itself to secure this legislation without respect
to the opposition of the executive council, or else to pull
down the whole government. This spirit, which has been
growing from year to year in Porto Rico, shows that too
great power has been vested in the house of delegates and
that its members are not sufficiently alive to their oathtaken responsibility, for the maintenance of the government, to justify Congress in further reposing in them absolute power to withhold appropriations necessary for the
government's life.
For these reasons I recommend an amendment to the
Foraker Act providing that whenever the legislative assembly
shall adjourn without making the appropriations necessary
to carry on the government, sums equal to the appropriations
made in the previous year for the respective purposes shall
be available from the current revenues and shall be drawn
by the warrant of the auditor on the treasurer and countersigned by the governor. Such a provision applies to the
legislatures of the Philippines and Hawaii, and it has prevented in those two countries any misuse of the power of
appropriation.




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The house of delegates sent a committee of three to Washington, while the executive council was represented by the
secretary and a committee consisting of the attorney-general
and the auditor. I referred both committees to the Secretary
of the Interior, whose report, with a letter from Governor
Post, and the written statements of both committees, accompany this message.
I have had one personal interview with the committee
representing the house of delegates, and suggested to them
that if the house of delegates would pass the appropriation
bills without insisting upon the passage of the other bills by
the executive council, I would send a representative of the
Government to Porto Rico to make an investigation and
report in respect to the proposed legislation. Their answer,
which shows them not to be in a compromising mood, was
as follows:
"If the legislative assembly of Porto Rico would be called
to an extraordinary session exclusively to pass an appropriation bill, taking into consideration the state of affairs down
the island and the high dissatisfaction produced by the intolerant attitude of the executive council, and also taking into
consideration the absolute resistance of the house to do any
act against its own dignity and the dignity of the country, it
is the opinion of these commissioners that no agreement
would be attained unless the council feel disposed to accept
the amendments of the house of delegates.
"However, if in the proclamation calling for an extraordinary session the judicial and municipal reforms would
be mentioned, and if the executive council would accept that
the present justices of the peace be abolished and municipal
judges created in every municipality, and that vacancies
occurring in mayorships and judgeships be filled by the
municipal councils, as provided in the so-called 'municipal
bills' passed by the house in its last session, then the commissioners believe that the appropriation bills will be passed
in the house as introduced in the council without delay."




P RESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


Porto Rico has been the favored daughter of the United
States. The sovereignty of the island in 1899 passed to the
United States with the full consent of the people of the island.
Under the law all the customs and internal-revenue taxes
are turned into the treasury of Porto Rico for the maintenance of the island government, while the United States pays
out of its own Treasurv the cost of the local army -- i. e.,
a full Porto Rican regiment - the revenue vessels, the lighthouse service, the coast surveys, the harbor improvements,
the mnarine-hospital support, the post-office deficit, the
weather bureau, and the upkeep of the agricultural experiment stations.
Very soon after the change of sovereignty a cyclone destroyed a large part of Porto Rican coffee culture; $200,000
was expended from the United States Treasury to buy rations
for those left in distress. The island is policed by 700 men,
and complete tranquillity reigns.
Before American control 87 per cent. of the Porto Ricans
were unable to read or write, and there was not in this island,
containing a million people, a single building constructed
for public instruction, while the enrolment of pupils in such
schools as there were, 551 in number, was but 21,000.
To-day in the island there are 160 such buildings, and the
enrolment of pupils in 2,400 schools has reached the number of 87,000. The year before American sovereignty there
was expended $35,000 in gold for public education. Under
the present government there is expended for this purpose
a total of a million dollars a year.
When the Americans took control there were 172 miles
of macadamized road. Since then there have been constructed 452 miles more, mostly in the mountains, making
in all now a total of 624 miles of finely planned and admirably constructed macadamized roads - as good roads as
there are in the world.
In the course of the administration of this island, the
United States medical authorities discovered a disease of
tropical anaemtia which was epidemic and was produced




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by a microbe called the "hook worm." It so much impaired
the energy of those who suffered from it, and so often led to
complete prostration and death, that it became necessary
to undertake its cure by widespread governmental effort.
I am glad to say that 225,000 natives, or one-fourth of the
entire population, have been treated at government expense,
and the effect has been much to reduce the extent and severity
of the disease and to bring it under control. Substantially
every person in the island has been vaccinated and smallpox has practically disappeared.
There is complete free trade between Porto Rico and the
United States, and all customs duties collected in the United
States on Porto Rican products subsequent to the date of
Spanish evacuation, amounting to nearly $3,000,000, have
been refunded to the island treasury. The loss to the
revenues of the United States from the free admission of
Porto Rican products is $15,000,000 annually. The wealth
of the island is directly dependent upon the cultivation of
the soil, to cane, tobacco, coffee, and fruit, for which we in
America provide the market. Without our fostering benevolence the business of Porto Rico would be as prostrate
as are some of the neighboring West Indian Islands. Before
American control the trade balance against the island was
over $12,500,000, while the present balance of trade in
favor of the island is $2,500,000. The total of exports
and imports has increased from about $22,000,000 before
American sovereignty to $56,000,000 at the present day.
At the date of the American occupation the estimated
value of all agricultural land was about $30,000,000. Now
the appraised value of the real property in the island reaches
10),000,00 0. The expenses of government before American
xontrol were $2,969,000, while the receipts were $3,644,000.
For the year 1906 the receipts were $4,250,000, and the
expenditures were $4,084,000. Of the civil servants in
the central government, 343 are Americans and 2,548 are
native Porto Ricans. There never was a time in the history of the island when the average prosperity of the Porto




94


PRSIDTIA      RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS


Rican has been higher, when his opportunity has been
greater, when his liberty of thought and action was more
secure.
Representatives of the house of delegates insist in their
appeals to Congress and to the public that from the standpoint of a free people the Porto Ricans are now subjected
under American control to political oppression and to a much
less liberal government than under that of Spain. To prove
this they refer to the provisions of a royal decree of 1897,
promulgated in November of that year. The decree related
to the government of Porto Rico and Cuba and was undoubtedly a great step forward in granting a certain sort of autonomy to the people of the two islands. The war followed
within a few months after its promulgation, and it is impossible to say what its practical operation would have been.
It was a tentative arrangement, revocable at the pleasure
of the Crown, and had, in its provisions, authority for the
governor-general to suspend all of the laws of the legislature of the islands until approved or disapproved at home,
and to suspend at will all constitutional guaranties of life,
liberty, and property, supposed to be the basis of civil liberty
and free institutions. The insular legislature had no power
to enact new laws or to amend existing laws governing property rights or the life and liberty of the people. The jurisdiction to pass these remained in the hands of the National
Cortes and included the mass of code laws governing the
descent and distribution and transfer of property and contracts, and torts, land laws, notarial laws, laws of waters and
mines, penal statutes, civil, criminal, and administrative
procedure, organic laws of the municipalities, election laws,
the code of commerce, etc.
In contrast with this, under its present form of government
the island legislature possesses practically all the powers of
an American commonwealth, and the constitutional guaranties of its inhabitants, instead of being subject to suspension by executive discretion, are absolutely guaranteed
by act of Congress. The great body of substantive law now




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in force in the island - political, civil, and criminal code,
codes of political, civil, and criminal procedure, the revenue,
municipal, electoral, franchise, educational, police, and
public-works laws, and the like - has been enacted by the
people of the island themselves, as no law can be put upon
the statute books unless it has received the approval of the
representative lower house of the legislature. In no single
case has the Congress of the United States intervened to
annul or control acts of the legislative assembly. For the
first time in the history of Porto Rico the island is living
under laws enacted by its own legislature.
It is idle, however, to compare the political power of the
Porto Ricans under the royal decree of 1897, when their
capacity to exercise it with benefit to themselves was never
in fact tested, with that which they have under the Foraker
Act. The question we have before us is whether their
course since the adoption of the Foraker Act does not show
the necessity for withholding from them the absolute power
given by that act to the legislative assembly over appropriations, when the house of delegates, as a coordinate
branch of that assembly, shows itself willing and anxious
to use such absolute power, not to support and maintain
the government, but to render it helpless. If the Porto
Ricans desire a change in the form of the Foraker Act, this
is a matter for congressional consideration dependent on
the effect of such a change on the real political progress in the
island.
Such a change should be sought in an orderly way, and not
brought to the attention of Congress by paralyzing the arm
of the existing government. I do not doubt that the terms
of the existing fundamental act might be improved, certainly in qualifying some of its provisions as to the respective
jurisdictions of the executive council and the legislative
assembly; and I suggest to Congress the wisdom of submitting to the appropriate committees this question of
revision. But no action of this kind should be begun until
after, by special amendment of the Foraker Act, the abso



96         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
lute power of appropriation is taken away from those who
have shown themselves too irresponsible to enjoy it.
In the desire of certain of their leaders for political power
Porto Ricans have forgotten the generosity of the United
States in its dealings with them. This should not be an
occasion for surprise, nor in dealing with a whole people
can it be made the basis of a charge of ingratitude. When
we, with the consent of the people of Porto Rico, assumed
guardianship over them and the guidance of their destinies,
we must have been conscious that a people that had enjoyed
so little opportunity for education could not be expected
safely for themselves to exercise the full power of selfgovernment; and the present development is only an indication that we have gone somewhat too fast in the extension
of political power to them for their own good.
The change recommended may not immediately convince
those controlling the house of delegates of the mistake they
have made in the extremity to which they have been willing
to resort for political purposes, but in the long run it will
secure more careful and responsible exercise of the power
they have.
There is not the slightest evidence that there has been
on the part of the governor or of any member of the executive council a disposition to usurp authority, or to withhold
approval of such legislation as was for the best interests of
the island, or a lack of sympathy with the best aspirations
of the Porto Rican people.




IX


ADDRESS AT THE UNVEILING OF THE PENNSYLVANIA MEMORIAL, AT PETERSBURG,
VIRGINIA
(MAY 19, 1909)
My Fellow Citizens:
W     tE ARE met to-day on the soil of Virginia to dedicate a memorial to the bravery of the sons of
Pennsylvania exhibited in a contest to the death with the
sons of Virginia and the South. We stand here in the
center of the bloodiest and most critical operations of the
last year of the civil war, only a few miles distant from that
dramatic scene at Appomattox between Grant and Lee,
which marked the great qualities of the heart and soul of
each, and which was the real end of the terrific struggle
between the two sections. Here, in and about Petersburg,
the outworks of Richmond, the home of the Confederacy,
were carried on those besieging operations begun late in the
spring of 1864 and continued with the courage and the
tenacity of purpose characteristic of the Federal commander
for nearly a year, and resisted with the bravery and strategy
and wealth of expedient of the Confederate leader until
the forces of the South, worn out by the constant assaults and
the incessant hammering, were compelled to yield to the
greater numbers and the greater resources of the North.
To Pennsylvania, as one of the great States of the Union,
engaged in the determination to save it, fell the burden of
furnishing tens of thousands of men for the struggle in every
part of the line of attack; but especially in the Army of the
Potomac was the force of her people and their devotion to
the cause felt. Besides her serried columns, she contributed
97




98


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


to the Union army, Major-General George C. Meade, the
commander of the Army of the Potomac; four corps commanders, Hancock, Humphreys, Birney, and Parke, together
with Gregg, the commander of the cavalry division-a
roster of which she may well be proud.
The mine under the Petersburg works which was successfully exploded in the early summer of '64 was the work of
the miners of Pennsylvania enlisted in the 48th Regiment
of that State, and the work which was done by them called
for special mention in the dispatches of General Meade.
In the operations in and about Petersburg, from the early
summer of '64 until the surrender at Appomattox in '65,
there were engaged from Pennsylvania upward of eighty
thousand men, a larger number than now constitutes the
army of the United States. Upon the 25th of March, 1865,
General Lee determined to make an assault upon the Federal
besieging lines east of the town, and successfully carried
them by attack of a division under General Gordon, only
to be ultimately defeated by the attack offered by Hartranft's two Pennsylvania brigades. These brigades had
just been recruited and might have been expected to yield
to the terrific onslaught of the Confederate veterans; but,
taking on the stubbornness and courage of their great
brigade commander, they withstood the battle and turned
the enemy and added to the martial renown of the Keystone
State.
It is forty-four years since the battle of Fort Stedman and
the subsequent victory of the Hartranft brigade. In the
time which has passed, the bitterness of the internecine
struggle has passed away, and we now treasure as a common
heritage of the country the bravery and the valor of both
sides in that controversy. A memorial which marks the steadfastness, the courage, and the soldierly qualities of the forces
engaged in defense of the Union, finds its true significance
and meaning in the corresponding bravery and courage of
those with whom the battle was fought.
The Army of the Potomac under Grant and Meade was




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seconded and supported by a generous government. Constant reinforcements, generous supplies of food and clothing, needful fuel and shelter, the tender ministrations of physicians and nurses, and frequent communication with home
and friends-all these abounded in the Union lines. It was
hardly so with the Confederate forces. Scantily clothed,
rarely on more than half-rations and for considerable periods
reduced to an allowance of bacon and meal hardly sufficient to sustain life, the long winter through, their shivering infantry manned the ever-extending siege works, and
made head against the vigorous assaults of the Union army
until their depleted ranks were not longer equal to the
defense of their attenuated lines and they gave up the contest which by any other soldiers but the tried and seasoned
veterans of the Army of Northern Virginia would long
before have been abandoned. We could not dedicate this
beautiful and enduring memorial to the volunteer soldiers
of Pennsylvania with such a sense of its justice and appropriateness, had they not been confronted by an enemy
capable of resisting their assaults with equal valor and fortitude. Pennsylvania's pride must be in the victory achieved
by her men against so brave, resolute and resourceful an
enemy.
That we can come here to-day and in the presence of
thousands and tens of thousands of the survivors of the
gallant army of Northern Virginia and of their descendants,
establish such an enduring monument by their hospitable
welcome and acclaim, is conclusive proof of the uniting of
the sections and a universal confession that all that was done
was well done, that the battle had to be fought, that the sections had to be tried, but that in the end, the result has inured
to the common benefit of all.
The men of the Army of Northern Virginia fought for a
principle which they believed to be right and for which they
were willing to sacrifice their lives, their homes - all, indeed,
which men hold most dear. As we recognize their heroic
services, so they and their descendants welcome the great
y~~~~~~~~~~~~~7aA 




100       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
commonwealth of Pennsylvania to the soil of Virginia and
join that commonwealth in honoring the services rendered,
by its gallant sons in the struggle for the preservation of the
Union. The contending forces of now half a century ago
have given place to a new North and a new South, and to
a more enduring union in whose responsibilities and whose
glorious destiny we equally and gratefully share.




x


ADDRESS AT THE AUDITORIUM, CHARLOTTE,
N. C.
(MAY 20, 1909)
Governor Kitchin and Ladies and Gentlemen of the Carolinas:
ONE of the embarrassments that attends the intense
pleasure I have in coming into the Southland is the
consciousness that I will have to do some speaking, and
that you are so used to eloquence of the highest order that
I have to submit myself to a comparison that is always
invidious. I a m here this afternoon merely to talk to
you. What I have to say will not rise to the dignity of
a speech.
In the first place, I should like to express my sincere
gratitude to the Governor of your State, to the Senators
of your State, and to the Representatives of your State, who
have done me the honor to be present on this occasion, and
to give me welcome. I should like to include, too, those
members of the Confederate veterans, those members of the
Grand Army of the Republic, those members of the Daughters of the Revolution, that distinguished lady, the widow
of Stonewall Jackson, and all the other charming and delightful people who exposed themselves to the elements this mornk ing to celebrate this day, and in part, I hope, to give me
welcome.
I wish also to express to the committee of arrangements
my deep regret that Mrs. Taft was not able to be present to
share the welcome which your committee was good enough
to tender her. I assure you I do not make nearly so good a
show when the better half of my firm is not with me.
We are here to celebrate a declaration of independence.
101




102        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
There are some unregenerate persons who live in South
Carolina and elsewhere who for various motives have cast
a doubt upon the claim. Now anybody that comes to
Charlotte who is not willing to admit in the full the declaration of independence made in Mecklenburg, is in the position
of a man of whom a Lord Justice of the Court of Appeals
of Ireland told me. I met him in Canada. He had a good
deal of experience in courts, and he was redolent with Irish
stories. He said that he was holding court in the County
of Tipperary, and that a man came before him and a jury
charged in the indictment with manslaughter, and that the
evidence showed that the deceased had come to his death
by a blow from a blackthorn stick in the hands of the defendant; but the evidence also showed that the man who died
had a "paper skull," as it is called in medical parlanceunduly thin. The verdict brought in was that of "guilty
of manslaughter," and his lordship called the man before
him and asked him whether he had anything to say why
the sentence of the court should not be pronounced upon him.
The defendant, turning to his lordship, said: "No, your
Lordship, I have nothing to say, but I would like to ask one
question."  "What, my man, is that?" said he. "I
would like to ask: What the divil a man with a head like
that was doing in Tipperary." I would like to ask in explanation of my position, what the "divil" a man who does not
believe in the declaration at Mecklenburg is doing in this
presence.
The claim is that more than twelve months before the
members of the Continental Congress declared that it
was necessary to have a separate and independent government in this country, free from British control, that
declaration was made in the court-house in this town of
Charlotte, by a committee of the County, of whom there
are now descendants living among you entitled to your
respect and to your congratulation on such ancestry. There
is a controversy as to what the exact words were that were
used in that declaration. I am not going to enter upon




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any such discussion, but I am going to point out what seems
to me to be, whether you take one version or the other,
the very important part of that declaration viewed from the
standpoint of practical patriotism and practical statesmanship. The general declaration as to the rights of
man I do not count nearly so important, looked at from the
standpoint of the responsibility of the people who made it,
as the practical provision contained in that declaration for
a government which was to succeed the British Government, and to accept all the responsibilities, to maintain a
government of law and order, and a government which
should have a military force to defend itself. My friends,
these general declarations unaccompanied by some sense
of the responsibility of self-government are worth little or
nothing. It is the men who go forward knowing what they
are doing when they are cutting off their relation to one
government, and understand that the only justification for
so doing is the preparation and the practical preparation of
a new government. That is what makes Anglo-Saxon
liberty; that is what has distinguished our race for a thousand years, that we dealt with what was practical and nol
with what was poetical and oratorical and rhetorical.
I want to call your attention in enforcing what I am
talking about to the guaranties of life- the guaranties as
we know them in the Constitution, of life, liberty and property. They consist not solely in general resolutions, that we
believe in liberty, and we believe every man ought to be free,
and we believe that he ought to be treated justly, and we
believe he ought not to be imprisonea except lawfully. Is
that all? No. That is not all we have in our Constitution.
If that is all we had, it would not be worth the paper it is
written on; it would not be worth more than the hundred
constitutions that have been made in various countries,
whose names it would be invidious to mention, which constitutions have gone down and haven't made a ripple on the
ocean of civilization. What is it in the Constitution of the
United States inherited from  our British ancestry that




104


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


makes that instrument and all the instruments of the State
constitutions so valuable? It is that each guaranty is a 
practical method of procedure by which the liberty and the
rights of the individual are secured. What are they? The
writ of habeas corpus. What is that? That is a method of
procedure. It is a method by which a man when he is imprisoned has the right to go to any judge and say to that
judge: "I wish you to call my captors here and have them
tell you whether I am lawfully imprisoned or not," and if
that judge does not do it, he creates a right to action against
himself which usually involves imprisonment. That is
a practical method. It is a procedure.  It is not a general
declaration. It is something that everybody can tell about.
I am a little more emphatic about this because I have come
up against the other kind of declarations in some of my 
experiences in the Philippines. A gentleman came to see
me one morning, the leading counsel in Manila, who had
drafted the constitution of the Philippines, and at the same
time an old man came in with a petition to me. I was then
Chairman of the Philippine Commission, and the petition
showed that this old man's son had been six years in Bilibid,
imprisoned without a trial, and without knowing what he
was there for. I said to the lawyer, "Why don't you get
out a writ of habeas corpus?" He said: "What is that
writ?" I said: "It is a petition inquiring into the lawfulness of his imprisonment, and General Otis has issued the
order granting that writ or the allowance of that writ, and
you can have it here." He asked me to draw up a petition,
which I did, and he took it into one of the local courts, which
happened to be presided over by an American. He went 
out to Bilibid prison and before he got through that day he
had filed ninety petitions for the writ of habeas corpus to
release people at Bilibid prison who had been there from
four to ten years. When they heard at whose instance he
had gotten them out, they wanted to attend in a mass and
come and thank me at my house. I expressed my appreciation of their gratitude, but as I was not quite sure but that




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half of them ought to have been where they were anyhow,
I excused them from coming and received an acknowledgment in the form of a table ornament, such as they give
in the Philippines, which consists of a bundle of toothpicks.
To go on, the writ of habeas corpus is one thing; an indictment by grand jury is another. That is mere procedure. That
is not a general right. It is a mere form of procedure. The
right of trial by jury is another form  of procedure.
Then there is the 14th amendment and the other, the 15th
amendment to the Constitution, which accords to every
one the right not to be deprived of his property without
due process of law. That does not say that you are not to be
deprived of your property unjustly. You may be. All
that says is that you shall have a hearing before a tribunal,
and that if a man is going to rob you he has got to rob you
in a regular way. Now, that is practical. The AngloSaxon ancestor knew that if he could once get it before court
he would have "a show for his white alley," that he would
have a day in that court, and that that was the true basis of
civil liberty. So it is with the declarations that were made
at Mecklenburg. You go over them and see that they
create selectmen, they create military guards, they create
courts with jurisdiction, they create courts to make collection
of debts, and they made every provision which a single community like this could make, together with commitments
for felony, to await the decision of courts to be created by
the highest authority under the authority of the General
Congress. Now, there are things in that declaration that
make me thrill with pride that there was a community in this
country - and I venture to say this was not the only community, but it seems to have been the one most charged with
its sense of responsibility - which knew that self-government
was not a mere gift, but it was something which when it is to
be enjoyed must be enjoyed with a full sense of the responsibility of those enjoying it, and with the idea that there is
a duty imposed on every one who enjoys it of seeing to it that
it is carried on for the benefit of all.




106        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
The Scotch-Irishmen who lived in this community were
hard-headed. They were willing to take upon themselves
the risk of being strung up as traitors to Great Britain;
they were willing to fight it out, as they did so often thereafter in the Hornet's Nest; but they recognized their responsibility as citizens and as individuals, that if they went into
the business of self-government, they must make that
government worthy of the name. Now, it is a fact that by
reason of the lax government which Great Britian was able
to give our colonies -I say lax -it was lax, though it
was unjust by fits and starts-our ancestors were the bestprepared people for self-government that ever assumed an
independent government. They had had two hundred
years of independence in the sense of distance from the
home government. When brought to mind they were
attacked occasionally by such tyranny as Governor Tyrol
manifested in North Carolina and as was manifested by other
governors at different times throughout the other colonies,
but all that time we were gathering experience, we were
gathering a sense of responsibility as to our own communities so that when in '75 you declared your independence
here, and in '76 we all declared our independence at Philadelphia, we were in a condition with men as great, as able,
as full of the knowledge of statecraft as any nation in Europe
or any nation that ever lived, to step into the ranks of nations
and carry on a government worthy the consideration of the
entire world. Now, we have had a great deal of experience
since that time. We have been through a number of wars.
We watched the institution of slavery grow by unfortunate
circumstances until it seemed to be an issue that had to be
fought out, and that we could not cure the body politic except
by an excision that threatened the whole physical structure
of the nation. But we have lived that through. You in the
Southland had the troubles, the suffering, the sad losses
burned into your hearts with much more emphasis than we
in the Northland, because here was the center of the war.
And it is entirely natural that in that forty years which have




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succeeded the war, with the continuance here of the race
whose fate was the cause of the war, that their condition,
even after the magnanimous spirit shown on both sides at
Appomattox was manifested to the world, there should continue a bitterness of feeling that time and long time could
only erase; but when we look back I think we must congratulate ourselves that even in that time the feeling has
largely disappeared, and that we are now a more united
country than ever since-I should say even decades beforethe war. One could not stand, as I did, on the platform
yesterday, and see 1,200 Union veterans from Pennsylvania who had taken part in the battles about Petersburg,
meet and fraternize with five hundred veterans of the Confederacy in their gray, and hear the expressions of mutual
esteem and mutual appreciation of the bravery on both
sides and the desire to further unite, without being convinced
that that is a sincere and a deep-rooted feeling on both
sides. It is true that political divisions have continued in
such a way as at some times to seem to perpetuate the
lines which were made at the time of the war, but even
those lines are rapidly disappearing; and it is the duty
of all of us with respect to political partisanship to
wipe out those lines as far as we can, and to see, so far
as we may, that in each State the tolerance of opinion
shall continue until there shall be respectable parties on
both sides of the line, because it is essential to have a good
opposition to have a good government. Now, if there is
anything that I can do in my administration to make that
feeling of union more close, I shall do it. When I was running for the presidency, I prided myself on having been the
first Republican candidate that ever came into North Carolina seeking suffrages for the Republican Party. I did not
carry the State, but I had a mighty good time. I am anxious,
of course, speaking from a partisan standpoint and leaving
my official position for a moment, that the Republican
party of North Carolina should be strengthened merely
to have a good fight every election, and, of course, in so far




108.


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


as I may legitimately, I should be glad to build up the Republican Party. Now, I understand that some of my Republican
friends think that I have lost sight of the Republican Party
in putting on the Federal Bench in North Carolina, a gentleman recently upon the Supreme Bench of the State, a
lawyer of the highest eminence and learning and integrity,
and a Democrat. I promised, after I was President-elect
-not before the election -to the South that I would do
the best I could to wipe out the feeling that the central
Government at Washington was a government alien to the
Southland, and I pointed out that the only way by which the
Executive could cure that feeling was, in so far as in him
lay, to put into office men in whom the community at large,
without regard to party, would have the highest confidence.
Now, I am trying to do that, and I am going to appoint
Republicans and I am going to appoint Democrats, striving in each case to get a man who will commend himself to
the community in which he lives. It is suggested that it is
an insult to the Republicans of a district to appoint a Democrat a Judge because from that is to be inferred that there
is no Republican worthy of the appointment, and I understand that there are some gentlemen in the Democratic
party who are willing to make that inference as strong as
possible, in order to stir up Republican dissatisfaction. But
I venture to say that when the whole account is added up,
that spirit will have disappeared and the Democrats who
seek to utter it will find that it is not such a popular method
of attacking the Republican Administration after all.
I plead to my Republican friends as a vindication and
justification for my course, the course of as orthodox a Republican as ever filled the executive chair, and a man than whom
there never was a President who did so much to maintain
the standard of the Federal Judiciary, Benjamin Harrison,
for he deemed it his duty to put one Democrat on the Supreme
Bench and two on the Circuit Court of Appeals. The Federal
Judiciary, my dear friends, to my mind is the strongest bulwark that we have in all this country to protect ultimately




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109


our institutions of civil liberty. It is the guaranties of
civil liberty in the Federal Constitution that we must love
and must hug to our bosom if we continue this civilization.
Therefore there is no more sacred duty that the Executive
has than in the selection of men whose appointment and
service-on the Bench will strengthen it with all the people
at large; and therefore ordinary considerations of political
partisanship have much less application to the appointment
of judges than they do to other and temporary offices. The
Federal Judiciary should be as much appreciated in the
South as it is in the North, and if I have an opportunity
to make any appointments in the South, it will continue to
be the chief duty I have to make such appointments as shall
appeal to all the people whether they be Republican or
Democrat, and I urge all citizens whether they be Republicans or Democrats, to accept the appointments made as
men, if they are men, who will carry on their high duties
with a single eye to the administration of justice, to accept
them, and congratulate the people on their appointment, and
not to make use of them for any partisan argument or partisan
appeal.
But now, my dear friends, I have got to the end of
my speech, I believe. I think not that we are at a
point where there is to be political revolution in the South.
I never had such a dream, but I believe we are on
the eve -of such a condition  in the South that there
shall be complete tolerance of opinion, and that there
shall grow into respectable power an opposition in each
State which shall tend to the betterment of the Government as it exists in the State, which shall give us
occasionally, as you have already given us in North Carolina,
a Republican in a crowd of Democrats, in order that we
may have represented in the Congress at Washington your
views without regard to some past issue, without regard to the
ghost of an issue that really ought not to influence you in
enforcing those particular economic views that you really
entertain. Let me again say to you how my heart has been




110        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
aroused by the cordiality of your reception, by the nonpartisan welcome of your distinguished Governor and your
Congressmen and your Senators, whether Republicans or
Democrats, and to say to you that I haven't spoken here consciously a word to influence you in a partisan way, but it is
impossible to discuss the conditions without mentioning
the parties. I hope you will, therefore, forgive me for an
apparent reference to political conditions when I am really
only extending to you the right hand of fellowship as Americans, explaining possibly by inference some of the difficulties of conducting this Government as its Chief Executive.
I thank you!




XI


ADDRESS AT HOWARD UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON, D. C.
(MAY 26, 1909)
Mr. President, and Young Ladies and Gentlemen of the
Graduating Class:
HAVE a good many engagements and I am tempted into
them sometimes - before the engagements are to be
met and the work is to be done - by such a mellifluous and
forceful gentleman as your President; and then I am not
reminded of the obligation thus assumed until I pick up the
morning paper and find myself advanced as one of the
chief attractions at some meeting where I don't feel myself
at all as entitled to figure in that capacity.
When your President came to me and asked me to come
to Howard University he said that he expected to celebrate
the laying of the cornerstone of a new building here, given
by Mr. Carnegie, and that incidentally there would be
commencement exercises. I am a fairly good hand at a
trowel and I thought possibly I might engage in the exercises
of laying the cornerstone without being involved in a speech.
But I find it to be otherwise. Nevertheless, I am glad to seize
the opportunity of looking into your faces, you young men
and women who are about to go out into the world and meet
the obstacles which are before you and to overcome them
successfully, as I sincerely hope you may. I am glad to be
able to be here to testify to you my profound sympathy in
your careers and my hope that they all may be successful.
This institution here is the partial repayment of a debt 
only partial -to a race to which a government and the
people of the United States are eternally indebted. They
111




112


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


brought that race into this country against its will. They
planted it here irretrievably. They first put it in bondage
and then they kept it in the ignorance that that bondage
seemed to make necessary, under the system then in vogue.
Then they freed it and put upon it the responsibilities of
citizenship. Now, some sort of obligation follows that chain
of facts with reference to the people who are responsible for
what that government did. The obligation would be clearer,
or rather, the method of its discharge would be easier, were
it not for our constitutional system which throws generally
upon the States the burden of education and leaves to the
general government only certain limited jurisdiction with
respect to the people. However, in so far as the District of
Columbia is concerned, and the establishment of institutions
of learning in this District, we are free from any embarrassment with respect to the carrying out of the obligation, and
it is fitting that the Government of the United States should
assume the obligation of the establishment and maintenance
of a first-class University for the education of colored men.
I am far from saying- and I wish to put in this caveat in
advance, in order not to be met by an argument which has
weight but has not weight when improperly used - that the
colored race to-day, all of them, would be better off if they
all had university education. I think they would be in a
very bad way if they had, because they would not know how
to use it and they would not find means of using it. No race
would be better off if they were all educated as university
men. The great body of the colored race, as the great body
of the white race, must depend for their livelihood upon
their manual labor, skilled or unskilled, or upon some occupation which requires less education than that which is
conferred by a university, and if it is too widely extended,
the effect of it is to put a lot of men into life who do not find
occupations which are suited to their tastes, and to make them
unhappy and really not fit for the life which is before them.
On the other hand, that admission is far from a concession
that it is not necessary for the success of the colored race that




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113


there be among them leaders of that race fitted by university
education for that leadership. There is not any likelihood,
with deference to persons who occupy a different position,
that either in the generosity of the general government or in
the generosity of individuals who found colored colleges and
universities, there is to be such an opportunity given as is
likely to lead too many colored men to acquire university
education as computed with the number of colored men
that there are in the community and especially south of
Mason and Dixon's linle. The opportunity that there is
for educated colored mel to aid their race in the struggle
before them for economic saccess and the maintenance of
themselves as worthy and vasiable members of the community - the opportunity that 1 are is for university men
among colored men to assist in that movement, I say is
very great indeed.
Through the South one of the things that is essential is
the cultivation of greater sanitation and greater attention to
the laws of hygiene among the colored race. What they
need in the South is a great many more physicians of their
own color and race to tell them how to live and to enable
them to recover when they are subject to the many sicknesses
to which they are subject by reason of the kind of life they
lead in the South. I have had occasion to look into it and
I am glad to offer to the young doctors to whom I am addressing myself an opportunity for a successful livelihood as physicians in the growing Southern communities where there are
so many colored people coming to the front and where physicians well educated are able to make a good livelihood on
the one hand, and on the other to do a substantial good to
their race.
The benefit that teachers educated here can do to their
race goes without saying. Of course, the basis of the education of the colored people is in the primary schools and
in the industrial schools - in schools framed after Hampton
and Tuskegee and even those less ambitious, but still furnishing an industrial department. In those schools must be




114


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


introduced teachers from such university institutions as this,
and it is in furnishing the material for the faculties of those
smaller - not smaller, but less ambitious schools -- that
such an institution as this shall have its chief function.
Then, too, among the colored race, the ministers have a
great influence. Now, if they are to wield that influence
they can not be too highly educated; they can not know too
much in order that they may carry on their sacred function
and discharge it to the highest benefit of the race.
I say these things with a good deal of emphasis because I
know there are many who dispute the wisdom of large contributions to universities of the colored race like this, and
at one time I was very much perplexed with the argument
to know whether or not it was proper. But what is the fact?
There are several universities in this country, besides Howard
University, devoted to the colored race; those are Lincoln,
Fisk, Atlanta, Talladega and Wilberforce, and they have
not, taken together, an endowment that exceeds $250,000.
Now,when you consider that there are ten millions of Negroes
in this country, you see how utterly inadequate, even for the
education of the leaders, those universities, together with
this, are; and there is opportunity for the founding of more,
or certainly for the enlargement of this, as Congress and the
people of the United States shall understand the useful part
that this institution and institutions like it play in the real
uplifting and onward progress of the race.
I am delighted to think, because I have been in the South
a good deal of late and have studied seme of the conditions
there, that they are getting better and better for the Negro
race in certain respects that are not published to the world,
but that really affect very much the conditions of these m ho
live there. In all the growing communities of the SouthI mean where there is a touch of the modern and a touch of
progress and a touch of civilization - the white men of
progress are beginning to appreciate the advantage of having
a class like the colored men that they have there. They are
anxious that they have an industrial education. Ttev ale




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115


anxious that they should make their way in the world and
show their usefulness in the community. The truth is
that the greatest hope that the Negro has, because he lives
chiefly in the South, is the friendship and the sympathy of
the white men with whom he lives in that neighborhood.
I know it is not the habit to think so, but it is growing, and
one of the things that misleads us most is the desperate, the
extreme statements of white men from the South on the
subject, but really they don't mean what they say. They
are the last people that want to be taken literally. They
have a theory that it may give them sometimes a little boost
politically to talk in extremes and superlatives, but I have
heard expressions from leading Negroes in various cities that
confirm my judgment that the situation is growing better
and better. I remember hearing the Reverend Dr. Walker,
that Negro who went abroad and preached in Spurgeon's
pulpit and was worthy to preach in that pulpit, express his
friendship for the white people of Augusta where I spent five
or six weeks, and express his view of the proposition that
the Negro race should be moved to some other country than
this. He said they were mighty well satisfied to live in
Augusta until they went to glory, and that they did not want
to go anywhere else until they did go to glory. That is the
same sentiment I found in Charlotte and in Petersburg. I
don't mean to say that there are not exceptions. I mean
to say that those communities that are moving forward
are moving forward with a keen eye to progress and that
they realize the advantage they have in the presence of the
Negro race who are almost their only laborers.
We have a gentleman at the head of the Jeanes trust fund
who tells a good story. He said he was in one of the towns
-I think it was in North Carolina - where they were bringing in some Italian immigrants and that an old colored man
there inquired as to what they were doing. He said they
were white men who had come into the country from abroad.
"Why," he said, "we's got white men enough already to
work for - we can't do no more." Now, the fact is that




116        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
the progress of the race is outlining itself with great clearness,
to me at least, in making itself a useful part of the community
where it is, so that it shall not only awaken an altruistic spirit,
or spirit of humanity, but, what is a good deal better to tie to,
shall awaken the economic spirit of those with whom you
live and who value your services as members of the community and know how much you add to its success by being
there and being valuable members of that community in
accumulation, in your providence and in making the homes
that are made in a successful community of Negroes in the
South.
It seems to me that the future is in the hands of the race
itself. I do not mean to say that cruelties are not to exist
in the future, and injustices, and a great many reasons why
complaints should be made against the inhumanity of man,
but I do mean to say that there never has been a time in the
history of the Negro race when the future offered such a
basis for belief in your success as a race and for the belief
that you have it in your hands to make that success as it is
to-day. Everything that I can do as the Executive in the
way of helping along this University I expect to do. I expect
to do it because I believe it is a debt of the people of the
United States, it is an obligation of the Government of the
United States, and it is money constitutionally applied to
that which shall work out in the end the solution of one of
the great problems that God has put upon the people of the
United States.




XII


ADDRESS AT THE RODELPH SHALOM TEMPLE,
l(r     ~      PITTSBURG, PA.
(MAY 29, 1909)
My dear Friends:
I DO not claim to conform very strictly to religious obt    1 servances, but it has remained for the city of Pittsburg
to bring me to church, both on Saturday and on Sunday.
I esteem it a great privilege to appear before this intelligent
and patriotic audience- at the instance of your leader,
your Rabbi, who was a warm friend of my predecessor, and
who, I am glad to think, has transferred his friendship for the
time to me.
I am not altogether out of place in a Jewish tabernacle,
for the church that I attended in Cincinnati, in my boyhood
and young manhood, was immediately next to the Jewish
tabernacle of the Reverend Dr. Wise; and there were times
in the history of both churches when there was an exchange
between the pulpits. I am glad to be here this morning -
this beautiful morning and in this beautiful church - to show
if possible by my presence how this is a Government of all
) the people, and how the Constitutional provision that there
shall be no religious requirement or qualification for office or
citizenship in this country is evidenced by the presence of the
President of the United States in a Jewish tabernacle, where
he feels himself as much at home and with as much support as
he does in any other church in the country.
The prayer to which we just listened, full of that liberality
r and love of humankind, makes one feel ashamed of all
narrowness and bigotry in religion, and it gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart,
117




118        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and
under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed
to live up to the highest standard of citizenship and patriotism.
I thank your Rabbi, and I thank you, for the opportunity
to appear before you and say this much. I am not a
preacher. I am not in the habit of appearing in pulpits. It
was not until I returned from the Philippines that I appeared,
once in a Presbyterian pulpit, once in an Episcopalian pulpit,
once in a Unitarian pulpit, and now before a Jewish audience
in the pulpit of a Jewish tabernacle. That makes a round,
I think, that justifies my saying that I hope to be the President of all the people, and to have your support, as you have
given it to my predecessors, without stint and with every
desire to make this a great country and a great Government. 




XIII


ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG
(MAY 31, 1909)
WH    E ARE gathered at this historic spot to-day to dedicate
a monument to the memory of the officers and the
enlisted men of the Regular Army who gave up their lives
for their country in the three days' battle. It is but a tardy
recognition of the Nation's debt to its brave defenders whose
allegiance was purely to the Nation, without local color or
strengthening of State or municipal pride.
The danger of a standing army, entertained by our ancestors, is seen in the constitutional restrictions and the complaints registered in the Declaration of Independence. It
has always been easy to awaken prejudice against the possible
aggressions of a regular army and a professional soldiery,
and correspondingly difficult to create among the people,
that love and pride in the army which we find to-day and
frequently in the history of the country aroused on behalf of
the navy. This has led to a varied and changeable policy
in respect to the regular army. At times it has been
reduced to almost nothing. In 1784, there were but eighty
men who constituted the regular army of the United States,
and in Battery F of the 4th Artillery were fifty-five of
them; but generally the absolute necessities in the defense
of the country against the small wars, which embrace so
large a part of our history, have induced the maintenance
of a regular force, small to be sure, but one so well trained
and effective as always to reflect credit upon the Nation.
In the War of 1812, had we had a regular army of 10,000
men, trained as such an army would have been, we should
have been spared the humiliation of the numerous levies of
11.9




120        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
untrained troops and the enormous expense of raising an
army on paper of 400,000 or 500,000 men, because with
an effective force of 10,000 men, we might have promptly
captured Canada and ended the war.
The service rendered by the regular army in the Mexican
War was far greater in proportion than that which it rendered
in the Civil War, and the success which attended the campaigns of Taylor and of Scott were largely due to that body
of men.
To the little army of 25,000 men that survived the Civil
War, we owe the opening up of the entire western country.
The hardships and the trials of frontier Indian campaigns,
which made possible the construction of the Pacific railroads,
have never been fully recognized by our people, and the
bravery and courage and economy of force compared with
the task performed shown by our regular troops have never
been adequately commemorated by Congress or the Nation.
To-day, as a result of the Spanish War, the added responsibilities of our new dependencies in the Philippines, Porto
Rico, and for some time in Cuba, together with a sense of the
importance of our position as a world power, have led to
the increase of our regular army to a larger force than ever
before in the history of the country, but not larger in proportion to the increase in population and wealth than in the
early years of the Republic. It should not be reduced.
The profession of arms has always been an honorable one,
and under conditions of modern warfare, it has become
highly technical and requires years of experience and study
to adapt the officers and men to its requirements. The
general purpose of Congress and the American people, if one
can say there is a plan or purpose, is to have such a nucleus
as a regular army that it may furnish a skeleton for rapid
enlargement in time of war to a force ten or twenty times
its size, and at the same time be an appropriate instrument
for accomplishing the purposes of the government in crises 
likely to arise, other than a war.
At West Point, we have been able to prepare a body of




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191


professional soldiers, well trained, to officer an army, and
numerous enough at the opening of the Civil War to give
able commanders to both sides of that internecine strife.
Upon the side of the North many of the officers were
drafted to command the volunteer troops from the States,
while the regular army, aggregating about 10,000 at the
opening of the war, was increased to about 25,000 during
its first year. More than half this army was engaged in the
Battle of Gettysburg. Eleven regiments of infantry, five
regiments of cavalry, twenty-six batteries of artillery, and
three battalions of engineers. The infantry of the regular
army were embraced in two brigades of the Third Division
of the Fifth Corps under Major-General Sykes, himself a
most able regular army officer. The cavalry was included
in a Reserve Division under General Merritt, and the
batteries were distributed among various army corps of the
entire Federal force.
Two of the most important and determining crises of the
three days' battle were, first, the seizure of the Round Tops
and the maintenance of the Federal control over that great
point of vantage, the possession of which by the Confederate
forces would have taken the whole Federal line in the reverse;
and the second was the resistance to Pickett's charge on the
third day of the battle when the high point in the Confederate
advance into Pennsylvania was turned, and Lee was defeated
and hurried back into Southern territory, never again to
plant his Confederate battle-flags on Northern soil. The
taking of the Round Tops and the driving back of the Confederate forces was the work of Sykes' Fifth Army Corps,
and especially of the two brigades of the Regular Infantry
regiments, in which in killed and wounded alone the regulars
lost 20 per cent. of their full number, and some of their
brigades, notably Burbank's, lost 60 per cent. in killed
and wounded of the men engaged. With a desperate bravery
worthy of the cause, they drove back the Confederate forces
and enabled General Meade to unite the left of Sickles' 3rd
Corps with the right of the 5th Army Corps, and thus pre



1  PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
sented a shorter but a firmer front with which to withstand
the onslaught of Lee's army upon the third day.
Without invidious comparison and in no way detracting
from the courage and glory of the other branches of the
service who united to resist Pickett's charge, it is well known
that much of the effective resistance was by the artillery.
The batteries of the regulars and volunteers under General
Hunt made the resistance to that awful charge that gave the
victory to the Union forces. The soul of Cushing, in charge
of Battery F, 4th Artillery, went up with the smoke of the
last shots which sent Pickett's men reeling back from the
point now marked as the high tide of the Confederacy.
Time does not permit me to mention the names of the
heroes of the regular army whose blood stained this historic
field, and whose sacrifices made the Union victory possible.
With my intimate knowledge of the regular army, their high
standard of duty, their efficiency as soldiers, their high
character as men, I have seized this opportunity to come
here to testify to the pride which the Nation should have in
its regular army, and to dedicate this monument to the predecessors of the present regular army, on a field in which
they won undying glory and perpetual gratitude from the
Nation which they served. They had not the local associations, they had not the friends and neighbors of the volunteer forces to see to it that their deeds of valor were properly
recorded and the value of their services suitably noted in
the official records by legislation and congressional action,
and they have now to depend upon the truth of history and
in the cold, calm retrospect of the war as it was, to secure
from Congress this suitable memorial of the work in the
saving of the country which they wrought here.
All honor to the Regular Army of the United States!
Never in its history has it had a stain upon its escutcheon.
With no one to blow its trumpets, with no local feeling or
pride to bring forth its merits, quietly and as befits a force
organized to maintain civil institutions and subject always
to the civil control, it has gone on doing the duty which




AND STATE PAPERS                  123
was its to do, accepting without a murmur the dangers of
war, whether upon the trackless stretches of our western
frontier, exposed to the arrows and the bullets of the Indian,
or in the jungles and the rice paddies of the Philippines, on
the hills and in the valleys about Santiago in Cuba, or in the
tremendous campaigns of the Civil War itself, and it has
never failed to make a record of duty done that should satisfy
the most exacting lover of his country.
It now becomes my pleasant duty to dedicate this monument to the memory of the regular soldiers of the Republic
who gave up their lives at Gettysburg and who contributed
in a large degree to the victory of those three fateful days in
the country's history.




XIV


AN ANSWER TO THE PANAMA CANAL CRITICS *
THE Panama Canal continues to furnish copy for the
newspapers and the magazines of the country. It
is being constructed by the United States Government for
the benefit of world commerce, and every citizen of the
United States, and indeed any citizen of the world, properly
feels himself authorized to criticize the work as it is being
done and to express his opinion as to the type of canal that
is selected. In such an enormous work as the construction
of the canal is likely to be, it would seem wise to have fixed
definitely, at the beginning, the type and plan to be followed.
When De Lesseps, having completed in triumph the Suez
Canal, came to Panama, he began the construction of what
his board of management and he intended to be a sea-level
canal. Between that time and 1902, when the canal was
offered for sale to the United States for $40,000,000 several
boards were appointed for the purpose of recommending the
best course to be taken in the construction of the canal. Two
of these boards were French, and all of them recommended
the lock type of canal, with a dam at Bohio. We all remember that the Nicaragua route had a great many adherents
in and out of Congress, and that for a time it seemed likely
that that route would be selected. The natural conditions
made it necessary that the canal across Nicaragua should be
of a lock type. When the change of plan from Nicaragua to
Panama was made, it is quite evident, from the discussion,
from the law, and from direct evidence, that it was expected
that the canal to be built would be of the lock type and
would not be on the sea level.
One of the most careful of the French boards that recom*This article was prepared by Mr. Taft prior to his inauguration, and was published in McClure's Magazine, May, 1909.
124




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


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mended the lock type pointed out that a lock canal was
necessary because the floods of the Chagres River would be
uncontrollable in case of a sea-level canal, and made such a
canal impossible. In 1906 thirteen engineers were invited
to consider the question of the proper type of the canal.
Of these, eight were Americans and five foreigners. A
majority, consisting of the five foreigners and three Americans, decided in favor of a canal that should be 150 feet
across the bottom for more than nineteen miles and 200 feet
across the bottom for a little more than twenty miles. Five
American engineers - including Mr. Alfred Noble, chief
engineer of the Pennsylvania Company, constructor of the
"Soo" canal and locks, and dean of American engineers;
Mr. Frederic P. Stearns, the chief engineer of the Metropolitan Water Board Company of Boston; and Mr. Randolph,
the constructor of the Chicago Drainage Canal - recommended the construction of a lock canal, the main feature of
which was to be a lake with the level of the water at eightyfive feet above the sea. These reports were considered by
the Isthmian Canal Commission, itself composed of engineers
and men familiar with works of construction, and that
commission, by a vote of five to one, recommended to the
War Department and to the President the adoption of the
minority report. This action of the commission was concurred in by Mr. John F. Stevens, then chief engineer of the
commission in charge of the work at the Isthmus. The
Secretary of War and the President also approved the report
of the minority of the consulting board and decided in favor
of a lock canal.
The question was submitted by President Roosevelt to
Congress. It was unnecessary to do this, because, under
the Spooner Act, the President had authority to build the
canal, and so hac authority to determine what the type
should be. The fact is that in reading the Spooner Act
of 1902, directing the construction of the canal, it is impossible to escape the construction that Congress at that
time contemplated, not a sea-level, but a lock canal.




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


However, the question was again fairly submitted to Congress
upon all the reports made and all the evidence.
After the reports had been made, the Senate Committee
on Interoceanic Canals conducted an examination of all the
engineers and others with knowledge, in order to arrive at
a conclusion in respect to the question thus submitted to
Congress. The Senate Committee by a majority reported
in favor of a sea-level canal, but when the matter was considered in open Senate, where it was very fully discussed,
the Senate accepted the minority report of that Committee
and decided in favor of the lock canal. In the House of
Representatives the resolution in favor of the lock canal was
carried by a very decided majority. And so the law of
Congress to-day fixes the type of the canal as a lock canal, at a
level of eighty-five feet. Meantime, the organization of the
instrumentalities for construction on the Isthmus has gone
on with great rapidity and effectiveness, until the excavation
has reached the very large amount of three millions of cubic
yards of material a month. More than half of this has been
made by steam shovels in the dry, while the rest has been
made by steam dredges. The steam dredges have been
working in the softer material in the harbors and channels
near the ocean on each side of the Isthmus.
All the plans have been made and all the work done with a
view to the construction of the lock canal. It is true that a
large part of the work, until recently, would have had to be
done for a sea-level canal, except for the expensive change or
relocation of the Panama Railroad, and the excavations for
the locks and for the spillway of the great Gatun Dam,
which is the key of the lock type. I presume it would be
difficult to say how many millions of dollars have now been
spent that would be thrown away, were the canal to be
changed from a lock to a sea-level type, but certainly fifteen
million dollars is not an overestimate of the amount.
With a plan settled and the organization becoming more
and more perfect, and the work of excavation going on at an
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the work are confronted with a newspaper war upon the
type of the canal, and a discussion in the Senate of the
United States, seriously suggesting a change from the lock
type solemnly adopted by law two years ago, to a sea-level
canal. What has given rise to this renewed discussion of
the type of the canal and this assumption that the question
of the type is still really open for consideration and settlement? Three circumstances, and only three, that I can
trace.
The first is that a newspaper correspondent on the Isthmus,
while detained by a washout on the railroad in one of the
heavy rains that are frequent on the Isthmus, heard that the
rock and earth which is now being deposited in great quantities to form the Gatun Dam, had, under the effect of the
flood, sunk out of sight into a subterranean lake, and cabled
to the United States that the whole structure of the Gatun
Dam had given way.
The second circumstance was that the estimates of the
engineers in the actual construction of the work and the
expenditure of the money from time to time showed quite
clearly that the cost of the construction of the lock
type of canal would be at least twice that which had been
estimated as its cost by the minority of the board of consulting
engineers.
The third circumstance was that under the present efficient
organization, with the use of steam shovels and dredges, the
amount of excavation has considerably exceeded that which
had been anticipated.
In this wise, the argument in favor of a change from the
lock canal to the sea-level canal apparently is given great
additional force because it is said that by the sinking and
giving way of the Gatun Dam, the indispensable feature of
the lock type, it has been demonstrated that the lock type is
unsafe, dangerous, and impossible.
Second, it is said that the argument which has been made
in favor of the lock type of canal on the ground of economy
is shown to be unfounded because the real cost of the lock




128        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
type of canal is demonstrated by actual construction to be
equal to, or in excess of, the estimated cost of the sea-level
canal.
Third, it is said that the argument that the sea-level canal
would be a great many years in process of construction,
which was vigorously advanced, is now shown to be erroneous
by the great increase in the daily, monthly, and yearly
excavation as compared with the total amount of excavation
needed in the sea-level type.
I propose in a general way to examine these three reasons
to see how much real weight they have.
First, as to the sinking of the Gatun Dam. The report
of the newspaper correspondent, like so many other statements made with respect to a matter two thousand miles
away, under the influence of a desire to be sensational and
startling, was founded purely on imagination. The only
foundation for the statement was that in a comparatively
small stretch on the site of the dam, perhaps two hundred
feet across, some rough material had been piled up on the
upward side of the dam, and there had been excavated
immediately back of this pile or dump a lot of material from
an old French diversion channel; that the water accumulated above this dump in the very heavy rains; that the water
behind the dump and the material there had been taken out;
and that there was a slide down into the cavity that had been
made just back of the dump. The slide could not have
been more than one hundred feet. The whole mass was not
more than two hundred feet across, and on a personal
examination, for I was there, it was evidently nothing more
than an ordinary slide, such as frequently occurs in the
construction of railroad banks and other fills when they are
not properly balanced, and are without the proper slope.
The material on the inside of the dam, that which is to be
impermeable and puddled, has not yet been deposited at all.
This was a mere deposit on the edge of the bottom of the
dam upstream. The dam at that point, when constructed,
will be nearly half a mile wide. The insignificance of the




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circumstance, when one takes into consideration the whole
size of the dam, and the relation of this particular material
to the entire dam, is apparent. It appears that there is clay
in the material taken out of the excavation at Culebra which
is slippery and upon which other material will slide if the
pressure is unequal and the usual precautions against sliding
are not taken. But this has always been known, and is true
of most clays. It is not a danger that can not be provided
against, and, indeed, the shape and form and exact method
of building the dam are for the very purpose of producing the
stability needed, and of avoiding any danger of a slide due
to a lack of proper balance and weight in the material put
into the dam.
President Roosevelt, in view of the widespread report as
to the failure of the dam, concluded to send a competent
board of engineers to find out whether anything had occurred
on the Isthmus that should lead to a change from that type
of canal which had the Gatun Dam as its chief feature. The
board was made up of Mr. Stearns of Boston, and Mr.
Randolph, the chief engineer of the Chicago Drainage Canal,
both of whom had been on the original minority board; Mr.
Freeman, who had visited the canal two years before with a
view to ascertaining whether there was a proper foundation
for the locks at the Gatun Dam; and four other engineers,
who had not given their opinion before as to the proper type
of canal. These were the chief engineer of the Reclamation
Service, Mr. Davis, who has had wide experience in the
construction of dams and locks; Mr. Schuyler, one of the
two or three great engineers of the West Coast, who has
written a text-book on the subject of earthen dams and their
proper construction; Mr. Hazen, perhaps, the greatest
authority on filtration in the country; and Captain Allen,
a hydraulic engineer of high standing in Chicago. Their
report was unanimous. They decided that the dam as projected was heavier and more expensive than it need be. They
reduced the cost and the amount of material in it. They
reported that the lock type of canal was entirely feasible, and




130       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
safe as projected; and they pointed out and emphasized the
difficulties of the proposed sea-level canal.
The report of this board has been attacked on the ground
that it was a packed jury, and that two of its members had
already expressed their opinion in recommending the lock
type of canal as part of the minority board. This is utterly
unjust. It is quite true that the two gentlemen named had
expressed their opinion in favor of a lock type of canal and
had recommended the plan that was adopted, but it is also
true that five of the board had not so committed themselves,
and there was not the slightest reason why, if they differed
from the other two, they should not express their opinion.
Two of the old board were taken for the reason that they
were as competent engineers as the country afforded and
knew well the grounds on which the lock type had been
originally adopted. It is entirely proper, when it is claimed
that a judgment should be set aside on the ground of newly
discovered evidence, that at least part of the same court
should sit to hear what that new evidence is and pass
upon its weight with reference to the previous judgment.
The truth is that the judgment of this new board of engineers
ought to remove all doubt as to the safety of the Gatun Dam
from the minds of the interested public. But engineers are
like members of other professions, and I presume we may
expect from time to time, as the construction of the canal goes
on, further attacks upon the feasibility, safety, and usefulness
of the type adopted after so much care.
Not only has this board determined on the entire safety
and practicability of the Gatun Dam, but the army engineers,
Colonel Goethals and his assistants, who are in charge of the
actual work, are perfectly certain that the Gatun Dam can
be and will be made as safe as the adjoining hills in resisting
the pressure of the water of the lake against it and in maintaining it there for purposes of navigation. These army
engineers are not responsible for the type of the canal. They
did not take hold of the work until after the type had been
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notions in respect to the matter when they took charge and
assumed that intimate relation to the whole project which
makes their judgment of great value.
Mr. Frederic P. Stearns is one of the greatest authorities
in the world on the construction of dams. He has built a
dam at the Wachusetts Reservoir of the Metropolitan Board
of Public Works in Massachusetts, upon foundations much
less favorable for stability than those of the Gatun Dam,
and the water is now standing at 65 feet in the reservoir.
The dam has been tested, and his judgment has the benefit,
therefore, of actual test and verification.
The judgment of the engineers in 1906 as to the sufficiency
of the foundation upon which to construct the Gatun Dam
was based on borings made with wash drills into the material
underneath the proposed dam site, and material was washed
from depths varying from 20 to 250 feet below the surface.
The wash of the water affected the material to such an extent
as to give a wrong impression regarding some of it. The
borings seemed to show that at considerable depth, that is,
from 200 to 250 feet down, there was loose sand and gravel
such as to permit the free flow of an underground stream.
Since these borings were taken, pits have been sunk that
make possible the removal of the material in place so that it
can be seen just exactly what the foundation consists of,
and it turns out that, instead of there being loose sand and
gravel at the bottom, there appears to be a conglomerate of
sand, clay, and gravel so united as to require a pick to separate it, and entirely impervious to water. In other words, a
full examination of the foundations of the Gatun Dam
strengthens greatly the opinion of those who held that there
was a foundation of a blanket 200 feet in depth entirely
impervious to water, below the surface, and substantially
incompressible.
A most interesting exhibit can be seen at the headquarters
of the commission at Culebra, of the various layers of
material which form the foundations under the Gatun
Dam, and when they are examined, the truth of the assertion




132        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
that this makes an excellent foundation can be readily
understood.
The second circumstance is with reference to the cost of
the work. The estimate of the cost of the canal, exclusive
of the interest during construction, sanitation, and expense
of Zone government, and the $50,000,000 paid Panama and
the French company, was $139,705,200. The present
estimate of the cost of the canal as now projected, exclusive
of the same items, is $297,766,000, or a grand total of
$375,000,000. The increase arises, first, from the fact that
the yardage or excavation to be made was 50 per cent.
underestimated. This was due, first, to insufficient surveys,
and second, to changes of plan. These changes of plan
involved a widening of the canal, for a distance of four thousand feet, from 500 feet to 1,000 feet in width, just below the
Gatun locks on the north side, in order to furnish a wider
and more commodious place for vessels anchoring before
entering the locks. The canal has also been widened for
five miles from 200 feet to 300 feet across the bottom; this
in the Culebra cut. Again, the material supposed to be easy
of dredging turns out to be in many places more of rock than
was supposed, and the average cost of excavation has been
increased generally about 20 per cent. In addition to that,
the locks as originally projected were 900 feet usable length
and 95 feet in width. They have been increased now, in
response to a request from our Navy Department, from 900
feet to 1,000 feet usable length and from 95 feet to 110 feet in
width. This greatly increases the amount of concrete, greatly
widens the gates, and greatly increases the whole cost of the
locks at both ends of the canal. Then, too, it was thought
wise not to follow the minority report which contemplated
dams immediately on the shore of the Pacific at La Boca,
in Sosa Hill, but to move them back to Miraflores and San
Pedro Miguel, some four miles or more from the shore.
This was chiefly done for military reasons, in order to take
the lock construction out of sight of an enemy approaching
the canal on the Bay of Panama.




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All these changes were substantial increases in the amount
of work to be done, which, taken with the increased unit
price, explains the discrepancy between the estimate and the
actual expenditure. Much money was expended in the
construction and repair of buildings in which the employees
of the canal lived.  Much money, not included in the
estimate, was expended for the purpose of making their lives
more enjoyable while on the Isthmus. The wages per day
are higher than those which were estimated. Colonel
Goethals has submitted a detailed statement showing exactly
where the difference is between the original estimate and
the actual cost. This has been examined by the present
board of engineers, who report that in their judgment the
estimate presented by Colonel Goethals is an outside figure,
and that the cost will probably be less for the present type
of canal than $297,000,000, as estimated.
The advocates of the sea-level canal point to the fact that
the estimate by the Consulting Board in 1906 of the cost of
the sea-level canal was $247,000,000, plus cost of sanitation,
government, and the $50,000,000 paid Panama and the
French company, or fifty millions less than the admitted
cost of the lock type. They assume, therefore, that the
difference in cost originally advanced as an argument against
a sea-level canal has now been refuted. The defect of this
argument is that the same circumstances that have increased
the cost of the lock type of canal would increase the actual
cost of a sea-level canal. Much of the work that has been
done - indeed, a very large part of it - is work that would
have had to be done for a sea-ievel canal, and we are furnished now by Colonel Goethals with an estimate of what the
sea-level canal would cost, in the light of the actual cost of
the work and unit prices on the Isthmus. This would be
$477,601,000 without cost of sanitation or government and
exclusive of the original $50,000,000 payment. When the
loss of interest and loss of revenue by delay is taken into
consideration, the cost is easily increased $200,000,000 beyond the cost of the lock type of canal, so that the difference




134        PRESI DENTIAL ADDRESSES
between the cost of the lock type and the sea-level canal is
shown by actual construction on the Isthmus to be greater
than was estimated when the lock type of canal was selected
as the proper one.
Third, the date of completion for the lock type of canal
has been fixed as the 1st of January, 1915. I hope that it
may be considerably before that. At the rate of excavation
now going on in the Culebra cut, it could probably be completed in less than three years, but the difficulty is that as the
cut grows deeper, the number of shovels that can be worked
must necessarily be decreased. Therefore, the excavation
per day, per month, and per year must grow less. Hence it
is not safe to base the estimate of time on a division of the
total amount to be excavated by the yearly excavation at
present. Then, too, the Gatun Dam and locks and the
manufacture and adjustment of the gates may take a longer
time than the excavation itself, so that it is wiser to count on
the date set. The enthusiastic supporters of the sea-level
canal, basing their calculation on the amount of material now
being excavated, and upon the total amount to be excavated,
for a sea-level canal, reach the conclusion that the sea-level
canal could be constructed in a comparatively short time as
compared with the estimate of twelve or fifteen years made at
the time of the decision in favor of the lock type. They
have fallen into the error, already pointed out, of assuming
that the present rate of excavation could continue as the work
of building the sea-level canal went on, which in the case
of the sea-level canal is even more erroneous and misleading
than in the case of the lock canal, for the reason that the
construction, below the forty-foot level above the sea down
to the level of forty feet below the sea, is work of the most
difficult character, more than half of it always under water,
and necessitating either pumping or dredging in rock and
working in a narrow space, which greatly reduces the possible
rate of excavation.
It is said that new methods of removing rock under water
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I shall take up this statement a little later, but it is sufficient
now to say that these methods are in use on the Isthmus,
and that the actual employment of them in the character of
material that exists on the line of the canal completely refutes
the claim that they can accomplish anything more than,
or as much as, the excavation in the dry.
Then, too, in this calculation of time, a third great error
of the sea-level enthusiasts is the failure to take into consideration the time actually needed to construct the Gamboa
Dam to retain the waters of the Chagres River and the other
dams and the great diversion channels that would absolutely
have to be built before the sea-level excavation could be
carried on. The Gamboa Dam as projected is a masonry
dam, 180 feet above sea level, with a level of the water 170
feet against the dam and above the bed rock of the stream,
and of a length 4,500 feet along the top. It would be the
highest dam known in the world and its construction would
have to be of the most careful character, and would take an
indeterminate time. It has never been definitely settled
that there is at the only available site a foundation suitable
for such a dam.
I have thus examined the circumstances relied upon by
the present advocates of the sea-level canal to show that the
known conditions are different to-day from those that influenced the selection of the lock type. I have not gone into
the matter in detail, but the records will bear out my general
statements and show that not in the slightest respect has the
argument been changed by newly discovered facts in favor
of the sea-level canal.
The memory of the reading public, however, is not very
long, and, relying on this fact, the opponents of the lock canal
do not hesitate to bring out again, as if newly discovered, the
same old arguments that failed to convince when the issue
was fresh and the supposedly final decision was given. We
are again met with the statements of gentlemen who claim
to be and really are familiar with the steamship business,
that mariners would prefer a sea-level canal and would use




136        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
a lock canal with reluctance.  With a great show of enthusiasm and a chain of reasoning as if newly thought out, the
ease with which vessels can be navigated on the level is held
up in contrast with the difficulties involved in lifting them
eighty-five feet at one side of the Isthmus and lowering them
the same distance on the other. Such an argument always
proceeds on the hidden premise that the question whether
we should have a lock or a sea-level canal is a mere matter
of preference freely open to our choice, and wholly without
regard to the real difficulties involved in the construction
of a sea-level canal such as the discussions of the present
day seem to assume a sea-level canal will be.
We hear much of the Straits of Panama described as
a broad passage of from 400 to 600 feet in width across the
bottom, 40 to 45 feet in depth, and piercing the Isthmus with
a volume of water sufficient to do away with all difficulty
from rapid currents produced by the water of swollen tropical
streams, or cross currents resulting from the discharge of
such streams into the canal from heights ranging all the way
from ten feet to fifty feet above the level of the water. Such a
comparison is utterly misleading. The only sea-level canal
that has been projected with respect to which estimates of
any substantial and reliable kind have been made is a canal,
one-half the length of which is 150 feet across the bottom and
the other half of which is 200 feet across the bottom. It is
a canal that for twenty miles, from the point where the
Chagres River and the canal converge, to Gatun, has four
times the curvature of the Suez Canal, and in which at
flood stages, under any plan that has been devised for preventing the destruction of the canal by the flood waters of
the Chagres River and the other streams emptying into that
river, there will be a current of nearly three miles an hour.
Such a current in the Suez Canal, with one-fourth of the
curvatures, makes the steering of large vessels dangerous,
and in this canal, with its great curvature, would make the
passage of large vessels impossible.
The lock canal as projected has a width at the bottom of




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300 feet for about 25 per cent. of its length, of from 500 to
800 feet for 50 per cent., and of 1,000 feet, or the entire lake
width, for the remainder. With such widths the curvature,
of course, is immaterial.
In the projected sea-level canal, it would be impossible for
vessels safely to pass one another at any speed at all. Therefore one vessel would have to tie up while the other went by.
This fact would greatly reduce the speed with which a vessel
could pass through the sea-level canal, and the greater the
business, the slower would be the passage. As the tonnage
increased, therefore, the lock canal of the projected type, in
spite of the time taken going through the locks to the 85-foot
level and descending from that level, in case of large steamers,
would furnish a quicker passage. As business increased,
the time taken in going through the sea-level canal and the
danger to the vessel would be very considerably greater than
in the lock canal.  The danger of accidents and of the
destruction of the locks, if certain machinery is used and
certain precautions are taken in the warping of the vessels into
and out of the locks, will be practically nothing. We are
able to gage this by the infrequency of dangerous accidents
at the "Soo" locks, in which the business is enormous and
the size of the locks through which the vessels go is but a
small percentage less than that of the locks projected at
Panama. The devices for preventing the outflow of the
water in case of a destruction of the upper gates are complete,
and in the opinion of many engineers unnecessarily elaborate.
Mr. Bunau-Varilla and Mr. Granger and Mr. Lindon
Bates have all lent the weight of their voices in denunciation
of the present lock type of the canal. In denouncing the
type that is under construction, they always compare it with
a sea-level canal of a width from 300 to 600 feet; when the
actual canal projected for the sea-level is only 150 feet across
the bottom in one-half the length, and 200 feet the other half.
They always point with severest criticism to the instability
and experimental character of the Gatun Dam, but never
refer to the Gamboa Dam, which is an essential part of the




138


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


sea-level plan, and which in its measurements and in the
height of the water behind it exceeds the proportions of any
dam in the world. In addition to this the sea-level canal
involves the construction of three or four other dams in order
to turn back the water of streams entering the Chagres Valley
over the height of land into other valleys away from the
canal. One of these dams is 75 feet high by 4,000 feet in
length; another 2,800 feet long; another 1,200 feet: and
another 800 feet. No one knows what the character of the
foundation is for these dams thus projected in the sea-levc
plan. No one is able to estimate the cost involved in their
construction, because they are now far away from the railroad and considerable expense would be involved in delivering material for their construction. None of these difficulties
connected with the making of the sea-level canal are ever
mentioned in the discussion of the comparative merits of the
present lock-type canal and the sea-level canal as projected.
We can only approximately arrive at the cost of a sea-level
canal such as that suggested in the articles of Mr. Granger
and Mr. Bunau-Varilla in this wise: Colonel Goethals's
estimate of the cost of the sea-level canal exactly as projected is $500,000,000;  that is, $477,000,000 with the
addition of interest and other items that might bring it up
to $500,000,000. This does not include the cost of sanitation,
of the Zone government, or the $50,000,000 originally paid.
An estimate was made of the additional cost by the Board
of Consulting Engineers of widening the sea-level canal 100
feet. That would make a canal, half of it 250 feet wide,
and half of it 300 feet wide. It was said it would cost from
$86,000,000 to $100,000,000. Considering now the discrepancy between the estimate and the actual cost of
the sea-level canal, that is, between $247,000,000 and
$477,000,000, it is certainly not exaggerating to say that
the cost of a sea-level canal 300 feet wide from end to end
would involve an expenditure of not less than $650,000,000
and probably $700,000,000, and this without including the
cost of sanitation, of government, or the $50,000,000 originally




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paid. As already said, an outside estimate for the present
cost of the lock type of canal is $297,000,000, exclusive of the
cost of sanitation and of government and of the $50,000,000
originally paid, or $375,000,000 including everything, as
against $750,000,000 for such a canal as that advocated by
Mr. Bunau-Varilla or Mr. Granger.
I have already commented on the utter impossibility of
calculating the time that it would take to construct the sealevel canal. No estimate has been made of the time it would
take to construct the Gamboa Dam or other dams and the
great diversion channels needed to keep the Chagres River
out of a sea-level canal, and no estimate has been made as
to the additional time that would be required for the excavations below the sea level and the pumping needed to keep
the canal prism in a condition for such excavation. Another
difficulty about the sea-level canal, but one rarely referred
to, is the obstacle to its construction in the Black Swamp
between Gatun and Bohio. This would probably necessitate
retaining walls or the draining of the swamp with such an
extended area as to make the task a huge one.
Of the critics of the presenttype of the canal, Mr. BunauVarilla and Mr. Lindon Bates were advisers of the consulting
board of thirteen engineers appointed to recommend types
of a canal. That board divided as between the 85-foot canal,
which was adopted, and the sea-level canal 150 feet wide
for half of the distance and 200 feet wide for the other half;
but they all, whether sea-level or lock-type advocates, united
in rejecting the plans of Mr. Bunau-Varilla and Mr. Bates.
Those gentlemen are now engaged in criticizing the Gatun
Dam and the locks that form part of the approved and
adopted type; but if their plans as they recommend them
are examined, it will be found that they contemplated dams
and locks more in number, with a great deal more uncertainty as to the foundation, than the Gatun Dam and the
dams at Miraflores and at Pedro Miguel in the present locktype. It will be found that in the original plan of Mr. BunauVarilla he projected a canal that should have a high level of




140        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
at least 130 feet to be reached by a series of locks, and that
Mr. Bates had a series of lakes to be reached by locks quite
like that of the Gatun Dam, although the lakes were not so
extended and the locks not so high. Under these circumstances, the criticism of these gentlemen in asserting great
danger from earthquakes and other causes to the Gatun
Dam and the locks of the adopted type may be received
with a measure of caution.
Mr. Bunau-Varilla's chief argument in reference to the
speed and ease and economy with which his type of canal
could be constructed, ultimately resulting in a sea-level
canal, is based on the facility with which a certain Lobnitz
process and machine for dredging rock under water can
be successfully carried on. This is also one of the bases
for the proposition of Mr. Granger that a sea-level canal can
be easily constructed. In addition to that, Mr. Granger
has invented a machine for the elevation of material in water,
to be carried by gravity through a flume a long distance. It
has never been tested on any great work of construction, and
rests wholly on theory.
The Lobnitz method of excavating rock under water is
on trial to-day on the Pacific side of the Isthmus at Panama,
and the result of the work there confirms the judgment of
practical engineers elsewhere that the machine will work
in comparatively soft rock with thin laminations, but that
it will not work in hard rock or in rock in which the strata
are widely separated, of which there is much to be excavated
in constructing the Panama Canal. In other words, the
arguments of both these gentlemen advocating the Straits
of Panama are either based on theory without practical test
of the usefulness of the processes they recommend, or, when
practical test has been given, the process has failed to come
up to what is claimed for it by these advocates.
Mr. Bunau-Varilla early proclaimed that the heavy
machinery of the Americans in the steam shovels at the
Isthmus was not accomplishing nearly as much as the lighter
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any record of the French in the excavation in the dry per day,
per month, and per year. The lack of soundness in Mr.
Bunau-Varilla's conclusions is thus made apparent.
The facts to-day are the same as they were when the lock
type was adopted, namely, that it would take at least
$200,000,00 more of money and at least five years more of
time to construct the sea-level type of canal 150 to 200 feet
in width; that the canal when constructed would be dangerous for the passage of the larger vessels; and that the lock
type of canal constructed at $200,000,000 less in cost and
five years less in time will be a better canal, a safer canal,
and one in which the time of passage for large vessels will
be even less than in the sea-level type.
For these reasons the administration is proceeding to construct the canal on the type authorized and directed by Congress, and the criticisms of gentlemen who predicate all their
arguments on theory and not upon practical tests, who
institute comparisons between the present type of canal and
the sea-level type of 300 to 600 feet in width that never has
been or "will be on sea or land," cannot disturb the even
tenor of those charged with the responsibility of constructing
the canal, and will only continue to afford to persons who
do not understand the situation and are not familiar with the
history of the canal and of the various plans proposed for
the canal, an unfounded sensation of regret and alarm that
the Government is pursuing a foolish and senseless course.
Meantime the canal will be built and completed on or before
the 1st of January, 1915, and those who are now its severest
critics will be glad to have their authorship of recent articles
forgotten.




XV
JUDICIAL DECISIONS AS AN ISSUE IN POLITICS *
AST summer at Hot Springs, after the Convention and
before the electoral campaign had been actively
begun, Mr. McClure asked me to furnish him two articles
for his magazine, to be printed after the election. I suggested to him that if I were defeated he might not desire the
articles, but he said he would run the risk. One subject
which he proposed was my labor decisions, and the article
that follows is a compliance with the promise I then made.
I believe it is true that I am the only successful candidate
for the Presidency who ever had extended judicial experience. Mr. Van Buren had been a surrogate or probate
judge early in his career, and Andrew Jackson, I believe,
did serve as a judge of the Supreme Court of North Carolina,
but it was a very unimportant part of his life, and his service
did not bring into the issues of his campaigns any discussion
of his work as a judge.
Judge Parker, so far as I know, is the only other candidate
who had been for any number of years on the Bench; and
while there was some reference in the campaign to his judicial
opinions, they did not involve any issues made in the platform,
and were not given special prominence on the stump or in
political editorials.
In 1896 the judgment of the Supreme Court in the incometax case was made a subject of heated discussion, and suggestions that the court might be increased if one party was
successful, so as to bring about a reversal of the decision,
were not wanting. Still, I think it may be truly said that in
no campaign since the beginning of the government has
* This article was prepared by Mr. Taft prior to his inauguration as President of
the United States, and was published in McClure's Magazine, June, 1909.
[Reprinted by permission of icl Clure's lMagazine.j
142




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there been directly involved as an issue a question considered and decided by one of the Presidential candidates as
a judge.
It is not the first time in my family that a judicial decision
has played an important part in the political fortunes of the
judge deciding it. While my father was a judge of the
Superior Court of Cincinnati, the question arose whether
the school board of the city had the power by resolution to
change the rule under which schools were opened in the
morning by the reading of the King James version of the
Bible. Two of the judges of the Superior Court held that
this was beyond the power of the school board, while my
father, the third judge, dissented. The case proceeded to
the Supreme Court, and that court, in a unanimous judgment, approved the views of my father as a dissenting judge
in the court below. Notwithstanding this result, in three
gubernatorial campaigns my father was defeated in Republican conventions on the ground of his decision in the Bible
case; but it never fell to his lot to be nominated as a party
candidate and to find it necessary to go upon the stump to
explain or defend his decisions. I think I may say that my
experience in this respect has been truly exceptional.
To make the controversy clear, it is necessary to refer to
the efforts made by the American Federation of Labor
and the railroad labor organizations to secure legislation
against what they claimed to be the abuses of the power of
injunction by courts of equity in labor disputes. Mr.
Gompers and the American Federation of Labor were
much more radical and drastic in their demands than were
the railroad organizations. Mr. Gompers demanded the
passage of a bill containing two sections: The first section
provided that no injunction should issue from a court of
equity except to protect property rights from irreparable
injury where there was not adequate remedy at law, and
contained the proviso, which embodied the whole intent of
the section, that injury to business of a complainant in such
labor disputes should not be considered an injury to property




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rights; and the second section contained a provision which
in effect legalized the secondary boycott and rendered immune
from criminal or civil prosecution or injunctive process those
taking part in such a boycott. This was known as the
Pearre Bill. President Roosevelt and the members of
his Cabinet whom he called into consultation, of whom I
was one, were quite willing to concede that the power of the
issuing of injunctions in the form of temporary restraining
orders, without notice to the party affected, had been abused
in some cases by Federal judges, and that it might be wise
to take away the power of issuing such orders without notice
and restore the law to the condition in wjhich it had been
when the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789 was put in force.
At that time no temporary injunction could issue without a
notice to the party affected and an opportunity to be heard.
A bill to effect such a change was introduced and probably
would have passed if Mr. Gompers and the American
Federation of Labor had been willing to accept it as a
compromise.
At the head of a delegation of labor-union men, Mr.
Gompers visited the President. The President told him
very plainly that he would not and did not favor the bill
known as the Pearre Bill, for he thought that the power
of injunction ought to be exercised quite as much against
lawless workingmen as against lawless capitalists.
Thus the issue was made in the Congressional campaign
of 1906, and Mr. Gompers summoned assistance from his
fellows of the American Federation of Labor to defeat Mr.
Littlefield in Maine, Mr. Cannon in Illinois, and a great
many other Congressmen who were put upon the so-called
"black list" because they declined to consent to the passage
of the Pearre Bill, and refused to withdraw the protecting
influence of injunctive process from a man's business rights
and to legalize boycotts. The electoral campaign carried
on by Mr. Gompers was not successful in defeating any
Congressman whom he had blacklisted, and into whose
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course in each district many other issues played a part, and
it is difficult to tell how much influence Mr. Gompers exerted
in taking away votes from the successful candidate. He
renewed his efforts in the next Congress, but without
avail.
Then came the presidential conventions of the two parties.
Mr. Gompers appeared before the Committee on Resolutions
of the Republican Convention, and demanded the approval of
the Pearre Bill or its equivalent. The President and I
favored the following resolution:
INJUNCTIONS
"We declare for such an amendment of the statutes of
procedure in the Federal courts with respect to the use of
the writ of injunction as will, on the one hand, prevent the
summary issue of such orders without proper consideration,
and, oi) the other, will preserve undiminished the power of the
courts to enforce their process, to the end that justice may
be done at all times and to all parties."
A great many of the delegates were opposed to any resolution on the subject, regarding it as an attack upon the courts;
but finally, as a compromise, the following resolution was
adopted in the platform:
COURT PROCEDURE
"The Republican party will uphold at all times the authority and integrity of the courts, State and Federal, and will
ever insist that their powers to enforce their process and to protect life, liberty, and property shall be preserved inviolate.
We believe,however, that the rules of procedure in the Federal
courts with respect to the issuance of the writ of injunction
should be more accurately defined by statute, and that no
injunction or temporary restraining order should be issued
without notice, except where irreparable injury would result
from delay, in which case a speedy hearing thereafter should
be granted."




146        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
It will be observed that the Republican Convention
declined to take away the power to issue temporary restraining orders without notice, but preferred to hedge the power
about with a statutory declaration of the instances in which
they might issue, and offered an opportunity for limiting
their life or duration by statute to such a short time as would
necessitate a hearing within a few days. In this respect the
convention did not go as far as Mr. Roosevelt and I were
willing to go. Mr. Gompers and his associates expressed
dissatisfaction with the action of the Republican Convention,
and then went to Denver, where, after the fullest discussion,
the resolution which was adopted read as follows:
LABOR AND INJUNCTIONS
"The courts of justice are the bulwark of our liberties,
and we yield to none in our purpose to maintain their dignity.
Our party has given to the Bench a long line of distinguished
judges, who have added to the respect and confidence in
which this department must be jealously maintained. We
resent the attempt of the Republican party to raise a false
issue respecting the judiciary. It is an unjust reflection
upon a great body of our citizens to assume that they lack
respect for the courts.
"It is the function of the courts to interpret the laws which
the people create, and if the laws appear to work economic,
social, or political injustice, it is our duty to change them.
The only basis upon which the integrity of our courts can
stand is that of unswerving justice and protection of life,
personal liberty, and property. If judicial processes may
be abused, we should guard them against abuse.
"Experience has proved the necessity of a modification of
the present law relating to injunctions, and we reiterate
the pledge of our National platforms of 1896 and 1904 in
favor of the measure which passed the United States
Senate in 1896, but which a Republican Congress has ever
since refused to enact, relating to contempts in Federal courts
and providing for trial by jury in cases of indirect contempt,




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"Questions of judicial practice have arisen especially in
connection with industrial disputes. We deem that the
parties to all judicial proceedings should be treated with
rigid impartiality, and that injunctions should not be issued
in any cases in which injunctions would not issue if no
industrial dispute were involved."
I have been informed that the resolution was drafted by
Mr. Gompers and was passed exactly as drafted.
In one of Mr. Roosevelt's letters written during the campaign, he invited attention to an article published by Mr.
Gompers in the American Federationist in defense of what
he had done in supporting the Democratic candidate, and
pointed out that in that article Mr. Gompers said, or plainly
intimated, that Mr. Bryan was in complete accord with the
attitude taken by the American Federation of Labor before
the last two Congresses, and that this necessarily involved
not only the abolition of the use of the injunction in labor
disputes where only the business of the plaintiff was to be
injured, but also the legalizing of the secondary boycott.
Neither Mr. Gompers nor Mr. Bryan ever attempted to
answer the query put by Mr. Roosevelt as to whether this
statement was true. Read in the light of this explanation,
we can see what the resolution of the Denver Convention
was intended to mean. The key necessary to understand
the resolution was the principle of equity procedure advanced
by Mr. Gompers and his legal counsel, that the right of a
man to pursue a lawful business is not a property or pecuniary
right which a court of equity would ever, according to proper
rules of its procedure, issue an injunction to protect. The
question has been distinctly passed upon by dozens of courts,
and Mr. Gompers's proposition has not received the slightest
support except in one dissenting opinion.
The instances in which courts of equity, both in England
and in this country, have issued injunctions to protect business rights are so many as to be overwhelming. But assuming Mr. Gompers's proposition of law to, be correct, namely,




148        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
that no injunction could ever issue merely to protect the
rights of business, as distinguished from property rights, then
the meaning of the resolution of the Democratic platform
becomes clear. It resolves that injunctions ought not to
issue in labor disputes under any circumstances except
those in which they would issue in other disputes, and as,
according to Mr. Gompers, they would never issue in other
disputes to protect business rights, they ought to be prohibited
from being issued to protect a man's business in labor
disputes.
A boycott is ordinarily not directed toward anything but
a man's business. It is intended to injure his business and
is well adapted to do so. If, therefore, by the resolution as
interpreted above, all injuries to business and confined to
business alone, and not reaching to rights in material property, were excluded, it would have the effect of limiting the
recourse of one injured by a boycott to the inadequate
remedy of a suit for damages, and thus in an indirect way
the object of the American Federation of Labor in the
Pearre Bill would be accomplished.
There was another and a very important issue in respect
to which the Democratic platform by its expressed declaration
and the Republican platform by its silence left no doubt, and
that was the question whether in punishments for contempt
in all classes of cases, except those committed in the presence
of the court, punishment should not be inflicted by the
court until after a conviction in a trial by jury.
I have thus defined certain so-called labour issues of the
campaign, in order that the relevancy of my decisions may
become apparent. At the risk of being tedious, I shall
attempt to state shortly what those decisions were.
The first one was rendered by me when I was a judge of the
Superior Court of Cincinnati, a State court of general jurisdiction, where I sat under appointment and subsequent
election for three years. The case was a suit for damages
by Moores & Company, lime-dealers, against the Bricklavers' Union of Cincinnati.,/




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The undisputed facts shown were these: Parker Brothers
were a firm of boss bricklayers. They had quarreled with
a Bricklayers' Union. The Bricklayers' Union had withdrawn its members from the employ of Parker Brothers and
had declared a strike against the firm, and had threatened
all material-men that it would boycott any one of them who
furnished material to Parker Brothers. Moores & Company were lime-dealers and sold Parker Brothers lime for
cash. This was discovered by a walking delegate of the
Union, and a boycott was declared against Moores & Company, who were thereby prevented from enjoying the profit
of a number of valuable contracts, and whose business suffered severely in other ways.
I sat as the trial judge, and charged the jury that upon this
state of fact Moores & Company were entitled to recover as
damages the loss that had been inflicted by the boycott of the
Bricklayers' Union. The jury immediately returned a verdict for $8,500. A motion for a new trial was made, and I
reserved the motion, as I had the power to do, to the general
term of the Superior Court for the consideration of three
judges, including myself, and there I delivered the opinion
of the court, and in this opinion, which was an elaborate one,
I attempted to explain what was the illegality of a boycott.
If I were writing the opinion again, I should hope to make
it shorter. As between two persons, when one refuses to
deal with the other and thus injures the other, no unlawful
injury is committed if he is not under special contract to do
the thing that he refuses to do. It is what in law is called
damnum absque injuria.
A body of workmen are dissatisfied with the terms of their
employment. They seek to compel their employer to come
to their terms by striking. They may legally do so. The
loss and inconvenience he suffers he can not complain of.
But when they seek to compel third persons, who have no
quarrel with their employer, to withdraw from all association
with him by threats that unless such third persons do so
the workmen will inflict similar injury on such third persons,




150        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
the combination is oppressive, involves duress, and if injury
results, it is actionable. It is true that the result of the rule
is that an act is actionable or not as the intent with which it
is done varies. This is not frequent in civil injuries, but
it is not unknown.
This I understand to be the view of the Anthracite Coal
Commission, of which Judge Gray of the Third Circuit was
certainly the most conspicuous lawyer member, and I think
that it is a safe rule of distinction in all labor controversies.
Such a view does not render illegal the union of all members
of a trades union, whether employees of the particular
employer or not, to withdraw from association with him.
It permits them thus to express their sympathy with their
fellows. But it does forbid them, by threatening men who
otherwise would be entirely willing to associate with their
former employer, to compel that third person to join them
in the fight.
The decision in Moores & Company against the Bricklayers' Union sustained the verdict and gave judgment against
the Union. The Union took the case to the Supreme Court
of Ohio, where it was affirmed without opinion. The
decision was won in a local court and did not attract any
immediate attention. Subsequently the fact that the reasoning was quite elaborate and the citation and consideration of
authorities extended, elicited  considerable reference to
it in other decisions, and in the discussions of a naturally
interesting subject in legal periodicals, and at bar association
meetings; bit it did not arouse labor-unions to resolutions
of protest, so far as I can recollect.
The next case was one that attracted far greater attention
because of the prominence of one of the parties, and the
very large body of men more or less indirectly interested in
the issues. I had then become United States Circuit Judge
for the Sixth Judicial Circuit. The Toledo & Ann Arbor
Railroad was a railroad running from Michigan to Toledo,
Ohio, where it made connections with six different railroads.
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their wages, and through Mr. Arthur, who was the Grand
Chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, a strike
had been declared against that railroad.
The Brotherhood had a secret rule (No. 12) which provided that it was a violation of obligation for any member of
the Brotherhood engaged with a connecting line to haul the
cars of a railroad company against which a strike had been
approved by the Grand Chief. The six railroads who were
made parties defendant to this action had been notified by
their engineers that they probably must refuse to haul the
cars of the Toledo & Ann Arbor road. This had come to
the knowledge of the Toledo & Ann Arbor Railroad Company, and it accordingly filed a bill in equity in the United
States Court at Toledo, asking that the six railroads be compelled to haul the cars of the Toledo & Ann Arbor Railroad,
on the ground that this was their specific duty under the
Interstate Commerce Law, which imposed a fine and penalty
upon all officers, employees, and servants of any road
engaged in interstate commerce who should refuse to
perform it.
Judge Ricks accordingly issued a temporary restraining
order against all the defendant railroad companies, their
officers and employees, and had the injunctive process served
on all the locomotive engineers. After this injunction was
issued, Mr. Arthur, the Grand Chief, sent a telegram to the
engineers of the Lake Shore, advising them that he had
approved the strike against the Toledo & Ann Arbor Railroad, and inviting their attention to the laws of the order,
including secret Rule No. 12, and directing them to act
accordingly. A supplemental petition was then filed in the
same cause, and I was applied to, as circuit judge, to enjoin
Mr. Arthur by mandatory injunction to withdraw his order
to the engineers of the Lake Shore road. I issued without
notice a temporary mandatory restraining order, requiring
Mr. Arthur to withdraw his telegram until the case could be
heard. Mr. Arthur obeyed the order. The case was
promptly heard in the course of a day or two at Toledo.




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Meantime one of the engineers who had received notice
of the injunction on the Lake Shore road, an engineer named
Lennon, had refused to haul the cars of the Toledo & Ann
Arbor road. Hie was brought before Judge Ricks on an
attachment for contempt of the order. The two causes
were heard the same day in Toledo. My recollection is that
I did not sit in the Lennon case, and that Judge Ricks did
not sit in the Arthur case.
The result of the Lennon case was that Judge Ricks
sentenced Lennon to confinement for thirty days for contempt. After a release by writ of habeas corpus to test the
legality of Lennon's confinement was denied by Judge Ricks,
an appeal was taken to the Court of Appeals at Cincinnati,
and thence to the Supreme Court of the United States, and
the confinement of Lennon was held to be legal.
In the Arthur case I made the temporary order of injunction permanent and wrote an opinion giving my reasons.
No appeal was taken from this ruling in the Arthur case,
although a direct appeal on the merits lay to the Court of
Appeals and thence by certiorari to the Supreme Court of
the United States. What I decided in the Arthur case was
this: That the Toledo & Ann Arbor road had a right under
the Interstate Commerce Law to have its cars hauled by the
Lake Shore road, and that a conspiracy by the servants of
the Lake Shore company to compel it to decline to perform
that duty in order that they might injure the Toledo & Ann
Arbor road, thus involving the Lake Shore company in a
controversy in which it had no interest and in which it was
an unwilling participant, was a secondary boycott at common law. I also held that this was unlawful under the
statutes of the United States, and injuries arising therefrom
were of such a recurrent character and the loss was so
difficult to estimate, that a suit at law offered no adequate
remedy, and therefore a court of equity would prevent the
injury by injunction.
It will be observed that Judge Ricks in his decision had
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violated the injunction requiring him to haul the cars of the
Toledo & Ann Arbor road, and that I had by mandatory
injunction directed Arthur to withdraw his telegram directing
all engineers of the Lake Shore road to do that which Lennon
had done; the point being, not that Lennon and the engineers
of the Lake Shore road could not leave the employ of the
Lake Shore road freely and without restraint by injunction,
but only that as long as they remained in the employ of
the Lake Shore company they were pro tanto the company
itself and burdened with the duties of the company and must
obey the injunctions that would lie against the company
itself. In no decision was it affirmed that an injunction could
compel a man to remain in the service against his will, or
that in any labor dispute could a man in the employ of
another be enjoined from striking.
Though this distinction was made clear in both decisions,
it was generally reported, and believed by many who did
not look into it, that we had enjoined men from striking and
had punished them in contempt proceedings for exercising
the right to strike. It is easy to see, therefore, how it was
possible for members of the Brotherhood of Engineers and
of labor organizations generally to believe that a blow had
been struck at organized labor from which it could never
recover, and that the instrumentality of the strike, which in
the last resort is the chief weapon that the laboring man has
to secure better wages and better terms of employment, had
been taken away. Judge Ricks and I were denounced from
one end of this country to the other, in resolutions of labor
organizations and kindred associations, as enemies of labor
who had sought by judicial process to subject the workingman as a slave to the complete control of his employer. As
a matter of fact, I had laid down, not only in the Moores
case but in the Arthur case, the principles upon which the
success of labor organizations must always depend, and
upon which in the last ten years they have grown to their
very great proportions and increased in their very great
usefulness.




154        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
These principles were stated in a somewhat more specific
way in the Phelan case, to which I shall presently refer, and
from which I shall quote.
I was attacked further, and this attack was heard in the
late campaign, on the ground that I had denounced the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers as a criminal conspiracy against the laws of the United States. What I did in
the opinion was to point out the fact that secret Rule No. 12,
if enforced, would involve all those engaged in its enforcement, both those who actually took part in it and those who
ordered it, in a criminal conspiracy against the laws of the
United States. I did so in these words:
"We have thus considered with some care the criminal
character of Rule 12 and its enforcement, not only because,
as will presently be seen, it assists in determining the civil
liabilities that grow out of them, but also because we wish
to make plain, if we can, to the intelligent and generally
law-abiding men who compose the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, as well as to their usually conservative chief
officer, what we can not believe they appreciate, that, notwithstanding their perfect organization, and their charitable,
temperance, and other elevating and most useful purposes,
the existence and enforcement of Rule 12, under their organic
law, make the whole Brotherhood a criminal conspiracy
against the laws of their country."
The effect of that admonition, which was intended to be
kindly, and it seems to me was couched in a perfectly friendly
tone, was to lead the Brotherhood to repeal Rule No. 12;
and I understand now that all the railroad labor organizations, which are among the best conducted of trades unions
in the country, deprecate the use of the boycott as a weapon
in labor controversies.
The third reported decision for which I was attacked in
the late campaign was what was known as the Phelan case.
It was presented as a phase of the Debs insurrection.
Debs was the president of the American Railway Union,
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brotherhoods. Soon after the organization was complete,
Debs, as president of the directors of the association, became
interested in the question whether the Pullman Company,
manufacturing Pullman cars near Chicago, paid their
employees sufficient wages. It was decided that the wages
were not sufficient. The employees were induced to strike,
and then it was sought by the American Railway Union to
compel the Pullman Company to pay higher wages by threatening a universal boycott against all the railroads of the
country that had contracts with the Pullman Company for
the use of the Pullman cars, and to compel them to withdraw
from or break these contracts and to discontinue the use of
the Pullman cars.
Although this was the original purpose, it degenerated into
an attempt to tie up every railroad in the country by withdrawing all the railway employees from railroad work
without regard to whether the railroads had business for
the Pullman Company or not. In other words, it became
a boycott against the public in an attempt to make the public
compel the Pullman Company to raise the wages it paid its
employees, although the public had no relation to the Pullman
Company, which was a private corporation doing a private
business, so far as its manufacturing of cars was concerned,
and had no power over the question of the amount of wages
to be paid by it to those whom it employed.
In pursuance of this plan, Debs sent Phelan to Cincinnati
to tie up all the railroads in that city, and among others was.the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway Company, which operated as a lessee the Cincinnati Southern
Railroad, and which for the time being was in the hands of
the court in charge of Mr. Felton, receiver. I was the circuit
judge, resident in Cincinnati, who had appointed the receiver,
and was conducting the affairs so far as the court had to
interfere in that receivership.
The receiver filed a petition in the proceeding, asking an
attachment of Phelan for contempt of court. The petition
charged that Phelan was attempting to prevent the receiver




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1: PRESIDENrTIAL ADDRESSES


from carrying out the order of the court directing him to
run the road, and was advising all those who had left the
employ of the receiver, and others, to use violence in compelling the receiver's employees to leave his employment;
that in consequence the receiver was obliged to hire constables to protect his men.
Phelan was brought in on a warrant, and was served with
an injunction to prevent his continuing in that which he was
already charged to have done, and the cause was set for a
trial at his convenience. It was promptly heard, and a
week was consumed in the trial. At the end of that time
I found Phelan guilty of contempt of court, and sentenced
him to six months in the Lebanon jail. His actions after
the injunction was served on him were exactly what they
had been before, and he conducted himself avowedly and
flagrantly in violation of the court's orders. In this case,
as in the others, I pointed out, with all the clearness of which
I was capable, the distinction between the strike and the
boycott, and perhaps more fully than in previous cases
explained what were the rights and responsibilities of the
trades unions engaged in a controversy with an employer.
In this case I said:
"Now, it may be conceded in the outset that the employees
of the receiver had the right to organize into or join a labor
union which should take joint action as to their terms of
employment. It is of benefit to them and to the public that
laborers should unite in their common interest and for lawful
purposes. They have labor to sell. If they stand together,
they are often able, all of them, to command better prices for
their labor than when dealing singly with rich employers,
because the necessities of the single employee may compel
him to accept any terms offered him. The accumulation of
a fund for the support of those who feel that the wages offered
are below market prices is one of the legitimate objects of
such an organization. They have the right to appoint
officers who shall advise them as to the course to be taken
by them in their relations with their employer. They may




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unite with other unions. The officers they appoint, or any
other person to whom they choose to listen, may advise them
as to the proper course to be taken by them in regard to their
employment, or, if they choose to repose such authority in
any one, may order them, on pain of expulsion from their
union, peaceably to leave the employ of their employer
because any of the terms of their employment are unsatisfactory."
In the Arthur case it was brought out quite distinctly that
while employees who struck for an unlawful purpose could
not be enjoined from doing so, because to enjoin them
would be to compel the specific performance of a contract
of service, in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment against
involuntary servitude, it was left open as an undecided
question whether men who were inciting employees to quit
their employer in violation of some legal duty might not be
restrained from doing so; and in the Phelan case, the effect
of the decision was to hold that where one was inciting
employees to quit in pursuance of an unlawful boycott, he
could be enjoined, although the employees could not be.
There was one other case - indeed, there may have been
more, though I do not recollect them - in which I issued an
injunction growing out of a labor dispute and in which I
punished men for a violation of the order of the injunction.
A number of miners on the Ohio side of the Ohio River
combined together in a conspiracy to prevent the importation
into Ohio of West Virginia coal, and every time that a train
of one of the West Virginia railroads was delivered to the
Ohio railroad, the miners jumped upon the train and by
physical force prevented tie further transportation of the
coal.
The Baltimore & Ohio road, which was the West Virginia
road, brought suit against the Cleveland, Lorain & Wheeling
to compel the Cleveland, Lorain & Wheeling to take its cars
and transport them, and then it was made to appear by the
Baltimore & Ohio that certain defendants, who were named,
had conspired to prevent the Baltimore & Ohio from




158       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
securing transportation over the Cleveland, Lorain &
Wheeling.
I issued a mandatory injunction against the Cleveland,
Lorain & Wheeling compelling it to receive and transport the
cars, and named as defendants to the action a number of the
Ohio miners engaged in the conspiracy. They were duly
served, and, after a full notice, were brought into court.
They did not deny their guilt, and I sentenced them to six
months in jail. It was a case of blockade of interstate
commerce by force, and it was only by the decree of an
equity court that the passage of coal from one State to another
was made free and uninterrupted. There was no report of
the opinion in this case, which presented questions similar
to those in the Arthur case. When I reached Wheeling in
the campaign, I was confronted by the exploitation of this
case in the local paper, and explained it as I have explained
it here.
With this record of decisions in labor cases, in which I
have had each time to decide against the labor organizations, or the cause with which they sympathized, I had
always been of opinion that it would be utterly impossible
for me to run for office before the people even if I desired to
do so. My ambition was not political. I desired if possible
to resume my work on the Bench, and the disqualification
which these decisions seemed to me to make clear and certain
did not really involve in my judgment any sacrifice on my
part. I think it fell to my lot to take part in more cases of
this kind than most judges, and had I had political ambition, it might have been regarded as a misfortune.
The attacks made upon me in labor circles and by labor
journals did not particularly trouble me, because I thought
that in the course of time it would appear that what I had
decided was clearly the law, and that the principles that I
had laid down were those upon which trades unions properly
conducted would thrive and attain their greatest usefulness.
The decision of the Supreme Court in the Debs case, in
an opinion by Mr. Justice Brewer, removed all doubt, if




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any had before existed, as to the right of a court of equity
to issue an injunction in such cases, and I don't think that in
any respectable court it is now disputed. But the effect of
Mr. Gompers's action and that of the Democratic party in its
platform was to appeal, so to speak, from the decision of the
court to the decision of the electorate. They ha.d done this
once before in appealing against the decision of the Supreme
Court in the Debs case, which was characterized in the platforms of 1896 and of 1900 as government by injunction, but
the appeals apparently had not met with great success.
They were now able, however, to appeal in a more concrete way to the people, by asking them to vote against the
candidate who was as much responsible for the enunciation
of the principles that they contended against as any judge
on the Bench. I was characterized as the "father of injunctions." This attributed to me something that I did not
deserve, for injunctions had already been issued in labor
disputes by Vice-Chancellor Malins in England; by the
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in the case of
Sherry vs. Perkins; by Judge Sage in the case of Casey vs.
Typographical Union; by Judge Beatty in the Cceur
d'Alene strike troubles, and by other judges.
It had fallen to my lot, because of the number of cases
that I had subsequently to consider, to write rather more
elaborate opinions on the subject and perhaps state the
principles more at length than other judges, but I was not
entitled to either the credit or discredit of having introduced
a new equity jurisdiction in labor troubles. There was
no new jurisdiction. It was merely an application of plain
equity principles to novel situations. The character of the
injury in cases of boycott when business is injured is such
that it is impossible to estimate what the injury is. This
is palpable. Moreover, the injury is a result of a series of
acts combined together, each one of which would not justify
a suit for damages, but all of which taken together with their
recurrent effect bring about the injury which can only be
remedied adequately by an injunction to prevent the carrying




160


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


out of the combination. This has always justified the issuing
of an injunction in equity, and its use is not an enlargement of
equity jurisdiction but a mere application of the oldest and
most well-known principles.
Viewing as I did the effect on my political attitude of
these decisions, it may well be supposed that I was surprised
when I discovered the strength that I had developed in the
Republican Convention, and found that the opposition to
me on the ground of my labor decisions, although sufficiently elaborated, did not lose for me a great many votes
among the delegates; but while this was the result in the
Convention, there was very great reason to believe that the
objection to me as a candidate was much more formidable.
Mr. Gompers, through the American Federation of Labor,
used all the machinery that that association afforded to
secure votes for Mr. Bryan against me, and I constantly
received most discouraging reports of the defection in the
ranks of labor because of my injunction decisions. This
was particularly noticeable among the railway employees
who remembered the fact that I had enjoined Arthur, and
carried in their memories, though indistinctly, the attacks
that had been made upon me at the time of that decision as
a judge determined to strike down labor organizations.
As the injunction had been directed toward the chief of the
most conservative, useful, and powerful brotherhood, that
of the locomotive engineers, it was not unnatural that it should
have been remembered and cherished.
I was very reluctant to go on the stump and discuss my
own decisions. I knew no precedent for it, and I felt that
if the decisions themselves did not support the conclusions
reached, there was little use in my attempting to supply
additional explanation or defense. I found, however, that
Mr. Bryan was constantly referring to me as the father of
injunctions, and that the Democratic managers were making
as much of this part of the issues of the campaign as possible,
and I concluded, therefore, that the only thing for me to do
was to seek an opportunity to tell what I had decided to




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audiences composed as largely of labor men as possible,
and then leave it to their sense of justice whether the attacks
upon me as an enemy of labor were justified.
The first speech I made upon it was rather unpremeditated;
it was given at Athens, Ohio, before a lot of miners who were
trades unionists. I don't know how the speech impressed
the audience other than by the way in which it was received.
My friends who heard it commended its presentation and
urged that I seek other opportunities to deal with the same
subject. A large meeting of railway employees was organized
in Chicago by a friendly club, at Orchestra Hall. There for
the first time I went over in full my labor decisions. I shook
hands afterward with every one of the audience, and I am
quite certain that my treatment of the subject met with the
approval of those who were present and induced them to
believe what I contended was the fact, and believe now to
be the fact, that of all judges who had had occasion to consider the question, I had laid down the law as favorably
as possible for the lawful and useful organization of trades
unions. I was careful to state that I did not apologize in
any way for the decisions that I had rendered, and I only
sought the opportunity to state what the decisions were and
their effect, in order to enable my hearers to judge whether
I was the man against whom they should cast their ballots.
I had similar meetings in Minneapolis, South Omaha,
Lorain, East St. Louis, Kansas City, East Cleveland, and
at Cooper Union in New York.     I was able to point
out that although the brotherhoods had attacked my
decision against Arthur, later on, in a labor controversy
which got into court in St. Louis between the brotherhoods and the Missouri Pacific road, my decisions in the
Arthur case and in the Phelan case had been successfully
cited as authorities upon which Judge Adams modified
the injunction already issued in such a way as to enable the
brotherhoods to win the strike and secure a betterment of the
conditions of employment with that company. I was also
able to point out to the brotherhoods that in the Phelan case




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


in sentencing Phelan, I was merely sentencing a man who
had done everything that he possibly could to incite his
followers to violence against the members of the old brotherhoods who had declined to follow Debs and who stuck to the
cabs of their engines in faithful service of the receiver.
It is impossible, of course, to tell which of the many reasons
that enter into the decision of an electorate is most influential.
It is very certain that Mr. Gompers was not able to carry
with him his followers in the American Federation of Labor;
the two million votes that he claimed were controlled by that
organization. It is very clear that in the large cities the
labor vote did not go in unusual numbers to Mr. Bryan as
against me. In Greater New York, in Boston, in Philadelphia, in Baltimore, in Cleveland, in Cincinnati, in Chicago,
in St. Louis, and in San Francisco I received certainly a
full party vote and in many of them a very much larger vote
than the party vote, and in those States the Federation of
Labor is stronger than in any other parts of the country.
I am, of course, not blind to the fact that one of the chief
arguments in my favor with the wage-earner in this campaign was the fear that the election of Mr. Bryan would
make the hard times permanent, and the hope that the continuance of the Republican party in power would insure
a return of good times. This argument doubtless neutralized
the one directed against me as a man unfair to labor; and
there were probably a number of men who voted for me
without approving me, because while they liked Mr. Bryan's
attitude in the injunction matter, they preferred to give
victory to that side which was likely to insure steadier work
and better wages. Still, I think, in spite of all this, it must
be conceded that the showing made by Mr. Gompers upon
the issue against me as an enemy of labor was considerably
less than he expected it to be, and that this was due in part
at least to the fact that no one can control the vote of the
intelligent laboring man; that he does not yield to mere
sentiment or the calling of names, but that he himself investigates the reasons and makes up an independent mind.




AND STATE PAPERS                  163
I did not hesitate to meet the issue on the question of a trial
by jury in contempt cases. I attempted to point out the
dreadful weakening of the power of the court that would
ensue if every order to be performed outside of the presence
of the court might be violated and no punishment ensue
except after a trial by jury. I think I showed that the result
of such a change in the law would be to put the means of
evading decrees of the court of equity into the hands of the
wealthy and unscrupulous, and that it would work but little
benefit to the poor and needy wage-earner. The appeal
made to the farmer, merchant, business man, and the public
at large, including the intelligent wage-earner, against the
weakening of the power of the court, in the interest of a
particular class, was, if one can judge from the attitude of
the audiences addressed, as strong a vote-getting argument
as the Republican party had in the late campaign. Certainly it was next in force and persuasiveness to that based
on a prospective restoration of good times in a Republican
victory.




XVI
MESSAGE CONCERNING THE GOVERNMENT OF
CUBA
(JUNE 5, 1.909)
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I HAVE the honor to transmit herewith a communication
from the Acting Secretary of War, under date of May
8th, submitting the report, with accompanying exhibits, of
the Honorable Charles E. Magoon, provisional governor of
Cuba, for the period from December 1, 1908, to January
28, 1909, when the provisional government was terminated
and the island again turned over to the Cubans. I recommend, in accordance with the suggestion of the Acting
Secretary of War, that this report and the exhibits be printed.
I think it only proper to take this opportunity to say that
the administration by Governor Magoon of the government
of Cuba from 1906 to 1909 involved the disposition and
settlement of many very difficult questions and required
on his part the exercise of ability and tact of the highest order.
It gives me much pleasure to note in this public record the
credit due to Governor Magoon for his distinguished service.
The army of Cuban pacification under Major-General
Barry was of the utmost assistance in the preservation of the
peace of the island and the maintenance of law and order,
without the slightest friction with the inhabitants of the
island, although the army was widely distributed through
the six provinces and came into close contact with the people.
The administration of Governor Magoon and the laws
recommended by the advisory commission, with Colonel
Crowder, of the Judge-Advocate-General's Corps at its head,
and put into force by the Governor, have greatly facilitated
164




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES                 165
the progress of good government in Cuba. At a fair election
held under the advisory commission's new election law
General Gomez was chosen President and he has begun his
administration under good auspices. I am glad to express
the hope that the new government will grow in strength and
self-sustaining capacity under the provisions of the Cuban
constitution.




XVII


MESSAGE CONCERNING TAX ON NET INCOME
OF CORPORATIONS
(JUNE 16, 1909)
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
IT IS the constitutional duty of the President from time to
time to recommend to the consideration of Congress such
measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. In my
inaugural address, immediately preceding this present
extraordinary session of Congress, I invited attention to the
necessity for a revision of the tariff at this session, and stated
the principles upon which I thought the revision should be
effected. I referred to the then rapidly increasing deficit,
and pointed out the obligation on the part of the framers
of the tariff bill to arrange the duty so as to secure an adequate income, and suggested that if it was not possible to
do so by import duties, new kinds of taxation must be
adopted, and among them I recommended a graduated
inheritance tax as correct in principle and as certain and easy
of collection. The House of Representatives has adopted
the suggestion and has provided in the bill it passed for the
collection of such a tax. In the Senate the action of its
Finance Committee and the course of the debate indicate
that it may not agree to this provision, and it is now proposed
to make up the deficit by the imposition of a general income
tax, in form and substance of almost exactly the same
character as that which in the case of Pollock vs. Farmers'
Loan and Trust Company (157 U. S., 429) was held by the
Supreme Court to be a direct tax, and therefore not within the
power of the Federal Government to impose unless apportioned among the several States according to population.
166




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


167


This new proposal, which I did not discuss in my inaugural
address or in my message at the opening of the present
session, makes it appropriate for me to submit to the Congress certain additional recommendations.
The decision of the Supreme Court in the income-tax
cases deprived the National Government of a power which,
by reason of previous decisions of the court, it was generally
supposed that Government had. It is undoubtedly a power
the National Government ought to have. It might be indispensable to the nation's life in great crises. Although I have
not considered a constitutional amendment as necessary
to the exercise of certain phases of this power, a mature
consideration has satisfied me that an amendment is the only
proper course for its establishment to its full extent. I therefore recommend to the Congress that both Houses, by a
two-thirds vote, shall propose an amendment to the Constitution conferring the power to levy an income tax upon
the National Government without apportionment among the
States in proportion to population.
This course is much to be preferred to the one proposed
of re-enacting a law once judicially declared to be unconstitutional. For the Congress to assume that the court will
reverse itself, and to enact legislation on such an assumption,
will not strengthen popular confidence in the stability of
judicial construction of the Constitution. It is much wiser
policy to accept the decision and remedy the defect by
amendment in due and regular course.
Again, it is clear that, by the enactment of the proposed
law, the Congress will not be bringing money into the
Treasury to meet the present deficiency, but by putting on
the statute book a law already there and never repealed, will
simply be suggesting to the executive officers of the Government their possible duty to invoke litigation. If the court
should maintain its former view, no tax would be collected
at all. If it should ultimately reverse itself, still no taxes
would have been collected until after protracted delay.
It is said the difficulty and delay in securing the approval




168        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
of three-fourths of the States will destroy all chance of
adopting the amendment. Of course, no one can speak
with certainty upon this point, but I have become convinced that a great majority of the people of this country are
in favor of vesting the National Government with power
to levy an income tax, and that they will secure the adoption
of the amendment in the States, if proposed to them.
Second, the decision in the Pollock case left power in the
National Government to levy an excise tax which accomplishes the same purpose as a corporation income tax, and
is free from certain objections urged to the proposed incometax measure.
I therefore recommend an amendment to the tariff bill
imposing upon' all corporations and joint stock companies
for profit, except national banks (otherwise taxed), savings
banks, and building and loan associations, an excise tax
measured by 2 per cent. on the net income of such corporations. This is an excise tax upon the privilege of doing
business as an artificial entity and of freedom from a general
partnership liability enjoyed by those who own the stock.
I am informed that a 2 per cent. tax of this character would
bring into the Treasury of the United States not less than
$25,000,000.
The decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Spreckels
Sugar Refining Company against McClain (192 U. S., 397)
seems clearly to establish the principle that such a tax as this
is an excise tax upon privilege and not a direct tax on property, and is within the federal power without apportionment
according to population. The tax on net income is preferable to one proportionate to a percentage of the gross
receipts, because it is a tax upon success and not failure. It
imposes a burden at the source of the income at a time when
the corporation is well able to pay and when collection is
easy.
Another merit of this tax is the federal supervision which
must be exercised in order to make the law effective over the
annual accounts and business transactions of all corporations.




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While the faculty of assuming a corporate form has been of
the utmost utility in the business world, it is also true that
substantially all of the abuses and all of the evils which have
aroused the public to the necessity of reform were made
possible by the use of this very faculty. If now, by a perfectly legitimate and effective system of taxation, we are
incidentally able to possess the Government and the stockholders and the public of the knowledge of the real business
transactions and the gains and profits of every corporation
in the country, we have made a long step toward that supervisory control of corporations which may prevent a further
abuse of power.
I recommend, then, first, the adoption of a joint resolution
by two-thirds of both Houses proposing to the States an
amendment to the Constitution granting to the Federal
Government the right to levy and collect an income tax without apportionment among the States according to population,
and, second, the enactment, as part of the pending revenue
measure, either as a substitute for, or in addition to, the
inheritance tax, of an excise tax upon all corporations,
measured by 2 per cent. of their net income.




XVIII


ADDRESS AT THE UNVEILING OF THE MEMORIAL TO DR. BENJAMIN F. STEPHENSON,
FOUNDER OF THE GRAND ARMY OF
THE REPUBLIC, WASHINGTON, D. C.
(JULY, 3, 1909)
Mr. Chairman; My Fellow Citizens:
W     E ARE met to dedicate a memorial to a Union soldier
who served four years as a surgeon in the Civil War,
and who also builded an institution by which there should be
united in the bonds of fellowship all the sweet association,
all the deep lesson of loyalty, and all the pride of patriotism
that such a civil war as that could arouse in millions of hearts.
When men at the formative period in life - from 18 to 22
- are associated in any work, whether it be in college, in
society, in church, or otherwise, they carry with them afterward the fondest memories and associations for each other
because they have passed through a common mold. But
how much greater must be the sweet association and the
bond of union between men who for four years passed through
the dangers of the Civil War; those who survived thinking
of the tender memories of those who gave up their lives for
their country; those surviving carrying with them the sweet
association, the stories of courage, and tales full of humor and
of pathos. I can conceive no bond of union stronger than
that which unites the men who fought from '61 to '65 in
the Grand Army; and it was to the credit of the founder of
the Grand Army of the Republic that he saw the solid basis
upon which such a structure as that great society could be
erected.
You will recollect that there were prophets of evil with
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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


171


respect to the fate of the United States after the war should
cease, after the end should be accomplished for which the
North was fighting, and it was said that the aggregation of
a million men in arms threatened our free institutions.
They recalled that the Pretorian Guard of Rome was an
instrument in furthering the ambition of those who would
suppress free institutions and who were to assume despotic
power. But all those prophecies faded into nothingness.
The men who composed that million were men in favor of
free institutions, who had fought for them, and did not intend
to sacrifice them to anything else. There was no man with
the ambition to improve that army as an instrument of
despotism even if it had been willing to furnish itself as such;
and so it was the marvel of other countries that this great
body of organized force, than which there never was a
stronger or better-disciplined army, faded out and disappeared into the paths of peace, preserving nothing'but the
sweet memory and association they had formed during the
war and the consciousness that they had in their own hearts
of having rendered that greatest service, to wit: the preservation of their country.
Stephenson organized this Grand Army of the Republic to
preserve the essence of that army in its finest characteristic,
in its democracy and in its patriotism. Far be it from me to
criticize in the slightest such organizations as the Cincinnati
and the Loyal Legion. They are great organizations, and
those who belong to them may well have pride in them. But
the Grand Army of the Republic knows no limitation but
service to the Government in the Civil War; and therefore
it is that Congress, recognizing the usefulness of such an
organization in preserving patriotism, in maintaining it in
its intensity during those years when commercial greed
seemed to make many people forget it, properly contributed
$10,000 to this memorial and recognized the Grand Army
of the Republic as an institution which may well have
national gratitude and national recognition. More than
that, the Grand Army of the Republic is most useful in this:




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


it represents the concentrated opinion of the men who fought
in the war to preserve the Union, and it therefore may give
authoritative expression, which no other body and no other
part of the people can give, to that forgetfulness of the bitterness of the strife which existed during the four years of the
war. I am glad to say that, while that bitterness may in a
few instances obtain, you will never find it to exist between
the men who actually exposed their lives on one side and the
men who exposed their lives on the other. The union of
the two sections has been molded strongly and more strongly
by those meetings which ought to be encouraged between the
blue and the gray to occur as often as possible. Even within
my recollection on occasions like this and on Memorial Day
and on Fourths of July I have seen the ranks of the Grand
Army thinned. I know there are many who by jaunty step
and by keeping their hats on are able to deceive the people as
to their age; but the fact is, that those ranks are thinning
from day to day; perhaps a hundred a day are going to
their long home. It is fitting that such an association,
which in the course of the next generation will pass away,
should have such an enduring monument as this to testify
not only to the patriotic service that they rendered during
the war, but also to the service to the country that
they have rendered by their holding high loyalty and
patriotism since the war to the present day.
Mr. Commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the
Republic, inasmuch as Congress contributed to this monument and provided for its erection, I am here officially to
accept at your hands, on behalf of the Government of the
United States, this fitting memorial of fraternity, charity,
and loyalty.




XIX


ADDRESS AT THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING
OF NORWICH, CONN.
(JULY 5, 1909)
My Friends:
THINK it was last year that I had the pleasure of
addressing a Norwich audience. Then I talked to
you on the subject of the Panama Canal and I promised to
come back here at the 250th anniversary of your city's
foundation, whether I was nominated and elected for the
Presidency or not. I said that probably you would not
want me if I was not elected, and I haven't had an opportunity to test you on that. But it is a great pleasure to come
back to this beautiful town. I like to call it a town because
while you make a distinction between the city and the town,
the term town suggests its wonderful history. Well may
it be called the Rose of New England. Its beauties to-day
and its sweet memories of the past justify the use of that
term, and if I were a Norwich man I should hug it to my
bosom. There is something about the town differing from
most towns whose history I know, in the individuality of the
town itself. There are other towns that have had noted
individuals who have made history. Norwich has had
noted individuals whose characters, continued through three
great crises, have given a character and an individuality to
the town itself.
Major John Mason was a great man and he had a sonin-law, James Fitch, a minister of the gospel in this town
for forty years, who was a good man; and there were in
those thirty-five men in whose name the nine square miles
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174        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
were given by Uncas, men of bone and sinew fit to meet the
tremendous trials of those early days.
Then you came to the revolutionary time and you were
not wanting, for out of the descendants of your first settlers
you furnished great force to that which was needed to separate
this country from England. And then again in the Civil
War you furnished much more than your quota, and the
names of the men who marched out from Norwich would
have done credit to many a larger city with a much greater
population to draw from.
One of the things that the history of this town suggests is
the character of the government that you had here in the
early days. Like that of the government of other New
England towns, but perfect in its way, it was almost a
theocracy. The minister, James Fitch, was not alone a
minister of the gospel as we know him to-day, exercising a
beneficent influence in the community, but he spoke by
authority, the State was behind him, and the men and women
of the community were obliged to conform to the rules of
morality and life which he laid down.
We speak with great satisfaction of the fact that our ancestors - and I claim New England ancestry -came to this
country in order to establish freedom of religion. Well, if
you are going to be exact, they came to this country to
establish freedom of their religion and not the freedom of
anybody else's religion. The truth is, in those days such a
thing as freedom of religion was not understood. Erasmus,
the great Dutch professor, one of the most elegant scholars
of his day, did understand it and did advocate it, but among
the denominations it certainly was not fully understood.
We look with considerable horror and with a great deal of
condemnation on those particular denominations that punished our ancestors because our ancestors wished to have
a different kind of religion, but when our ancestors got here
in this country and ruled they intended to have their own
religion and no other. But we have passed beyond that and
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in the past we have developed a freedom of religion that
came naturally and logically as we went on to free institutions.
It came from those very men who built up your community
and made its character. The Rev. James Fitch could not
look upon any other religion in this community with any
degree of patience, but his descendants, firm in the faith
as he was, now see that the best way to promote Christianity
and the worship of God and religion is to let every man
worship God as he chooses. This community was well
supervised by the clergy, and did well by the clergy. The
Rev. James Fitch, after fourteen years at Saybrook, came
here and presided in the First Church for forty more years.
I have heard clergymen say that after a clergyman passes
his fiftieth year he ought to be made emeritus and step out
of the profession. They did not say so in those days. There
was an authority about a minister of the gospel that meant
a good deal more than mere persuasiveness, and the clergyman's authority is one that seems to cultivate a long life.
The Rev. James Fitch was succeeded by Dr. Benjamin
Lord and he was succeeded by Dr. Strong, all of the
same church, and the Doctors Lord and Strong presided
together, including six years when they were both ministers
of this town, one hundred and seventeen years. Now, think
of the influence in a community of God-fearing men with
force of character, with power to condemn wrong and
uphold right, and then you can understand how Norwich
has survived and preserved an individuality.
Major Mason was a statesman. He was deputy governor.
His chief was Governor Winthrop and Governor Winthrop,
while Major Mason presided over the colony of Connecticut,
went to London and found King Charles the Second in such
good humor that he got that far-famed charter to Connecticut.
They said that Charles II. was a monarch who never said
a foolish thing and never did a wise one. Whether it was
wise for him or not, the charter of Connecticut that he gave,
with its principles of free institutions and its latitude to the
people of Connecticut in carrying on their government, was




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certainly from our standpoint a wise act, and I don't wonder
that when they tried to get it away they put it in that oak
where it was not found.
The truth is, my dear friends, we hear a great deal of
discussion of free government and references made to the
declaration of independence which this day celebrates.
And some people so construe that instrument that they would
make it mean that any body of men or women or children
are born with the instinct of self-government so that fhey
can frame a government as soon as they begin to talk. Now,
that is not true. Self-government has been fought out in
the history of this world and by certain races has been
hammered out by a thousand years of struggle and men
have taught themselves how to govern themselves. Men
are not fit to govern themselves until they have sense and
self-restraint enough to know what is their interest and to
give every other man all that is coming to him according to
right and justice.
Now, what is true with respect, therefore, to our ancestors
is true with respect to many races in this world. They have
to be led on and taught the principle and lesson of selfgovernment. But our ancestors, by a wise negligence in the
home government for nearly two hundred years, came to be
the best-prepared people there were in the world for selfgovernment. Take the town of Norwich and see how those
thirty-five men and the people who followed them made up
a government; how they were conscious of the responsibility
that they took upon themselves when they attempted a
government themselves, and how they carried on an orderly
government, a government of liberty, regulated by law.
So it was in every town in the thirteen colonies. They were
all men of strength, of individuality, of self-restraint, and
they knew what it cost to build up a government and maintain
it; and when on the fourth of July, 1776, they declared their
independence of Great Britain, they did it with reluctance
and with hesitation because they knew the tremendous burden on their backs, and they knew the responsibilities that




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they owed to the world and that they owed to the people for
whom they were making the declaration.
No better example of the character of those men who made
that declaration of independence and who subsequently
framed the Constitution of the United States could be found
than right here among your representatives of the town of
Norwich. Your selectmen, your leaders, had the education
and the experience that fitted them, as all the Americans of
that day were fitted, to organize and maintain a civil government and preserve the free institutions and liberty regulated
by law.
Now you have stood and looked at the procession so long
that your eyes are strained and I do not mean to strain your
ears. I wish again to testify to the profound pleasure I have
had in studying the history of the town of Norwich, of going
over the characters of your great men and of realizing that
the strength of your community - the character of your
community - is in the character of the men that made it
up; and I doubt not that right here under these beautiful
elms, and in these houses, so many of which preserve the
memories of the past, there is the same respect for virtue, for
individual character, for honesty, for freedom and for law
that was left to you as a legitimate legacy from the ancestors
whose memory you honor to-day.




44


XX
ADDRESS AT THE CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL
OF AMERICA, CLIFF HAVEN, N. Y.
(JULY 7, 1909)
Your Eminence, Governor Hughes, Dr. McMahon and my
Fellow Citizens of the Catholic Summer School of America:
G   OVERNOR HUGHES and I are going through these
three or four days delivering speeches at each other,
and expressing our opinions of each other in a way that will
enable us, when we get through, to do it with greater facility.
The truth is that the gift of eloquence and speech which
Governor Hughes has needs no practice, but I have to have
a little.
I would be without that which makes a man if I did not
appreciate to the full the kindly words of your distinguished
Governor, and if I did not congratulate the State of New
York on having a Governor who represents the highest ideals.
One is almost carried off his feet before such an audience.
There is something in the atmosphere that suggests a flying
machine, as if you were all so full of joy that that element in
you could raise you up, and that is the way you ought to be,
and I congratulate you that such is the feeling.
The combination of work and pleasure, the cultivation of
health on the one hand and of intellect on the other, and of
religious faith above all under such beautiful surroundings
is calculated to make every one enthusiastic, and I share that
enthusiasm to the full.
I am not a Catholic, but I have had in the last ten years
a great deal to do with the Catholic Church. My lot did
not carry me into a part of the world that made me as familiar
with the French Explorers, the French leaders of civilization,
178




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


179


like Champlain, as it did into the regions of those leaders
that came from Spain- into the Philippines where the
same influence that carried Champlain here and the same
ideal that controlled him, controlled men equally brave, and
in certain respects more successful. There was Magellan
and later Legaspi who came out to the Philippines and with
four or five Augustinian monks converted to Christianity that
entire Archipelago now having some seven or eight million
souls, and then perhaps 500,000 - the only community, the
only people in the entire Orient that to-day as a people are
Christians. There is on the Luneta, the great public square
facing the ocean in Manila, a statue carved by a great Spanish
sculptor, Querol, in which there are two figures, Legaspi,
holding the standard of Spain and with his sword drawn, and
behind him Urdeneta, a Recolleto monk, holding aloft behind
all the cross, and there is in that statue such movement, such
force, such courage that I used to like, even in the hot days
of Manila, to stand in front of it and enjoy, as I thought I got,
the spirit that the sculptor had tried to put in there, of loyalty
to country and faith in God.
I think we are reaching a point in this country where we
are very much more tolerant of everything and everybody
than in the past, and where we are giving justice where justice
ought to be given. We are no longer cherishing those narrow
prejudices that came from denominational bigotry, and we
are able to recognize in the past those great heroes of any
religious Christian faith and appreciate the virtues they
exhibited as examples for us.
Religious tolerance is rather a modern invention. Those
of us of Puritan ancestry have been apt to think that we were
the inventors of religious tolerance. Well, as a matter of
fact, what we were in favor of, if I can speak for Puritan
ancestry, was having a right to worship God as we pleased,
and having everybody else worship God in the same way.
But we have worked that out now; and there has been a
great change, I am sure His Eminence the Cardinal will
agree with me, even in the last twenty-five years. I have




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


had personal evidence of it in some of the work that we had
to do in the Philippines. Fifty years ago if it had been
proposed to send a representative of the Government to the
Vatican to negotiate and settle matters arising in a country
like the Philippines between the Government and the Roman
Catholic Church, it would have given rise to the severest condemnation and criticism on the part of those who would have
feared some diplomatic relation between the Government
and the Vatican contrary to our traditions; but within the
last ten years that has been done, with the full concurrence
of all religious denominations, believing that the way to do
things is to do them directly, and when a matter is to be
settled that it should be settled with the head of the church
who has authority to act. And so it fell to my lot, my dear
friends, and in that respect just by good luck, I came to be
an exception, which will perhaps stand for many years as
the sole exception, of being the representative of the United
States at the Vatican. There I had the great pleasure of
meeting that distinguished statesman and pontiff, Leo
XIII., a man of ninety-two, whom I expected to find rather
a lay figure directed by the council of the Cardinals than one
active in control of the church. But I was most pleasantly
disappointed, for even at ninety-two he was able to withstand
an address of mine of twenty minutes, to catch the points of
that address, and to respond in a speech of some fifteen
minutes, showing how fully he appreciated the issue that
there was and its importance.
We did not succeed in bringing about exactly the agreement which we asked, and he realized that, but he was full
of friendly enthusiasm for the settlement of the issue and
after two audiences which I had the honor of holding with
him, at the close of the second one, he said, "You haven't,
got exactly what you want in exactly the way you want it,
but," said he, "I am going to send a representative of mine
to the Philippines with instructions to see that the matter is
settled justly in accordance with the wishes of the Government of the United States." And it was so settled. I am




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gratified to say that now every question between the Church
and the State in the Philippine Islands, which were so closely
united that it seemed almost impossible to make a separation
of the two as it ought to be made under our Constitution,
has been settled fairly and justly to both sides, and that no
bad taste or feeling of injustice exists on either side with
respect to those questions.
And now, my dear friends, I ought to talk about Champlain, and I would talk something about him because I
appreciate as highly as any one can those motives that
governed him and his high character as a man and the
obstacles that he had to overcome; but when I get up to
talk on any subject, I am a little bit in the attitude of the
doctor who could cure fits and that is all he could cure and so
he wanted to throw his patients into that condition. I can
only talk about the Philippines, and that is what I have done,
but I hope they have some application to the thoughts of the
morning.
I thank you, my dear friends, I thank the reverend fathers
and His Eminence the Cardinal, for the cordial reception
that you have given to the civil head of New York and to the
civil head of the Nation.




XXI
SPEECH AT THE BANQUET, BOSTON CHAMBER
OF COMMERCE, BOSTON, MASS.
(SEPTEMBER 14, 1909) 
Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Boston Chamber of Commerce,
My Fellow Citizens:
HAVE been under a promise to come to Boston and
speak to its Chamber of Commerce for more than a
year. It is a great pleasure to redeem that promise. To be
the guest at a magnificent feast like this, to be thus received in
Boston, one of the greatest centers of the wealth, of the culture
and art, of the educational influences, and of the moral forces
of our country, and to be welcomed by so distinguished a
company, the Governor of the State, a Justice of the Federal
Supreme Court, Foreign Ministers, members of the State
Judiciary,United States Senators and Representatives, powerful and broad-minded prelates and ministers of religion,
together with the men who are the bone and sinew of the
commerce of this great section - make this occasion most
memorable in my life, and properly call for an expression
on my part of deep gratitude and high appreciation.
I congratulate Boston on a union in one organization of
all of her business men, for it insures a concentration of
influence that must make for good. The opportunities for
usefulness are great in civic improvement and progress and
in State and National affairs. While you doubtless include
in your ranks persons of all political views, many questions
must arise upon which you can all unite, and thus exert a
most effective influence.
As Boston is the commercial center of New England, your
association really speaks for New England, a part of the
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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


183


country whose importance can be measured by the emphasis
with which sectional writers and speakers sometimes attack
it. It is no mere exaggeration of speech or flattery, therefore,
for me to point out that this Chamber of Commerce, by the
ideals which it may maintain in the matter of business
integrity and scrupulous business methods and in maintenance of law in the conduct of corporations, has great power
and corresponding responsibility.
I am very grateful for the hospitable reception which I
have had on the North shore of Massachusetts. A vacation
which I had planned of more than two months has been
whittled down to a little more than one month; but every
minute of it I have enjoyed.
The bracing and pure air, the beautiful roads, the fine golf
links, the prosperous towns and villages, the intelligent and
considerate people, all have contributed to make my stay a
delightful one. The beauties of that region are nothing but
an expansion and enlargement of the wonderful park system
and suburbs of Boston.
I have attempted to keep within the speed limit and
before a broad-minded judge I could establish this by satisfactory evidence. But it has not prevented me from motoring into every village and town and countryside of Essex
County. I am delighted at the prospect of returning here
again next summer, when I hope and pray that no tariff or
other bill will shorten my days of leisure.
I am on the eve of beginning a journey 13,000 miles in
length, which will enable me to see tens and hundreds of
thousands of my fellow citizens, and enable them, I hope, to
see me. Occasionally I hear a query, why should I start
off on such a trip and what particular good does it do to
anybody?
Well, it certainly is not going to be a pleasure trip, although
I shall enjoy it. it will involve much hard work and a
great deal of mental effort to think of things to say, and to
say them simply and clearly so that they can be understood.




184


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


It will strain the digestion not only of myself and those
who accompany me, but also of the many who extend 
hospitality along the way; and it will very considerably
reduce the appropriation of $25,000 made by Congress for
the traveling expenses of the President.
On the other hand, it will certainly give me a very much
more accurate impression as to the views of the people in the
sections which I visit. It will bring closely to me the needs
of particular sections, so far as national legislation and 
executive action are concerned, and I believe it will make
me a wiser man and a better public officer.
Moreover, it will give the people an opportunity to see
the man whom they have chosen, for the time being, to act
as their chief executive, and who, because of this office, in a
sense temporarily typifies nationality. I ought to be able to 
explain to the people some of the difficulties of government
and some of the problems of solution from the standpoint of
the executive and the legislator, as distinguished from that
of the honest but irresponsible critic.
The personal touch between the people and the man to
whom they temporarily delegate power of course conduces
to a better understanding between them. Moreover, I
ought not to omit to mention as a useful result of my journeying that I am to visit a great many expositions and fairs, and
that the curiosity to see the President will certainly increase
the box receipts and tend to rescue many commendable
enterprises from financial disaster.
This is an innocent, but it has come to be a very useful,
function of the presidential office.
The thing that I most object to and look forward to with
most fear is the necessity for speaking every day on some
subject or other to a listening multitude. It becomes a
brain-racking performance before one gets through with a
trip of two months.
At first everything the President says is reported in the
newspapers. If after a time he repeats himself, as he must
do, and the correspondents and reporters exercise the dis



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cretion which they ought, and cut the report, a suffering
public will thank them.
One of the reasons why I hesitated to fix the time for meeting the Boston Chamber of Commerce on the eve of my
departure for the West was because I would have to make a
speech here and I needed all the material that I could think
of for speeches in the West.
When I explained this to the committee who were good
enough to wait upon me to tender your hospitable invitation
I was relieved greatly to hear from Mr. Frederick P. Fish,
who was one of the committee, the statement that I need
give myself no concern in that regard, because commonplace
remarks would be entirely appropriate from me here.
Now, whether Mr. Fish meant by this to characterize the
intellectual capacity of the speaker, or the intellectual
demands of the audience, I am at a loss to say. But if what
I say to-night is commonplace, you may know that I am only
filling the order which Mr. Fish gave me, and complying
with the invitation as I have understood it.
This is the second week of September. We are all ending
our vacations and going home. This is the time of the year,
rather than the first of the calendar year, when good resolutions ought to be made - and kept, as far as possible. This
is the time when, looking forward to the coming again of
Congress in December, one must consider the needs of the
country so far as they may be relieved by congressional
legislation, and attempt to state what that legislation should
be.
Your chairman has made some reference to a number of
subjects to which the attention of Congress may well be
directed. In the first place, there is the monetary situation.
While it is probable that the Vreeland Bill passed by the
last Congress would aid us in case of another financial crash,
it is certain that our banking and monetary system is a
patched-up affair which satisfies nobody, and least of all
those who are clear-headed and have a knowledge of what a
financial system should be.




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


The matter has been referred by Congress to a monetary
commission, which has been studying with much interest and
enthusiasm the financial and banking systems of the great
Governments of Europe and has embodied and will soon
publish in interesting and attractive form the best accounts
of the financial systems of the world.
It is quite apparent from the statements of Mr. Vreeland,
who is now the head of the committee on banking and
currency in the House of Representatives, and from the
conversations of Mr. Aldrich, who is the chairman of the
monetary commission and of the finance committee of the
Senate, that the trend of the minds of the monetary commission is toward some sort of arrangement for a central
bank of issue which shall control the reserve and exercise
a power to meet and control the casual stringency which
from time to time will come in the circulating medium of the
country and the world.
Mr. Aldrich states that there are two indispensable requirements in any plan to be adopted involving a central bank of
issue. The one is that the control of the monetary system
shall be kept free from Wall Street influences, and the other,
that it shall not be manipulated for political purposes.
These are two principles to which we can all subscribe.
It is quite possible that the report of the commission of a
definite conclusion may be delayed beyond the next session
of Congress.
Meanwhile, the members of the commission intend to
substitute a campaign of education in order to arouse public
opinion to the necessity of a change in our monetary and
banking systems, and to the advantages that will arise
from placing some form of control over the money market
and the reserve in the hands of an intelligent body of
financiers responsible to the Government.
I am told that Mr. Aldrich will "swing around the circle"
in the present fall, and will lecture in many of the cities
of the Middle West on the defects and needs of our monetary
system. I can not too strongly approve of this proposal.




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Mr. Aldrich, who is the leader of the Senate, and certainly
one of the ablest statesmen in financial matters in either
house, has been regarded with deep suspicion by many
people, especially in the West.
If, with his clear-cut ideas and simple but effective style
of speaking, he makes apparent to the Western people what I
believe to be his earnest desire to aid the people and to crown
his political career by the preparation and passage of a bill
which shall give us a sound and safe monetary and banking
system, it would be a long step toward removing the political
obstacles to a proper solution of the question.
I do not need to argue with this audience that a change in
our monetary and banking systems is necessary. You are
too good business men not to know it, and I sincerely hope
that the whole force of your association will be exerted to
insist upon the adoption of a satisfactory system before the
end of this Administration.
It is a subject that the general public has very little conception of, and when they suffer from the radical defects of
the system they are utterly unable to tell how and why.
We all need education on the subject. We must all unite
to mend our roof before the storm and rain shall show us
again its leaky and utterly inadequate character.
I am not going to discuss the merits and demerits of the
new tariff bill with you. I shall have often to refer to that
before my journey is ended and I must save something for
other audiences. Suffice it to say that the passage of the bill
has removed a disturbing element in business.
Nor shall I dwell at length on the necessity for amendments
to the interstate-commerce law, to the anti-trust law, and
the organization of the Departments in Washington with a
view to promoting greater efficiency and expedition in the
settlement of controversies arising under them.
During Mr. Roosevelt's Administration we were all struck
with the necessity for reform in business methods, for more
scrupulous attention to the conduct of business in accordance with the law, and with the necessity for simplifying the




188


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


law in such a way as to make it clear to corporate managers
what they can do and what they can not do. 
We are, I believe, unless all signs fail, on the eve of another
great business expansion, and an era of prosperity. Indeed
it is already here in many branches of business.
The hum of prosperity and the ecstasy of great profits
are likely to dull our interest in these reforms and to lead
us back again to the old abuses, unless we insist upon legis- 
lation which shall clinch and enforce those standards by
positive law.
Nothing revolutionary, nothing disturbing to legitimate
business is needed; but we must set the marks clear in the
statute by which the lines can be drawn and the proper
legitimate paths be laid down upon which all business shall
proceed, and must have it understood by means of prompt
prosecution and punishment that the law is for all and is to
be enforced even against the most powerful.
'Then, too, the needs in respect to the conservation of our
national resources; the amendment to the public land system;
the execution of the pure-food law; and all the rest of the
important matters that should demand attention, make the
legislative and executive labor of the next three years heavy
enough, if our purposes are carried out, to exhaust the energy
of the most enthusiastic and hopeful.
Still the world is making progress -our country is making progress. Occasionally one hears a note like that of
Governor Johnson, denouncing the East and calling upon the
West to organize in a sectional way against the East, because
the East is deriving more benefit from the governmental
policy than the West, and at the expense of the West.
It is difficult for one to treat such an appeal seriously.
Throughout the country there is free trade of the freest
character; and due to this the prosperity of the West, especially of the agricultural West, is even more pronounced than
that of the East.
Moreover, the East is too close to the Pacific Coast, too
close to the Middle West, too close to the Rocky Mountains,




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because all the people of these western stretches have eastern
ancestry and eastern associations and eastern connections,
and because they have eastern capital with which their
sections have been largely built up, and because they are too
much assisted by eastern markets in enhancing the prices
which their products bring, to make such an attempt at
sectionalism successful.
It is true that at times public questions will be given a
local color by what is thought to be a local benefit, as distinguished from the general and the national benefit.
But such attitude is generally temporary, and it takes but a
few years of business experience, it takes but a panic or two,
to present the most convincing evidence that in this country
we are all in the same business boat, and that the prosperity
of one section adds to the prosperity another, and the
business disaster in one section is only the forerunner of
business depression and disaster in another.
I was born and brought up in the Middle West. I have
had a New England ancestry and New England associations.
Fortune threw me out into the Pacific so that I know something of the feelings of the West coast. Jurisdiction as a judge
gave me a somewhat intimate knowledge of Southern feelings
and Southern aspirations.
I feel, therefore, as if I could speak with confidence in
respect to the whole nation, and as President of the United
States may well lift up my voice to protest against any effort,
by whomsoever made, to arouse section against section, and
Americans against Americans.
Not in the history of the country since the war has the
feeling between the North and the South been more cordial
and friendly than it is to-day, and a political attempt to
make a cleavage between New England and the East on the
one side and the West on the other, will be found to be so
utterly hopeless as to confound those who propose it.
And now, my friends and fellow citizens, as I take my
departure for the West I feel that I carry from you to every
citizen and inhabitant of the United States whom I shall meet,




190        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
the cordial greetings of New England and the East, your congratulations on the prospective prosperity in the whole
country, and an earnest wish that the national Government
shall be conducted in such a way as to ensure peace with all
the nations of the world and tranquillity and prosperity at
home, growing out of the conduct of business on lines of
commercial integrity and within the law which forbids
the organization and maintenance of monopolies and the
systematic suppression of competition.
Things are not perfect; but we have made progress. We
have a right to be optimistic and believe that further progress
is likely; that conditions are improving and that we may
continue to maintain for all citizens of the country that
equality of opportunity which it is the highest object of a
well-conducted Government to preserve.


a


I
I




XXII


ADDRESS AT ORCHESTRA HALL, CHICAGO,
ILLINOIS
(SEPTEMBER 16, 1909)
My Fellow Citizens of Chicago:
IT IS just about a year ago to-night that I made a speech
in this hall to some 1,800 members of the railroad labor
organizations, in which I attempted to convince them that
there was nothing in my decisions as a Circuit Judge in
labor injunction cases which ought to make them vote
against me for the Presidency. It was a critical time in
the campaign. It was a critical question in the campaign,
and as I review that whole controversy, there was hardly
another speech in my campaign of greater importance to
me than that one; and in view of the result of the election
I look back upon it now with especial interest. This hall,
therefore, suggests one of the subjects upon which I shall
speak to you.
You will remember perhaps that the head of the Federation of Labor, who had declared for my opponent, was
anxious to carry the whole union labor vote against me,
and as the ground for his action was my decisions as a
Judge, I was put under the burden which I think no other
candidate for the Presidency ever had to bear of explaining and defending in a political contest the decisions which
I had made as a Judge upon the Bench. It was assumed
by many, who thought themselves familiar with the situation, that I would lose a part of the labor vote which had
theretofore been evenly divided between the Republicans
and the Democrats. The result showed that this assumption was incorrect and that labor men - union labor
191




192        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
as well as non-union labor men -thought for themselves,
voted according to their own judgment, and declined to be
delivered as a body to one party or the other; and on the
whole, I do not think that in that election I suffered materially from the loss of labor votes. In the discussions I
asserted that I was as much interested as any one in maintaining the cause of labor, when labor, organized or
unorganized, by proper methods sought to better its condi-  a
tion by legislation or otherwise. I said that I expected
to recommend to Congress, if I were elected, that interstate railroads be required to adopt any additional devices
found useful for the purpose of saving from loss of life or
limb employees engaged in the dangerous business of railroading. I also said that I favored the adoption of legislation looking to a proper definition of the cases in which
preliminary injunctions might issue without notice and
defining the proper procedure in such matters. Now that
the election has come and gone, I want to take this opportunity of saying that I have not forgotten my own promises
or those of the platform, and I propose in the next session
of Congress to recommend the legislation on the subject of
injunction which was promised in the Republican platform,
and to see whether by such legislation it is not possible to
avoid even a few cases of abuses that can be cited against
the Federal courts in the exercise of their jurisdiction.
I do not think trades-unionism was greatly aided by the
attempt to drag all organized labor into politics, and to
induce it to vote one way; but that does not prevent my
placing a proper estimate upon the immense good for labor
in general which its organization and its efforts to secure
higher wages have accomplished.
I know there is an element among employers of labor,
and investors of capital which is utterly opposed to the
organization of labor. I can not sympathize with this
element in the slightest degree. I think it is a wise course
for laborers to unite to defend their interests. It is a wise
course for them to provide a fund by which, should occasion




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arise and strikes or lock-outs follow, those who lose their
places may be supported pending an adjustment of the
difficulties. I think the employer who declines to deal with
organized labor and to recognize it as a proper element
in the settlement of wage controversies is behind the times.
There is not the slightest doubt that if labor had remained
unorganized, wages would be very much lower. It is true
that in the end they would probably be fixed by the law of
supply and demand, but generally before this law manifests itself, there is a period in which labor, if organized
and acting together, can compel the employer promptly
to recognize the change of conditions, and advance wages
to meet the rising market and increase in profits; and on
the other hand can delay the too quick impulse of the
employer facing a less prosperous future to economize by
reducing wages.
There is a higher standard of living among American
laborers than in any country in the world, and while there
have doubtless been a good many other reasons for this,
certainly the effect of the organization of labor has been
to maintain a steady and high rate of wages making such a
standard of living possible.
Nothing I have said, or shall say, should be construed
into an attitude of criticism against, or unfriendliness to
those workingmen who for any reason do not join unions.
Their right to labor for such wages as they choose to accept
is sacred, and any lawless invasion of that right can not be
too severely condemned. All advantages of trades-unionism, great as they are, cannot weigh a feather in the scale
against the right of any man lawfully seeking employment
to work for whom and at what price he will. And I say this
with all the emphasis possible even though the fact is that,
if I were a workingman, I should probably deem it wise
to join a union for the reasons given.
The effect of organized labor upon such abuses as the
employment of child labor, as the exposure of laborers
to undue risk in dangerous employments, to the continuance




194        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
of unjust rules of law exempting employers from liability
for accidents to laborers, has been Edirect, immediate and
useful, and such reforms in those matters as have taken
place would probably be long delayed but for the energetic
agitation of the questions by the representatives of organized labor. Of course, when organized labor permits
itself to sympathize with violent methods, with breaches
of the law, with boycotts and other methods of undue duress,
it is not entitled to our sympathy. But it is not to be expected
that such organizations shall be perfect, and that they may
not at times and in particular cases show defective tendencies that ought to be corrected.
One notable defect which has been pointed out has been
in the disposition of the majority of members in labor
unions to reduce the compensation of all men engaged
in a particular trade to a dead level, and to fail to recognize
the difference between the highly skilled and very industrious workman and the one only less skilled and less industrious. I think that there is a movement among tradesunions themselves to correct this levelling tendency, and
nothing could strengthen the movement more than the adoption of some plan by which there should remain among
union workmen the impetus and motive to be found in the
greater reward for greater skill and greater industry.
There is one thing to be said in respect to American
trades-unionism that its critics are not generally alive
to. In France the trades-unions are intensely socialistic.
Indeed, in some of the late difficulties it was plain that there
was a strong anarchistic feeling among them and that they
opposed all authority of any kind. It is also plain that the
tendency toward  socialism in England and England's
trades-unionism is growing stronger and stronger. I need
not point out the deplorable results in this country if tradesunionism became a synonym for socialism. Those who are
now in active control, the Federation of Labor and all the
great railroad organizations, have set their faces like flint
against the propagandism of socialistic principles. They




AND STATE PAPERS


195


are in favor of the rights of property and of our present
institutions modified by such remedial legislation as to put
workingmen on equality with their opponents in trade
controversies and trade contracts and to stamp out the monopoly and the corporate abuses which are an outgrowth of
our present system unaccompanied by proper limitation;
and I think all of us who are in favor of the maintenance
of our present institutions should recognize this battle which
has been carried on by the conservative and influential
members of trades-unionism, and willingly give credit to
these men as the champions of a cause which should command our sympathy, respect and support.
Our friends of the great unions at times complain of our
courts, more perhaps because of the decisions in injunction cases than for anything else. I have already referred
to this particular phase of litigation in which they have an
interest, but when the subject of courts is mentioned it
suggests to me a larger field for complaint and reform in
which all citizens are interested and have a right to be heard.
There is no subject upon which I feel so deeply as upon
the necessity for reform in the administration of both civil
and criminal law. To sum it all up in one phrase, the
difficulty in both is undue delay. It is not too much to
say that the administration of criminal law in this country
is a disgrace to our civilization, and that the prevalence of
crime and fraud, which here is greatly in excess of that
in the European countries, is due largely to the failure of
the law and its administrators to bring criminals to justice.
I am sure that this failure is not due to corruption of officials.
It is not due to their negligence or laziness, though of course
there may be both in some cases; but it is chiefly due to
the system against which it is impossible for an earnest
prosecutor and an efficient judge to struggle. We inherited
our system of criminal prosecutions and the constitutional
provisions for the protection of the accused in his trial from
England and her laws. We inherited from her the jury
trials. All these limitations and the jury system are still




196        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
maintained in England, but they have not interfered with
an effective prosecution of criminals and their punishment.
There has not been undue delay in English criminal courts.
In this country we have generally altered the relation of the
judge to the jury. In England the judge controls the trial,
controls the lawyers, keeps them to relevant and proper
argument, aids the jury in its consideration of the facts,
not by direction but by suggestion, and the lawyers in the
conduct of the cases are made to feel that they have an obligation not only to their clients but also to the court and to
the public at large not to abuse their offices in such a way as
unduly to lengthen the trial and unduly to direct the attention of the court and the jury away from the real facts at
issue. In this country there seems to have been on the part
of all State legislatures a fear of the judge and not of the jury,
and the power which he exercises in an English court has
by legislation been reduced from time to time until now,
and this is especially true in Western States, he has hardly
more power than the moderator in a religious assembly.
The tendency of legislation is to throw the reins on the back
of the jury and to let them follow their own sweet will, influenced by all the arts of counsel for the defendant in leading
them away from the real points at issue, and in awakening
their emotions of pity for the defendant in forgetfulness
of the wrongs of the prosecuting witness, or it may be of
the deceased, and of the rights of society to be protected
against crime, and all these defects are emphasized in the
delays which occur in the trials -delays made necessary
because the trials take so great a time. A murder case in
England will be disposed of in a day or two days that here
will take three weeks or a month, and no one can say, after
an examination of the record in England, that the rights of
the defendant have not been preserved and that justice has
not been done. It is true that in England they have enlarged
the procedure to the point of allowing an appeal from a
judgment in a criminal case to a court of appeals, but this
appeal is usually taken and allowed only on a few questions




AND STATE PAPERS


197


easily considered by the court above and promptly decided.
Counsel are not permitted to mouse through the record
to find errors that in the trial seemed of little account, but
that are developed into great injustices in the court of
appeal. This is another defect of our procedure. No
criminal is content with a judgment of the court below,
and well may he not be because the record of reversals is
so great as to encourage it in every case and to hang important
judgments in appellate proceedings sometimes for years.
I don't know when the reforms are to be brought about in
this country. Until our people shall become fully aware
and in some concrete wayr be made to suffer from the escape
of criminals from just judgment in this country, the system
may continue. One of the methods by which it could be
remedied in some degree is to give judges more power in
the trial of criminal causes and enable them to aid the jury
in its consideration of facts and to exercise more control
over the arguments that counsel see fit to advance. Judges.
and especially judges who are elected, ought not to be mistrusted by the people. A judgeship is a great office and the
man who holds it should exercise great power and he ought
to be allowed to exercise that in a trial by jury. Then it
is undoubtedly true that in England, lawyers in the conduct
of their cases feel much more and respect much more their
obligations to assist the court in administering justice and
restrain themselves from adopting the desperate and extreme
methods for which American lawyers are even applauded.
The trial here is a game in which the advantage is with
the criminal, and if he wins he seems to have the sympathy of a sporting public. Trial by jury, as it has come
to us through the Constitution, is the trial by jury under
the English law, and under the law the vagaries, the weaknesses, the timidities and the ignorance of juries were to
be neutralized by the presence in court of a judge to whom
they should look for instruction upon the law and sound
advice in respect to the facts, although of course with regard
to the facts their ultimate conclusion must be their own,




198


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


and they were fully at liberty to disregard the judicial suggestion.
But reform in our criminal procedure is not the only
reform that we ought to have in our courts. On the civil
side of the courts there is undue delay, and this always
works for the benefit of the man with the longest purse.
The employment of lawyers and the payment of costs all
become more expensive as the litigation is extended. It
used to be thought that a system by which cases involving
small amounts could be carried to the Supreme Court through
two or three courts of intermediate appeal was a perfect
system, because it gave the poor man the same right to go
to the Supreme Court as the rich man. Nothing is further
from the truth. What the poor man needs is a prompt
decision of his case and by limiting the appeals in cases
involving small amounts of money so that there shall be a
final decision in the lower court, an opportunity is given
to the poor litigant to secure a judgment in time to enjoy
it and not after he has exhausted all his resources in litigating to the Supreme Court.
I am a lawyer and admire my profession, but I must
admit that we have had too many lawyers in legislating on
legal procedure, and they have been prone to think
that litigants were made for the purpose of furnishing business to courts and lawyers, and not courts and lawyers for
the benefit of the people and litigants. More than this,
I am bound to say that in the matter of reducing the cost
of litigation, and, indeed, the time of it, Congress and the
Federal courts have not set a good example. Probably
under the Constitution it is impossible in the Federal courts
to unite suits at law and cases in equity in one form of
action, as has been done in the codes of the States, but it
certainly is possible to introduce a simpler form of procedure both in suits in law and suits in equity.  This last
form of procedure - that is, equity-has been entirely
in the control of the courts and especially the Supreme
Court, and yet in years no real reform has taken place in




AND STATE PAPERS                  199
that regard, and the procedure is just about as clumsy,
just about as expensive, just about as likely to produce delay
as it was thirty or forty years ago. The fact that no reform
has been instituted may perhaps be due to the circumstance
that our judges have been overloaded with work in the
Supreme Court, and thus opportunity has not been seized
for this reform. But I conceive that the situation is now
ripe for the appointment of a commission by Congress to
take up the question of the law's delays in the Federal courts
and to report a system which shall not only secure quick and
cheap justice to the litigants in the Federal courts but shall
offer a model to the legislatures and courts of the States by
the use of which they can themselves institute reforms.
I would abolish altogether the system of payment of court
officers by fee. The fee system may be properly continued
for the reimbursement of the public treasury by litigants
specially interested, but the fees ought to be reduced to the
lowest point and the motive for increasing the expense of
litigation that arises from the payment of the compensation
of court officers out of fees should be removed. I do not
think that the delays in justice are due to any niggardliness
on the part of the public in appropriating money to meet
the expenses of administration. The evil lies deeper in the
system which I have referred to only in a most summary
way.
Of all the questions that are before the American people
I regard no one as more important than this, to wit, the
improvement of the administration of justice. We must
make it so that the poor man will have as nearly as possible
an opportunity in litigating as the rich man, and under present conditions, ashamed as we may be of it, this is not the
fact.
And now, my friends, I have subjected you to a rather
solemn discussion of a rather solemn subject.
I always like to visit Chicago because it is in a sense the
center of the country. Much more than Boston is it the
hub about which many people and many interests revolve.




o00        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
In making up the personnel of my Cabinet and my administration I have been surprised to find how many admirable
men you have in your community, and I must apologize
for the drain which I have made upon your resources by
calling to Washington and foreign courts at least half a
dozen of your most prominent and able citizens. In doing
so I had to ask them all to make personal sacrifices in the
matter of compensation and to gather their reward from disinterested desire to serve the public and a patriotic willingness to put their abilities at the disposition of the country.
We are entering now upon an era of prosperity which I
hope will be long continued. We have just passed a tariff
bill which has ended for the time the disturbance of business that always arises from the consideration and agitation
over such a bill, and there is nothing now to prevent the
application of all the capital and all the forces which have
been suspended for the last year and a half or two years
by a lack of confidence and a waiting for such settlement,
to the expansion of business and the further development
of the resources of this country. But this prospect of
prosperity must not blind us to the necessity for carrying
out certain great reforms advocated by Mr. Roosevelt,
recommended in the Republican party platform, which I
believe are needed to prevent a return to the abuses of which
all men recognize the evil in our previous business methods
and the management of our great corporations. I expect
to consider these questions more at length at another stage
in my journey, as I do also the character of the tariff bill
which has been adopted and which has been subjected to
much criticism, but to-night I feel that I have wearied you
far beyond any claim I have had to your attention.




XXIII


ADDRESS AT THE STATE FAIR GROUNDS,
MILWAUKEE, WIS.
(SEPTEMrBER 17, 1909)
Mir. President, Governor, Senators, Ladies and Gentlemen,
and Citizens of IVisconsin:
I AM only too conscious of my lack of experience and
knowledge in the presence of farmers. You have
a Governor who is a farmer. You have Senators who are
farmers. I think all your business men must be farmers
if I can judge by the crowd that greets me here. I must
admit that I am a city-bred man, and while the spirit would
be willing I am afraid I could not milk a cow. Nevertheless, he must be blind indeed to the interests of his country,
he must be lacking indeed in acquaintance with the progress
of the world who does not realize what, in the fifty years
since that noble patriot, Abraham Lincoln, stood here, has
been accomplished in the way of improvement of agriculture
and scientific investigation into the methods of breeding
and into the methods of treating the soil. But I do not
intend to occupy your time in discussing something that you
know a great deal better than I do. I want to get on to
something that perhaps we are both equally ignorant of,
but which it will help us to discuss.
Something was said about a man's being a ruler and a
servant of the people. I have had occasion to say a number
of times that it is perhaps true that the President of the
United States has a great deal of power, but while he is in
office the thing that strikes him is the limitations and the
difficulties of exercising that power. The real power is
in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. But
201




202        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
the man who gets the blame for everything is the fellow at
the top. Now, parties make platforms. They are said to
be, in the language of the cynical, something to get in on
but not to stand on. Our party, if I may make a partisan
reference when I am here only in a non-partisan capacitythe Republican party agreed that we ought to have an institution, the benefit and virtue of which I wish to discuss
this morning, in the shape of postal-savings banks. We
heard discussed in the Senate last winter the question of
how planks were introduced into a party platform, and
when they grew a little burdensome to carry out, it was
said that they were put in at three o'clock in the morning
when more than half the convention were asleep, and when
the minority was awake enough to push them in. I don't
mean to say that the question of postal-savings banks binds
every one who calls himself a Republican-I don't mean that
a plank binds every one who calls himself a Republican -
because that is not the kind of people the Americans are.
If they do not like a plank in a platform, or if they do not
like the platform, they cease to be Republicans, or they
are Republicans with an exception, and that indicates a
free, enlightened and discriminating people. But I am
here to uphold the doctrine of postal-savings banks, because
I believe that they will fill in this country a long-felt want.
In the first place I want to describe a little bit what it
was proposed to put into the savings-bank law, in order
that you may understand something about which we are
speaking. It was proposed to make every money-order
office in the United States, of which there are 40,000, and
such other post offices as the Postmaster General might
think fit, postal-savings banks. It was proposed to allow
anybody to deposit there a dollar or anything more than a
dollar, in multiples of ten cents. It was proposed to limit
the amount of the deposit in any one month to $200, and
to limit the amount of total deposits to $1,000, and to agree
to pay interest at the rate of 2 per cent. on not more than
$500. The money thus accumulated was to be invested




AND STATE PAPERS                  203
by a committee consisting of the Postmaster-General, the
Attorney-General and the Secretary of the Treasury, either
in the neighboring national bank in the county, or if there
was no such bank, in the nearest national bank, or if that
was impracticable, in State, county or Federal bonds. They
were required to secure in everything but Federal bonds
21 per cent. annually. Now, our friends the bankersand they are friends; I am not attacking them. It is not
wise to attack bankers either, for really we have a right to
be proud of our banking fraternity.-But there are a good
many who object to the postal-savings banks on a number
of grounds, and I wish to take up those objections.
In the first place it is said that the postal-savings bank
is a very paternal institution; that it has a leaning toward
State socialism, and that it proposes to take the banking
business out of the hands of private persons and put it in those
of the Government. Now I am not a paternalist, and I am
not a socialist, and I am not in favor of having the Government do anything that private citizens can do as well,
or better. We have passed beyond the time of what they
call the laisser-faire school which believes that the Government ought to do nothing but run a police force. We do
recognize the interference of the government because it has
great capital and great resources behind it, and because
sometimes it can stand the lack of an immediate return
on capital and help out. We did it in our Pacific roads.
We have done it in a great many different ways, and this
particular postal-savings banks business is a business which
the government is especially fitted to do, and which no
system of private banks can do. In the first place they have
this great organization of the post office, with skilled employees sprinkled all over this 'country in every nook and cranny
of it. Whether there are many people or few, the post
offices have to be maintained. Therefore it will be a most
economic means of establishing a system of savings banks
merely to add one function to the duty of the postmasters
all through this country. It can be done most cheaply.




~04


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


The Government can afford it and nobody else could do it.
It is said that we have enough banking in this country
and therefore we ought not to put the Government into it.
It is said, moreover, that if we did put the Government
into it, it would not be very long before the Government
would do all the banking, discounting and everything else,
and the bankers would be driven out of business. I don't
think that that argument amounts to much. It is to say
that the American people have not sense enough to discriminate between what is a right use of the post office and what
is a right thing to do with reference to savings banks and
the going into the general business of discounting and banking which the government has no business to do. I believe
in the discriminating sense of the American people to know
the degree to which they ought to go in a good thing and
then to know that when they get beyond it, it becomes a
bad thing. To say that if the people go into one good thing,
they are necessarily going to get into something which is
not good, is to question the intelligence and the discrimination of our people, and I don't propose to do it.
Let us see about banking and the amount that the people
of the United States have in the way of opportunities to
deposit money. In 14 States the deposits of savings banks
amount to $3,600,000,000. I won't say that in those States
there was a crushing demand for postal-savings banks,
although even there they would discharge a certain function,
but when you come to consider the other 32 States and territories, the deposits are only $70,000,000. In other words,
98 per cent. of all the deposits in the savings banks in the
country are in 14 States, which tends to show conclusively
that in the 32 States the banking facilities - at least the
savings-bank facilities - for the deposit of funds to encourage thrift on the part of the people are very inadequate,
and it is in those States that we expect, if the postal-savings
bank system is put in, that the people will be induced to
save more money instead of spending it, or instead of putting
it into the sock where it does not do much good until it is




AND STATE PAPERS


withdrawn. Now, in New England in the savings banks
there are two citizens to one savings-bank account. In
every other part of the United States the savings-bank
accounts are one to every 157 people, which tends to show
the concentration of savings-bank deposits in the East.
Another fact showing the need for such a system is that
to-day in the distant States to which I have referred there
are $8,000,000 deposited by men who take out money orders
and just leave the money in the money-order office of the
post office without drawing any interest at all. They just
put it there because they don't know where else to put it,
which is an indication that they ought to have some place
where they can put it and draw some interest. Our new
citizens send abroad every year over $90,000,000, and a
very large proportion of that goes into the savings banks
abroad. Our new immigrants when they come here are
distrustful of the local banks, they are distrustful of the
private savings-deposit banks, and what they want is a government guaranty in order to secure to them the certainty
that when they want their money, they can get it. They
are not so insistent on the rate of interest as they are on the
certainty of getting their money back, and if they have the
government guaranty that they will get it, they can be counted
upon rather to deposit their money than to waste it. The
great usefulness of the postal-savings bank is an encouragement of thrift on the part of those who are just wavering
in the balance whether they shall save the money or spend
it, because they do not know where they can put it safely.
It is said that this will interfere with the system of savings
banks and other banks. I most urgently deny that, because
we only propose to pay 2 per cent. and every savings bank
that you know pays at least three and sometimes three and
one-half or four. Therefore, those who put their money
in a postal-savings bank at 2 per cent. are not those who
would be likely to put the money in a savings bank at three.
Instead of that it will furnish more money to the savings.
banks, and I will tell you how, and I will tell you this in




206        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
confidence, because this is the way it is worked in other
countries. You stir up a lot of people to begin to save money
and put it in at 2 per cent. and they put it in there because
they'know they can get the money back. That is the
whole idea they have at first, but after they begin to
calculate what a low rate two per cent. is they begin to look
around; they learn for themselves; they acquire some
discrimination, and they understand that in the neighboring bank they can get 3 or 3-1 per cent. They acquire
more intelligence and more knowledge in respect to the
matter and then they begin to estimate the security of the
private or State savings bank. Under these conditions
this fund, which never would have come at all, will be available for the savings banks as the intelligence of the depositor
grows greater and as his willingness to risk a little more in
order to get a little more interest becomes more acute. We
are not usually backward in adopting new and proper
assistance to our people and to the government, but we may
look abroad frequently to learn lessons in the matter of
finance, and even in the matter of some departments of the
Government. I want to read you a list of the countries
that have postal-savings banks. Let me first say, in Italy
there are $273,000,000 deposited in the postal-savings
banks of the country. In Russia $130,000,000; in Great
Britain and Ireland $766,000,000; in Canada $47,000,000;
in Japan $47,000,000. Now, I want to refer to Canada.
Canada has postal-savings banks and what is the result
along the border up in the Northwest? You find Americans
going over the border and making deposits in those savings
banks. Why? Because they have the guarantee of the
Canadian Government. Now, it is right that when the Government takes custody of money it should agree to return
it. It is upon the agreement to return that the basis of the
postal-savings bank may be put. There are postal-savings
banks in Austria, Belgium, Japan, France, Hungary, Italy,
Holland, Russia, Sweden, Great Britain and Ireland, Bahamas, Canada, India, Ceylon, Straits Settlements, Cpe




AND STATE PAPERS


~207


Colony, Tasmania, Western Australia, New Zealand and
the Gold Coast, and I may add in the Philippines, because
I had something to do with putting them there. In Germany
they do not have them, but they have a system of town and
provincial banks which fills the measure of the demand.
You know we have issued upward of $700,000,000 of
2 per cent. bonds of the United States, and we have prided
ourselves, and our heads have been a little bit swelled on the
theory, that we could float bonds at 2 per cent. and no other
country could. We did float those at par at 2 per cent. -
I don't know but that it was a little more - but we did it
by getting the banks into a corner so that they had to have
under the law some government security, and so they were
obliged to buy those 2 per cent. bonds. Now they are liable
to be on the market. We have to take care of them in some
way. We have got to prevent their going down below
par because the normal interest rate that a government can
get is quite above 2 per cent. - somewhere between 2 and 3
per cent., and if we have the postal-savings banks, if we
have a large fund of $500,000,000 to $600,000,000 or
$700,000,000, as we may expect to have in view of what
has happened in Great Britain, we can use that fund to put
in Government bonds and take care of that issue, which is
our child and which after all we ought not to be so proud
of, because we fooled the world into thinking that we were
getting something at 2 per cent. and that our credit was
worth that, when as a matter of fact we were forcing the
banking fraternity into taking them  because of certain
other advantages which they had to have. It was just a
little sharp game which the Government played, and it is
necessary that in any legislation which comes along we
should take care of that issue of 2 per cent. before issuing
any more bonds at a higher rate.
I observed yesterday in the convention of bankers the
proposition was urgently and ably fought. Nevertheless,
it seems to me, looking at it from a larger field of view
possibly than bankers can have, because we are all subject




208        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
to the prejudices of our profession - I am a lawyer, and I
know I am prejudiced as a lawyer, and I think bankers
are likely to be prejudiced as bankers; nevertheless, I believe
that the arguments in favor of instituting such a system,
backed up by the experience of so many other nations as
those I have named to you, justify our going into the business
of encouraging our people by something that will be inexpensive to the Government, encouraging our people, those
of them who have not the sense of security in private banks,
encouraging them to a thrift and furnishing the means by
which they shall save on small interest. We are looking
forward, I hope, with confidence, to a readjustment of our
whole financial and banking system. Certainly it needs it,
and it has been suggested that the postal-savings bank
might well await that. I am bound to say that I do not
see the necessity for uniting them. It seems to me that
one system can stand by itself, and if we adopt the postalsavings bank it would be easily worked into a general system
of banking because those savings banks will furnish us
$500,000,000 or $600,000,000, and that is a very tidy pile
to have around for the Government to use legitimately in
order to carry on any financial operations.




XXIV


TARIFF SPEECH
(DELIVERED AT WINONA, MINN., SEPTEMBER 17, 1909)
My Fellow Citizens:
AS LONG ago as August, 1906, in the Congressional
campaign in Maine, I ventured to announce that I
was a tariff revisionist and thought that the time had come
for readjustment of the schedules. I pointed out that it
had been ten years prior to that time that the Dingley Bill
had been passed; that great changes had taken place in
the conditions surrounding the productions of the farm,
the factory, and the mine, and that under the theory of protection in that time the rates imposed in the Dingley Bill
in many instances might have become excessive; that is,
might have been greater than the difference between the
cost of production abroad and the cost of production at home
with a sufficient allowance for a reasonable rate of profit
to the American producer. I said that the party was divided
on the issue, but that in my judgment the opinion of the
party was crystallizing and would probably result in the near
future in an effort to make such revision. I pointed out
the difficulty that there always was in a revision of the
tariff, due to the threatened disturbance of industries to be
affected and the suspension of business, in, a way which
made it unwise to have too many revisions. In the summer
of 1907 my position on the tariff was challenged, ana I then
entered into a somewhat fuller discussion of the matter.
It was contended by the so-called "standpatters" that rates
beyond the necessary measure of protection were not objectionable, because behind the tariff wall competition always
reduced the prices, and thus saved the consumer. But I
209




210        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
pointed out in that speech what seems to me as true to-day
as it then was, that the danger of excessive rates was in
the temptation they created to form monopolies in the protected articles, and thus to take advantage of the excessive
rates by increasing the prices, and therefore, and in order
to avoid such a danger, it was wise at regular intervals
to examine the question of what the effect of the rates
had been upon the industries in this country, and
whether the conditions with respect to the cost of
production here had so changed as to warrant a reduction
in the tariff, and to make a lower rate truly protective of the
industry.
It will be observed that the object of the revision under
such a statement was not to destroy protected industries
in this country, but it was to continue to protect them
where lower rates offered a sufficient protection to prevent
injury by foreign competition. That was the object
of the revision as advocated by me, and it was certainly
the object of the revision as promised in the Republican
platform.
I want to make as clear as I can this proposition, because,
in order to determine whether a bill is a compliance with
the terms of that platform, it must be understood what the
platform means. A free trader is opposed to any protective rate because he thinks that our manufacturers, our
farmers, and our miners ought to withstand the competition of foreign manufacturers and miners and farmers,
or else go out of business and find something else more
profitable to do. Now, certainly the promises of the platform did not contemplate the downward revision of the
tariff rates to such a point that any industry theretofore
protected should be injured. Hence, those who contend
that the promise of the platform was to reduce prices by
letting in foreign competition are contending for a free
trade, and not for anything that they had the right to infer
from the Republican platform.
The Ways and Means Committee of the House, with




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211


Mr. Payne at its head, spent a full year in an investigation,
assembling evidence in reference to the rates under the
tariff, and devoted an immense amount of work to the study
of the question where the tariff rates could be reduced and
where they ought to be raised with a view to maintaining
a  reasonably  protective  rate, under  the principles
of the platform, for every industry that deserved protection.
They found that the determination of the question,
what was the actual cost of production and whether
an industry in this country could live under a certain
rate and withstand threatened competition from abroad,
was most difficult. The manufacturers were prone to
exaggerate the injury which a reduction in the duty
would give and to magnify the amount of duty that was
needed; while the importers, on the other hand, who were
interested in developing the importation from foreign
shores, were quite likely to be equally biased on the
other side.
Mr. Payne reported a bill - the Payne tariff bill - which
went to the Senate and was amended in the Senate by increasing the duty on some things and decreasing it on others.
The difference between the House bill and the Senate bill
was very much less than the newspapers represented. It
turns out upon examination that the reductions in the
Senate were about equal to those in the House, though they
differed in character. Now, there is nothing quite so difficult as the discussion of a tariff bill, for the reason that
it covers so many different items, and the meaning of the
terms and the percentages are very hard to understand.
The passage of a new bill, especially where a change in the
method of assessing the duties has been followed, presents
an opportunity for various modes and calculations of the
percentages of increases and decreases that are most misleading and really throw no light at all upon the changes
made.
One way of stating what was done is to say what the facts
show - that under the Dingley law there were 2,024 items.




212        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
This included dutiable items only. The Payne law leaves
1,150 of these items unchanged. There are decreases in
654 of the items and increases in 220 of the items. Now,
of course, that does not give a full picture, but it does show
the proportion of decreases to have been three times those
of the increases. Again, the schedules are divided into
letters from A to N. The first schedule is that of chemicals, oils, etc. There are 232 items in the Dingley law;
of these, 81 were decreased, 22 were increased, leaving 129
unchanged. Under Schedule B — earths, earthenware and
glassware -there were 170 items in the Dingley law; 46
were decreased, 12 were increased, and 112 left unchanged.
C is the schedule of metals and manufactures. There were
321 items in the Dingley law; 185 were decreased, 30 were
increased, and 106 were left unchanged. D is the schedule
of wood and manufactures of wood. There were 35 items
in the Dingley law; 18 were decreased, 3 were increased,
and 14 were left unchanged. There were 38 items in sugar,
and of these 2 were decreased and 36 left unchanged. Schedule F covers tobacco and manufactures of tobacco, of which
there were 8 items; they were all left unchanged. In the
schedule covering agricultural products and provisions
there were 187 items in the Dingley law; 14 of them were
decreased, 19 were increased, and 154 left unchanged.
Schedule H - that of spirits and wines -contained 33
items in the Dingley law; 4 were decreased, 23 increased,
and 6 were left unchanged. In cotton manfactures there
were 261 items; of these 28 were decreased, 47 increased,
and 186 left unchanged. In Schedule J-flax, hemp,
and jute-there were 254 items in the Dingley law;
187 were reduced, 4 were increased, and 63 left unchanged.
In wool, and manfactures thereof, there were 78 items;
3 were decreased, none were increased, and 75 left unchanged. In silk and silk goods there were 78 items;
of these, 21 were decreased, 31 were increased, and 26 were
left unchanged. In pulp, papers, and books there were
59 items in the Dingley law, and of these 11 were decreased,




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9 were increased, and 39 left unchanged. In sundries
there were 270 items, and of these 54 were decreased, 20
were increased, and 196 left unchanged. So that the total
showed 2,024 items in the Dingley law, of which 654 were
decreased, 220 were increased, making 874 changes, and
1,150 left unchanged.
Changes in Dingley law
Items      by Payne la'w.
Schedules,.              in            ---------— ill  UnDingley                     changed
law.   De-     In-  Total
creeases. creases. changes
A. Chemicals, oils, etc...................  232  81  22    103     129
B. Earths, earthenware and glassware.  170     46     12     58     112
C. Metals, and manufactures of.........  321  185    0     215 
D Wood, and manufactures of -..-....    35     18     3      21     14
E. Sugar, molasses, and manufactures of  38    2      0      2      36
F. Tobacco, and manufactures of......  8     0      0      0       8
G. Agricultural products and provisions.  187  14     19     33     154
II, Spirits, wines, etc...........      33     4      23     27      6
I. Cotton manufactures                 261     28     47     75     186
J. Flax, hemp, jute, and manufactures of  254  187    4     191     63
K. Wool, and manufactures of..........  78      3     0      3      75
L. Silk  and  silk  goods...................  78  21  31    52     26
M. Pulp, papers and books................  5   11     9      20     39
N. Sundries...............            270     54     20     74     196
Total.............................  2,024  654  220  874   1,150
Attempts have been made to show            what the real effect
of these changes has been by comparing the imports under
the various schedules, and assuming that the changes and
their importance      were in proportion      to the importations.
Nothing could be more unjust in a protective tariff which
also contains revenue provisions. Some of the tariff is
made for the purpose of increasing the revenue by increasing importations which shall pay duty. Other items in
the tariff are made for the purpose of reducing competition,
that is, by reducing importations, and, therefore, the question of the importance of a change in rate can not in the
slightest degree be determined by the amount of imports
that take place. In order to determine the importance of
the changes, it is much fairer to take the articles on which




214


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


the rates of duty have been reduced and those on which the
rates of duty have been increased, and then determine
from statistics how large a part the articles upon which
duties have been reduced play in the consumption of the
country, and how large a part those upon which the duties
have been increased play in the consumption of the country.
Such a table has been prepared by Mr. Payne, than whom
there is no one vwho understands better what the tariff is
and who has given more attention to the details of the
schedule.
Now, let us take Schedule A-chemicals, oils, and
paints. The articles upon which the duty has been decreased
are consumed in this country to the extent of $433,000,000.
The articles upon which the duty has been increased are
consumed in this country to the extent of $11,000,000.
Take Schedule B. The articles on which the duty has been
decreased enter into the consumption of the country to the
amount of $128,000,000, and there has been no increase
in duty on such articles. Take Schedule C-metals and
their manufactures. The amount to which such articles
enter into the consumption of the country is $1,221,000,000,
whereas the articles of the same schedule upon which there
has been an increase enter into the consumption of the
country to the extent of only $37,000,000. Take Schedule
D - lumber. The articles in this schedule upon which
there has been a decrease enter into the consumption of
the country to the extent of $566,000,000, whereas the
articles under the same schedule upon which there has been
an increase enter into its consumption to the extent of
$31,000,000. In tobacco there has been no change. In
agricultural products, those in which there has been a reduction of rates enter into the consumption of the country
to the extent of $483,000,000; those in which there has
been an increase enter into the consumption to the extentof $4,000,000. In the schedule of wines and liquors, the
articles upon which there has been an increase, enter intothe consumption of the country to the extent of $462,000,000.



AND STATE PAPERS


915


In cottons there has been a change in the higher-priced
cottons and an increase. There has been no increase in
the lower-priced cottons, and of the increases the highpriced cottons enter into the consumption of the country
to the extent of $41,000,000. Schedule J —flax, hemp,
and jute: The articles upon which there has been a decrease
enter into the consumption of the country to the extent of
$22,000,000, while those upon which there has been an
increase enter into the consumption to the extent of $804,000.
In Schedule K, as to wool, there has been no change. In
Schedule L, as to silk, the duty has been decreased on articles
which enter into the consumption of the country to the extent
of $8,000,000, and has been increased on articles that enter
into the consumption of the country to the extent of
$106,000,000. On paper and pulp the duty has been
decreased on articles, including print paper, that enter
into the consumption of the country to the extent of
$67,000,000, and increased on articles that enter into the
consumption of the country to the extent of $81,000,000.
In sundries, or Schedule N, the duty has been decreased on
articles that enter into the consumption of the country to
the extent of $1,719,000,000; and increased on articles that
enter into the consumption of the country to the extent of
$101,000,000.
It will be found that in Schedule A the increases covered
only luxuries - perfumeries, pomades, and like articles;
Schedule H -wines and liquors - which are certainly
luxuries and are made subject to increase in order to increase
the revenues, amounting to $462,000,000; and in Schedule
L - silks - which are luxuries, certainly, $106,000,000,
making a total of the consumption of those articles upon
which there was an increase and which were luxuries of
$579,000,000, leaving a balance of increase on articles which
were not luxuries of value in consumption of only
$272,000,000, as against $5,000,000,000, representing the
amount of articles entering into the consumption of
the country, mostly necessities, upon which there has




216              PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
been a reduction of duties, and to which the 650 decreases
applied.
Statement.
Consumption value.
Sched-                        Article.
ule.                                                     Duties de- Duties increased.    creased.
A  Chemicals, oils, and paints..................... $433,099,846  $11,105,820
B Earths, earthenware, and glassware...............   128,423,732...........
C Metals, and manufactures of........................ 1,221,956,620  37,675,804
D  Wood, and manufactures of........................ 566,870,950  31,280,372
E Sugar, molasses, and manufactures of.............   300,965,953...........
F Tobacco, and manufactures of (no change of rates)............
G  Agricultural products and provisions.............. 483,430,6,37  4,380,043
H  Spirits, wines, and other beverages...............4.............  462,001,856
I Cotton manufactures...........................................  41,622,024
J Flax, hemp, jute. and manufactures of.............   22,127,145    804,445
K  Wool, and manufactures of wool. (No production
statistics available for articles affected by
changes of rates)...............................
L  Silks and silk goods.......................        7,947,568  106,742,646
M   Pulp, papers, and books........................    67,628,055  81,486,466
N  Sundries.......................................,719,428,06     101,656,598
Total.................................... 4,951,878,575  878,756,074
Of the     above increases the following            are luxuries, being
articles strictly of voluntary use:
Schedule A. Chemicals, including perfumeries, pomades and like articles $11,105,820
Schedule H. Wines and liquors................................  462,001,856
Schedule  L. Silks........................................................  106,742,646
Total......................................-  579,850,322
This leaves a balance of increases which are not on articles
of luxury of $298,905,752, as against decreases on about
five billion dollars of consumption.
Now, this statement shows as conclusively as possible the
fact that there was a substantial downward revision on articles
entering into the general consumption of the country which
can be termed necessities, for the proportion is $5,000,000,000
representing the consumption of articles to which decreases
applied, to less than $300,000,000 of articles of necessity
to which the increases applied.
Now, the promise of the Republican platform was not
to revise everything downward, and in the speeches which




AND STATE PAPERS


Q17


have been taken as interpreting that platform, which I made
in the campaign, I did not promise that everything should
go downward. What I promised was, that there should
be many decreases, and that in some few things increases
would be found to be necessary; but that on the whole I conceived that the change of conditions would make the revision
necessarily downward - and that, I contend, under the
showing which I have made, has been the result of the
Payne bill. I did not agree, nor did the Republican party
agree, that we would reduce rates to such a point as to reduce
prices by the introduction of foreign competition. That
is what the free traders desire. That is what the revenuetariff reformers desire; but that is not what the Republican
platform promised, and it is not what the Republican
party wished to bring about. To repeat the statement
with which I opened this speech, the proposition of the
Republican party was to reduce rates so as to maintain a
difference between the cost of production abroad and the
cost of production here, insuring a reasonable profit to the
manufacturer on all articles produced in this country; and
the proposition to reduce rates and prevent their being
excessive was to avoid the opportunity for monopoly and
the suppression of competition, so that the excessive rates
could be taken advantage of to force prices up.
Now, it is said that there was not a reduction in a number
of the schedules where there should have been. It is said
that there was no reduction in the cotton schedule. There
was not. The House and the Senate took evidence and
found from cotton manufacturers and from other sources
that the rates upon the lower class of cottons were such as
to enable them to make a decent profit - but only a decent
profit - and they were contented with it; but that the rates
on the higher grades of cotton cloth, by reason of court
decisions, had been reduced so that they were considerably
below those of the cheaper grades of cotton cloth, and that
by undervaluations and otherwise the whole cotton schedule
had been made unjust and the various items were dispro



218


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


portionate in respect to the varying cloths. Hence, in the
Senate a new system was introduced attempting to make the
duties more specific rather than ad valorem, in order to
prevent by judicial decision or otherwise a disproportionate
and unequal operation of the schedule. Under this schedule
it was contended that there had been a general rise of all
the duties on cotton. This was vigorously denied by the
experts of the Treasury Department. At last, the Senate
in conference consented to a reduction amounting to about
10 per cent. on all the lower grades of cotton, and this reduced
the lower grades of cotton substantially to the same rates
as before and increased the higher grades to what they ought
to be under the Dingley law and what they were intended
to be. Now, I am not going into the question of evidence
as to whether the cotton duties were too high and whether
the difference between the cost of production abroad and at
home, allowing for a reasonable profit to the manufacturer here, is less than the duties which are imposed under
the Payne Bill. It was a question of evidence which Congress passed upon, after they heard the statements of cotton
manufacturers and such other evidence as they could avail
themselves of. I agree that the method of taking evidence
and the determination was made in a general way, and that
there ought to be other methods of obtaining evidence and
reaching a conclusion more satisfactory.
Criticism has also been made of the crockery schedule
and the failure to reduce that. The question whether it
ought to have been reduced or not was a question of evidence which both committees of Congress took up, and
both concluded that the present rates on crockery were such
as were needed to maintain the business in this country.
I had been informed that the crockery schedule was not
high enough, and mentioned that in one of my campaign
speeches as a schedule probably where there ought to be
some increases. It turned out that the difficulty was rather
in undervaluations than in the character of the schedule
itself, and so it was not changed. It is entirely possible




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219


to collect evidence to attack almost any of the schedules,
but one story is good until another is told, and I have heard
no reason for sustaining the contention that the crockery
schedule is unduly high. So with respect to n merous
details - items of no great importance - in which, upon
what they regarded as sufficient evidence, the committee
advanced rates in order to save a business which was likely
to be destroyed.
I have never known a subject that will evoke so much
contradictory evidence as the question of tariff rates and
the question of cost of production at home and abroad.
Take the subject of paper. A committee was appointed
by Congress a year before the tariff sittings began, to determine what the difference was between the cost of production
in Canada of print paper and the cost of production here,
and they reported that they thought that a good bill would
be one imposing $2 a ton on paper, rather than $6, the
Dingley rate, provided that Canada could be induced to
take off the export duties and remove the other obstacles
to the importation of spruce wood in this country out of
which wood pulp is made. An examination of the evidence
satisfied Mr. Payne - I believe it satisfied some of the
Republican dissenters -that $2, unless some change was
made in the Canadian restrictions upon the exports of wood
to this country, was much too low, and that $4 was only a
fair measure of the difference between the cost of production here and in Canada. In other words, the $9 found by
the special committee in the House was rather an invitation
to Canada and the Canadian print-paper people to use
their influence with their government to remove the wood
restrictions by reducing the duty on print paper against
Canadian print-paper mills. It was rather a suggestion
of a diplomatic nature than a positive statement of the difference in actual cost of production under existing conditions
between Canada and the United States.
There are other subjects which I might take up. The
tariff on hides was taken off because it was thought that it




220        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
was not necessary in view of the high price of cattle thus to
protect the man who raised them, and that the duty imposed
was likely to throw the control of the sale of hides into the
hands of meat packers in Chicago. In order to balance
the reduction on hides, however, there was a great reduction in shoes, from 25 to 10 per cent.; on sole leather, from
20 to 5 per cent.; on harness, from 45 to 20 per cent. So
there was a reduction in the duty on coal of 334- per cent.
All countervailing duties were removed from oil, naphtha,
gasoline, and its refined products. Lumber was reduced
from $2 to $1.25; and these all on articles of prime necessity.
It is said that there might have been more. But there were
many business interests in the South, in Maine, along the
border, and especially in the far Northwest, which insisted
that it would give great advantage to Canadian lumber if
the reduction were made more than 75 cents. Mr. Pinchot,
the Chief Forester, thought that it would tend to make better
lumber in this country if a duty were retained on it. The
lumber interests thought that $2 was none too much, but the
reduction was made and the compromise effected. Personally I was in favor of free lumber, because I did not think
that if the tariff was taken off there would be much suffering among the lumber interests. But in the controversy
the House and the Senate took a middle course, and who
can say they were not justified.
With respect to the wool schedule, I agree that it is too
high and that it ought to have been reduced, and that it
probably represents considerably more than the difference
between the cost of production abroad and the cost of production here. The difficulty about the woolen schedule is
that there were two contending factions early in the history
of Republican tariffs, to wit, woolgrowers and the woolen
manufacturers, and that finally, many years ago, they
settled on a basis by which wool in the grease should have
11 cents a pound, and by which allowance should be made
for the shrinkage of the washed wool in the differential upon
woolen manufactures. The percentage of duty was very




AND STATE PAPERS


heavy - quite beyond the difference in the cost of production, which was not then regarded as a necessary or proper
limitation upon protective duties.
When it came to the question of reducing the duty at
this hearing in this tariff bill on wool, Mr. Payne, in the
House, and Mr. Aldrich, in the Senate, although both
favored reduction in the schedule, found that in the Republican party the interests of the wool growers of the Far West
and the interests of the woolen manufacturers in the East and
in other States, reflected through their representatives in Congress, were sufficiently strong to defeat any attempt to change
the woolen tariff and that, had it been attempted, it would
have beaten the bill reported from either committee. I am
sorry this is so, and I could wish that it had been otherwise.
It is the one important defect in the present Payne tariff bill
and in the performance of the promise of the platform
to reduce rates to a difference in the cost of production,
with reasonable profit to the manufacturer. That it will
increase the price of woolen cloth or clothes, I very much
doubt. There have been increases by the natural increase
in the price of wool the world over as an agricultural product, but this was not due to the tariff, because the tariff
was not changed. The increase would therefore have taken
place whether the tariff would have been changed or not.
The cost of woolen cloths behind the tariff wall, through
effect of competition, has been greatly less than the duty,
if added to the price, would have made it.
There is a complaint now by the woolen clothiers and by
the carded-woolen people of this woolen schedule. They
have honored me by asking in circulars sent out by them
that certain questions be put to me in respect to it, and asking why I did not veto the bill in view of the fact that the
woolen schedule was not made in accord with the platform. I ought to say in respect to this point that all of them
in previous tariff bills were strictly in favor of maintaining
the woolen schedule as it was. The carded-woolen people
are finding that carded wools are losing their sales because




222        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
they are going out of style. People prefer worsteds. The
clothing people who are doing so much circularizing were
contented to let the woolen schedule remain as it was until
very late in the tariff discussion, long after the bill had
passed the House, and, indeed, they did not grow very
urgent until the bill had passed the Senate. This was
because they found that the price of woolen cloth was going
up, and so they desired to secure reduction in the tariff
which would enable them to get cheaper material. They
themselves are protected by a large duty, and I can not
with deference to them ascribe their intense interest only
to a deep sympathy with the ultimate consumers, so called.
But, as I have already said, I am quite willing to admit
that allowing the woolen schedule to remain where it is,
is not a compliance with the terms of the platform as I
interpret it and as it is generally understood.
On the whole, however, I am bound to say that I think
the Payne tariff bill is the best tariff bill that the Republican party ever passed; that in it the party has conceded the
necessity for following the changed conditions and reducing
tariff rates accordingly. This is a substantial achievement
in the direction of lower tariffs and downward revision,
and it ought to be accepted as such. Critics of the bill
utterly ignore the very tremendous cuts that have been
made in the iron schedule, which heretofore has been subject to criticism in all tariff bills. From iron ore, which was
cut 75 per cent., to all the other items as low as 20 per cent.,
with an average of something like 40 or 50 per cent., that
schedule has been reduced so that the danger of increasing
prices through a monopoly of the business is very much
lessened, and that was the chief purpose of revising the
tariff downward under Republican protective principles.
The severe critics of the bill pass this reduction in the metal
schedule with a sneer, and say that the cut did not hurt the
iron interests of the country. Well, of course it did not hurt
them. It was not expected to hurt them. It was expected
only to reduce excessive rates, so that business should still




AND STATE PAPERS


be conducted at a profit, and the very character of the criticism is an indication of the general injustice of the attitude
of those who make it, in assuming that it was the promise
of the Republican party to hurt the industries of the country
by the reductions which they were to make in the tariff,
whereas it expressly indicated as plainly as possible in the
platform that all of the industries were to be protected
against injury by foreign competition, and the promise only
went to the reduction of excessive rates beyond what was
necessary to protect them.
The high cost of living, of which 50 per cent. is consumed
in food, 25 per cent. in clothing, and 25 per cent. in rent
and fuel, has not been produced by the tariff, because the
tariff has remained the same while the increases have gone
on. It is due to the change of conditions the world over.
Living has increased everywhere in cost - in countries
where there is free trade and in countries where there is
protection - and that increase has been chiefly seen in
the cost of food products. In other words we have had to
pay more for the products of the farm, for meat, for grain,
for everything that enters into food. Now, certainly no one
will contend that protection has increased the cost of food
in this country, when the fact is that we have been the
greatest exporters of food products in the world. It is only
that the demand has increased beyond the supply, that
farhn lands have not been opened as rapidly as the population and the demand has increased. I am not saying that
the tariff does not increase prices in clothing and in building and in other items that enter into the necessities of life,
but what I wish to emphasize is that the recent increases
in the cost of living in this country have not been due to
the tariff. We have a much higher standard of living in
this country than they have abroad and this has been made
possible by higher income for the workingman, the farmer,
and all classes. Higher wages have been made possible
by the encouragement of diversified industries, built up and
fostered by the tariff.




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


Now, the revision downward of the tariff that I have
favored will not, I hope, destroy the industries of the
country. Certainly it is not intended to. All that it is
intended to do, and that is what I wish to repeat, is to put
the tariff where it will protect industries here from foreign
competition, but will not enable those who will wish to
monopolize to raise prices by taking advantage of excessive
rates beyond the normal difference in the cost of production.
If the country desires free trade, and the country desires
a revenue tariff and wishes the manufacturers all over the
country to go out of business, and to have cheaper prices
at the expense of the sacrifice of many of our manufacturing
interests, then it ought to say so and ought to put the Democratic party in power if it thinks that party can be trusted
to carry out any affirmative policy in favor of a revenue
tariff. Certainly in the discussions in the Senate there was
no great manifestation on the part of our Democratic friends
in favor of reducing rates on necessities. They voted to
maintain the tariff rates on everything that came from their
particular sections. If we are to have free trade, certainly
it can not be had through the maintenance of Republican
majorities in the Senate and House and a Republican
administration.
And now the question arises, what was the duty of a Member of Congress who believed in a downward revision greater
than that which has been accomplished, who thought that
the wool schedules ought to be reduced, and that perhaps
there were other respects in which the bill could be improved?
Was it his duty because, in his judgment, it did not fully
and completely comply with the promises of the party
platform as he interpreted it, and indeed as I had interpreted
it, to vote against the bill? I am here to justify those who
answer this question in the negative. Mr. Tawney was
a downward revisionist like myself. He is a low-tariff man,
and has been known to be such in Congress all the time
he has been there. He is a prominent Republican, the head
of the Appropriations Committee, and when a man votes




AND STATE PAPERS


as I think he ought to vote, and an opportunity such as this
presents itself, I am glad to speak in behalf of what he did,
not in defense of it, but in support of it.
This is a government by a majority of the people. It
is a representative government. People select some 400
members to constitute the lower House and some 92 members
to constitute the upper House through their legislatures,
and the varying views of a majority of the voters in eighty
or ninety millions of people are reduced to one resultant
force to take affirmative steps in carrying on a government
by a system of parties. Without parties popular government would be absolutely impossible. In a party those
who join it, if they would make it effective, must surrender
their personal predilections on matters comparatively of
less importance in order to accomplish the good which
united action on the most important principles at issue
secures.
Now, I am not here to criticize those Republican Members and Senators whose views on the subject of the tariff
were so strong and intense that they believed it their duty
to vote against their party on the tariff bill. It is a question
for each man to settle for himself. The question is whether
he shall help maintain the party solidarity for accomplishing its chief purposes, or whether the departure from principle in the bill as he regards it is so extreme that he must
in conscience abandon the party. All I have to say is, in
respect to Mr. Tawney's action, and in respect to my own
in signing the bill, that I believed that the interests of the
country, the interests of the party, required me to sacrifice
the accomplishment of certain things in the revision of the
tariff which I had hoped for, in order to maintain party
solidarity, which I believe to be much more important than
the reduction of rates in one or two schedules of the tariff.
Had Mr. Tawney voted against the bill, and had there been
others of the House sufficient in number to have defeated
the bill, or if I had vetoed the bill because of the absence
of a reduction of rates in the wool schedule, when there was




296        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
a general downward revision, and a substantial one though
not a complete one, we should have left the party in a condition of demoralization that would have prevented the
accomplishment of purposes and a fulfilment of other promises which we had made just as solemnly as we had entered
into that with respect to the tariff. When I could say without
hesitation that this is the best tariff bill that the Republican
party has ever passed, and therefore the best tariff bill that
has been passed at all, I do not feel that I could have reconciled any other course to my conscience than that of signing
the bill, and I think Mr. Tawney feels the same way. Of
course if I had vetoed the bill I would have received the
applause of many Republicans who may be called lowtariff Republicans, and who think deeply on that subject,
and of all the Democracy. Our friends the Democrats
would have applauded, and then laughed in their sleeve
at the condition in which the party would have been left;
but, more than this, and waiving considerations of party,
where would the country have been had the bill been vetoed,
or been lost by a vote? It would have left the question
of the revision of the tariff open for further discussion during
the next session. It would have suspended the settlement
of all our business down to a known basis upon which
prosperity could proceed and investments be made, and it
would have held up the coming of prosperity to this country
certainly for a year and probably longer. These are the
reasons why Mr. Tawney voted for the bill. These are
the reasons why I signed it.
But there are additional reasons why the bill ought mot
to have been beaten. It contained provisions of the utmost
importance in the interest of this country in dealing with
foreign countries and in the supplying of a deficit which
under the Dingley bill seemed inevitable. There has been
a disposition in some foreign countries to take advantage of
greater elasticity in their systems of imposing tariffs and
to make regulations to exclude our products and exercise
against us undue discrimination. Against these things we




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have been helpless, because it required an act of Congress to
meet the difficulties. It is now proposed, by what is called
the maximum and minimum clause, to enable the President
to allow to come into operation a maximum or penalizing
increase of duties over the normal or minimum duties whenever in his opinion the conduct of the foreign countries
has been unduly discriminatory against the United States.
It is hoped that very little use may be required of this clause,
but its presence in the law and the power conferred upon the
Executive, it is thought, will prevent in the future such undue
discriminations. Certainly this is most important to our
exporters of agricultural products and manufactures.
We have imposed an excise tax upon corporations measured by 1 per cent. upon the net income of all corporations
except fraternal and charitable corporations after exempting $5,000. This, it is thought, will raise an income of
26 to 30 millions of dollars, will supply the deficit which
otherwise might arise without it, and will bring under
Federal supervision more or less all the corporations of the
country. The inquisitorial provisions of the act are mild but
effective, and certainly we may look not only for a revenue,
but for some most interesting statistics and the means of
obtaining supervision over corporate methods that has heretofore not obtained.
Then, we have finally done justice to the Philippines.
We have introduced free trade between the Philippines and
the United States, and we have limited the amount of sugar
and the amount of tobacco and cigars that can be introduced
from the Philippines to such a figure as shall greatly profit
the Philippines and yet in no way disturb the products of
the United States or interfere with those engaged in the
tobacco or sugar interests here. These features of the bill
were most important, and the question was whether they
were to be sacrificed because the bill did not in respect to
wool and woolens and in some few other matters meet our
expectations. I do not hesitate to repeat that I think it
would have been an unwise sacrifice of the business interests




228        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
of the country, it would have been an unwise sacrifice of
the solidarity, efficiency, and promise-performing power
of the party, to have projected into the next session another
long discussion of the tariff, and to have delayed or probably
defeated the legislation needed in the improvement of our
interstate commerce regulations, and in making more efficient our anti-trust law and the prosecutions under it. Such
legislation is needed to clinch the Roosevelt policies, by which
corporations and those in control of them shall be limited
to a lawful path and shall be prevented from returning to
those abuses which a recurrence of prosperity is too apt
to bring about unless definite, positive steps of a legislative character are taken to mark the lines of honest and
lawful corporate management.
Now, there is another provision in the new tariff bill that
I regard as of the utmost importance. It is a provision which
appropriates $75,000 for the President to employ persons to
assist him in the execution of the maximum and minimum
tariff clause and in the administration of the tariff law.
Under that authority I conceive that the President has the
right to appoint a board, as I have appointed it, who shall
associate with themselves, and have under their control, a
number of experts who shall address themselves, first, to the
operation of foreign tariffs upon the exports of the United
States, and then to the operation of the United States tariff
upon imports and exports. There are provisions in the general
tariff procedure for the ascertainment of the cost of production of articles abroad and the cost of production of articles
here. I intend to direct the board, in the course of these
duties and in carrying them out, in order to assist me in the
administration of the law, to make what might be called a
glossary of the tariff, or a small encyclopedia of the tariff,
or something to be compared to the United States Pharmacopoeia with reference to information as to drugs and medicines. I conceive that such a board may very properly,
in the course of their duties, take up separately all the items
of the tariff, both those on the free list and those which are




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229


dutiable, describe what they are, where they are manufactured, what their uses are, the methods of manufacture,
the quality of the manufacture, the cost of production
abroad and here, and every other fact with respect to each
item which would enable the Executive to understand the
operation of the tariff, the value of the article, and the
amount of duty imposed, and all those details which the
student of every tariff law finds it so difficult to discover.
I do not intend, unless compelled or directed by Congress,
to publish the result of these investigations, but to treat
them merely as incidental facts brought out officially from
time to time, and as they may be ascertained and put on
record in the Department, there to be used when they have
all been accumulated and are sufficiently complete to justify
executive recommendation based on them. Now I think
it is utterly useless, as I think it would be greatly distressing
to business, to talk of another revision of the tariff during
the present Congress. I should think that it would certainly take the rest of this administration to accumulate
the data upon which a new and proper revision of the tariff
might be had. By that time the whole Republican party
can express itself again in respect to the matter and bring
to bear upon its Representatives in Congress that sort of
public opinion which shall result in solid party action. I
am glad to see that a number of those who thought it their
duty to vote against the bill insist that they are still Republicans and intend to carry on their battle in favor of lower
duties and a lower revision within the lines of the party.
That is their right and, in their view of things, is their duty.
It is vastly better that they should seek action of the party
than that they should break off from it and seek to organize
another party, which would probably not result in accomplishing anything more than merely defeating our party
and inviting in the opposing party, which does not believe,
or says that it does not believe, in protection. I think that
we ought to give the present bill a chance. After it has
been operating for two or three years, we can tell much more




230        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
accurately than we can to-day its effect upon the industries
of the country and the necessity for any amendment in its
provisions.
I have tried to stale as strongly as I can, but not more
strongly than I think the facts justify, the importance of
not disturbing the business interests of this country by an
attempt in this Congress or the next to make a new revision;
but in the meantime I intend, so far as in me lies, to secure
official data upon the operation of the tariff, from which,
when a new revision is attempted, exact facts can be secured.
I have appointed a tariff board that has no brief for either
side in respect to what the rates shall be. I hope they will 
make their observations and note their data in their record
with exactly the same impartiality and freedom from anxiety
as to result with which the Weather Bureau records the
action of the elements or any scientific bureau of the Government records the results of its impartial investigations.
Certainly the experience in this tariff justifies the statement
that no revision should hereafter be attempted in which
more satisfactory evidence of an impartial character is not
secured.
I am sorry that I am not able to go further into detail
with respect to the tariff bill, but I have neither the information nor the time in which to do it. I have simply stated
the case as it seemed to Mr. Tawney in his vote and as it
seemed to me in my signing the bill.




XXV


ADDRESS AT DES MOINES, IOWA
(SEPTEMBER 20, 1909)
Fellow Citizens of Iowa:
HAVE great pleasure in meeting such a concourse of
citizens of one of the most purely agricultural States
in the union - one which has enjoyed to the full the prosperity which has come to the man who has invested his money
and his labor in the farm for the last decade.
Iowa has come to be a State in which there is great
independence of view, and in which the voters exercise
intelligent discrimination with reference to candidates and
policies that keeps those who are looking for political victories in a constant state of doubt and anxiety.
The last general election was held in November of 1908,
and resulted in the success of the Republican party in the
national contest. In both chambers of Congress the Republicans have a majority and they have the President. Looking
forward to the legislation that ought to be expected from
lhat party, we must refer back to the platform upon which
the pa,'y was elected. In the extra session recently closed
a tariff bill was passed as was promised in the platform.
I do not intend to dwell upon the much-disputed question
whether that bill complied with the bill promised, for I have
considered that at another time and at another place. What
I wish to invite your attention to this morning is, with the
tariff bill out of the way for the time at least, what there is
for the Republican party in Congress under the promises
of its platform to do in the coming regular session.
Now, in the first place one of the great issues in the last
campaign -- one in which I took a deep personal interest
3$1




232        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
because the issue concerned me personally- was the claim
that the Republican party was opposed to labor organizations, and had favored the use of the injunction in labor
disputes in behalf of the employer, and, therefore, that its
candidate should be opposed by all of organized labor
and of all other kinds of labor on this account. As you
perhaps remember, I had decided a number of the important
labor cases in which permanent injunctions were issued,
and I was characterized as the "father of labor injunctions." It became necessary for me to go about the
country explaining and defending my labor decisions and
showing, as I was able to show, that my attitude, while it
was in favor of certain punishment of disturbance of the
peace and other violations of the law in connection with
labor disputes, was that of one favorable to the organization of labor as necessary to enable it to stand upon an
equality of resources with capital in the necessary controversies that arise between labor and capital with respect
to the fixing of their compensation. and arranging the other
terms of employment. I discussed this subject at Chicago
the other night at length. I do not intend to discuss it here
other than to say that I have not forgotten the promise of
the platform, and Congress should take up the question
of injunctions and labor disputes and should adopt a law
embodying the procedure as to issuing of injunctions without
notice and framing it in such a way as to prevent such injunctions save in rare and meritorious cases.
More than this, I am prepared to recommend that Congress require the interstate railroads to adopt any other
safety device that can be proved as valuable in order to
protect the lives and limbs of men engaged in that dangerous
employment. While I believe that every man ought to be
permitted to work for whom and at what wage he pleases 
and I am prepared to go to the extreme limit in defending
this right -I am nevertheless one of those who approve
the organization of labor and, if I were [a workingman,
would probably become a member of a trades union if I




AND STATE PAPERS


could gain admission. My attitude on this point is based
upon the belief that the organization of labor has secured
better terms of employment, higher wages, a safer place
to work in, and other advantages which but for the organization and its demands in a form that could not be denied
might have been long delayed in coming. The leading men
of the labor organizations of this country, many of whom
opposed my last election, are greatly to be commended
because of the stand that they have taken against the
prevalence of socialism in labor unions. They favor the
preservation and maintenance of our institutions under
the Constitution, which recognizes the right of property as
well as the liberty of the individual; and they are entitled
to our sympathy in this struggle, which by reason of the
socialistic and anarchistic tendencies of European labor
organizations, they have much difficulty in maintaining.
But legislation with respect to the laborer is not all the
legislation that the Republican party is pledged to. Indeed,
when I look forward to the next session and realize how much
there is to be considered, I tremble lest the session will not
be long enough, and lest it will not be possible to do all that
has been promised.
Immediately after Mr. Roosevelt's election in 1904, he
wrote a message to Congress in which he recommended to
Congress that the interstate commerce law be amended so
that the Interstate Commerce Commission, finding a rate
to be unreasonable and unduly discriminatory, might change
the rate and fix one which should be fair. In other words,
his recommendation embodied the fixing of the rates by the
Interstate Commerce Commission  The suggestion of the
message was followed by the introduction of a bill in the
House which in the first regular session of the newly elected
Congress was passed by the House as the Hepburn Ra!,e
Bill. It went to the Senate and received a good many amendments, and then after a long and acrimonious fight it was
passed almost unanimously. The chief feature of the bill
was the new authority of the Commission after determining




L2 34      PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
that an existing rate complained of was unreasonable, to
say what would be a reasonable rate; in other words, to fix
the rate if the rate complained of was unjust. There were
many other features to the rate bill, but the one I have given
is perhaps the most important. A provision was made for
appeal from the action of the Commission to the court,
and this was wisely done for, even if no provision was made,
the court would still have jurisdiction to consider whether
the rate fixed was confiscatory or not. If the act had
attempted to prevent such an appeal to the court, it probably
would have rendered it invalid under the Constitution.
The rate bill has now been in operation some three years
and it must be admitted that it has not furnished the relief
against unduly discriminatory rates with the expedition
and effectiveness which were expected. The Republican
platform promised additional legislation in aid of enforcing
the interstate commerce law, and I have been engaged in
the consideration of what I ought to recommend to Congress
in order to comply with that promise. Those who opposed
the provision by which appeal from the order of the Commission might be taken to the court did so because they
thought such a right to appeal would offer much opportunity
to delay the proceedings. An examination of the decisions
of the Commission and the resort to the courts by the way of
temporary injunctions, fully justifies the conclusion that one
of the defects of the present interstate commerce law is the
delay entailed by litigation in the court over the correctness
of the order of the Commission. The court appeal can not
be abolished because it is a constitutional right. Something
must be done to reduce its effect by way of delay, so that
the decision of the court shall be prompt, final and effective.
It is proposed now by a number of gentlemen of my Cabinet.
who have conferred with some members of the Interstate
Commerce Commission, to facilitate these appeals from
the Commission by the creation of a separate interstate
commerce court of five members which shall sit in Washington and which shall be the only court to which petitions




AND   STATE PAPE'RS                235
to set aside or nullify the orders of the Interstate Commerce
Commission can be made; and it is proposed to allow a
single judge to make an order staying the proceedings of
the Interstate Commerce Commission but sixty days, and
thereafter that no injunction shall be allowed against the
order of the Commission unless granted by the whole court
of five members. I know that objection will be made to
the creation of this court. In one of the bills originally
introduced such a separate court was provided for, but the
provision was defeated. A tariff court has been provided
in the new tariff bill to consist of five members whose judgment shall be final on all questions arising under the administration of the tariff. I am strongly inclined to think that
a similar court, except that an appeal ought to lie from it
to the Supreme Court, will serve the purpose of expedition
and the dispatch of business in respect to the orders of the
Commission. I know that there is a well-grounded objection to increasing Federal courts and to the provision for the
appointment of Federal judges, whose terms and salaries
last for life and who become a permanent expenditure of
the Government. But there is this to be said, that if the
establishment of such a court proves to be a mistake, the
demand for judges throughout the country and their increase
will furnish an opportunity to use the judges thus appointed
for other and general judicial work. The uniformity of
decisions, and the promptness of decision, which may be
expected from a court whose experience will soon make
them experts in the disposition of such cases, would promise
to the shipper and railroad litigants quick decision as to
their rights.
A second change in the interstate commerce law ought to
give to the Commission the power to hear and entertain
complaints against unjust classification of merchandise for
transportation. The classification of merchandise is just
as important in determining the expense of transportation
as the fixing of the rates, because rates are fixed according
to classes, and if an article is classed in one class this deter



236         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
mines the rate at which that article is to be carried. The
classification should be as near as possible so that each class
includes within it all the various merchandise that can
reasonably be carried by the railroad at the same cost and
rate. It is perfectly clear that by including articles in the
same class which ought to pay different rates, a railroad
can commit exactly the same kind of injustice as it would
by imposing an exorbitant rate as to any class. Hence,
I haven't the slightest hesitation in recommending to Congress that the power of the Commission should be extended
to include not only the fixing of rates after complaint, but
also the readjustment of classification if it proves on
investigating to be unjust.
The Interstate Commerce Commission has found great
embarrassment in the proper administration of the law in
the fact that it is limited in its action to investigating only
those rates which are specifically complained of by a shipper
or some other interested person. It has frequently found
that in the examination of one rate complained of and the discovery that it is unjust, there are many other rates connected
with this rate equally unjust that if it had the power of
initiating complaints of itself it could promptly reach and
readjust and fix to the benefit of persons who have not seen
fit or have not had the courage or money to contest the fairness and correctness of the rates. I am aware that the question was hotly discussed in Congress at the time of the
passage of the rate bill, and it was thought wise to limit
the power of the Commission to the consideration of rates
actually complained of by persons interested. It would
now seem from the experience of the Commission that it
is the extension of its power so as to institute complaints
of its own that is necessary to make its work truly effective.
This is the proper method of legislation - to pass the bill
and if it does not operate as fully in the direction intended
as we had hoped, then amend the bill so as to improve it in
that direction. I do not think that until we try this new
amendment and see how it works, we ought to put down




ANI) STATE PAPERS


A37


the bars entirely and give to the Interstate Commerce
Commission the absolute power to fix rates in advance and
on their own initiative, and without complaint filed and
investigation made as is done in some of the States. I think
it a great deal better to proceed cautiously in this matter
and feel our way to a satisfactory act which shall accomplish the purpose without too drastic or radical action.
Under the interstate commerce law, a new rate or classification is to be filed with the Commission. It is proposed
now to authorize the Commission to postpone the date
that such new rate or classification is to take effect, provided
that within thirty days of the date of the order a complaint
be filed that such rate or classification is unreasonable or
unjust, or, provided, second, that the commission itself
shall institute an inquiry into the reasonableness or justice
of such rate or classification. This introduces a somewhat
new element into the act by placing the railroad company
in the situation when it proposes to make a change in the
rate, that it should be prepared to show to the Commission
affirmatively that the change to the new rate is justified.
I am inclined to think that this is a fair change in the provisions of the law. It gives to the public the same right to
have changes which affect them injuriously, investigated
before they go into effect as it does changes of rates by the
railroad, by appeal to the courts to have the order of the
Commission subjected to investigation and hearing. Railroads ought not to be permitted to change rates unless they
can give reason for it.
A third amendment to the act should provide that the
Commission may by order suspend, modify or annul any
changes in the rules or regulations which impose undue
burdens on shippers. No doubt ought to be left with respect
to the power of the Commission on such a subject, because
the rules and regulations of a railway are the means by
which injustice may be done to the shipper. There has
been a good deal of difficulty encountered by shippers over
connecting lines, and the power of the Commission in respect




238        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
to this has been quite limited. It would seem  well to
empower the Commission on the application of one carrier,
or an individual, or at the instance of the Commission itself,
to compel connecting carriers to unite in forming a through
route and fix the rate and the apportionment thereof among
the carriers. The Commission should also be empowered
to prescribe the rules and regulations under which the shippers shall have the privilege to designate the route over which
their shipments shall be carried to the destination beyond
that of the first carrier.
Another most important amendment of the interstate
commerce law - part of which was specifically promised
in the platform - is a prohibition against any interstate
railroad company acquiring stock in any competing railroad in the future, and a further provision that no railroad
engaged in interstate commerce shall after a certain date
hold stock in a competing railroad; and the further amendment that after the passage of the amending act, no railroad company engaged in interstate commerce shall issue
any additional stock or bonds or other obligations except
with the approval of the Commission, based upon a finding
by the Commission that the same are issued, first, for purposes authorized by law, and, second, for a price not less
than par for stock, and not less than the reasonable market value for bonds, such price being paid either in cash
or in property or services, and if in property or services,
then at the fair value thereof as determined by the Commission.
By these provisions enforced with reason, and drawn with
a view not to be too drastic with railroads in the beginning,
we shall gradually abolish that evil which is involved in the
union of competing roads by one road's owning the stock
of another; and we shall prevent the over-issue of stock
and bonds so as to prevent watering, and to keep the railroad efficient for the service for which it was intended. It
greatly interferes after a time with the power of the owners
to improve a railroad if it is loaded down with securities,




AND STATE PAPERS


239


the interest upon which it cannot pay because those securities were not represented by actual value put into the
railroad; and I think it, therefore, plainly within the power
of Congress in dealing with interstate railroad companies
that are organized under state corporations to insist that
in order to maintain efficient instruments of transportation
the watering of stock and bonds on them shall cease.
These suggested amendments to the interstate commerce
law will entrust to the Interstate Commerce Commission
considerably more power than that tribunal has at present.
But we have entered upon a course of regulating railroads,
and as the laws which we passed have not been as effective
for the purposes as it was hoped, we must continue to
introduce amendments to bring about a law which will
serve the purpose which we have.
You in Iowa have been perhaps more successful than
elsewhere in the country in regulating your railroads. The
difficulties of the interstate commerce regulation are, however,
very much greater than those in a State, and present much
more difficult questions; but as we are now entering upon a
period of the greatest prosperity, in which the railroads are
sure to share, it seems wise to remedy as promptly as we
can the defects in the present regulation in order that we shall
not under the influence of prosperity forget to insist that
we are not to return to former abuses.
One great trouble with railroad management was the
allowance by railroads of illegal and discriminatory rebates.
Those have now largely ceased, and that was one of the
great accomplishments of Mr. Roosevelt's administration.
But the question of rates and their justice still remains.
The scope of the authority of the Interstate Commerce
Commission has not been wide enough to make the regulation as effective as it ought to be, and to bring under consideration as many of the rates as it should within a reasonable time.
In addition to these amendments to the law which are
looking to a rather more drastic regulation of railroad rates




240        PRESIDENTIAL, ADDRESSES
than heretofore, another provision should be added by which
railroads may be permitted to agree upon traffic rates, and
make contracts with respect to rates that shall not be pooling
contracts, but shall constitute agreements as to rates - provided always that such agreements shall receive the approval
of the Interstate Commerce Commission. In this wise
the operation of the anti-trust law against traffic agreements between railroads will be abolished; and against
their absolute prohibition would be substituted a requirement that such agreements shall meet the approval of a
properly constituted tribunal.
This last section brings me to the question of the antitrust law. While we have not threshed the whole matter
out so as to reach a definite conclusion, I am strongly inclined
to the view that the way to make the anti-trust law more
effective is to narrow its scope somewhat, so that it shall
not include in its prohibition and denunciation as a crime
anything but a conspiracy or combination or contract
entered into with actual intent to monopolize or suppress
competition in interstate trade. At the common law all
contracts in restraint of trade, except those which were
called reasonable, the courts would decline to enforce and
leave the parties in the condition in which they were found.
The anti-trust law denounces such contracts when in restraint
of interstate trade as criminal- and that whether made
with intent to monopolize or to suppress competition or without intent to do either. The theory seemed to be that a
contract in restraint of interstate trade tended to a monopoly, and therefore should be denounced because of its
tendency, whether there was any actual purpose on the
part of the person making it to monopolize or suppress competition or not. This feature of the present anti-trust law
has, it seems to me, weakened its force because it has seemed
to bring within the condemnation of the law contracts and
other arrangements which were actually innocent in their
character, and which were not included in those vicious
combinations which it was the real intent of the law to sup



AND STATE PAPERS


press. This wider scope of the law, which I would narrow,
has been seized upon by those who do not favor the law
at all as a ground for ridiculing its provisions and as a
means of demonstrating its absurdity.  If the crimes
denounced in the law were confined to combinations, conspiracies and contracts made with intent to monopolize
or partially monopolize interstate trade, or to suppress competition in interstate trade, then the real object of the law
would come within its denunciation, and no one could
declare its operation to be unreasonable in that it included
a lot of innocent contracts or arrangements.
It has been suggested that the law ought to limit its
denunciation to those contracts in restraint of trade that
are unreasonable. I do not favor any such limitation
for the reason that in the common law the reasonable
restraint of trade came to have a very different meaning.
It was a narrow one, and one which would have but exceptional application. A reasonable restraint of trade was one
made ordinarily in the sale of the good will of a business
in which the vendor agreed not to go into business within
the territory covered by the business, the good will of which
he was selling, and this was to enable him to sell what he
had acquired and to enable the buyer to maintain in its
integrity the good will which he had bought; but if the
restraint went beyond the territory covered by the business,
it was regarded as an unreasonable restraint of trade and
was unenforcible. But the proposal of introducing the word
"reasonable" into the act goes much farther than this exceptional case in the common law. It seems to be proposed
to leave to the judges to decide what combinations and
contracts in restraint of trade ought to be permitted to exist
and to be enforced on general grounds of public policy -
in other words, to have the court attempt to establish some
line between what are called good and bad trusts, as if the
suppression of competition in some cases was a good thing
and in other cases was bad. I can not agree that any such
distinction can properly be made. All combinations to




242        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
suppress competition, or to maintain a monopoly in whole
or in part, of interstate trade, is and should be in violation
of the anti-trust law and should be punished as such; and
there is no room for the expression "reasonable" or "unreasonable" in this general view of the statute. If the statute
were limited to combinations, conspiracies and contracts
to restrain trade with the intent to monopolize interstate
trade, or with intent to suppress competition therein, it
would probably not include within its denunciation a boycott against goods going into interstate trade, because such
a boycott is a restraint against interstate trade with the
intention to restrain it, but it is not a restraint of interstate
trade with intent either to suppress competition or to maintain a monopoly of the goods with respect to which the contract is made. I am entirely opposed to excepting from the
operation of any law of general application a class of persons
like laborers or workingmen or farmers or ministers or
teachers or lawyers. Take the present anti-trust law, therefore, and insert a special exception to the application of that
law by providing that it should not apply to the trades unions
class and it would be legislation of the most vicious character;
but when you make the law apply only to conspiracies seeking to suppress competition or to monopolize the trade,
then the labor boycott is probably not included, simply
because the statute would not seem wide enough to include
it in its scope, and this result is obtained without class
legislation at all.
I am in favor of this change because I believe that the
ordinary action in equity by injunction in any place where
the boycott is operative can accomplish effectively all the
purposes that ought to be accomplished in the suppression
of such an evil. On the other hand, to employ the antitrust law for the purpose of suppressing evils growing out
of the labor organizations is to take advantage against such
unlawful labor organizations of the literal terms of statute
which were probably not intended to include that which judicial coastructiol could not avoid including within its words,




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It would probably seem wise to establish an accusatory
bureau in the Department of Justice to institute prosecutions
for violations of the interstate commerce law and of the
anti-trust law, while it will be wise to continue the Bureau
of Corporations, enlarging its scope somewhat perhaps to
maintain the registration of corporations and the investigation into their operation so far as interstate trade is concerned.
It has been found most difficult to separate the administrative from the quasi-judicial functions of the Interstate
Commerce Commission, but it is thought that it would be
wise to take away from them any responsiLlity in regard to
the investigation of the validity of their orders before the
Interstate Commerce Commission court and to leave the
maintenance of those orders to the Department of Justice
when the appeal comes on to be heard in the court.
The two statutes which must claim the attention of our
Congress in its next session are the interstate commerce
law and the anti-trust law, and I have outlined in a tentative way what I am inclined to recommend to Congress as
proper amendments. I do so for the purpose of promoting
public discussion of them in order that when Congress shall
meet the subjects shall not be entirely new and arguments
pro and con shall not be lacking. I believe it will facilitate consideration of matters in Congress itself.
Another series of questions for Congress is with reference to the conservation of resources. These I shall not discuss now, but shall do so later in my journey. As I look
forward to the coming session of Congress, it seems to me
that the work to be done will involve close attention and
much discussion, which I hope will be temperate, entered
into with a view of reaching a clear and satisfactory conclusion.
The monetary commission will probably report so that
its final conclusion may be considered at the end of the
coming spssion or at the beginning of the next. In any
event, as we look forward to the work which this Congress




244        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
has to do, we must be conscious that the measures I have
proposed will consume all the time there is.
All this is in the line of performing the promises of the
Republican platform, and we can certainly be discharging
no higher or more sacred duty. If by the legislation we shall
have defined with exactness the proper course for railroads
to pursue and also the proper course for great industrial
corporations to pursue and make clear the path of lawfulness, we shall have vindicated the good sense of the
people in placing the Republican party in power.




XXVI


ADDRESS AT AUDITORIUM, DENVER, COLORADO
(SEPTEMBER 21, 1909)
Fellow Citizens of Colorado:
IT GIVES me great pleasure again to visit the Centennial State, and to find here, as elsewhere, the
signs of a coming period of prosperity which promises to be
exceptional in the history of the country.
I have undertaken a trip of 13,000 miles, with a view
to getting a somewhat more accurate and reliable impression of the needs of the country, and with the view to coming
into personal touch with the people of the country, and
especially in those States so far distant from the seat of
government that their people are apt to suppose that their
interests are forgotten in the conduct of the Government.
It certainly serves to bring the Chief Magistrate into closer
union with the eighty millions of people of this country,
for he can at reasonably short intervals come into contact
with those to whom he is responsible for the proper discharge
of his duties during the temporary delegation of power
with which they have honored him. The great difficulty
and burden of such a trip upon the one making it is the
indispensable accompaniment of speeches along the way.
It may also be hard on the people to have to hear the
speeches, but in a country where the people rule, discussion
is necessary, and if the Chief Executive in going about among
the people does not discuss something, he will seem to be
in the position of wishing to avoid consideration of the
interests of the public, or to be afraid of bringing to their
attention and rendering account to them of what the Government has done or intends to do. For that reason I have
245




246        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
attempted on this trip, at various centers of population of
importance, to take up some topic of immediate interest,
and explain my views upon it, and if it is a matter already
acted upon, to show the wisdom of the action if I can, or
if it is to be acted upon, outline what I deem to be the proper
course to be taken. In the pursuit of this plan I have
selected to-night for consideration and discussion the corporation tax which was embodied in the tariff bill recently
passed, and the income tax proposition which at the same
session of Congress, and really as a part of the tariff bill,
though formally included in a joint resolution, was submitted
to the States to amend the Constitution of the United States
by giving to the Congress power to levy an income tax
generally, without regard to the apportionment of the tax
among the States according to population.
The necessity for the revision of the tariff arose not only
because the rates in a number of the schedules had become
excessive and were quite beyond the measure of the tariff
set by the Republican platform, to wit, the difference between
the cost of production of the article at home and that abroad,
together with a reasonable allowance for profit to the American manufacturer, but also because within the last year
or two the tariff had ceased to produce enough revenue in
connection with the internal revenue law, to pay the expenses
of the government.
There are two ways of meeting the difficulty which arises
when your expenditures exceed your receipts; one is to
reduce your expenditures, and the other is to increase your
receipts. It is the proposal of the Administration and the
Government to take both courses in this regard, and I have
no doubt that the appropriations for that coming year will
show a very considerable reduction in expenditures, perhaps reaching $40,000,000 or $50,000,000. But even this
is not enough to make up for the probable deficit under the
old tariff law, or under the tariff law as it has passed, unless
accompanied by some additional method of taxation.
It was first proposed, and I recommended it in my Inaugu



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ral Address, that the central government impose a tax upon
inheritances -a graduated inheritance tax; that is, a tax,
the percentage of which increased as the inheritance was
greater, in a certain proportion; but this was seriously
objected to by many of the States, some of whose legislatures passed protests against it, on the ground that that was
a field of taxation which the States had preempted, and in
respect to which it would be rather unfair to impose a double
burden. I have no disposition to quarrel with that conclusion, although I think a good deal might have been said in
favor of the Federal inheritance tax because the truth is
that even although the State and Federal Governments
imposed the inheritance tax at the rate proposed, it would
not have been particularly heavy. Still with the inheritance tax foreclosed, the question then arose as to what tax
should be imposed in order to make up the deficit. This
question arose in the Senate, for the inheritance tax had
passed the House, and had been stricken out by the Finance
Committee of the Senate. A part of the Republicans and
all of the Democrats of the Senate united in pressing for
consideration a general income tax on individuals throughout
the United States. It left an exemption of those whose
income did not exceed $5,000, but upon the rest it imposed
a general income tax of 2 per cent. It also imposed a tax
under the former income tax upon inheritances, and it was
as inquisitorial as possible in subjecting the business of
every individual in the community to investigation, and
permitted the examination of his books and all private
evidences of what his business consisted of, and what his
income was; this investigation to be carried on by the
collectors and deputy collectors of internal revenue. The
law was as near as it could be made that income tax
law which had once been considered by the Supreme Court
some ten years ago, and which was held to be unconstitutional by a vote of five to four. It was conceded that the
tax would probably raise $150,000,000 to $200,000,000,
which was far in excess of the needs of the Government




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


if. the tariff bill was to retain its general form, as proposed,
and so to produce revenues which should be reasonably
expected from it. Our friends the Democrats favored
the income tax with a view to substituting it for the tariff
as an income-producing measure, thus minimizing the office
of the tariff in protecting the industries of this country.
In other words, the passage of the income tax bill would
have lent support probably to the proposition to have a
tariff for revenue only, and would have interfered with the
protective policy to which the Republican party is pledged.
One further objection to the income tax amendment
was that it had been declared to be unconstitutional by
the Supreme Court, and to invoke a second decision upon
that issue was to question the uniformity of the decisions
of the Supreme Court and to drag the Court into a political discussion which, whatever its decision, could not make
for its standing as an impartial tribunal before the people.
It indicated a diversity of view between the Congress and
the Court - two coordinate branches -with reference to
the constitutionality of the law which it seemed unwise to
perpetuate in a formal statute. But the income tax amendment seemed quite likely to pass by the vote of all the
Democrats and a sufficient number of Republicans.  Therefore those who were opposed to the income tax amendment
looked about to see if a compromise could not be proposed
less objectionable than the income tax amendment, which
would satisfy enough Republicans who were advised to
favor the income tax amendment to prevent the passage
of that amendment, and such a compromise was found in
a proposal to pass the present corporation tax, and also the
joint resolution already referred to, proposing to the States
an amendment authorizing the General Government to
impose an income tax without apportioning it as a direct
tax according to the population of the States. When Congress assembled, the Ways and Means Committee of the
House had adopted a bill in which they made up the proper
deficit by an inheritance tax and also by a tax upon tea and




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coffee. There were serious objections to the tax on tea
and coffee on the ground that it increased the expenses of
living, especially among those least able to bear such expense,
and therefore the Ways and Means Committee was induced
to omit the coffee and tea tax. And then the question arose,
what should be substituted for that tax in the bill?
In my Letter of Acceptance of the Republican nomination for the Presidency, I said I thought that an income tax
could be devised which could conform to the Constitution
of the United States, and therefore that the income tax
amendment was not necessary, and when this situation
arose which I have described, I directed the AttorneyGeneral to prepare a law which should impose what in
effect would be an income tax and still conform to the
Constitution. The Attorney-General did so, and I recommended the imposition of that tax to the Committee on
Ways and Means. After some deliberation, the committee
concluded that even without the coffee and tea tax the income
produced would be sufficient, by means of the inheritance
tax, to make an additional form of taxation unnecessary.
So the matter went to the Senate, where the situation became
changed, as I have described it, and the question arose
whether we could find some substitute for a general income
tax that would satisfy the majority of that body and prevent
the passage of a general income tax held by the Supreme
Court to be unconstitutional. Accordingly a compromise
was reached by which the present corporation tax was
passed, and the amendment to the Constitution proposed.
For the sake of clearness, I may say that the Constitution
does not forbid the levying of an income tax by the Central
Government. The section of the Constitution involved in
general terms forbids the levy of a direct tax by the Central Government unless such direct tax is apportioned among
the States according to their population. The Supreme
Court, in the last decision referred to, held that the income
tax was a direct tax, and if levied at all by the Central Government must be apportioned according to the population




250


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


of the States. This made the inmposition of such a tax utterly
impracticable, and so construed in effect forbade a general
income tax at all. But there are decisions of the Supreme
Court authorizing an excise tax to be levied on business
corporations and to be measured by the gross income or
the net income of the business; and therefore it seemed to
the Attorney-General, as it has to a great many excellent
lawyers, entirely within the decision of the Supreme Court
as constitutional to provide that all corporations engaged
in a business for profit should pay to the Central Government
an excise tax equal to one per cent. of their net earnings.
At first it was thought that two per cent. would produce about
$25,000,000. Subsequent investigation seemed to show that
this was a very decided underestimate, and that one per
cent. would produce that amount, and that that amount
would  be sufficient  to meet the probable difference
between the net receipts from the internal revenue
and tariff bill and the expenditures of the Government.
The provisions for the corporation tax in the bill exempt
all corporations whose net income does not exceed $5,000.
It is, therefore, in effect an income tax; that is it taxes
earnings actually made. It is a tax upon success and not
failure.
Complaint is made that it is a discriminating tax in that
it taxes business conducted under a corporate form, whereas
when the business is conducted by a partnership the business escapes taxation altogether. The justification for the
distinction arises from the advantages which the business
enjoys under a corporate form, first in that the individuals
who really own the business by being the share owners of
the corporation have only a limited liability and are not
bound to meet the debts of the corporation beyond their
stock investment, or in some States more than 100 per cent.
beyond their stock investment; and, on the other hand,
the advantage of a permanent establishment in the business, because no matter whether the present owners and
managers die or not, the business continues in its corporate




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form without a settlement thereof in the administration
of the estate of the deceased owners.
Again, objection is made that the tax is really a tax upon
the dividends of the corporation, and that in the stock of
the corporation may be interested a great many people
having but little property - widows, orphans and others.
I am not disposed to deny that theoretically it would be better
to impose a higher rate of taxation upon those having large
fortunes than upon those having only a competence. As
I shall elaborate farther on, I am very much opposed to
exempting incomes above the actual living wage, because
I think every one in the Government ought to pay something
toward its sustenance, because every one derives benefit
from it, and while an increase in the percentage of the tax,
as the fortune of the individual taxed increases, is fair, it
is fair because the burden of the taxation at the same rate
is heavier upon a man with a small income than upon a
man with a large income or fortune. Still it is not practical with such a tax as the corporation tax, where you tax
the sources of the income before it reaches the individual
who is to pay the tax, to impose a graduated tax, and the
tax upon the net earnings of the corporation of one per cent.
or two per cent. is so small that small holders of the shares
will feel the burden to be very light. In all probability
it will hardly affect their dividends at all, because most
corporations do not declare all their earnings in dividends,
and will simply take the tax out of the surplus.
We have had very little experience with income taxes in
this country, but those we have had have shown the inquisitorial feature of the tax to be most harassing; that is, the
power given to collectors of internal revenue and deputy
collectors to look into a man's private affairs and to compel
him to produce his private papers in order that his actual
income may be ascertained. Moreover, the most objectionable feature of the tax is the premium upon perjury which
it offers to those who were willing to conceal their income
- a matter not at all difficult to do - and who thus subject




2.2


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


to a much heavier proportionate burden, those who are
conscientious in making their returns and who pay the tax
as the law intended. So great was this evil in the levy of
an income tax in England that when that tax was imposed
directly upon individuals, as was proposed here in the
so-called income tax amendment bill, it was found that the
proceeds of the tax at 10 per cent. were less than the proceeds of an income tax of 5 per cent. imposed as our corporation tax is, not upon the individuals directly but upon
the income before it came into their hands. This is a
practical argument in favor of the corporation income tax
as against an individual income tax that is altogether
unanswerable.
In England, after a hundred years of experience, the
income tax is levied in only exceptional instances on the
individual directly. It is first levied on the declared dividends of corporations; secondly, on rents before they leave
the hands of the tenants, and, finally, on the individual
with respect to matters that are not covered by rents and
corporate investments.
Another distinction which is made in the English law, and
which commends itself to every one with a sense of justice,
is that the income tax on passive and permanent investments like the stocks and bonds in a corporation, should be
higher than on earned incomes, that is, incomes earned by
the services of the individual as salary, or as a professional
income. Earned incomes thus described are really the proceeds of an application of the capital of the individual which
is being consumed and will be entirely used up at the'end
of his professional life of twenty or thirty years, whereas the
income from corporate and business investments will continue permanently without regard to whether the owner
lives or dies, and will pass on by succession of law undiminished and without reducing the capital. This distinction
justifies making a difference between a tax upon the income
of corporations and that of individuals where they earn their
income by services, either by making the rate less or by




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not taxing the earned incomes at all. The latter is the
effect of thF corporation tax.
Another criticism of the corporation tax in the present
bill is that only shares of stock in corporate interprises are
thus taxed, and that those who own bonds secured by mortgage upon the entire property or plant of the corporation,
do not pay any tax at all. This is true, and the defect was
fully recognized by those who drafted the corporation tax.
They would have been glad if possible to impose a tax upon
the bondholders who are only less interested in the earnings
and success of the corporations than are stockholders; but
the difficulty of including them and of collecting from the
corporation before the payment of interest on the bonds,
an income tax proportioned to a percentage of the interest
to be paid on the bonds, was that Congress could not authorize a corporation to recoup itself in the payment of such a
tax from the interest to be paid, because thus to impose a
tax on the bondholder proportioned to the interest he received
would be in violation of the Constitution as interpreted by
the Supreme Court, as an income tax not apportioned among
the States. Now, if the proposed amendment to the Constitution authorizing the imposition of an income tax without
apportioning it among the States according to population
passes, it will be possible to add to our corporation tax the
feature of imposing a tax on the bonded interest in that
corporation by a percentage tax upon the interest to be paid,
thus reducing the amount of interest which the corporation
would pay to the bondholder to the extent of the tax collected. This would  make the corporation tax a more
beneficial measure, and one reaching interests that ought
to be reached, because under modern systems of financing
corporations, the bondholders and the stockholders are all
of them in a sense joint investors and a corporation income
tax ought to include them all. Under the conditions that
existed with reference to the Constitution it seems to me
clear that the corporation tax is an equitable burden - one
reaching active business not too heavy to retard it, but enough




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


to collect a substantial revenue from those who are successful in business. it is a tax easily collected - one that no
corporation can escape-one in which perjury can not play
any important part at all in an effort to escape it.
Another feature of it is that incidentally it will give the
Federal Government an opportunity to secure most valuable
information in respect to the conduct of corporations, and
their actual financial condition which they are required to
show in general terms in a public return. In addition, the
law provides the means under proper limitations of investigating fully and in detail their course of business. This is to be
done only after the Commissioner of Internal Revenue
shall have ascertained from evidence that their returns
required by law are not correct. Then the evidence which
he secures by his investigations of books and papers and
examination of witnesses is not to be made public but is
to be held in the secret archives of the Government until
the President shall deem it of public interest and according
to justice to make the facts known. Up to this time we have
no adequate statistics concerning our corporations. Even
the stockholders, whatever their right may be to know the
course of business of corporations, are generally in a state
of complete ignorance, and any instrumentality by which
the corporation shall be compelled to disclose with accuracy
a general statement of their condition certainly makes for
the public good. Indirectly it would help very much in
another revision of the tariff, whenever that shall come,
because corporations engaged in business said to be affected
by the tariff will have upon record in Washington their exact
financial condition from year to year in the matter of their
income, their expenditures and their debts.
Having said this much with respect to the corporation
tax as it is, I want to say a few words in favor of the passage
of the income tax amendment as proposed by Congress to
the States. Assuming the constitutional authority to have
been given, I am opposed to a general individual income
tax law except in times of great national stress. I am




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opposed to it because of the difficulty already alluded to,
that it puts such a premium on perjury as to have led other
governments to abandon that method of levying an income
tax and of imposing the tax wherever possible on the sources
of income in the hands of those who are not ultimately to
pay it. The instance I have already given of an increase
of 100 per cent. in the proceeds of the tax when changed
from a personal tax to one upon the sources of the income,
like our corporation tax, is a most forceful argument in favor
of the proposition - that the inquisitorial feature of an
income tax levied directly upon the person, together with
the inevitable opportunities for escape from the tax by use
of perjury, make it desirable if possible to avoid such a direct
method of levying an income tax.
But I am most strongly in favor of the adoption by the
States of the amendment authorizing Congress to impose
an income tax without apportioning it among the States
according to population; and I am strongly in favor of
this because in times of great stress, if war or some other
calamity were to visit this country and we should need to
strain our resources, the income tax would be one of the
essential instruments by which we could collect a large
amount of money to enable us to meet the exigency. It
has been so in the past, for during the Civil War it was understood that the levy of an income tax without apportionment was constitutional, and such a tax was levied and was
collected. And I consider it in the Constitution, as at present construed, an elemental weakness on the part of the
Central Government not to be able in times of emergency
to levy such a tax.
Of course, it will be said by those who are opposed to the
income tax that there will be a disposition to impose a direct
income tax merely as a means of collecting ordinary income
taxes in normal times and that no distinction can be made
in the Constitution by which the power to levy such a tax
can be limited to times of emergency, because it is impossible
to describe what the emergency should be. I agree with




256        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
that, and I agree that there is a probability that at times
the desire to tax accumulated wealth will lead to the movement in favor of a direct income tax, but I am also confident that its inquisitorial character, and the fact that in
time the opportunity for perjury will show it to be so ineffective in reaching the persons whom it is sought to reach
by a proportionate burden, that it will be wise to adopt the
course taken in England and other countries having great
experience with such a tax, and to follow the course of our
corporation tax rather than by direct personal imposition,
except in great emergencies.
If the income tax amendment passes, as I hope it may,
we can then enlarge the corporation tax so as to include a
proper burden on the bondholders in corporations as well
as upon the shareholders; and this will make this instrument of taxation even more equitable than it now is.
Those who favor a directly personal income tax to use
it for the purpose of permanently restraining great wealth
will probably find it ineffective for the reasons given.
I have already considered in a speech which I made at
Columbus in 1907 how our great fortunes could be divided
without drastic confiscatory methods. It seems to me now,
as it did then, that the proper authority to reduce the size
of fortune is the State rather than the Central Government.
Let the State pass laws of inheritance which shall require
the division of great fortunes between the children of the
decedants, and shall not permit a multi-millionaire to leave
his fortune in trust so as to keep it in a mass; make much
more drastic the rule against perpetuities which obtains at
common law; and then impose a heavy and graduated inheritance tax, which shall enable the State to share largely in
the proceeds of such large accumulations of wealth that
could hardly have been brought about save through its
protection and its aid. In this way, gradually but effectively,
the concentration of wealth in one hand or a few hands
will be neutralized and the danger to the Republic that has
been anticipated by a continuation through generations of




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such accumulating fortunes, will be obviated. The use of
the income tax itself for this purpose will, I think, never be
very successful because of the defect already indicated
the difficulty of finding the income upon which to impose
the tax and the opportunity that perjury will offer to escape
it. An inheritance tax can not be thus escaped because
when a man dies his property must come before some court
for consideration and adjudication with a view to its legal
transmission, and therefore those who are to succeed, however reluctant, must always make a showing of just what
the deceased left in order that they may acquire valid title
to the succession.
It seems, therefore, that the present Congress has taken
the wisest course in adopting as much of the feature of an
income tax as conforms to the Constitution, and by recommending an amendment to the Constitution which shall
enable us to round out and perfect this corporation tax
so as to make it more equitable, and so as to make it an
instrument of supervision of corporate wealth by Federal
authority. I doubt not that the information thus obtained
may be made a basis for further legislation of a regulative
character, applicable only to those corporations whose business is so largely of an interstate character as to justify
greater restrictions and more direct supervision.




XXVII


ADDRESS AT THE MORMON TABERNACLE,
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
(SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1909)
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
THANK you from the bottom of my heart for this
expression of welcome and good will. I have been
oppressed since I have come into this magnificent structure
with the thought that you had gathered here in part to hear
me, and that I have nothing to address to you worthy of
such a magnificent presence. I am told that my distinguished predecessor, under the inspiration. of an audience
like this, delivered an address in the nature of a sermon
upward of two hours in length. Now, he had the capacity;
he had the spirit; and he had the mission to make such a
preachment, of moral force and inspiration. He knew
how to appeal to the best that is in a man and a woman,
and arouse them to uplift themselves to higher standards
and higher ideals. But it has not been given to me to exercise that great influence which was his and which shone
forth from him as he stood before men upon a platform.
Yet I have felt that on this Sunday morning it was necessary
for me to make such effort as I could to follow him in something that may sound a bit like a sermon. And as sermons
are begun with the quotation of a text, having more or less
relation to what follows it, I am going to give you the text
from Proverbs: "A soft answer turneth away wrath, but
grievous words stir up anger."
It is a text that has enforced itself upon my mind during
the last ten years with especial emphasis, because I have come
into contact with Oriental peoples and with those descended
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259


from the Latin races of Europe, and I have had a chance
to compare their views of life and their methods of speech,
and their social conventions and amenities with those of the
Anglo Saxon race. We Anglo Saxons are, we admit, a great
race. We have accomplished wonders in hammering out
against odds that seemed insurmountable the principles of
civil liberty and popular government and making them practical and showing to the world their benefits. But in so
doing, and in the course of our life, it seems to me we have
ignored some things that our fellows of Southern climes
have studied and made much of; and those are the forms of
speech and the method of every-day treatment between
themselves and others. An Oriental will tell you in all the
various beautiful forms, of his anxiety for your health, his
respect for your character, his almost love of you and your
family, and he will put you in a good humor with him and
with the world, and he will not expect exactly that you take
him literally but he will hope that you will understand that
he has good will toward you, as you have toward him. Now
that, to our Anglo Saxon nature, seems at first hypocritical,
when probably you think, and perhaps rightly, that he does
not care much about you at any rate, but he understands
and hopes that you understand that what he means to do
is to make life more agreeable to you and life more agreeable to him, to lubricate, so to speak, the wheels of society,
and to make things move more smoothly without jarring
and jolting the nerves of either side. At first that seems
superficial to us, who prefer "No" and "Yes," and abrupt
methods and the communication in the shortest and curtest
sentences. But, my friends, we have much to learn from
people of that kind, of courtesy and politeness.
The truth is that a man's life in his family, with his wife,
with his children, with his mother, with his neighbors,
is not made up of grandstand plays and defiance of the
elements and all that sort of thing. It is made up of a
series of little acts, and those little acts and little self-restraints
are what go to make up the man's character. I agree that




260        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
there are men, and many of them, I hope, who are a great
deal better than they seem to be in their families and to their
wives and to their children and to their neighbors, and that
when exigencies arise they do betray and show forth elements
of strength of character that ought to commend them to
their fellow citizens and their families. But it does seem
as if they were depriving their families and their neighbors
of something in their not living up to that standard all the
time in little things as well as in big things; and the truth
is that if we yield to negligence in the little things, if we
yield to the momentary desire to be lazy and not attentive,
and not courteous to every one, so as to make every one
feel as comfortable as possible during the day, we are going
to cut down that higher character that we assume to have
under greater exigencies when we are showing forth its
strength. And so I say that our friends of the Southern
climes and our Oriental friends have touched a point in
philosophy, the philosophy of life, that we may well learn
from them, and introduce into our lives more courtesy and
more politeness - more real, genuine desire to make everybody happy by the little things of life, which after all constitute nearly all there is in life.
I don't for a moment decry the necessity at times for speaking out and speaking out with all the emphasis possible, but
what I am urging upon you, and what I have seen in other
countries with the advantage of having had an opportunity
to see both civilizations, is the added happiness that comes
to the whole human race when each member of it in a
small but effective way tries to make each, other member
whom he happens to meet happy for the moment, for life
is made up of moments and that contributes to the happiness
of all.
Now, another corollary from the text which I would like
to draw, is that we ought to ascribe to our neighbors and
to those with whom we come in contact, or with respect to
whose action we have to express an opinion -we ought
to ascribe as high motives as we can. We ought to avoid




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this acrimonious discussion, that consigns everybody who
is opposed to our view to perdition, and to having the most
corrupt motives, and that ascribes to those who stand with
us only the purest. Life is too valuable to waste in anger
and hatred, and the charging and denunciation of our fellowmen when they don't deserve it.
Now, there are to me some things as full of humor as
possible. Just within the recent three or four months we
have had an illustration. You know something about the
pure-food law which has been passed for the purpose of
saving the public from food that will injure the health,
or from deceiving the public by giving to it in a form
that does deceive something for consumption as food. Well,
there has arisen in this reform a discussion over-what? You
don't know what it is, and I don't know what it is, but for
lack of more definite information we will call it benzoate
of soda. Now that question has been submitted to experts.
Some experts have said that it was deleterious when used
in connection with food, and other experts have said that
it was harmless, but if you read the discussions you will
think that benzoate of soda is a moral line and that any
who take their place on one side of it are doomed to hopeless
corruption and those on the other side are carrying on a
cause of the highest morality. I don't mean to say that
the pure-food law is not one of the most important laws
on the Federal statute books —and it ought to be. But
what I do mean to say is that in its enforcement and in viewing its construction, we must assume that where men differ
they differ honestly unless a corrupt motive can be shown,
and that while it may be necessary or useful for the public
press to encourage the idea that somebody is being moved
by corrupt motives, in order to make the headlines a little
more salacious, and attractive, and increase the circulation
of the paper, it is not necessary for the happiness of the
people that it be thought that that question presents a great
moral issue which is going to divide men between the bad
and the good. We will reach a proper solution some time,




262        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
It will probably be found, when the differences are examined
closely, that those who oppose each other do not stand so
far apart.
Another subject that is making a great deal of trouble
is the question of what is whiskey, and I have that subject
on my hands now. I get letter after letter indicating that
if I decide that whiskey is one thing, the whole pure-food
law might just as well be abolished, and that I will yield
to an element in the community that ought to be condemned
and that ought to have no right to live here anyhow. It
puts a man in rather an embarrassing situation when the
question is really one of fact and law, mixed together, largely
one of fact, and one in which I say in passing I have no
expert knowledge.
The truth is, my friends, this matter of hatred and resentment which accompanies the attributing of a bad motive
to those who differ with you is a waste of nervous strength,
of time, of worry, without accomplishing one single good thing.
I don't know how it has been with you, but it has happened
time and time again with me that some man has done something that I did not like which I thought had a personal
bearing, and that I have said in my heart, times will change
and I will get even with that gentleman. I don't profess
to be free from those feelings at all. But it has frequently
happened, I may say generally, that the time did come when
I could get even with that man, and when that time came,
it seemed to me that I would demean myself and that it
would show me no man at all if I took advantage of the
opportunity.
Now I am going to tell you a story that interested me
greatly when it was told to me, and that I can make applicable to this sermon, by the reason for its introduction and
its telling. When I was Solicitor-General, it became my
duty, in company with the Attorney-General, to call upon
each of the Justices of the Supreme Court in Washington;
and among those on the Bench at that time was that distinguished statesman, that great orator, and that most excel



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lent judge, Mr. Justice Lamar of Mississippi. As you know,
he was on the other side supporting the Confederacy during
the Civil War. It happened that we found him the night of
our visit in a most talkative and communicative mood, and
when in that mood he was as charming a man as I have ever
met. Something arose which led him to say a number of
things along the line that I have followed in what I have
said to you - that early in life he rather cherished resentments and hatreds, and he thought it was an evidence of
great strength of character if only he could remember them
a long time; but as he had grown older, as God had seemed
to be better to him, as the years had grown mellow, and as
he had come to love every one of his race, with real affection
and interest, he had seen the utter lack of wisdom in allowing his time and mind and nerves to be taken up in cherishing
those unworthy thoughts. "Well," I said, "Mr. Justice
Lamar, you seem to have had some experience. Perhaps
you can say what has led you to this."  "Well," he said,
"there are a good many instances, but I can give you one.
I was the agent of the Confederacy in visiting England to
secure the recognition of our belligerency during the Civil
War. Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell were Ambassadors really
but I was the active agent, and a resolution had been introduced in the lower house of Parliament, the House of Commons, recognizing the belligerency and, I am not sure but
the independence of the Confederacy.  Our great friend
was a member of Parliament named Mr. Roebuck, and
walking on the Thames embankment the day before the
resolution was to be discussed in the House, he expressed
his great confidence in the success of our side and in the
passage of the resolution; and I said to him, 'Yes, Mr.
Roebuck, I hope that is true, but every once in a while
there comes over me the fear that the House will be carried
off its feet by the eloquence of John Bright.' 'Oh,' said
Mr. Roebuck, 'Mr. Bright is a great orator for a set
occasion, but in a debate I have measured swords with
him myself, and I may say I didn't come off second




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


best. Or, to change the metaphor, it was a case of the
swordfish and the whale.' I was not entirely satisfied,"
continued the Justice, " but with hopefulness I attended the
House of Commons the next morning and had as my company Mr. Charles Dickens, the novelist. Seated just beyond
Mr. Dickens was a gentleman of the most distinguished
appearance, whose face I had never seen before in the flesh
but whom I soon recognized as the Reverend Henry Ward
Beecher, who had come over to England to defend the Northern cause. We three sat there and listened to the debate:
there was first an address by Sir Roundell Palmer, the
Attorney-General, who defended the resolution; then Mr.
Gladstone, who did not support the resolution, although
he expressed great sympathy with the Southern Confederacy."
And so Mr. Justice Lamar went on describing one speaker
and another. He loved oratory; he could repeat what he
had heard, and I am sorry I can not repeat it to you. But
finally said he, " Mr. Roebuck arose and proceeded to attack
the North, its motives in assuming to be interested in the
freeing of the slaves, its greed; its character as nothing but
a commercial people," and so on and so on. To use Mr.
Justice Lamar's expression, "He did give it to you fellows
in a way that I very much enjoyed and I could not help,
every time that he made a point and sent it home, looking
around Mr. Dickens to see how Mr. Beecher took it."
"Well," the Justice said, " the debate went on and the hour
for dinner approached, and I was hoping that the debate
was over, because it seemed clearly with us and that no
other prominent personage would take part, when I heard
a voice like an organ note, a voice of volume and sweetness,
the like of which I had never heard before and never have
heard since, and I followed the note to the lips of the speaker.
When I saw the speaker I saw that the whale was in the
fight, and that John Bright had risen to meet the occasion.
And bitter as I was on the subject, full as I was of the wrongs
of the South and the righteousness of our cause, I could




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not but appreciate the strength of his sentences and the
greatness of his oratory, and, to complete my humiliation
and disappointment, every time in a glowing period that
he drove home what he called the iniquity of slavery and
the iniquity of our cause, Mr. Beecher leaned around Mr.
Dickens to see how I took it.
"Now," said Justice Lamar, "from that moment, I hated
Mr. Beecher, but subsequently in Mr. Beecher's life, when
he became subjected to charges and a great strain and a
trial that developed the real sweetness of his character and
the grandeur and force of what he was as a man, I lost all
that feeling. I did not rejoice in the trials that he had,
but I came personally to know him and to recognize in that
instance, as in many others, the utter fatuity, the utter
uselessness of cherishing a personal feeling, a personal
hatred beyond the moment when you can suppress it."
And so, my friends, what I am urging is less acrimony
in public discussion -more charity with respect to each
other as to what moves each man t o do what he does doand that you do not charge dishonesty and corruption
until you have a real reason for doing so. I am the last
man to pardon or mitigate wrongs against the public or
against the individual. I believe, and I regret to say it,
that throughout this country the administration of the
criminal law and the prosecution of crime is a disgrace to
our civilization; but it is one thing to prosecute a criminal
when you have evidence and it is another thing to ascribe
motives to the acts of men when you haven't any evidence
and are just relying on your imagination in respect to what
you infer.
My friends, I can not in the presence of so great an audience as this, an audience that inspires one with higher
thought of country and patriotism, fail to refer to the depth
of feeling that has been awakened in me, of gratitude for
your welcome, of an appreciation of the basis of that welcome
which is loyalty to your flag and country.  I understand
that in the great office of the President the personality of




266


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


the man who fills it for the time sinks, and that the
office typifies the nation, so that all people of whatever
party ought to feel that toward the man who for the
time being holds the office they are manifesting a respect
for the nation for which they live and for which they would
be willing to die.
The advantage of such a trip as that I am taking is of
course that I come into personal touch with the people, and
I am thus enabled to learn a great many things which otherwise I should be ignorant of, and on the other hand that
they come into personal touch with me and find out the
kind of personality in a way - very superficially - that they
have selected through good fortune or misfortune temporarily to preside over them. A man of an inquiring mind
said to me the other day, "It is quite true that you are
speaking a good deal so that the people may learn something
about your views, but how do you, if you do all the talking,
learn anything about what the people think?" Well,
stated simply, that would seem to be unanswerable unless
you have a knowledge of the people whom I meet along the
way, of the persons with whom I talk and of the opportunities for observation that are presented in so long a trip
as that of 13,000 miles. If a man can not absorb a good deal
from the newspapers, from talks along the way, of what
is going on in a community, he had better not take a trip.
But if he has the ordinary pores in his skin and the ordinary
brain tentacles for holding on to things that are in the air,
he is apt to get a pretty good knowledge of what is in the
atmosphere, what is on the earth, in the communities that
he visits. I am not here to justify my coming, because you
have been kind enough to be so cordial in your welcome
that I do not think it is necessary, and yet I do wish
to explain some of the advantages that come from information at first hand and by personal touch, that one who is
charged with the responsibility for four years of carrying
on the executive department of the government may pick
up.




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And now, my friends, I say to you again how grateful I
am for your cordial welcome, and express to you as sincerely
as possible my earnest hope for your further progress and
development in order to cap that wonderful advancement
and seizure of opportunities that this community displays
in its history. I thank you!




XXVIII


REMARKS AT THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN
ASSOCIATION, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
(SEPTEMBER N6, 1909)
Young Men:
T IS always a great pleasure for me to attend a Young
Men's Christian Association in any city and to assist,
as I have a numlber of times, in the dedication of new buildings for the purpose of the Association. I have done that
in I don't know how many cities and even as far as Shanghai
and Hong-Kong and Manila, and the reason is because I
feel that the Young Men's Christian Association supplies a
need in every community which no church, no institution,
nothing else that I know of can meet. It supplies an opportunity for rational amusement, and at the same time for the
study of ideals and for religious worship at appropriate times;
and it saves young men of the city who have not the opportunity of home surroundings. As our cities grow, the number
of young men who leave their homes in the country and go
to the city increases and it offers to them an opportunity
for a rational occupation of their leisure hours — hours
which if they do not have the opportunity to spend in rational
amusement and occupation are only too frequently devoted
to vicious pursuits. Now, that is true in every city. It is
especially true in the newer and younger cities. It is very
true in the Orient where, so far away from home, young men
especially forget the restraints and the obligations that neighborhood life puts upon them, and they first take one drink
and then another, and as there is nothing else to do, a third,
and as those drinks in those far distant countries seem to
offer a stimulus that is agreeable, the end is not until they
are in the gutter.
268




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


269


I congratulate you sincerely on the evidence of the especial
excellence of your Association here. I am told that two or
three times you have taken prizes offered to those interested
in the Associations the country over for the excellence of
your work and the skill and persistence of those who superintend it and engage in it. That is an admirable sign of your
usefulness to the community. The Young Men's Christian
Association offers a lesson which can not be too deeply
impressed upon the people - the lesson of tolerance. It
means the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God,
and the recognition of the advantages of all religion within
the Christian brotherhood bringing one nearer to that ideal
that we all aspire to and from which we so often fall away.
Now, my friends, I should be glad to talk with you longer
on some of the details of Young MeAn's Christian Association work, but it is impossible for me to do so. I can only
express my pleasure at having this opportunity in the somewhat strenuous program of the last three days to express to
you my congratulation on the work that you have done
and my hope for your continued usefulness in the community.


P




XXIX
ADDRESS AT SPOKANE, WASHINGTON,
(SEPTEMBER 28, 1909)
Ladies and Gentlemen of Spokane; Fellow Citizens of Washington:
AM going to take up to-day the subject of the conservation of our natural resources. This has been given
a very wide scope. I do not propose to cover the whole
ground to-day. I shall confine my attention to those parts
of the policy which are certainly within the jurisdiction of
the National Government, and which especially concern the
country west of the Missouri River.
I refer, first, to the preservation of the national forests;
second, to the reclamation of the arid and semi-arid lands
by irrigation; third, to the disposition of water-power sites
upon public lands with proper restrictions upon the use both
in respect to the compensation, its extent in point of time,
and the adjustment of rates to be charged to the public by
the beneficiary of the grant; fourth, to the disposition of coal,
oil and phosphate lands owned by the Government with such
restrictions as will permit their development for private profit,
and yet will prevent monopoly and extortion in the sale of
the product.
The national forests as reserved by Executive Order contain about 167,000,000 acres of land in the United States
proper. All of this land is now under the direct control of
the Forestry Bureau and is being preserved from fire and from
other destruction, and is being treated in accordance with the
best modern methods of treating forests under the supervision
of Mr. Pinchot, the Chief Forester, and the head of the
Bureau of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture.
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271


It appears that the Government timber land is only
about one-fourth of the timber land owned by private individuals, and that only three per cent. of the timber land owned
by private individuals is properly looked after according
to modern methods of forestry. The destruction by fire
of forests is estimated to be $50,000,000 a year. It would
seem, therefore, imperative that the States should exercise
their jurisdiction over these forests to which I have referred
and which are held by private individuals, and require some
system of fire protection and the adoption of the best methods
of forestry. It would seem that the States have a right to do
this because of the general interest which the public has in
the preservation of the forests, in their equalizing of the water
supply, and in their effect upon the climate. The equalization
of the water supply, of course, prevents erosion of the soil
and the wasteful destruction of the best part of the soil,
which is carried down the river with the floods.
The regulation of forests in private ownership within
State boundaries is plainly not within the scope of Federal
jurisdiction, and it should be undertaken by the States.
I do not think the States have taken up the matter with as
much energy as they ought, and they have not improved the
opportunity which was given them by way of example by the
Forestry Bureau of the United States. The question whether
the Federal Government, with the purpose of equalizing
the flow of water in navigable streams, and to promote
navigation during the entire year, may enter upon a plan of
regulating existing forests and reforesting certain denuded
territory in the States, I need not now discuss. The subject
would involve a wider discussion than I have time to give it.
The plan of the Government to reclaim the arid and
semi-arid lands manifested in the reclamation act has been
carried out most rapidly by the Bureau charged with its
execution. I had the honor the other day in Colorado
of opening the most ambitious of these projects, at least
the most difficult of them- the Gunnison tunnel - which
is to bring water into a valley in Colorado, known as the




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


Uncompaghre Valley, with some 150,000 acres, and to put
it in a condition to grow fruit and cereals. There are some
thirty projects which have been entered upon by the Reclamation Bureau, and I believe that all of them are to be commended for their excellent adaptation to the purpose for
which they were erected, and for the speed with which the
work has been done. It is said, however, that in the planning
of a number of these improvements, the enthusiasm cf the
projectors has carried them to a point where they begin to
feel embarrassed in the matter of resources with which to
complete the projects, and begin to show that prudence was
not observed by those engaged in executing the act; that the
projects were too many and more than could be completed
in a reasonable time after their beginning, because of a lack
of funds. The reclamation act provides for the expenditure
of funds made up of the proceeds of the sale of public lands
and reimbursed from time to time by the instalments to be
paid by the settlers who take up the irrigated land, and it
also provides that no part of a project is to be contracted
for and begun, until the money for the completion of that
part of the project contracted for shall be in the reclamation fund. Now, it appears that it will take $10,000,000 or
more, which is not available in the reclamation fund at
present, fully.to complete the projects, and it also appears
that a great number of persons by reason of the beginning
of the projects have been led into the making of settlements,
the expenditure of time and labor, with the hope and upon
the reliance that such reclamation enterprises would be
carried through in a reasonable time.
I think there is no doubt that it was the intention of Congress that projects should not be multiplied in such a way
that they could not be completed within a reasonable time
out of the reclamation funds provided by the sale of public
lands, and it probably would have been wiser to adhere strictly
to the limitation thus construed, even though the language
of the act, by dividing up the projects into parts in terms
permits the beginning of more projects than there was likely




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to be money enough to complete within a reasonable time.
The pressure was doubtless very great, and the reclamation
service yielded to the pressure within the letter of the law,
and now find themselves in the situation described. The
work has been well done and reflects great credit on the
engineers who have had charge of it. But something must
be done to relieve the present situation, which is one of
disappointed hopes to many settlers upon the arid lands,
who counting upon an early completion of the projects
undertaken have invested their money and spent their time
and seem to be no nearer the goal of satisfactory irrigation
than they were when the projects were begun. I think it
wise to apply to Congress for relief by urging the passage
of an enabling act, which shall permit the Secretary of the
Interior to issue bonds in the sum of $10,000,000 or more,
to complete all the projects now projected. These bonds
should be redeemed from the money paid into the reclamation funds after the completion of the projects.
From conversation with the Senators who have visited
much of the reclamation work and given an examination to
its progress, I infer that such a proposal as this seems to
them to be the best way out of the present difficulty, and I
shall take pleasure in recommending the passage of such a
remedial measure by the next Congress.
No one can visit this western country without being overwhelmingly convinced of the urgent necessity for the proper
treatment of arid and semi-arid lands by the extension of
systems of irrigation. The results in the productivity of
the soil when irrigated are marvellous. The mere fact that
the reclamation service has gone ahead too fast ought not
to prevent Congress from lending its aid to overcome the
difficulty. We shall know better in the further treatment
of the subject and in the further use of the $50,000,000 fund
how to avoid putting ourselves in a similar position again.
Meantime irrigation works under private auspices are being
projected in every direction, and the prospect of reclaiming
millions of acres from the deserts is most encouraging.




9274       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
The examples of Government engineering and of ingenuity
in planning the structures in these various Government
projects for irrigation are of immense utility as models for
private enterprise.
One subject that is now being agitated in some quarters
calls for notice. Payment for irrigated lands is required in
ten annual instalments. Suggestions are now being made
that these should be lengthened into a longer term. I
sincerely hope that Congress will not listen to such appeals.
It may be well to make the first three or four instalments
nominal, but after that time the instalments should be
large enough to pay the total amount due, upon which no
interest is calculated, in ten years. Any other course will
encourage a lack of thrift and industry and will greatly embarrass the extension and continuance of the work of irrigation.
When the Government became possessed of its public
domain and took measures to secure its settlement by the
passage of the homestead act and other acts offering, after
certain steps prescribed, to vest title to a specific part of the
public lands in individuals, the chief object of Congress
seemed to be to secure development by inducing people
to settle on public lands and acquire it for themselves. The
thought of conserving the resources which were thus opened
to private acquisition hardly occurred to Congress. Its
generosity to the Pacific railroads in offering the public
lands in such extensive grants to them is an instance of the
spirit which actuated Congress thirty and forty and fifty
years ago. I am not criticizing Congress in the slightest for
this policy. It certainly was necessary to make extensive
grants to secure the construction of a railroad which should
unite the Pacific Coast with the Atlantic Coast, and bring
closer to the Eastern seaboard the far distant regions of this
country. I merely refer to it in a historical way to explain
the character of the statutes now upon the statute books
with reference to the sale and disposition of public lands.
There has always been a distinction made between agricultural lands and mineral lands, because it was recognized that




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mineral lands would probably be much more valuable, and a
different method was required for the acquisition of the one
from that of the other. But never until now has adequate
provision been made for a classification of lands so as to
show distinctly what are mineral lands and what are agricultural lands. The truth is, that the needs of the country
have developed so, and the demand for land has so much
increased, that in order to secure a sensible, business-like
disposition of the lands remaining in the public domain,
there must be an authoritative classification of lands by the
proper bureau so as to show whether they are agricultural
lands, forest lands or lands available for water power sites
on the banks of rivers and other streams, or mineral lands,
coal lands, oil lands, or phosphate lands. Had this classification been made earlier, it would have saved a great amount
of litigation and would have saved to the Government millions
of acres patented as one kind of land when in fact it was
another. The classification so far as authorized is being
rapidly executed by the Geological Survey. After classification, legislation should be and doubtless will be directed
to the means by which such lands should be disposed of and
the restrictions specified in the interest of the public upon
the tenure and use to which the owner is to put such lands.
As to lands which are purely agricultural, there would
seem to bejio reason for departing from the ordinary method
of disposition under the homestead and other laws, including
the reclamation acts, by which citizens acquire title in
them.
With respect to forest lands owned by the public, they
should be surveyed and held by the Government under the
regulation of the Forestry Bureau permitting a sale of such
timber as shall be necessary in the proper forestry preservation.
As to water-power sites, there has been such a change in
conditions that a special provision should be made in the
interest of the public for their transfer to private control.
The development of electrical appliances and the transfer




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PESIET    ADRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS


of power through electric lines for long distances has made
the use of water power to produce electricity one of the
most important sources of power that we have in this country,
and it will so affect the cost of production in all the fields
of manufacture and production of the necessities of life as
to require the Government to retain control over the use by
private capital of such power when it can only be exercised
upon sites which belong to the Government. Such sites
can be properly parted with under conditions of tenure, use
and compensation, consistent on the one hand with reasonable profit to the private capital invested and on the other
with the right of the public to secure the furnishing of such
power at reasonable rates to every one. There should be
a condition of forfeiture if the owner of the power site does
not within a certain time expend capital sufficient to double
the power, and after development shall charge rates to the
public beyond what is a reasonable profit on the capital
invested in the improvement to be regulated by the Government. The amount of compensation that ought to be
charged by the Government for the use of the water-power
sites might perhaps be left to readjustment every ten or
fifteen or twenty years. The compensation to be charged
in the outset might well be purely nominal, but after the
project has become a complete success and the profit has
grown to a considerable percentage of the amount invested,
then there would seem to be no reason why the public might
not be benefited by sharing in the profits of the transaction
to an amount to be fixed upon arbitration or in some other
method at the end of a stated period of fifteen or twenty
years. This is an arrangement toward which the tenure of
all public utilities is tending, and I know of no reason why
it should not be introduced into the governmental disposition
of such sources of continuous power as the water sites upon
public lands are likely to be. I know it has been the course
in the past under the bounteous and generous disposition of
the Government to give these water sites away under existing
inadequate acts; but we have reached a time now when the




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importance of these water power sites has greatly increased,
and there would seem to be no reason why it would interfere
with a speedy development of the country to impose restrictions upon the use of such water sites, equitable as between
the public and the investor. This is a matter which Congress
must take up. The water-power sites are now generally
disposed of under the same kind of a procedure as that by
which agricultural lands are taken up, and there is no
power on the part of the Secretary of the Interior in the
disposition of such sites to impose the conditions suggested.
This matter has become so important that under the last
administration large tracts of lands amounting to upward
of four million acres were temporarily withdrawn from settlement in order to prevent the acquisition of water-power sites
under the general land laws. This amount has been reduced
under the present administration to 450,000 acres, which
include even more ascertained water sites than the original
withdrawals.  It should be understood that these withdrawals are temporary and can only be justified as made in
order to permit Congress to legislate on the subject of waterpower sites. Should Congress conclude not to do so, it would
be difficult for the executive to find the authority indefinitely
to withhold these lands from settlement under the general
laws, on the ground that they contain water-power sites.
The legislative power is vested in Congress and not in the
executive. I shall, therefore, urge upon Congress at its
next session, the passage of a law authorizing the disposition
of such water-power sites upon terms to be agreed upon by
the Secretary of the Interior with the proposed purchaser
of the character already indicated. It may turn out that
restrictions of this sort are so burdensome as to discourage
the investment of capital, and it may be necessary to modify
the requirements on this account. But my own impression
is that the demand for water power is going to be so great
that these restrictions will not prevent the investment of
capital but will ultimately bring to the public coffers a revenue
from an entirely proper source and will secure the develop



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ment of a power for manufacturing industries that will
probably in time exceed the utility and value of coal, and
become a substitute for it.
I now come to what should be the proper disposition
of coal lands, oil lands and phosphate lands. The
anthracite coal strike evoked a great deal of discussion in
respect to the evils of the ownership by private persons
of a monopoly of the coal supply of the country, and led
Mr. Roosevelt to declare the necessity for preserving from
acquisition by monopolizing syndicates the public coal
lands still undisposed of. The truth is that in Alaska the
deposits of coal are so great that when they are developed
they will doubtless furnish coal to the entire Pacific Coast.
They have been reserved from filings since 1906. There
are some 900 claims but it is probable that under the evidence
adduced most of these claims will prove to have been defective. With such an immense tract of coal land at a place
near the sea as this is, from which coal easily can be furnished
by water to the entire Pacific Coast, it becomes highly
important to settle, before this land shall be disposed of under
present laws, whether we are to retain any different control
over these lands from those which have been already sold
by the Government in other parts of the country.
It seems wise in the disposition of coal lands, and indeed
of all mineral lands having agricultural value, to separate
the surface of the land from its mineral contents; and then
either to lease the right to take coal from the land at a specified compensation per ton -that is to provide a system of
royalties - or to sell the deposits of the land outright to the
coal miner. In every case, restriction by way of forfeiture 
ought to be included to prevent a monopoly of ownership
of the coal land in any one set of men so as to enable them
to control the price of coal. This is the great object of
a change in the method of their disposition.
Some provision should be made with reference to the
disposition of phosphate land. This land, which is found
in Wyoming and in Idaho, contains the wonderful fertilizer




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which it will soon be necessary to use on much of the land
in the United States, and as the need for the use of this fertilizer on much land is growing, we should see to it, if possible,
that the product be not subject to monopoly or sold outside
of the United States.
The oil lands of California, as well as the phosphate lands,
and practically all the coal lands have been withdrawn
from settlement in order to await the action of Congress; and
I expect to recommend to Congress legislation on the lines
above indicated, with the general purpose of enabling the
Secretary of the Interior in the administration of the land
laws to secure more benefit to the public and greater certainty in the security against the monopoly of resources.
What, however, I wish to make as plain as possible is that
these purposes can not be accomplished unless Congress
shall act, and that the burden of carrying out the policy
of the conservation of our resources, in respect to the matters
I have discussed is upon Congress. The Executive can
recommend but the legislature must enact. After the
enactment of general authority, it is easy for the Executive
to make proper regulations calculated to carry out in detail
the general purpose which Congress had, but the first duty
in respect to the conservation of resources falls upon Congress.
There has been a good deal of discussion in the newspapers
as to the attitude of the present administration toward the
general policy of the conservation of resources, and some
very unfair and altogether unfounded inferences have been
drawn. The truth is, my administration is pledged to
follow out the policies of Mr. Roosevelt in this regard, and
while that pledge does not involve me in any obligation to
carry them out unless I have Congressional authority to do
so, it does require that I take every step and exert every legitimate influence upon Congress to enact the legislation which
shall best subserve the purposes indicated. I do not think
that Congress, if properly approached, will object to adopting legislation of the general character which I have outlined.




280        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
In the past it has aided the forestry service by what seemed
to be ample appropriations. It has in a measure provided
for a classification of lands by the head of the Geological
Survey. These are both important steps. I hope nothing
will prevent our taking the further steps needed when
Congress meets. Secretary Ballinger of the Interior Department, upon whom will fall the duty of executing the new
provisions of law, is in entire accord with me as to the
necessity for promoting in every legitimate way the conservation of the resources which I have named, and he can be
counted upon to use the great influence which he must have
as Secretary of the Interior to this proper end. Indeed,
it will be found that in his reports as Commissioner of the
General Land Office he brought these matters to the attention of Congress and urged the adoption of a general policy
along the lines I have indicated.




XXX


ADDRESS AT THE ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC
EXPOSITION, SEATTLE, WASH.
(SEPTEMBER 29, 1909)
Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow Citizens of Seattle, of Washington, and of the Pacific Coast:
HIS great Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition was the
objective point on my trip to the West, and I am
glad to have arrived here after two weeks' travel from
the old Bay State. As I look about me at this wonderful
exhibition of the progress of the Northwest, of Alaska, and
the Pacific Coast, I feel a great pride in having urged upon
the proper Congressional committee, with all the emphasis
of which I was capable, the importance and the utility
of the enterprise. And it is gratifying to know that under the
administration of Seattle men the Exposition has been a
great success both in arousing world-wide interest in the
growth of the Far Northwest and in showing a profit over
the immense outlay needed in its construction and maintenance.
When I first planned my visit to Seattle, I had included
with it a trip to Alaska in order that I might by a personal
investigation make myself better acquainted with the character of that great territory and with the best method of
securing its development. I greatly regret that the time
consumed by Congress in the consideration of the tariff
bill prevented my carrying out the part of the plan embraced
in a visit to this most interesting territory.
One of Mr. Seward's substantial claims to the gratitude
of his countrymen and to a place among the statesmen of
his country was the broad view which he took of the value
281




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


of Alaska and his wisdom in effecting its purchase. The
cession of Virginia and the ordinance of 1787, which gave
to the nation the Middle West, the purchase by Jefferson
of Louisiana Territory, which carried our domain to the
Rocky Mountains, the annexation of Texas, and the treaty
of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, which extended our territory to
the Pacific Coast, were properly supplemented by the
acquisition of Alaska, and this Exposition may well be
regarded as a celebration of the foresight of Seward in his
policy of expansion.
It would seem that the wealth of Alaska in minerals,
in fish, in furs, and even in agriculture, was still but inadequately known, and yet its value from a mere money standpoint to the nation, as shown by the wealth which has been
extracted from it, exceeds by many fold the cost of it to the
Government of the United States. A review of the history
of the territory will show that Congress has been very slow
to extend to it a proper form of government.
Alaska is a country of immense expanse, and the governmental needs of the southeastern portion near to Washington
and the Northwest are quite different from those of Nome
and the Seward peninsula and of the valley of the Yukon.
Such a territory has need of local legislation and local
government, which can only be understood by those who are
on the ground, and it is utterly impossible and impractical
for Congress in its legislation to govern the details by legislation required for the best development of the territory.
There has been no authority in the territory having an
adequate jurisdiction to meet the exigencies of such a young
but potentially prosperous territory.
It has been proposed that Congress should give to Alaska
the regular form of territorial government under which
a legislature and a Governor might be elected, and between
the two they might be given the powers ordinarily given to
the legislature and executive of regularly organized territories. I think this would be a great mistake, because I
don't think that the territory has a population of sufficient




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number or sufficient stability and permanence of residence
to warrant the delegation to a locally elected legislature of
such authority. Many of the places in Alaska, where there
is a considerable population, are nothing but mining camps,
with all the migratory and temporary features of such settlements. More than that, the population is so small, as
compared with the vast expanse of the territory, that it
would be unwise to provide that a comparatively small
population in southeastern Alaska should elect representatives and legislate for the enormous territory reaching from
British Columbia clear to the Bering Sea and the Arctic
Ocean.
Local self-government or home rule, in a country so large
as Alaska, with a scattered nomadic population, intense
local and sectional feeling, should not be given serious
consideration until the population and developed resources
of the country have increased to such an extent as to warrant
the division of the territory into more limited areas, where
the inhabitants of each would have an opportunity to
become acquainted, and where there would be some degree
of similarity of interests. Before such an experiment, an
earnest effort should be made to secure larger percentage
of permanent residents and endeavor to attach some of
the population to the soil.
My own judgment is that the only way properly to develop
Alaska for the benefit of everybody in it, is to bring the
Territory under the management of one bureau and department in Washington, so that all the officials in the Government shall have to report to one head, and so also that the
interests of the entire Territory shall be centered in one
responsible bureau chief in Washington, whose business it
shall be through his Department chief to present to Congress
the needs of the Territory, to follow legislation, and to attend
to everything at the National Capital in which the people of
the Territory are interested. It is not necessary that the
delegate shall be dispensed with, but an executive office,
with records, with information and constantly active, can




284


4 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


greatly contribute to the welfare of a territory for which it
is responsible when located at the National Capital, and
when understood to have the proper authority and responsibility.
Certain general laws, like the mining laws, the forestry
laws, the customs laws and the land laws should be passed
by Congress and perhaps executed by national officers,
but this would leave a wide domain for domestic legislation
which it seems to me ought to be intrusted to some local
authority on the ground and having a knowledge of local
needs.  Of course if the Territory were so settled with a
permanent population more or less equally distributed
through its extent, such legislative power might be entrusted
to an elected legislature, but for the reasons I have given, it
seems to me that it would be much wiser to entrust this local
legislative power to a commission of five or more members,
appointed by the President, to act with the Governor in
the discharge of such legislative functions. It seems wise
not to confer legislative functions on the Governor alone,
but to assist him in its exercise by the addition of competent
persons who will live in the Territory, familiarize themselves
with its local needs and bring to the attention of Congress
and the Executive such additional legislation as may from
time to time be wise.
It will be observed that this is practically the government which was given to the Philippine Islands, although
the Commission there had more legislative authority than
it would be wise or necessary to give to the Alaskan Commission. Objection will be made on the ground that this
is treating the people of Alaska, who are generally free-born
American citizens, as if the Territory were a dependency
of persons unfit to exercise the power of self-government.
I can not deny that the conditions in Alaska are such as
in my judgment to prevent the extension of local self-government safely to that Territory. It is not because of the
character of the people if they were permanent residents and
sufficient in number and sufficiently distributed to warrant




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the establishment of a representative government, but the
conditions that exist are such as to put them for the time
being in a position justifying a similar treatment to that
of the Philippines. Indeed it would be a great deal better
government than at present, because it would be vesting
power in a local authority familiar with local needs, and
to-day no such power exists. In other words, it would be a
great advance over the present conditions. I don't know
that Congress will agree with me in this view, but a personal
experience in the practical operation of such a system of
government for the benefit of the territory governed leads
me to feel justified in making such a recommendation.
The Territory will develop much more rapidly and the boon of
self-government will come much more quickly under such
a system than as the government is being carried on at present.
The future of Alaska is big with prosperity and great
productiveness, but it needs intelligent legislation to develop
it quickly and in the right way; and I know no better method
of securing such a result than by a properly constituted
Commission. There is an opportunity for Congress to aid
in the construction of certain railroads that will largely
develop the Territory, and which private enterprise is not
able or willing to undertake unless it receives some sort of
guaranty from the Government. That I would unhesitatingly recommend, because Alaska is a territory in which
private capital can not be expected to build the first railroads.
I am especially interested in Alaska because her development has been delayed by a lack of appropriate legislation
and because I know something of the needs of a land so far
distant. Of course the law-making power of the Commission
should be subject to the approval of the head of the department at Washington responsible for the government of
Alaska, just as is provided now by the law governing the
Philippines.
Since I last visited the Coast, I am glad to say that the Philippines have had extended to them in the matter of a tariff
law a measure of justice, which ought to have been adopted




286        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
nine years ago. If it had been adopted, the city of Seattle,
the city of San Francisco, and the whole Pacific Coast would
have profited by its enactment. Free trade with the Philippines as now established between the Islands and this
country will develop an exchange of business between the
two countries which will be greatly to the advantage of both.
Trade in the Philippines has long had one trend, and it will
take some time, perhaps two or three years, to effect a change,
even now that the law is passed; but a familiarity with the
situation in the Islands makes me confident that the Pacific
Coast will come to value more and more highly the trade
from the Philippines which will fall to it. There are many
industries in the Philippines the products of which will sell
well in the United States now that the tariff is lifted from
them, and with similar relief from burden in entering the
Philippines, American manufactures will have a far wider
sale in those distant islands on the Pacific.
The Panama Canal will be completed on or before the first
of January, 1915, and with its completion the trade between
the Eastern and Western coasts of this country will be revolutionized, for the carriage of heavy bulk merchandise between
the Pacific and, the Atlantic Coast is almost certain to be by
water. This will reduce the transcontinental business to the
carriage of the more valuable classes of merchandise, which
can profitably pay a higher rate of transportation. More
than this, it will change the avenues of international trade,
will bring the eastern coast of America closely in touch
with the western coast of South America, and will greatly
facilitate the direct transportation from the west coast of
America to European ports.
China is waking up. She is approaching a period of
development that can not but increase her trade and augment her importance as customer and as a trader with this
country, while Japan and all the other Oriental countries
are moving onward with giant steps in the commercial
competition of the world. The many prophecies that have
been made that in the next half century the commercial




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progress of the world is to be seen more decidedly in the
Pacific than anywhere else are certainly well founded; and
under those conditions it behooves us as Americans interested
in pushing her trade into every quarter of the globe to take
steps to repair a condition that exists in respect to our merchant marine that is humiliating to our national pride and
most burdensome to us in competition with other nations
in obtaining international trade.
We maintain a protective tariff to encourage our manufacturing, farming, and mining industries at home and
within our jurisdiction, but when we assume to enter into
competition upon the high seas in trade between international
ports, our jurisdiction to control that trade so far as the
vessels of other nations are concerned, of course ceases, and
the question which we have to meet is how with the greater
wages that we pay, with the more stringent laws we enact
for the protection of our sailors, and with the protective
system making a difference in the price between the necessaries to be used in the maintenance of a merchant marine,
we shall enable that merchant marine to compete with the
marine of the rest of the world.
This is not the only question either, for it will be found
on an examination of the methods pursued in other countries
with respect to their merchant marines, that there is now
extended by way of subsidies by the various governments
to their respective ships, upward of $35,000,000, and this
offers another means by which in the competition the
American merchant ship is driven out of business and finds
it utterly impossible to bid against its foreign competitors.
Not only this, but so inadequate is the American merchant
marine to-day that in seeking auxiliary ships with which
to make our navy an instrument of offense or defense, or
indeed in sending it around the world as a fleet, we have
to call on vessels sailing under a foreign flag to carry the
coal and to supply the other needs of such a journey. Were
we compelled to go into a war to-day, our merchant marine
lacks altogether a sufficient tonnage of auxiliary unarmed




9288      PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
ships absolutely necessary to the proper operation of the
navy, and were a war to come on we should have to purchase
such vessels from foreign countries, and this might under
the laws governing neutrals be most difficult.
The trade between the eastern ports of the United States
and South America is a most valuable trade, and now equals
something like $Q50,000,000; but European nations, appreciating the growing character of this trade, have by subsidies
and other means of encouragement so increased the sailings
of large and well-equipped vessels from Europe to the ports
of South America as visibly to affect the proportion of trade
which is coming to the United States by the very limited
service of a direct character between New York and South
American ports.
I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American
shipping marine on the Pacific Coast and the growing power
for commercial purposes in this regard of the Empire of
Japan. Japan is one of the most active and generous countries in the matter of subsidies to its merchant marine that
we have, and the effect is only too visible in an examination
of the statistics.
For this reason, it seems to me that there is no subject
to which Congress can better devote its attention in the
coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish
American lines directly between New York and eastern
ports and South American ports, and between our Pacific
Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines. We earn a
profit from our foreign mails of from $6,000,000 to $8,000,000
a year. The application of that amount would be quite
sufficient to put on a satisfactory basis two or three Oriental
lines and several lines from the East to South America.
Of course, we are familiar with the argument that this
would be contributing to private companies out of the
treasury of the United States; but we are contributing in
various ways on similar principles in effect, both by our
protective tariff law, by our river and harbor bills, and




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by our reclamation service. We are not putting money in
the pockets of ship owners, but we are giving them money
with which they can compete for a reasonable profit only
with the merchant marine of the world.
From my observation I think the country is ready now
to try such a law and to witness its effect in a comparatively small way upon the foreign trade of the United States.
If it is successful, experience will show how the policy can
best be expanded and enlarged and the American commercial
flag be made to wave upon the seas as it did before our Civil
War. It is true that our foreign trade is great and increasing, and this without the merchant marine, but it is also
true that the ownership of a merchant marine greatly enhances
the opportunities for the merchants of the country having
such a merchant marine. This is shown by consular reports
and a reference to statistics in an indisputable way.
There is no part of the country more interested in the
development of this policy than Seattle, Washington and
the whole Pacific Coast. With the enormous energy and
potential force that you have developed in your community
here for trade and business expansion, it cannot have escaped the foresight of your business captains that the development of a merchant marine means the growth of Seattle
into a port of such importance that hardly the lively imaginon of her ambitious citizens can compass.
ati




XXXI
ADDRESS AT THE ARMORY, TACOMA, WASH.
(OCTOBER 1, 1909)
Mr. McCormickl, Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen:
AFTER what your Mayor has said I don't know exactly
what I ought to say. It is a good deal of a burden to
bear to start off with that kind of an introduction. It
invites a hope that I am sorry to say you will hardly be able
to realize; but I am very glad to meet a Tacoma audience
again. My recollection is that I stole into your town and
ran around with a friend on my way to Portland two years
ago; that I returned, and then met an audience in the Park;
and that I had the honor then of being introduced by your
Congressman, Mr. Cushman- "Old Cush," as we called
him affectionately in Washington. It saddens my visit
to think that he is no more; that he has gone from you and
has left to you but a sweet and fragrant memory. It was
my good fortune to come into contact with him early in my
service as Secretary of War, and to know how he cherished his
dear old home of Tacoma. I think I told you when I was
here two years ago that he wore out the steps of the War
Department trying to get me to recommend that a government
reservation should be turned over to the city as a park. He
said, "Mr. Secretary, if you will only do this my people of
Tacoma will put a monument in that Park that can be seen
way down Puget Sound"; and I said to him, "Why, Cush,
old man, you would make a good deal better monument than
I would, and what I will do is to get that park and then they
will put up a monument to you." Of course, those things
were said in kindly jest, but I am here to suggest to the people
of Tacoma that they could not honor a more loving son -
290




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


291


one who had served them better - than by putting up a
monument to Francis Cushman in Wright's Park. First,
he was an honest man; second, he was a courageous man;
third, he was a man of intellect; fourth, he had a genial,
kindly heart; and, fifth, he had that delicious flavor of
humor that made everybody love to be with him and to come
under its influence. There was something about Cushman
that always reminded me of Lincoln. He was not a handsome man- neither was Lincoln - but it is impossible to
think of either without an admiration for something about
his physical make-up that appealed to you as an evidence of
his straight-forward simplicity and love of his fellow-men.
His humor, flashes of which have outlasted his life in Washington, comes back every time I think of him. Ile was going
into the tariff debate, and he had known that his committee
had voted for a dollar on lumber, and he wanted to keep it
up to $2, but he was a party man; he believed in party; he
believed that the maintenance of the solidarity of the Republican party on the whole was more important than his opinion
on a particular issue, and so he was marching up to meet
that particular thing he expected to be done, lumber carried
from $2 to $1, but when he rose in that House, he said he
wasn't hastening the moment because he felt a little bit like
that gentleman who in the early days had established a
small ranch, and then increased his herd of cattle by a
judicious selection from his neighbors' herds until they came
to the conclusion that it was necessary for him to swing from
a limb; and when they asked him to come, he said he was
coming - that he wasn't hurrying because he said that while
it was an event in which he had very considerable interest,
he could not describe his attitude as one of enthusiasm.
I remember another of his witticisms. There was a
gentleman in office in Washington whom " Cush" didn't think
to be very popular in the West, and so at a Gridiron dinner,
at which the President was present, after it was announced
that this gentleman was about to retire, "Cush" expressed
proper regret at his going, but said that he was bound to




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


admit that when news of that retirement came to the West
there would not be a dry throat west of the Missouri River.
And so, my friends, Cushman went on through life - helping
every one by his optimism- helping every one by his apt
story - helping every one by his good fellowship, by his
high standard, and by his wish to stand by his fellows. I am
sorry, deeply sorry, that you have lost him as a Representative. I am sorry, deeply sorry, that I have lost him as a
friend. And I could not come into this community after
having been introduced to you, as I was by him two years ago,
and having been associated with him since in a close and
intimate way, without paying this tribute to a man who
loved his people, to a man who deserved well of his people,
to a man who loved his country, and to a man who deserved
well of his country.
Now, my friends, I do not know what I am going to talk
about exactly. I have delivered six or eight set speeches on
subjects that I think ought to command the attention of
Congress, and I have gotten rid of those. I felt about them
very much as boys do about written examinations, and now
I do not have anything to tie me down. I can talk to you
about anything, if I can think of anything to say. There
are one or two things I would like to argue with you, because
perhaps you differ with me. It isn't of much use to talk
with a olan and to try to convince him of something he is
already convinced of, to talk with him about something
that he believes even more strongly than you do; but there
is a subject in which possibly in this audience I shall find a
number who disagree with me. I talked to an audience over in
Seattle about it, and that is the question as to what we ought
to do about Alaska. You are interested in Alaska here.
The State of Washington - Seattle and Tacoma are the
nearest ports to that great possession of the United States.
Now, in the first place, we have to admit that we haven't
any reason to be proud of the governmental arrangements
that we have raide in Alaska. Unfortunately, there is right
next to Alaska e country that has been governed by our




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neighbors on the north, and that government compares
most favorably with our government of Alaska, and we
ought to do something about it. It is proposed that we should
give to Alaska a territorial form of government, permitting the thirty or forty thousand people who are there,
to elect a legislature, a governor and other territorial officers
to exercise legislative power in that vast territory. Well,
that sort of a proposition, of course, appeals to Americans
because we Americans are generally in favor of popular
government. We believe that popular government among
intelligent people is better, because we believe that each set
of men, call it class or otherwise, as you choose, men similarly
situated are better able generally to decide through their
representatives what is to their interest than if you leave it
to somebody else; and hence we favor popular government
and representative government, but that assumes certain
conditions that make it possible for the people to act
intelligently.
Now, what is the condition in Alaska? They have 35,000
or 40,000 people there, but they are a nomadic people.
There are very few permanent residents attached to the soil.
There are miners, moving from one mining camp to another.
There are saloon-keepers, for that seems to be a very important element in that territory, who change from one place to
another, and they are not so situated with reference to the
permanent attachment to the soil, or with reference to a
distribution through the entire territory, which is enormous,
reaching from British Columbia to the Arctic Ocean —
they are not so situated that they could provide a government
of people having similar interests and reaching similar conclusions with reference to the whole territory. They are
situated in one corner, or they are so scattered that it seems
most unwise to me to attempt to make out of so small a
community an organized territory and a territorial government. But you say, "If you don't do that, what are you
going to do? They ought to have some authority in the
territory that has power to legislate upon domestic matters.




294        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
They ought to have some authority in the territory exercised
by people who are on the ground and who understand the
local needs." I agree to that. I think that is one of the
things that has been most lacking. We have, of course, a
commission of army officers there to build roads. We have
some judges up there who exercise judicial jurisdiction and
some sort of other jurisdiction.  We have collectors of
internal revenue, and we have a Governor, who has some
authority, chiefly of making recommendations to Congress;
_ id then we have a Delegate who comes to Congress, who
does not vote but who suggests methods by which improvements can be made. But there is nobody to do anything
in the sense of acting on the ground and making laws and
regulations, which shall meet the needs of that territory.
Now, how are you going to bring it about? If they are
not in a condition justifying local self-government, as I
believe they are not, there is only one other way by which
they can do it, and that is the way we pursued in the Philippines. There President McKinley appointed a commission
of five persons, who went out to the Philippines and lived
there and familiarized themselves with the needs of the
Islands. The commission had the power to legislate on
all matters of domestic concern except customs, and here in
Alaskawe might well omit land laws, mining laws and possibly
a number of other general statutes with reference to the jurisdiction of courts. But if you give to the President the power
to appoint five men who are to go there and settle and live
there while they exercise their office, pay them good salaries
- men who have no interest in the territory - and make it
essential that they shall have no interest there of any sort,
so that they will be entirely free from factionalism and
sectionalism. Then you will get a body of men who will pass
intelligently on measures needed to build up the territory
and whose recommendations Congress will be glad to follow.
Congress, on the other hand, will give to these men the
power of local legislation - power to make certain things
crimes, to make other things misdemeanours - power to




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levy internal taxation, power to make improvements; and
then if you get such a commission, I doubt not that it will
recommend to Congress to help railroads, because railroads
can not be built by private enterprise in a country so far away
and where so much risk attends the investment. There is
no reason why we should not help Alaska, as we have in the
Philippines helped the railroads there, by guaranteeing for
a certain time the interest on railroad bonds.
There is not a subject in which I take a deeper interest
than I do in the development of Alaska, and I propose, if
Congress will follow my recommendation, to do something
in that territory that shall make it move on. The ground
has hardly been scratched there. Seward was laughed at
for paying seven million dollars for that territory, and I
think we have drawn from there already $200,000,000 of
gold. The agricultural possibilities of the country, the
forests and the timber that are there, are not fully understood.
We do know that there is a wealth of coal that can be mined
and that will make coal cheaper along the whole Pacific
Coast. It is worth while, therefore, for us to take it up as
a business matter. These things are to be treated from a
common sense standpoint, not from a purely sentimental
one, and if you believe in your hearts, as I believe in mine,
that for ten years at least we will give a better government
there by sending up five able, honest, disinterested men to
pass laws, to recommend legislation to Congress, and to do
the things that are needed to lead that territory on to proper
development -- if you believe it in your heart, then you ought
to say so, and you ought not to be led aside by what seems
to be for the moment a popular cry.
I know that the newspapers of Alaska have forwarded a
telegram, and I think it got into the papers, in which they
recommend that they have a territorial legislature. Now,
I am not going to impugn their motives. It is not necessary.
I do think that their situation is such that they are much more
likely to look upon themselves as able to legislate than perhaps men who look at it from a standpoint of indifference




~296       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
and who understand the nomadic or moving character of
the population. You would hardly arrange for a mining
camp to be a territory. It is agricultural soil and attachment to the ground itself that makes a permanent population
and that is safe to legislate and maintain a popular
government.
Now, I have said as much on that subject as I intend to
say, except this, that there are a great many people who
agree with me and I think there are a majority in
Congress who believe that the territory is not in a condition
to justify an organized territorial government. Those who
are in favor, intensely in favor of developing Alaska,
will perceive that my proposition is much more likely
to receive support, and that, even if they really believe that
they ought to have organized territorial government on a
popular basis, it is a great deal better to get half a loaf than
none at all, and it is better to take the proposition of a commission with legislative power than it is to have the present
unsatisfactory condition of nobody able to legislate there
and nobody to develop the country. I am appealing, therefore, to those who differ with me as to what would be wiser
- to come over to my side, because on my side we are much
more likely to get reform and remedial legislation with respect
to Alaska, or to insist upon territorial organization by popular
legislation?
I like to come out here, because I believe that here I find
a people that sympathize deeply with me about the Philippines. The truth is, my political life began in the Philippines, and I rather feel as if I hailed from the gem of the
Pacific than from any state of the Union, in a political sense.
Certainly if it would not have been for them, I would not
be President of the United States; and when I come to a
people who are as interesting as you are, I like to talk with
them because my sympathy and my hopes are far out in the
Pacific from a personal standpoint.
I am convinced that with the adoption in this last tariff
bill of free-trade with the Philippines, the people of Tacoma,




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Seattle and San Francisco are going to live to see the day
when they will thank God for the passage of that bill. I
came over from Seattle this afternoon with a gentleman
who congratulated me on the immediate effect of the
bill, and said that if I wanted to I could use his certification that the trade has already begun. IHe said that he had
just sold 100,000 barrels of flour to Manila, and that a great
many other things had been sold in the same direction. They
are going to have a good many cloths, like pifia cloth, that
will attract the attention of the ladies, and will lead them to
buy it because it will come over at a cheap rate and because
it is very pretty. I am not a judge of it myself. There are
summer hats of a delightful texture -I know because I
have worn them - and there are many other things that the
deft fingers of the Filipinos will make and export into this
country. On the other hand, your manufactures, your flour
and other things that you raise will go out to the Philippines,
all because the duties have been taken off at both ends.
I want to congratulate you on the fact that in the next
fifty years the growth of this world's business is to be in the
Pacific - and you are on the Pacific. You have one of the
most magnificent harbors in the world. I do not need to
convince you about that I believe, and here at the end of
three or four great transcontinental lines you have an opportunity to play an important part in the Oriental trade of
this country.
Japan is making giant strides to control the Oriental trade.
She is trying to get trade in China, just as we are. China
is waking up from her dream of centuries past. She is
developing and the more she develops the more we ought to
like it.  We ought not to proceed on the theory that the
proper kind of a country for us to deal with is a country
that sells to us things at a cheaper price than they ought to
bring, and that will give us a higher price than our things
ought to bring. That is the way modern commerce is carried
on. The great countries that deal with us profitably are
the countries who know what they want and whose business




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IPRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS1ES


is of such great extent that they are able to deal with us on a
level, and that is the kind of development that we ought to
hope for China. With China growing, with Japan growing,
with the Philippines growing, and you here at the end of two
or three transcontinental lines, with a harbor so magnificent
as this is, I do not know what your future is going to be.
It is full of hope and if I did not know that you are just as
full of hope as you ought to be, I would emphasize it.
But, that trade is to be carried in what? It is to be carried
in ships. Now, whose ships ought it to be carried in? [Cries
of "ours ".] Yes, you are right - you ought to go to the
head. And yet we haven't a ship - well, you have; there
is the Minnesota, and I am not going to cross the bridge
that carried me over; it is a comfortable ship and it took me
across the ocean, but it is the one ship you have here with
an American flag. There are some in the Pacific Mail in
San Francisco.
If the bill introduced in Congress by one of your Congressmen from Washington, Mr. Humphrey, passes, offering
a subsidy, we shall have a number of lines to the Orient
and several lines between New York and the southeastern
coast of South America, where there is another trade we
are likely to lose because Europe is putting on many fast
lines running to that part of the world.
This bill is an experiment. We are earning by our
foreign mail upward of six or eight million dollars a year
profit, that is, the stamps that we sell and our part of the
money that is collected for foreign mail exceed our expenditures from six to eight million dollars. And all this bill
proposes is that that sum shall be invested in subsidies to be
paid to a number of lines to the Orient and to several lines
to South America, so that we may try it out and see how
it will work. Now, I say that it is wise to do that. There
are gentlemen who will oppose it, and oppose it consistently,
because they say it is paying money out of the public treasury
into the pockets of private individuals. It is, but it is not
paying it for them to keep it there. It is paying it for them




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to run ships out of which they can make no profit at all unless
they get it out of what we pay to them; in other words, out
of what is paid to them they will have to pay a large proportion in order to be able to compete with the ships of other
nations, so that it is not paying the subsidy into their pockets
for nothing. It is paying something into their pockets for
them to do something which will inure to the benefit of the
country.
Mr. Thomas B. Reed used to express his opinion of men
who opposed what he regarded as beneficial legislation
because somebody was likely to profit by it. " Oh, yes," he
said, "he is one of those men opposed to the bill because a
man might make $1.50." Now, that spirit I deprecate.
We have proceeded to invest money in our rivers and harbors so that steamboats could run on them. Well, that
money came out of your pocket and mine and through other
sources of taxation to put water into the stream so that the
steamboats should run on it. The man who runs the steamboat on the water gets profit out of it. Are not we helping
him by direct contribution to do his business? So it is with
the protective tariff. We put up a tariff for the purpose
of increasing prices and making everybody contribute a
little bit in order to have our industries diversified. This
subsidy is exactly on the same principle. We cannot protect
it by the tariff because the competition is by foreign vessels
which we can not control, and the only thing we can do is to
pay the money directly instead of making a protective tariff.
People run away from the name subsidy. It is a subsidy. I am not afraid to call it so. It is paid for the purpose
of giving a merchant marine to the whole country so that
the trade of the whole country may be benefited thereby, and
the men running the ship will of course make a reasonable
profit. It is difficult for anybody with any amount of money
to run a vessel if he be an American and subject to American
laws and make a profit. He can not do it; and we are trying
to help him out with this subsidy so that he may make
a reasonable profit. We are not making him a millionaire




30(        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
either. When he gets the subsidy he has to work hard to
earn it and to make a reasonably small profit. We are
gradually convincing those through the Middle West of the
mistake of their opposition and the wisdom of paying such
subsidies for the purpose of increasing our merchant marine.
It is said we have a great foreign trade at any rate.  It is
increasing every year, so what is the need of this. Let
the rest of the world do our carrying business. If they will
do it at a cheap rate, let's get it and save our money. The
difficulty about that is that when you control the merchant
marine, you do control trade. It is seen in South America.
The facility with which steamer lines can be established
between Europe and the ports of South America has led
to their getting more and more proportionately of the trade
between the eastern ports and South America, and so it is
everywhere. When you control the merchant marine you
control the avenues of trade, and you are able to divert it in
one direction or another; therefore, it is a great instrument
to help us increase our international trade.
I ought to say about that trade that one of our troubles is
that we are altogether too conceited. We feel, for instance,
that we have so much business here that if they do not like
the patterns which we make, if they do not like the looms
upon which our textile fabrics are made, they need not take
them, and the consequence is we lose the trade. We need
our foreign trade, and our merchants have to learn that they
must make the same effort with the foreign trade as with
the domestic trade. This is the course which has been
followed by great companies that have made foreign commerce a success. But I merely note in passing that which
has been made most apparent to those of us who have lived
in the Orient - that the German and Swiss and Japanese
manufacturers consult with the utmost attention the desires
of the Oriental, and it is just as well that we should. If we
want to sell something, we had better make it attractive to
the men who wish to buy it.
Now, something which ought to appeal to all of us is that




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unless we have a merchant marine, our navy if called upon
for offensive or defensive work is going to be most defective.
We haven't tonnage enough to-day in our foreign trade to
enable us to give to the navy the auxiliary ships that will
be necessary to carry ammunition, coal and those other
things that are necessary in order to fit the sailors and maintain the ships. Therefore, we ought to exert ourselves to
produce that tonnage so when the time comes that the life
of the nation is in danger and we need the navy to protect
us against invasion or against attack, we should have the
auxiliary under our own flag in order to make the operations
of the navy effective.
I have talked a good deal longer than I have had a right.
I have become interested in these subjects, and have gotten
into a perspiration over them, but I believe thoroughly what I
have said to you, and I hope when you go home and think it
over, you will come over to my side; at any rate, if you do not,
that you will believe I have been in earnest in what I have
said.
I thank you sincerely for your attention. I hope your
community will go on increasing in wealth and in intelligence, if that is possible.




XXXII
ADDRESS AT THE ARMORY, PORTLAND, ORE.
(OCTOBER 2, 1909)
Mr. Mayor; Ladies and Gentlemen; Citizens of Portland:
WISH to extend to your distinguished Mayor and your
people of this beautiful city my heartfelt acknowledgment of the cordial reception which I have had at your hands
since reaching your city this morning. I wish to thank the
veterans of the Grand Army for the honor which they have
done me to-night in escorting me to this hall. I appreciate
the motive of these men who helped preserve the Union,
who recognize in me the Commander-in-chief, under the
Constitution, of that country which they did so much to
preserve and save.
I am going to-night, my friends, if my voice holds out,
and your patience holds out, to take a little review of the
present administration, of what it has done, and of what it
has agreed to do. In the first place the party of the administration agreed to revise the tariff, and in my judgment, that
agreement involved a revision downward, because, under
the theory of the protective tariff after a ten years' trial, the
effect of competition ought to have made rates of tariff less
necessary generally than they were ten years ago. Now the
tariff bill which was passed was, in my judgment, a substantial revision downward, but it was not, in certain important respects, a compliance with the terms in respect to the
woolen schedule, and perhaps there might be some other
things mentioned of that character, but the truth was, that
the States that were interested in the manufacture of woolens
and the states that were interested in the preservation of the
woolen industry united and prevented a change of that tariff,
$02




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


which had been reached by agreement after very difficult
negotiation.
Now, the question was whether, because that bill did not,
in all respects, comply with the terms of the party, members
of the House and of the Senate should decline to vote for it,
and the President should decline to sign it. After thinking
the matter over, I became convinced that it was my highest
duty to sign it, for the reason that while, in certain respects,
it was defective, it was nevertheless the best tariff bill which
the Republican party had ever offered to the people, and it
was necessary that a tariff bill should be passed, in order that
the prosperity which we were awaiting should come. As
long as there remained unsettled the important question
of the tariff, business would not resume with the prosperity
and the energy and the enterprise which it would have when
business conditions became settled.
Again, we are engaged in running a government by party,
and because some of us are disappointed with respect to
some things that the party does not do, if we think that party
considerations are of higher importance, if we think that in
order to accomplish anything, we must have solidarity of
party, then we may well weigh our personal predilections
with reference to some issues, in order that we may maintain
a strong party front and accomplish affirmatively the steps
that we believe we ought to accomplish. It is easy enough
to break up a party; it is easy enough to prevent legislation,
but when you are charged with the responsibility before the
country of carrying legislation, then you must have a party
behind you.
Now, that tariff bill not only affected the tariff of the
United States, but it also provided an additional means of
taxation in order to meet the deficit which was promised,
unless some other method of taxation was added to that of the
customs and the then existing internal revenue. At first it
was proposed to have an inheritance tax, and I recommended
that, but the Senate found protests from all the States that
they had occupied that field of taxation, and that they




304       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
desired the United States to keep off that reservation. Accordingly, the question arose, What should we do?
It was proposed in the Senate to pass an income tax law,
to pass a law that had been declared by the Supreme Court
of the United States to be unconstitutional. That court
had held that an income tax was a direct tax, and that a
direct tax, under the Constitution must be levied in accordance with the population of states. Nevertheless there was
a majority in the Senate of Democrats and Republicans in
favor of passing that bill unless some substitute could be
devised which would satisfy the Republicans who were
in favor of an income tax, and not involve the passage of a
bill which had been declared to be unconstitutional. Accordingly it was proposed to have what is now known as the
corporation tax, and also to pass an income tax amendment
to the Constitution; that is, to propose to the States to
amend the Constitution by providing that an income tax
might be levied without apportionment as to population
between the States. And, accordingly, by almost the
unanimous vote of both Houses that amendment has been
proposed to the people of the United States, and the corporation tax was passed in the tariff bill.
I propose, first, to allude to the income tax amendment,
which may come up at any time in the legislature of any of
the States. I sincerely hope that when it does come up it
will pass in each State, and the reason why I hope so is that
I think that such a power in times of need and disaster is
necessary for the central government to maintain itself, and
I would not take from the central government a power
which in war is necessary to save the government.
We had an experience in the Civil War in respect to that
matter. An income tax was levied, and it was supposed,
by reason of judicial decision at that time, that the income
tax was constitutional, but since that time, as you know, by
a late decision - I say late; in 1896 or 1897- it was held
to be unconstitutional. I am not in favor of levying an
income tax such as that which was provided in the bill, in




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times of peace. I am not in favor of it because I think it
will prove to be too inquisitorial as to individuals, and I think
it will be found also that it puts a premium on perjury, so
that the gentlemen whom you are especially after, when you
levy an income tax, will escape, and only those who are too
conscientious will pay more than their share. In times of
dire need it is necessary that we should use such a tax,
objectionable as it is in certain of its features, and, therefore,
I hope it will pass the States.
Now, what is the corporation tax? That is a species of
income tax which the Supreme Court has said was constitutional. It proposes to levy one per cent. on the dividends of
all corporations as an excise tax, upon the business which
they do as corporations. If I understand the decisions of
the Supreme Court, that is held not to be a violation of the
Constitution, because it is not a direct tax, but it is only
a tax on business; it is an excise tax. That brings under
Federal control in a sense and under Federal supervision
in a sense all corporations. The tax is not levied on incomes
of corporations less than $5,000, but all corporations for
gain are required to file returns which show their gross
receipts, their expenses, their debts, bonded or otherwise,
and certain other general facts which will show their condition and enable the tax-gatherer to assess the proper
taxation.
If the Commissioner of Internal Revenue shall have
reason to believe by evidence that those returns are inaccurate
in any case, then he may send an agent who shall examine
the corporate officers and the corporate books and such other
witnesses as may be necessary to determine what the actual
condition of the corporation in question is.
Now, that is a qualified publicity provision with respect
to all corporations of the country, and I think it is an excellent incidental benefit of the corporation tax. It is said
it is not fair, because on one side of the street is a partnership
that is not a corporation, doing exactly the same business
that the corporation is doing on the other side of the street.




306       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
But the corporation on the other side of the street has certain
advantages in doing its business which are not enjoyed by the
partnership. One advantage, and a very decided one, is that
the partners are liable in all their estate for the debts of the
partnership, whereas the share-holders in the corporation
are liable only to the amount of their stock, or, under some
State constitutions, to double that. Again, the corporation
lives forever; a partnership dies with the death of one of the
partners. Other advantages may occur to you, but these
two are sufficient to make a distinction. If the corporation
does not choose to continue, and they can divide back again
into a partnership, they can do so, and nobody will charge
them a tax, but as long as they enjoy the privilege of doing
business as a corporation, and carry on their business with
that advantage, then the Federal Government has a right to
levy, and it seems to me it is a wise tax for the Government
to levy.
It is not a heavy tax; one per cent. -that is one per cent.
on a year's income. If you own ten shares of $100 each,
that is $1,000, and you receive six per cent.; that would be
$60, and one per cent. on that would be sixty cents. It is
not a very heavy tax, and I doubt if it will reduce the dividend
in the case of any corporation, because a well regulated corporation ordinarily does not declare all of its earnings into
the dividends. But whether it does or not, I do not mean
to say that it is not a tax, but it is not heavy. It will raise
about $26,000,000 or $30,000,000, and that will make up
the deficit as it is calculated between the expenditures of
the Government and the amount raised from the customs
and the internal revenue.
Another provision of the tariff law is the section which
declared free trade between the Philippines and the United
States, and that, my friends, you are decidedly more interested
in from the standpoint of your pocket than I am, because,
unless I am no prophet at all, unless I know nothing of the
Philippine Islands, and am no judge of the business that is
to grow out of our association in free trade with them, you




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are going to find a trade with the Philippines that will grow
each year, that will become more and more valuable to you,
that will become more and more valuable to the Philippine
Islands; so that when the time comes that we can say to the
Filipinos: "Here, we have educated you all up to selfgovernment, and you are at liberty to go and become a
separate nation, and cut off our business associations and
have a tariff between us," you will find, in my judgment,
that neither the Filipinos on the one side, nor we on the
other will desire that severance.
The corporation tax, I have said, gives some Federal
supervision over corporations. If you were to look into the
statistics of the corporations and try to find out how many
there are in this country and what business they are doing
and what earnings they are having and what their expenses
are, I venture to think you would be in a mass of statistics
in which vou would lose yourselves. The fact is, there are
at present no means of telling what our corporations are
doing. In some States they are required to make reports,
and in others not. All the difficulties that we have had in
respect to the standards of business, in respect to monopolies,
in respect to those things that Theodore Roosevelt denounced,
and intended to bring about legislation which should stop
-- all those things have arisen out of corporations and the
privileges which corporations have been given. Now, I
am not here to denounce corporations. We could not get
along without corporations - they are a necessary instrument in the business of this country, and in its prosperity;
but as we give them privileges, as we give them power, so
they must recognize the responsibility with which they
exercise that power, and we must have the means of compelling them to recognize that responsibility and to keep
within the law.
One of the things that enables us to keep them within the
law is to know what they are doing, for one of the things that a
corporation does, if you do not supervise and look closely, is
to hide everything behind it, and this corporation tax is a step




308        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
and a long step toward Federal investigation and supervision
-I had almost said control-of all corporations. Of course,
corporations within the State are State corporations, but
they generally do a large interstate business, and after we
have established this only modified and qualified supervision
of all corporations, we can begin to classify and make more
acute and more direct and more thorough our investigation
of those particular corporations that we are after. I think,
therefore, that this administration has something already
to point to in its accomplishment; that it has passed the
tariff bill, that it has put free trade between the United
States and the Philippines, and that it has taken a long step
toward the proper control of the corporations in the passage
of the corporation tax law.
Another thing which the tariff bill has done, which has
not been commented on particularly, is the provision called
the maximum and minimum clause. The European nations
have not been slow in levying tariffs themselves. And they
have at times discriminated against us in favor of some
other country with which they had friendly relations. They
have also at times imposed such restrictions, hardly in good
faith, upon the importation of our food-stuffs, our lard, our
hogs, our beef and other food products, which we send over
there, as really to exclude us from their markets; and they
have done it in such a way that it was difficult for us to
retaliate or to secure an amelioration of the condition of
exclusion.
Now, this maximum and minimum provision leaves to
the President to say whether any country with which we
have business exercises the power of unduly discriminating
against American products, and if it does not, then they
enjoy the benefit of the minimum or normal rate of tariff
in coming into this country with their products. But if it
does, then the President shall refuse, if in his judgment their
provisions are unduly discriminatory against this country
and in favor of some other country. If that is found to be
the case, then the President shall refuse to proclaim that the




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minimum tariff is in effect between us and that country,
and thereby the maximum tariff of 25 per cent. of increase
on everything goes into force.
They have maximum and minimum tariffs in other countries. Up to this time we have had none here, and every
time we wanted to get even with some country in order to
make that country come down and do justice to us, we have
had to appeal to Congress to change the rates, and that was
a very clumsy and generally an impossible thing to do,
because Congress does not want to change one rate without
changing a great many others. So this now transfers that
power to the Executive, and enables the Executive to act
without waiting for Congressional action. What is going
to be its effect? Not that we are going into a tariff warnot at all. I sincerely hope I shall not be called upon to
exercise this power in a single case with respect to a single
country, because the existence of the power is enough to
prevent other countries from exercising that discrimination
against us when they are advised that we have weapons of
our own with which to retaliate.
Another and most important, provision of the tariff is that
which enables the President to appoint or employ as many
experts as he sees fit, consistent with the appropriation of
$75,000, made to assist him in the execution of this maximum
and minimum tariff clause, and also to assist him and other
officers in the execution of the tariff law itself. I construe
that to give me power to appoint a board, which I have
appointed, which shall go into this tariff business thoroughly,
which shall assist me with respect to a knowledge of foreign
tariffs, whether they are unduly discriminatory, and if so,
how; also to tell me of the operation of this tariff, to tell me
the cost of things here, and the cost of things abroad, and to
explain to me what these mysterious technical and business
expressions in the tariff law mean. You hear a great deal
about the tariff, but I would like to have you take up a tariff
bill and go through it and then tell me what it means.
Why, it is just like so much Choctaw to a man who is not




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an expert, and you take an expert on a part of it and he will
find that a good deal of the rest that he is not an expert on is
Choctaw. So what I wish to use this board for, and what I
think under the law I have a right to use it for, is to make
a glossary, to make an encyclopedia, to make what is comparable to the United States Pharmacopoeia with respect to
drugs, so that when a thing is completed and you take up the
tariff law and come to something you do not understand,
you can turn to that particular head in the encyclopedia and
find out what it means, find out what the exact rate is ad
valorem, find out where the article is produced, how many
factories in this country, how many in other countries are
producing it, and in what quantity; find out how it is produced and what labor goes into it, and what the material
costs here and abroad. When we have that, we shall have
something upon which the Senate and the House and the
people can act intelligently in respect to the revision of the
tariff.
Now, my friends, that is what has been done. What is
there yet to do? In the first place, this administration was
elected on a platform that we proposed to carry out the policies of Theodore Roosevelt, and we propose to keep that
promise. Let us see what those policies were, speaking
generally. I had occasion to say the other night that one
little difficulty in carrying out those policies is that there are
sometimes indefinite views as to what those policies are.
There are some gentlemen, to use an expression that I have
heard good Catholics use when they say that a man is even
more Catholic than the Pope, who are more Rooseveltian
than Mr. Roosevelt; and when they get a fad that Mr.
Roosevelt may have heard of or may not have heard of, but
which they are very much attached to, they like to gather it in
as a part of the Roosevelt policies, and then if you do not
subscribe to it, they denounce you as a traitor to the Roosevelt policies.
Well, I was in Mr. Roosevelt's Cabinet four years and had
some opportunity to understand what his policies were.




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The fact is, it fell to my lot to take the platform and discuss
them, by his direction and with his sympathy, and therefore
I think I know pretty generally what the Roosevelt policies
are and what the platform of the Republican party meant
when it pledged the party in the administration, if elected,
to the carrying out of these policies.
Mr. Roosevelt's chief policy was the determination to
make the great corporations of this country obey the law,
and those great corporations included two classes; the railroads and the great industrial corporations that did a large
industrial business, and that had shown a tendency to try
to monopolize that business and control prices and suppress
competition. Mr. Roosevelt impressed upon the country,
impressed upon Congress, and succeeded in inducing Congress to pass what was known as the Hepburn Rate Bill, and
that was for the purpose of enabling the Interstate Commerce Commission to fix rates when complaint was made
as to their unreasonableness. Up to that time the only thing
that the Commission could do was to say, "We believe this
rate is unreasonable, and you must fix another rate"; but
that law said: "No, when you find that the rate is unreasonable, then it is your business to go on and fix a reasonable
rate."
The law gave greater power to the Commission in other
respects in detail, which I shall not dwell upon; but it contained a provision for a court of review. There was considerable discussion as to whether it ought to do so or not.
In my judgment it ought to have done so but it did not make
any difference whether it did so or not; there would be a
court of review of a decision of the Interstate Commerce
Commission. A court of review arises from a constitutional
right of a railroad company or any other corporation owning
property to obtain from its use a fair compensation; and,
therefore, if the rates were confiscatory, to complain that it
was property taken away from them without due process of
law. Hence the situation was this - if you attempted by
such a law to prevent recourse to the courts it would invalidate




-312       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
the law; if you gave recourse to the courts, well and good;
if you did not say anything about it, then there was recourse
to the courts anyhow. So that the question really was a
moot one.
Now, the friends of the measure, many of them, dreaded
the reference to the court because it was thought that this
would delay action and prevent a rapid fixing of rates; and
I am inclined to think from the reports of the Interstate
Commerce Commission that this fear has proven to be well
founded, and that the reference to the court, to the circuit
courts and the court of appeals has delayed the remedies
sought before the Interstate Commerce Commission, so
that we ought to make some other provision in order to
expedite those proceedings.
For myself, I think it wise, after a consultation with the
Commission, and after conferring with members of the Cabinet, to recommend the establishment of one court of five
members to whom all such appeals shall be referred. The
fact that they have no other jurisdiction will make them
experts; the fact that they sit as five men will enable them
to dispose of the business rapidly, and then a case will be
ended, except on an appeal to the Supreme Court.
It is possible to go into one of some forty or fifty United
States Courts all over the country and file your review or
petition for review of the decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission. That produces conflict of decisions
between a judge in Oregon and a judge in Massachusetts,
and prevents that uniformity which is wanted, necessarily,
to establish the proper rights and proper conduct of railroad
companies.
Then there are some other features which ought to be
amended in the Hepburn Bill, which I shall not stop to call
attention to, except to say in the party platform specifically
was provided a promise that a law should be passed referring
to some tribunal the question of how many bonds and how
many shares of stock every interstate railway company may
issue. In other words, a measure to prevent the watering of




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313


stock in the way in which it has gone on heretofore. That
is important in a number of respects. It is important, of
course, because when you water stock you only do it to
deceive people and get them to pay more than the stock is
worth. That is the only object of watering stock. Again,
it is wrong because when you come to determine what a
railroad company ought to earn, the owners of the railroad
company turn at once to their stock and bond account and
say: "Here are our shares of stock, and here are our bonds,
and we ought to earn 5 per cent. on our bonds and 6 per cent.
on our stock." If they water the stock and treble it beyond
the actual property they have, you see that requires they
should pay 18 per cent. of what was the real value of the
railroad, rather than six. In other words, it affects, and
affects most injuriously, the rights of the people in determining what a reasonable compensation for a railroad shall
be. Another thing is that if you pile up the stocks and bonds
of a railroad company in such an amount that they can not
even earn, no matter what they charge, their interest charge
and the dividend on the stock, you are going to have that
company in court in the hands of a receiver; you are going
to prevent the expenditure of money needed to make it a good
common carrier; you are going to interfere with its usefulness in carrying the interstate trade. And there is where the
Federal Government has a right to step in and say, "We
propose to supervise your method of doing business, even
if you are a State corporation only; you are doing an interstate business, and we have a right to impose such a limitation on your method of doing that business as to secure
efficiency and to secure the best kind of a railroad to carry
goods and carry passengers."
Then there is the anti-trust law. That law provides that
any corporation or any combination or conspiracy in restraint
of interstate trade shall be punished. It provides also that
a monopoly shall be punished in interstate trade. It is a
law most difficult to enforce. It is a law that by its terms
is so wide that it includes other restraints of trade than




314


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


those which are with intent to monopolize or with intent to
suppress competition. And if you read some of the decisions
of the court by judges who do not appear to be friendly to
the law, you will find that the very fact that it seems to cover
a great many innocent arrangements which have a tendency
to restrain interstate trade serves to make the law ridiculous.
Now, what I recommend is that the law be so amended as to
narrow it and confine it to combinations and conspiracies to
suppress competition and to establish monopolies, and to
leave out the denunciation of general restraints of trade.
At common law general restraints of trade were not crimes,
but men who entered into a contract that had a tendency
to restrain trade were left to their own devices to secure its
execution. The courts would not enforce it, but this goes
farther and denounces as a crime all restraints by contracts
and combinations and conspiracies in restraint of trade.
Now, what is the effect of that? One effect has been that
the Supreme Court has held that a boycott levied against
interstate trade is within that statute, and the labor unions
and others have complained that that is an extension of a
statute intended to suppress monopolies, trade monopolies
and trade suppression and competition, to something which,
while the letter of the statute permits it, was not intended by
Congress, and was not the evil at which Congress aimed.
I am inclined to think that that complaint is not without
good foundation, and that we ought not to strain the statute
to meet something which in its original conception it was not
intended to remedy. I do not think there is any doubt
about where I stand in respect to boycotts. If there is, I
will just state what I think about them. They are illegal
and they ought to be suppressed.
I would never countenance a law which recognizes their
legality, and I have not hesitated to say so for a good many
years, but I do not think the way to suppress them is to take
a Federal statute that was intended for another evil and make
it apply to them, although the letter of the statute, and
doubtless the judicial construction is right - I am not saying




AND STATE PAPERS


315


anything against that, I am not criticising the courts, but
I am saying it has just happened that the letter of the statute
covers their cases. If the statute is changed as I suggest, the
letter of the statute will not cover their cases. The labor
unions have said they would like to have a definite exception,
saying this statute should not apply to labor unions. I
would not consent to that at all. Labor unions have got
to obey the laws like everybody else. And to introduce a
special exception into a statute is to introduce class legislation,
and that we do not approve in this country at all. But if by 
language which narrows this statute and reaches the evil
which it was intended to reach, and reaches it better than
by lan(guage that is broader and gets in a lot of innocent things
inl addition, we can make it more effective, and in making
it more effective we leave out its application to boycotts, I
have not the slightest objection. I think it is a good result.
The anti-trust law is a hard law to enforce. It is a hard
law to enforce because it is directed against something
which the natural tendency in the spirit - the intense spirit
of competition-leads business men to. They wanted to
avoid competition. They wanted to get ahead of their
competitors, and soon they would proceed to unite with their
competitors to drive everybody else out of the business, and
they would control prices. Twenty or thirty years ago that
seemed all right. But when we began to realize what the
logical result mf that was, and that if it went on we would
soon have every business in the hands of a few men, and we
would all be subject to the tyranny and the greed of those
few men, we saw something had to be done -and this
statute was passed.
Now the statute has been most useful and I believe to-day
that due to Theodore Roosevelt's efforts, and due to the
crusade which he, like Peter the Hermit of old preached,
there has been a new standard introduced into the business of
the country; and that men consult statutes now, and consult
lawyers to know what the lines of the law are. And it is
our business to say to these gentlemen: "Thus far shalt




316


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


thou go, and no farther" -to point out what that line is.
It takes some time for a series of courts to make a decision
which shall be plain to the business world. But we are
going on with this trust law, and if we amend it as I suggest,
we shall draw the lines closer and closer and enable men to
know what is legitimate business on the one hand, and what
is not on the other.
Now, I have a great many friends in business, and have
talked with them on this subject; and I am convinced a
good many of them have a good deal to learn.
A gentleman said to me, "We ought to have a trust law
that shall permit us reasonably to regulate competition, so
that we shall unite to prevent too much competition." Well,
he didn't tell me just what kind of a law that was going to
be; and he did not tell me, because he could not tell me.
Again, you will hear a gentleman say that we ought not
to have a provision for these restraints of trade to suppress
competition which shall be unreasonable; and if they only
reasonably restrain trade, and reasonably suppress competition, and you get a reasonable monopoly, then it is all
right. Well, I don't know what a reasonable monopoly is.
I do know what, at common law, a reasonable restraint of
trade is; and I will explain that to you, if you have the
patience to listen. I didn't expect to speak this long, but
this is a subject most important, and if you will only bear
with me I will get through.
The term "restraint of trade," in English law- common
law-our law-referred to contracts by which a man
agreed that he would not go into business - a certain kind
of business- within a certain territory. Now, that contract
was enforceable at common law if it was reasonable. If it
was unreasonable it was not enforceable. Now, let us see
how the courts arrived at the question whether a contract
was reasonable or not.
The exception as to reasonableness was introduced for
the purpose of enabling a man who had made a good business,
and acquired a good will in that business to dispose of that




AND STATE PAPERS                  317
good will for a price, and to give it to some one else so that
some one else might enjoy it. As, for instance, there is a
merchant doing business in a certain line in the town of
Portland, who wants to sell the good will which by twenty
years' business he has built up and made valuable, and he
goes to John Smith and says, "I want to go out of business;
I will sell you all my plant, and I will sell you my good
will."  "Well," John Smith says, "what is the good
will worth if you can sell it to me and then can go into
business on the next corner? You will get back all your
old customers."  "Ah," says the man who is about to sell,
"but, I will make a contract with you that I will not go into
business in the city of Portland."
Now, that is in restraint of trade. It is in restraint of the
man's own trade. But the common law said that was
reasonable; because the restraint is limited to that which
the man is selling, and which the man is buying. It is what
is necessary to protect the good will and make it property
on the one hand and enable the man with a business to offer
it as something worth having on the other.
Now that is as far as the common law went in saying what
was a reasonable restraint of trade. I need not say to you
that is a narrow phase which in the great industrial business
we are talking about plays no part whatever. But when we
talk about reasonable suppression of competition and of a
reasonably good trust, assuming that a trust intends to
monopolize something, I don't see how you can make any
distinction at all, or how a judge can sit on the bench and say,
"This monopoly is all right, and that is not."  I say all
monopoly is wrong, and all combinations to suppress competition - legitimate  competition - are  wrong.  The
statute ought to say so, and ought to be enforced in that way.
But restraints of trade which are intended to suppress competition are monopolies, and ought not to be regarded
at all.
We are going ahead to enforce that statute. As I say, it
is a difficult statute to enforce; but I think the country is




318


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


prepared now to accept that rule of law. I think the business
community generally is looking with great care to see whether
it is coming within the inhibition of the law; and I hope by
urgent prosecution, and by a change in departments, so we
can get more rapid action, the law may be more promptly
enforced.
There is another Roosevelt policy that we are pledged
to, and that is the conservation of resources. I have
not time to-night, and I will not detain you with a
discussion in detail in respect to that, except to say it covers
the treatment of our forests in such a way as to leave something of those forests to posterity; to leave them so that
they shall restrain and equalize the water supply. That
means also such retention of control over the water powers
of this country by the Government, over those water powers
which in order to be used men must use the Government land,
to retain such control over those that the Government may
be able to supervise or regulate the rates charged for the
power furnished- the electrical power furnished through
those water powers.
Then with reference to the reclamation of arid lands, it
means the Government shall go on and by the use of money
which the public lands bring to it, increase the productive
area of land throughout this arid or semi-arid territory all
over this western country.
Again, it means with respect to coal lands, with respect to
oil lands, and with respect to land which produces fertilizers,
that there should be some provision by which the Government shall prevent the use of those lands by monopolies or
syndicates which shall monopolize the use of the coal, the
use of the fertilizer, or the use of the oil.
Now, I do not mean to say those problems have all been
worked out; but I do say we have gone so far in the matter
of the waste of our resources as that men have seen it, and
have been able to call a halt and impress-the public mind
with the necessity for action. And when Congress meets, I
purpose to bring the matter before them and to ask Congress




AND STATE PAPERS                319
to amend the statutes so as to put more power in the hands of
the Executive in respect to the' disposition of this domain,
with respect to imposing conditions on the use of the lands
which the public gives to its citizens for settlement, in order
that there may be a retention of power in respect to these
resources, and that they may not be turned over to men who
will not observe proper rules, so that on the whole we may not
look back upon a field of disaster and waste of which we
should not be proud in our history.
Now, my friends, I have talked to you a great deal too long;
but these are subjects I am interested in and you came in here
and deliberately sat here and didn't move out, and you have
had to pay the penalty. I thank you.




XXXIII


REMARKS     TO   THE    PUPILS   OF   ST. MARY'S
ACADEMY AT PORTLAND, OREGON
(OCTOBER 3, 1909)
Young Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls:
OU see I make some distinction in the matter of age.
His Grace, the Archbishop, called you all his children,
as you are, but I have to make a distinction.
I am delighted to see you, and I thank the Archbishop,
the clergy and the teachers for giving me an opportunity
to come" here this afternoon and to look into your faces. I
understand that you are curious; that you are interested to
see the President of the United States, to see what manner
of man he is. I am very much interested to see you and to
see in your faces and in your bearing the indications of the
coming generation in Oregon.
I was delighted to hear you sing "America." That is
our song, although the air first came from Germany, and
then was appropriated by England and now is appr priated
by us; but it is a beautiful air, and it is the words tl  make
the sentiment, and the sentiment of that song I am sure
searches your hearts, as it does those of older people.
Your church teaches that loyalty to God is the same as
fidelity to country and reverence for constituted authority,
and so do all good churches; and we can be very certain that
those who are loyal to their church are certain to be loyal
to the country; that those who are good Catholics are good
citizens, just as those who are consistoaol members of every
church find in the doing of their duty to the church everything
that leads them on to the uplifting of humanity and the
observation of all the obligations to government.
320




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES                321
And now, my boys and girls, I am going to say goodbye. I wish you all prosperity. I can see in your faces a
healthiness, chubbiness and determination, so that when you
get into your games you strive to win. I hope you do, but
I also hope that when somebody else is a little stronger or
a little better or a little fleeter and that somebody else wins,
you will have self-restraint to be good losers. For it sometimes takes a good deal more firmness and character and
substance that will carry us through life to bear the humiliation of defeat than to achieve success and win; not that you
ought not to try to win. You ought to have the feeling when
you win a race that the next time somebody will beat you,
and if he does, render to him what is due him.
Now my friends, good-bye. I am delighted to have met
you. I hope this scene will remain in your memories, as
it certainly will in mine. I wish you all prosperity. God
bless you all.




XXXIV


ADDRESS AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNERSTONE OF THE UNIVERSALIST CHURCH,
IRVINGTON, PORTLAND, OREGON
(OCTOBER 3, 1909)
Mr. Pastor, Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
DON'T    know that anybody questions the propriety
of my attendance on this occasion, or that it is necessary for me to enter into an explanation. I conceive it to
be the duty of the President of the United States to welcome
and encourage and support every instrument by which the
standard of morals and religion in the community may be
elevated and maintained. It was my pleasure and my
opportunity to take part in the dedication of an orthodox
Congregational Church in Washington in the spring; my
pleasure to take part in ceremonies in a Jewish tabernacle
in Pittsburg; to officiate as the layer of the cornerstone of a
Roman Catholic university at Helena, and now to take
what part I may in the ceremonies of laying the cornerstone
of a Universalist Church in this beautiful suburb of Portland.
And I do it because I believe that the cornerstone of modern
civilization must continue to be religion and morality.
We have in our Constitution separated the civil from the
religious. It was at one time my good fortune to visit Rome
in order by negotiation to effect a settlement of a number of
questions which had arisen between the Roman Catholic
Church and the civil government in the Philippines. The
government of the Philippines under Spain had illustrated
that system known in the Spanish Government as the union
of Church and State. Their interests were so inextricably
united that it seemed almost impossible to separate them
322




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


323


but with the consent and acquiescence of all denominations
in this country, I was authorized to go to Rome to meet the
head of the great Roman Catholic Church, in order to see
if those matters might not be settled amicably. I am glad
to say that the result of the visit was a satisfactory settlement, equitable and just to both sides. But I started to
mention it in order to relate that I ventured to say to the
Pope that the division between Church and State in this
country and their separation was not in the slightest degree
to be taken as an indication that there was anything in our
government or in our people which was opposed to the Church
and its highest development, and I ventured to point out
that in the United States the Roman Catholic Church had
flourished and grown as it had not grown in many European
countries, and that it had received at the hands of the
government as liberal and as just and as equal treatment
as every other church; no better and no worse; but that that
was not to be taken as an indication that every officer of the
government properly charged with his responsibility would
not use all the official influence that he had to encourage the
establishment of churches, their maintenance and the broadening of their influence in order that morality and religion
might prevail throughout the country.
This is a Universalist Church, known as a liberal church.
I think it must have been a Universalist who said that the
Universalists believed that they would be saved because
God was good; that the Unitarians believed they would be
saved because Unitarians were good. But whatever the
creed, we have reached a time in this country when the
churches are growing together; when they are losing the
bitterness of sectarian dispute; when they appreciate that
it is necessary, in order that their influence be felt, that they
stand shoulder to shoulder in the contest for righteousness.
They believe in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood
of man; and the real broad Christian statesman is glad to
accept from every quarter the assistance which will elevate
the people and lead them on in that progress that we all




3.24


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


believe the American people are making. If they are not
attaining higher moral standards, then all this material progress, all this advance in luxury and comfort is worth nothing.
I am an optimist. I believe we are better to-day than
we were fifty years ago, man by man. I believe we are more
altruistic. I believe that each man is more interested in
his fellow than he was fifty or one hundred years ago. I
know you can point to instances of self-depravity, of selfishness and greed, but I believe those instances are made
more prominent because we condemn them more, and because
by being made prominent the happening of them is made
less likely.
I am glad to be here. I hope this church will thrive. I
hope it will maintain its high principles of making a good
man and a good citizen and mixing them together. I
welcome the opportunity to be able as President of the
United States to say there is no church in this country,
however humble, which preaching true religion, which preaching true morality, will not have my support and my earnest
effort to make it more successful when opportunity offers.




XXXV


ADDRESS AT HOTEL FAIRMONT AT BANQUET
TENDERED BY CITIZENS OF SAN FRANCISCO
(OCTOBER 5, 1909)
Mr. Mayor and Men of San Francisco:
THIS is the fifth time that I have had the honor and
the pleasure of visiting your great city. And I am
going to come again when I can. I have not had the privilege at any timeof staying long.  But one of the great
advantages of your city is that you do not have to stay
long to like it well. There is something so cosmopolitan,
something so free and open-hearted in the way in
which you take in strangers, something  so  confident
on your part that you have something to give to us
which we ought to know and love and feel grateful about as
long as San Francisco lives, that I come here always with
a feeling that, first I am coming where I am welcome;
second, that I will always carry away in my heart a
memory, sweet and always to be called up when I think
of my favorite cities.
I shall feel deeply this expression of your good fellowship.
You have added to the character of San Francisco in the
last three years something that makes you exceptional in the
history of the world. I know, because there was a time when
I had some responsibility connected with it - I know how
that first year after the disaster that visited you seemed an
unsurmountable obstacle to your restoring the city to the
imperial sway that it had upon this coast. And we in the
East were considering whether your power was to pass
northward or southward, and were regretting that the
Golden Gate and your magnificent harbor were not to be




326


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


in accord with the city upon its shores. And yet you have
overcome all of this.
I do not know how you have done it. Somebody ought to
write a history about it and tell how it was that you overcame not alone the disaster, but the difficulties that in your
own population you had to meet and that seemed for a
time entirely impossible to overcome. I do not wonder that
you are proud of it. I do not wonder that your orators can
speak of nothing else, for that fills the measure of your memories during the last three years. I had intended to make
a staid, sober, dull, business speech to you. It did occur
to me as I heard what we had been delighted to hear to-night,
that there was an answer to a question which was put to me
with respect to the presidential tour. A man said to me,
"It's all right in respect to your going and imparting information to the people. But how are they going to impart it to
you with reference to the needs of their sections?"  It
occurred to me as I sat here this evening that if that man
had been here to-night he might have heard a hint or two.
Now, there are certain local matters of which I have heard
with reference to which I should like to speak, because I am
deeply interested in them. You have undertaken to furnish
an auxiliary coast artillery force. The United States agrees
to equip it and give it instruction, so that if your shores are
ever threatened that force will be trained to work the guns
for which in the Federal army we have but about a quarter of
the men required.
I understand that there is a movement in San Francisco to erect an armory for that coast artillery. I sincerely hope it will succeed. You could not do anything
that would aid the Government more than in the preparation and the furnishing of such a force. Infantry are
good, and infantry we ought to have. But if you will
furnish a trained force to man the guns, you will give us aforce that, under ordinary circumstances if we did not haven
it, would take at least two and perhaps three years to fitmen to discharge that duty.




AND STATE PAPERS


327


Then I have heard something about the merchant marine.
You are the gateway to the Pacific.
The Philippine Islands have at last had justice done to
them, and we are going to have free trade between them and
this country. And that trade is going to grow. It may
be slow at first, but it will grow so substantially and be of
such mutual advantage to this country and the Philippines
that when the time comes for us to say to them, "Go if you
choose; cut off your relations to us; you are fit for self-government," in my judgment neither they nor this country will
be willing to say so. I do not mean to say that we should not
go on and give them as full a self-government as they desire.
But I do mean to say that they will see it to their advantage,
as you will, that the bond shall not be broken, and that
some sort of relation like that between Australia and England
or between Canada and England, shall be retained, and
the markets of each country opened to the merchants of the
other
You have Alaska on the north. Its wealth - though it
has produced marvellously, measured by the expectations
of those who sat up and threw bricks at Seward for spending
seven millions to buy it - nevertheless hardly has been
scratched. And if I can carry out my purpose, and Congress
will follow my recommendation, we will have in that territory
a government by a commission which shall have legislative
power to attend to the domestic needs of that territory and
recommend to Congress the development that ought to be
going on there.
Congress - and I do not hesitate to say it - has been
derelict. It has not done its duty with respect to Alaska.
It ought to do it now. I know there is a disposition to say
that we ought to give it popular self-government. But I
think that those of you who are familiar with the character
of the settlements in that Territory will agree with me that
they have not reached the time when that is the safest and
best method of government for their real development.
It is easy to catch the applause of the crowd by saying,




3~28      t:PRESIDENTIALI ADDRESSES
"We are bound to self-government, and self-government
is the best government possible."  Well it is- under
conditions favorable to it. But there are times and conditions of a temporary character when it is not the best.
And we ought to say so.
Then we are building the Panama Canal. We are digging
out of it three millions of cubic yards a month. We shall
certainly complete it by the first of January, 1915, and I am
hoping, oh, so fervently, that it will be a considerable time
before that.
China is waking up. It is developing as it never has
before. Its future is bright with the prospects of increased
activity in its industries and the development of its marvellous
resources. Its trade must grow under these conditions,
and its international relationship become more and more
valuable.
Japan is showing marvellous advance in its commercial
strides. And as it does grow in its commercial success
it becomes valuable as a neighbor and a trader and a
customer.
I am in favor of helping the prosperity of all countries
because, when we are all prosperous, the trade of each becomes more valuable to the other.
As has been said to-night, it is true that the future of the
world for the next fifty or one hundred years in progress
lies in the Pacific Ocean, at your gates. The success of your
community as a business community and a trading community is not going to be dependent entirely on whether
you have a merchant marine or not. We have gotten along
in a wonderful way in increasing our international trade
without any merchant marine at all.
But that is no argument and no reason for saying that we
might not have made greater strides and might not have
directed that trade much more intelligently had we had
the ships which helped us to carry that trade to the foreign
countries.
The trade of South America is a most valuable one,




AND STATE PAPERS


reaching up nearly to a billion dollars. Of that sum 250
millions is between the United States and South America.
We have word from our consuls that, appreciating the
importance of that trade, European countries are stimulating
by subsidies, and other means of encouragement that comes
to the same thing, the addition to the number of sailings
of steamships from European ports to South American
ports, and that that addition is showing an effect upon the
trade and moving more of it proportionately to Europe.
Now, we must do something. We have a protective
system in the United States which encourages industries,
and we are able to carry it because these industries are completely within our jurisdiction. But when we enter into
competition on the high seas we can only control our own
ships. We can not control the ships of other countries.
Therefore we must adopt some other method than that which
we pursue with respect to the protection of our industries.
What method is that? I do not know any that commends
itself quite as much to me, because it is on a protective principle, as to furnish to those men who will engage in that
trade enough money to make the difference, to equalize
the difference that they encounter in their competition
with foreign trade by reason of the greater expense of labor,
the greater expense of material and the greater cost incident
to the stricter regulations that we impose with respect to our
sailors, and unless we also add an amount equal to the
subsidies which our competing nations give to their own ships.
That is said to be undemocratic doctrine. It is said to be
subsidy. It is said to put money in the pockets of private
individuals. As Tom Reed said: "That man is opposed
to the statute because somebody might make a dollar and
a half out of it." It is not true that we put that subsidy
into his pocket to enlarge it. We put that subsidy into
the pocket of a private individual or a private corporation
to enable him or it to render to us a service - that is, to
give us a merchant marine, out of which, with the subsidy
added, he shall be able to make only a reasonable profit.




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Now we make eight or nine million dollars out of our
foreign mails. The proposition is to experiment first by
using that profit which we thus make to pay mail subsidies
and establish lines of those steamships between this coast
and the Orient, between this coast and Australia, and between
the east coast of this country and South America. Let us try
that. Let us see how it works. If it gives us good times,
and those lines, by reason of the fact that they carry the
United States flag and are put on for the purpose of encouraging American business, do encourage that business -that
will be a basis for further trial, further experiment and further
building up of a United States merchant marine.
If, on the other hand, that experiment proves to be a
failure, the money that we have spent will be well spent
in teaching that it was a failure.
Something has been said about the conservation of resources by Governor Gillett-oh, no, there is another thing
that I forgot about the Governor. HIe wants sixteen or
eighteen battleships on this side of the water. Well if you
will guarantee that the only attacks which are coming will
come on this side, we will let you have the battleships.
But I want to call attention to the fact that if, in two or
three or five years, we have a Panama Canal, it in itself
will double the efficiency of our navy, and the difference
between the east coast and the west coast will be far
less in sailing distance than it ever was before. The truth is
that my impression about the Panama Canal is that the great
revolution it is going to introduce in trade and the trade
of the world is in the trade between the east and the west
coast of the United States.
I think it is going to affect the transcontinental lines so as
to take from them a large part of the heavy bulk merchandise
that can not afford to and ought not to pay high rates, and
to limit their carriage to that kind of merchandise that needs
rapid dispatch and is valuable enough to pay the high rates
consistent with that rapid dispatch.
It will also, of course, affect the trade between the eastern




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coast of the United States and the western coast of South
America; for that, with the Panama Canal, will be almost in
a straight line. If you will look at your geography, you will
see it-your recollection of your geography does not tell
you that, but if you will put the ruler there you will
find that is just about it. Also, it will develop the
trade bctween the west coast of the United States and
European ports.
Everybody in the United States will, I am very sure, feel
the benefits of the Panama Canal. How far it will affect
the Oriental trade from New York or from Liverpool is
a different question. There the competition of the Suez
Canal will be so great that the modification will not be,
I think, as much as is expected.
But to come to the question of the conservation of resources
-the Governor stated it with exactness. We must preserve
our forests, but we must preserve them in such a way and with
such a knowledge of forestry and the reproduction of the
timber as shall permit us to enjoy all the timber that ought
to be cut and to leave that which shall insure a constant
reforestation of the country.
Now, that is a difficult matter. The Government forests
amount to about 195,000,000 acres. I think there are four
times that amount in private ownership. Seventy per cent. of
the Government forests are subjected to proper forest regulations, and only about 3 per cent. of the privately owned
forests are so treated. That is a subject probably only within
the State jurisdiction. It seems to me that the States
ought to be, and doubtless they are, taking immediate steps
to bring about the preservation of privately owned forests,
because we are all concerned in the maintenance of our
trees, in the distribution of the waters, and the equalization
of the waters which the forests affect.
And the Federal government, unless in some way or other
through the theory that it wishes to maintain navigable
streams may exercise that authority, will find it difficult
to deal directly with those who own forests and wish to




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PRESID)ENTIA L ADDRESSES


cut them down without regard to the preservation of the
trees and the equalization of the falling waters.
Then there are the water-power sites. There are a great
many water-power sites that the government does not control,
a great many that either are controlled by the States or are
owned by the riparian owners. But I think we now know
enough of the growing value of that water power to insist
that the water-power sites which are still owned by the
government shall be treated in such a way that the government may, in its conveyance of these sites, retain sufficient
control over the large amount of water power that is still
to be used which is on government sites, to prevent a
monopoly and the gathering of all that power into a single
hand.
And I believe it can be done reasonably by imposing conditions which in the beginning are not burdensome, but which
by readjustment, after successful use shall have shown a
profit, we can share with the government or with the consuming public, by reduction in rates the charges that accrue
from a continuing use of that water.
In respect to the reclamation of arid land - the irrigation
of arid land - no one can visit this western country without
realizing that that is perhaps the greatest problem we
have. We used to think that our farming and agricultural
land was so extensive that we never could exhaust it. The
truth is, we are up against it now. And the real reason for
the increase in prices in the things that go to make up the
food of our inhabitants is the fact that all the good land
has been or is rapidly being taken up.
We must, therefore, if we would still retain agricultural
control of the world, take some steps to avail ourselves of
those great stretches of what seem now to be arid and
desert lands, but which, by the application of water, when
the water is properly administered, may yield a production
marvellous to behold.
So I think this trip has for me been full of information.
It has made me much more alive to the immense importance




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of the conservation of our natural resources, especially of
the importance of dealing properly with our arid lands.
The Federal Government has, of course, resources greater
than most corporations. How far the Federal Government
ought to go in this matter may be a subject for discussion.
We certainly ought to encourage, as far as we can, private
enterprises in the building of canals, irrigating canals, and
in using the water of the streams to bring into agricultural
production those desert plains.
But there are a great many enterprises about which
it probably may be said that they are too venturesome,
too full of risk for private enterprise. These ought to be
undertaken by the Government with a hope of furnishing
models to private owners thereafter upon which to complete
the system and extend it.
I am not a paternalist, and yet I am not a doctrinaire of
the laisser-faire school.  I think a judicious mixture of
paternalism where it trains the children of the Government
in the way in which they should go is proper.
If we limit our expenditures on this head, as they are
limited in the reclamation act to the proceeds of the sales
of public lands and to the proceeds of bonds to be paid out
of the sales of public land - as is now proposed - I don't
think we shall have carried the matter to such an excess
as will demoralize our people.
I know there was a convention up at Spokane, or somewhere, and a resolution was introduced that we should issue
a billion of bonds for reclamation, a billion of bonds for
irrigation, a billion of bonds for the improvement of rivers,
and then there were two other billions, but I have forgotten
just what they were to be applied to. Of course, such propositions send a chill down the back of a member of the
appropriation committee, like my friend Senator Perkins;
and everybody connected with the expenditure of money in
Congress has gooseflesh when you even mention it.
Therefore I warn those who are very earnest in this matter
that they must be reasonable and wise as serpents in making




334        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
their suggestions in respect to the matter so as not to frighten
those who feel charged with saving us from financial disaster.
And now, my friends, to return again to the personal
element in the reception of to-day and to-night-I can not
speak with the eloquence and fullness of heart that I feel
welling up within me. I thank you and the people of San
Francisco, for whom, in their stress and trial and admirable
recovery I have the highest admiration, and I feel it a great
honor to have at their hands such a cordial and sincere
welcome as they gave me to-day, and such a good fellowship
welcome as you have given me to-night.




XXXVI


ADDRESS AT CITY HALL PARK, FRESNO, CALIFORNIA, AT A UNION RELIGIOUS SERVICE
(OCTOBER 10, 1909)
Mr. Mayor, Clergymen of Fresno, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Citizens of Fresno:
T HAS not been my part in religious exercises, until I
began this trip, to do other than form  one of the
audience; but I have found it impossible, under the friendly
urgency of ministers of the gospel who occasionally desire
a lay substitute, to keep from taking their places and attempting to preach a sermon.
I want to say, first, with respect to this audience, that the
presence of the veterans of the Civil War is always a great
inspiration to higher thoughts, to higher moral standards
and to everything that goes to make our country worth
living for.
I had discussed the question with some of my companions
as to what subject I might select for this Sunday afternoon
as one taking part in religious exercises, and, with the true
California spirit, it was suggested that I ought to point
out to Californians how much they have to thank God for.
And perhaps if I took that subject I could get more earnest
sympathy and hearing than with some other texts more useful.
There is a text, however; I do not know that I can quote it
exactly; but to these gentlemen before me who have taken
part in the battles of the war, it will come by reason of its
comparison with great significance, that "He who conquers
himself is greater than he who taketh a city." Now the
home application of that text to the individual I need hardly
point out. The struggles of a man who is burdened by
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336        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
heredity or otherwise with the taste for strong drink, who
having yielded many times has finally struggled and with
the aid of God won the victory, those of us who are not so
afflicted may yet appreciate and honor. But it is not drink
alone. I sometimes think, and perhaps your distinguished
Mayor, even more distinguished as a physician, will agree
with me, that the appetite for food is one that may well
enable a man, if he can control it, to look upon himself as
better than the man who taketh a city.
And then there are so many instances in little things. I
like to dwell upon the importance of little things in life,
for life is not made up of one great series of grand stand
plays. It is made up of the little things that go either to
make others happy or to make them unhappy. It is the
conduct of the husband as he comes home after a tired
day in restraining himself when he is met by his eager, curious
wife who wants to know how he has been living during that
day and what has happened. Perhaps something has
happened that does not please him, and he does not like to
refer to it, and he cuts her off with a short answer. Oh,
I know it and so do you. You have done it. So have I.
Now, the overcoming of that disposition, the keeping of
her happiness, and not your comfort and disposition constantly in your mind and heart is what makes you greater
than if you took a city. And so it is with reference to
every one with whom you come in contact. If you have
to say "No" say it in such a way as to indicate to the person
to whom you say it that you would like to say "Yes" if
you could; and when you do say "Yes" and are able to
communicate it to the other person, then you are glad because
you know it makes him feel happy. These are the homely
illustrations of what I read into that text. But I am expected, I suppose, to look at things from a political and
governmental standpoint, and the text appeals to me more
strongly in that regard possibly than in any other, because
of some very acute experiences that I have had in political
matters.




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Popular government we all approve of, though sometimes
I don't think we know exactly why we do approve it. I
think frequently we mistake ends for means. We talk about
liberty as something to be secured as an end. We think of
popular government as something to be secured as an end.
Well, neither is true. Liberty is a means in the pursuit of
happiness. Popular government we have because we
believe in the long run that it is the best government, that
it is the government which makes most people happy, and
the reason is this: That in the long run the interests of any
particular class, and by that I mean those people who are
affected by the same set of circumstances, can by representation in the government be better trusted to look after their
own interests than any other class can be trusted to look after
those interests, no matter how altruistic that class. So that
if every class is represented, assuming that each class has
intelligence enough to know its own interest, we can count
on that being a better government than a government by
one or a few or only a particular class. That is a popular
government, but you can not run a popular government
merely by calling it so. You must have some means of
determining what shall direct the course of government;
what shall decide. That is the majority. I do not know
any other method in a popular government. We do have
checks. We do have indirect means of giving expression
to that vote of the majority, but when you get down to the
basis, it is the control of the majority. Now you can not
have a decent, popular government unless that majority can
conquer itself; that is, unless that majority exercises the
self-restraint that men with great power ought to exercise
if it is to be exercised justly, you can not have popular
government. And why? Well, take instances. I am not
going into the various parts of the world, but I could call
your attention, if it were not that I am in a responsible
position now with respect to foreign countries, and must
speak with care - I could call your attention to a good
many instances where those who are in favor of popular




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


government, and who, if I may use the expression, pull
the tail feathers out of the eagle in deifying liberty and
apostrophizing everything that we hold dear, think just as
soon as they become a majority that that gives them the
right to control the minority absolutely, and if the minority show any disposition to question it, they send them
to jail. What is the effect of that? They say this is
popular rule; this is the rule of the majority. So what
does the minority do? Why the minority says  "We will
take to the woods," and they do take to the woods.
And so we have that system that alternates between an
election and a revolution and a revolution and an election,
and we call that popular government. Now, why is it that
it works that way? It is because the majority and the
minority do not govern themselves and do not exercise that
self-restraint without which popular government is absolutely
impossible. And that is the application of the text that
comes home to me in thinking and dealing with these countries that are struggling for popular government. A minority
that is beaten in the election can not stand the defeat. It
has to go to the woods. They are not good losers, and the
majority are not good winners. Popular government is a
most difficult thing to establish. We have had to hammer
it out in a thousand years of Anglo-Saxon suffering and
controversy and contest. And now it rests, where? It
rests in the common-sense, and the self-restraint of the
American people. It rests in the knowledge of the majority
that it must keep within the checks of the law and the
Constitution if the Government is to be preserved. And
it must rest in the view of the minority that it is much more
important that the government should be sustained than
that the minority should have for the time being control of
or a voice in the government. Its rests in the knowledge of
the majority that the rights of the minority and the individuals of that minority are exactly as sacred as the rights of the
individuals of the majority. Our people exercised government over themselves when they adopted the Constitution




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of the United States. We do not vote directly under that
Constitution. We have a vote which controls the lower
House in the selection of the members. We delegate to those
members the power to make laws. We do not make them
directly. We elect legislatures which elect Senators. Those
Senators are reelected every six years. The members of
the House are elected every two years, and then we elect
a President every four years. Each one of those little
joints between popular expression and will and the embodying
of that will in the resultant course of the Government, is
something which the people voluntarily introduced into our
government-for what purpose? To enable them to govern
themselves, so that the first wave of popular will should
not find immediate expression in legislation, but that the
people should take time, should discuss the matter, and
should have several delays before they accomplish their
entire purpose with respect to the Government.
The people rule, there is no doubt about that, but they
rule according to law and under the Constitution, and they
voluntarily and willingly placed the restraints of that Constitution upon themselves in order that they might act with
deliberation and with the checks that were sure to secure
moderate, clear-headed, well-thought out policies, and therefore when the American people voted that Constitution
and now are maintaining it and supporting it, as I hope they
always will, they are governing themselves, and are more to
be credited than he that taketh a city.
And finally even we -or rather even those of the cloth,
whose place I humbly take at this hour, have learned to
govern themselves in this. There was a time in religious
history when the man who was in governmental control
and had his own theological theory to work out, worked
it out by breaking everybody into believing it or else by
cutting off the head or burning the body of the man who
didn't agree with him. Well, you can reason out pretty
logically sometimes that that was the course to be properly
taken. And we tried it on both sides, One church and




340        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
then another, as it got a chance, took that method of introducing religion into the mind and soul and body of the person
thus offered up. After a time there crept into the beliefs
and practice of all religion the idea that the way to have
religion conquer was to be gentle with views that were
contrary to the creed and rely on the arguments and the
spirit of the religion to win converts rather than to use the
stake and the axe. They overcame the feeling in themselves
that they must make their religion conquer by any means,
and they took the method that introduced a broad tolerance
of all religious creeds and let each creed and each religion
speak for itself gently with a message of good will to all
humanity; and that is what we have to-day. And that is
what I am glad to think is illustrated by this meeting to-day.
It means the brotherhood of man as between all christian
religions, the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of
God. It means tolerance for every belief and every creed
that a man honestly and conscientiously entertains. And
it means that with that tolerance all the people can be
much more surely brought within the circle of those who
believe and act upon that belief than by any other method.




XXXVII


REMARKS AT THE BANQUET TENDERED HIM
BY THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AT
LOS ANGELES, CAL.
(OCTOBER 11, 1909)
Mr. Toastmaster, Mr. President, Members of the Los Angeles
Chamber of Commerce, Ladies and Gentlemen:
HAVE attended many banquets. I think that, measuring up for the last ten years, I may be said to be as
great an expert on banquets as any that the world affords,
and while I have attended larger ones than this I have
never attended one more beautifully appointed and never
one set with such beautiful gems. It is not for me, a guest,
to criticise the arrangement by which the ladies look on and
see the animals feed. But it is only a type of their loving
patience that they should be willing thus to retire and have
the men seem to do the important thing.
It is a great pleasure for me to revisit your beautiful
city after now some ten years preceded by a visit ten years
before that, so that I claim temporarily to be one of your
pioneers.
I came into your city this morning by way of your harbor,
and my interest in your city was originally largely developed
not from an Eastern standpoint, but from the standpoint
of a territory from which I have more right to hail I think
than the State of Ohio - I mean the Philippine Islands,
and I remember as I went there in 1900 I passed through
your city and received the welcome and the wise advice of
your distinguished fellow citizen, General H. G. Otis, who
had labored faithfully and well and exposed himself to
the dangers of death in order that we might tranquilize a
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342        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
country, which God had placed under our guidance. Then
another connection with the Philippines is the fact that after
we had made a great General in the Army of the United
States-General Chaffee-and fitted him for great tasks,
and then retired him because the law required it, you had
the good sense to take him and make use of the talents with
which he was endowed.
Now, coming in by way of that harbor I learned a lot
of things. The fact is, in the trip across the country, I
have had to justify my coming at all, and have attempted
to explain that in coming I have gathered a great deal of
information. But it has been said to me that if I do all the
talking, how do I absorb any information. I only want
to cite as witnesses those who are present to-night to
prove that in the course of my journey there are opportunities for information, and I am delighted to improve
them. I thought that story of the hobo and the generous
lady was exceedingly apt and that the gentleman who used
it followed out to the uttermost the principles of that student
of human nature.
But with respect to your harbor, I am bound to say,
first, that I have learned to-day by personal observation a
great deal about it and of its value and of its possibility
as one of the great harbors of the Pacific Coast that I
did not know before.  I did know that you were intensely interested in it. No man could live in the neighborhood of your junior Senator and have anything to dowith the authority concerning that harbor without having
it borne in upon him, as our Methodists say, with an intensity that he doesn't forget. It did not seem to me to be of
such immediate importance that the harbor lines away
out here on the west coast should be fixed for a particular
harbor, but there was nothing for me to do under the
circumstances but to end that controversy in view of the
attitude that Senator Flint bore toward me, and I made an_
order that the engineers should fix those harbor lines or
else some engineers would suffer. No, I do not ask your




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gratitude on that account. It was a matter of personal
comfort to me, and I fixed them, and they are going to stay
there, at least as long as I have control; but, of course,
they are going to stay there. They were fixed by an eminent
body of army engineers, than whom there are no greater or
men of higher character. You were greatly concerned,
or some of you were, when the gentleman who preceded
the present engineer was assigned to some other duty
and the present engineer put in. It is possible I have
met Captain Frees. It is a little difficult to keep all the
army officers, when there are 3,000 of them, in your mind,
but I have met the present engineer- I met him this
morning - and if there is any citizen of Los Angeles that
is more imbued with the Los Angeles spirit than he is, I
have yet to meet him, and I have met a good many. The
truth is, with respect to army engineers, they are put where
they are to do their duty, and when they are there they
do their duty, and the great advantage that we have in
building the Panama Canal to-day is that while we have
the most eminent men at the head of that work, if they were
to die to-morrow from any cause, yellow fever or pestilence
of any kind suggesting immediate death to their successors,
we could call upon the members of that corps immediately
to furnish men who would step into their places and die if
necessary in the discharge of their duty without a question.
That is the kind of men we have in the army engineers,
and if the time comes under the regulations of that Department for the present lieutenant to move on and acquire the
atmosphere of some other enterprising port and harbor
and city, he will be followed by a man who will do his duty
just as well as the present engineer, and you can count on it.
The last speaker suggested a number of things that you
would like to have from the general government. I am not
a dispenser of the funds of the general government. I
am its distributor, or at least those under me distribute
the funds that the Congress of the United States appropriates;
but living near the seat of government and having had some




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


experience in the way that the government works and with
the matters that influence the committees on rivers and
harbors in both Houses, I can give you the benefit of that
experience enough to prophesy a few things in regard to that
harbor. I do not guarantee it. No wise man ever guaranteed
what the verdict of a jury would be or what a Congress would
do, but I venture to prophesy with that qualification, first,
that you have got a harbor now sufficiently constructed to
show that it is worthy of being improved to the uttermost;
second, that you have taken the step which most of all will
secure from Congress the money needed to make the harbour
all that you wish it to be, and that is, you have voted to
put your own money into the improvement of that harbor in
order that the public may get the benefit of the wharf. The
principle that has moved the committees in both Houses is
that the Lord helps those who help themselves, and that
they are most willing to put the Government's money into
those enterprises in which the local communities are so
intensely interested that they are willing to make large contributions themselves. Hence, I say without hesitation at
all, that with your improvement secured, as you have secured
it by a vote of bonds, there isn't any trouble about the
improvement of your harbor as you desire. I say as you
desire it. Our friend on the left suggested 45 feet depth.
Well, that is all right, but what you will do with that extra
10 or 15 feet I do not know until you get boats that have
that draft. We had to make the Panama Canal 45 feet
because it was a work which was to be constructed for all
time. The locks when put in there can not be changed
with any reasonable expense, and therefore the law provided
that the Canal should be constructed of such dimensions
that it would transport or furnish the means of transportation for any vessel now sailing or projected. Well, there
were two or three vessels projected of 38 feet maximum
loaded draft, 88 feet beam and 800 feet long, and we have
put in locks that are 41 feet deep over sill, that are a thousand
feet of usable length and are 110 feet wide, but that is for




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the far future, because it would be most inconvenient and
most expensive to change those locks, but it is easy enough
to deepen a harbor like this; if you conclude that you have
so many ships of 45 feet maximum loaded draft that you
need that additional 10 feet I can prophesy that you can get
it, but my impression now is if I were you I would not go
for 45 feet direct. I would begin with something less.
The Panama Canal is of course the greatest enterprise
of a constructive character which has been entered upon
for centuries. It will certainly be completed by the 1st of
January 1915.  We are now engaged in an excavation
that equals or nearly equals three millions of cubic yards
of material a month, and that would easily finish the Canal
some two years before the date that I have mentioned.
The uncertainty as to its completion depends upon the construction of the dam and the construction of the locks, and the
engineers are not yet in a position to prophesy, as they could
with respect to the excavation, when the whole work can be
completed. What its effect will be upon the trade of the
world is problematical. I do not think that we can always
calculate with exactness how trade avenues are to change,
but I think there are certain facts with respect to the operation of the Canal upon the commerce of the world that
we can make as promises. One is that its most important
function will be the trade between the east and west coast
of the United States.  How far it will affect the transcontinental lines of course it is difficult to say, but that it will
make a radical change in the character of the merchandize
carried I believe is certain. The next important change
that it is going to make is in reference to the trade between
this coast and Europe, and the next most important is the
trade between the east coast of the United States and the
west coast of South America. With respect to all other
avenues of trade the Suez Canal is apt to be a competitor
and the change that will be effected by a new way of getting
through the continent is one that can only be known when
the change has been effected and years have been given to




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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


allow that change to have all its effect. Certain it is, however,
that the city of Los Angeles and the city of San Francisco and the city of Seattle are the cities most to be affected
by the completion of the Panama Canal, and no one can
criticize, no one has the right to ridicule the effort and the
great efforts that your city has made to establish a harbor
for your city, so that you shall get the benefit of that great
trade which the Panama Canal is certain to bring to the
western coast.
I do not know that the increase in the merchant marine
is essential to your enjoyment of great benefits from that
Canal. I do not think it is. I think if we were to go on
as we are now, you still would derive immense benefit by
the trade brought in here by foreign vessels and by the trade
which could only be brought here by coast vessels - vessels
of the United States. Nevertheless, you are on the Pacific;
you are on that great ocean surrounded by the Orient on
the one side, by the west coast of South America and by the
west coast of North America on the other, in which the
great commercial progress of the world is to be manifested
for the next hundred years. And what that trade shall
be is going to be largely influenced by the question of who
controls the merchant marine that crosses its waters. Now,
we haven't any international merchant marine. I defer
to those vessels that are doing the best they can, but I mean,
speaking at large, we have none and the question is, how are
we going to get it?  I do not know that the system of
subsidy is to be the correct way of working out that problem, but I do know that it is in accordance with the principle
that we have followed in respect to the development of our
industries- the protective system. We can not protect it
in the sense of controlling foreign bottoms, and therefore,
the only equivalent that we can offer is to pay those of our
people who will build and operate our ships under our laws
enough to equal the difference in condition between their
running the ships and foreigners running foreign ships
and allowing them a reasonable profit; and I for one am in




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favor of trying that experiment. It is true that we will
pay money into the coffers of private corporations, and it
is also true that they will have to render to us a service for
the money which we pay into those coffers, because it is
undoubtedly true -it is shown in our South American
trade - that the control by the flag of the ships that carry
the trade greatly influences the trade in favor of the country
that owns that flag and owns those ships. We must not be
frightened by a word - we must not be frightened by a
shibboleth. You say we are going to help along a selfish
private corporation by contribution. Well, we are, because
the private corporation is the instrument by which we wish
to accomplish a great public good. We do not intend to
give them any more than a reasonable profit for the good
they render us.
There are a good many other subjects that I should like
to discuss with you. As I looked at that beautiful map and
followed that red eye and green eye across it, and saw where
I had inflicted my views on various suffering citizens of the
United States at points across its surface, I wondered how
long the American people would bear it, and therefore I
hesitate to take up the questions that are just as important
to you as they are to any of the citizens I have had the honor
to address. The truth is, I doubt whether in New York,
in Boston, in Chicago, in any city in the country, I should
have the honor and opportunity of addressing so cosmopolitan an audience as I now face, an audience made up
of the bone and sinew of the community that has builded a
beautiful city in a desert; that brings its water 230 miles;
that goes 20 miles for a harbor; and that expects to enlarge
by the application of water to earth, drawn I do not know
from where. You are a marvel. You have got two marvels
in California, One in San Francisco that has arisen from
its ashes, and the other is Los Angeles that is risen from the
desert.
There is one thing that that map has taught me as I
looked at it - has only confirmed that which comes to me




348        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
every time I rise to address an American audience-I
don't care whether it is in a small town resurrected from the
desert in Colorado, or a large city, or anywhere else - there
is in the faces of those people to whom I have talked a sense
of contentment, of peace, and of determination to get on
and subdue the obstacles that are before them, which they
welcome because they are obstacles, in order that they may
show their American spirit in overcoming them, and that
spirit I find everywhere. Talk about anarchists and socialists and discontent with the situation. It may be that I
do not see those people; perhaps I don't. I am not anxious
to see them. But I do (meet the majority of the American
people and they come out to me in order to testify their
interest in the government and their pride in their country
and their belief that there is nothing that an American can
not achieve and can not overcome. I never was so much
impressed before with the idea, if I may use a stock-breeder's
simile, that we are breeding to a type, that we haven't any
Englishmen and we haven't any Irishmen, though there
are some that tell stories that are marvellously like it, and
we haven't any Germans, we haven't any French, we haven't
any Italians or Mexicans, but we only have Americans.
Now, an allusion was made to my predecessor's pronunciation of the name of your desert here. He did not come into
this country through a Spanish country, or else he would
have known how that name ought to be pronounced. Allusion has been made to the policies of my predecessor. I
yield to no one in my admiration for that great man and
the map he laid out for those who were to follow him. Sometimes it seems as if it were pretty burdensome for those who
do follow them in order to keep up with the procession,
but it is a great aid to have his example before me, to have
the test of the judgment of the American people which he
was able to make, and to know that in following along
the general lines which he laid down, the administration
which follows him is following the will of the American people.




CHAPTER XXXVIII
ADDRESS AT GLENWOOD MISSION INN, RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA
(OCTOBER 12, 1909)
Mr. Governor and Bishop and Gentlemen of Southern California:
THIS dinner has assumed a phase that I did not expect.
The truth is that the honor of unveiling the tablet
to the Rev. Father Serra was one that I had not anticipated, but which I was glad to perform, but had I known
what was to come I should have prepared myself with some
investigation and some knowledge of the history of the
country of that interesting period in California's life when
the missions began and continued down to the time that
we from the East came into California.
Bishop Conaty has been good enough to refer to some
of our experiences in the Philippines, and that enables me
to say something appropriate of the settlement by monks
of Southern California. I there became aware of the
great work which had been done by the missions not
only of the Franciscans, but of the Jesuits, the Recolletos,
the Dominicans and the Augustinians in the Philippines. I
became acquainted with the Spanish character and was
made to know its heroic side by a study of what the Spaniards
had to do to accomplish what they did accomplish in the
Philippine Islands in the 15th and 16th centuries. We are
in the habit, we Anglo-Saxons, of looking back to our ancestors with a smug satisfaction and thinking that no one has
exactly the right to that pride of ancestry that we have, and
I think it reduces our heads somewhat and gives a proper
sense of proportion to become aware of the fact that there
349




350


PPRESIDENTIAIi ADDRESSES


were others than Englishmen in the 15th and 16th and 17th
centuries who were making for progress in the world and were
fighting the battles of civilization under the burdens that it
now seems impossible for them to bear. When you consider
the voyages that were taken by the Spanish and Portuguese
sailors, when you consider the hardships that were undergone by the Spanish monks, in advancing the cause of
Christian civilization, it is hard to believe the story in the
Philippines. They made a people a Christian people, who
were the only Christian people, and continue down to to-day
to be the only Christian people, in the Orient. Now I
have to-day enjoyed the privilege of seeing as much of
Southern California as one man could see in twelve hours
and I think it fitting that the journey should end in a building like this constructed to commemorate the missions that
formed so important a part in the history of this region which
we have been privileged to visit to-day. I fully sympathize
with the desire to preserve as historical memorials worthy
of preservation those missions and the style of architecture
that those missions represent. I sympathize with the people
of Riverside in desiring their government building to be
erected on the mission plan. When we have any past of a
picturesque character we ought not to destroy it, and California is one of the few States that reaches back far enough
into the past to have an ancient picturesque architecture
with which she can well make her present architecture
accord.
I have at another time and place delivered myself on the
subject of foreign missions, and I am not sure that the
time to-night will permit me to go into that subject. My
association with the churches in the Philippines and with
the Bishops of the various churches and the fortuitous preaching that I have had to do as President of the United States
at times makes me feel a little bit like a Bishop. But I
know this and I know it from actual experience in the Orient,
that the progress of modern Christian civilization is largely
dependent on the earnest hard work of the Christian missions




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351


of every denomination. The truth is, gentlemen, that where
we are advancing the cause of Christian civilization it does
not help us to introduce to those whom we would convince
of the benefits of Christian civilization, the persons who
represent the seamy side of our civilization, and those I am
sorry to say, with the exception of the missionaries, are the
only persons that advance themselves into heathendom.
They go there for the purpose of buying or getting from the
heathen what the heathen regards as but little, and what
they know to be valuable. In other words, they are there
for trading purposes, and when our non-Christian friends
say that in those that represent us there is a great deal of
guile it does not convince them of the disinterested character
of Christian civilization. It is only through the foreign
missionaries who go there pledging their lives to the cause
of the advancement of Christianity that we have presented
to those whom we would convince of the strength and efficacy
of Christian civilization that there is in that Christian civilization a living spirit that they ought to embrace.
Now there is another note in the Bishop's address to-night
which I listened to with pleasure, and that is that in Southern
California there is a broad tolerance between all denominations which willingly gives credit to the representative of
any one who as a man and as a Christian has done all that
he could and offered himself up for the advance of the race,
and I was glad to note that of those who were interested in
preserving the missions in Southern California there were
90 per cent. who were not members of the Catholic Church.
The truth is, gentlemen, we are making progress in Christian tolerance, in the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God, and those who have any responsibility at all
in the government of men welcome the progress of all
churches as the greatest support of government and of
peace on earth and good will to men.
Now I want to respond to what the Governor has said with
respect to California. I have valued much and appreciate
greatly as an honor his company from one end of Cali



s35        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
fornia to the other, and during the week that I have spent
within the hospitable borders of this State I have felt deeply
the welcome of all Californians. I know that welcome is
sincere. I don't misconstrue it, but I know that Californians are loyal to the backbone and they are glad to welcome to the borders of their great State the representative of
the Nation of which they are proud to be a part. Perhaps
you are rather warmer in your welcome, perhaps you are
more intense in your hospitality, because you are so far
removed from Washington. If I were an every day story,
if you had to see me every week, things might be different.
But as it is, I am delighted to take advantage of the fact
that you don't know me very well, and therefore that your
welcome is entirely unqualified.
But jesting aside, my dear friends, there is no experience
in my life more delightful than that which I have had in
California. It has been somewhat strenuous, but so life
is generally strenuous if it is worth having at all, and I am
glad to get out of California with the sweet and pleasant
memory of this function held in such a beautiful mansion
and suggestive of all the sweet romance of the early history
of the State.




XXXIX


ADDRESS AT CITY HALL, PHOENIX, ARIZONA,
(OCTOBER 13, 1909)
Governor Sloan, Ladies and Gentlemen:
AM glad to meet you.  It is a new sensation for me to
talk to the people of a territory, and I may say
thus far it is a very pleasant sensation.
In the first place, I want to commend myself, and that
is by having appointed Judge Sloan your Governor. In
the second place I want to congratulate you on having
such a territory, such energy and such enterprise as has
called forth from the Republican party a pledge that you
shall have statehood, and in order to establish my relation
with you early, I want to say that so far as I am concerned,
I am going to help carry out that promise as far as I can.
I say that as a beginning of my speech and not as its ending.
Sometimes it is better to postpone the marriage and everything else in a novel to the end, but I always have the habit
of looking through to see whether it ends all right before
I begin, and I am inclined to think that the ladies before me
generally follow that course.
Now, gentlemen, and ladies, for I don't know whether you
are going to let the ladies vote or not, and I speak therefore with due consideration, you are anticipating statehood,
you are anxious to show what you can do as an independent government, and I am afraid you are anticipatng the
pleasure of that independence without fully understanding
or realizing the responsibilities of it; and therefore if after
having made this announcement I point out some of the
difficulties that you are to have, you will excuse me. You
have got to formulate a constitution after the Congress
353




354        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
says you can come in, and I want to say a word about that
constitution. In saying it I give you an earnest of the
seriousness with which I say that I believe you will be made
a State. A constitution is for the purpose of laying down
fundamental limitations upon your legislature and your
Executive. Now if you think that in the Constitutional
Convention you ought to lay down all the limitations that
are ordinarily included in a statute, you are going to make
a great mistake. The greatest Constitution that was ever
made is the Constitution of the United States; and you can
go through that in a very short time. You take the last
constitution that was made. It is the constitution of Oklahoma, and it is a zoological garden of cranks. I don't
mean to say that it has not good ideas in it. It has. But
the idea of tying down a legislature which is an experiment,
so to speak, with the laws that are to be adapted to a new
territory, with a long discourse imposing all sorts of limitations, is a mistake which you ought to profit by.
I want to congratulate you on having room enough in
this Territory to grow. It is about four times the size of
Ohio, and Ohio is a fairly large State. Of course there is
a good deal of soil out here that we would not at first sight
value in Ohio, but by your energy and by the application
of modern methods of agriculture you seem to be reducing
it to a condition where it brings forth wonderful crops and
enriches those who devote their attention to its culture.
Then the Governor tells me that you have another occupation- you can not call it agriculture or horticulture - I
mean the hatching and raising of ostriches. I understand
that this is the only State in which ostriches think it worth
while to pursue race suicide, and that the result is that there
is an industry, to call it by a general term, which is really
profitable and which enables you to compete with South
Africa. Then the alfalfa fields, the fruit and all the other
products which you are able to bring forth make your future
one which I need not assure you is most promising. But
as I have said in the beginning, your assumption of




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355


statehood throws upon you a responsibility that will not
enable you thereafter to charge it all to the Federal Government. When you get into difficulty out here and have
bad officials you can not say the fault is all at Washington
because Washington does not understand your needs. Then
the fault will be on your own head. I have no doubt that
you will stumble and fall as other peoples and other States
have stumbled and fallen, but you are Americans, you are
come of a race used to self-government, used to taking hard
knocks in the school of experience and profiting by them.
And if by a caution I can restrain the desire of those most
progressive, or most full of the idea of having limitations
on government - can restrain them from making the constitution other than fundamental law with simple rules
of limitation, if I can halt and induce the people of this
State to take time to deliberate over that instrument which
is to follow them so long in the history of their State and in
its growth and development, I shall not have let this morning go without its profit.
I thank you for the cordiality of your reception. I like
to look into your eyes and see the spirit of enterprise, the
spirit of welcome to the man who for the time being represents the Government of the United States of which you are
so proud, and your recognition of the sovereignty of your
country and a desire on your part to pay respect to him who
for the time being represents the dignity of the law.




XL


ADDRESS AT PRESCOTT, ARIZONA,
(OCTOBER 13, 1909)
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen of Prescott:
M   Y FATHER used to tell me of an old gentleman who
lent his coat to another man and said to him as he
went away, "Don't swear while you wear that coat." He
went away and came back ofter two or three hours, and
the owner of the coat asked him whether he had sworn.
He said, "No, I have not sworn, but I never felt so much
like lying in my life." [Here the President drank a glass
of the famous Hassayampa water, handed him by the
Chairman.] After that dose which your Chairman administered to me, I feel like drawing the long bow more than
ever on this trip.
I am delighted to meet you. I am willing to admit, as
I suppose you will, the truth of the statement of the Chairman, that I have not anywhere had an audience of which
this is not a peer. I see you admit it, and you haven't
drunk any of that water either. I got some of the water on
the way up, but I believe it was from below the crossing.
I had it in a canteen, and I expect to try it on some of my
party.
My fellow citizens, I am glad to see you because I am
glad to know that the population of Arizona, which I believe
will soon become a State, is of a character to deserve it. I
observe that even out of the mouths of babes and sucklings you
hear the desire for statehood. I congratulate you on having
such an energetic and pretty city. I have no doubt that here,
as elsewhere in Arizona, as elsewhere in the new States
356




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


357


which I have had the honor to visit, there is a determination on the part of each citizen in Prescott to make her population double in the next few years, to increase the wealth
and prosperity and to make it known as a large place on the
map. That spirit I found everywhere throughout the
West. I found it subordinate, however, to the interest in
the State and still more subordinate to the interest in the
development of the country. All these feelings develop into
an Americanism that makes a type in which every one who
feels an interest in his country has a right to have great
pride. Now I had the honor to address an audience at the
capital of your territory this morning, and in the course of
those remarks I ventured to prophesy that you would have
statehood in the near future. The Republican platform
upon which I had the honor to be elected promised
statehood to Arizona and to New Mexico separately. I am
not, however, the legislature of this government, and all
I can do is to prophesy, not to promise. But from what
I know, from what I have heard of the discussion, I am quite
sure that the movement is proceeding, and that you may
count on its success. Now then, if it is to be successful, I
want to call your attention to the responsibilities that will
be upon you as citizens of a State, as citizens of the country.
You will have to select your own State officers, you will have
to select your Representatives and Senators, but before all
that you will have to make a fundamental law called your
constitution, which is to govern your legislature, your lawmakers and your executive thereafter, and that is a responsibility which is very heavy and to which I invite your careful
attention. The trouble is that you are so anxious for statehood, so determined to have it, that no matter what your
constitution is, if it is presented to you, you will vote for
statehood and vote for the constitution. At least that has
been the experience in other territories.  Therefore it
behooves you to see to it that the men who frame your constitution are charged with the responsibility of making a
good one. Now we have had constitutions made by




358        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
territories coming into the Union which were voted and
approved, and which did nut approve themselves to those
men who looked forward and understood what a constitution ought to be. It ought to be simple. It ought to be
general. It ought to be comprehensive. It ought not to
include every limitation upon the legislature that each
member of that constitutional convention thinks would be
wise to follow in legislation. You ought to leave something to your legislature. Don't make your constitution
read like a statute. Be statesmen and make it read like a
fundamental law. Study the Constitution of the United
States and see what the greatest instrument of fundamental
law was and is, and how simple; how it has been elastic and
has yielded to the demands of our increasing country, and yet
is to-day the wonder of the world. Don't allow every fact
or every principle, however sound, to be asserted in that
constitution. Trust something to your legislature thereafter
and don't bind them and yourselves in such a way that you
will be struggling for twenty-five years to get away from
something that was made in haste and not with the sense
of deliberation that you ought to exercise in making a path
intended to last for fifty or one hundred years. I am talking sense, I know. You will find in your constitutional
convention gentlemen who have radical progressive ideas.
Many of the germs of truth ought to be carried out at least
in statutes, but don't fasten yourselves down by all crankisms
and by the views of people who want to make laws for a
hundred years without knowing exactly what the conditions
are under which those laws are to be made. I am not talking just for the sake of talking. I expect that you are going
to make a constitution here. I hope you will. I am going
to do the best I can to help to give you the power to
make it, but don't load down yourselves and your future
with restrictions and limitations in your fundamental law
like those which are in the Oklahoma Constitution, making
it read like a long page of the statutes instead of a fundamental instrument like some of the constitutions of the older




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359


States and the Constitution of the United States. Our
fathers builded even better than they knew, and we have
not gotten in advance of them in the matter of laying down
simple principles of constitutional law. We do not know
more than our fathers, for in that respect they have proven
what they knew by the usefulness of the Constitution of the
United States.
Now, my friends, as has been said, I can stay with you
but a short time. You give me great courage, and give me
great inspiration as I look into your eyes and see that you are
deliberate men, that you are intelligent men, and that you
propose to exercise your suffrage in such a way as to have
a government of law, a government that respects the vested
rights of property, that respects the liberty of the individual,
and a government that shall reflect credit on your population.
I have passed from Boston to the west coast and down
the west coast, and the thought that was uppermost in my
mind as I addressed all the audiences which I have seen is
that we are here and have for years been breeding to a type
of men, not German, not English, not French, not Spanish,
not Mexican, not Swiss, or Swedish, but a type adapted to
our civilization, a type of Americans by which we can all
stand. There may be discontent in this country, but if
30 I have not found it in any community. In every community, in every hamlet that I have addressed, there is a
determination to make things better, both materially, in an
Educational way and spiritually. All they want is an opportunity and they don't ask odds of anybody. Now, that is
the spirit I have found everywhere, and I am proud to be
rn American, and to know that such a spirit is actuating
zur people, because its continuance assures the greatness of
)ur country and the making of it such that we can continue;o love it with all our hearts.




XLI


INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT DIAZ OF MEXICO
HELD IN THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
BUILDING, EL PASO, TEXAS
(SATURDAY, OCT. 16, 1909, 11 A. M.)
THOSE present at the interview were Hon. J. M. Dickinson, Secretary of War; Hon. Frank H. Hitchcock, Postmaster General; the Governor of Texas and other State
officials; Captain Archibald W. Butt, U. S. A., the President's
Military Aide; Mr. John Hays Hammond; Dr. J. J.
Richardson; and Mr. Wendell W. Mischler and Mr. Charles
C. Wagner, the President's assistant secretaries.
The President of Mexico was accompanied by General
Manuel Gonzales Cosio, Minister of War; Hon. Olegario
Molina, Minister Fornento (Industry, Colonization, Mines
and Agriculture); Governor Creel of the State of Chihuahua
(formerly Ambassador to the United     States); Colonel
Pablos Escandon, Chief of the Military Staff of President
Diaz; and Ignacio de la Barra, Private Secretary to President Diaz.
President Taft: I am very glad to welcome you here,
sir; I am very glad indeed.
President Diaz: I am very happy to meet you and to have
the honor of being one of the first foreigners to come over
to give you a hearty welcome.
President Taft: It gives me not only great pleasure to
welcome the President of the great Republic of Mexico,
but to welcome the present President of the Republic of
Mexico, who has made it so great.
President Diaz: I am very proud to grasp the hand of
360




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


361


the great statesman who has made such a record in his life 
in the Philippines, in Cuba, and, at present, as the head of
the great nation of the United States.
President Taft: I wish to express to you my belief that
this meeting is looked upon by both peoples with a great
deal of interest not as making stronger but as typifying the
strength of the bond between the two countries.
President Diaz: My friendly relations and my personal
acquaintance with you will make thousands and thousands
of friends of the American and Mexican people, and streams
and wonders of beneficial development will have to follow
for the good of the countries.
President Taft: You have already met the Secretary
of War and the Governor of Texas. I shall be glad to have
the privilege of presenting to you the Postmaster General.
[The Postmaster General was then presented to President
Diaz.]
President Taft: I should be glad to have the privilege
of meeting your staff.
[The Minister of War, General Manuel Gonzales Cosio,
was thereupon presented to President Taft.]
President Taft: [addressing the Minister of War]: I
have been Minister of War, and therefore I have a sympathy
with you.
The Minister of War: You have been an excellent Minister of War and I have a good example in you.
President Taft; I should be very glad to have the pleasure
of taking you and Governor Creel, who interprets so well
and who is my personal friend, into an adjoining room for
just a few moments.
[Thereupon President Taft, President Diaz, and Governor Creel retired to an adjoining room for a private interview, which lasted about fifteen minutes.]




INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT DIAZ OF MEXICO
IN THE FEDERAL CUSTOM HOUSE
IN JUAREZ, MEXICO
(SATURDAY, OCT. 16, 1909, 1-.20 NOON)
THOSE present at the interview were Governor Creel of
the State of Chihuahua (formerly Ambassador to the
United States); General Manuel Gonzales Cosio, Minister
of War; Hon. Olegario Molina, Minister Fomento (Industry,
Colonization, Mines and Agriculture); Colonel Pablos
Escandon, Chief of the Military Staff of President Diaz;
and Ignacio de la Barra, Private Secretary to President
Diaz.
President Taft was accompanied by Hon. J. M. Dickinson, Secretary of War; Hon. Frank H. Hitchcock, Postmaster General; the Governor of Texas and other State
officials; Captain Archibald W. Butt, U. S. A., the President's
Military Aide; Mr. John Hays Hammond; Dr. J. J.
Richardson; and Mr. Wendell W. Mischler and Mr. Charles
C. Wagner, the President's assistant secretaries.
President Diaz: Your excellency, the Mexican people
and I feel very proud indeed to have you on Mexican soil.
I believe that the personal acquaintance which I have made
with you and the friendly feelings which already exist between
the United States and Mexico will be a guarantee of the
continuance of the friendly, cordial and strong relations
between the people of the two countries, and that success
and prosperity will follow.
President Taft: This is the first time, so far as I know,
that a President of the United States has stepped beyond




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


363


the border of the United States, either on the north or on
the south, and I esteem it a great privilege to be the President at the time when that event has happened. I hope
that it is significant of the tightening of the bond between
the two countries. Railroads and other means of communication, like the telegraph, have brought us closer to each
other, so that the City of Mexico and the City of Washington
are far nearer to-day than they ever were before, and that
means a closer union of feeling between the two peoples,
a closer feeling between those responsible for the Government of each country, and I esteem it the greatest honor
of my life to have the privilege of representing the United
States in such a significant ceremony.
President Diaz: I thank you very much.
President Taft: I think your Excellency was good enough
on the other side to let me present the gentlemen who
accompany me, so that I will not go through that ceremony
again.
[President Diaz presented to President Taft his son,
Lieutenant-Colonel Porfirio Diaz, Jr., of the Mexican Army;
also his nephew, General Felix Diaz, Chief Inspector of
the Mexican Police.]




XLII
TOAST OF PRESIDENT DIAZ AT BANQUET
TENDERED BY HIM TO PRESIDENT TAFT AT
THE CUSTOM HOUSE IN JUAREZ, MEXICO
(OCTOBER 16, 1909)
Mr. President, Gentlemen:
THE visit His Excellency, President Taft, to-day makes
to the Mexican territory will mark an epoch in the
history of Mexico. We have had in our midst very illustrious American visitors, such as General Ulysses S. Grant
and the Honorable Messrs. Seward and Root; but never
before have we seen in our land the Chief Magistrate of the
great American Union. This striking trait of international
courtesy which Mexico acknowledges and appreciates to
its full value and significance will henceforward establish
a happy precedent for the Latin American Republics to
cultivate unbroken and cordial relations among themselves,
with us and with every nation of the Continent.
Actuated by these sentiments, which are also those of my
compatriots, I raise my glass to the everlasting enjoyment
by the country of the immortal Washington of all the happiness and prosperity which justly belong to the intelligent
industry and eminent civism that are the characteristics of the
manly and cultured American people, and to the enduring
glory of its heroic founders. I raise my glass to the personal
happiness of its illustrious President who has come to honor
us with his presence and friendship whose display will make
for the cultivation of the common interests which bind the
two neighbor nations whose respective elements of life
and progress find in their union reciprocal completion and
enhancement.
364




RESPONSE TO TOAST OF PRESIDENT DIAZ, AT
BANQUET TENDERED BY THE LATTER AT
THE   CUSTOM     HOUSE, JUAREZ, MEXICO
(OCTOBER 16, 1909)
ESPONDING as befits the cordiality of this auspicious occasion, I rise to express in the name and on
behalf of the people of the United States their profound
admiration and high esteem for the great, illustrious and
patriotic President of the Republic of Mexico. I also take
this occasion to pronounce the hearty sentiments of friendship
and accord with which my countrymen regard the Mexican
people.
Your Excellency, I have left the United States and set foot
in your great and prosperous country to emphasize the more
these high sentiments and to evidence the feeling of brotherly neighborhood which exists between our two great nations.
The people of the United States respect and honor the
Mexicans, for their patriotic devotion, their will, energy, and
for their steady advance in industrial development and
moral happiness.
The aims and ideals of our two nations are identical,
their sympathy mutual and lasting, and the world has become
assured of a vast neutral zone of peace, in which the controlling aspiration of either nation is individual human happiness.
I drink to my friend, the President of this great Republic,
to his continued long life and happiness, and to the neverending bond of mutual sympathy between Mexico and the
United States.


365




XLIII


REMARKS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE GIFT
CHAPEL AT FORT SAM HOUSTON, PRESENTED
BY THE CITIZENS OF SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
(OCTOBER 17, 1909)
Mi-. Master of Ceremonies, Mr. Ogden, Clergymen of the City
of San Antonio, Ladies and Gentlemen:
YOU will hardly believe me when I tell you that this
ceremony and the burden that I am now trying to
discharge came to me but to-day. My itinerary in the last
month has been so varied and I have been trying to catch
up with it with so much energy that "sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof," and I have had to meet the tasks as
they have come; but I should be certainly wanting in power of
expression, and in that heartfelt sympathy which makes
expression, if I could not say something on this occasion
which awakens so many pleasant thoughts in my mind.
The first thought that comes to me is that the exceptional
circumstances by which this beautiful building has been
contributed by the city of San Antonio, by the people of that
city, to the army post here, speaks wonders, both for tlhe
people of the city of San Antonio and for the Army of the
United States which has been stationed here. It has not
always been so at every post, but that you should love the
army and that the army should love you under the conditions
is a noteworthy fact in which I rejoice. This is a beautiful
post. I fear there are some parts of the country which
might say that this post has been unduly favored by reason
possibly of the assiduity of the Congressman who represented you, and the weakness of the Secretary of War whom
he influenced. I am prepared to defend my successor, Mr.
366




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


367


Dickinson, who accompanies me and who fortified me in the
policy which led to the establishment and the improvement
of this great post; and the visit here convinces me that those
representatives of the army - officers and enlisted menwho have had the good fortune to be stationed at San Antonio
vindicated the reputation of the army and entitled themselves
to the consideration, association and friendship of the people
of San Antonio. There are places in the country that do
not value such association as this which you have in San
Antonio, but they make a great error. You have seen, the
benefit, have encouraged the coming, have made this post
a delightful post for every one in the army connected with
it, and by the gift of this building, devoted to religion and
morality and the rational amusement of a library, you show
what you regard as the highest standard of an army and
what it should be.
We do not unite officially under our Constitution Church
and State, and sometimes it has been supposed that that indicates a coldness on the part of our government toward
religion and morality based on religion. You know and I
know that nothing is farther from the truth, but that the
government does depend and rest on morality and religion
and is anxious in every way possible, except the selection of
a particular religion and making it a State religion, to encourage religion and morality in every department, and among all
its peoples.
Now, when it comes to the treatment of an army, when
we take over a great body from thirty, to sixty, to one hundred
thousand men, and house them and feed them and clothe
them, give them the places in which to live and surround
them with those limitations and restrictions that are necessary
for the discipline of the army, as in the navy as well, it
becomes the part of the government to furnish to those men
the opportunities for the worship of God and for the pursuit
of rational amusement in such a way as not to lead them to
retrograde steps, and hence it is that we appoint chaplains
of different denominations and pay them out of the treasury




368


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


of the United States; both in the army and the navy, and
in the charitable and other institutions of the government.
And this is not regarded as uniting Church and State.
I have said that this is a testimony to the generosity and
appreciation of the people of San Antonio. It is. It is an
expression of generosity that means such and shows that you
have a community here that first appreciates a good thing
when it sees it and then is willing to go down into its pockets
and show that it really feels as it says.
I can not now forbear to speak a word about the Army of
the United States of which temporarily I have the honor
to be Commander-in-Chief. I am not a member of the army
and therefore can speak of it with an entire disinterestedness
and impartiality.
The army does not get its share of praise. It sometimes
falls to a man in Congress or elsewhere to take what he calls
a fall out of the army officer or out of the army establishment
and we do not rush forward to defend it as we ought. Army
officers by reason of the discipline that must be maintained
are obliged to keep quiet and not defend themselves and the
establishment as they might. Now, I have no such limitation.
I have a right to say what I think about that army of devoted
men. I know something about it. I was in the Philippines
when they were going through a campaign that in its way
was as dangerous to life and limb as any campaign that any
army went through. I was there when they had to exercise
that self-restraint under provocation that no man can know
except the one exposed to the dangers that they there suffered,
and I know what efficiency they showed both in the upholding of quasi-civil government and in the pursuit of the men
who were seeking to kill them on the one hand and having
their children educated in the towns on the other at the same
time by the very army which they were attempting in every
way to decimate. The army went to Cuba. It stayed there
two years. It was extended all over the Island; in every
hamlet, in every large town was a detachment of troops.
Did you hear of a single trouble occurring in a foreign




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369


population guarded by that army? Not one. Of what army
in the world can you say that but the army of the United
States? In the Philippines it was so that they had to be
divided up in 500 different posts. They had to be commanded by captains, and first lieutenants, and second lieutenants, and some posts even by sergeants, and the enlisted
men showed there the capacity for leadership. Each man
at the head of a post was conceiving a campaign against the
enemy in the neighborhood, and they were there. That
spirit of self-restraint, intelligent self-reliance, that every
American soldier has, is exceptional in the history of the
armies of the world. The extension of the members of the
army over the entire world now has broadened its knowledge.
I don't think we can afford to reduce the army at all. I
think we need an army of this character of not more than
100,000 in ninety millions of people. Of course there are
some distinguished statesmen who see in that 100,000 a
threat to our institutions. Well, I leave it to the people of
San Antonio whether the presence in their neighborhood
of these men to whom they have given this beautiful evidence
of their appreciation-whether they fear that the free institutions of this country are endangered by the existence of an
efficient army of 100,000 men.
The occasion to-night is one that fills me with personal
pleasure, because it fell to my official lot to have to do
with the improvement of this post, and to come here and find
not only a beautiful climate in which the army can exercise
and drill the year around, but to find a beautiful atmosphere
of association with the people of the community that makes
every one who knows anything about it glad to increase the
post because the people want it, gratifies me very much.
I don't know that I am making a speech that is exactly
adapted to the dedication of a church. I have not been long
in the business of preaching, but I am glad here in the name
of the people of the United States to receive from the people
of San Antonio this beautiful building, this evidence of their
love and appreciation of the army and this token that they




370       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
desire to help the army in its standards of high morality and
in religion, and this applies I know both to the officers
and enlisted men. It is a most appropriate building for
all these purposes, and will remain here as long as
the other buildings put up by the government, to show the
attachment and loyalty of the people of San Antonio both to
the government and to those representatives of the government whose fortune it is to live in this neighborhood.
I now dedicate this edifice to peace, good will and
humanity.




XLIV


ADDRESS AT CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS
(OCTOBER 22, 1909)
M:. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen:
AM delighted to be here and to meet the citizens of this
enterprising city of Corpus Christi, and I am glad to
receive their welcome as the temporary head of the Nation.
I am glad to see the school children arrayed here, because it
speaks well for a community that can have such school
children. I think it does them good and gives them a
patriotic thrill to come together on an occasion like this to
meet the man who for the time being represents the
sovereignty of the Nation which they love.
I am glad to be in this southwestern part of Texas. I
think it is southwestern. I have been travelling for a good
many days and I have not yet gotten to the eastern part of it.
It has been my great fortune to spend three or four days
in this neighborhood, and to spend them out in the field,
so that I am reasonably confident that you who have had
more experience with this productive sun of yours can stand
it even better than I.
I am delighted here to have the privilege of meeting and
receiving the hospitable greeting of your Governor. The
Governor and I have made a little arrangement between
ourselves which perhaps, betraying a little confidence, I
may tell you all. I am not sure how your local committee
will like it, but the Governor has arranged that he is to wear
a silk hat in deference to the Presidency, and I am to wear
a soft straw hat in deference to the Governorship; so that
if you see any apparent lack of congruity in that matter, you
will understand that arrangement was made in El Paso.
371




372        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
Seriously speaking, I am exceedingly obliged to your
Chief Magistrate for his continued hospitality and his kindness in visiting and welcoming me to the various important
parts of the State.
And now, my dear friends, there is another occasion for
this meeting to which I must make reference this morning.
It is to the object of the Inland Waterways Convention,
which manifests its importance by calling so many promient representatives from all sections of the country to take
part in your deliberations.
The subject of the conservation of our national resources
received its first impetus from that crusader and reformer,
Theodore Roosevelt. He pointed out how wasteful in the
past we had been of those blessings which God has showered
upon our country and yet which had limitations that if we
did not respect would ultimately bring us to a famine in
respect to many of them. He pointed out the necessity for
the irrigation and reclamation of our arid and semi-arid
land. He pointed out the fact that we had conferred upon
private individuals and corporations ownerships of great
mineral deposits, especially of coal and phosphate; that
under our present laws, by mere agricultural settlement, persons and corporations might acquire sites upon which great
water power could be obtained from the streams and sold to
the public when converted into electrical power. He pointed
out the necessity for our saving our forests and reforesting
parts where the forests had been destroyed, not only for the
purpose of preserving our timber preserves, but also for the
purpose of equalizing the rainfall, preventing erosion of the
soil by cloudbursts and overfall of rain, as well as by preserving the level in our navigable streams, so that they
might be navigated the year round, and thus he led up to
the improvement of our waterways all over the country,
in order that by the use of these waterways and the cheapness
of transportation we might have a substantial means of
restraining the excessive railroad rates for the transportation
of our produce. Now that program is a long one. It is




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one in respect to which we have taken some important steps.
Of the government forests we have put about 70 per cent.
in forest reservations under control, so that we shall not
suffer from the forest fires or the denudation by private greed.
We have not taken the steps that ought to be taken, but which
doubtless will be, following the model of the general Government by the State governments, which shall preserve the
privately owned forests, which are four times the size of those
of the Government itself, from fire and from that sort of
treatment which shall make the country a waste. We have
not yet adopted the laws, but I hope to recommend them to
Congress, by which the Government shall retain some
control over the use of the coal lands still owned by the
Government and still to be put under private use.
We have not yet adopted a law, but I hope to recommend
one, by which the water-power sites shall be segregated from
other parts of the public domain and parted with only under
such conditions as shall enable the Government to secure a
proper revenue therefrom, and to regulate the rates of power
charged by those who shall take possession of those sites and
transform the water power into electricity.
We have not yet adopted a rule, but I hope we may, and I
shall recommend it, by which we shall retain some control
over the phosphate lands of the Government containing
immeasurable wealth in respect to the fertilizers of the soil
of the West, leasing them or parting with them on such
terms as to prevent the exportation of the phosphate or the
charging of too high rates for its use.
The preservation of our waterways is one that has long
attracted the attention of the Government; and while we do
not permit other people to criticize us, when we get together
in a convention and talk to each other confidentially, we
must recognize that even we have made mistakes at
times.
We have invested about $600,000,000 in our waterways.
We have done very good work with reference to sea
harbors, and we have done some excellent work, when the




374        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
work was specified, in helping to make our rivers more
navigable; but the trouble with the work has been that it
has been done largely by piecemeal. It has not carried out
a theory or a great project with reference to the establishment
of a great avenue of transportation, and the time has arrived
for changing our policy in that regard. Sometimes that
body of men who have had charge of our waterways in the
execution of the improvements appropriated for, the army
engineers, have come under criticism because of the policy
pursued by the Government, that is most unjust. That
policy has been determined by the river and harbor
committees of the Senate and the House - that is, the Commerce Committee of the Senate, and the Rivers and
Harbors Committee of the House - and it has usually
been determined by the clamor from home for appropriations, and by party considerations, whether there was enough
money in the Treasury to justify the appropriations and
not subject the party in power to too great criticism for
wasteful extravagance.
Now as long as that limitation continues, as long as that
state of affairs is allowed to exist, we may be sure of having
a piecemeal, and a - what shall I call it? - a procession by
jerks in reference to our improvements. Every man who
looks at it from a business standpoint - and a business standpoint is a patriotic standpoint - knows that what ought to
be done is for us to agree on the great projects that are
necessary to better our conditions; to have those projects
surveyed; to have the experts determine whether the proposal
is practical; to have it determined by Congress that it will
work the improvement hoped for; and then, having made up
our minds to do it, to issue the bonds to pay for the construction. I do not think there is any distinction between the
improvement of the Ohio River from Pittsburg to the
mouth at Cairo, of the Mississippi River from the headwaters
of that stream to New Orleans, from the head of navigation
in the Missouri River to its mouth, and the inland waterways
of the East, or the inland waterways of the Gulf, or the inland




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waterways of the West, and the construction of the Panama
Canal.
You ought to take each as a measure by itself, determine
whether it is worth the expenditure, and then if it is, get your
money in the quickest way and build your work in the
quickest way, so that you shall get a benefit from it at once.
That is economic and it is business-like. Now of course
I recognize the danger that there is in the proposition that
you issue bonds for such enterprises. In other words, that
when you issue bonds you are just like, was it not brother
Micawber, who when he had just written a note and turned
it over, thanked God that that debt had been paid. There
is a disposition, when you pay for an enterprise by bonds, not
to realize that some day those bonds have got to be paid,
and that that is no payment. Nevertheless, I have confidence in the conservatism of the American people and Congress that they will not adopt every enterprise haphazard
and go into the business on the theory that it does not cost
anything because we can issue bonds to pay for it, but I
believe they will go to work with conservatism, that they will
calculate the question whether now is the time to do the work,
or whether the country ought to develop more before we
make such an expenditure.
Now you will say I am influenced by my beginning. I
came from the Ohio Valley, and the Ohio River improvement has reached such a stage that we have gone on and
built dams and demonstrated the possibility of making a
nine-foot stage of water from Pittsburg to Cairo and keeping
that nine feet every month in the year. That is going to
cost sixty-three millions of dollars. It has been surveyed and
carefully estimated, and that is the cost we may depend upon
within reasonable limits.
Now I say if we are in favor of such an enterprise as
that, let us vote the bonds and build it as rapidly as
possible. You are not without interest in that Ohio River
improvement. The fact is that there are nine feet from
Cairo to the Gulf, and if you get your coal down and all those




376        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
other articles of heavy merchandise that must travel by
water, if they are to come to you at all, ultimately you have
to count on getting that all the way by water, and that will
come through a nine-foot intercoastal canal.
But, my friends, before you can induce Congress to vote
the money for that canal, or the bonds, you have to show
that you have grown to a point where the trade will justify the
expenditure. That is a matter of growth, and whether you
have it or not I do not know. I expect, if I took a vote, I
would hear a very affirmative expression from the present
Convention, but fortunately we do not all pass, that is, we
have not a complete vote on everything that affects us in
this country.
That the improvement of harbors and waterways is a
matter to which we may properly devote our attention is
demonstrated by the fact with respect to other harbors
that have been made such a success.
Take the harbor of Galveston. That harbor, it was
prophesied long ago, could amount to nothing because of the
obstacles that were there, and a great deal of money was
spent on it, and then the Lord seemed to take a hand and
wiped out the entire town. But the energy of those citizens
met the obstacles, and the city was rebuilt, and to-day it is
the second port in the United States. But Galveston is a
type of what can be done when you have trade that will find
its way out, and when you adopt the best means to give
expansion to that trade. Now just what ought to be done
with reference to the intercoastal canal at this point I do not
know. You have had the reports of engineers; you have
had your example in a boat which you have here which goes
from here to Galveston, as to the reduction of rates. There
is not the slightest doubt that the best means of controlling
railroad rates is water communication; but that is not the
only means, and we ought to see it to that our interstate
commerce law is made to accomplish the purpose declared
in it by adding to its provisions so as to make it effective.
I am not in favor of drastic legislation against railroads




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except such as is necessary to keep them within the law and
to keep them within reasonable rates. The truth is we
want to encourage our railroads. You will rush in a body
of 30,000 people in a county, and you will vote bonds for
a railroad if it will only come in. Then it will come in, and
after a time you won't find a friend of that railroad in that
county - except possibly its local attorney. Then you will
proceed to legislate and you will do injustice to that railroad,
but after a while, after you have done injustice to the point
where you don't get the proper accommodations, and where
you drive them into a system of economy that does not build
up your country, you finally begin to realize that the only
good policy as well as the only honest policy is a square deal
to the railroads so as to give them the rates they ought to
have and not allow popular prejudice to deprive them of
reasonable profit for the investment, including the risk that
they made when they went into the business.
Now my friends, I did not intend to make as long a speech
as this, but I only intended to outline what is before the
National Government with reference to the conservation
of our resources, the improvement of the waterways, and,
in connection with the improvement of the waterways, the
strengthening of the hand of the Interstate Commerce Commission so that we may have reasonable rates, so that as
this southwestern country here in Texas grows up, as it is
bound to grow, changing from a stock country to an agricultural country, to a place where you will produce cotton
enough to make you all rich, that you shall have the means
of putting that cotton on the market at a reasonable rate,
in order that you may get a proper profit out of it.
I do not mean to limit you to cotton. I believe there are
lots of other things you can produce, including children, and
they all tend to the comfort of your homes, to making you
better Texans and to making you better citizens of the
greatest Republic on earth.
I want to thank the Confederate and the Grand Army
veterans who have honored me by coming here this morning.




378        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
I hope this test of the Texas sun will not be too much for
them. When they were earlier in the field of arms, they
were able to withstand the sun a good deal better than
some of us that have a little too much avoirdupois, but it
is a great scene to see the mixture of those who fought for
the blue and those who fought for the gray here in Texas
sitting together and worshipping the old flag and feeling a
common pride in the deeds of heroism that were done in
the Civil War between '61 and '64, and that we remember
now and use now only to weld more closely all of those who
gather under the starry banner.




XLV


REMARKS AT THE BANQUET TENDERED BY
THE CITIZENS OF DALLAS, TEXAS
(OCTOBER 2S, 1909)
Mr. Mayor, Bishop Garrett, Senator Cllberson,
Gentlemen of Dallas and North Texas:
LIKE an optimist, and I like to sit next to one, and I like
an optimist in a prince of the church, too. If they are
not optimists, we ought to give up altogether. I congratulate the gentlemen of Dallas and of North Texas on their
representative for this evening. I think it was wise, if a statement of needs was to be presented to the general Government, that you should have taken one accustomed to form
supplications. If he has left out anything that the general
Government ought to attend to, I shall call on my friend,
Senator Culberson, with his broad view of the Constitution,
to point it out. It has escaped me, at any rate.
With reference to forestry, I am not aware that the United
States has any particular ownership in the forests of East
Texas, and if they are to be preserved and reforested that
must be attended to, I think, by the State of Texas. The
Bishop says you would like a little help. Well, there are
some propositions with reference to reforesting by the
Federal Government on the theory that the Federal Government has the control of navigable streams, and that navigable
streams, in order to be navigable, should be navigable the
year round - that forests are useful in the economy of nature
for the equalizing of the furnishing of water to those streams,
and therefore that it is the business of the Federal Government to purchase sufficient land that ought to be forest land
to make those streams equal the year round. Now, whether
379




380


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


my friend, Senator Culberson, will follow me in that course
of reasoning to show that that is within the Federal function,
I do not know, but I am sure that my friend, the Bishop, will.
With respect to the boll-weevil and the green fly, they
come within the general welfare clause, and we are doing
the best we can. Uncle Jimmie Wilson reports every week
at the Cabinet table on the boll-weevil, so that I am fairly
familiar with it. I do not know that it is especially a
Texas product, but we do hear more of it from Texas than
any part of the country. The green fly is a gentleman with
whom I am just making an acquaintance. But I shall consult Secretary Wilson and see that he, too, is covered by the
general welfare clause.
With respect to irrigation, we are, if I understand it,
engaged in a work in New Mexico, near enough to the west
border of Texas to furnish, when that project is completed,
a very considerable amount of water to that part of Texas
that is exactly like heaven, your Grace, when you get water
on it. The comparison otherwise is different. And I am
very hopeful that the project and many others arising, not
from the general welfare clause of the Constitution, but due
to the enterprise and cupidity of man, may make that vast
country that you have within the borders of this State as
full of happy men and women and as productive as the
bringing of water to the soil can make it.
Then, too, the Bishop mentioned ports and waterways.
Well, ports do come within the strict limitation of the Constitution, and we are engaged in the Government, as far
we have money, in improving the ports. My own impression
is, that there is a better and more comprehensive method of
attending to this matter than has heretofore been attempted
or projected -that we ought to decide upon particular
improvements of extended effect and determine that these
things are to be done, and then do them with as much dispatch as possible. That involves what I haven't hesitated
to say I am in favor of - when you get a project that ought
to be done, I am in favor of issuing bonds to do it. But




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that is very far from saying that I am in favor of every
project that is suggested, because it is easy to issue bonds
to do it. In other words, I think that if you adopt that
system, you must pursue a method of rigid examination
into the merits of the project to see, not whether in the distant
future it ought to be done, but whether it ought to be done
now; and if it ought to be done now, then to do it in the most
economical way, and the most economical way is to take
your money and not wait for it until it accumulates by a
surplus from your ordinary revenues, but to issue bonds and
do it and share with posterity the burden of that which is
of benefit to posterity.
Then the Bishop in that list that he presented alluded to
the reclamation of swamp lands. Well, I am not prepared
to say that that can not be worked in, having reference to
the general welfare clause and the necessity for preserving
the navigation of the streams.
Speaking seriously, the conservation of our resources, to
which the Bishop has referred, is a subject of immense
importance, and it involves not only the construction of
waterways and the reforestation of our forests, but also the
prevention of reduction in the erosion of our farm lands by
the floods, which in theory at least would be largely reduced
in volume, and much better able to be controlled, if our
forests were extended and certain improvements entered
upon in respect to our rivers. All I can say to the Bishop
with respect to that is that the matter has been noted and
will doubtless be worked out in due time.
The conservation of our resources is going to test the practical operation of our Federal Constitution in cooperation,
if I may use that expression, with the State constitutions, and
this is going to involve joint operation on the part of the
States between themselves, and their cooperation with the
Federal Government. I believe it can be worked out. I
believe that the Federal Constitution -the greatest instrument that ever was penned by man and adopted as a fundamental law - will prove in the end to be sufficient for our




382        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
purposes, if we can invoke, as doubtless we can, the cooperation of the States on sensible lines. I think we are going to
find that possible in the spirit which, I may say without
invidious implication, is present here to-night -the spirit
of State pride -which believes that there is nothing that
the State cannot accomplish when it attempts to do so, even
though it is willing to receive such aid as the general welfare
clause of the Constitution will enable the general Government to give it.
The Bishop referred to prejudices that existed against
Texas in those early days of the Republic before we knew
what Texas was, but we know now, Bishop, and you don't
find any such reference or criticism in the conventions of the
Episcopal Church and the House of Bishops. You have
not only been teaching them, but you in your own person
and character have been furnishing an example to them and
to all Texas as well.
The truth is, my dear friends, that the United States in
one sense has contracted to a degree that our forefathers
never in their wildest dreams imagined. You are nearer
to Washington to-day in Dallas than New York was to Washington in the early days of the Republic. Your newspapers
and your press, of which the Bishop has spoken so highly,
and justly I doubt not - I congratulate you on your exceptional press, which puts you in touch with the center of the
nation at Washington so far as the Government is concerned,
with the markets of the world in London and New York,
and wherever the standard of prices is set. The railroads
put you in actual communication in so short a time that we
all seem now to be one State rather than forty-six different
States.
We have been breeding to a type in America, and what
has struck me in going all over the United States is that we
are all Americans, that we do not differ in our general mode
of thought; we do not even differ in our fashions —the
ladies know in Texas and California within the time that it
takes the express to take a bonnet from New York to Cali



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383


fornia what the change is, and the change is made, and you
generous husbands in Texas know it, just as well as I do.
We are getting closer and closer together, and I thank God
that it is so, because with our aims more alike, with our
inspirations the same, with our object clearly defined before
us of the elevation of the individual in connection with
material prosperity, it seems to me that there is nothing that
we may not accomplish, because we are engaged in what, for
lack of a better term I take from the football language-we
are engaged in team work.
Now, you might think that what I have said would demonstrate the lack of necessity for the President to travel around
the country; that he ought to gather all the information that
there is, because we are all alike and we are all working
toward the same end, by sitting in Washington and getting
it that way; but I venture to think that there is something
in the personal touch between those to whom authority is
delegated and those who delegate it that means much for
both, certainly for the person who has for the time being to
exercise the responsibility of executing what he understands
to be the mandate of the people. I believe that I myself
can see from the trip which I have thus far taken, the value of
coming into contact with the people in all the different parts
of the United States. I have not had presented in exactly
the same forcible eloquent way the needs of any particular
section with as much persuasiveness as the Bishop has put
forth that which the State of Texas looks for. I have been
able, however, to gather, in every part of the country which
I have visited, the general needs of each section, what the
people there are thinking about, what they are hoping for,
and what they are entitled to. I do not wish to say that
those two things differ, but they sometimes differ in the
matter of time when they are to receive what they are asking
for.
I heard the Bishop speak with great pleasure of that which
you are laboring for in Texas -that of unity and an
appreciation of the man, no matter what his politics are. I




384        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
believe that that is true the country over. I think party ties
are not quite so binding as they used to be. I think the
bitterness of political discussion is by no means what it was
in years past. The truth is, if you want to be an optimist,
if you want to be happy, you must study the facts with
respect to our past political history, and I am sure that we
can all trace steps of improvement so marked that we shall
find ourselves standing with the good Bishop in believing
that the things here are far better than they ever were before,
and that the things to come will continue to improve in the
same measure.
My friends, I am going to say good night and good-bye.
I am going to say to you what comes out of my heart - that
I thank you for your very cordial reception. I know it is
cordial, I know it is sincere, and you can't help it because
I can see it in your faces. Of course, it is rendered to the
Chief Magistrate of the nation which you love as true Americans, but nevertheless it is sweet for the time being to be the
recipient of that expression of love and patriotism.




XLVI


ADDRESS AT      THE   COLISEUM, ST. LOUIS, MO.
(OCTOBER 25, 1909)
Governor Hadley, Mr1 Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
IF YOU will give me a little quiet and a little time, I will
bring that voice back from Texas.
It is a great pleasure to meet the people of St. Louis in
this magnificent structure. I feel somewhat at home here,
because I attempted to address an audience before it had
a roof on it.
I am glad to meet here the distinguished Chief Executive
of the State of Missouri, and to congratulate the State on
having not only those great qualities and opportunities and
resources which he has described, but also on having such
a Governor.
We are on the eve of a great journey down the Mississippi
River, and cursed be he who calls it a junket! It has reference, as the Governor says, to the problem of transportation
by railway and waterway. It is, however, only a part of a
still greater movement inaugurated by Theodore Roosevelt,
and called by him properly the conservation of our national
resources. You in the Mississippi Valley are especially
interested in that part of the conservation that looks to the
improvement of inland waterways; but you are not lacking
in that broad national view that takes in the necessities and
the crying necessities of other parts of the Union. The
conservation includes, first - and that you are directly interested in - the preservation of our forests because their
relation to navigable streams and non-navigable streams
has been directly traced by scientific men; the prevention of
floods, the prevention of droughts, the prevention of the
385




s86


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


rosion of the soil and the transportation on your Fathei
of Waters of the farm products of Ohio and MSssouri and
Iowa to the delta at the mouth of the Mississippi. The
part that the United States as a government can claim in
this conservation of our resources has not been definitely
settled, and it is not likely to be until all the phases of the
problem are presented for solution. It is certain that the
United States has the right to deal with the land which it
owns in such a way as to conduce to the general welfare;
Mnd therefore that it owes a duty to the people with reference
to the forest lands that it owns to preserve them and develop
them as far as possible, to make them useful with reference
to our water supply.
But the Government owns only about one-fourth of all,he forest lands of the United States. Those other lands
are in States, and we must look to the State governments to
follow the example of the Federal Government and use all
the power possible to preserve those forests from fire and
from such denudation as shall destroy their water-equalizing
quality throughout the country. The United States has been:most bounteous and generous in the sale and disposition of
the public lands, and we could point out, if we were hypercritical, the waste and undue generosity with which we have
parted with those lands. But in doing so we are apt to
forget the condition of the country that led to that generous
policy, and we are apt to ignore the enormous progress that
has been made in the country by the carrying out of that generous policy. Therefore, without any tears for what has been
done in the past, we can take our stand now on the present
conditions and say that a time has come for the inauguration
of a new policy with reference to disposing of the lands
that remain to the United States.
There would seem  to be no reason why we should
change the mode of disposing of agricultural land; but
there are certain kinds of lands that modern progress
shows have an element in them that requires us in theii
future disposition to be most careful. There are the




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387


mineral lands, of which we have disposed of millions of
acres as agricultural lands, and yet they have enriched their
present owners by the treasures under the soil. There
is no reason now why we should not separate the surface of
the land and its internal contents, its mineral contents in the
disposition, so that a man may settle land as agricultural
land and cultivate it as such and not become the owner of
the coal or minerals which lie below the surface and of which
no one has cognizance at present. That applies to coal
land and to oil land and applies to phosphate land, which
contains the element by which other soil can be made productive.
Then there has developed in the last decade an enormous
power available for all sorts of manufacture and for transportation as well, in electricity. That electricity can be
most cheaply produced by water power. A great many sites
have been disposed of to private corporations that are now
pursuing a course with reference to the development of those
powers that ought to be encouraged; and it is quite probable
that when they come to sell that power the sovereign power
of the State may step in to regulate the rate at which they
dispose of that power to other individuals. Meantime there
remains in the ownership of the Government enough power
sites over which the Government may retain control by the
disposition through conditional deeds or leases or some other
form of conditional disposition, so that the rates can be
directly regulated through the ownership by the Government of those existing power sites. There will then be a
number of power sites absolutely owned by private individuals, a number controlled by the States, and still more owned
by the Government under the character of title which I have
defined, and we may rest assured that under that arrangement monopoly can not possess itself of all the power sites
in the country.
And now I come to the subject of waterways. We have
done a great deal in this country in the improvement of
waterways, and we have spent a great deal of money. I




388        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
am not criticising the methods then pursued. We were
growing. We had a great many things to do, and the first
money that was expended ought to have been expended in the
development of our harbors on the seacoast. We have spent
a good deal of money in the inland waterways. I don't
think it has been spent as much to a good purpose as it would
have been had we adopted some other theory and some
other method, but I am not here to criticise the past, and I
think that a great deal could probably be said in defense of
the economy that has been pursued in that matter. But I
do think we now have reached a time in the history of the
development of our waterways when a new method ought
to be adopted. Now, I would like to clear away a good many
suppositions that I am afraid have lodged in some minds.
This improvement of waterways, the improvement by
the irrigation of arid and sub-arid lands, and all this conservation of resources is not for the purpose of distributing
"pork" to every part of the country. Every measure that
is to be taken up is to be adopted on the ground that it is
to be useful to the country at large and not on the ground
that it is going to send certain Congressmen back to Congress,
or on the ground that it is going to make a certain part of
the country prosperous during the expenditure of that money.
If that is the principle - the one which I deprecate -that
is to obtain, then I am in favor of going along in the same
old way we have gone on before. The method I am in
favor of is this: That we should take up every comprehensive project on its merits, and we should determine, by
all the means at our command, whether the dountry in which
that project is to be carried out is so far developed as to
justify the expenditure of a large sum in carrying out the
project, and whether the project will be useful when done.
When you have determined that on the general principle
of good to the entire country, then I am in favor of doing
that work as rapidly as it can be done, and I am in favor of
issuing bonds to do it. And if it shall turn out that some
part of the country is linked to a particular project by reason




AND STATE PAPERS


of eloquent and large words and a general lively imagination
that is not sustained by the facts of cold investigation, then
that part of the country must wait until it can grow up
to that project and that project come to it.
I am not minimizing the difficulties that are going to arise
in selecting what has to be done or in determining the order
in which those projects are to be carried out. I know I
value more intensely than I ever did in my life the interest
and local patriotism that we find all over the United States;
but we can not trust that in a plan of improvement which if
carried on without sanity and without a knowledge of the
good that is to come from it will bankrupt the Government.
Now there is a proposition that we issue $500,000,000 of
bonds or a billion of bonds for waterways, and then that we
just cut that up and apportion a part to the Pacific, a part to
the Atlantic, a part to the Mississippi, a part to the Missouri
and a part to the Ohio. I am opposed to it because it not only
smells of the "pork barrel," but it will be the "pork barrel."
Let every project stand on its own bottom. Let it prove
itself by means of its friends and by means of those who
know whether it is to be profitable or not, and then enter
upon it, but don't let us in the enthusiasm of vague declaration and eloquence embark on a plan that will reflect no
credit on our business common sense and will only display
the seamy side of that local patriotism which united together
makes up our grand Americanism.
And now, my friends, I have subjected you long enough
to the croak of a crow, and I am going to ask you to excuse
me from speaking further other than to say to you that I
have had great pleasure in standing before this magnificent
audience of St. Louisans and Missourians, of Congressmen
and of Governors, and it makes my heart well up with patriotism to look into your faces and find here in the center of the
country the same spirit of determination to overcome all
obstacles which are between us and higher living and greater
prosperity that I have found from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Ocean and from Canada to the Gulf.




XLVII


REMARKS AT THE WATERWAYS CONVENTION
HELD IN THE ATHENEUM, NEW ORLEANS, LA.
(OCTOBER 30, 1909)
Governor Sanders, Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen of the Waterways Convention, Ladies of New Orleans:
I MENTION you last because you are the most important.
I am  delighted to be present (you see we adopt in
our administration the Roosevelt policies to the full) and
to head the highly honorable delegation that has come
from St. Louis to the Gulf. We have passed through all
the dangers of the navigation of the river, and they are not
confined to the shoals, sand-banks and the bends, and we
are here without the loss of a single man. There are some
few of us who have braved the whole way, and I hesitate to
speak of those who resorted to the humiliating device of
taking land transportation to get here. I hope that will
be suppressed in the minutes of this meeting. When "Uncle
Joe" addresses your honorable body, don't ask him where
he left the river and where he got back to it.
We were honored on our flagship by the presence of the
Governor of Louisiana and the Governor of Mississippi.
We needed them in our business, for we did not know where
we might be thrown ashore on those high banks that frowned
down upon us as we rode the river, and you can see from the
eloquent tribute and words and kindly, affectionate tone of
the Governor how we fooled him.
But, jesting aside, my dear friends, we are delighted to
be here, first, because we are reasonable men who know
a good thing when we see it, and any man who doesn't welcome an opportunity to come to New Orleans is lacking in
390




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


391


all that goes to make up a respectable man; and secondly,
we are glad to be here because our coming indicates what
we hope may be an epoch in the change of the character
of transportation in this country. Do not misunderstand
me. I do not think that we are going to fill the bosom of
the Mississippi with barges and ocean steamers to-morrow
morning. The change which is bound to be effected with
respect to that stream will come gradually. It will come
with the demand that is certainly growing for an improvement in our transportation and the cheapening of that kind
of transportation, to wit, bulky merchandise that ought to be
carried more cheaply than it is to-day.
This trip has been illuminating to many of us, not so
much in offering a solution to the problems presented in
trying to develop the Mississippi and other rivers for that
kind of transportation which will be most beneficial to the
country, but it has been illuminating in showing the difficulties that we have to meet and overcome in order that those
rivers shall occupy their proper place in transportation.
Now, there are a good many things that come to you when
you sit down and think and devote attention to a problem.
If your mind is directed toward railroad transportation and
the building up of the country by that means, and if public
attention is taken off rivers and they are allowed to become
nothing but sewers, it is not in human nature that the problems presented by the rivers shall receive the attention
which will insure the solution of those problems.
We have seen human ingenuity turned and developed to
the highest degree in the growth of our railroad transportation and the economy in the conduct of railroads. But the
condition of our rivers, the apparently hopeless task of
making them useful, has turned the public attention from
them, and there isn't, in reference to river construction or
river navigation, that improvement that we ought to have
had in the last forty years. I ask you what progress has
been made in the last thirty or forty years in reference to
river navigation?




392


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


Now, we have reached a point where we are bound to
use those because the amount that is required to be carried
will necessitate it. In Germany and in foreign countries,
to which we are pointed to show what can be done with
river navigation, the Government exercises control and
says that with respect to the rates certain of them shall
be such on the river that bulky merchandise must go that
way. What do we do? Why, we say to the railroads,
"If you will only arrange your rates so as to compete with
the river, we will permit you to make them so as to drive the
river out of business."  Now, that is what has been done,
and while the river has served the purpose of regulating rates
to a certain extent in reducing them, it nevertheless has
not exercised that power and that influence that it might
if it were actually used for the purpose.
The Secretary of War yesterday suggested -although
he is as far from a government-ownership man as possible
-that perhaps it might be well to let the Government
experiment a bit in risking some capital to put a few lines
on the river to try and see whether something cannot be done
with that business. In Kansas City they are investing
money to-day to try it on the Missouri River. And the
question whether we can meet the point that you must
have some means of gathering the business and getting
it on to the boat in order to compete with the railroad, will
not give rise to the suggestion that the Government might
establish stations along the river for the purpose of housing
the merchandise to be sent by the river. All those are
suggestions that will have to be worked out before we reach
a satisfactory conclusion.
Now, in St. Louis I said I thought that we ought to
satisfy ourselves with respect to a great improvement of
the river, that it would be useful before we went ahead
and invested all the money necessary, and that then we
ought to invest that money quickly and issue bonds for the
purpose, because that is the most rapid way. Now I thinkat least the great weight of opinion is - that we have solved




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393


the question of the navigation of the Ohio River for the
purpose of improving the trade of that river; and if you
are going to make the Mississippi a valuable stream, you
must depend on the feeders to that stream, of which the
Ohio to-day is far and away the most important.
Now, you say I come from Ohio, and that that is the
reason I think so. Well, perhaps it is, but nevertheless
there is a report in which the cost of that improvement has
been gone into detail, and the engineers have approved it
to the extent of nine feet of water - slack water, throughout
the whole year, and it will cost $63,000,000. Now I am in
favor of going ahead with that which has been determined
to be useful, and issuing bonds and building those improvements, because they have shown by the improvements already
erected that the solution there has been reached that it is
practical. I am not in favor of delaying the Mississippi
River improvement until the Ohio River improvement is
completed, but I am in favor of finding out what you ought
to do in the Mississippi River succinctly and knowing what it
will cost before you go in and spend all your money. The
use of a river for navigation is going to determine a
good deal of what is needed in it for better navigation.
That is the reason why the Kansas City method is a
good method and I am hopeful that in some way or other
you can increase the amount of business on the Mississippi
River.
When I spoke of the Ohio River to a gentleman most
interested in the Mississippi, he said, "Oh, well, pshaw;
you have got a great coal company up at the top of that
river, and it furnishes the business." Well, of course it
does, and that is the reason why we are in favor of the
improvement. It is demonstrated that the river will carry
that coal, and we have the coal to carry. And so it is
with respect to the Lakes. They have the iron ore to carry,
and its value has been determined time and time again. Now
you improve the Ohio River, and we will give you more and
more trade for the Mississippi, and in that way you will




394


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


learn and develop, by investigation and actual experiment,
what is needed in the Mississippi.
I have been delighted to read, because I had otherwise
a different idea, that the Mississippi has been improved and
improved greatly toward the lower end; that the Mississippi
River Commission working with Louisiana and Mississippi
has developed a system of levees that are wonderful to save
a State nearly forty thousand square miles, useful and
most productive for agricultural purposes, and that at the
same time they have gone on and have discovered means
of stopping the sloughing off at the interior of the bends; that
by experiment they have found what will stick and what
will not stick, and that we are making progress in spite of
the fact that the progress is not what it ought to be. The
Mississippi River Commission says that in order to carry
on even this they ought to have $2,000,000 more a year, and
certainly Congress ought to be ashamed not to give it to them.
I am very sure that the Speaker of the House, who although
he says he is but one member of the House, nevertheless
under the customs which have grown up is more or less a
Speaker for the House, is charged with a deep responsibility
in regard to this great question; and that he is working as
hard as he can to reach a just solution. It is a great deal
when your movement has been carried to a point where you
command the attention of those in authority to listen to
what you have to say in your favor, and that is what you
have done. You have brought it to a point where, to
use a colloquial expression, we must come down to brass
tacks, and where mere general oratory in favor of a waterway does not suffice. It is the question, what can you do,
how much will it cost, how long will it take, and what will
it result in? Now, when you address yourselves, this body
of men, and treat it as a mere question of transportation on
a profitable basis, I have not the slightest doubt that you
will reach a solution which will appeal to those who have
the responsibility of voting the money for the Government,
and that you will get what you desire in a measurable time.




AND STATE PAPERS                  395
I thank you, my friends, from the bottom of my heart
for this cordial reception. I thank the Business Men's
League of St. Louis for giving me an opportunity to take
part in this historical progress down the Father of Waters,
and I thank them for delivering us into the hospitable arms
and the loving embrace of the Governor of Louisiana and his
constituents; and finally I have to advise those who have not
experienced the delightful hospitality of New Orleans that
they are now sitting in a frame of gems, and that if
they will continue here for two or three days in the beauty
of the women and their charming qualities, they will almost
forget the Mississippi River.




XLVIII


ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE STATE
INSTITUTE AND      COLLEGE AT
COLUMBUS, MISS.
(NOVEMBER 2, 1909)
Young Ladies:
IT is a great privilege to address you. Your- being
here and the character of the institution and of the
education that you are receiving and the results to be accomplished by that, are all calculated to inspire in one enthusiasm
and. sympathy with the work which is going on. I have
a lot of maxims and a lot of principles that I would like to
advance to young ladies in your situation. I wish that
every woman in the world was so situated that she did not
think it was necessary for her to marry if she did not want
to. Now that is a proposition that I am prepared to defend
against all comers. I am the last one to take a position
against that old doctrine of the common law that there ought
to be nothing to interfere with matrimony. But I would have
the matter so arranged that the women when they come
to decide and make their choice shall have a full and
free choice, and that can only be reached when they are put
in a situation where that which they choose is not a life which
they select because it is better than some that they expect,
but a life that they look forward to with unmixed happiness.
Seriously speaking, I think the most important education
that we have is the education which now I am glad to
say is being accepted as the proper one, the one which ought
to be most widely diffused, that industrial, vocational education which puts young men and young women in a position
from which they can by their own efforts work themselves
396




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


397


to independence. And I am glad to know that that principle
obtains here in its best sense, and I am glad to congratulate
these young women on the opportunity which this great
institution affords them to carve out their future and their
own happiness.
I know it is generally supposed that those who inherit
wealth are in the best situation for a future happy life -
I mean in this world - but I, venture to think that the best
legacy that can be left to a young man is a good education
and a good character. The necessity that he is under
of getting out to hustle is an advantage which he does not
appreciate when he is going through the process, but after
he has won success and looks back and compares his life with
that of the men who, when he entered life had money and
means to support themselves, and enjoy themselves, he will
be convinced of the great advantage that fate gave him
when it did not give him a fortune or a competence. The
same thing is true with respect to the young women who
are given a fair chance in life to earn and carve out
their own futures. The great trouble has been that we
have not given the women a fair show. We have not
opened all the avenues to livelihood which they are quite
as well able to fill, and in certain respects better able to fill,
than we are.
I am not a rabid suffragist. The truth is I am not in favor
of suffrage for women until I can be convinced that all the
women desire it; and when they desire it I am in favor of
giving it to them, and when they desire it they will get it too.
But I do believe that one of the advantages of giving them
that kind of influence will be more certainly to open the
avenues of self-support to them than heretofore has been
done. The great principle of popular government is that
every class in the community, assuming that it has intelligence
enough to know its own interest, can be better trusted to look
after that interest than any other class, however altruistic
that class. While husbands respect the wishes of wives,
if they are good husbands, and know what is good for




398       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
them, I don't know that they always manifest the utmost
liberality with reference to the treatment of unmarried
women. What we are bound to have in the future through
influences working, the effect of which we can see, and the
growth into the success of which we can anticipate, is that
women are going to be given greater independence in the
matter of earning their livelihood, and that then they will
reach the point, which I do not think they now have reached,
of regarding an education without a competence as a greater
benefit than one with the means of support.
I shall be glad that I shall not have any property to leave
to my boys, of whom I have two, but only a good character
and a pride in themselves and a good education; but for
my daughter I am going to scrape together as much as I can
give her and as good an education as I can so that she shall
take in the lesson which I first sought to announce as the
text of my discourse, that she marry only when she chooses
to marry and not because of circumstances.
And now, my dear young ladies, I am delighted to have
met you. You get a man who lives beyond fifty and he has
certain views of life that he reasons about in his own mind
and every once in a while he finds an opportunity to give
expression to them, and that is what you have offered me
this morning, and hence you have had to endure this speech.




XLIX
SPEECH AT THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
BANQUET, BIRMINGHAM, ALA.
(NOVEMBER 2, 1909)
Mr. Chairman, Senator Johnston, Governor Comer,
Gentlemen of Birmingham and Citizens of Alabama:
W     H HEN  your distinguished Chairman arose first he
advised us that there was to be no reference to politics
and that the time of each speaker was limited. He, however,
is a toastmaster and, having made the regulation, is entitled
to suspend it in his own case, and I make no argument to that
at all. It reminds me of an answer made by my friend Judge
Howland once, when introduced by a toastmaster whom he
called a "roastmaster," with an introduction that took off
some of the Judge's peculiarities in advance. He said he
had no objection at all because he was reminded of the story
of the gentleman who wandered into a saloon in Nevada
where a game of poker was going on, and as he sat looking
over the game, he saw the dealer transfer four aces from the
bottom of the pack into his own hand. He nudged another
gentleman who was sitting by him looking over the game.
And said, "Did you see that?" "See what," said the
man. "See that man take four aces off the bottom of the
pack?"   His neighbor turned to him  and said, "Hell,
isn't it his deal?"  I am entirely willing to recognize the
right of the toastmaster himself to discuss politics and
exclude it in the rest of us. I can not, however, refrain
from certain observations upon the peculiarities of
Alabama politics, and the position of governor in the
State.  There seems to attach to it a certain necessity
for a purgatory after the term, and I am not at all sure
399




400        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
that it is not a good arrangement, and that it does not make
for excellent senators.
I have listened with a great deal of interest to the statements as to the growth of Birmingham. Those of us who
do not live in Birmingham associate it with three or four
cities of this country. Perhaps you will decline to accept
the association, but as I am a man up a tree, so to speak, I
can insist upon the similarity - Birmingham, Atlanta,
Pittsburg, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle and Los Angeles
are types of a growing prosperity and business development
that one who swings around the country as I have done feels
the greatest national pride in dwelling upon. They are in
the first class. They have a public spirit and a determination to succeed that develop into - I had almost called it a
chimney draft and take you off your feet. There seems to
be no thing that can limit their growth. You have something
substantial and tangible at your doors upon which you can
base your future with even more certainty than these other
cities that have developed so much.
My friend on the right, who is making Republican voters,
has demonstrated that you have a wealth here that is hardly
equalled in the world, and I am glad that it is so, glad that
you have caught the spirit of your opportunities and are
determined to force them to a point where you shall make
yourselves certainly the Pittsburg of the South and one of the
great industrial centers of the world. Your Governor has
been good enough to suggest that a desire for arbitrary rule
is not confined to governors and that it affects the head of
the nation as well - the temporary head of the nation - and
he has made suggestions as to what I might do with the
vacancies that will await me when I get back to Washington.
I thought that his suggestion with reference to the associate
justiceship was much too indefinite, and that when he made
his definite suggestion it received a very much heavier
approval. If he will also name his associate justice from
the lawyers of Alabama, then he will be really helping me
with respect to both offices.




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401


What one sees in Birmingham one also sees in a less
degree in every town and State of the United States. It is a
spirit of progress and determination to overcome the obstacles
that present themselves which I do not think is unjust to call
typically American. I haven't found a corner of this country
where there is anything but optimism and contentment,
anything but a request that they be given an equal chance
in the race and a determination to come out first. I can
never make a speech on an occasion like this in dealing with
our progress as a nation without referring to the fact that has
impressed itself on me every time I have stepped onto the
platform, in a little town in the Far West or in a large
city like this, and that is the homogeneity of the American
people, their having become a type different from that of any
other nation, and a type that illustrates all we take pride
in, the progressiveness and the courage and the enterprise
which have made this country what it is, and which are
going to carry it to a development that even we with our
optimism can hardly reach in our imagination. And what
I long for and hope for and believe is that in that material
progress we are not going to lose sight of the fact that unless
we accompany it with an elevation of the individual, with
an elevation of our business standards, with the making of
the character of each citizen better and higher and increasing
our moral standards, the material progress will not be worth
anything to the nation.
I think that in the last ten years and under the influence of
Theodore Roosevelt, we have had called to our attention
the dangers into which we might be led by an undue desire
to increase our material prosperity at the cost of honesty in
business and freedom from monopoly and greed with
reference to our corporations and business generally. And
now that we are about to resume a prosperity which will grow
as I believe in the next four or five years to a point never
before seen in this country or in the world, it is wise that we
should take into consideration the necessity that we shall
not let it come except on condition that it comes with a
A




402


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


preservation of equality of opportunity to American citizens
and the bettering of our business integrity and the restraint
of all those things that tend to monopoly and corruption in
politics and in business.
Now, the Chairman said I must keep out of politics, and I
will because I believe I am speaking a doctrine to which
everybody subscribes, whether he be Republican or Democrat. I am glad to be in Birmingham because it is in the
South. It is said to be cosmopolitan, and it has attracted by
reason of its great business opportunities many from the
North and other places, and yet it is in Alabama and it is in
the South and you would not have me say that you are not a
Southern community as you are.
I am deeply interested in the development of the South
and in her obtaining a share of the national prosperity which
came so slowly to her in the last three decades. Birmingham
is leading the South in that direction, and she, because of her
cosmopolitan character, because she is becoming more and
more aware of how close she is to the North and how close
she is to the entire country in a business way, is influencing
the South as the North is influenced toward her to believe
that this country is ceasing to have sections, not ceasing to
have traditions, and there is a definition that I want to make
as emphatic as possible. I would not have the South give
up a single one of her noble traditions. I would not have
her abate a single bit of the deep pride she feels in all the
great heroes who represented her in that awful struggle
between the North and the South. I would have the whole
country know, as I believe the South is growing herself to
know, that it is possible to preserve all those traditions intact
and have a warm and deeply loyal love for the old flag to which
she has come back, and to know that the North respects her
for those traditions she preserves and does not ask her to
discard one, but only wishes to unite with her in the benefits
of a common country and of a sympathy and association
between the peoples of the two sections that will certainly
lead us on to a greater and greater future.




L


REMARKS     AT   THE    STATE    FAIR   GROUNDS,
MACON, GA.
(NOVEMBER 4, 1909)
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Citizens of Georgia:
AM glad to be back in Georgia. I was a Georgian when
I was elected President of the United States. They
went through a preliminary canter just a year ago to-day at
the polls, but the real election under the Constitution, as your
jurist Senator will tell you, was when I was within the precincts of Georgia, and, therefore, for the time being subject
to the Georgian laws, with an allegiance to Georgia, and,
I am glad to say, was a Georgian in spirit and in heart. I
say so because I came under the delightful influence of
Georgian hospitality. I was permitted to work out my own
way with a considerateness that I greatly appreciated. I had
been engaged in a contest and a controversy that made me
wish to lie down for a time, and you permitted me to enjoy
that leisure and that rest without disturbing it, but only by
your soothing hospitality you enabled me to recover again
the strength I needed to meet the responsibilities of the office,
for which you had been somewhat innocent in choosing me.
I am greatly indebted to your distinguished Governor,
to Senator Bacon, and to your Congressman, Mr. Bartlett,
for their representing you in taking me into this beautiful city
of Macon, and I may add in giving me a Georgian breakfast.
It is an admirable meal - one attractive to me in a way that
I hate to admit - but it isn't the best preparation for an
oration.
My friends, the note that will rise up in my voice, and
which I can not restrain, is one of congratulation to the
403




404


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


people of Georgia upon the condition in which they find
themselves this year and this decade under the Providence
of God. It is, as your Chairman has said, enough to make
one stop and think when you realize that out of your cotton
crop alone you will receive in gold more than double all the
gold that will be mined in the United States during a year.
Now, I sincerely hope that you will spend that to the best
advantage. I know from looking about through the town
of Macon that you are spending it to make your homes more
attractive, and to educate the next generation that is coming
on to uphold the high traditions of Georgia, and to maintain
its loyalty and support to the National Government.
I have had the privilege of travelling now some 12,000
miles across the United States, down her western border
along her southern border, until I reached home in Georgia.
And while I would not detract from your natural State pride,
and from that feeling, which I know exists, because I have
a Georgian, Capt. Archibald W. Butt, as my military aide,
that the Georgians are just the best people in the world,
nevertheless I want to admit to you that if I were to be put
blindfolded, without knowing exactly where I was, before
this magnificent audience, it would be a little difficult for
me to distinguish between you and some of the audiences that
I meet in Ohio. You may not regard that as a compliment,
but you must know that I come from Ohio, and the resemblance I like to emphasize, because that is the text of what
I would preach both in Georgia and in Ohio.
We have our differences. We differ because the sun
differs a little bit in its method of showing its love to you in
Georgia and to us in Ohio. We differ because you can
raise cotton and we have to get along with corn and wheat.
But in the essential, in the aspirations that we have, in our
training, in our moral standards, in our political ideals and
in our determination to make our condition better with
reference to each individual who comes to be part of our
people and part of our government, our aims are alike, and
we are alike.




AND STATE PAPERS


405


Now, you differ from some of us because we have benighted
Democrats in Ohio. You differ from us in your view of some
political principles. I do not care if you do. If you will
only give me such a warmth of reception as you have this
morning, I can wipe out the memory of all those principles for
the time being and rejoice that you have taken me in as a
brother. The truth is, a wholesome difference of opinion
with reference to economic and political principles is essential
that we reach the truth. If we all agreed -well, there
wouldn't be any fun in politics to begin with; if we all
agreed, it would indicate an apathy and an indifference to
principle that would mean that the country was going downward instead of upward.
The independence of thought that we seek to cherish
here must lead to differences of opinion, maintained by
argument and voted into the ballot box, and then we all
acknowledge acquiescence in the result of that ballot box.
We have been trained a thousand years through our
English ancestry in the self-restraint that is absolutely necessary to the success of popular government, and in that
quality of being good losers that enabled us to live happily
and contentedly under a government selected by a majority
of which we are not a part. And the same self-restraint
teaches the majority that rules that the limitations of
the Constitution, and not only the limitations of law and the
Constitution, but limitations of decency, limitations of
patriotism, are as strong on the majority as it is possible that
law should be. In other words, the power that is enjoyed is
the power to be exercised only for the benefit of the people
and the country, and not for the purpose of exalting the
person who temporarily is vested with power to exercise it.
I always hear, because it is pleasant and because the man
who says it believes it, and also because it rounds a full period,
about the power of the President of United States, and I
doubt not that after I am out of office I shall be able to look
back and see where I might have done things in the exercise
of power that would have filled me with a consciousness of




406        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
it, but I am bound to say that under existing circumstances
the thing which impresses me most is not the power I have
to exercise under the Constitution, but the limitations and
restrictions to which I am subject under that instrument.
Sometimes a man's head swells a little bit with his momentary
authority, and he thinks that there is a good deal of the limitation of the Constitution that might have been safely
omitted in his case. Now, here is my friend, Senator Bacon
-he and his fellows sit up at the other end of the avenue
and they pass on all my appointments. I could get along
if they didn't have that power, and for the time being it seems
to me that the country would get along a little better if they
couldn't put their fingers in, but our forefathers builded well,
and they knew what they were doing; and I am not in favor,
even if it seems to me that a particular provision ought to be
omitted, of changing the Constitution every time you run
against the sharp edge of something that indicates that you
are only mortal and that the forefathers in making the
Constitution distrusted your human nature.
My friends, that leads me up to one little sermon, and that
is, the wisdom and necessity of following the law as it is.
I know that sometimes in the heat and enthusiasm of reform,
there is an impatience with legal limitations and statutes that
seem to be directed against that reform, or to prevent its
immediate accomplishment, such as to lead us to disregard
it or to ignore it. I do not think, and I am sure you will
agree with me, that that is the best way of getting rid of a
legal limitation that interferes with progress. The best way
is to have the people understand that that limitation ought
to be removed, and that the statutes of our Government
ought to conform so far as may be to our highest ideals and
ambitions; but that the first thing that we have got to do
after arousing the people to the necessity of change, is to
change the law, and not rely upon the Executive himself
to ignore the statutes and follow a law unto himself because
it is supposed to be the law of higher morality.
Now, that may sound like a lawyer's view. Lawyers are




AND STATE PAPERS


407


necessary in a community. Some of you who have paid fees
- some of you who have lost cases in courts of justice -
may have a different view; but as I am a member of that
legal profession, or was at one time, and have only lost standing in it by becoming a politician, I still retain the pride of
the profession. And I still insist that it is the law and the
lawyer that make popular government under a written
constitution and written statutes possible, because if you
depart in any way from the law as it is, you enter upon a
path, which, while entirely certain for one issue in your mind
with respect to the higher moral aim of your own soul and
that of your fellow-citizens, nevertheless leads into a
wilderness, and by which you cannot subsequently guide
your steps. Therefore, let us first make the laws to accord
to our desires and our ambitions, and then follow them.
I have said that much because I have noticed a tendency
among some of our best fellow-citizens to hold the Executive
responsible for not doing a great many things in which it is the
business of my friends in Congress, with Senator Bacon and
Judge Bartlett, to lead the way, and for the Executive only to
follow after they have laid down the rules. That does not
rid the Executive of the responsibility of recommending
changes in the law. But it does prevent him from going
ahead and exercising those changes without the coordinate
action of the legislative branch of the Government; and as
I intend to recommend a good many measures at the next
meeting of Congress, I have taken this method of intimating
to you where the responsibility will be if those measures do
not pass.
My friends, I am delighted to be here. These surroundings could hardly be surpassed in everything that goes to
make up a pleasant meeting. The beautiful ladies and the
men with shining eyes and welcoming hospitable hearts, all
these surroundings make a man feel as if he could talk from
now on until dewy eve. But I am not going to. I only
want to say that such a meeting as this confirms me in the
view that there is not one single reason why you should not




408       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
feel as close to the Government at Washington, and as much
a part of it, as any other part of the country, and that all that
is necessary to have you understand that is to give you the
assurance, which I am delighted to give, and which I know
you will receive in the same spirit, that we are Americans
all together - that you have as much right to be heard by
me while I temporarily exercise the powers of the Chief
Executive at Washington as any citizens in the land, and
that it will gratify me beyond expression if through any act
of mine or through the administration as a whole, I can have
contributed to bring all the peoples of this country together
in one common bond of union, and one sentiment of loyalty
to our flag and to our country.




LI


SPEECH AT THE BANQUET TENDERED BY THE
CITIZENS OF CHARLESTON, S. C., AT
THE CHARLESTON HOTEL
(NOVEMBER 5, 1909)
Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen of Charleston and of South
Carolina:
THANK you for your kindly welcome. It is true that
I have been in Charleston just as often as I could come
here. And I intend to come as often in the future as possible,
as a private citizen or under any conditions. Now, I first
came here because I believed Charleston to be the quickest
way to go to the Isthmus of Panama. And I haven't changed
my opinion about it. Having come here and having become
acquainted with the city of Charleston and with its many
attractions and with a good many of the interior workings of
the city and of South Carolina, they have a fascination for
me. I like to come here and renew those pleasurable
experiences in the discussions that prevail between the great
thunderers in the press. No one who understands the
attraction of real hospitality and the friendships that one
makes in cities like this, ever comes to Charleston but that
he wants to come back again.
Now, I am honored to-night by the presence of the
Governor of your State and by that of your two Senators
with all of whom, I am glad to say, I am on the most
friendly personal terms. And as they cannot make any
speeches, because I am to make the only one, that statement
has to go down undenied. There are certain advantages in
being the only speaker and there are certain disadvantages.
409




410


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


When one is making three speeches a day and is searching
for subjects upon which to talk, it is of much assistance
if other men say something so that one can find
suggestion in their ingenuity, and that is missing to-night
for me. Last night at Savannah I had it in full and
rich measure. Some one has suggested that I would
be able to continue my remarks to-day without having completed all the subjects that were touched upon.
There is one gentleman not here to-night whom I could
wish to see, and that is your active, bright, tender-hearted
and most able Congressman. I sincerely hope that he is
recovering his health completely. He has taken a stay at
Fort Bayard, in New Mexico, and that has worked such
wonders with other friends of mine similarly afflicted that
I am very hopeful he will be restored to you with all his
strength and with all his usefulness.
Inasmuch as nobody has been called upon to suggest any
subject for discussion, I cannot think of anything to talk
about except that which has been present in my thoughts
every moment for the last fifty-five days - my present trip.
It perhaps needs an explanation. I was invited to go to
the Yukon Exposition at Seattle and I agreed to go. That
is, I agreed to go if Congress made sufficient provision for
my travelling expenses. And Congress did. And so the
country had this journey put upon it. But the moment that
I accepted that invitation to go to the Exposition, the places
which were to be included in the going and coming began to
increase in number by reason of the hospitable invitations
from a number of places and also by the fact that I seemed to
be useful in connection with state fairs and other enterprises
that needed encouragement -one of which was the deepening of the Mississippi River - and before I got through, the
itinerary had zigzagged across the country so as to aggregate
about thirteen thousand miles.
I have had a good many people, especially as I drew near
the close of the journey, express sympathy for me as to the
endurance test I have gone through. Well, the question is




AND STATE PAPERS


411


one of temperament, one of taste and possibly one of disposition. If you like people and like to meet them, and if
you have an interest in studying the differences and the
similarities of the people of the United States, then such a
trip as I have undertaken and have gone through with nearly
to completion is something which any one having those tastes
would enjoy most highly.  I can say truly that I have
enjoyed every moment of the trip. And I think I can affirm
that the people generally in all parts of the country are in
favor of having a President travel at least once in four years
through the country. They are interested from curiosity
perhaps, but also from better reasons, I think, in coming
into personal touch with the man who for the time being
exercises the executive authority in chief. They not only
like to see him, but they like to hear him. I don't know
that they pay any particular attention to his views, but they
like to get the sound of his voice and hear something from him
in order that they may "size up" the man who temporarily
is at the head of the nation.
Now, I think that that is a pretty good thing; I think
generally that if they see the man and come into a sort of
personal touch, they are more sympathetic with him in his
difficulties, and I am in favor of sympathy. I am where I
need it, and I think we can get along a good deal better where
we understand each other and have the means of understanding each other than where the man who is acting on
delegated authority is afar from those who have delegated him
to act. It certainly has a most beneficial effect upon the man
thus charged. It certainly opens his eyes and his mind
first to inquiry in reference to the needs of the country in its
various sections, and while, on the other hand, it puts the
people more or less in sympathy with him as President, it
puts him certainly quite in sympathy with sections of
whose aspirations  and needs and   thoughts he may
have heard, but he never can have had them impressed
on him as they are when he goes into that section, into
that State, into that district where the needs arise, and




412        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
where ambition is stirring the people up to make complaints
or claims.
There are times in such a trip when a man feels as if he
were on a wild goose chase and not accomplishing much.
Those times are usually about five o'clock in the morning,
when he is waked up by an earnest crowd, anxious to have
him turn out, although he may have gone to bed at one or
two o'clock, and make a speech. They can not understand
why he should stay in when he is purposely on a trip to show
himself.
It has been said that this is a bad precedent, that the
present incumbent has been blessed with a digestion and
sufficient physical endurance to enable him to make the trip,
but that by going about and making a precedent those who
follow me and who may not be so blessed may find imposed
upon them a burden which it is bad for the public to have
their Chief Executive labor under. Well, perhaps that is
so. I would not limit the Presidency, certainly, by a civilservice examination as to digestion and physical endurance;
but each President, I think, can control that matter largely
for himself, and is not governed by the precedents set by
other Presidents. The truth is, I don't know any President
in my recollection who has been much embarrassed by the
precedents set by any other President.
There is one feature of this travelling where you use
Sunday, because you have to, and that is that you are called
upon to address audiences that are either in churches or in a
state of worship, and you have to assume the character of
a preacher. I have essayed once or twice in that direction,
and I have been very much amused to see the comments of
the gentlemen of the clerical profession on my failure in that
regard. I notice that I am very subject to criticism by those
gentlemen who preside in a sense over the Scriptures - and
who resent any attempt to deal liberally with texts from the
Scriptures.
One of the difficulties in taking such a trip is that you lose
track of the news.  You see newspapers only occasionally,




AND STATE PAPERS


418


and then in such a way that you are not able to keep upwith
the issues of the day. That has some advantages, but it
occasionally presents embarrassment. I am utterly oblivious
to the importance and also utterly ignorant of the evidence
with reference to the question, Which American discovered
the pole? I know that is not the case with anyone who has
had the pleasure of being in Charleston for the last sixty days.
Then, too, I have been able to avoid election troubles and
even now have not learned all the results, because I have not
had an opportunity to see them tabulated or stated. That,
too, perhaps, if the elections are not satisfactory, is an advantage. One of the great pleasures of this trip, most gratifying to
me, has been what I might almost call the fervor of the receptions that I have had throughout the States of the South. Of
course, one in my position, and of limited political experience,
might well be misled as to the popular expression and how
much of it is substantial and what it means, and yet I have
given some attention to the study of human nature and I
think I know the Southern people, and I think I correctly
construe what it is they have in their minds and hearts when
they indicate to me as emphatically and sincerely as they
do the pleasure that they have in my presence in their communities. And that is that I am not contemplating a political revolution; that is impossible; but only that I am seeking
to smooth out some of the wrinkles that may perhaps have
remained from our former differences and am trying to convince the people of the South by such means as the Executive
has in his control of my earnest desire to make the South
feel that it has influence at Washington, that its foremost
men of prominence and influence are entitled to be heard,
to be listened to -and that in dealing with the South this
Administration looks upon it in no different sense in a
general way than upon Ohio or Illinois or the great West.
And now, gentlemen, I have reached the end of my
speech. I can only close by saying that, after the very pleasant receptions I have had in the South, it is delightful to
come to Charleston and feel that the reception here is not




414        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
alone the reception of another Southern city, but that it is
the reception of a city where I have so many friends already
formed that I looked at it rather as coming to a place like
home than to a place where I had never visited and which
I only regarded as a part of that genial section, with its
magnificent traditions, with its enormous possibilities, and
with its intense loyalty. I say good-bye now. I hope to
come again as soon as I can and I hope that Charleston will
retain all her attractiveness; that she will lose none of those
residences and those other structures that make her unique
throughout the country; that she will continue to have that
press which makes each paper so interesting in discussing
the other.




LII


ADDRESS AT THE LUNCHEON TENDERED
BY   SOUTH    CAROLINIANS, IN THE HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE CAPITOL,
COLUMBIA, S. C.,
(NOVEMBER 6, 1909)
Governor Ansel and Gentlemen of South Carolina:
Y   OUR committee from    Columbia called on me in
Augusta before I had assumed the course of office,
and were good enough to invite me to come here. I said I
would come, and I am here. That is one promise of the
Administration that I have redeemed. I don't claim any
credit for it, because a man who would not come to Columbia
when he could, and enjoy such a festivity and welcome as
this, does not understand a good thing when he sees it.
I am greatly honored to be received by you in this the
House of Representatives of South Carolina in your magnificent Capitol. I am greatly honored to be received by
your representative men of the State, not only by the private
citizens but by the Governor, the Senators, the Chief Justice
and your Representatives, and I appreciate it to the full. It
is the first State in which I have been tendered a welcome
within the capitol walls of the State, and I take it as an
expression on your part of a desire to show that it is the
State and the people of the State that welcome me.
Another and most delightful feature of this reception is
the presence of the ladies, the real pride of South Carolina. A gentleman from another part of the State, and I
am afraid that in saying this I am betraying something that
I ought not to say, but I can not help it, anticipating a meet415




416


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRSESS


ing with me in another part of the State at some time in the
future, said to me, " Come there and we will show you the
prettiest women in South Carolina." I resented it, and but
for my office and the dignity that necessarily attached to
it, I tremble for his fate. We are verging in the right direction. There was a time when we had banquets without
the presence of that sex that we all love, and whose influence
and control we all secretly recognize. Now we are letting
them in to see the animals eat. They show that patience,
that sweet sympathy with the selfish side of man, that tolerance of those things about him that even we ourselves do not
admire, by allowing this arrangement to continue for a while.
But the next time I come to South Carolina I expect to dine
with the ladies and the gentlemen.
My friends, I am not inspired to say much to-day, because
I feel so much more than I can say. There is something
about South Carolina and her traditions, as I look into the
faces of her great men and think what she has done and the
part she has played in all the great historical crises of this
country, that makes me take this reception from you at your
hands with a feeling that I am  honored far beyond my
deserts. I realize that it is because I represent the whole
Nation for the time being, and that you in your loyalty to
the flag and country, and with the hospitality for which
your State is noted, express to me the feeling that rises in
each of your hearts as you think of your country, and as you
think of the patriotism of yourselves and the State. I come
to Columbia and look out from the steps of the State Capitol
and see a city that has arisen since the Civil War - not a
city that did not exist before the Civil War, but a city that
by its growth and its energy and its taking on life shows
that while that Civil War brought to it an evidence of the
tremendous strength, the tremendous power of self-sacrifice
of its people, it did not destroy their hope for the future, or
their willingness again to become a part of the great Union
and to make that Union stronger and that country a Nation
greater than ever before in its history. And I count it a




AND STATE PAPERS                  417
great privilege to come here, representing the Nation that
you love so well, and by this meeting and by your reception,
and by what I see, to testify to the fact that while the past
is as it is, and while those things come out of it that make
us proud on both sides, there is before us in the future a
united life in upholding our country, in elevating the standard of citizenship, in making greater the character and
the equality of opportunity of the individual that we are
glad to seize as a common united people, not separated in
any way by our past history, but the more united because
while we have those traditions the memory leaves in our
mind the awfulness of a separation that now is forever ended.
And now, my friends, I am going to stop. This is the
two hundred and fifty-first speech I have made, but in no
one of them have I felt so much satisfaction in expressing
the truth as I know it.




LIII
REMARKS AT THE         GEORGIA-CAROLINA FAIR,
AUGUSTA, GA.
(NOVEMBER 8, 1909)
Mr. Chairman, Governor Brown, Governor Ansel, Ladies
and Gentlemen, Citizens of Georgia and South Carolina:
IT IS a great pleasure to be here. I have had the
pleasure of listening to a governor of a single State
in his own State, and I have heard his estimate of his own
State approved by his own fellow-citizens; but it is an unusual and exceptional opportunity to have two States represented by two Governors, each explaining the excellence
and the primacy of his particular State, and when there
is thrown into that controversy the question of personal
pulchritude, it assumes a character that makes it of exceeding interest.
I want first to express my personal happiness in being
again in Augusta, and in seeing and meeting the friends
that I made during my stay of about two months last year.
There is a lady in Washington whom I am very anxious to
see. Nothing could modify my ambitions, nothing restrain
the haste with which I would go back to the Capitol City
except the pleasure of meeting my old friends in Augusta.
I feel always like claiming what Judge Black explained
with his constitutional law, that when I was elected President of the United States I was elected from Georgia. And
while the part which Georgia took in that ceremony was
what we may call negative, it nevertheless was accompanied
by the good-will of so many Georgians that I am proud to
think of the friends that I have here.
This occasion suggests a number of useful thoughts. It
418




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


419


is a meeting of two States to encourage agriculture in both.
We have arrived at a time in the development of our country
and in the application of our Constitution when the uniform
operation of State law upon subjects not covered by the
Federal power is becoming more and more important. One
of course, can mention the subject of negotiable instruments,
of marriage and divorce, and a number of other topics that
commend themselves as proper subjects of uniform operation, but it seems to me that the most important scope, the
most important collection of subjects is that which relates
to the conservation of our national resources. Unless we
can have uniform State operation, uniform State legislation
with reference to the preservation of our forests, the equalization of water which falls from the clouds, and the preservation
of our soil from being washed out to sea, we shall not be
able to carry out the program set for us by Theodore
Roosevelt, and which to every thoughtful man must commend
itself as of the highest importance to the safety and the preservation of our nation.
Another subject which under the influence of your growing
manufacturing interests brings itself into one's mind, even
though it may suggest a subject of partisan difference, is
the question of our mercantile marine. You are making
cotton goods in Georgia and South Carolina, and you wish
a market in which to dispose of them. Unless our country
exercises more control over the mercantile marine of the
world than it now does, you are going to find yourselves at
great disadvantage in seeking markets of the world in which
to dispose of your products. Therefore, I commend to your
consideration the question, What means shall we take to
establish lines to South America and to the Philippines,
to the Orient, to Manchuria, and to all those countries to
which you look for the purchases of the products that you
here make?
[The President was here interrupted for a few moments by
the appearance of a dirigible balloon over the fair grounds.]
I hesitate to occupy your time in discussing an old method




420        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
of transporting goods when you have before your eyes the
newest one invented, and yet I venture to think that it will
be some time before that method of transportation will be
followed in the matter of cotton bales.
Another subject that is forging ahead and must be considered by the National Government with a great deal more
care and with the expenditure of much more money than it
has heretofore put into such investigation, is the question
of sanitation and the health of the inhabitants of this country.
This is peculiarly so in the South, for as you reach nearer
to the tropics the danger of the spread of diseases is much
greater. We have now various bureaus in Washington
that have functions connected with the suppression of diseases
and the investigation of their character; but they are scattered, and they need to be united in one bureau, which shall
devote its attention, just as the Agricultural Department
devotes its attention, to the study of questions of evil under
all conditions prevailing in this country, so that by the circulation of the knowledge obtained it may enable the people
to live hygienic lives. Now, it is true that the health of the
citizens is directly committed to the States, but it is also
true that the question of agriculture is committed by the
Constitution  directly to the States. Nevertheless, the
Agricultural Department has found much that with the
means at its command it can do to assist the agriculture
of the country. Think back two decades, my friends, and
see what enormous strides have been made in the proper
treatment of the soils, in the development of your crops,
in the making available the by-products of those crops, and
in an entire change of the character of agriculture from a
haphazard, wasteful industry to one in which science and
professional knowledge are to-day of the highest importance.
So, too, with respect to sanitation. It is necessary that the
towns and States should direct their attention and their
money to making better bodies for their citizens.as well
as better minds, and if the National Government with its
resources can follow out lines of investigation that can




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421


show proper treatment to be followed, it is well that it should
take that step.
I expect to recommend to Congress that there be a union
of all the instrumentalities of the Government for the organization of means of health and the study of disease. We have
since the Spanish-American War developed a knowledge
of diseases, especially of the tropics, that never existed before,
and when we have studied the tropical diseases we have
gone a long way to help ourselves in all diseases. The truth
is that the tropical diseases are only exaggerations generally
of the diseases that appear in a less virulent form in the
temperate zone, and by reason of the virulence they
bear a closer study and give forth a better result in the investigation. Now the consequence is that since the Spanish
War we have found out through the study of our army
officers and our army surgeons how the yellow fever can be
suppressed, how malignant malaria can be suppressed.
Without that knowledge, my dear friends, it would have
been impossible to build the Panama Canal. We pride
ourselves on having done something or being about to do
something that France was not able to do with all
the millions which De Lesseps was able to command,
but we must remember that she did not then have at
her command the knowledge which we have had in the
suppression of the disease that made life on that
Isthmus so dangerous to every one who attempted to live
there. The consequence is that to-day we have less malaria,
or certainly not more on the Isthmus of Panama than you
have in your Southern States, and there has not for three
years been a case of yellow fever. That can be traced
directly to the results of the Spanish War and the labor
of American physicians and especially of the surgeons of
the United States Army; and if there were no other great
result from that war, that single aid to humanity is enough
to have justified it.
But I am not going to detain you longer. I am here on
my way home after some 13,000 miles of travel studying the




422


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


American people. I have studied them before. I sought
their franchises and that was a considerable study, but it
is an aid to go about among them, not asking for their votes
but merely seeking from them advice on public policies,
their aims, their aspirations and their needs.
I went from Boston clear across the country to the northwest corner in Washington down to the southwest corner at
Los Angeles, across the two Territories, through that almost
boundless State of Texas, through Arkansas and Missouri,
down the Mississippi River, and then through the South
to New Orleans, through Mississippi, Alabama, and now
to Georgia and South Carolina, and I feel as if I had had
an experience that justifies me in saying something about
the American people.
Persons have said to me, "If you do all the talking, how
can you expect to derive any information from the people
whom you address?" Well, that is a relevant question,
but I don't do all the talking. I could tell you of
some banquets and some meetings where other people did
some talking, and a man must be blind and deaf indeed
if he can pass through a crowd of intelligent American citizens
like this and not draw from them, even through his pores,
something of their thoughts, something of their wishes,
something of their needs and something of their aims.
The one thought that strikes a judicial mind going about
this country is the homogeneity of the American people. We
have taken in from abroad millions and millions of foreigners,
but we have amalgamated them in such a remarkable way
that to-day as you take the trip that I have taken, there is
nothing that strikes you with the same emphasis and with
the same certainty as the persistence of the American type.
We are not Germans, we are not Britishers, we are not
Frenchmen; we are Americans, and we have the same
ambitions, the same moral standards and the same love of
country. I might also say we have the same love of our
respective States and the same faith in the prosperity of our
respective counties and towns and cities in which we live.




AND STATE PAPERS                  423
We are looking forward, looking to the future, confident
that we can solve the serious problems that star! us in the
face, asking no odds of any one, hut only an equal opportunity, and with that equal opportunity confident that we can
achieve in the future as great victories as our fathers achieved
in the past.
Now with respect to the Southland, my reception has been
full of sweet gratification to me, because I have felt that the
people of the South were glad to see me and wished to show
me by their reception that they sympathized with my desire
— my earnest desire -to do everything possible in my
administration to make completely forgotten all sectional
lines and everything that would tend to separate us - not
to forget our cherished traditions- not to forget the heroes
of our particular sections in that awful struggle that we
in the North call the "Civil War" and you call the "War
between the States " - not to forget or abate one bit of our
pride that has now become a common heritage of all Americans, but to rejoice that, while that great test showed the
character of American heroes, the character of American
self-sacrifice, it is in the past, and that the future is with
nothing but harmony and love between all our people.




LIV
SPEECH AT THE AUDITORIUM, RICHMOND, VA.
(NOVEMBER 10, 1909)
Mr. Mayor, Governor Swanson, Ladies and Gentlemen:
IT HAS been my good fortune to be welcomed to
Virginia a number of times by your distinguished
Governor, and I can not fail to express to him the gratitude
I really feel toward him for making me always at home
on Virginia soil. I congratulate you on having such a Governor, and now that he is for the moment to retire to private
life, I hope that all success and prosperity may follow him
there. I am quite sure that Virginia knows a good thing
when it sees it, and that the leisure which he deserves will
not be drawn out too long.
I am also indebted to the presence here of the young
men of the Virginia Military Institute. I congratulate
them on the military appearance that they present as they
march along the streets between their admiring fellow
citizens of Virginia. I am glad to say that as Secretary
of War I came to know that we depend on the Virginia
Military Institute as one of two great institutions to furnish
to us officers when exigency and the danger to the Government should occur and require us to call for men skilled
in arms, and that they have always shown in the attention
to duty, in their soldierly bearing, in the high ideals they
preserve, the type and character and ideals set for them by
Stonewall Jackson, for whom they entertain, as well they may,
the highest respect and the fondest memory.
This, my friends of Virginia, is the last speech I shall make
swinging around the circle. I do not know whether you feel
glad about it, but I do.




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


425


I am glad to be here in Virginia. I feel a certain sort
of pride in the fact that I was the only Republican candidate for President who ever ventured in a canvass for the
Presidency to address a Virginia audience, and while the
result may not have been of such favor as to induce the
gentleman who follows me to attempt it again, it proves what
I knew was the case, that I could have in Virginia most
courteous attention and a most respectful and tolerant
hearing.
I left Boston or Beverly on the 14th of September, and I
have been travelling and talking and talking and travelling
ever since. I have visited and talked to and seen the people
of twenty-six States and two Territories. And I think I
know something about the United States. One fact that
has impressed itself upon me from beginning to end is the
spirit of hopefulness, of contentment, of energy, and of enterprise that there is in every corner of this great country,
and that spirit is not alone in those States that are full of
fertile fields as you see them from the car window, but that
spirit prevails in States in which the expanse of the most
God-forsaken country man ever looked upon is great and
discouraging. But they have been there long enough to
know that if they can only catch the water as it falls from
the sky and guide it to the soil that looks so forbidding, it
will blossom as the rose and bring forth products fourfold
what can be cultivated and brought forth in States where
they have continuous rain. And so it is that they feel that
while the outlook is apparently one of a desert and most
discouraging, they have a great advantage over those of us
that plod along with the rain from the skies in the somewhat
slow and hardly enterprising East. Now when we have
those conditions prevailing in the most discouraging part
of the country, may we not say that the prospect before us,
made necessarily hopeful by the spirit of the inhabitants,
is such that we may all be thankful for it?
Another fact that drives itself home in respect to every
audience one addresses is the fact that we are all Americans




426        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
and very much alike. I could if I heard a man pronounce
the word "south" or the word "door" or the word "shore"
tell fairly well whether he came from the south or north
of Mason and Dixon's line. But with that exception, if I
could not hear what he said and could only look upon the
crowd, as it is, I could not tell whether the audience came
from  Washington State, from  Boston, from  California,
from the Middle West or from the South.  The women's
hats are exactly alike, and a mournful husband on my right
suggests that they cost as much.
We have taken millions of foreigners into our civilization,
but we have amalgamated them, and with the spirit of our
free institutions and the energy of our civilization we have
made them all Americans. We have bred to a type, and that
type is Americanism, a type that commends itself to us as
having the highest ideals and the greatest potentiality for
elevation of a country and the individual that the world has
ever seen.
Now during all this time of sixty days there has been a
moment or two of deliberation, and during that time I have
been studying what is it the duty of an Executive to recommend to an incoming Congress in respect to future legislation; and when I think of the number of things that Congress
ought to do, I am staggered lest it may not find the time
to do them.
In the first place there is the conservation of our resources,
the reclamation of arid lands. We have reached a time
now where a great many people in the West are counting
on an immediate supply of water for the land upon which
they have settled,which is not forthcoming because the money
applied to the reclamation fund does not come in as quickly
as expected, or at least quickly enough to meet the exigency
of the occasion. I am strongly in favor of anticipating that
fund which is a fund raised solely by the sale of public
lands, by the issuing of bonds, the payment of which shall
be charged to the same source of revenue. That will bring
about quickly a change in respect to the arid lands and with




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respect to the projects already announced by the Reclamation Bureau, so that nobody shall be deceived, and the work
which is a work of primary importance shall go on. The
truth is, my dear friends, that we are finding that in spite
of our enormous domain, in spite of its great productivity,
the demand for the products of the soil is greater because
of the growing population than the supply under existing
circumstances, and we must enlarge our acreage in one way
or another, and the plain way seems by reclamation through
the application of water to land heretofore a desert and by
draining those lands which have heretofore been swamp.
Those lands when brought into productivity will yield far
more than the lands already under natural tillage. Then
we have a great deal of valuable coal land owned by the
Government. We have a great many water-power sites, the
water power of which will furnish an immense amount of
power for use by electrical appliances. Then there are
millions of acres of phosphate to be used in the fertilization
of the soil. Under existing laws those lands are likely to
be parted with merely under a homestead settlement. They
are of such peculiar value that it seems wiser that the Government should receive some control over the water-power
sites and the coal lands and the phosphates so that they
may not come into the hands of one controlling corporation,
but may be retained by the Government, with the power
to restrict the prices at which the coal, or at least at which
the power is sold, to prevent the absorption into one command
of all the power on the continent. Just how the problem
is to be worked out it is difficult to state, and certainly I
would not attempt to state it here, but generous as we have
been in the past with respect to mineral lands and the lands
which can enjoy water power, we ought now to end that
generosity and preserve those things that the Government
still owns, in order that hereafter with a much more careful
hand we may grant them for useful development.
Then we have the anti-trust law on our hands for enforcement, and the arrangement of the departments of the




428        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
Government in such a way as to make it more effective if
possible.
Then there is the interstate commerce law which certainly needs amendment in order to give the Interstate
Commerce tribunal more power to prevent the delays which
are now incident to appeals to the courts. In my judgment, the best way is to create a special court and have a
court that is charged with the knowledge and practice in
regard to railroads, so that the matter can be promptly
disposed of.
Then I am strongly in favor of a postal savings bank.
I know that in that proposition I come up against a great
many conservative bankers, and also of a great many who
view with doubt the wisdom of extending paternalism in
the Government, but I venture to think that a project ought
not to be condemned merely by calling it paternal. We have
got beyond the laisser-faire doctrine in our Government;
and where it happens that the Government is so situated
that it can do a thing better than individuals can do it, can
do it more economically than individuals can do it, and can
supply a want for a means of thrift, I am in favor of its
doing it.
The monetary reform is under consideration by a commission. When they will reach a conclusion I do not know.
If there ever was a subject-matter that created differences
of opinion, it is the question of how to treat our monetary
and banking matters. Every man has a different theory,
and with every man having a different theory we don't
get any farther, but I am hopeful that the Commission
may present the conditions that exist here and the conditions as they exist in Europe, and in this way point out to
us some steps that may be taken to reform what is certainly
to-day nothing but a patchwork.
Then there is another subject that is very near to my
heart. I have been a judge, and legal procedure is a subject
I know something about. We must improve our legal
procedure so as to make it both in criminal and civil cases




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429


more simple, more rapid and less expensive, and I mean
to recommend to Congress the appointment of a commission to take that subject up with respect to the Federal
procedure; and then if by the Federal procedure we achieve
a result that commends itself, it will form a model for the
States.
Then there is another subject that especially in the South
ought to attract great public attention, and that is the organization of a bureau which shall have control, so far as constitutionally it may be exercised by Federal authority, of
the health of the United States. We have offices and bureaus
distributed through the Government that are charged more or
less with investigation and care and quarantine and that sort
of thing, but I believe the time has come - and the medical
profession of this country, who ought to know, and who do
know, believe that the time has come- for the organization
of a health bureau and the concentration in it of all the
instruments for the preservation of health and for the investigation of diseases that are now included in the National
Government, and such others as may be properly placed
there by additional appropriation and direction.
That is a pretty long list of things to do, but if we set
our shoulders together we can do a lot in one session or two
sessions of Congress. When I was in the South before,
and before I became President, but when I had a reasonable
expectation of succeeding to that office, I said that I was
anxious so far as the Executive could, to show to the Southern
people that in the eye of the Executive and the Administration at Washington they were as closely a part of the
Union and as much entitled to its consideration in every
respect as any other part of the country. That, I said, it
was not possible for the Executive to show other than in
speech, except by the appointment to Federal office of men
whose appointment would commend itself to the communities in which they live, that they might regard those
appointees not as agents of an alien government, but as
representing their own government. Now in so far as I




430


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


have been able I have attempted to carry out that policy. A
year has not yet elapsed, and you must give me three more
years in order to demonstrate my sincerity in that regard.
We have reached a point in this country when we can look
back, not without love, not without intense pride, but without
partisan passion, to the events of the Civil War. We have
reached a point, I am glad to say, when the North can admire
to the full the heroes of the South, and the South admire
to the full the heroes of the North. There is a monument
in Quebec that always commended itself to me - a monument to commemorate the battle of the Plains of Abraham;
and on one face of that beautiful structure is the name of
Montcalm, and on the other side the name of Wolfe. That
always seemed to me to be the acme of what we ought to
reach in this country, and I am glad to say that in my own
alma mater of Yale we have established an association for
the purpose of erecting within her academic precincts a memorial not to the Northern Yale men who died, not to the Southern Yale men who died, but to the Yale men who died in
the Civil War. And so it is that I venture, without unduly
obtruding in something that is none of my business, to hope
that the project suggested by my predecessor in office,
President Roosevelt, may be alluded to by me with approval
and the expression of the hope that it is coming to fruition,
to wit, that there should be a great memorial in honor of
General Robert E. Lee in the establishment of what he
himself would value most highly, a great school of engineering at Washington and Lee University, and I take this opportunity in this presence to express my deep sympathy in
that movement and my desire to aid it in every way
possible and proper on my part.
My friends, I am going to stop and relieve you. I have
had great pleasure in talking to you in this informal way,
advising you in some degree of the burdens that I am looking
forward to undertaking when I get back to Washington.
I do not know whether you have had that experience when
you are on the eve of a so-called vacation and your con



AND STATE PAPERS                 431
science begins to prick you and then your duties grow mountain high so that you can not look over them at all. That
is my feeling now. It is a somewhat strenuous life to eat and
talk and talk and eat, but there are other things in which
you have to exercise great responsibility and give great
attention and industry to what you are undertaking for
the nation at large, which are even more burdensome, more
acute in the consumption of vital energy, than such a tour
as I have had the honor of taking.
I look into your faces with the pleasurable thought that
you are connected with the last of a very delightful episode
in my life. I part with you with the gratitude for your
cordial reception, with the belief sincere as possible that
you and I agree in respect to sectionalism and its complete
obliteration, and with the feeling that you and I rejoice and
thank God that we are all Americans under Old Glory.




LV
ADDRESS AT THE WASHINGTON CONVENTION
OF THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT
IN CONTINENTAL MEMORIAL HALL
WASHINGTON, D. C.
(NOVEMBER 11, 1909)
Mr. President; and Gentleman of the Laymen's Missionary
Movement:
LIKE to think, whether it be true or not, that we
have in this generation reached a somewhat different
view of the responsibilities of a civilized nation from that
which prevailed in the last generation, especially as applied
to our country. It was perhaps natural that when we were
engaged in digging into the soil and doing the best we could
to make enough to live on, we should fall into the habit of
thinking that we were a nation by ourselves, with no responsibilities whatever with respect to the rest of the world.
So we have had maxims come down to us and a construction
put upon Washington's farewell address that would still
keep us in a place of isolation, and with pleasant remarks
and well and politely expressed hopes for the welfare of other
peoples, would cause us to devote ourselves entirely to our
own improvement. In the days when that principle was
announced and was followed with a good deal of care, there
was one doctrine which was utterly at variance with itthe Monroe Doctrine. That did cause some sort of responsibility and did make us assume some sort of protection over
and interest in the independent nations and governments
of this hemisphere. That is now enlarged into what I think
we may call a definite recognition on the part of our public
439




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


433


men that we have a very distinct interest in the welfare, and
a very distinct duty with reference to the condition, of the
countries of this hemisphere, and that we have exhibited
it in what was, I think we may almost say, the only altruistic foreign war that history presents-that in which we
fought for the liberties of Cuba and the ending of what we
regarded at the time as an international scandal. So we have
gone on; we have established in a sense a receivership for
Santo Domingo and we are helping out that country as well
as we may, and we are doing what we can to preserve the
peace between the Central American countries; and there
lies back in all the history of this continent the possibilities
of the heavy obligation resting upon us should unhappiness
and chaos arise among any of the people of this hemisphere.
That is one step. The Cuban war illustrated the fact
that when you go into a war you never know where you
are coming out. We entered lightly -well, not lightly;
with a sense of due gravity, but certainly not with a sense
of what the possibilities were - at Key West and at Santiago,
and we brought up ten thousand miles away at Manila.
Then we had to take over that Government; and we still
have it. It has cost us a good deal of money. I had a
Democratic Senator ask me the other day how much I
thought it cost - "right down between us," he said. Well,
I explained to him that the War Department accounts
showed, so far as the army was concerned, down to 1902,
it had cost us about one hundred and seventy millions of
dollars, and that the further cost depended upon how you
regarded the army. If you thought we could get along
with fifteen or twenty thousand men less than we now had,
then the whole cost of these men should be imposed on the
cost of our Philippine policy, which would be twenty-five
or thirty millions of dollars; but that if you thought we ought
to have an army as it is now anyway, it has cost by reason
of our Philippine policy upward of six million of dollars
annually. Perhaps I am a little bit extreme; perhaps
my experience in the Philippines has colored my view;




434        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
but I do not think that the money we have spent even
estimating it at the highest sum, has been wasted in any
way. I think it has developed our national character; that
it has broadened us into a view of our national responsibility that no other experience could. No one can sayI mean conscientiously say, that is "right down between
us" - that we have been there for the exploitation of our
own business. I do not mean to say that it may not come
along, and I think it will and I hope it will; but certainly
we have not made any money out of it up to date, and certainly we have not been there and have not done the things
we have done with a view to our business profit. We have
been there conscientiously - and I think I can speak for
part of those who have had to do with its immediate responsibility - for the betterment of the people of the Philippine
Islands; and I am sure we have bettered their condition.
We are in the position of many a man who has sought to
help another man, and if we go into that sort of thing for
undying gratitude we may as well give it up in the beginning.
It does not continue and it does not persist, and the only
benefit you can get out of it is the consciousness of having
tried to do something for another man, and the belief that
you have, no matter what he thinks about it.
I was thrown into the Philippines against my will - I
won't say that, for I am a person I presume who could say
yes or no - but I mean I was led into it by another, by that
sweet nature, that most engaging character, that lovely
man, William McKinley. I know what actuated him and
I know that the spirit that actuated him influenced us all -
his successor, Theodore Roosevelt; his Secretary of War,
Elihu Root; and all who had the good fortune to serve under
those great men. In the control and government of those
islands I first came to be aware of the importance of foreign
missions; and, if I may say so, I think there is a strong
analogy between the spirit that leads a nation into what
we have done in Cuba, in Santo Domingo and in the Philippines, and that movement which I am glad to see growing




AND STATE PAPERS


stronger and stronger - the movement in favor of foreign
missions. The Philippine Islands themselves are an example
of what ancient foreign missions could do. They are the
only people, the only race, in the Orient who are Christians,
and they were made so three hundred years ago by the
earnest efforts of Augustinian and Franciscan friars. They
led them on, taught them the agricultural arts, and led them on
to a peaceful and religious life. They did not believe in too
much education; they did not believe in bringing them into
close communion with the European nations. They thought
there was a good deal they might learn there that would
hurt them. But that which they wrought has been to our
great advantage in working out the problem that we are
set to there, the problem of teaching them self-government.
They are a Christian people, and they look to Europe and
America for their ideals, and they recognize those ideals,
and that makes it possible to instil in them the principles
of civil liberty and the freedom of our institutions. Now
there came about in the Islands what is perfectly natural
with the prevalence of one denomination, and the division
between the Spanish and the native priesthood led to a great
deal of demoralization in the church, and led to its taking
on a very strong political character. The condition has
greatly improved since we went in there, in that regard,
because of course we carried with us entire freedom of religion. That has led to the sending in of missionaries of other
than the Roman Catholic denomination, and has brought
about a spirit of emulation and competition that makes
for the good of the entire Islands and for all the churches.
But the operation of the foreign missions there, the effect
upon the people, the influence upon the people which the
church exerts and without which the Government could
carry on but few of its reforms, all impress themselves upon
a man charged with the responsibility of civil government
in those Islands.
In the Orient I could not but take an interest in what
occurred on the mainland. Every time you travel around the




436        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
world, or travel anywhere, you have to refresh your knowledge. The Philippine Islands are about sixty-six hours
from Hong Kong, but here we are apt to associate them all
together. Distances there do not seem quite so great as they
do here, and you do come closer to China when you are in
the Philippines than when you are here. We could, those
of us who were in the Orient, study somewhat the Chinese
question, study somewhat the movements that were going
on in that great Empire of four hundred millions of people;
and the chief movement that was going on was a movement
that found its inspiration, that had its progress, in the foreign
missions that have been sent there to introduce Christian
civilization among that people. I do not hesitate to say that,
because I am convinced of the fact. They are the outposts
of the Christian civilization. Each missionary, with his
house and his staff, forms a nucleus about which gathers
an influence far in excess of the numerical list of the converts.
They have a political influence, an influence upon the Government of China itself, upon the Viceroys of China, who
exercise so much power there that we do not understand it.
The development of China to-day, and her budding out as
she is, and as I hope she will continue to do, is largely the
result of, first, the missionary movement, and then the
education in America and elsewhere, under the influence
of these missionaries, of young Chinamen who are anxious
that their country shall take the position that her wealth,
and numbers, and resources, and possibilities, and history
justify. The same thing is true, though I am not so familiar
with it, in regard to Africa. The men who take their lives
in their hands and go among the natives are entitled to be
called the outposts of civilization. They have been criticised,
and I presume that is something that is common to humankind; they have been held up to contempt at times. I
have read one book by a very distinguished author who
visited China and thought it was wise to poke fun at what
he called the assumed self-sacrifice of the missionaries in
China. But I am glad to say - I have not seen it myself,




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but I understand - that the author has withdrawn all these
implications and all of this criticism of the men who are
fighting for the cause of civilization in that great country.
You visit a Chinese mission - I mean a denominational
mission in China from this country or Great Britain - and
you find a large house, you find a considerable staff, you find
as near comfort as they can have in a country that does not
know what Occidental comfort is; but you find upon examination that they have to go out among the sick, they have
to pursue their course of life far away from friends and
homes; they have to undergo that homesickness that no one
understands until he has been ten thousand miles away
from home and is longing just to breathe in the smoke of
his own home, dirty as it is, in order that he may know
that he is near where he grew up. The lives they lead,
the good they do, and the fact that they represent the highest
of our civilization, make it important that they should be
sent, with all the instruments of usefulness possible, into
those far distant places. I do not want to reflect upon anybody, but I am bound to say that in those distant lands a
great many who visit there for gain, and for so-called business, for livelihood that they could not earn at home, are not
representatives of our best element at home; and they visit
there for other purposes than the spread of Christian civilization. They take in the native when they can, and they do
not impress the native, who has only them to judge by,
that the civilization that they represent would be any great
improvement on that which he has. When you contrast
them with the missionaries who go there only for disinterested purposes, risking their lives by going into parts of that
country where, should an uprising occur, there is no adequate
protection, it makes me indignant to hear contempt expressed
for these men who are carrying the banner of Christian
civilization and putting themselves in positions where they
may be complete sacrifices to the cause. They say they
were the cause of the Boxer trouble. Anybody who looks
into that knows that they had to bear the danger of it. But




438        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
the cause of the Boxer trouble came from the fear on the
part of China that there was a disposition on the part of a
good many Christian powers to divide up, and that the
division was going to be parts of China. That was their
fear of foreign intervention and they manifested it in a plain
way, and the missionaries who were among them for the
purpose of spreading Christian civilization had to bear the
brunt of it. That is the only excuse for criticism of the
missionaries in respect to the Boxer movement.
I sincerely hope that the result of this movement will give
to the foreign missions an impetus that, with due respect to
our clerical brethren, it can not have unless the whole body
of good men in the community press forward. I have spoken
of it solely from the laymen's standpoint and not from the
purely religious standpoint; but I have spoken the things
that I think I know, and I am here not so much to talk as
to express by my presence the sympathy I have with the
movement that you have so successfully inaugurated.




LVI
REMARKS AT THE GOLDEN JUBILEE DEDICATION OF ST. ALOYSIUS CHURCH,
WASHINGTON D. C.
(NOVEMBER 14, 1909)
Father McDonnell, Cardinal Gibbons, Monsignor Falconio, my Fellow Citizens:
AM glad to be present on this occasion, the golden
jubilee of the foundation of this church. In our
country, in this Government and under our Constitution
there is no union of Church and State, but rather a declared
separation of them. This has been sometimes misunderstood by those who did not know our institutions, as an indication that there was something hostile on the part of our
Government toward or some lack of sympathy with the
Church of God. This is as far as possible from the truth;
and I have always sought, in assisting every such church
on interesting occasions like this, to testify by my presence
and by words of congratulation, that there is nothing which
the people and the country of the United States so depend
upon for progress and advancement of their ideals as the
influence and power of all the churches of the community.
They tend to exalt the nation. I am here to-day therefore
to congratulate Father McDonnell and his congregation and
the distinguished dignitaries of the Catholic Church on the
growth in this community of this Church of St. Aloysius,
and on the good that it has done, and to testify as a representative of the Government to the sympathy we have with
this instrument and all others that make for righteousness.


439




LVII


ADDRESS AT NORFOLK, VA., ON THE OCCASION
OF THE CONVENTION OF THE ATLANTIC
DEEPER WATERWAYS ASSOCIATION
(NOVEMBER 19, 1909)
Mr. Chairman, Governor Swanson, Delegates to the Atlantic
Deeper Waterways Association, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Citizens of the Old Dominion:
AM glad again to be on Virginia soil, and I am glad
again to be introduced by your distinguished Chief
Magistrate, Governor Swanson. IIe never introduces me
to a Virginia audience that I don't want to come again.
IIe embodies in what he says that genuine enthusiastic sense
of hospitality that distinguishes Virginia, and therefore I
always like to follow him. If I get him out in Ohio I will
give him also a test of Ohio hospitality, but not with the
same eloquence or the same elegance of language. But
I am glad to be here in his company and in the company
of the delegates of the Waterways Association. I have given
not enough study, but some, to the proposition, not so
much in this neighborhood as on the Gulf, and I know that
along the Gulf there are places demanding attention where
the business that now exists justifies the claim that money
shall be invested in order to make all that network of inner
waterways reaching from the Gulf and the Atlantic useful,
in order to reduce rates, or in order to furnish transportation
where there really is no transportation now.
There has been, as your Governor intimates, a general
movement over the country in favor of the expenditure of
money to improve our waterways, inland and coastal; and
I am sure that that movement has the support of all the
440




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


441


people, has the support of all those responsible to the people
for the expenditure of the money raised by taxation or
otherwise. All that they require is that there should be
shown in an ordinary reasonable way and by evidence that
will appeal to sensible men, that the money which we are
about to invest will certainly redound to the benefit of the
people in the neighborhood where it is spent, not by way
of furnishing labor for two or three years, not by way of
investing capital for four or five years, but shall redound
by way of improving transportation permanently. When
you have made your case, then I am sure the Government
and Congress will respond to it. That the case can be
made I doubt not with respect to definite projects, the
operation of which can be shown by reference to the business now done, or the business which certainly will be
furnished, but what I wish to deprecate is a general proposition to raise a lot of money and dump some here and some
there and some over there and some back here, in order to
distribute it equally over the country. I am opposed to
that. I am in favor of expending the money for an improvement in Norfolk and not expending it for an improvement
somewhere else if the Norfolk project is a good one and that
somewhere else is not, and the people who come from somewhere else have got to be judicial and impartial enough to
feel that the investment at Norfolk redounds to the whole
country, while the investment somewhere else does not
redound to anybody but a little local fervor at the time of
the expenditure of the money. In other words, we ought to
go at this business as if we were business men, spending the
money to redound to us in profit and in dividends. When
we do that I don't think the people of the United States will
grudge a cent of the many millions that it is going to cost
to give us the improvements we ought to have, no matter
where they are.
Now, my friends, this wind and this great concourse of
people whom I am trying to make hear, do not invite a great
length of speech, and therefore I am going to pass from the




442


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


Waterways Association, which calls you here, with the hope
that they will proceed in a business-like way to demonstrate
what can be done by that which they recommend and commend it to the entire American people; and as one of those
exercising temporary authority I want to say that I will
take up what is projected and proposed with all the sympathy possible, but nevertheless with what I hope is a judicial spirit to reject what the evidence does not sustain, and
to approve what the evidence does sustain.
Now, my friends, there are other thoughts that this meeting
suggests. In the first place it must come back to you, as it
did to me, and send a thrill down your backs, to see those
two columns that stood in front of the reviewing stand, and
now stand here, the Blue and the Gray. You say it is getting
so common to see them together that it really does not call
for comment, and perhaps that is so, but I am just going to
make a point of it because I need subjects, and also I want
to express to both those columns my appreciation of the
honor they have done me in turning out to-day.
Secondly, you can not stand here and have the breezes
come over from Hampton Roads without thinking of that
battle of the Merrimac and the Monitor when it seemed
as if the fate of the nation was trembling in the balance,
and you can not think of that battle and of the prowess and
naval courage and bravery that were shown there on both
sides without having your mind come down to those jackies
that passed us in presence of the reviewing stand this morning. You can not stand here in Norfolk, which has the
most important navy yard and naval base that we have in
the United States, without having your mind recur to that
arm of the public service which we have done so much to
develop, with whose growth I hope we shall do nothing to
interfere. I want the Navy to continue to be maintained
in a condition worthy of this country. We are not knocking anybody's chip off his shoulder, and we are not having
a chip on our shoulder, but we are a great nation of eighty
or ninety millions of people, and we must under present




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44:3


conditions in order to maintain the prestige that is proportionate to our stand before the world, have a navy that is
worth seeing and able to fight if it has to. Now I am speaking of it here because somehow or other I am convinced in
Norfolk that the people of Norfolk are quite judicial in their
reference to the growth of the Navy.
There is another thing I want to say that will appeal
to you. We have a good many coast defenses- none too
many. You are here at the end of Chesapeake Bay, which
is the greatest strategic point of naval rendezvous in these
United States. We have very heavy and very formidable
coast defenses at Fortress Monroe and all about here, but
if we wish to protect this coast we ought to protect with as
much care as possible the entrance to Chesapeake Bay,
and that by erecting an island on the middle ground and
putting a fort there that shall be impregnable. That is
what I want. That is what I recommended when I was
Secretary of War, and that is what I am going to push for
the next three years with the hope that I will get it at the end
of that time.
And now, my friends, I have talked enough for your comfort and for my throat. I have been talking too much. I
talked clear across the continent on the north and down
on the west and east on the south, and I have gotten into the
habit and I can not help it. My voice has not had any test
for more than four or five days, so I am letting it go.
But seriously speaking, my dear friends, I am glad again
to be back on the soil of Virginia, and in the Southland, and
to find that the warmth of reception that I had all through
the South is only repeated in old Norfolk and in the Old
Dominion as I visit it again, and that the sentiment in favor
of a united country, of cherishing the traditions of both sides
as honorable to both, but with a feeling of loyalty to the
old flag that was never exceeded in the history before, is
still here to make a Northerner and a Southerner rejoice
and to make the President of the United States feel that he
is entirely at home among you.




LVIII
REMARKS AT THE MEETING OF THE BOARD
OF TRUSTEES OF THE HAMPTON
INSTITUTE, HAMPTON, VIRGINIA
(NOVEMBER 20, 1909)
Dr. Frissell, Ladies and Gentlemen, and Members of Hampton
Institute:
I HAVE had to do, during the last sixty days, a good deal
of speaking without preparation, and it was my
habit to gather the ideas of those who had preceded me
and mix them up and use them to the best advantage. But
the trouble about this afternoon has been that I have been
so intensely interested in everything which I have heard that
I have not had any time to mix them up or give them in any
different form from that beautiful one in which they have
been presented.
I am very proud that I have had the honor to be elected
a member of the board of trustees of this institution, and I
am proud because I have been thought worthy. I am glad
because I know that I can not come into contact with men
like Dr. Frissell, Mr. Ogden, Bishop McVickar, George
Foster Peabody and others who for the joy of service have
developed this institution, without absorbing some of those
virtues which have guided their efforts in building up this
wonderful work. Now, in the first place, I could not help
thinking, as I heard Dr. Eliot say what I hoped was true, and
what I have ventured to say before, and what I now know
is true because he said it, of the reform in education here,
of another great reform that had come to the English people
in a similar way. The depraved condition of the civil
service in the English Government received its remedy and
444




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES               445
became better, and such a model service as it is now, through
the lessons that were learned by the English statesmen from
the Indian Civil Service, and so it is here.
We had been struggling along for several hundred years
with our system of education. There was presented to
General Armstrong, the founder of this institution, the
question of what we should do for the Negro and the Indian
races in their almost helpless condition as we found them
after the war. The necessity for helping their condition led
him to undertake this system of education, that of manual
dexterity, united with the teaching of life as it was to be.
It has now developed not alone for Negroes and Indians,
but for the white people throughout this land. I have always
thought that, and, when the foremost educator of the land
says so, I am going to assert it.
The second thought, and in certain aspects the most
important phase of this system which General Armstrong
founded and which Dr. Frissell has continued with such
success, is the fact that right here in Hampton, in "Little
Scotland," we have seen worked out what I regard as the
solution of what we call the race question in this country.
I do not mean that it is settled and I do not mean that the
problem is solved, because problems like that are not solved
in a decade. It takes a number of decades. But when you
take the speech of former Governor Montague on the one
side, and the speech of Major Moton on the other, and put
together and give effect to the spirit that actuated both,
you have the solution of the race question. Major Moton
was sure that he wouldn't make a good Indian or a good
white man. Well, I don't know about that; but I am sure
that he makes a pretty good Scotchman, if one can judge
by the way he leads his chorus in Scotch airs. If ever those
beautiful airs were rendered with finer harmony, and better
understanding of their meaning, and sweeter tones, than
were rendered here this afternoon, I have never heard them 
perhaps they are in Scotland.
I am not going to detain you long. I am glad to be here




446        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
to testify my deep personal interest in this institution, my
deep respect for those who have brought it to what it is,
my recognition of it as a national institution, the wisdom
of the suggestion of Dr. Eliot that there ought to be schools
all over this country patterned after it, and while I hold,
temporarily, the Presidency of the United States, I am glad
to use that office, so far as I can by representation, to testify
to the interest of the American people in the problem which
is being worked out here.




LIX


MESSAGE TO THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS
AT THE SECOND SESSION OF THE SIXTYFIRST CONGRESS
(DECEMBER 7, 1909)
To the Senate and the House of Representatives:
THE relations of the United States with all foreign
governments have continued upon the normal basis
of amity and good understanding, and are very generally
satisfactory.
EUROPE
Pursuant to the provisions of the general treaty of arbitration concluded between the United States and Great Britain,
April 4, 1908, a special agreement was entered into between
the two countries on January 27, 1909, for the submission
of questions relating to the fisheries on the North Atlantic
Coast to a tribunal to be formed from members of the
Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.
In accordance with the provisions of the special agreement
the printed case of each government was, on October 4 last,
submitted to the other and to the Arbitral Tribunal at The
Hague, and the counter case of the United States is now in
course of preparation.
The American rights under the fisheries article of the
Treaty of 1818 have been a cause of difference between
the United States and Great Britain for nearly seventy years.
The interests involved are of great importance to the American fishing industry, and the final settlement of the controversy will remove a source of constant irritation and
complaint. This is the first case involving such great inter447




448


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


national questions which has been submitted to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.
The treaty between the United States and Great Britain
concerning the Canadian International boundary, concluded
April 11, 1908, authorizes the appointment of two commissioners to define and mark accurately the international
boundary line between the United States and the Dominion
of Canada in the waters of the Passamaquoddy Bay, and
provides for the exchange of briefs within the period of six
months. The briefs were duly presented within the prescribed period, but as the commissioners failed to
agree within six months after the exchange of the printed
statements as required by the treaty, it has now become
necessary to resort to the arbitration provided for in the
article.
The International Fisheries Commission, appointed pursuant to and under the authority of the Convention of April 11,
1908, between the United States and Great Britain, has completed a system of uniform  and common international
regulations for the protection and preservation of the food
fishes in international boundary waters of the United States
and Canada.
The regulations will be duly submitted to Congress with
a view to the enactment of such legislation as will be necessary
under the convention to put them into operation.
The convention providing for the settlement of international differences between the United States and Canada,
including the apportionment between the two countries of
certain of the boundary waters and the appointment of commissioners to adjust certain other questions, signed on the
11th day of January, 1909, and to the ratification of which
the Senate gave its advice and consent on March 3, 1909,
has not yet been ratified on the part of Great Britain.
Commissioners have been appointed on the part of the
United States to act jointly with commissioners on the
part of Canada in examining into the question of obstructions
in the St. John River between Maine and New Brunswick,




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and to make recommendations for the regulation of the
uses thereof, and are now engaged in this work.
Negotiations for an international conference to consider
and reach an arrangement providing for the preservation
and protection of the fur seals in the North Pacific are in
progress with the governments of Great Britain, Japan,
and Russia. The attitude of the governments interested
leads me to hope for a satisfactory settlement of this question
as the ultimate outcome of the negotiations.
The Second Peace Conference, recently held at The
Hague, adopted a convention for the establishment of an
International Prize Court upon the joint proposal of delegations of the United States, France, Germany, and Great
Britain. The law to be observed by the tribunal in the
decision of prize cases was, however, left in an uncertain
and therefore unsatisfactory state. Article 7 of the Convention provided that the court was to be governed by the
provisions of treaties existing between the belligerents, but
that "in the absence of such provisions, the court shall apply
the rules of international law. If no generally recognized
rule exists, the court shall give judgment in accordance with
the general principles of justice and equity." As, however,
many questions in international maritime law are understood
differently and therefore interpreted differently in various
countries, it was deemed advisable not to intrust legislative
powers to the proposed court, but to determine the rules
of law properly applicable in a conference of the representative maritime nations. Pursuant to an invitation of
Great Britain a conference was held at London from December 2, 1908, to February 26, 1909, in which the following
powers participated: the United States, Austria-Hungary,
France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, and Spain. The conference resulted in the
Declaration of London, unanimously agreed to and signed
by the participating powers, concerning among other matters
the highly important subjects of blockade, contraband,
the destruction of neutral prizes, and corninuous voyages.




450


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


The Declaration of London is an eminently satisfactory
codification of the international maritime law, and it is hoped
that its reasonableness and fairness will secure its general
adoption, as well as remove one of the difficulties standing
in the way of the establishment of an International Prize
Court.
Under the authority giv;en in the sundry civil appropriation
act, approved March 4, 1909, the United States was represented at the International Conference on Maritime Law
at Brussels.  The conference met on the 28th of September
last and resulted in the signature ad referendum of a convention for the unification of certain regulations with regard
to maritime assistance and salvage and a convention for
the unification of certain rules with regard to collisions at sea.
Two new projects of conventions which have not heretofore
been considered in a diplomatic conference, namely, one
concerning the limitation of the responsibility of shipowners,
and the other concerning marine mortgages and privileges,
have been submitted by the conference to the different
governments.
The conference adjourned to meet again on April 11, 1910.
The international conference for the purpose of promoting
uniform legislation concerning letters of exchange, which was
called by the Government of the Netherlands to meet at The
Hague in September, 1909, has been postponed to meet
at that capital in June, 1910. The United States will
be appropriately represented in this Conference under
the provision therefor already made by Congress.
The cordial invitation of Belgium to be represented by
a fitting display of American progress in the useful arts
and inventions at the World's Fair to be held at Brussels
in 1910 remains to be acted upon by the Congress. Mindful
of the advantages to accrue to our artisans and producers
in competition with their Continental rivals, I renew the
recommendation heretofore made that provision be made
for acceptance of the invitation and adequate representation
in the Exposition.




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451


The question arising out of the Belgian annexation of
the Independent State of the Congo, which has so long and
earnestly preoccupied the attention of this Government
and enlisted the sympathy of our best citizens, is still open,
but in a more hopeful stage. This Government was among
the foremost in the great work of uplifting the uncivilized
regions of Africa and urging the extension of the benefits
of civilization, education, and fruitful open commerce to that
vast domain, and is a party to treaty engagements of all the
interested powers designed to carry out that great duty
to humanity. The way to better the original and adventitious
conditions, so burdensome to the natives and so destructive
to their development, has been pointed out, by observation
and experience, not alone of American representatives,
but by cumulative evidence from all quarters and by the
investigations of Belgian agents. The announced programs of reforms, striking at many of the evils known to
exist, are an augury of better things. The attitude of the
United States is one of benevolent encouragement, coupled
with a hopeful trust that the good work, responsibly undertaken and zealously perfected to the accomplishment of the
results so ardently desired, will soon justify the wisdom that
inspires them and satisfy the demands of humane sentiment
throughout the world.
A convention between the United States and Germany,
under which the non-working provisions of the German
patent law are made inapplicable to the patents of American
citizens, was concluded on Febuary 23, 1909, and is now
in force. Negotiations for similar conventions looking
to the placing of American inventors on the same footing as
nationals have recently been initiated with other European
governments whose laws require the local working of foreign
patents.
Under an appropriation made at the last session of the
Congress, a commission was sent on American cruisers to
Monrovia to investigate the interests of the United States
and its citizens in Liberia. Upon its arrival at Monrovia,




452         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
the commission was enthusiastically received, and during
its stay in Liberia was everywhere met with the heartiest
expressions of good-will for the American Government
and people, and the hope was repeatedly expressed on all
sides that this Government might see its way clear to do
something to relieve the critical position of the Republic
arising in a measure from external as well as internal and
financial embarrassments.
The Liberian Government afforded every facility to the
commission for ascertaining the true state of affairs. The
commission also had conferences with representative citizens,
interested foreigners and the representatives of foreign
governments in Monrovia. Visits were made to various
parts of the Republic and to the neighboring British colony
of Sierra Leone, where the commission was received by and
conferred with the Governor.
It will be remembered that the interest of the United
States in the Republic of Liberia springs from the historical
fact of the foundation of the Republic by the colonization
of American citizens of the African race. In an early
treaty with Liberia there is a provision under which the
United States may be called upon for advice or assistance.
Pursuant to this provision and in the spirit of the moral
relationship of the United States to Liberia, that Republic
last year asked this Government to lend assistance in the
solution of certain of their national problems, and hence
the commission was sent.
The report of our commissioners has just been completed
and is now under examination by the Department of State.
It is hoped that there may result some helpful measures,
in which case it may be my duty again to invite your attention
to this subject.
The Norwegian Government, by a note addressed on
January 26, 1909, to the Department of State, conveyed
an invitation to the Government of the United States to take
part in a conference which it is understood will be held
in February or March, 1910, for the purpose of devising




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means to remedy existing conditions in the Spitzbergen
Islands.
This invitation was conveved under the reservation that the
question of altering the status of the islands as countries
belonging to no particular state, and as equally open to the
citizens and subjects of all states, should not be raised.
The European powers invited to this Conference by the
Government of Norway were Belgium, Denmark, France,
Germany, Great Britain, Russia, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
The Department of State, in view of proofs filed with it in
1906, showing the American possession, occupation and working of certain coal-bearing lands in Spitzbergen, accepted
the invitation under the reservation above stated, and
under the further reservation that all interests in those islands
already vested should be protected and that there should be
equality of opportunity for the future. It was further pointed
out that membership in the conference on the part of the
United States was qualified by the consideration that this
Government would not become a signatory to any conventional arrangement concluded by the European members
of the conference which would imply contributory participation by the United States in any obligation or responsibility
for the enforcement of any scheme of administration which
might be devised by the conference for the islands.
THE NEAR EAST
His Majesty, Mehmed V., Sultan of Turkey, recently sent
to this country a special embassy to announce his accession.
The quick transition of the Government of the Ottoman
Empire from one of retrograde tendencies to a constitutional
government with a parliament and with progressive modern
policies of reform and public improvement is one of the
important phenomena of our times. Constitutional government seems also to have made further advance in Persia.
These events have turned the eyes of the world upon the
Near East. In that quarter the prestige of the United States




454         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
has spread widely through the peaceful influence of American
schools, universities, and missionaries. There is every reason
why we should obtain a greater share of the commerce of
the Near East since the conditions are more favorable now
than ever before.
LATIN AMERICA
One of the happiest events in recent Pan-American
diplomacy was the pacific, independent settlement by the
governments of Bolivia and Peru of a boundary difference
between them, which for some weeks threatened to cause
war and even to entrain embitterments affecting other
republics less directly concerned. From various quarters,
directly or indirectly concerned, the intermediation of the
United States was sought to assist in a solution of the controversy. Desiring at all times to abstain from any undue
mingling in the affairs of sister republics and having faith
in the ability of the governments of Peru and Bolivia
themselves to settle their differences in a manner satisfactory to themselves which, viewed with magnanimity, would
assuage all embitterment, this Government steadily abstained
from being drawn into the controversy and was much
gratified to find its confidence justified by events.
On the 9th of July next there will open at Buenos Ayres
the Fourth Pan-American Conference. This conference
will have a special meaning to the hearts of all Americans,
because around its date are clustered the anniversaries of
the independence of so many of the American republics.
It is not necessary for me to remind the Congress of the
political, social, and commercial importance of these gatherings. You are asked to make liberal appropriation for our
participation. If this be granted, it is my purpose to appoint
a distinguished and representative delegation, qualified
fittingly to represent this country and to deal with the
problems of intercontinental interest which will there be
discussed.
The Argentine Republic will also hold from May to




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November, 1910, at Buenos Ayres, a great International
Agricultural Exhibition in which the United States has been
invited to participate. Considering the rapid growth of the
trade in the United States with the Argentine Republic and
the cordial relations existing between the two nations, together with the fact that it provides an opportunity to show
deference to a sister republic on the occasion of the celebration of its national independence, the proper Departments
of this Government are taking steps to apprise the interests
concerned of the opportunity afforded by this exhibition,
in which appropriate participation by this country is so
desirable. The designation of an official representative is
also receiving consideration.
To-day, more than ever before, American capital is seeking
investment in foreign countries, and American products
are more and more generally seeking foreign markets. As
a consequence, in all countries there are American citizens
and American interests to be protected, on occasion, by their
Government. These movements of men, of capital, and of
commodities bring peoples and governments closer together
and so form bonds of peace and mutual dependency, as they
must also naturally sometimes make passing points of friction.
The resultant situation inevitably imposes upon this Government vastly increased responsibilities. This Administration,
through the Department of State and the foreign service
is lending all proper support to legitimate and beneficial
American enterprises in foreign countries, the degree of
such support being measured by the national advantages
to be expected. A citizen himself can not by contract
or otherwise divest himself of the right, nor can this Government escape the obligation, of his protection in his personal
and property rights when these are unjustly infringed in a
foreign country. To avoid ceaseless vexations it is proper
that in considering whether American enterprise should be
encouraged or supported in a particular country, the Government should give full weight not only to the national as
opposed to the individual benefits to accrue, but also to




456,


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


the fact whether or not the Government of the country in
question in its administration and in its diplomacy faithful
to the principles of moderation, equity, and justice upon
which alone depend international credit, in diplomacy as
well as in finance.
The Pan-American policy of this Government has long
been fixed in its principles and remains unchanged. With
the changed circumstances of the United States and of the
republics to the south of us, most of which have great natural
resources, stable government, and progressive ideals, the
apprehension which gave rise to the Monroe Doctrine may
be said to have nearly disappeared, and neither the doctrine
as it exists nor any other doctrine of American policy should
be permitted to operate for the perpetuation of irresponsible
government, the escape of just obligations, or the insidious
allegation of dominating ambitions on the part of the United
States.
Beside the fundamental doctrines of our Pan-American
policy there have grown up a realization of political interests,
community of institutions and ideals, and a flourishing
commerce. All these bonds will be greatly strengthened
as time goes on and increased facilities, such as the great
bank soon to be established in Latin America, supply the
means for building up the colossal intercontinental commerce
of the future.
My meeting with President Diaz and the greeting
exchanged on both American and Mexican soil served,
I hope, to signalize the close and cordial relations which so
well bind together this republic and the great republic
immediately to the south, between which there is so vast a
network of matcrial interests.
I am happy to say that all but one of the cases which for
so long vexed our relations with Venezuela have been settled
within the past few months and that, under the enlightened
regime now directing the Government of Venezuela, provision has been made for arbitration of the remaining
case before The Hague Tribunal.




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On July 30, 1909, the Government of Panama agreed,
after considerable negotiation, to indemnify the relatives
of the American officers and sailors who were brutally treated,
one of them having, indeed, been killed by the Panaman
police this year.
The sincere desire of the Government of Panama to do
away with a situation where such an accident could occur
is manifest in the recent request in compliance with which
this Government has lent the services of an officer of the
Army to be employed by the Government of Panama as
Instructor of Police.
The sanitary improvements and public works undertaken
in Cuba prior to the present administration of that Government, in the success of which the United States is interested
under the treaty, are reported to be making good progress;
and since the Congress provided for the continuance of the
reciprocal commercial arrangement between Cuba and the
United States assurance has been received that no negotiations injuriously affecting the situation will be undertaken
without consultation.
The collection of the customs of the Dominican Republic
through the general receiver of customs appointed by the
President of the United States in accordance with the convention of February 8, 1907, has proceeded in an uneventful
and satisfactory manner. The customs receipts have
decreased owing to disturbed political and economic conditions and to a very natural curtailment of imports in view
of the anticipated revision of the Dominican tariff schedule.
The payments to the fiscal agency fund for the service of the
bonded debt of the republic, as provided by the convention,
have been regularly and promptly made, and satisfactory
progress has been made in carrying out the provisions of the
convention looking toward the completion of the adjustment
of the debt and the acquirement by the Dominican Government of certain concessions and monopolies which have been
a burden to the commerce of the country. In short, the
receivership has demonstrated its ability, even under unfa



458


PRESIDENTIAL AI)DRESSES


vorable economic and political conditions, to do the work
for which it was intended.
This Government was obliged to intervene diplomatically
to bring about arbitration or settlement of the claim of the
Emery Company against Nicaragua, which it had long
before been agreed should be arbitrated. A settlement of
this troublesome case was reached by the signature of a
protocol on September 18, 1909.
Many years ago diplomatic intervention became necessary
to the protection of the interests in the American claim of
Alsop  & Company against the Government of Chile.
The Government of Chile had frequently admitted obligation
in the case and had promised this Government to settle
it. There had been two abortive attempts to do so through
arbitral commissions, which failed through lack of jurisdiction. Now, happily, as the result of the recent diplomatic
negotiations, the Governments of the United States and
of Chile, actuated by the sincere desire to free from any
strain those cordial and friendly relations upon which both
set such store, have agreed by a protocol to submit the controversy to definitive settlement by His Britannic Majesty
Edward VII.
Since the Washington Conventions of 1907 were communicated to the Government of the United States as a
consulting and advising party, this Government has been
almost continuously called upon by one or another, and in
turn by all of the five Central American Republics, to exert
itself for the maintenance of the conventions. Nearly every
complaint has been against the Zelaya Government of Nicaragua, which has kept Central America in constant tension
or turmoil. The responses made to the representations of
Central American Republics, as viewed from the United
States on account of its relation to the Washington Conventions, have been at all times conservative and have avoided
so far as possible any semblance of interference, although




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it is very apparent that the considerations of geographic
proximity to the Canal Zone and of the very substantial
American interests in Central America give to the United
States a special position in the zone of these republics
and the Caribbean Sea.
I need not rehearse here the patient efforts of this Government to promote peace and welfare among these republics,
efforts which are fully appreciated by the majority of them
who are loyal to their true interests. It would be no less
unnecessary to rehearse here the sad tale of unspeakable
barbarities and oppression alleged to have been committed
by the Zelaya Government. Recently two Americans were
put to death by order of President Zelaya himself. They
were reported to have been regularly commissioned officers
in the organized forces of a revolution which had continued
many weeks and was in control of about half of the republic,
and as such, according to the modern enlightened practice
of civilized nations, they were entitled to be dealt with as
prisoners of war.
At the date when this message is printed this Government
has terminated diplomatic relations with the Zelaya Government, for reasons made public in a communication to the
former Nicaraguan charge d'affaires, and is intending to
take such future steps as may be found most consistent with
its dignity, its duty to American interests, and its moral obligations to Central America and to civilization. It may later
be necessary for me to bring this subject to the attention
of the Congress in a special message.
The International Bureau of American Republics has
carried on an important and increasing work during the last
year. In the exercise of its peculiar functions as an international agency, maintained by all the American Republics
for the development of Pan-American commerce and friendship, it has accomplished a great practical good which could
be done in the same way by no individual department or
bureau of one government, and is therefore deserving of your
liberal support. The fact that it is about to enter a new




460


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


building, erected through the munificence of an American
philanthropist and the contributions of all the American
nations, where both its efficiency of administration and
expense of maintenance will naturally be much augmented,
further entitles it to special consideration.
THE FAR EAST
In the Far East this Government preserves unchanged its
policy of supporting the principle of equality of opportunity
and scrupulous respect for the integrity of the Chinese
Empire, to which policy are pledged the interested powers
of both East and West.
By the Treaty of 1903 China has undertaken the abolition
of likin with a moderate and proportionate raising of the
customs tariff along with currency reform. These reforms
being of manifest advantage to foreign commerce as well
as to the interests of China, this Government is endeavoring
to facilitate these measures and the needful acquiescence of
the treaty powers. When it appeared that Chinese likin
revenues were to be hypothecated to foreign bankers in
connection with a great railway project, it was obvious
that the governments whose nationals held this loan
would have a certain direct interest in the question of
the carrying out by China of the reforms in question.
Because this railroad loan represented a practical and
real application of the "open door" policy through cooperation with China by interested powers as well as
because of its relations to the reforms referred to above,
the Administration deemed American participation to be
of great national interest. Happily, when it was as a
matter of broad policy urgent that this opportunity should
not be lost, the indispensable instrumentality presented itself
when a group of American bankers, of international reputation and great resources, agreed at once to share in the loan
upon precisely such terms as this Government should approve.
The chief of those terms was that American railway material
should be upon an exact equality with that of the other




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nationals joining in the loan in the placing of orders for this
whole railroad system. After months of negotiation the
equal participation of Americans seems at last assured.
It is gratifying that Americans will thus take their share in
this extension of these great highways of trade, and to believe
that such activities will give a real impetus to our commerce
and will prove a practical corollary to our historic policy in
the Far East.
The Imperial Chinese Government in pursuance of its
decision to devote funds from the portion of the indemnity
remitted by the United States to the sending of students
to this country has already completed arrangements for
carrying out this purpose, and a considerable body of students
have arrived to take up their work in our schools and universities. No one can doubt the happy effect that the associations formed by these representative young men will have
when they return to take up their work in the progressive
development of their country.
The results of the Opium Conference held at Shanghai last
spring at the invitation of the United States have been laid
before the Government. The report shows that China is
making remarkable progress and admirable efforts toward
the eradication of the opium evil and that the governments
concerned have not allowed their commercial interests to
interfere with a helpful cooperation in this reform. Collateral
investigations of the opium question in this country lead
me to recommend that the manufacture, sale, and use of
opium and its derivatives in the United States should be so
far as possible more rigorously controlled by legislation.
In one of the Chinese-Japanese Conventions of September
4 of this year there was a provision which caused considerable
public apprehension in that upon its face it was believed in
some quarters to seek to establish a monopoly of mining
privileges along the South Manchurian and Antung-Mukden
Railroads, and thus to exclude Americans from a wide field
of enterprise, to take part in which they were by treaty
with China entitled. After a thorough examination of the




m46!?     PRESIDENTIAL ADDRE)SSES
Conventions and of the several contextual documents, the
Secretary of State reached the conclusion that no such
monopoly was intended or accomplished. However, in
view of the widespread discussion of this question, to confirm
the view it had reached, this Government made inquiry of the
Imperial Chinese and Japanese governments and received
from each official assurance that the provision had no
purpose inconsistent with the policy of equality of opportunity to which the signatories, in common with the United
States, are pledged.
Our traditional relations with the Japanese Empire continue cordial as usual. As the representative of Japan,
His Imperial Highness Prince Kuni visited the HudsonFulton Celebration. The recent visit of a delegation of
prominent business men as guests of the chambers of commerce of the Pacific Slope, whose representatives had been so
agreeably received in Japan, will doubtless contribute to
the growing trade across the Pacific, as well as to that mutual
understanding which leads to mutual appreciation. The
arrangement of 1908 for a cooperative control of the coming
of laborers to the United States has proved to work satisfactorily. The matter of a revision of the existing treaty
between the United States and Japan which is terminable
in 1919 is already receiving the study of both countries.
The Department of State is considering the revision in
whole or in part, of the existing treaty with Siam, which was
concluded in 1856 and is now, in respect to many of its
provisions, out-of-date.
THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE
I earnestly recommend to the favorable action of the
Congress the estimates submitted by the Department of State
and most especially the legislation suggested in the Secretary
of State's letter of this date whereby it will be possible to
develop and make permanent the reorganization of the
Department upon modern lines in a manner to make it a
thoroughly efficient instrument in the furtherance of our




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foreign trade and of American interests abroad. The plan
to have Divisions of Latin-American and Far Eastern
Affairs and to institute a certain specialization in business
with Europe and the Near East will at once commend itself.
These politico-geographical divisions and the detail from the
Diplomatic or Consular Service to the Department of a number of men, who bring to the study of complicated problems
in different parts of the world practical knowledge recently
gained on the spot, clearly is of the greatest advantage to
the Secretary of State in foreseeing conditions likely to arise
and in conducting the great variety of correspondence and
negotiation. It should be remembered that such facilities
exist in the foreign offices of all the leading commercial
nations and that to deny them to the Secretary of State would
be to place this Government at a great disadvantage in the
rivalry of commercial competition.
The Consular Service has been greatly improved under
the law of April 5, 1906, and the Executive Order of June
27, 1906, and I commend to your consideration the question
of embodying in a statute the principles of the present
executive order upon which the efficiency of our Consular
Service is wholly dependent.
In modern times political and commercial interests are
interrelated, and in the negotiation of commercial treaties,
conventions, and tariff agreements the keeping open of
opportunities and the proper support of American enterprises, our Diplomatic Service is quite as important as the
Consular Service to the business interests of the country.
Impressed with this idea and convinced that selection after
rigorous examination, promotion for merit solely and the
experience only to be gained through the continuity of an
organized service are indispensable to a high degree of efficiency in the Diplomatic Service, I have signed an executive
order as the first step toward this very desirable result.
Its effect should be to place all secretaries in the Diplomatic
Service in much the same position as consular officers
are now placed and to tend to the promotion of the most




464


PIRESIDEN TIAL ADDREESSES


efficient to the grade of minister, generally leaving for outside
appointment such posts of the grade of ambassador or
minister as it may be expedient to fill from without the
service. It is proposed also to continue the practice instituted
last summer of giving to all newly appointed secretaries at
least one month's thorough training in the Department of
State before they proceed to their posts. This has been
done for some time in regard to the Consular Service with
excellent results.
Under a provision of the act of August 5, 1909, I have
appointed three officials to assist the officers of the Government in collecting information necessary to a wise administration of the tariff act of August 5, 1909. As to questions
of customs administration they are co6perating with the
officials of the Treasury Department and as to matters of
the needs and the exigencies of our manufacturers and
exporters, with the Department of Commerce and Labor,
in its relation to the domestic aspect of the subject of foreign
commerce. In the study of foreign tariff treatment they
will assist the Bureau of Trade Relations of the Department
of State. It is hoped thus to coordinate and bring to bear
upon this most important subject all the agencies of the
Government which can contribute anything to its efficient
handling.
As a consequence of Section 2 of the tariff act of August 5,
1909, it becomes the duty of the Secretary of State to conduct as diplomatic business all the negotiations necessary
to place him in a position to advise me as to whether or not
a particular country unduly discriminates against the United
States in the sense of the statute referred to. The great
scope and complexity of this work, as well as the obligation
to lend all proper aid to our expanding commerce, is met
by the expansion of the Bureau of Trade Relations as set
forth in the estimates for the Department of State.
I have thus in some detail described the important transactions of the State Department since the beginning of this
Administration for the reason that there is no provision




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either by statute or custom for a formal report by the Secretary of State to the President or to Congress and a Presidential message is the only means by which the condition
of our foreign relations is brought to the attention of Congress
and the public.
OTHER DEPARTMENTS
In dealing with the affairs of the other Departments, the
heads of which all submit annual reports, I shall touch only
those matters that seem to me to call for special mention
on my part without minimizing in any way the recommendations made by them for legislation affecting their respective
Departments, in all of which I wish to express my general
concurrence.
GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES AND REVENUES
Perhaps the most important question presented to this
Administration is that of economy in expenditures and
sufficiency of revenue. The deficit of the last fiscal year,
and the certain deficit of the current year, prompted Congress
to throw a greater responsibility on the Executive and the
Secretary of the Treasury than had heretofore been declared
by statute. This declaration imposes upon the Secretary
of the Treasury the duty of assembling all the estimates of
the Executive Departments, bureaus, and offices, of the
expenditures necessary in the ensuing fiscal year, and of
making an estimate of the revenues of the Government for
the same period; and if a probable deficit is thus shown, it
is made the duty of the President to recommend the method
by which such deficit can be met.
The report of the Secretary shows that the ordinary
expenditures for the current fiscal year ending June 30, 1910,
will exceed the estimated receipts by $34,075,620. If to this
deficit is added the sum to be disbursed for the Panama
Canal, amounting to $38,000,000, and $1,000,000 to be paid
on the public debt, the deficit of ordinary receipts and
expenditures will be increased to a total deficit of $73,075,620.




466        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
This deficit the Secretary proposes to meet by the proceeds
of bonds issued to pay the cost of constructing the Panama
Canal. I approve this proposal.
The policy of paying for the construction of the Panama
Canal, not out of current revenue, but by bond issues, was
adopted in the Spooner Act of 1902, and there seems to be
no good reason for departing from the principle by which
a part at least of the burden of the cost of the canal shall
fall upon our posterity who are to enjoy it; and there is all
the more reason for this view because, to date, the actual cost
of the canal, which is now half done and which will be
completed January 1, 1915, shows that the cost of engineering
and construction will be $297,766,000, instead of $139,705,200
as originally estimated. In addition to engineering and
construction, the other expenses, including sanitation and
government, and the amount paid for the properties, the
franchise, and the privilege of building the canal, increase
the cost by $75,435,000, to a total of $375,201,000. The
increase in the cost of engineering and construction is due
to a substantial enlargement of the plan of construction by
widening the canal 100 feet in the Culebra cut and by increasing the dimensions of the locks, to the underestimate of the
quantity of the work to be done under the original plan, and
to an underestimate of the cost of labor and materials both
of which have greatly enhanced in price since the original
estimate was made.
In order to avoid a deficit for the ensuing fiscal year, I
directed the heads of Departments in the preparation of their
estimates to make them as low as possible consistent with
imperative governmental necessity. The result has been,
as I am advised by the Secretary of the Treasury, that the
estimates for the expenses of the Government for the next
fiscal year ending June 30, 1911, are less than the appropriations for this current fiscal year by $42,818,000. So
far as the Secretary of the Treasury is able to form a
judgment as to future income, and compare it with the
expenditures for the next fiscal year ending June 30, 1911,




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and excluding payments on account of the Panama Canal,
which will doubtless be taken up by bonds, there will be a
surplus of $35,931,000.
In the present estimates the needs of the Departments and
of the Government have been cut to the quick, so to speak,
and any assumption on the part of Congress, so often made
in times past, that the estimates have been prepared with the
expectation that they may be reduced, will result in seriously
hampering proper administration.
The Secretary of the Treasury points out what should
be carefully noted in respect to this reduction in governmental expenses for the next fiscal year, that the economies are
of two kinds - first, there is a saving in the permanent administration of the Departments, bureaus, and offices of the
Government; and, second, there is a present reduction in
expenses by a postponement of projects and improvements
that ultimately will have to be carried out, but which are now
delayed with the hope that additional revenue in the future
will permit their execution without producing a deficit.
It has been impossible in the preparation of estimates
greatly to reduce the cost of permanent administration.
This can not be done without a thorough reorganization
of bureaus, offices, and departments. For the purpose of
securing information which may enable the executive and
legislative branches to unite in a plan for the permanent
reduction of the cost of governmental administration, the
Treasury Department has instituted an investigation by one
of the most skilled expert accountants in the United States.
The result of his work in two or three bureaus, which, if
extended to the entire Government, must occupy two or
more years, has been to show much room for improvement
and opportunity for substantial reductions in the cost and
increased efficiency of administration. The object of the
investigation is to devise means to increase the average
efficiency of each employee. There is great room for
improvement toward this end, not only by the reorganization of bureaus and departments and in the avoidance




468        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
of duplication, but also in the treatment of the individual
employee.
Under the present system it constantly happens that two
employees receive the same salary when the work of one is
far more difficult and important and exacting than that of
the other. Superior ability is not rewarded or encouraged.
As the classification is now entirely by salary, an employee
often rises to the highest class while doing the easiest work,
for which alone, he may be fitted. An investigation ordered
by my predecessor resulted in the recommendation that the
civil service be reclassified according to the kind of work,
so that the work requiring most application and knowledge
and ability shall receive most compensation. I believe such
a change would be fairer to the whole force and would
permanently improve the personnel of the service.
More than this, every reform directed toward the improvement in the average efficiency of government employees
must depend on the ability of the Executive to eliminate from
the government service those who are inefficient from any
cause, and as the degree of efficiency in all the Departments
is much lessened by the retention of old employees who
have outlived their energy and usefulness, it is indispensable
to any proper system of economy that provision be made
so that their separation from the service shall be easy and
inevitable. It is impossible to make such provision unless
there is adopted a plan of civil pensions.
Most of the great industrial organizations, and many
of the well-conducted railways of this country, are coming
to the conclusion that a system of pensions for old employees,
and the substitution therefor of younger and more energetic
servants promotes both economy and efficiency of administration.
I am aware that there is a strong feeling in both Houses
of Congress, and possibly in the country, against the establishment of civil pensions, and that this has naturally grown
out of the heavy burden of military pensions, which it has
always been the policy of our Government to assume; but




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I am strongly convinced that no other practical solution
of the difficulties presented by the superannuation of civil
servants can be found than that of a system of civil pensions.
The business and expenditures of the Government have
expanded enormously since the Spanish War, but as the revenues have increased in nearly the same proportion as the
expenditures until recently, the attention of the public,
and of those responsible for the Government, has not been
fastened upon the question of reducing the cost of administration. We can not, in view of the advancing prices of living,
hope to save money by a reduction in the standard of salaries
paid. Indeed, if any change is made in that regard, an
increase rather than a decrease will be necessary; and the
only means of economy will be in reducing the number of
employees and in obtaining a greater average of efficiency
from those retained in the service.
Close investigation and study needed to make definite
recommendations in this regard will consume at least two
years. I note with much satisfaction the organization in
the Senate of a Committee on Public Expenditures, charged
with the duty of conducting such an investigation, and I
tender to that Committee all the assistance which the
executive branch of the Government can possibly render.
FRAUDS IN THE COLLECTION OF CUSTOMS
I regret to refer to the fact of the discovery of extensive
frauds in the collection of the customs revenue at New York
City, in which a number of the subordinate employees in
the weighing and other departments were directly concerned,
and in which the beneficiaries were the American Sugar
Refining Company and others. The frauds consisted in
the payment of duty on underweights of sugar. The Government has recovered from the American Sugar Refining
Company all that it is shown to have been defrauded of.
The sum was received in full of the amount due, which might
have been recovered by civil suit against the beneficiary
of the fraud, but there was an express reservation in the




470        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
contract of settlement by which the settlement should not
interfere with, or prevent the criminal prosecution of every
one who was found to be subject to the same.
Criminal prosecutions are now proceeding against a
number of the Government officers. The Treasury Department and the Department of Justice are exerting every
effort to discover all the wrongdoers, including the officers
and employees of the companies who may have been privy to
the fraud. It would seem to me that an investigation of
the frauds by Congress at present, pending the probing by
the Treasury Department and the Department of Justice,
as proposed, might by giving immunity and otherwise prove
an embarrassment in securing conviction of the guilty
parties.
MAXIMUM AND MINIMUM CLAUSE IN TARIFF ACT
Two features of the new tariff act call for special reference.
By virtue of the clause known as the "Maximum and
Minimum" clause, it is the duty of the Executive to consider
the laws and practices of other countries with reference to
the importation into those countries of the products and
merchandise of the United States, and if the Executive finds
such laws and practices not to be unduly discriminatory
against the United States, the minimum duties provided in
the bill are to go into force. Unless the President makes
such a finding, then the maximum duties provided in the bill,
that is, an increase of twenty-five per cent. ad valorem over
the minimum duties, are to be in force. Fear has been
expressed that this power conferred and duty imposed on
the Executive is likely to lead to a tariff war. I beg to
express the hope and belief that no such result need be
anticipated.
The discretion granted to the Executive by the term
"unduly discriminatory" is wide. In order that the maximum duty shall be charged against the imports from a country
not only discriminations in its laws or the practice under
them against the trade of the United States, but that the




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discriminations found shall be undue; that is, without good
and fair reason. I conceive that this power was reposed in
the President with the hope that the maximum duties might
never be applied in any case, but that the power to apply
them would enable the President and the State Department
through friendly negotiation to secure the elimination from
the laws and the practice under them of any foreign country
of that which is unduly discriminatory. No one is seeking
a tariff war or a condition in which the spirit of retaliation
shall be aroused.
USES OF THE NEW TARIFF BOARD
The new tariff law enables me to appoint a tariff board
to assist me in connection with the Department of State
in the administration of the maximum and minimum clause
of the act and also to assist officers of the Government in
the administration of the entire law. An examination of
the law and an understanding of the nature of the facts
which should be considered in discharging the functions
imposed upon the Executive show that I have the power
to direct the tariff board to make a comprehensive glossary
and encyclopedia of the terms used and articles embraced
in the tariff law, and to secure information as to the cost of
production of such goods in this country and the cost of their
production in foreign countries. I have therefore appointed
a tariff board consisting of three members and have directed
them to perform all the duties above described. This work
will perhaps take two or three years, and I ask from Congress a continuing annual appropriation equal to that already
made for its prosecution. I believe that the work of this
board will be of prime utility and importance whenever
Congress shall deem it wise again to readjust the customs
duties. If the facts secured by the tariff board are of such
a character as to show generally that the rates of duties
imposed by the present tariff law are excessive under the
principles of protection as described in the platform of the
successful party at the late election, I shall not hesitate to




472        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
invite the attention of Congress to this fact and to the necessity for action predicated thereon. Nothing, however, halts
business and interferes with the course of prosperity so much
as the threatened revision of the tariff, and until the facts
are at hand, after careful and deliberate investigation, upon
which such revision can properly be undertaken, it seems to
me unwise to attempt it. The amount of misinformation
that creeps into arguments pro and con in respect to tariff
rates is such as to require the kind of investigation that I
have directed the tariff board to make, an investigation undertaken by it wholly without respect to the effect which the
facts may have in calling for a readjustment of the rates
of duty.
WAR DEPARTMENT
In the interest of immediate economy and because of the
prospect of a deficit, I have required a reduction in the
estimates of the War Department for the coming fiscal
year, which brings the total estimates down to an amount
forty-five millions less than the corresponding estimates
for last year. This could only be accomplished by cutting
off new projects and suspending for the period of one year
all progress in military matters. For the same reason I have
directed that the Army shall not be recruited up to its present
authorized strength. These measures can hardly be more
than temporary -to last until our revenues are in better
condition and until the whole question of the expediency
of adopting a definite military policy can be submitted to
Congress, for I am sure that the interests of the military
establishment are seriously in need of careful consideration
by Congress. The laws regulating the organization of our
armed forces in the event of war need to be revised in order
that the organization can be modified so as to produce a
force which would be more consistently apportioned throughout its numerous branches. To explain the circumstances
upon which this opinion is based would necessitate a lengthy
discussion, and I postpone it until the first convenient




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opportunity shall arise to send to Congress a special message
upon this subject.
The Secretary of War calls attention to a number of needed
changes in the Army in all of which I concur, but the point
upon which I place most emphasis is the need for an elimination bill providing a method by which the merits of officers
shall have some effect upon their advancement and by which
the advancement of all may be accelerated by the effective
elimination of a definite proportion of the least efficient.
There are in every army, and certainly in ours, a number
of officers who do not violate their duty in any such way
as to give reason for a court-martial or dismissal, but who
do not show such aptitude and skill and character for high
command as to justify their remaining in the active service
to be promoted. Provision should be made by which they
may be retired on a certain proportion of their pay, increasing
with their length of service at the time of retirement. There
is now a personnel law for the Navy which itself needs amendment and to which I shall make further reference. Such a
law is needed quite as much for the Army.
The coast defenses of the United States proper are generally
all that could be desired, and in some respects they are rather
more elaborate than under present conditions are needed to
stop an enemy's fleet from entering the harbors defended.
There is, however, one place where additional defense is
badly needed, and that is at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay,
where it is proposed to make an artificial island for a
fort which shall prevent an enemy's fleet from entering
this most important strategical base of operations on the
whole Atlantic and Gulf coasts. I hope that appropriate
legislation will be adopted to secure the construction of
this defense.
The Military and Naval Joint Board have unanimously
agreed that it would be unwise to make the large expenditures
which at one time were contemplated in the establishment
of a naval base and station in the Philippine Islands, and
have expressed their judgment, in which I fully concur, in




474        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
favor of making an extensive naval base at Pearl Harbor,
near Honolulu, and not in the Philippines. This does not
dispense with the necessity for the comparatively small
appropriations required to finish the proper coast defenses
in the Philippines now under construction on the island of
Corregidor and elsewhere or to complete a suitable repair
station and coaling supply station at Olongapo, where is the
floating dock "Dewey."  I hope that this recommendation
of the joint board will end the discussion as to the comparative merits of Manila Bay and Olongapo as naval stations,
and will lead to prompt measures for the proper equipment
and defense of Pearl Harbor.
THE NAVY
The return of the battle-ship fleet from its voyage around
the world, in more efficient condition than when it started,
was a noteworthy event of interest alike to our citizens and
the naval authorities of the world. Besides the beneficial
and far-reaching effect on our personal and diplomatic
relations in the countries which the fleet visited, the marked
success of the ships in steaming around the world in all
weathers on schedule time has increased respect for our
Navy and has added to our national prestige.
Our enlisted personnel recruited from all sections of the
country is young and energetic and representative of the
national spirit. It is, moreover, owing to its intelligence,
capable of quick training into the modern man-of-warsmen.
Our officers are earnest and zealous in their profession, but
it is a regrettable fact that the higher officers are old for the
responsibilities of the modern navy, and the admirals do not
arrive at flag rank young enough to obtain adequate training
in their duties as flag officers. This need for reform in the
Navy has been ably and earnestly presented to Congress by
my predecessor, and I also urgently recommend the subject
for consideration.
Early in the coming session a comprehensive plan for
the reorganization of the officers of all corps of the Navy




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475


will be presented to Congress, and I hope it will meet with
action suited to its urgency.
Owing to the necessity for economy in expenditures, I have
directed the curtailment of recommendations for naval
appropriations so that they are thirty-eight millions less than
the corresponding estimates of last year, and the request for
new naval construction is limited to two first-class battleships and one repair vessel.
The use of a navy is for military purposes, and there has
been found need in the Department of a military branch dealing directly with the military use of the fleet. The Secretary
of the Navy has also felt the lack of responsible advisers to
aid him in reaching conclusions and deciding important
matters between coordinate branches of the Department.
To secure these results he has inaugurated a tentative plan
involving certain changes in the organization of the Navy
Department, including the navy yards, all of which have
been found by the Attorney-General to be in accordance
with law. I have approved the execution of the plan
proposed because of the greater efficiency and economy it
promises.
The generosity of Congress has provided in the present
Naval Observatory, the most magnificent and expensive
astronomical establishment in the world. It is being used
for certain naval purposes which might easily and adequately
be subserved by a small division connected with the Navy
Department at only a fraction of the cost of the present
Naval Observatory. The Official Board of Visitors established by Congress and appointed in 1901 expressed its
conclusion that the official head of the observatory should be
an eminent astronomer appointed by the President by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate, holding his place
by a tenure at least as permanent as that of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey or the head of the Geological Survey,
and not merely by a detail of two or three years' duration. I
fully concur in this judgment, and urge a urovision by law
for the appointment of such a director.




PRESIDENTIAL AI)DRESSES


476


It may not be necessary to take the observatory out of th.
Navy Department and put it into another department in
which opportunity for scientific research afforded by the
observatory would seem to be more appropriate, though I
believe such a transfer in the long run is the best policy.
I am sure, however, I express the desire of the astronomers
and those learned in the kindred sciences when I urge
upon Congress that the Naval Observatory be now dedicated
to science under control of a man of science who can, if need
be, render all the service to the Navy Department which this
observatory now renders, and still furnish to the world the
discoveries in astronomy that a great astronomer using such
a plant would be likely to make.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Expedition in Legal Procedure
The deplorable delays in the administration of civil and
criminal law have received the attention of committees of the
American Bar Association and of many state bar associations, as well as the considered thought of judges and jurists.
In my judgment, a change in judicial procedure, with a view
to reducing its expense to private litigants in civil cases and
facilitating the dispatch of business and final decision in
both civil and criminal cases, constitutes the greatest need in
our American institutions. I do not doubt for one moment
that much of the lawless violence and cruelty exhibited
in lynchings is directly due to the uncertainties and injustice
growing out of the delays in trials, judgments, and the executions thereof by our courts. Of course these remarks apply
quite as well to the administration of justice in State courts
as to that in Federal courts, and without making invidious
distinction it is perhaps not too much to say that, speaking
generally, the defects are less in the Federal courts than the
State courts. But they are very great in the Federal courts.
The expedition with which business is disposed of both
on the civil and the criminal side of English courts under




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477


modern rules of procedure makes the delays in our courts
seem archaic and barbarous. The procedure in the Federal
courts should furnish an example for the State courts. I
presume it is impossible, without an amendment to the Constitution, to unite under one form of action the proceedings
at common law and proceedings in equity in the Federal
courts, but it is certainly not impossible by a statute to
simplify and make short and direct the procedure both at
law and in equity in those courts. It is not impossible to
cut down still more than it is cut down, the jurisdiction of the
Supreme Court so as to confine it almost wholly to statutory
and constitutional questions. Under the present statutes
the equity and admiralty procedure in the Federal courts
is under the control of the Supreme Court, but in the pressure
of business to which that court is subjected it is impossible
to hope that a radical and proper reform of the Federal equity
procedure can be brought about. I therefore recommend
legislation providing for the appointment by the President
of a commission with authority to examine the law and equity
procedure of the Federal courts of first instance, the law of
appeals from those courts to the courts of appeals and to the
Supreme Court, and the costs imposed in such procedure
upon the private litigants and upon the public treasury
and make recommendation with a view -to simplifying
and expediting the procedure as far as possible and
making it as inexpensive as may be to the litigant of little
means.
Injunctions Without Notice
The platform of the successful party in the last election
contained the following:
"The Republican party will uphold at all times the
authority and integrity of the courts, State and Federal, and
will ever insist that their powers to enforce their process
and to protect life, liberty, and property shall be preserved
inviolate. We believe, however, that the rules of pro



478        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
cedure in the Federal courts with respect to the issuance of
the writ of injunction should be more accurately defined by
statute, and that no injunction or temporary restraining order
should be issued without notice, except where irreparable
injury would result from delay, in which case a speedy
hearing thereafter should be granted."
I recommend that in compliance with the promise thus
made, appropriate legislation be adopted. The ends of
justice will best be met and the chief cause of complaint
against ill-considered injunctions without notice will be
removed by the enactment of a statute forbidding hereafter
the issuing of any injunction or restraining order, whether
temporary or permanent, by any Federal court, without
previous notice and a reasonable opportunity to be heard
on behalf of the parties to be enjoined; unless it shall appear
to the satisfaction of the court that the delay necessary to
give such notice and hearing would result in irreparable
injury to the complainant and unless also the court shall
from the evidence make a written finding, which shall be
spread upon the court minutes, that immediate and irreparable injury is likely to ensue to the complainant, and
shall define the injury, state why it is irreparable, and
shall also indorse on the order issued the date and the
hour of the issuance of the order. Moreover, every such
injunction or restraining order issued without previous
notice and opportunity by the defendant to be heard should
by force of the statute expire and be of no effect after
seven days from the issuance thereof or within any time
less than that period which the court may fix, unless within
such seven days or such less period, the injunction or
order is extended or renewed after previous notice and
opportunity to be heard.
My judgment is that the passage of such an act which
really embodies the best practice in equity and is very like the
rule now in force in some courts will prevent the issuing of
ill-advised orders of injunction without notice and will render




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479


such orders when issued much less objectionable by the short
time which they may remain effective.
Anti-Trust and Interstate Commerce Laws
The jurisdiction of the general Government over interstate commerce has led to the passage of the so-called
"Sherman Anti-trust Law" and the "Interstate Commerce
Law" and its amendments. The developments in the operation of those laws, as shown by indictments, trials, judicial
decisions, and other sources of information, call for a discussion and some suggestions as to amendments. These I
prefer to embody in a special message instead of including
them in the present communication, and I shall avail myself
of the first convenient opportunity to bring these subjects
to the attention of Congress.
Jail of the District of Columbia
My predecessor transmitted to the Congress a special
message on January 11, 1909, accompanying the report of
Commissioners theretofore appointed to investigate the jail,
workhouse, etc., in the District of Columbia, in which he
directed attention to the report as setting forth vividly,
"the really outrageous conditions in the workhouse and jail."
The Congress has taken action in pursuance of the recommendations of that report and of the President, to the extent
of appropriating funds and enacting the necessary legislation
for the establishment of a workhouse and reformatory.
No action, however, has been taken by the Congress with
respect to the jail, the conditions of which still are antiquated
and insanitary. I earnestly recommend the passage of a
sufficient appropriation to enable a thorough remodeling
of that institution to be made without delay. It is a reproach
to the National Government that almost under the shadow
of the Capitol dome prisoners should be confined in a build



480


P1RESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


ing destitute of the ordinary decent appliances requisite to
cleanliness and sanitary conditions.
POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT
Second-Class Mail Matter
The deficit every year in the Post-Office Department is
largely caused by the low rate of postage of 1 cent a pound
charged on second-class mail matter, which includes not only
newspapers, but magazines and miscellaneous periodicals.
The actual loss growing out of the transmission of this secondclass mail matter at 1 cent a pound amounts to about
$63,000,000 a year. The average cost of the transportation
of this matter is more than 9 cents a pound.
It appears that the average distance over which newspapers
are delivered to their customers is 291 miles, while the average
haul of magazines is 1,049, and of miscellaneous periodicals
1,128 miles. Thus, the average haul of the magazine is
three and one-half times and that of the miscellaneous periodical nearly four times the haul of the daily newspaper, yet all
of them pay the same postage rate of 1 cent a pound. The
statistics of 1907 show that second-class mail matter constituted 63.91 per cent. of the weight of all the mail, and
yielded only 5.19 per cent. of the revenue.
The figures given are startling, and show the payment by
the Government of an enormous subsidy to the newspapers,
magazines, and periodicals, and Congress may well consider
whether radical steps should not be taken to reduce the deficit
in the Post-Office Department caused by this discrepancy
between the actual cost of transportation and the compensation exacted therefor.
A great saving might be made, amounting to much more
than half of the loss, by imposing upon magazines and
periodicals a higher rate of postage. They are much heavier
than newspapers, and contain a much higher proportion of
advertising to reading matter, and the average distance of
their transportation is three and a half times as great.




AND STATE PAPERS


The total deficit for the last fiscal year in the Post-Office
Department amounted to $17,500,000. The branches of
its business which it did at a loss were the second-class mail
service, in which the loss, as already said, was $63,000,000,
and the free rural delivery, in which the loss was $28,000,000.
These losses were in part offset by the profits of the letter
postage and other sources of income. It would seem wise
to reduce the loss upon second-class mail matter at least
to the extent of preventing a deficit in the total operations of
the Post-Office.
I commend the whole subject to Congress, not unmindful
of the spread of intelligence which a low charge for carrying
newspapers and periodicals assists. I very much doubt,
however, the wisdom of a policy which constitutes so large a
subsidy and requires additional taxation to meet it.
Postal Savings Banks
The second subject worthy of mention in the Post-Office
Department is the real necessity and entire practicability
of establishing postal savings banks. The successful party
at the last election declared in favor of postal savings banks,
and although the proposition finds opponents in many parts
of the country, I am convinced that the people desire such
banks, and am sure that when the banks are furnished they
will be productive of the utmost good. The postal savings
banks are not constituted for the purpose of creating competition with other banks.  The rate of interest upon
deposits to which they would be limited would be so
small as to prevent their drawing deposits away from other
banks.
I believe them to be necessary in order to offer a proper
inducement to thrift and saving to a great many people of
small means who do not now have banking facilities, and to
whom such a system would offer an opportunity for the
accumulation of capital. They will furnish a satisfactory
substitute, based on sound principle and actual successful
trial in nearly all the countries of the world, for the system




482


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


of government guaranty of deposits now  being adopted
in several Western States, which with deference to those
who advocate it seems to me to have in it the seeds of
demoralization to conservative banking and certain financial
disaster.
The question of how the money deposited in postal savings
banks shall be invested is not free from difficulty, but I
believe that a satisfactory provision for this purpose was
inserted as an amendment to the bill considered by the
Senate at its last session. It has been proposed to delay
the consideration of legislation establishing a postal savings
bank until after the report of the Monetary Commission.
This report is likely to be delayed, and properly so, because
of the necessity for careful deliberation and close investigation. I do not see why the one should be tied up with
the other. It is understood that the Monetary Commission
have looked into the systems of banking which now prevail
abroad, and have found that by a control there exercised in
respect to reserves and the rates of exchange by some central
authority panics are avoided. It is not apparent that a
system of postal savings banks would in any way interfere
with a change to such a system here. Certainly in most of
the countries in Europe where control is thus exercised by a
central authority, postal savings banks exist and are not
thought to be inconsistent with a proper financial and banking system.
Ship Subsidy
Following the course of my distinguished predecessor, I
earnestly recommend to Congress the consideration and passage of a ship subsidy bill, looking to the establishment of
lines between our Atlantic seaboard and the eastern coast
of South America, as well as lines from the west coast of the
United States to South America, China, Japan, and the
Philippines. The profits on foreign mails are perhaps a
sufficient measure of the expenditures which might first
be tentatively applied to tllis method of inducing American




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483


capital to undertake the establishment of American lines of
steamships in those directions in which we now feel it most
important that we should have means of transportation controlled in the interest of the expansion of our trade. A bill
of this character has once passed the House and more than
once passed the Senate, and I hope that at this session a bill
framed on the same lines and with the same purposes may
become a law.
INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
New Mexico and Arizona
The successful party in the last election in its national
platform declared in favor of the admission as separate
States of New Mexico and Arizona, and I recommend that
legislation appropriate to this end be adopted. I urge, however, that care be exercised in the preparation of the legislation
affecting each territory to secure deliberation in the selection
of persons as members of the convention to draft a constitution for the incoming state, and I earnestly advise that such
constitution after adoption by the convention shall be submitted to the people of the territory for their approval
at an election in which the sole issue shall be the merits of the
proposed constitution, and if the constitution is defeated
by popular vote means shall be provided in the enabling act
for a new convention and the drafting of a new constitution.
I think it vital that the issue as to the merits of the constitution
should not be mixed up with the selection of state officers,
and that no election of state officers should be had until after
the constitution has been fully approved and finally settled
upon.
Alaska
With respect to the Territory of Alaska, I recommend
legislation which shall provide for the appointment by the
President of a governor and also of an executive council, the
members of which shall during their term of office reside in




484        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
the territory, and which shall have legislative powers sufficient to enable it to give to the territory local laws adapted
to its present growth. I strongly deprecate legislation looking to the election of a territorial legislature in that vast
district. The lack of permanence of residence of a large
part of the present population and the small number of the
people who either permanently or temporarily reside in
the district as compared with its vast expanse and the variety
of the interests that have to be subserved, make it altogether
unfitting in mly judgmet to provide for a popular election of
a legislative body. The present system is not adequate and
does not furnish the character of local control that ought to
be there. The only compromise, it seems to me, which may
give needed local legislation and secure a conservative gov —
ernment is the one I propose.
Conservation of National Resources
In several Departments there is presented the necessity
for legislation looking to the further conservation of our
national resources, and the subject is one of such importance
as to require a more detailed and extended discussion than
can be entered upon in this communication. For that
reason I shall take an early opportunity to send a special message to Congress on the subject of the improvement of our
waterways, upon the reclamation and irrigation of arid,
semi-arid, and swamp lands; upon the preservation of our
forests and the reforesting of suitable areas; upon the
reclassification of the public domain with a view to separating
from agricultural settlement mineral, coal, and phosphate
lands and sites belonging to the Government bordering on
streams suitable for the utilization of water power.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
I commend to your careful consideration the report of
the Secretary of Agriculture as showing the immense
sphere of usefulness which that Department now fills




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485


and the wonderful addition to the wealth of the nation
made by the farmers of this country in the crops of the
current year.
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR
The Light-House Board
The Light-House Board now discharges its duties under
the Department of Commerce and Labor. For upward
of forty years this board has been constituted of military
and naval officers and two or three men of science, with such
an absence of a duly constituted executive head that it is
marvelous what work has been accomplished. In the period
of construction the energy and enthusiasm of all the members
prevented the inherent defects of the system from interfering
greatly with the beneficial work of the Board, but now that the
work is chiefly confined to maintenance and repair, for which
purpose the country is divided into sixteen districts, to which
are assigned an engineer officer of the Army and an inspector
of the Navy, each with a light-house tender and the needed
plant for his work, it has become apparent by the frequent
friction that arises, due to the absence of any central independent authority, that there must be a complete reorganization
of the Board. I concede the advantage of keeping in the
system the rigidity of discipline that the presence of naval
and military officers in charge insures, but unless the presence
of such officers in the Board can be made consistent
with a responsible executive head that shall have proper
authority, I recommend the transfer of control over
light-houses to a suitable civilian bureau. This is in
accordance with the judgment of competent persons
who are familiar with the workings of the present
system. I am confident that a reorganization can be
effected which shall avoid the recurrence of friction between
members, instances of which have been officially brought to
my attention, and that by such reorganization greater




486        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
efficiency and a substantial reduction in the expense of
operation can be brought about.
Consolidation of Bureaus
I request Congressional authority to enable the Secretary
of Commerce and Labor to unite the Bureaus of Manufactures and Statistics. This was recommended by a competent
committee appointed in the previous administration for the
purpose of suggesting changes in the interest of economy
and efficiency, and is requested by the Secretary.
The White Slave Trade
I greatly regret to have to say that the investigations made
in the Bureau of Immigration and other sources of information lead to the view that there is urgent necessity for additional legislation and greater executive activity to suppress
the recruiting of the ranks of prostitutes from the streams of
immigration into this country -an evil which, for want of
a better name, has been called "The White Slave Trade."
I believe it to be constitutional to forbid, under penalty,
the transportation of persons for purposes of prostitution
across national and state lines; and by appropriating a fund
of $50,000 to be used by the Secretary of Commerce and
Labor for the employment of special inspectors it will be
possible to bring those responsible for this trade to indictment and conviction under a Federal law.
BUREAU OF HEALTH
For a very considerable period a movement has been
gathering strength, especially among the members of the
medical profession, in favor of a concentration of the instruments of the National Government which have to do with the
promotion of public health. In the nature of things, the
Medical Department of the Army and the Medical Department of the Navy must be kept separate. But there seems
to be no reason why all the other bureaus and offices in the
general Government which have to do With the public




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487


health or subjects akin thereto should not be united in a
bureau to be called the "Bureau of Public Health."  This
would necessitate the transfer of the Marine-Hospital Service
to such a bureau. I am aware that there is a wide field
in respect to the public health committed to the States in
which the Federal Government can not exercise jurisdiction, but we have seen in the Agricultural Department the
expansion into widest usefulness of a department giving
attention to agriculture when that subject is plainly one
over which the States properly exercise direct jurisdiction.
The opportunities offered for useful research and the spread
of useful information in regard to the cultivation of the soil
and the breeding of stock and the solution of many of the
intricate problems in progressive agriculture have demonstrated the wisdom of establishing that department. Similar
reasons, of equal force, can be given for the establishment
of a bureau of health that shall not only exercise the police
jurisdiction of the Federal Government respecting quarantine, but which shall also afford an opportunity for investigation and research by competent experts into questions
of health  affecting  the whole country, or important
sections thereof, questions which, in the absence of
Federal governmental work, are not likely to be promptly
solved.
CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION
The work of the United States Civil Service Commission
has been performed to the general satisfaction of the
executive officers with whom the Commission has been
brought into official communication. The volume of
that work and variety and extent have under new
laws, such as the Census Act, and new executive orders,
greatly increased.  The activities of  the  Commission
required by the statutes have reached to every portion of
the public domain.
The accommodations of the Commission are most inadequate for its needs. I call your attention to its request for




488        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
increase in those accommodations as will appear from the
annual report for this year.
POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS
I urgently recommend to Congress that a law be passed
requiring that candidates in elections of Members of the
House of Representatives, and committees in charge of
their candidacy and campaign, file in a proper office of the
United States Government a statement of the contributions
received and of the expenditures incurred in the campaign
for such elections, and that similar legislation be enacted in
respect to all other elections which are constitutionally
within the control of Congress.
FREEDMAN S SAVINGS AND TRUST COMPANY
Recommendations have been made by my predecessors
that Congress appropriate a sufficient sum to pay the balance
- about 38 per cent. - of the amounts due depositors in
the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company.    I renew
this recommendation, and advise also that a proper limitation
be prescribed fixing a period within which the claims may be
presented, that assigned claims be not recognized, and that
a limit be imposed on the amount of fees collectible for
services in presenting such claims.
SEMICENTENNIAL OF NEGRO FREEDOM
The year 1913 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the
issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation granting freedom to the Negroes. It seems fitting that this event should
be properly celebrated. Already a movement has been
started by prominent Negroes, encouraged by prominent
white people and the press. The South especially is manifesting its interest in this movement.
It is suggested that a proper form of celebration would
be an exposition to show the progress the Negroes have
made, not only during their period of freedom, but also
from the time of their coming to this country.
I heartily indorse this proposal, and request that the




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489


Executive be authorized to appoint a preliminary commission of not more than seven persons to consider carefully
whether or not it is wise to hold such an exposition, and if
so, to outline a plan for the enterprise. I further recommend
that such preliminary commission serve without salary,
except as to their actual expenses, and that an appropriation
be made to meet such expenses.
CONCLUSION
I have thus, in a message compressed as much as the subjects will permit, referred to many of the legislative needs
of the country, with the exceptions already noted. Speaking
generally, the country is in a high state of prosperity. There
is every reason to believe that we are on the eve of a substantial business expansion, and we have just garnered a harvest
unexampled in the market value of our agricultural products.
The high prices which such products bring mean great prosperity for the farming community, but on the other hand
they mean a very considerably increased burden upon those
classes in the community whose yearly compensation does
not expand with the improvement in business and the
general prosperity. Various reasons are given for the
high prices. The proportionate increase in the output of
gold, which to-day is the chief medium of exchange and is
in some respects a measure of value, furnishes a substantial
explanation of at least part of the increase in prices. The
increase in population and the more expensive mode of living
of the people, which have not been accompanied by a proportionate increase in acreage production, may furnish a further
reason. It is well to note that the increase in the cost of
living is not confined to this country, but prevails the world
over, and that those who would charge increases in prices
to the existing protective tariff must meet the fact that the
rise in prices has taken place almost wholly in those products
of the factory and farm in respect to which there has been
either no increase in the tariff or in many instances a very
considerable reduction.




LX


ADDRESS AT THE SIXTH ANNUAL CONVENTION
OF THE NATIONAL RIVERS AND HARBORS
CONGRESS      AT  TIlE   NEW    WILLARD     HOTEL,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
(DECEMBER 8, 1909.)
Mr. President, Members of the National Rivers and Harbors
Congress, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I)ON'T know that I have any right to be here to talk
about waterways, unless it makes a man an expert on
the subject to have gone down the Mississippi River. The
dangers to which one was exposed on that journey, by
reason of the shoals and the other obstacles and temptations
of the journey, certainly offered an opportunity for careful
study and deliberation. Now I think I am a sufficiently
established resident of Washington to make what I have to
say an address of welcome. I am delighted that you selected
Washington as your place of meeting. You have done it
wisely, first, because when you want a thing done it is just
as well to get close to the men who are to do it; and secondly,
Washington is always a good place to come to, and you can
induce the ladies of the family to come with you, which is
always an assurance of both work and pleasure.
I congratulate this Congress on having brought the subject
of waterways to such a point that the Representatives in Congress, from one end of the country to the other, recognize it as
a subject that calls for action. They have not come to a
definite conclusion as to the policy that ought to be adopted,
but they have come to the conclusion that some policy must be
adopted with reference to the development of these instru490




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSESS


491


mentalities which nature has furnished for the transportation
of goods and for the controlling of railroad rates.
You in your declaration say that you are in favor of a
policy and not in favor of any particular project. I think
that a wise platform to take; and yet when it comes to the
practical enforcement and accomplishment of something,
you have got to go into projects. You may insist that a
policy ought to be adopted, and you have insisted, and I do
not doubt that you have - indeed I know you have - made
that distinguished member of Congress, the head of the
Rivers and Harbors Committee, sit up nights to devise a
policy which shall be presented to the country and satisfy the
demand that has arisen in such a -I had almost said -
unanimous way the country through. But you are coming
now near to the detail of projects.
One has to travel over the country to find out what the
country is thinking about. You go into the Northwest and
you find the development of the Columbia River as one of
the great projects of many who live in that neighborhood.
You go into far-distant Texas, and you find that they have an
inland waterways project there reaching into Louisiana,
into the bayous of Texas, and down along the Gulf, that has
demonstrated its usefulness as to part, and that only needs
further addition and improvement to carry out a great system
of waterways there that shall reach farms and plantations
that are even beyond railroads now. And so, as you come
up the eastern shore of this country, you find the inland -
I don't think they call it inland waterways exactly, but it is
the inside waterway -the Atlantic Deeper Waterways
Association. Now, it is well that there is in almost every
part of the country a project of that sort to awaken the interests of those who live in that part of the country, for while we
are all patriots, and while we are all in favor of all the
country, we are just a little more intensely in favor of that
which is nearest than we are in favor of that which is very
far away. The danger to this movement, the test of the
value of the movement, is going to be seen when you get off


0




49)2       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
that very safe platform, that you are in favor of a policy
and not in favor of a project, and get down to the business
of pushing projects.
One of the things that I think we ought to do is not to
decry the past. It is to take from the past that which is
valuable and build on it. The trip down the Mississippi
River was an eye-opener to many of us. The work which
has gone on at the end of the river and near its mouth, up
along the banks in Mississippi and Louisiana, and up into
Arkansas, is a work that commends itself to every one who
sees it. It is work in the direction both of the preservation
of farms and the establishment of a great waterway there.
The work which has been done by the National Government
through its army engineers in strengthening the banks of
that river is a work of experimentation, but work which has
now demonstrated the possibility of treating that river in
such a way as to hold the banks and keep the river within
it, and insuring a reasonable depth where steamers may go.
Then we have had an investigation by the army engineers
into the practicability of deepening to six feet the Missouri
River, from Sioux City to St. Louis; of deepening the Mississippi River from St. Paul to St. Louis; of deepening and
keeping at an eight-foot depth the river from St. Louis to
Cairo; and also of a project for the maintenance of a ninefoot depth the year round in the Ohio River. I recognize
the gentlemen who applaud, as coming from the Columbia
River district and illustrating that disinterested enthusiasm
that is certain to carry all the projects through.
Now I don't think I betray a secret when I say that the
gentleman who has most to do with the initiation of projects
in Congress is fully charged with the necessity for doing
something in the next Congress to foreshadow, or rather to
begin, a policy with respect to those rivers. You have the
Missouri, the upper Mississippi, the Mississippi between
St. Louis and Cairo, and the Ohio between Pittsburg and
Cairo, all of them satisfying the requirements that you have
to put in your platform with respect to the improvement of the




AND STATE PAPERS


493


waterways. That is an improvement in the heart of the
country, an improvement that reaches to more States than
any other improvement that can be mentioned in this entire
country. It affects not only the States along whose borders
the improvements will be made, but it affects all the states
along the borders of the Mississippi beyond Cairo, for the
project will also include and must include the investment
of a sufficient amount of money to keep the nine-foot stage
always between Cairo and New Orleans.
I am aware that there are a great many gentlemen in this
country who are in favor of something more than nine feet
between Cairo and the Gulf, but you must get nine
feet before you get fourteen. When you once get that system
that I have outlined into operation so as to show the benefits
that can be derived from it, what will go on thereafter no
man can foresee. The truth is that the engineers will tell you
that after you have harnessed the Mississippi River by protecting its banks, no man can tell what the depth of that river
will be made by the river itself confined within reasonable
banks. In other words, what I am urging, what I am laboring for, is something practical in the way of a moderate project
in order that you may go on and gradually develop a larger
project than that which was in your minds at its initiation 
that you do something practical by taking the materials that
you have, and as you go on and as the business increases,
demonstrate to those in the country who are not so near to
that improvement its advantage to the entire country in the
reduction of railroad rates and in the actual transportation
of that kind of business that the river will attract.
Now speaking to this assembly- I think it was this
assembly (we have got so many congresses in favor of so
many good things that sometimes there is a little difficulty in
distinguishing, and when you all meet together in Washington
at the same time there is danger of mistaken identity as to
associations) -but at any rate a year ago President Roosevelt and I were together on a platform before the Conservation of Resources Convention, I think it was, in which we both




494


PRESI)DENTIAL ADDRESSES


advocated the issuing of bonds in order that a project improving waterways when begun should be completed in a reasonable time. Now I am still a consistent advocate of that
theory. I believe that the Government is entitled to as
rapid a method of developing an enterprise and putting it
through as private corporations, and as they always issue
bonds, or generally do (some of them are fortunate enough
not to have to), in order to expedite the completion of these
projects, it would seem wise for the Nation to do so where
it will accomplish the same result.
But I want to suggest a word of caution. You are going
to encounter in Congress great opposition to the policy of
issuing bonds right out of hand. You are much more likely
to get from Congress a declaration of policy in the shape of
a declaration that a certain improvement ought to be carried
out and spread upon the minutes of Congress in the form
of a resolution or a declaration in a statute.  Now, what I
advise you to do is to get that declaration.  Then when the
time comes that political exigency shall prevent the appropriation of sufficient amounts from the current revenues to
put the proper part of the project through the coming year
or the coming two years as economy requires, the question
of issuing bonds will arise.  I would get the declaration
first, and not have the bonds first, for the reason that you will
encounter the objection of Congress that the issuing of
bonds and the receipt of the money will develop a desire to
be extravagant. That may not meet your views, but I have
thought it over, and I know something about Congress. I
know where you are going to encounter opposition, and I
believe the best way is the natural way with those gentlemen.
You lead them on to declare in favor of the Missouri
improvement, in favor of the St. Louis to St. Paul improvement, in favor of the Cairo to St. Louis improvement, in
favor of the Ohio improvement, all of which have been
approved by the army engineers, and get them recorded
in the statutes of this country as declaring that those things
are to be carried out and let them make their first appro



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495


priation from the revenues of the country, and then you have
them where they must issue bonds, unless the revenues
afford a sufficient amount each year to carry that project
on economically and with due rapidity.
I tell you, gentlemen, you are getting, as the boys and girls
used to say in "finding the button" - you are getting warm.
You are at a point where you can accomplish something if
you don't stop it by doing it the wrong way. I don't feel
justified in giving advice to a body like this on a subject which
they have studied so much, or, I should not feel it except that
I have had pretty close association as Secretary of War and
otherwise with the army engineers, who have given their
lives to the study of these improvements.
I know those army engineers very well. Doubtless
you do, as you have met them in the districts to which they
were assigned. I venture to say that in your whole experience
you have never met men of a higher standard of character,
of a higher devotion to public duty, and of greater skill in
their profession than those same army engineers. They
are selected from the first ten or the first five of the graduates
of West Point, and they have a little ring in the Army, which
I might betray to you by reason of some inside information.
If a class comes out that has not developed very good material
in the way of engineers and mathematicians, somehow or
other the Chief of Engineers advises the Secretary of War that
for that year they do not need any particular addition to the
corps; and so it is that they have acquired a greater proportion of the mathematical and engineering ability of those who
graduated from West Point than they really were entitled
to. They have gone on, and, with but one exception, their
record is clear, in the honesty, and I had almost said the
severity, with which they have expended the Government's
funds, and have seen to their being put into material at a
cost which was an honest cost. But it has been said that
they were crotchety; that at times they did not apparently
catch the sound of progress; that they were slow sometimes
in the building up of improvements. I am not prepared to




496


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


say that those criticisms with reference to individuals were
not well founded. You can not take a great corps like that,
numbering as it does a great many officers within it, and not
find men who fail to keep up with the procession, but I am
very sure from talking with General Marshall and with a
number of the other men at the head of the corps that they
are fully charged with the increased interest in this country
among the people and among the business men in the development of the inland waterways, and that you could not have
a safer body of men to advise than the army engineers.
I count it one of the great good fortunes of this country that
when the country had to build the Panama Canal, after using
the great ability of civil engineers, we finally settled down
upon the army engineers to carry that project through.
So it is with respect to the waterways. They have recommended to the chairman of the waterways committee in the
House a system of improvements that I believe will meet the
judgment of this convention, if it be moderated to the
possibilities of what can be accomplished. I think you can
secure upon the statute books of this country a declaration in
favor of continuing contracts to build the four or five projects which the engineers have recommended, in such a way,
even if you do not get the bonds voted at first, that if the
time arises when the revenues will not permit their use, I
mean the current revenues, to continue that work with reasonable rapidity, you can move upon the Government for
the issuing of bonds. I would make the fight for bonds
when the conditions strengthen the argument in their favor.
It is a strong argument that you will have to meet; that if
you are going to issue a large amount of bonds just for the
purpose of putting them into the waterways as their necessity
may develop, then there is a temptation to extravagance.
Perhaps it is my judicial experience, but I always feel as if
you ought to shape your policy in order to win, not according
to the enthusiastic suggestions of your imagination, but in
order to overcome the obstacles that you are likely to
encounter in winning the end which you seek.




AND STATE PAPERS                 497
And, now, ladies and gentlemen, I am very much obliged
to you for giving me such attention. I realize that what I
have said comes from the lips of a mere tyro, but it comes
from one who has some temporary responsibility in respect
to the matter, and from one who is thoroughly in sympathy
with the,general object which you seek here, to wit, the
development of all the waterways of this country by a general
policy in such a way as to reduce and control railroad rates
and in such a way as to stimulate upon the bosom of the
waters the transportation of such merchandise as is peculiarly
fitted to that character of carriage.




LXI


REMARKS TO THE OHIO VALLEY IMPROVEMENT
ASSOCIATION, AT THE WHITE HOUSE
(DECEMBER 9, 1909)
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:
THIIS is the first time in my life I can remember that I
am  sorry I am from Ohio. It is because, coming
from Ohio, I can not make my recommendation in respect
to the necessity for the improvement of the Ohio as strong
as I might if I had not come from Ohio, for my motives will
be questioned. You gentlemen who figure in private life
do not have to encounter that. Those of us who do are
rapidly getting used to it.
With respect to the Ohio improvement, it is the first one
out of all the conventions, out of all the oratory and out of
all the indefinite nebulous appeals for waterways that has
a definite scope, a plain reason for being, a clear estimate of
cost and a plain possibility of execution. You have six
locks now completed, and where those six locks operate, the
success of the system of slack water has been demonstrated.
You have seven locks under construction, and there are fiftyfour locks in all necessary to establi:h12 slack water at nine
feet the year round from Pittsburg to Cairo, and that
improvement in the long run is to cost  I should not say in
the long run, for no one knows how much it would cost in
the long run-but under the present estimates of engineers, if
done with business-like rapidity, it would cost $63,000,000.
There is an additional advantage in this proposal.
I have not looked into waterways very much, but I have
gathered the impression from such reading and discussion
as I have been able to do and to hear, that it does not always
498




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


499


follow because you have waterways with sufficient depth for
steamers, for barges and for other transportation, that you
are going to attract business on that waterway. The question is, whether you have the kind of business that the waterway will attract. In Europe I am told that there are rivers
on which the traffic is all up-stream, or largely so, because
the merchandise and material to be carried are at the mouth
of the stream; and the place where they are to be landed is
along near its sources, and that those steamers after carrying
up the stream the material to be used come down partly
empty, which is an indication that in order to justify improvements of this sort, those who contend for them must point
out the utility by showing the proper business to be done.
Now, in respect to the Ohio improvement you have the
present business. You can point to your coal mines and
to your heavy products of manufacture in Pittsburg and
throughout that neighborhood which can be carried cheaply
down the Ohio River clear to the mouth and to the Gulf;
and having the business and having the estimate and having
the water and having the plans, there is not any reason why
improvement should not be made.
I observe that there are a number of gentlemen who think
that I cast a wet blanket over the convention yesterday by
what I said there. I did not intend to do so. I only intended
to help it along by pointing out the practical method of
accomplishing what you are here for.
You have had enough experience with Congress to know
that it is sui generis to have to deal with it as a body different from any other body, as it is different from any other
body, being representative of three hundred and ninety-one
districts of the United States, with differing interests and
differing views. When you approach Congress with a proposal for the issuing of bonds, you are going to arouse great
opposition and that opposition will arise and demand why,
and they will demand an answer not in general expressions,
not in resounding oratory, but they will want facts and
estimates and a statement of something definitely useful into




500       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
which they are going to put their money which they may
even have to borrow in order to carry through the enterprise.
You in the Ohio Valley have an enterprise in respect to
which you can give the sufficient answers. All I can hope
is that you shall find enough disinterested people in the
country to support the Ohio improvement with some others
that I mentioned yesterday that might be just as well carried
along together, right in the heart of the country. The
improvement of the Ohio River is not alone to improve the
Ohio River and help the States along its border, but it is
also to help the Mississippi River and the States that border
on the Mississippi River down to the Gulf and the whole
country.
I am only a coordinate branch of this Government and
the least important of those branches, but such influence as
I can bring to bear you can count on my bringing to bear
in favor of the Ohio River, and it is not because I was born
and brought up in Ohio and looked across the Ohio River
until I left Ohio, but it is because I have looked into the
question of the improvement, and if I came from the
Columbia River I should still be in favor of the improvement of the Ohio.




LXII


REMARKS TO THE COMMITTEE OF THE LAKESTO-THE-GULF DEEP WATERWAYS ASSOCIATION, AT THE WHITE HOUSE
(DECEMBER 9, 1909)
Governor Deneen, other Governors, and Gentlemen of the Deep
Waterways Association:
AM glad to renew our old and cur delightful association.
The presence of gubernatorial timber on that trip
sweetens every recollection of the trip. It will be, I doubt
not, an epoch in the history of this country in fixing, more
than any other one event, the attention of the country upon
the necessity for action in respect to our inland waterways,
the most important of which every one admits, of course, is
the Mississippi River.
How these details are to be worked out is a question that
must be solved in the near future. I am sure that this
coming Congress will take steps; I say I am sure - I mean
I have received assurances from those gentlemen connected
with the committees that have to do with legislation of that
sort-that this whole matter will receive earnest consideration,
and that steps will be made of an important character toward
the development of a system of improvement in the heart of
the country. That this may not meet the views of the most
aspiring of those who are interested will probably be the case.
With deference to Senator Warner and other members of that
body called Congress, it never does quite meet the aspirations
of everybody, but that "something is doing," if I may use a
colloquial expression; that the interest of those who heretofore have turned a cold shoulder to the entire subject has
been aroused, no one at all familiar with the atmosphere of
501




502        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
Washington can deny. And I hope that we are all engaged
in a work in which we stand shoulder to shoulder without
respect to a particular locality, and that if you gentlemen
who are interested in a particular improvement find that
your view may not be entirely met and that your particular
project may not be the first one taken up in a substantial way,
it will not prevent your welcoming a step by the Congress of
the United States which when taken means the embracing of
every improvement that ought to commend itself to those
who are familiar with Congress.
And, now, Governor Deneen, I am glad to renew the
association and acquaintance which, though it was not begun
on the broad bosom of the Mississippi, certainly received an
impetus so that we shall never forget the company that we
met there under auspices which our hosts, the Business
Men's Association of St. Louis, made so delightful.




LXIII


ADDRESS AT A MASS MEETING IN CELEBRATION
OF THE DIAMOND JUBILEE OF METHODIST
EPISCOPAL MISSIONS IN        AFRICA, AT
CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK CITY
(DECEMBER 13, 1909)
Ladies and Gentlemen:
AM very glad to be here to bear witness to my very great
interest in that which this meeting celebrates -the
attack of the Methodist Church upon Africa. I like to
think of Methodism among the denominations as an affirmative, aggressive, pushing, practical church militant, and it
needed to be that to tackle Africa. Since I have had the
honor to occupy public office, it has fallen to me to address
meetings of many different churches, and I always seize the
opportunity-when invited to any other church than my own,
and I hope I don't leave out my own-to be present, because
I like to feel and imbibe in my nature the sense of tolerance
and increase in the feeling of the Fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man among all the denominations of the
churches; and my own reception by churches, not my own,
makes me feel certain of the growing and wide catholicity of
the Christian Church. Doubtless it is because I was not
aroused to the importance of the missionary spirit and the
great things that were being done years ago, that it seems to
me that it is only within recent times that this missionary
feeling has taken such a hold upon the people.
I have observed that each man dates the spread of public
opinion on a particular subject from the time that he began
to think of it; but the history of our country does offer a date
503




504        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
and an epoch when it seems to me that people of the United
States acquired a wider and a world feeling, and an interest
and a responsibility for all the people of the world, as distinguished from those who enjoy our opportunities of living
under the Stars and Stripes.
It is not perhaps appropriate to date a religious movement
from a war, but it does seem to me as if our people acquired
a world feeling from the time we undertook the responsibility
of freeing Cuba and saying what should be done by our
neighbors with reference to internal government when that
internal government seemed to us to pass the bounds of what
we thought to be civilized. We began our war expecting to
finish it shortly, and- we landed in the Philippines and we
are still there. But our horizon has widened much beyond
those gems of the Pacific Ocean by reason of the responsibilities which we have been obliged to assume with reference
to the entire world. We are a great power in the world, and
we may be, and  hope we are, a great power for usefulness,
a great power fo the spread of Christian civilization, and
we must be so if we would justify our success and vindicate
our right to enjoy the opportunities that God has given us
in this fair, broad land of building of wealth and comfort and
luxury and education and making ourselves, what we like
to think we are, the foremost people of the world.
There are those who would read the last words of Washington in his farewell message as an indication that we ought
to keep within the seas and not look beyond; but he was
addressing thirteen states that had much to do before they
could make themselves a great nation and that might well
avoid entangling alliances, or any foreign interference, or
any foreign trouble, while they were making themselves a
nation.
But now we are a nation with tremendous power and
tremendous wealth, and unless we use that for the benefit
of our international neighbors (and they are all neighbors
of ours, for the world is very small) -unless we use that
power and that wealth, we are failing to discharge the duties




AND STATE PAPERS


that we ought to feel as members of the international community. This world is very small. It is only 10,000 miles
to the Philippine Islands, and I am carried back, as I look
into the face of my brother, Homer Stuntz, to many a platform that he and I sat upon in the Philippine Islands and
talked about the possibilities of what we might do in developing those islands and bringing those people to a realization
of what good government was. I thought your church ought
to have established a bishopric out in the Philippines, and
we had a candidate out there. I haven't lost hope that you
may know a good thing when you see it. But it is true
that when you live in the Philippines, 10,000 miles away
from here, and meet people coming and going, see people
on the streets of Washington that you met in Mindanao,
or in Luzon, or in Panay, or in Samar, and shake hands with
them as if it were only yesterday when you last saw them,
the world does not seem very big around. And so I can
understand, though I don't quite have the feeling, that
Africa is not so dark, is not so far away from anything that
you would wish to be in when your interest is excited, when
your knowledge is full of the needs of the 160,000,000 of
people who are in that continent, and of the possibilities of
developing them into a Christian people who shall learn
after a time all the arts of peace, and learn to govern
themselves.                                       -?
I confess, if I were a missionary, I would prefer to try my
hand in a country like China that has a history of two or three
or four or five thousand years, than to go into Africa that
hasn't any history at all except that which we trace to the
apes. But you can not read the account of the missions that
your church is carrying on in that continent without knowing
that there is the seed which is to lead those people on to be
useful citizens and useful members of the community and of
the world. Now, as I understand it, the Methodist Church
has taken the continent in front and rear at Madeira, at Algiers, in Arcola, in Portuguese East Africa, and in Rhodesia,
and that there are missions and a stream  of them  in




50of


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


which the practical, sensible methods of modern missionaries
have been adopted, and accompanying instruction in the
Christian religion and the leading on to Christian civilization, of lessons in agriculture, in the simple mechanical arts,
in primary education, and in leading them on to feel that
debt of gratitude which reaches a native's heart as nothing
else can, the ministrations of the physician when the dear
ones of those native savages seem about to be taken away.
The mission is a nucleus and epitome of the civilization
that is expected to widen out in that neighborhood. I have
heard missions criticized. I have heard men say that they
would not contribute to foreign missions at all; that we had
wicked people enough at home and we might just as well
leave the foreign natives and savages to pursue their own
happy lives in the forests and look after our own who need
a great deal of ministration. I have come to regard that as
narrow-minded as a man who does not like music, who does
not understand the things that God has provided for the
elevation of the human race. The missionaries in China
and the missionaries in Africa are the forerunners of our
civilization, and without them we should have no hope of
conquering the love and the admiration and the respect of
the millions of people whom we hope to bring under the
influence of Christian civilization.
Those who go for mercantile purposes into those distant
lands, I am sorry to say, are quicker to catch the savage
tendencies than the savages are to catch from them the basis
of our Christian civilization, and if they had to depend for
their belief in the good that is to come to them from embracing Christianity and accepting a civilization that we offer
them, to that which they learn from the adventurers who go
far into the interior to buy things from them at a price much
too low and much below what ought to be paid, we should
never succeed at all. I speak that with all the sense of
moderation that I know I ought to have in dealing with
countries so far from here and in saying things that can not
be contradicted. If there is anything that promotes lying




AND STATE PAPERS


and the abuse of imagination, it is the impunity that a man
enjoys in telling a story about something that happened
25,000 miles away, in a country that you can not reach and
from which you don't hear more than once a year.
Now, as to these statements that missionaries have an easy
time, which have been made by a good many travelers, I
remember that a leading correspondent of one of the newspapers wrote a book in which he sought to illustrate and
prove it. I am glad to say he has taken it back now, but he
described the great houses that the missionaries lived in, the
number of servants that they had, and the comfortable life
generally that they led, which he said was much more comfortable than that which they would have had at home; but
he did not go into the lives that they really lead; he did not
see the work that they had to perform; he did not encounter,
he did not know that terrible drain upon the vitality of being
so many years away from home and from the people you love,
from the communities you love, and the surroundings you
love, and if he had been talking about African missions he
would not have been able to describe their large houses or
their comfortable quarters. A man who goes into Africa as
a missionary goes into a place where he must be content to
put up with all sorts of sacrifices and a very possible death
from the malignant fevers that he is constantly exposed to,
unless he goes clear into the interior onto the tablelands.
I admire the missionaries who go to India and China and the
Philippines, because I know they are doing good work, and
I know that they have many sacrifices to make; but the
men whom I wish most to commend are those who in the
face of all the obstacles that certainly tend to discourage the
bravest, enter the dark continent of Africa in an attempt to
win those people to Christianity and civilization.
Of course, there has been great improvement in Africa;
that is, they have surveyed it enough and investigated it
enough to divide it up between the European nations. Well,
I hope that is an improvement. I have no doubt it is. I
have no doubt that their governments there have defects as




508        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
other governments have, and have the natural defects that
governments so far removed from civilization must have.
But it is a sign of progress that the boundaries have been
fixed throughout Africa, and that European nations are
becoming responsible for the governments in that country.
The United States has not any territorial interest there.
We did make an experiment, or encouraged an experiment
some seventy odd years ago in Liberia, and we do have that
interest that we ought to have in trying to preserve the
integrity of that little Negro republic that was begun so many
years ago. But you know, and the nations of the world
know, that we are not in Africa to spread our territory. We
have enough. Some people think we have a good deal
more than enough, but certainly there is no one quite so
imperialistic as to desire to share a part of the dark continent;
but because we are not going in there to assume the powers
of government does not furnish the slightest reason why we
should not in every way possible encourage such movements
as this under the auspices of other governments, to aid those
governments, and to aid the people under those governments
in the progress toward Christian civilization. We have the
money here and we have the men and women who are willing
to make the sacrifice; and those of us who sit back and come
every two or three years to hear the stories of what has been
done there by representatives of this country, may well
afford to be generous in helping out that movement.
It is curious to see how the Almighty works His ways.
Our interest in Africa for many years was the interest to
suppress the slave trade. We were all responsible- New
England got out of it a little earlier than the rest -for a
time in the encouragement of that trade. And now we have
living with us ten millions of people who are descended from
the slaves that were taken by force -the Negroes that were
taken by force from that dark continent, taken with all the
cruelties incident to the middle passage; and yet no one would
say that the descendants of those people thus brought here
are not to be congratulated on the fact that their ancestors




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509


were brought here, so that they have been able to enjoy
the proximity to civilization and are a hundred years in
advance of their relatives in Africa; and yet they came here
by the greed and the sin of those for whom we, by reason of
ancestry, must be responsible. I think that is a very curious
working out of the ways of God that no one could have
anticipated. It is natural that the Negroes of America, who
have had the advantage of an association in a Christian
country, with modern civilization, so that they are civilized
and educated, should yet retain an intense interest in the
development of the continent from which their ancestors
came; and I am glad to note the fact that there is an interest
among the race, both as to Liberia and the maintenance of
that republic, and this missionary movement through the
dark continent, to bring all the black races into Christian
civilization.
Now, my friends, I ought not to have spoken at all tonight on this subject, because I haven't any information
about Africa which you do not have; but I have acquired the
habit of speaking at foreign mission meetings, and the
managers of the meetings think that there is something
missing in the support of the Government unless I appear to
testify in my insufficient and inadequate way to the interest
that the country all has in the success of this movement.
Now, my dear friend, Bishop Hartzell I hope has realized
what he came here to bring about, and I hope he will take
back in his pocket that $300,000 that is necessary to aid him
in the great work he is there carrying on. I wish he had
$3,000,000 instead of $300,000, but it is a good deal easier
to wish it than to get it; and if we have secured $300,000, we
ought to be as smiling and as happy as possible in the
thought of the good which that will do.




LXIV


REMARKS     AT   THE    NEW   BOWERY      MISSION,
NEW YORK CITY
(DECEMBER 13, 1909)
My Friends:
AM just about as much surprised at being here as you
are at seeing me. I had a note from your benefactor,
Dr. Klopsch, asking me to come down to a mission which
he had established in the Bowery, after the meeting at Carnegie Hall. Now, I have known Dr. Klopsch - well, not
very long - but I have known him in a way that perhaps you
know him. I know him by what he has done.
It has been my fortune in life to play a good deal of the
part of a figurehead. Some men do the work and others are
figureheads; and nature developed me in such a way that
I play a pretty good part as a figurehead. So they put me at
the head of the Red Cross, and as the head of the Red Cross
I came to know the enormous energy and the tremendous
power for good which Dr. Klopsch could exercise through
the Christian Herald in raising hundreds of thousands of
dollars to relieve human suffering wherever it might be in
the world. And so when he wrote and asked me to come
here, I was not exactly advised as to where I was coming.
except that it was on the Bowery, and I have always had a
good deal of curiosity (for I have not lived in New York) to
know the Bowery, and I felt certain that where Dr. Klopsch
and the Bowery met there would probably be the best part
of the Bowery, and so I came here.
Now, your superintendent has been good enough to say
some complimentary things about my coming from Carnegie
Hall down to the Bowery to meet you. I am not conscious of
510




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


511


deserving any credit for that at all. As I look into your
faces I see that you are earnest American citizens. To use
a colloquial expression, some of you "down on your luck"
perhaps, but nevertheless responding in every fiber of your
body to the same sentiments of loyalty and patriotism and
love of country and decency and aspirations for better things
that I hope every other man in this country has. I am glad
to be here, if, by being here and saying so, I can convince
you that the so-called chasm between you and people who
seem for the time to be more fortunate is not a chasm, and
that there is extending over whatever is between you and
them a deep feeling of sympathy and a deep earnest desire
that you shall have that equality of opportunity, that means
of getting onto your feet, of earning your livelihood, of supporting your families, +hat we hope every man under the
Stars and Stripes may fully enjoy. I am glad to come here
and to testify by my presence as to my sympathy with the
great work of Dr. Klopsch in this mission by which he
shall from time to time and constantly, help you and other
men over hard places, help you over the times when
things seem desperate, when it seems as if the Lord and
everybody else had turned against you -help you over
those times to believe that there are people in the world
who sympathize with you and wish for better things, and
enable you to achieve those better things that the equality
of opportunity may, I hope, in this country enable you to
achieve.
I know it is difficult for you to believe that I, who for the
time being am receiving a large salary from the United States
and living in comfort, could understand or take into my
heart, the feeling that you may have of desperation and of a
sense of injustice that you have not had the chance that other
men have had; and yet I assure you that, in spite of that
seeming difference, your fellow-citizens and mine are not
the greedy, oppressive persons that sometimes people would
make you believe, but that, more to-day than ever in the
history of the world, their hearts are open and their desires




512        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
to help the needy and lift the suffering out of their suffering
are greater to-day than ever before and are growing every
month. Dr. Klopsch is one of those through whom I hope
that thought is being conveyed to you, so that you may not
burn with a sense of injustice, but that you may hope on and
struggle on with the belief that the future is brighter for you.




LXV
SPECIAL MESSAGE ON INTERSTATE COMMERCE
AND ANTI-TRUST LAWS AND FEDERAL
INCORPORATION
(JANUARY 7, 1910)
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
WITHHELD from my annual message a discussion of
needed legislation under the authority which Congress
has to regulate commerce between the States and with
foreign countries, and said that I would bring this subjectmatter to your attention later in the session. Accordingly, I
beg to submit to you certain recommendations as to the
amendments to the interstate commerce law and certain
considerations arising out of the operations of the anti-trust
law suggesting the wisdom of Federal incorporation of
industrial companies.
INTERSTATE COMMERCE LAW
In the annual report of the Interstate Commerce Commission for the year 1908, attention is called to the fact that
between July 1, 1908, and the close of that year sixteen
suits had been begun to set aside orders of the commission
(besides one commenced before that date), and that few
orders of much consequence had been permitted to go without protest; that the questions presented by these various
suits were fundamental, as the constitutionality of the act
itself was in issue, and the right of Congress to delegate to
any tribunal authority to establish an interstate rate was
denied; but that perhaps the most serious practical question
raised concerned the extent of the right of the courts to
review the orders of the commission; and it was pointed out
513




514         PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
that if the contention of the carriers in this latter respect
alone was sustained, but little progress had been made in
the Hepburn Act toward the effective regulation of interstate
transportation charges. In twelve of the cases referred to,
it was stated, preliminary injunctions were prayed for, being
granted in six and refused in six.
"It has from the first been well understood," says the
commission, "that the success of the present act as a regulating measure depended largely upon the facility with which
temporary injunctions could be obtained. If a railroad
company, by mere allegation in its bill of complaint, supported by ex parte affidavits, can overturn the result of days
of patient investigation, no very satisfactory result can be
expected. The railroad loses nothing by these proceedings,
since if they fail it can only be required to establish the rate
and to pay to shippers the difference between the higher
rate collected and the rate which is finally held to be reasonable. In point of fact it usually profits, because it can seldom be required to return more than a fraction of the excess
charges collected."
In its report for the year 1909 the commission shows that
of the seventeen cases referred to in its 1908 report, only one
had been decided in the Supreme Court of the United States,
although five other cases had been argued and submitted to
that tribunal in October, 1909.
Of course, every carrier affected by an order of the commission has a constitutional right to appeal to a Federal court
to protect it from the enforcement of an order which it may
show to be primafacie confiscatory or unjustly discriminatory
in its effect; and as this application may be made to a court
in any district of the United States, not only does delay
result in the enforcement of the order, but great uncertainty
is caused by contrariety of decision. The questions presented by these applications are too often technical in their
character and require a knowledge of the business and the
mastery of a great volume of conflicting evidence which is
tedious to examine and troublesome to comprehend. It




AND STATE PAPERS


515


vould not be proper to attempt to deprive any corporation
)f the right to the review by a court of any order or decree,vhich, if undisturbed, would rob it of a reasonable return.pon its investment or would subject it to burdens which
rvould unjustly discriminate against it and in favor of
other carriers similarly situated.  What is, however, of
supreme importance is that the decision of such questions
shall be as speedy as the nature of the circumstances will
admit, and that a uniformity of decision be secured so as
to bring about an effective, systematic, and scientific enforcement of the commerce law, rather than conflicting decisions
and uncertainty of final result.
For this purpose I recommend the establishment of a court
of the United States composed of five judges designated for
such purpose from among the circuit judges of the United
States to be known as the "United States Court of Commerce," which court shall be clothed with exclusive original
jurisdiction over the following classes of cases:
(1) All cases for the enforcement, otherwise than by
adjudication and collection of a forfeiture or penalty, or
by infliction of criminal punishment, of any order of the
Interstate Commerce Commission other than for the payment of money.
(2) All cases brought to enjoin, set aside, annul, or suspend any order of requirement of the Interstate Commerce
Commission.
(3) All such cases as under section 3 of the act of February 19, 1903, known as the "Elkins Act," are authorized to
be maintained in a circuit court of the United States.
(4) All such mandamus proceedings as under the provisions of section 90 or section 23 of the Interstate Commerce
Law are authorized to be maintained in a circuit court of
the United States.
Reasons precisely analogous to those which induced the
Congress to create the Court of Custom Appeals by the
provisions in the tariff act of August 5, 1909, may be urged
in support of the creation of the Commerce Court.




516


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


In order to provide a sufficient number of judges to enable
this court to be constituted, it will be necessary to authorize
the appointment of five additional circuit judges, who, for
the purposes of appointment, might be distributed to those
circuits where there is at the present time the largest volume
of business, such as the second, third, fourth, seventh, and
eighth circuits. The act should empower the Chief Justice
at any time when the business of the Court of Commerce
does not require the services of all the judges, to reassign the
judges designated to that court to the circuits to which they
respectively belong; and it should also provide for payment
to such judges while sitting by assignment in the Court of
Commerce of such additional amount as is necessary to bring
their annual compensation up to $10,000.
The regular sessions of such a court should be held at
the capital, but it should be empowered to hold sessions
in different parts of the United States if found desirable; and
its orders and judgments should be made final, subject only
to review by the Supreme Court of the United States, with
the provision that the operation of the decree appealed from
shall not be stayed unless the Supreme Court shall so order.
The Commerce Court should be empowered in its discretion
to restrain or suspend the operation of an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission under review pending the
final hearing and determination of the proceeding, but no
such restraining order should be made except upon notice
and after hearing, unless in cases where irreparable damage
would otherwise ensue to the petitioner. A judge of that
court might be empowered to allow a stay of the commission's order for a period of not more than sixty days, but
pending application to the court for its order or injunction,
then only where his order shall contain a specific finding
based upon evidence submitted to the judge making the
order and identified by reference thereto, that such irreparable damage would result to the petitioner, specifying
the nature of the damage.
Under the existing law, the Interstate Commerce Com



AND STATE PAPERS


517


mission itself initiates and defends litigation in the courts
For the enforcement, or in the defense, of its orders and
decrees, and for this purpose it employs attorneys who,
while subject to the control of the Attorney-General, act
upon the initiative and under the instructions of the commission. This blending of administrative, legislative, and
judicial functions tends, in my opinion, to impair the efficiency of the commission by clothing it with partisan characteristics and robbing it of the impartial judicial attitude it
should occupy in passing upon questions submitted to it.
In my opinion all litigation affecting the Government should
be under the direct control of the Department of Justice;
and I therefore recommend that all proceedings affecting
orders and decrees of the Interstate Commerce Commission
be brought by or against the United States eo nomine, and
be placed in charge of an assistant attorney-general acting
under the direction of the Attorney-General.
The subject of agreements between carriers with respect
to rates has been often discussed in Congress. Pooling
arrangements and agreements were condemned by the general sentiment of the people, and, under the Sherman Antitrust Law, any agreement between carriers operating in
restraint of interstate or international trade or commerce
would be unlawful. The Republican platform of 1908
expressed the belief that the Interstate Commerce Law should
be further amended so as to give the railroads the right to
make and publish traffic agreements subject to the approval
of the commission, but maintaining always the principle
of competition between naturally competing lines and avoiding the common control of such lines by any means whatsoever. In view of the complete control over rate-making and
other practices of interstate carriers established by the acts
of Congress and as recommended in this communication,
I see no reason why agreements between carriers subject
to the act, specifying the classifications of freight and the
rates, fares, and charges for transportation of passengers
and freight which they may agree to establish, should not




518        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
be permitted, provided copies of such agreements be
promptly filed with the commission, but subject to all the
provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act, and subject to
the right of any parties to such agreement to cancel it as to
all or any of the agreed rates, fares, charges, or classifications by thirty days' notice in writing to the other parties
and to the commission.
Much complaint is made by shippers over the state of
the law under which they are held bound to know the legal
rate applicable to any proposed shipment, without, as a
matter of fact, having any certain means of actually ascertaining such rate. It has been suggested that to meet this grievance carriers should be required, upon application by the
shipper, to quote the legal rate in writing, and that the
shipper should be protected in acting upon the rate thus
quoted; but the objection to this suggestion is that it would
afford a much too easy method of giving to favored shippers
unreasonable preferences and rebates. I think that the
law should provide that a carrier, upon written request by
an intending shipper, should quote in writing the rate or
charge applicable to the proposed shipment under any
schedules or tariffs to which such carrier is a party, and
that if the party making such request shall suffer damage
in consequence of either refusal or omission to quote the
proper rate or, in consequence of a misstatement of the rate,
the carrier shall be liable to a penalty in some reasonable
amount, say two hundred and fifty dollars, to accrue to the
United States and to be recovered in a civil action brought
by the appropriate district attorney. Such a penalty would
compel the agent of the carrier to exercise due diligence in
quoting the applicable legal rate, and would thus afford the
shipper a real measure of protection, while not opening the
way to collusion and the giving of rebates or other unfair
discrimination.
Under the existing law the commission can only act with
respect to an alleged excessive rate or unduly discriminatory
practice by a carrier on a complaint made by some individual




AND STATE PAPERS


519


affected thereby. I see no reason why the commission
should not be authorized to act on its own initiative as well
as upon the complaint of an individual in investigating the
fairness of any existing rate or practice; and I recommend
the amendment of the law to so provide; and also that the
commission shall be fully empowered, beyond any question,
to pass upon the classifications of commodities for the purposes of fixing rates, in like manner as it may now do with
respect to the maximum rate applicable to any transportation.
Under the existing law the commission may not investigate
an increase in rates until after it shall have become effective;
and although one or more carriers may file with the commission a proposed increase in rates or change in classifications, or other alterations of the existing rates or classifications, to become effective at the expiration of thirty days
from such filing, no proceeding can be taken to investigate
the reasonableness of such proposed change until after it
becomes operative. On the other hand, if the commission
shall make an order finding that an existing rate is excessive
and directing it to be reduced, the carrier affected may by
proceedings in the courts stay the operation of such order
of reduction for months and even years. It has, therefore,
been suggested that the commission should be empowered,
whenever a proposed increase in rates is filed, at once to
enter upon an investigation of the reasonableness of the
increase and to make an order postponing the effective date
of such increase until after such investigation shall be completed. To this, much objection has been made on the
part of carriers. They contend that this would be, in effect,
to take from the owners of the railroads the management
of their properties and to clothe the Interstate Commerce
Commission with the original rate-making power - a policy
which was much discussed at the time of the passage of the
Hepburn Act in 1905-6, and which was then and has always
been distinctly rejected; and in reply to the suggestion that
they are able by resorting to the courts to stay the taking




520        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
effect of the order of the commission until its reasonableness
shall have been investigated by the courts, whereas the
people are deprived of any such remedy with respect to action
by the carriers, they point to the provision of the Interstate
Commerce Act providing for restitution to the shippers by
carriers of excessive rates charged in cases where the orders
of the commission reducing such rates are affirmed. It
may be doubted how effective this remedy really is. Experience has shown that many, perhaps most, shippers do not
resort to proceedings to recover the excessive rates which
they may have been required to pay, for the simple reason
that they have added the rates paid to the cost of the goods
and thus enhanced the price thereof to their customers,
and that the public has in effect paid the bill. On the other
hand, the enormous volume of transportation charges,
the great number of separate tariffs filed annually with the
Interstate Commerce Commission, amounting to almost
200,000, and the impossibility of any commission supervising the making of tariffs in advance of their becoming
effective on every transportation line within the United
States to the extent that would be necessary if their active
concurrence were required in the making of every tariff,
has satisfied me that this power, if granted, should be conferred in a very limited and restricted form.  I therefore
recommend that the Interstate Commerce Commission be
empowered, whenever any proposed increase of rates is filed,
at once, either on complaint or of its own motion, to enter
upon an investigation into the reasonableness of such change,
and that it be further empowered, in its discretion, to postpone the effective date of such proposed increase for a period
not exceeding sixty days beyond the date when such rate
would take effect. If within this time it shall determine
that such increase is unreasonable, it may then, by its order,
either forbid the increase at all or fix the maximum beyond
which it shall not be made. If, on the other hand, at the
expiration of this time, the commission shall not have completed its investigation, then the rate shall take effect




AND STATE PAPERS


591


precisely as it would under the existing law, and the commission may continue its investigation with such results
as might be realized under the law as it now stands.
The claim is very earnestly advanced by some large
associations of shippers that shippers of freight should be
empowered to direct the route over which their shipments
should pass to destination, and in this connection it has
been urged that the provisions of section 15 of the Interstate
Commerce Act, which now empowers the commission, after
hearing on complaint, to establish through routes and maximum joint rates to be charged, etc., when no reasonable
or satisfactory through route shall have been already established, be amended so as to empower the commission to take
such action, even when one existing reasonable and satisfactory route already exists, if it be possible to establish
additional routes. This seems to me to be a reasonable
provision. I know of no reason why a shipper should not
have the right to elect between two or more established
through routes to which the initial carrier may be a party,
and to require his shipment to be transported to destination
over such of such routes as he may designate for that
purpose, subject, however, in the exercise of this right to
such reasonable regulations as the Interstate Commerce
Commission may prescribe.
The Republican platform of 1908 declared in favor of
amending the Interstate Commerce Law, but so as always
to maintain the principle of competition between naturally
competing lines, and avoiding the common control of such
lines by any means whatsoever. One of the most potent
means of exercising such control has been through the holding of stock of one railroad company by another company
owning a competing line. This condition has grown up
under express legislative power conferred by the laws of
many States, and to attempt now to suddenly reverse that
policy so far as it affects the ownership of stocks heretofore so
acquired, would be to inflict a grievous injury, not only upon
the corporations affected but upon a large body of the invest



592        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
ment-holding public. I, however, recommend that the law
shall be amended so as to provide that from and after the
date of its passage no railroad company subject to the
Interstate Commerce Act shall, directly or indirectly, acquire
any interests of any kind in capital stock, or purchase or
lease any railroad of any other corporation which competes
Iwith it respecting business to which the Interstate Commerce
Act applies. But especially for the protection of the minority
stockholders in securing to them the best market for their
stock I recommend that such prohibition be coupled with
a proviso that it shall not operate to prevent any corporation
which, at the date of the passage of such act, shall own not
less than one-half of the entire issued and outstanding capital stock of any other railroad company, from acquiring all
of the remainder of such stock; nor to prohibit any railroad
company which at the (late of the enactment of the law is
operating a railroad of any other corporation under lease,
executed for a term of not less than twenty-five years, from
acquiring the reversionary ownership of the demised railroad; but that such provisions shall not operate to authorize
or validate the acquisition, through stock ownership or
otherwise, of a competing line or interest therein in violation
of the anti-trust or any other law.
The Republican platform of 1908 further declares in favor
of such national legislation and supervision as will prevent
the future overissue of stocks and bonds by interstate
carriers, and in order to carry out its provisions I recommend
the enactment of a law providing that no railroad corporation subject to the Interstate Commerce Act shall hereafter
for any purpose connected with or relating to any part of its
business governed by said act, issue any capital stock without
previous or simultaneous payment to it of not less than the
par value of such stock, or any bonds or other obligations
(except notes maturing not nrore than one year from the
date of their issue), without the previous or simultaneous
payment to such corporation of not less than the par value
of such bonds, or other obligations, or, if issued at less




AND STATE PAPERS


than their par value, then not without such payment of the
reasonable market value of such bonds or obligations as
ascertained by the Interstate Commerce Commission,
and that no property, services, or other thing than money
shall be taken in payment to such a carrier corporation,
of the par or other required price of such stock, bond, or
other obligation, except at the fair value of such property,
services, or other thing as ascertained by the commission;
and that such act shall also contain provisions to prevent
the abuse by the improvident or improper issue of notes
maturing at a period not exceeding twelve months from date,
in such a manner as to commit the commission to the
approval of a larger amount of stock or bonds in order to
retire such notes than should legitimately have been required.
Such act should also provide for the approval by the
Interstate Commerce Commission of the amount of stock and
bonds to be issued by any railroad company subject to this act
upon any reorganization, pursuant to judicial sale or other
legal proceedings, in order to prevent the issue of stock
and bonds to an amount in excess of the fair value of the
property which is the subject of such reorganization.
I believe these suggested modifications in and amendments
to the Interstate Commerce Act would make it a complete
and effective measure for securing reasonableness of rates
and fairness of practices in the operation of interstate railroad lines, without undue preference to any individual or
class over any others; and would prevent the recurrence
of many of the practices which have given rise in the past
to so much public inconvenience and loss.
By my direction the Attorney-General has drafted a bill
to carry out these recommendations, which will be furnished
upon request to the appropriate committee whenever it
may be desired.
In addition to the foregoing amendments of the Interstate
Commerce Law, the Interstate Commerce Commission should
be given the power, after a hearing, to determine upon the
uniform construction of those appliances -such as sill




a54        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
steps, ladders, roof handholds, running boards, and hand
brakes on freight cars engaged in interstate commerce -
used by the trainmen in operation of trains, the defects
and lack of uniformity in which are apt to produce accidents and injuries to railway trainmen. The wonderful
reforms effected in the number of switchmen and trainmen
injured by coupling accidents, due to the enforced introduction of safety couplers, is a demonstration of what can be
done if railroads are compelled to adopt proper safety
appliances.
The question has arisen in the operation of the Interstate
Commerce Employer's Liability Act as to whether suit can be
brought against the employer company in any place other
than that of its home office. The right to bring the suit
under this act should be as easy of enforcement as the right
of a private person not in the company's employ to sue on
an ordinary claim, and process in such suit should be sufficiently served if upon the station agent of the company
upon whom service is authorized to be made to bind the
company in ordinary actions arising under State laws. Bills
for both the foregoing purposes have been considered by
the House of Representatives, and have been passed, and
are now before the Interstate Commerce Committee of the
Senate. I earnestly urge that they be enacted into law
ANTI-TRUST LAW AND FEDERAL INCORPORATION
There has been a marked tendency in business in this
country for forty years last past toward combination of
capital and plant in manufacture, sale and transportation.
The moving causes have been several: First, it has rendered
possible great economy; second, by a union of former
competitors it has reduced the probability of excessive
competition; and, third, if the combination has been extensive enough, and certain methods in the treatment of competitors and customers have been adopted, the combiners
have secured a monopoly and complete control of prices
or rates.




AND STATE PAPERS


A combination successful in achieving complete control
over a particular line of manufacture has frequently been
called a "trust." I presume that the derivation of the word
is to be explained by the fact that a usual method of carrying out the plan of the combination has been to put the capital and plants of various individuals, firms, or corporations
engaged in the same business under the control of trustees.
The increase of the capital of a business for the purpose
of reducing the cost of production and effecting economy
in the management has become as essential in modern progress as the change from the hand tool to the machine.
When, therefore, we come to construe the object of Congress
in adopting the so-called "Sherman Anti-trust Act" in
1890, whereby in the first section every contract, combination in the form of a trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in
restraint of interstate or foreign trade or commerce, is condemned as unlawful and made subject to indictment and
restraint by injunction; and whereby in the second section
every monopoly or attempt to monopolize, and every combination or conspiracy with other persons to monopolize
any part of interstate trade or commerce, is denounced as
illegal and made subject to similar punishment or restraint,
we must infer that the evil aimed at was not the mere bigness
of the enterprise, but it was the aggregation of capital and
plants with the express or implied intent to restrain interstate or foreign commerce, or to monopolize it in whole or
in part.
Monopoly destroys competition utterly, and the restraint of
the full and free operation of competition has a tendency to
restrain commerce and trade. A combination of persons,
formerly engaged in trade as partnerships or corporations or
otherwise, of course eliminates the competition that existed
between them; but the incidental ending of that competition
is not to be regarded as necessarily a direct restraint of trade,
unless of such an all-embracing character that the intention
and effect to restrain trade are apparent from the circumstances or are expressly declared to be the object of the




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


combination. A mere incidental restraint of trade and
competition is not within the inhibition of the act, but it
is where the combination or conspiracy or contract is inevitably and directly a substantial restraint of competition,
and so a restraint of trade, that the statute is violated.
The second section of the act is a supplement to the first.
A direct restraint of trade, such as is condemned in the first
section, if successful and used to suppress competition, is
one of the commonest methods of securing a trade monopoly,
condemned in the second section.
It is possible for the owners of a business of manufacturing
and selling useful articles of merchandise so to conduct
their business as not to violate the inhibitions of the Anti-trust
Law and yet to secure to themselves the benefit of the
economies of management and of production due to the concentration under one control of large capital and many
plants. If they use no other inducement than the constant
low price of their product and its good quality to attract
custom, and their business is a profitable one, they violate
no law. If their actual competitors are small in comparison
with the total capital invested, the prospect of new investments of capital by others in such a profitable business is
sufficiently near and potential to restrain them in the prices
at which they sell their product. But if they attempt by
a use of their preponderating capital and by a sale of their
goods temporarily at unduly low prices, to drive out of busiiness their competitors, or if they attempt, by exclusive
contracts with their patrons and threats of non-dealing
except upon such contracts, or by other methods of a similar
character, to use the largeness of their resources and the
extent of their output compared with the total output as a
means of compelling custom and frightening off competition, then they disclose a purpose to restrain trade and to
establish a monopoly and violate the act.
The object of the Anti-trust Law was to suppress the abuses
of business of the kind described. It was not to interfere
with a great volume of capital which, concentrated under




AND STATE PAPERS


one organization, reduced the cost of production and made
its profits thereby, and took no advantage or its size by
methods akin to duress to stifle competition with it.
I wish to make this distinction as emphatic as possible,
because I conceive that nothing could happen more destructive to the prosperity of this country than the loss of that
great economy in production which has been and will be
effected in all manufacturing lines by the employment of
large capital under one management. I do not mean to
say that there is not a limit beyond which the economy of
management by the enlargement of plant ceases; and where
this happens and combination continues beyond this point,
the very fact shows intent to monopolize and not to economize.
The original purpose of many combinations of capital
in this country was not confined to the legitimate and proper
object of reducing the cost of production. On the contrary,
the history of most trades will show at times a feverish
desire to unite by purchase, combination, or otherwise all
plants in the country engaged in the manufacture of a
particular line of goods. The idea was rife that thereby
a monopoly could be effected and a control of prices brought
about which would inure to the profit of those engaged in
the combination. The path of commerce is strewn with
failures of such combinations. Their projectors found that
the union of all the plants did not prevent competition,
especially where proper economy had not been pursued in
purchase and in the conduct of the business after the aggregation was complete. There were enough, however, of
such successful combinations to arouse the fears of good,
patriotic men as to the result of a continuance of this movement toward the concentration in the hands of a few of the
absolute control of the prices of all manufactured products.
The anti-trust statute was passed in 1890 and prosecutions
were soon begun under it. In the case of the United States
v. Knight, known as the "Sugar Trust case," because of
the narrow scope of the pleadings, the combination sought




5"28!    PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
to be enjoined was held not to be included within the prohibition of the act, because the averments did not go beyond
the mere acquisition of manufacturing plants for the refining
of sugar, and did not include that of a direct and intended
restraint upon trade and commerce in the sale and delivery
of sugar across State boundaries and in foreign trade. The
result of the Sugar Trust case was not happy, in that it
gave other companies and combinations seeking a similar
method of making profit by establishing an absolute control
and monopoly in a particular line of manufacture a sense
of immunity against prosecutions in the Federal jurisdiction; and where that jurisdiction is barred in respect to a
business which is necessarily commensurate with the boundaries of the country, no State prosecution is able to supply
the needed machinery for adequate restraint or punishment.
Following the Sugar Trust decision, however, there have
come along in the slow but certain course of judicial disposition, cases involving a construction of the anti-trust
statute and its application until now they seem to embrace
every phase of that law which can be practically presented
to the American public and to the Government for action.
They show that the Anti-trust Act has a wide scope and
applies to many combinations in actual operation, rendering
them unlawful and subject to indictment and restraint.
The Supreme Court in several of its decisions has declined
to read into the statute the word "unreasonable" before
"restraint of trade," on the ground that the statute applies
to all restraints and does not intend to leave to the court
the discretion to determine what is reasonable restraint of
trade. The expression "restraint of trade" comes from
the common law, and at common law there were certain
covenants incidental to the carrying out of a main or principal contract which were said to be covenants in partial
restraint of trade, and were held to be enforcible because
"reasonably" adapted to the performance of the main or
principal contract. And under the general language used
by the Supreme Court in several cases, it would seem that




AND STATE PAPERS


529


even such incidental covenants in restraint of interstate
trade were within the inhibition of the statute and must be
condemned. In order to avoid such a result, I have thought
and said that it might be well to amend the statute so as to
exclude such covenants from its condemnation. A close
examination of the later decisions of the court, however,
shows quite clearly in cases presenting the exact question,
that such incidental restraints of trade are held not to be
within the law and are excluded by the general statement
that, to be within the statute, the effect of the restraint
upon the trade must be direct and not merely incidental or
indirect. The necessity, therefore, for an amendment of
the statute so as to exclude these incidental and beneficial
covenants in restraint of trade held at common law to be
reasonable does not exist.
In some of the opinions of the Federal circuit judges there
have been intimations, having the effect, if sound, to weaken
the force of the statute by including within it absurdly
unimportant combinations and arrangements, and suggesting therefore the wisdom of changing its language by limiting its application to serious combinations with intent to
restrain competition or control prices. A reading of the
opinions of the Supreme Court, however, makes the change
unnecessary, for they exclude from the operation of the act
contracts affecting interstate trade in but a small and incidental way, and apply the statute only to the real evil aimed
at by Congress.
The statute has been on the statute book now for two
decades, and the Supreme Court in more than a dozen opinions has construed it in application to various phases of
business combinations and in reference to various subjectsmatter. It has applied it to the union under one control
of two competing interstate railroads, to joint traffic arrangements between several interstate railroads, to private manufacturers engaged in a plain attempt to control prices and
suppress competition in a part of the country, including a
dozen states, and to many other combinations affecting




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


530


interstate trade. The value of a statute which is rendered
more and more certain in its meaning by a series of decisions
of the Supreme Court furnishes a strong reason for leaving
the act as it is, to accomplish its useful purpose, even though
if it were being newly enacted useful suggestions as to change
of phrase might be made.
It is the duty and the purpose of the Executive to direct
an investigation by the Department of Justice, through the
grand jury or otherwise, into the history, organization, and
purposes of all the industrial companies with respect to which
there is any reasonable ground for suspicion that they have
been organized for a purpose, and are conducting business on
a plan which is in violation of the Anti-trust Law. The work
is a heavy one, but it is not beyond the power of the Department of Justice, if sufficient funds are furnished, to carry
on the investigations and to pay the counsel engaged in the
work. But such an investigation and possible prosecution
of corporations whose prosperity or destruction affects the
comfort not only of stockholders but of millions of wageearners, employees, and associated tradesmen, must necessarily tend to disturb the confidence of the business
community, to dry up the now flowing sources of capital
from its places of hoarding, and produce a halt in our
present prosperity that will cause suffering and strained
circumstances among the innocent many for the faults of
the guilty few. The question which I wish in this message
to bring clearly to the consideration and discussion of Congress is whether in order to avoid such a possible business
danger something can not be done by which these business combinations may be offered a means, without great
financial disturbance, of changing the character, organization, and extent of their business into one within the lines
of the law under the Federal control and supervision, securing
compliance with the anti-trust statute.
Generally, in the industrial combinations called "trusts,"
the principal business is the sale of goods in many States
and in foreign markets; in other words, the interstate and




AND STATE PAPERS


531


foreign business far exceeds the business done in any one
State. This fact will justify the Federal Government in
granting a Federal charter to such a combination to make
and sell in interstate and foreign commerce the products of
useful manufacture under such limitations as will secure
a compliance with the anti-trust law. It is possible so to
frame a statute that while it offers protection to a Federal
company against harmful, vexatious, and unnecessary
invasion by the States, it shall subject it to reasonable taxation and control by the States, with respect to its purely
local business.
Many people conducting great businesses have cherished
a hope and a belief that in some way or other a line may be
drawn between "good trusts" and "bad trusts," and that
it is possible by amendment to the Anti-trust Law to make
a distinction under which good combinations may be permitted to organize, suppress competition, control prices, and
do it all legally if only they do not abuse the power by taking
too great profit out of the business. They point with force
to certain notorious trusts as having grown into power
through criminal methods by the use of illegal rebates and
plain cheating, and by various acts utterly violative of business
honesty or morality, and urge the establishment of some
legal line of separation by which "criminal trusts" of this
kind can be punished, and they, on the other hand, be
permitted under the law to carry on their business. Now
the public, and especially the business public, ought to rid
themselves of the idea that such a distinction is practicable
or can be introduced into the statute. Certainly under the
present Anti-trust Law no such distinction exists. It has been
proposed, however, that the word "reasonable" should be
made a part of the statute, and then that it should be left
to the court to say what is a reasonable restraint of trade,
what is a reasonable suppression of competition, what is
a reasonable monopoly. I venture to think that this is to
put into the hands of the court a power impossible to exercise on any consijtent principle which, will insure the uni



532        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
formity of decision essential to just judgment. It is to thrust
upon the courts a burden that they have no precedents to
enable them to carry, and to give them a power approaching
the arbitrary, the abuse of which might involve our whole
judicial system in disaster.
In considering violations of the Anti-trust Law we ought,
of course, not to forget that that law makes unlawful, methods
of carrying on business which before its passage were
regarded as evidence of business sagacity and success, and
that they were denounced in this act not because of their
intrinsic immorality, but because of the dangerous results
toward which they tended, the concentration of industrial
power in the hands of the few, leading to oppression and
injustice. In dealing, therefore, with many of the men
who have used the methods condemned by the statute for
the purpose of maintaining a profitable business, we may
well facilitate a change by them in the method of doing
business, and enable them to bring it back into the zone
of lawfulness without losing to the country the economy of
management by which in our domestic trade the cost of
production has been materially lessened and in competition
with foreign manufacturers our foreign trade has been greatly
increased.
Through all our consideration of this grave question,
however, we must insist that the suppression of competition,
the controlling of prices, and the monopoly or attempt to
monopolize in interstate commerce and business, are not
only unlawful, but contrary to the public good, and that they
must be restrained and punished until ended.
I therefore recommend the enactment by Congress of a
general law providing for the formation of corporations to
engage in trade and commerce among the States and with
foreign nations, protecting from them undue interference
by the States and regulating their activities, so as to prevent
the recurrence, under national auspices, of those abuses
which have arisen under State control. Such a law should
provide for the issue of stock of such corporations to an




AND STATE PAPERS


533


amount equal only to the cash paid in on the stock; and if
the stock be issued for property, then at a fair valuation,
ascertained under approval and supervision of Federal
authority, after a full and complete disclosure of all the
facts pertaining to the value of such property and the interest
therein of the persons to whom it is proposed to issue stock
in payment of such property. It should subject the real
and personal property only of such corporations to the same
taxation as is imposed by the States within which they may
be situated upon other similar property located therein, and
it should require such corporations to file full and complete
reports of their operations with the Department of Commerce
and Labor at regular intervals. Corporations organized
under this act should be prohibited from acquiring and
holding  stock  in   other  corporations  (except  for
special reasons upon approval by the proper Federal
authority), thus avoiding the creation, under National
auspices, of the holding company with subordinate
corporations in different States, which has been such an
effective agency in the creation of the great trusts and
monopolies.
If the prohibition of the Anti-trust Act against combinations
in restraint of trade is to be effectively enforced, it is essential
that the National Government shall provide for the creation
of national corporations to carry on a legitimate business
throughout the United States. The conflicting laws of the
different States of the Union with respect to foreign corporations make it difficult, if not impossible, for one corporation
to comply with their requirements so as to carry on business
in a number of different States.
To the suggestion that this proposal of Federal incorporation for industrial combinations is intended to furnish them
a refuge in which to continue industrial abuses under Federal
protection, it should be said that the measure contemplated
does not repeal the Sherman Anti-trust Law and is not to be
framed so as to permit the doing of the wrongs which it is
the purpose of that law to prevent, but only to foster a con



534        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
tinuance and advance of the highest industrial efficiency
without permitting industrial abuses.
Such a national incorporation law will be opposed, first,
by those who believe that trusts should be completely broken
up and their property destroyed. It will be opposed, second,
by those who doubt the constitutionality of such Federal
incorporation, and even if it is valid, object to it as too great
Federal centralization. It will be opposed, third, by
those Who will insist that a mere voluntary incorporation
like this will not attract to its acceptance the worst of the
offenders against the anti-trust statute, and who will therefore
propose instead of it a system of compulsory licenses for all
Federal corporations engaged in interstate business.
Let us consider these objections in their order. The
Government is now trying to dissolve some of these combinations, and it is not the intention of the Government to
desist in the least degree in its effort to end those combinations
which are to-day monopolizing the commerce of this country.
Where it appears that the acquisition and concentration
of property go to the extent of creating a monopoly or of
substantially and directly restraining interstate commerce,
it is not the intention of the Government to permit this
monopoly to exist under Federal incorporation or to transfer
to the protecting wing of the Federal Government a State
corporation now violating the Sherman Act. But it is not
and should not be, the policy of the Government to prevent
reasonable concentration of capital which is necessary to
the economic development of manufacture, trade, and commerce. This country has shown a power of economical
production that has astonished the world, and has enabled
us to compete with foreign manufactures in many markets.
It should be the care of the Government to permit such concentration of capital while keeping open the avenues of
individual enterprise, and the opportunity for a man or
corporation with reasonable capital to engage in business.
If we would maintain our present business supremacy, we
should give to industrial concerns an opportunity to reorgan



AND STATE PAPERS


535


ize and to concentrate their legitimate capital in a Federal
corporation, and to carry on their large business within the
lines of the law.
Second. There are those who doubt the constitutionality
of such Federal incorporation. The regulation of interstate
and foreign commerce is certainly conferred in the fullest
measure upon Congress, and if for the purpose of securing
in the most thorough manner that kind of regulation, Congress shall insist that it may provide and authorize certain
agencies to carry on that commerce, it would seem to be
within its power. This has been distinctly affirmed with
respect to railroad companies doing an interstate business,
and interstate bridges. The power of incorporation has
been exercised by Congress and upheld by the Supreme
Court in this regard. Why, then, with respect to any other
form of interstate commerce like the sale of goods across
State boundaries and into foreign commerce, may the same
power not be asserted? Indeed, it is the very fact that they
carry on interstate commerce that makes these great industrial concerns subject to Federal prosecution and control.
How far as incidental to the carrying on of that commerce
it may be within the power of the Federal Government to
authorize the manufacture of goods, is perhaps more open
to discussion, though a recent decision of the Supreme
Court would seem to answer that question in the affirmative.
Even those who are willing to concede that the Supreme
Court may sustain such Federal incorporation are inclined
to oppose it on the ground of its tendency to the enlargement
of the Federal power at the expense of the power of the
States. It is a sufficient answer to this argument to say
that no other method can be suggested which offers Federal
protection on the one hand and close Federal supervision
on the other of these great organizations that are in fact
federal because they are as wide as the country and are
entirely unlimited in their business by State lines. Nor is
the centralization of Federal power under this act likely to
be excessive. Only the largest corporations would avail




536


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


themselves of such a law, because the burden of complete
Federal supervision and control that must certainly be
imposed to accomplish the purpose of the incorporation
would not be accepted by an ordinary business concern.
The third objection, that the worst offenders will not
accept Federal incorporation, is easily answered. The
decrees of injunction recently adopted in  prosecutions
under the Anti-trust Law are so thorough and sweeping that
the corporations affected by them have but three courses
before them:
First, they must resolve themselves into their component
parts in the different States, with a consequent loss to themselves of capital and effective organizations and to the country
of concentrated energy and enterprise; or
Second, in defiance of law and under some secret trust
they must attempt to continue their business in violation of
the Federal statute, and thus incur the penalties of contempt
and bring on an inevitable criminal prosecution of the
individuals named in the decree and their associates; or
Third, they must reorganize and accept in good faith the
Federal charter I suggest.
A Federal compulsory license law, urged as a substitute
for a Federal incorporation law, is unnecessary except to
reach that kind of corporation which, by virtue of the considerations already advanced, will take advantage voluntarily of an incorporation law, while the other State corporations doing an interstate business do not need the supervision
or the regulation of a Federal license and would only be
unnecessarily burdened thereby.
The Attorney-General, at my suggestion, has drafted
a Federal incorporation bill, embodying the views I have
attempted to set forth, and it will be at the disposition of
the appropriate committees of Congress.




LXVI


SPECIAL MESSAGE ON THE CONSERVATION OF
NATIONAL RESOURCES
(JANUARY 14, 1910)
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
IN MY annual message I reserved the subject of the
conservation of our national resources for discussion
in a special message as follows:
"In several departments there is presented the necessity
for legislation looking to the further conservation of our
national resources, and the subject is one of such importance
as to require a more detailed and extended discussion than
can be entered upon in this communication. For that reason
I shall take an early opportunity to send a special message
to Congress on the subject of the improvement of our waterways; upon the reclamation and irrigation of arid, semi-arid,
and swamp lands; upon the preservation of our forests and
the reforesting of suitable areas; upon the reclassification
of the public domain with a view to separating from agricultural settlement mineral, coal, and phosphate lands and
sites belonging to the Government bordering on streams
suitable for the utilization of water power."
In 1860 we had a public domain of 1,055,911,288 acres.
We have now 731,354,081 acres, confined largely to the
mountain ranges and the arid and semi-arid plains. We
have, in addition, 368,035,975 acres of land in Alaska.
The public lands were, during the earliest administrations,
treated as a national asset for the liquidation of the public
debt and as a source of reward for our soldiers and sailors.
537




53S8       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
Later on they were.donated in large amounts in aid of the
construction of wagon roads and railways, in order to open
up regions in the West then almost inaccessible. All the
principal land statutes were enacted more than a quarter
of a century ago. The homestead act, the preemption and
timber-culture act, the coal land and the mining acts were
among these. The rapid disposition of the public lands
under the early statutes, and the lax methods of distribution
prevailing, due, I think, to the belief that these lands should
rapidly pass into private ownership, gave rise to the impression that the public domain was legitimate prey for the
unscrupulous, and that it was not contrary to good morals
to circumvent the land laws. This prodigal manner of disposition resulted in the passing of large areas of valuable
land and many of our national resources into the hands of
persons who felt little or no responsibility for promoting
the national welfare through their development. The truth
is that title to millions of acres of public lands was fraudulently obtained, and that the right to recover a large part
of such lands for the Government long since ceased by reason
of statutes of limitation.
There has developed in recent years a deep concern in
the public mind respecting the preservation and proper use of
our national resources. This has been particularly directed
toward the conservation of the resources of the public
domain. The problem is how to save and how to utilize,
how to conserve and still develop; for no sane person can
contend that it is for the common good that Nature's blessings are only for unborn generations.
Among the most noteworthy reforms initiated by my
distinguished predecessor were the vigorous prosecution
of land frauds and the bringing to public attention of the
necessity for preserving the remaining public domain from
further spoliation, for the maintenance and extension of
our forest resources, and for the enactment of laws amending
the obsolete statutes so as to retain governmental control over
that part of the public domain in which there are valuable




AND STATE PAPERS


539


deposits of coal, of oil, and of phosphate, and, in additon
thereto, to preserve control, under conditions favorable to
the public, of the lands along the streams in which the fall
of water can be made to generate power to be transmitted
in the form of electricity many miles to the point of its use,
known as "water-power" sites.
The investigations into violations of the public land laws
and the prosecution of land frauds have been vigorously
continued under my administration, as has been the withdrawal of coal lands for classification and valuation and the
temporary withholding of power sites.
Since March 4, 1909, temporary withdrawals of power
sites have been made on 102 streams, and these withdrawals
therefore cover 229 per cent. more streams than were covered
by the withdrawals made prior to that date.
The present statutes, except so far as they dispose of the
precious metals and the purely agricultural lands, are not
adapted to carry out the modern view of the best disposition
of public lands to private ownership, under conditions offering on the one hand sufficient inducement to private capital
to take them over for proper development, with restrictive
conditions on the other which shall secure to the public
that character of control which will prevent a monopoly
or misuse of the lands or their products. The power of the
Secretary of the Interior to withdraw from the operation of
existing statutes tracts of land the disposition of which
under such statutes would be detrimental to the public interest, is not clear or satisfactory. This power has been
exercised in the interest of the public, with the hope that
Congress might affirm the action of the Executive by laws
adapted to the new conditions. Unfortunately, Congress
has not thus far fully acted on the recommendations of the
Executive, and the question as to what the Executive is to
do is, under the circumstances, full of difficulty. It seems
to me that it is the duty of Congress now, by a statute, to
validate the withdrawals which have been made by the
Secretary of the Interior and the President, and to authorize




540        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
the Secretary of the Interior temporarily to withdraw lands
pending submission to Congress of recommendations as to
legislation to meet conditions or emergencies as they arise.
One of the most pressing needs in the matter of public
land reform is that lands should be classified according to
their principal value or use. This ought to be done by that
Department whose force is best adapted to that work. It
should be done by the Interior Department through the
Geological Survey. Much of the confusion, fraud, and
contention which has existed in the past has arisen from the
lack of an official and determinative classification of the
public lands and their contents.
It is now proposed to dispose of agricultural lands as such,
and at the same time to reserve for other disposition the treasure of coal, oil, asphaltum, natural gas, and phosphate contained therein. This may be best accomplished by separating
the right to mine from the title to the surface, giving the necessary use of so much of the latter as may be required for the
extraction of the deposits. The surface might be disposed
of as agricultural land under the general agricultural statutes,
while the coal or other mineral could be disposed of by lease
on a royalty basis, with provisions requiring a certain amount
of development each year; and in order to prevent the use
and cession of such lands with others of similar character
so as to constitute a monopoly forbidden by law, the lease
should contain suitable provision subjecting to forfeiture
the interest of persons participating in such monopoly.
Such law should apply to Alaska as well as to the United
States.
It is exceedingly difficult to frame a statute to retain government control over a property to be developed by private
capital in such manner as to secure the governmental purpose
and at the same time not to frighten away the investment
of the necessary capital. Hence, it may be necessary by
laws that are really only experimental to determine from their
practical operation what is the best method of securing the
result aimed at.




AND STATE PAPERS


541


The extent of tie value of phosphate is hardly realized,
and with the need that there will be for it as the years roll
on and the necessity for fertilizing the land shall become
more acute, this will be a product which will probably
attract the greed of monopolists.
With respect to the public land which lies along the streams
offering opportunity to convert water power into transmissible electricity, another important phase of the publicland question is presented. There are valuable water-power
sites through all the public-land States. The opinion is
held that the transfer of sovereignty from the Federal Government to the territorial governments as they become
States, included the water power in the rivers except so far
as that owned by riparian proprietors. I do not think it
necessary to go into discussion of this somewhat mooted
question of law. It seems to me sufficient to say that the
man who owns and controls the land along the stream
from which the power is to be converted and transmitted,
owns land which is indispensable to the conversion and use
of that power. I can not conceive how the power in streams
flowing through public lands can be made available at all
except by using the land itself as the site for the construction
of the plant by which the power is generated and converted
and securing a right of way thereover for transmission lines.
Under these conditions, if the Government owns the adjacent land-indeed, if the Government is the riparian
owner -it may control the use of the water power by
imposing proper conditions on the disposition of the land
necessary in the creation and utilization of the water power.
The development in electrical appliances for the conversion of the water power into electricity to be transmitted
long distances has progressed so far that it is no longer
problematical, but it is a certain inference that in the
future the power of the water falling in the streams to a
large extent will take the place of natural fuels. In the
disposition of the domain already granted, many waterpower sites have come under absolute ownership, and may




542


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


drift into one ownership, so that all the water power under
private ownership shall be a monopoly. If, however, the
water-power sites now owned by the Government -and
there are enough of them - shall be disposed of to private
persons for the investment of their capital in such a way as
to prevent their union for purposes of monopoly with other
water-power sites, and under conditions that shall limit the
right of use to not exceeding fifty years, with proper means
for determining a reasonable graduated rental, and with
some equitable provision for fixing terms of renewal, it
would seem entirely possible to prevent the absorption of
these most useful lands by a power monopoly. As long as
the Government retains control and can prevent their
improper union with other plants, competition must be
maintained and prices kept reasonable.
In considering the conservation of the natural resources
of the country, the feature that transcends all others, including woods, waters, minerals, is the soil of the country. It is
incumbent upon the Government to foster by all available
means the resources of the country that produces the food
of the people. To this end the conservation of the soils
of the country should be cared for with all means at the
Government's disposal. Their productive powers should
have the attention of our scientists that we may conserve the
new soils, improve the old soils, drain wet soils, ditch swamp
soils, levee river overflow soils, grow trees on thin soils,
pasture hillside soils, rotate crops on all soils, discover
methods for cropping dry-land soils, find grasses and legumes
for all soils, feed grains and mill feeds on the farms where
they originate, that the soils from which they come may be
enriched.
A work of the utmost importance to inform and instruct
the public in this chief branch of the conservation of our
resources is being carried on successfully in the Department
of Agriculture; but it ought not to escape public attention
that State action in addition to that of the Department of
Agriculture (as for instance in the drainage of swamp lands)




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543


is essential to the best treatment of the soils in the manner
above indicated.
The act by which, in semi-arid parts of the public domain,
the area of the homestead has been enlarged from 160 to
320 acres has resulted most beneficially in the extension of
"dry farming," and in the demonstration which has been
made of the possibility, through a variation in the character
and mode of culture, of raising substantial crops without
the presence of such a supply of water as heretofore has been
thought to be necessary for agriculture.
But there are millions of acres of completely arid land in
the public domain which, by the establishment of reservoirs
for the storing of water and the irrigation of the lands, may
be made much more fruitful and productive than the best
lands in a climate where the moisture comes from the clouds.
Congress recognized the importance of this method of
artificial distribution of water on the arid lands by the
passage of the Reclamation Act. The proceeds of the public
lands create the fund to build the works needed to store
and furnish the necessary water, and it was left to the Secretary of the Interior to determine what projects should be
selected among those suggested, and to direct the Reclamation Service, with the funds at hand and through the engineers
in its employ, to construct the works.
No one can visit the Far West and the country of arid
and semi-arid lands without being convinced that this is one
of the most important methods of the conservation of our
natural resources that the Government has entered upon.
It would appear that over thirty projects have been undertaken, and that a few of these are likely to be unsuccessful
because of lack of water, or for other reasons, but generally
the work which has been done has been well done, and many
important engineering problems have been met and solved.
One of the difficulties which have arisen is that too many
projects in view of the available funds have been set on foot.
The funds available under the reclamation  statute are
inadequate to complete these projects within a reasonable




544


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


time. And yet the projects have been begun; settlers have
been invited to take up and, in many instances, have taken
up, the public land within the projects, relying upon their
prompt completion. The failure to complete the projects
for their benefit is, in effect, a breach of faith and leaves
them in a most distressed condition. I urge that the nation
ought to afford the means to lift them out of the very desperate condition in which they now are. This condition does
not indicate any excessive waste or any corruption on the
part of the Reclamation Service. It only indicates an
overzealous desire to extend the benefit of reclamation to
as many acres and as many States as possible. I recommend,
therefore, that authority be given to issue not exceeding
$30,000,000 of bonds from time to time, as the Secretary
of the Interior shall find it necessary, the proceeds to be
applied to the completion of the projects already begun
and their proper extension, and the bonds running ten
years or more to be taken up by the proceeds of returns to
the reclamation fund, which returns, as the years go on,
will increase rapidly in amount.
There is no doubt at all that if these bonds were to be
allowed to run ten years, the proceeds from the public lands,
together with the rentals for water furnished through the
completed enterprises, would quickly create a sinking
fund large enough to retire the bonds within the time specified. I hope that, while the statute shall provide that these
bonds are to be paid out of the reclamation fund, it will be
drawn in such a way as to secure interest at the lowest rate,
and that the credit of the United States will be pledged for
their redemption.
I urge consideration of the recommendations of the Secretary of the Interior in his annual report for amendments
of the Reclamation Act, proposing other relief for settlers
on these projects.
Respecting the comparatively small timbered areas on
the public domain not included in national forests because
of their isolation or their special value for agriculture or




AND STATE PAPERS


545


mineral purposes, it is apparent from the evils resulting by
virtue of the imperfections of existing laws for the disposition of timber lands, that the acts of June 3, 1878, should be
repealed and a law enacted for the disposition of the timber
at public sale, the lands after the removal of the timber to
be subject to appropriation under the agricultural or mineral
land laws.
What I have said is really an epitome of the recommendations of the Secretary of the Interior in respect to the future
conservation of the public domain in his present annual
report. He has given close attention to the problem of
disposition of these lands under such conditions as to invite
the private capital necessary to their development on the one
hand, and the maintenance of the restrictions necessary to
prevent monopoly and abuse from absolute ownership on
the other. These recommendations are incorporated in
bills he has prepared, and they are at the disposition of the
Congress. I earnestly recommend that all the suggestions
which he has made with respect to these lands shall be
embodied in statutes, and, especially, that the withdrawals
already made shall be validated so far as necessary, and that
the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw
lands for the purpose of submitting recommendations as to
future disposition of them where new legislation is needed
shall be made complete and unquestioned.
The forest reserves of the United States, some 190,000,000
acres in extent, are under the control of the Department
of Agriculture, with authority adequate to preserve them and
to extend their growth so far as that may be practicable.
The importance of the maintenance of our forests can not be
exaggerated. The possibility of a scientific treatment of
forests so that they shall be made to yield a large return in
timber without really reducing the supply has been demonstrated in other countries, and we should work toward the
standard set by them as far as their methods are applicable
to our conditions.
Upward of 400,000,000 acres of forest land in this country




548        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
are in private ownership, but only 3 per cent. of it is being
treated scientifically and with a view to the maintenance of
the forests. The part played by the forests in the equalization of the supply of water on watersheds is a matter of
discussion and dispute, but the general benefit to be derived
by the public from the extension of forest lands on watersheds
and the promotion of the growth of trees in places that are
now denuded and that once had great flourishing forests,
goes without saying. The control to be exercised over
private owners in their treatment of the forests which they
own is a matter for State and not national regulation, because
there is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes the Federal Government to exercise any control over forests within
a State, unless the forests are owned in a proprietary way
by the Federal Government.
It has been proposed, and a bill for the purpose passed
the lower house in the last Congress, that the National
Government appropriate a certain amount each year out
of the receipts from the forestry business of the Government
to institute reforestation at the sources of certain navigable
streams, to be selected by the Geological Survey, with a
view to determining the practicabliity of thus improving and
protecting the streams for Federal purposes. I think a moderate expenditure for each year for this purpose, for a period
of five or ten years, would be of the utmost benefit in the
development of our forestry system.
I come now to the improvement of the inland waterways.
He would'be blind, indeed, who did not realize that the
people of the entire West, and especially those of the Mississippi Valley, have been aroused to the need there is for the
improvement of our inland waterways. The Mississippi
River, with the Missouri on the one hand and the Ohio
on the other, would seem to offer a great natural means of
interstate transportation and traffic. How far, if properly
improved, they would relieve the railroads or supplement
them in respect to the bulkier and cheaper commodities is a
matter of conjecture. No enterprise ought to be undertaken




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the cost of which is not definitely ascertained and the benefit
and advantages of which are not known and assured by
competent engineers and other authority. When, however,
a project of a definite character for the improvement of a
waterway has been developed so that the plans have been
drawn, the cost definitely estimated, and the traffic which
will be accommodated is reasonably probable, I think it is
the duty of Congress to undertake the project and make
provision therefor in the proper appropriation bill.
One of the projects which answer the description I have
given is that of introducing dams into the Ohio River from
Pittsburg to Cairo, so as to maintain at all seasons of the
year, by slack water, a depth of nine feet. Upward of
seven of these dams have already been constructed and six
are under construction, while the total required is fifty-four.
The remaining cost is known to be $63,000,000.
It seems to me that in the development of our inland waterways it would be wise to begin with this particular project
and carry it through as rapidly as may be. I assume from
reliable information that it can be constructed economically
in twelve years.
What has been said of the Ohio River is true in a less
complete way of the improvement of the upper Mississippi
from St. Paul to St. Louis, to a constant depth of six feet, and
of the Missouri, from Kansas City to St. Louis, to a constant
depth of six feet and from St. Louis to Cairo to a depth of
eight feet. These projects have been pronounced practical
by competent boards of army engineers, their cost has been
estimated, and there is business which will follow the improvement.
I recommend, therefore, that the present Congress, in
the river and harbor bill, make provision for continuing
contracts to complete these improvements.
As these improvements are being made, and the traffic
encouraged by them shows itself of sufficient importance,
the improvement of the Mississippi beyond Cairo down to the
Gulf, which is now going on with the maintenance of a depth




548        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
of nine feet everywhere, may he changed to another and
greater depth if the necessity for it shall appear to arise out
of the traffic which can be delivered on the river at Cairo.
I am informed that the investigation by the Waterways
Commission in Europe shows that the existence of a waterway by no means assures traffic unless there is traffic adapted
to water carriage at cheap rates at one end or the other of
the stream. It also appears in Europe that the depth of
the non-tidal streams is rarely more than six feet, and never
more than ten. But it is certain that enormous quantities
of merchandise are transported over the rivers and canals
in Germany and France and England, and it is also certain
that the existence of such methods of traffic materially affects
the rates which the railroads charge, and it is the best regulator of those rates that we have, not even excepting the
governmental regulation through the Interstate Commerce
Commission. For this reason, I hope that this Congress
will take such steps that it may be called the inaugurator
of the new system of inland waterways.
For reasons which it is not necessary here to state, Congress
has seen fit to order an investigation into the Interior Department and the Forest Service of the Agricultural Department.
The results of that investigation are not needed to determine
the value of, and the necessity for, the new legislation which
I have recommended in respect to the public lands and in
respect to reclamation. I earnestly urge that the measures
recommended be taken up and disposed of promptly, without awaiting the investigation which has been determined
upon.




LXVII


ADDRESS BEFORE THE NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION AT THE BELASCO THEATRE,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
(JANUARY 17, 1910)
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
N THE first place, I am glad to welcome the Civic Federation to Washington. I think the sun shines a little
brighter in Washington than it does anywhere else along
on the same latitude, and it is a very pleasant place either
to live in or to be in; and therefore, I congratulate the Civic
Federation on having had the good sense to come here.
You are not the only citizens of the United States who
look in this direction. I am glad that you came here at the
same time that the Governors did, so that your deliberations
and theirs in the same direction, and the right direction,
as they doubtless will be, will have the weight of two great
forces, not only upon the National Legislature, but upon the
State legislatures, for from Washington everything radiates
to the ends of the country.
In the discussion of uniformity of legislation, when you
take a man who has gotten out of the practice of the law,
so that he does not remember with great exactitude those
principles that are applied in actual cases, he can not help
falling back on a discussion of the Constitution. The
constitutional lawyer is a gentleman who has gotten out of
the practice and who has gone into politics.
Now, my friend, Senator Root, whom I am delighted to
class with me in the same category, some years ago was greatly
misunderstood with reference to his view of the Constitution
549




550


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


and the trend under the Constitution toward centralization
of government. If I understood him, his view was that,
unless the States did their duty in the exercise of the functions
which it was necessary they should exercise in the interest
of good government, there would be a tendency toward the
enlargement of the Government at Washington; and he
uttered a warning to the States that if they would retain the
power given to them under the Constitution in all its integrity,
they must see to it that they exercised that power in the interest of the people and in the interest of the country generally.
The misunderstanding led to ascribing to him views in
favor of centralization that would certainly have been most
radical, but I am sure he does not have them. We have
a nation and we have a centralized government, and the
reason why we have it is because John Marshall was put
at the head of the Supreme Court early and exercised that
power which a good judge always exercises with his colleagues. He did not minimize the power of the Supreme
Court to construe that Constitution authoritatively. And
so construing it, he made this a nation with all the powers
incident to a nation. And then when he left the Bench,
after that long period of useful service, he was succeeded
by Chief Justice Taney and his associates, and at that time
the trend toward national power and authority of the party,
from which Chief Justice Taney was selected, led him right
along the same path that Marshall had marked out, until
we came to the war. And then with the war amendments,
the same tendency to make this government a Nation as distinguished from a Federation, continued to the present day.
Now, it is said that we have centralized too much. There
are jurisdictions which might be asserted under the Constitution that Congress has not asserted, notably in the
jurisdiction of the Federal courts. So, too, in bankruptcy;
so, too, in elections. With respect to the jurisdiction of the
Federal courts, there is a large measure which Congress does
not assert which it might take away from that which the State
courts now exercise. And so, with respect to bankruptcy,




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it might be made much more exclusive of State jurisdiction
in that regard, and with respect to elections, they have gone
back entirely to the States.
There are other matters under the Constitution which I
shall not stop to mention, which show that all the power
conferred upon the National Government has not yet been
exercised; but the reason why it seems as if we were becoming
a more centralized government is not because of a change in
the construction of the Constitution, but a change in the
importance of the power which was always given to the
National Government under that Constitution, to wit: the
interstate commerce clause. When the Constitution was
framed, the state traffic as distinguished from the interstate
traffic was as 25 to 75, and now, instead, the interstate
traffic is to the state traffic as 75 to 25 - a complete reversal
of the amount of interstate business done as compared with
the state business. And that is the reason why the National
government's power seems to have grown so largely because
its power covers more volume than it ever did before. With
respect to that, I am inclined to think that it will be found
wise after a time to recognize these great organizations,
concentrations of wealth, and plant and capital that do a
country-wide business, going into every State, whose business
is almost wholly interstate, to recognize them as instrumentalities of interstate commerce and to incorporate them in order
that we may get them more directly under the control of the
National Government.
I admit there is ground for dispute, and I have only
recommended this as something that I look forward to in
the future as a means of saving to the public what is valuable;
as there is a great deal that is valuable in those trusts, and
eliminating permanently that which is vicious and contrary to public policy. But you are not Congress, and I
did not come here to convince you on that subject. I only
mention it in passing.
There has been, during the last ten or fifteen years, an
earnest desire on the part of some people to minimize State




552


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


power altogether. They say-I heard the distinguished
Governor of Massachusetts say, the United States can
better regulate child labor than can the States - so what's
the use of talking! Why not put that power into the United
States Government? And so, with reference to every power,
the suggestion is that the Central Government has more capital; being more centralized, its execution of the laws is more
certain and less affected by local conditions, and therefore
it is wise in the interest of effective government to put what
we can in the Central Government. Therefore we invoke the
old "general welfare clause." We have got the money in
the Treasury, and we can spend the money there for anything
we choose, because there is no court to prevent it. We
cannot issue an injunction against the Secretary of the
Treasury dishonoring an appropriation of Congress. And
when it comes to the expenditure of money, the history
of the United States is full of appropriations and expenditures
that can not be explained on any ground except that of
old "General Welfare."  And the way they propose to expend it when there is a particular subject that needs attention
is to organize a bureau, and let that bureau occupy an
advisory relation and experimental relation to the States
in the exercise of that jurisdiction which is undoubtedly
theirs. They have got to a point where, just before I sent
in my message, in the list of bureaus that was asked for was
a bureau on earthquakes. I assume that the argument
was that as earthquakes did not know any State bounds
neither did the exercise of jurisdiction with respect to them
know any State bounds.
Now, the lesson that this teaches is that we have a Constitution by which the Government of the United States can
not accomplish all reform, and that there is a burden and
there is a heavy responsibility, eloquently described by Mr.
Root, upon the States with reference to meeting the demands
of those who call themselves progressive, and who are in
favor of the reforms to uplift the people and to make the
comfort of the individual greater.




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553


In no department of government, in no reform, is this
uniformity of legislation going to be more important than in
the conservation of our resources. The Federal Government
has no power to compel owners of forests to attend to those
forests with a view to the welfare of the community, of the
neighbors who live there, or of those who are affected by
the denudation of the land of the trees. That must be done
through the State government if it is done at all. And so
with respect to many of the streams. Indeed, if one follows
out legal reasoning, it will seem, I think, that there is more
to be done by the States in the conservation of resources
even than by the Federal Government, large an influence as
that Federal Government may have by reason of its ownership of the public domain.
Now there are many other subjects that ought to occupy the
States with reference to uniform legislation. If I had been
a member of the Constitutional Convention, I would have
voted to have included marriage and divorce in the Federal
jurisdiction, but it will never get there now.
The theory upon which they put in bankruptcy was that
where a man was declared a bankrupt it fixed his status, and
that status ought not to vary in one State from the status
in another. But when a man is married, he has established
a status and certainly that status ought not to vary between
the States, but as it is not possible to secure an amendment
to the United States Constitution placing that subject within
Federal cognizance, it certainly calls for uniform legislation
on the part of the States. I state that because I think everybody will agree with me. Then I am not going on to say
what kind of legislation there ought to be, because I am told
that in that discussion as yet even the Civic Federation has
not reached a result.
Then there is another subject upon which there may
well be uniformity of legislation after we, in the Federal
Government, have adopted a proper system, and that is
with respect to judicial procedure. If there is anything in
our whole Government, state and national, that justifies




554        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
an attack upon our present system of living, it is the delays
in our judicial procedure, and the advantage that wealth
gives in the struggle in the courts against those who have
not the means to meet the expense that is now imposed
on them.
If we can do something in the National Government to
introduce the simplicity of the English procedure in equity
and in law, perhaps uniting them, that will be a model
for State legislatures in adopting a uniform system.
I might go on with respect to other subjects; I have said
a good deal more than I intended to, and I have only
so to speak-" shot on the wing"; but if you had to write a
message a week perhaps you would only write when you
have to.




LXVIII


ADDRESS AT THE CONFERENCE OF GOVERNORS IN THE EAST ROOM OF
THE WHITE HOUSE
(JANUARY 18, 1910)
My dear Fellow Executives and Fellow Sufferers:
AM delighted to greet you in the White House. I
should have been glad to have had you here during all
your sessions so that you might have made the White House
your headquarters, but in discussing this matter with the
committee it occurred to them, and it occurred to me, that
it would possibly be better for you to hold your sessions
in a neutral place, so to speak, where you would feel more
independent, and where doubtless things could be said
and things could be done which perhaps might be a little
embarrassing in doing when you were under the Executive
shadow.
When you were here before, Mr. Roosevelt, I think,
extended to you the hospitality of the White House, and the
meetings were held here, but those meetings were so fully
his, in the sense of being called by him, that it seemed entirely
appropriate; whereas now, I hope this is a movement among
the Governors to have some sort of a permanent arrangement
that shall bring them here without suggestion from any one
but the Governors themselves.
For my own comfort, it would have been better if
the Civic Federation and the Governors had united in the
initial meeting, for I made a speech yesterday and said all
I could think of saying on the general subject that called
you here.
You are here for the purpose of considering those subjects




556        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
for laws in respect to which the legislation of the States ought
to be uniform; and to take that course of making up for what
some people point out as defects of the Federal Constitution,
in that it does not give jurisdiction to the Federal Government with respect to certain purposes which can only be
accomplished by joint action of the States.
I regard this movement as of the utmost importance. The
Federal Constitution has stood the test of more than one
hundred years in supplying the powers that have been needed
to make the Central Government as strong as it ought to be,
and with this movement toward uniform legislation and
agreement between the States I do not see why the Constitution may not serve our purpose always. I speak to
you as gentlemen who can influence legislation in the States,
and who are in a sense responsible for it. That brings up a
thought which I am sure you have had in common with me.
I have no doubt each of you receives letters indicating that
the writer thinks that you, with your good right hand, pass
laws, and that without any further ceremony; and that you
are entirely responsible for all the legislation that is enacted
by the State legislatures. The States differ somewhat, but
generally the Executive has the veto power and has that sort
of relation to the legislature that the Chief Executive of the
United States has toward Congress. I have found- perhaps you have found- that when people want legislation
they felt that the Executive did not exercise as much control
over the legislation as he ought to, and that when they did not
want legislation he exercised altogether too much power.
I have thought that the English   system  presents in
certain respects a better system than ours in view of
inevitable responsibility of the Executive for legislation,
because there the Executive is not only the executive
but also has control over the legislative action of the
Government, leads the legislature, and indeed goes out
when as the party head he is not able to control the
majority of the legislature.
It seems to me, without ever hoping or suggesting that




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there can be any change in our system- for its rigidity
has advantages - that still that system would present a good
many opportunities that you and I would like to seize upon
and argue out questions to the legislature, and not only to
argue out questions but to save them time by giving
them considerable information on subjects in regard to
which they are not advised. It shortens, I am sure, the
course of legislation -but we haven't that system, we
haven't it in any State, and we are not going to have it,
so there is no need of mourning over the fact that we can
not have it.
I am only speaking to you as executives who have felt the
injustice of that sort of criticism that comes from the lack
of that feature of the English system I have pointed out.
You are the titular head of the party perhaps of your State,
and you are made responsible for everything that is done
by the party, although you may not be able by any declared
legal way to control it, and therefore you have to use those
influences, personal and otherwise, that are legitimate, to
bring about the legislation for which the party of which you
are to be the head has to be responsible. It is because you
do have such great influence in molding legislation, that your
meeting to secure uniformity of laws is so important and
significant.
I should like to sit down and talk over with each one of
you some of your experiences and to know how you bring
about a successful arrangement of things. I should like to
talk with my friend from Ohio as to how he gets along
with a Republican legislature. I could tell him that there
are troubles even when you have a Congress that is nominally
of your own party.
Gentlemen, I am delighted to welcome you here -
delighted to hope and feel that this is the beginning of conferences which are certain to lead in the end to an adjustment
of State legislation that shall make our country capable
of doing so much more team work in the public good than
we ever have before thought possible.




558       LPRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you all to-night in
the White House and of meeting you to-morrow night again.
The trip down the Mississippi River, and my trip through
the country, gave me the opportunity to meet most of the
governors of the States, and it is a great pleasure, I assure
you, to renew the acquaintance thus so pleasantly begun.




LXIX


REMARKS AT THE BANQUET OF THE WASHINGTON CORRAL OF THE MILITARY ORDER
OF THE    CARABAOS, NEW      WILLARD
HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C.
(JANUARY 22, 1910)
Mr. Carabao Paramount and other Carabaos, and those
of us who are permitted to enjoy your hospitality:
AM sorry to say that this is the first time I have had the
privilege of attending a Carabao dinner. I am also
sorry to say, if I understand the situation, that I have not been
pressed to come to other dinners until this one because of the
reforms that you have initiated so as to be certain that now
a dinner shall be "dull and respectable." I don't know
whether it was with that in his mind that your presiding
officer called on "my Brother Tillman" to open the ball;
but after Brother Tillman got to work, the presiding officer
looked to me like that farmer who yoked himself with a
heifer and, when they started down the hill, overcome with
the error he had made, said, "Here we come, damn our fool
souls, won't somebody stop us?" I don't know whether
he struck the bottom yet or not, but in the interest of humanity
I am going to do the best I can to head off that team.
Now my friend, the distinguished Senator from South
Carolina, I have known well, have been glad to know, have
been honored by his friendship, and I want to assure you
that he is a good deal better fellow than you sometimes
think from what he says. He is not always one who sits and
talks, thinking about the race question and miscegenation
and amalgamation and that sort of thing. He does have
other thoughts, but when he gets on his feet and starts on
559




560        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
that slippery subject, it requires a good deal of force or a
good deal of poise to keep him from going farther than he
really wanted to go himself.
Now he tells my friend from Cuba that we are going to
annex Cuba. Well, I don't think so. He thinks that because
Cuba has a race question, we have got to mix their race
question with our race question and have a sort of result
with sulphur rising from it that is going to consume the world.
I don't believe that. I don't believe the Senator does,
except as these words roll from his lips, and they have rolled
from his lips now since '99 on the Senate floor, and from the
stump, and have never accomplished anything in the election,
and yet he can not get over it.
The Philippine question or the Philippines as a subject
present themselves to me in two different lights - in three
perhaps: One in the picturesqueness of the reminiscences
that come to you as you look back to the three or four years
of life that you spent in that beautiful country under conditions sometimes of privation, sometimes of discomfort;
but the discomfort, the privations disappear in your memory;
and when the beauties and the strangeness of those islands
and the life in them come back to you, and you do feel -
I feel it myself - I know it exists, that "Call of the East"
that Kipling speaks of in his poem, that makes you yearn
to be back again on that beautiful Luneta in Manila, and
see the sun go down over the mountains of Marivailes-a picture matchless in all its coloring rises in your memory to make
you thank God that you have had the opportunity to be there.
Now in the history of our stay in the Philippines there
were times when the army was to the front, when nothing
but war was there; when the Filipino fighting as best he
could and taking the instruments that the Lord had given
him, among which were stealth and easy change from being
a friend to an enemy and back again - there arose between
the army and those little people a feeling of enmity, a feeling
of contempt on the part of the American soldier for soldiers
who would resort to the ruses that they resorted to, and




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which led to the killing of our brave men. It was inevitable
that for a time a bitterness should exist and a contempt
arise that should find its expression in some of these poems
to which my friend the Senator has referred. Then you
came, after the war disappeared, into contact with that
people, and found them after all a simple people, a courteous
people, a people under the influence of the tropical sun,
not too energetic, but a people who, childlike in their dependence, if they gave it to you, could win your affections as few
people could - at least that is the way I felt. I know they
had a verse out there, "He may be a brother of William
H. Taft, but he ain't no friend of mine"; but that was because
I occupied a different relation to him from that which
the army occupied toward him.
Then there comes what the army did there. My friend,
the Senator, thinks it was nothing to be proud of. That
is because my friend the Senator does not know what the
army did, and what the navy did in a less way. It was upon
the army that there fell the burden of eliminating an insurrection that extended the islands' full length, and they had
to be divided up into five hundred different posts and they
had to put small detachments of the army under command
of lieutenants and second lieutenants, and even sergeants, and
trust to the ability of the non-commissioned officer and the
young commissioned officers to carry on independent campaigns in the neighborhood of the post to which they were
assigned in stamping out this insurrection. No army, and
I assert it without any fear of contradiction, could have
offered that knowledge, that independence of judgment,
that self-reliance on the part of those young officers that
enabled it as a whole ultimately and quietly and softly - and
- I had almost said - peaceably to bring about a condition
of pacification in the islands and to stamp out an insurrection
so difficult to overcome. And in those campaigns there was
an opportunity for individual bravery and courage that is
not exceeded by any opportunity in the Civil War or any
other war that this country was engaged in.




562        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
And this Signal Corps which was referred to to-night in
a jocular way, may point to a record of loss in death and
wounds in those islands that I think has been equaled by
no other signal corps, and perhaps by no other corps in any
other army.
Now the Senator says that he has been allowed to think,
but the officers of the army have not been. Well, I confess
that under the circumstances, with the result of the fight,
I think the army is ahead of the Senator. What we went
to the Philippines to do was to defeat the fleet of an enemy
in a war that was begun as no other war in the history of
the world - no other foreign war - from pure altruism; and
we got into the islands and we had them on our hands before
we knew what the consequences were to be. And when they
came into our hands there seemed to us -at least to those of
us who were responsible - and my friend the Senator has
had the advantage for the last fifteen years - I hope he may
continue to have it for fifteen years - of not being at all
responsible for the Government - the obligation of doing
the right thing. The question was, "What are we going
to do?" Are we going to let those islands go into chaos;
are we going to turn them back to Spain with the charges
against the domination of Spain that were made? Or are
we to take them ourselves and develop them as best we
may under our institutions? Now my friend the Senator
is troubled about taxation without representation, and about
the Declaration of Independence. I am not going into those
arguments and I am not going to po:int out to my friend
the Senator some of the most glaring: instances that I could
point out in his view of the Constitution in South Carolina
and his view of the Philippines. What I do say is, and I
say it with a knowledge of McKinley, and I know the Senator
and I share in the respect for President McKinley's memory,
that President McKinley went into those islands with great
reluctance and assumed the burdens which were most heavy
to him of introducing a government there which should be
the best for the islands. Now, of course it is a matter of




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dispute how good a government we have there. Having
taken part in its formation, perhaps it is improper - or at
least I speak as a prejudiced witness - but I believe that the
ten years of government in the Philippines has made that
people a far happier people than they would have been under
any other conditions that might have been presented by
our taking a different course. They enjoy to-day a free
trade tariff on the one hand and the right to sell in a protected market on the other. That was long coming, but
we have ultimately secured it. We have saved the rice of
our friend the Senator from South Carolina. We were asked
to stave off a little bit of the injury to the tobacco and the
sugar of other parts of the country. They are now beginning,
as I believe, an industrial progress there that means an elevation of those people intellectually and spiritually in such a
way that we can continue to extend to them, from time to
time, additional self-government. We now have put them
under one chamber which is elected popularly, sharing the
government with a commission upon which there are a
number of Filipinos.
Now the cost has been considerable. Five hundred million dollars has been mentioned. My impression is that the
cost is not so much, and that will have to include what is
the cost of a war, and a war always costs most heavily. But
the actual cost depends upon how you count the army,
whether you would count it that we would have an army
of the present size if we did not have the Philippines, or
would not. Personally, I should have an army of this size,
whether we have the Philippines or not, and therefore I
don't think the cost goes beyond six or seven million dollars a
year. Counting it the other way it is very considerably more.
Now a third question which arises is the effect of the
Spanish War and our going to the Philippines upon the
country at large, upon our standing before the nations of
the world, and upon our opportunities for usefulness as a
prosperous, powerful country. And I think in that record
perhaps the Spanish War and what followed are more impor



564        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
tant than in any other aspect. I know it is easy to make fun
of a proposition that we as a nation have an obligation because
of our power and wealth to assist other nations that may
be thrown upon us in such a way as to call for our aid and
support; but I do believe in the brotherhood of nations, and
I do believe that nations are like members of a community
and a neighborhood where the wealthy and the powerful
and the more fortunate owe it to the weaker and the less
fortunate to assist them when circumstances point in that
direction.
As a matter of fact the result of the Philippine War, our
ownership of the Philippines, our ownership of Porto Rico,
our friendship for and close relation to Cuba, our assertion of
an interest in South America and an interest in the Isthmus
bringing us into close relations with Central America, and
our assertion of a right to the "open door" in China, have
put us in a position forefront among the nations of the world;
and I believe we have no right to neglect the opportunity
to take such a position or the opportunity to use that position
for the progress of civilization in the world. Now the result
of that war, short as it was, involving as little blood as it
did, was remarkable. The expansion of the United States
as a great world power dates from that time. We are not
going about seeking to aggrandize ourselves, seeking for
territory in China or anywhere else.
We are building the Panama Canal now for the benefit
of the world, and at the same time to aid us in our commerce
and to strengthen and double the force of our Navy. The
broadening of our people with regard to those problems, the
liberalizing of the army, or making the army a body - and
especially the officers - a body of well-read gentlemen, men
of affairs- all date from that time.
Now I deprecate the tone of my friend Senator Tillman's
statement that we are ashamed of all this. Well, I am not
ashamed of it, because if it had not come that way I should
not have been in the White House, I know, and if he expects
me to shed tears over that he is mistaken. I think I know




AND STATE PAPERS


565


our army and navy well enough to know that while they sing
these songs that at times hcid up to ridicule our "little brown
brothers" in the Philippines, they look back to that service
with pride, and with the belief that they accomplished what
no other army could have accomplished in the same time and
under the same circumstances, with as little blood and as
little oppression. It may be as I say that I am a prejudiced
witness. I am. Nevertheless a witness may be prejudiced
but he may have such an advantage in opportunities for
observation which are denied to those who are only free from
prejudice, as to make his evidence better than the judge who
sits on the case. I am sorry I did not have the opportunity
of welcoming to the Philippine Islands my Brother Tillman.
There were some of his Democratic brethren whom I entertained there with great pleasure and into their sphere of
vision I think we introduced some things that changed their
aspect, changed their views I should say, of the situation
there. They deplored what we had to do, but they thought
we were doing it well. The truth is, while my friend the
Senator comes from South Carolina and the South, I think
I know something of the attitude of his brethren in the South
with reference to the Phlippine Islands and this general
policy of expansion, and I think we could have a vote on that
alone without introducing the race question and all that sort
of thing - the wisdom of our taking the Philippines as we
have taken them, and developing them as we are developing
them, teaching them English and extending to them, as they
show themselves fit, self-government. Then the time may
come, and I hope it may come soon, when they shall be
ready to take over a government like that of Australia or
Canada, and I say so not because we might not be willing
to part with them, but because they will find that under the
present arrangement, under the tariff as arranged there and
the tariff as arranged here, it is greatly to their advantage to
retain some sort of bond, no matter how light, which will
justify their continuing to enjoy the benefit of our markets
with a free trade tariff toward the Orient.




566        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
And now, my friends, I have talked a good deal longer
than I intended to; but my friend the Senator whispered to
me that he would not have said a word if he had not desired
to start me up, so I had to gratify his desire and show him
that he was successful. I thank you my friends for giving
me this opportunity to bring back the reminiscences of the
Philippines. There were times in the Philippines when the
nervous strain upon those who were responsible was tremendous and the more tremendous because we were so far removed, it seemed, from Washington and the people of the
United States. There were times, and there were many, when
the beauties of life in that country, when the associations that
we made there, when the feeling that we did have a people
who were grateful at times and who listened to us as children,
depending on us and having confidence in us-gave us a
pleasure in doing the good which we thought we were doing,
a pleasure that knows no measure, for there is nothing in life
equal to the consciousness of having attempted to do good
for a people and having in a measure succeeded.
There is one other thought that I wanted to give you, and
that was in relation to the carabao. He too received, I must
say, unmerited condemnation from my friend the Senator, not
for lack of sympathy with the dumb beast, but again for lack
of opportunity for observation. There is no animal that is the
friend of the Filipino like the carabao. He moves slowly, he
moves deliberately, but he moves always in the right direction,
and he gets there after a time without respect to obstacles.
It is unwise in dealing with the Filipino or in dealing with
anything in the tropics to suppose that you are going to
make headway suddenly. The carabao represents the right
policy in working out the problems in the East, and I congratulate you on having selected that animal as an indication
that you know how to accomplish things in the Philippines.
Ill as I was in 1902, for three or four months, and confined
to my bed in the First Reserve Hospital in the Philippines,
Mrs. Moses sent me a full set of Kipling's volumes, and in
the head note to one of the chapters entitled "Naulahka"




AND   STATE PAPERS                  567
I found a verse that gave me a great deal of consolation, and
if I can remember it I want to recite it as a justification for
your selection of this animal as typical of your policy and
our policy and our hopes and yours in the Philippines:
Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan
brown;
For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the
Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of
the late deceased;
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here who tried to hustle the
East."




LXX


ADDRESS AT      THE   LINCOLN     BIRTHDAY     BANQUET OF THE REPUBLICAN CLUB OF
THE CITY OF NEW YORK
(FEBRUARY 12, 1910)
Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Republican Club, and
Fellow-Guests:
T  HE birthday of the man whose memory we celebrate
to-night is an appropriate occasion for renewing our
expressions of respect and affection for the Republican party,
and our pledges to keep the part which it plays in the history
of this country as high and as useful as it was during the
administration of Abraham Lincoln. The trials which he
had to undergo as President, the political storms which the
party had to weather during the Civil War, the divisions in
the party itself between the radical anti-slavery element and
those who were most conservative in observing the constitutional limitations, are most interesting reading, and
serve to dwarf and minimize the trials through which the
Republican party is now passing, and restore a sense of
proportion to those who allow themselves to be daunted
and discouraged, in the face of a loss of popular confidence
thought to be indicated by the tone of the press.
In what respect has the Republican party failed in its
conduct of the Government and the enactment of laws,
to perform its duty? It was returned to power a year ago
last November by a very large majority, after a campaign
in which it made certain promises in its platform, and those
promises it has either substantially complied with or it
is about to perform within the present session of Congress.
Let us take up these promises in order:
568




PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


569


In the Republican platform of last year, upon which the
campaign was made, appears the following plank in regard
to the tariff:
"The Republican party declares unequivocally for the
revision of the tariff by a special session of Congress immediately following the inauguration of the next President, and
commends the steps already taken to this end in the work
assigned to the appropriate committees of Congress which
are now investigating the operation and effect of existing
schedules. In all tariff legislation the true principle of
protection is best maintained by the imposition of such
duties as will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable
profit to American industries. We favor the establishment of maximum and minimum rates to be administered
by the President under limitations fixed in the law, the maximum to be available to meet discriminations by foreign
countries against American goods entering their markets,
and the minimum to represent the normal measure of protection at home, the aim and purpose of the Republican
policy being not only to preserve, without excessive duties,
that security against foreign competition to which American
manufacturers, farmers, and producers are entitled, but
also to maintain the high standard of living of the wage
earners of this country, who are the most direct beneficiaries
of the protective system. Between the United States and
the Philippines, we believe in a free interchange of products
with such limitations as to sugar and tobacco as will afford
adequate protection to domestic interests."
We did revise the tariff. It is impossible to revise the
tariff without awakening the active participation in the
formation of the schedules of those producers whose business will be affected by a change. This is the inherent difficulty in the adoption or revision of a tariff by our representative system.




570        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
Nothing was expressly said in the platform that this revision
was to be a downward revision. The implication that it
was to be generally downward, however, was fairly given
by the fact that those who uphold a protective tariff system
defend it by the claim that after an industry has been established by shutting out foreign competition, the domestic
competition will lead to the reduction in price so as to make
the original high tariff unnecessary.
In the new tariff there were 654 decreases, 220 increases,
and 1,150 items of the dutiable list unchanged, but this did
not represent the fair proportion in most of the reductions
and the increases, because the duties were decreased on
those articles which had a consumption value of nearly
$5,000,000,000, while they were increased on those articles
which had a consumption value of less than $1,000,000,000.
Of the increases, the consumption value of those affected
which are of luxuries, to wit, silks, wines, liquors, perfumeries, pomades, and like articles, amounted to nearly
$600,000,000; while the increases on articles not of luxury
affected but about $300,000,000, as against decreases
on about $5,000,000,000 of consumption. I repeat,
therefore, that this was a downward revision. It was
not downward in reference to silks or liquors or highpriced cottons in the nature of luxuries. It was downward
in respect to nearly all other articles except woolens, which
were not affected at all. Certainly it was not promised
that the rates on luxuries should be reduced. The revenues
were falling off, there was a deficit promised, and it was
essential that the revenues should be increased. It was no
violation of the promise to increase the revenues by increasing
the tax on luxuries, provided there was downward revision
on all other articles. The one substantial defect in compliance with the promise of the platform was the failure to
reduce woolens. Does that defect so color the action
of the Republican party as to make it a breach of faith
leading to its condemnation? I do not think so. Parties
are like met. Revisions are like the work of men - they are




AND STATE PAPERS


571


not perfect. The change which this tariff effected was a
marked change downward in the rate of the duties, and it
was a recognition by the party that the time had come when
instead of increasing duties they must be decreased,
when the party recognized in its platform, and in much
of what it did, that the proper measure of protection was
the difference in cost in the production of articles here and
abroad, including a fair profit to the manufacturer. There
was a dispute as to what that difference is, and whether
it was recognized in the change of all the duties downward. Particularly was this the case on the materials that
enter into the manufacture of paper and paper itself. The
reduction on print paper was from $6 to $3.75, or about 37
per cent.
There was a real difference of opinion on the question of
fact whether the new duty correctly measured the difference
in the cost of production of print paper abroad and print
paper here. It affected the counting-rooms of the newspapers
of the country and invited the attention of the newspaper
proprietors who had associated themselves together like other
interests for the purpose of securing a reduction of the tariff.
The failure to make a larger reduction showed itself clearly
in the editorial columns of a great number of the newspapers,
whatever their party predilection. The amount of misrepresentation to which the tariff bill in its effect as a downward
revision bill was subjected has never been exceeded in this
country, and it will doubtless take the actual operation of
the tariff bill for several years to show to the country exactly
what the legislation and its effect are. It is perhaps too
early to institute the fairest comparisons between the PayneAldrich Bill and the bill which preceded it, but the PayneAldrich Bill has been in operation now for six months, and
figures are at hand from which we may make a reasonable
inference, first as to whether it is a revision downward, and,
second, as to its capacity for producing revenue; for it
must be borne in mind that the passage of the law was
demanded not only for the purpose of changing rates in




572       PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
their effect upon the industries of the country, but also
for the purpose of increasing the revenues; and the
success of the measure is to be judged by its results in both
these respects.
The Bureau of Statistics is authority for the statement
that during the first six months of the operation of the Payne
law, which has just ended, the average rate of duty paid
on all imports was 21.09 per cent. ad valorem. The average
rate of duty paid on all imports for the same six months for the
four preceding years under the Dingley law was 24.03.
This would show that the reduction in the Payne law is 2.94
per cent. of the value of the goods, or that the reduction below
the previous tariff rates is 12 per cent. showing a downward
revision to this extent. But this is not all. Under the
Payne law 51.6 per cent. of the gross imports for the last six
months have been entered free, while under the four years
preceding for the same six months the free list amounted to
45.46 per cent. of the total importations; so there was not
only a reduction of duty on gross imports of about 12 per cent.
but also an enlargement of about the same percentage of
the free list.
For the production of revenue, the Payne law is even more
an improvement on the Dingley Bill. During the six months
that the Payne tariff was in force, from August 5 to the night
of February 5, the customs receipts amounted to $166,002,856.54. Under the Gorman-Wilson tariff the semi-annual
average was $83,147,625.90. Under the Dingley tariff the
semi-annual average was $130,265,841.84. Under the Wilson
tariff the monthly average was $13,857,937.65. Under
the Dingley tariff the monthly average was $21,710,973.64;
while under the Payne tariff the monthly average
has been $27,667,142.75, or 100 per cent. greater than
the monthly average under the Wilson tariff, and 26 per
cent. greater than the monthly average under the Dingley
tariff.
Of course as the country increases in population, the
customs receipts increase, but even considering the popula



AND STATE PAPERS


aio


tion, the increase in the tariff receipts has been marked.
Under the Wilson tariff the average annual customs receipts
per capita were $2.38; under the Dingley tariff $3.23; while
under the Payne tariff they are $3.71.
For the six months that the Payne tariff has been in force
the total receipts both from customs and internal revenue
have been $323,899,231.91, while the disbursements have
been $332,783,283.08, showing an excess of disbursements
over receipts of about $8,884,051.17, with no collection as
yet from the corporation tax. For the corresponding
period last year the expenditures exceeded the receipts by
over $40,000,000. This showing indicates that under the
present customs law the deficit will be promptly wiped out,
and that to meet our normal expenditures we shall have ample
revenue.
I therefore venture to repeat the remark I have had
occasion to make before, that the present customs law is the
best customs law that has ever been passed, and it is most
significant in this: that it indicates on the part of the Republican party the adoption of a policy to change from an increase
in duties to a reduction of them, and to effect an increase
of revenues at the same time.
The act has furnished to the Executive the power to apply
the maximum and minimum clause in order to prevent
undue discrimination on the part of foreign countries, and
this is securing additional concessions in respect to impositions
on our foreign trade.
The act has done justice to the Philippine Islands by
giving them free trade with the United States.
More than all this, the new tariff act has provided for the
appointment of a tariff board to secure impartial evidence
upon which, when a revision of the tariff seems wise, we shall
have at hand the data from which can be determined with
some degree of accuracy the difference between the cost of
producing articles abroad and the cost of producing them
in this country.
The great difficulty in the hearing and discussion of the




574        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
present tariff bill was the absence of satisfactory and credible
evidence on either side of the issues as to low or high tariffs.
The importer on the one hand and the manufacturer
on the other were present to give their fallible judgments
affected by their own pecuniary interests as to the facts
under investigation.  Men who were struggling to find
the truth were greatly perplexed by the conflicting testimony.
The tariff bill authorizes the President to expend $75,000 in
employing persons to assist him in the administration of the
maximum and minimum clause and to assist him and other
officers of the Government in the administration of the
tariff law. I have construed this to mean that I may use the
board appointed under this power not only to look into the
foreign tariffs, but also to examine the question with respect
to each item in our tariff bill, what the cost of production
of the merchandise taxed is, and what its cost is abroad.
This is not an easy task for impartial experts, and it requires
a large force. I expect to apply to Congress this year for
the sum of $250,000 to organize a force through which this
investigation may go on, the results to be recorded for the
use of the Executive and Congress when they desire to
avail themselves of the record. In this way any subsequent
revision may be carried on with the aid of data secured
officially and without regard to its argumentative effect
upon the question of raising or lowering duties. Taken
as a whole, therefore, I do not hesitate to repeat that the
Republican party has substantially complied with its promise
in respect to the tariff, and that it has set itself strongly in
the right direction toward lower tariffs and furnished the
means by which such lower tariffs can be properly and
safely fixed.
An investigation by the tariff board of the sort proposed
will certainly take a full two years or longer. Meantime
the operation of the present tariff promises to be consistent
with the prosperity of the country and with the furnishing
of sufficient funds with which to meet the very heavy but




AND STATE PAPERS


575


necessary expenditures of carrying on our great Government.
The Republican national platform contained the following:
"We favor the establishment of a postal savings bank
system for the convenience of the people and the encouragement of thrift."
A bill has been introduced to establish a postal savings
bank. The great difficulty in the bill seems to have been
to secure a proper provision for the management and investment of the money deposited. The great advantage of a
postal savings bank is the encouragement to thrift of those
whose fears of the solvency of any depository except a government depository tempts them away from saving. A government promise to repay seems to be specially effective in
leading people to save and deposit their savings. The
machinery of the Post-Office, with its 60,000 post-offices
and 40,000 money-order offices, offers an economical and
far-reaching machine for the reception in places remote
from banks, and among people who fear banks, of that which
but for the opportunity, they would not save, but spend. The
low interest offered to it, that of 2 per cent., prevents such
postal savings banks from interfering with regular savings
banks whose rate of interest always is in excess of 2 per
cent.
In the present stage of the Senate bill there have been
inserted amendments drawn apparently for the purpose of
having money deposited as savings in government postoffices distributed through the locality where deposited in
the banks, state and national, and so deposited as to make
it impossible for the trustees of the fund appointed under
the law to withdraw the money for investment in any other
form. I regard such an amendment as likely to defeat the
law. First, because it takes away a feature which ought to
be present in the law to assure its constitutionality. If the
law provided that the trustees to be appointed under the




576


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


law with the funds thus deposited could meet the financial
exigencies of the Government by purchase or redemption
of the government 2 per cent. and other bonds the measure
would certainly be within the Federal power, because the
postal banks would then clearly be an instrument of the
National Government in borrowing money. We have
now about $700,000,000 of 2 per cent. bonds with respect to
which we owe a duty to the owners to see that those bonds
may be taken care of without reduction below the par value
thereof, because they were forced upon national banks at
this low rate in order that the banks might have a basis of
circulation.
This implied obligation of the Government, the postal
savings bank funds would easily enable it to meet. Secondly,
if the funds are to be arbitrarily deposited in all banks, state
and national, without national supervision over the state
banks, and a panic were to come, it is difficult to see how
the Government could meet its obligations to its postal savings bank depositors, because with every bank suspending
payment, the funds of the postal savings banks would be
beyond the control of the Government, and we should have
a financial disaster greater than any panic we have heretofore
met. A provision that when the money is not needed to
invest in government bonds or to redeem the same it may
be deposited in national banks, in the neighborhood of
the place of deposit, will avoid the great danger of a panic
and will strengthen a banking system which is an arm of the
Federal Government. I sincerely hope that before the
measure is hammered into its final shape it may take
on these characteristics which shall give it a constitutional
validity and sound financial strength and usefulness. Those
who insist upon the elimination of these two necessary characteristic features of the bill will put the party in the position
where it can not hope to escape the charge that it is not in
good faith seeking the passage of a postal savings bank act,
and is not seeking, therefore, to comply with the promise of
the Republican platform in that regard.




AND STATE PAPERS


577


On the subject of railroads the Republican platform said:
"We approve the enactment of the Railroad Rate Law and
the vigorous enforcement by the present administration of
the statutes against rebates and discriminations as a result
of which the advantages formerly possessed by the large
shipper over the small shipper have substantially disappeared;
and in this connection we commend the appropriation by the
present Congress to enable the Interstate Commerce Commission to thoroughly investigate and give publicity to the
accounts of interstate railways. We believe, however,
that the Interstate Commerce Law should be further amended
so as to give railroads the right to make and publish
traffic agreements subject to the approval of the commission,
but maintaining always the principle of competition between
naturally competing lines and avoiding the common control
of such lines by any means whatsoever. We favor such
national legislation and supervision as will prevent the future
overissue of stocks and bonds by interstate carriers."
A bill to carry out these declarations has been introduced
in both the House and the Senate, and is now being considered before the appropriate committees of those two
bodies, and there is every hope that the bills thus introduced
in substantially the same shape as introduced will pass and
be enacted into law. Indeed this railroad measure goes
further than the promise of the platform, for while it subjects
the issue of stock and bonds to the restrictive supervision of
the commission and prevents future watering of securities and
forbids the acquisition by a railroad company of stock in
a competing line, it also puts very much more power into the
hands of the commission for the regulation of rates, and it
facilitates in every way the ease of supervision by the commission of the railroads to secure acompliance by the railroads
with the rights of the public and of the shipper. The bill
was prepared by the Attorney-General, after a full conference
with the Interstate Commerce Commission, with the repre



578


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


sentatives of the shippers and with the representatives of
the railroads, and while it was not the result of an agreement
between all the parties in interest, it was drafted with a
view  to meeting all the fair objections and suggestions
made by every one of them.
The platform further provided:
"The Republican party will uphold at all times the authority
and integrity of the courts, State and Federal, and will ever
insist that their powers to enforce their process and to
protect life, liberty, and property shall be preserved inviolate.
We believe, however, that the rules of procedure in the
Federal courts with respect to the issuance of the writ of
injunction should be more accurately defined by statute
and that no injunction or temporary restraining order
should be issued without notice, except where irreparable
injury would result from delay, in which case a speedy hearing
thereafter should be granted."
A bill to carry out exactly this promise has been introduced into both the Senate and House and will doubtless
come up for consideration and passage. The bill does
not go as far as Mr. Gompers and the Federation of Labor
demand, but it goes as far as the Republican convention
was willing to let it go, and it is so drawn as to make an abuse
of the issuance of injunction without notice very improbable.
It requires that no injunction shall be issued without full
notice and hearing, unless to prevent irreparable injury,
and that in such case the court shall make a finding from
the evidence adduced, pointing out what the injury anticipated is and why irreparable, and why there is not time to
give notice; and after the injunction shall be issued without notice, it is provided that such injunction shall lose its
force at the expiration of five days, unless a hearing
is had.
The platform also promised statehood to Arizona and
New Mexico, and the bill providing such statehood has




AND STATE PAPERS


579


passed the House and has been favorably considered
by the committee of the Senate, so that there seems to be no
reasonable doubt that this promise will be fully kept.
The Republicans in their platform spoke further, as
follows:
"We indorse the movement inaugurated by the Administration for the conservation of natural resources; we approve
all measures to prevent the waste of timber; we commend
the work now going on for the reclamation of arid lands,
and reaffirm the Republican policy of the free distribution
of the available areas of the public domain to the landless
settler. No obligation of the future is more insistent and
none will result in greater blessings to posterity. In line
with this splendid undertaking is the further duty, equally
imperative, to enter upon a systematic improvement
upon a large and comprehensive plan, just to all portions
of the country, of the waterways, harbors, and Great
Lakes, whose natural adaptability to the increasing
traffic of the land is one of the greatest gifts of a benign
Providence."
In accordance with this plank, measures for the conservation of the public domain, for the reclassification of
lands according to their greatest utility, and the vesting
of power in the Executive to dispose of coal, phosphate, oil,
and mineral lands, and of water-power sites in such a
way as to prevent their monopoly, and union of ownership
in one syndicate, or combination, have been already
introduced, and will doubtless in a form approved by
Congress be made into law. The subject has attracted the
widest interest, and its importance is becoming more and
more impressed upon the American people.
The river and harbor bill, which has just been reported
by the River and Harbor Committee of the House, has been
framed with a view to complying with the plank of the
platform I have just above quoted. It has taken the plan




580        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
for the improvement of the Ohio from Pittsburg to Cairo
as a project to be carried out in a certain number of years;
and it has treated similar projects for the improvement
of the Missouri from Kansas City to St. Louis, for the
improvement of the Mississippi from St. Paul to St. Louis,
and of the same river from St. Louis to Cairo; and by continuing contracts and regular appropriations, these projects
will go on until they are completed. This is a change from
the previous plans, and is the result of an extended popular
agitation in favor of such a system.
Following the panic of 1907, the governmental revenues
fell off and the expenditures continued as before, leaving a
deficit for the years 1907, 1908, and 1909. There was, however, no deficit in the whole administration of Mr. Roosevelt
when the expenses are compared with the revenues. Indeed
it will be found that under the operation of the Dingley Bill,
which covers most of his administration and the first six
months of the present administration, the surplus on the
whole was about $250,000,000. At the beginning of this
Administration, however it was perfectly evident that with
expenses increasing and revenues decreasing, there would
be a continuous deficit, and this the Republican party, with
its majority in Congress and the responsibility placed upon
it, has proposed to meet by reducing expenditures and increasing revenues.
I have already shown what the increase in revenues has
been. The present administration in its estimates for
the year ending June 30, 1911, cut them some forty odd
million dollars below the actual appropriations of the year
before, and now it is proposed to appoint a joint commission,
consisting of Senators, Representatives, and members
appointed by the Executive, who shall examine the organization of the various departments and bureaus, and by the
elimination of duplication, the consolidation of bureaus, and
the increase in efficiency of the individual civil servant
shall decrease the regular permanent cost of governmental
operation.




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581


With respect to trusts the Republican party spoke as
follows in its platform:
"The Republican party passed the Sherman Anti-trust Law
over Democratic opposition and enforced it after Democratic
dereliction. It has been a wholesome instrument for good
in the hands of a wise and fearless administration. But
experience has shown that its effectiveness can be strengthened and its real objects better attained by such amendments
as will give to the Federal Government greater supervision
and control over and secure greater publicity in the management of that class of corporations engaged in interstate commerce having power and opportunity to effect monopolies."
Since this plank was adopted prosecutions of the Tobacco
trust and the Standard Oil trust, begun in the last administration, have gone on and have resulted in decrees in the Court
of Appeals of the Second and Eighth circuits, which are now
pending on appeal in the Supreme Court. The decrees in
each case tear apart the congeries of subordinate corporations which, united by holding companies, make up the trust
in each case and enjoin individuals from a further maintenanfce of the illegal combination of such corporations to carry
on the business for which it was organized.
It has been said that the Republican party made a
promise so to amend the law as to ameliorate and soften the
application of the trust law in its interdiction upon business
as conducted by the greatest corporations, but I find nothing
in the platform to justify such a construction. The principle
of the anti-trust law is that those engaged in modern business,
especially of manufacture and transportation, shall pursue
the policy with respect to their competitors of "Live and
let live," and that they shall not use the bigness of their concerns to frighten exclusive patronage from customers and
eliminate smaller concerns from competition and thus control
output and fix prices.
The Attorney-General has prepared a bill which, he




582


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


thinks, and I think, will offer to those who wish to pursue
a lawful method of business, the means of easily doing so.
A lawful interstate business under the protection of a Federal
charter which, while it will subject the business of the concern
to the closest scrutiny of government officers, will save the
business from harassment by State authorities and will
give it that protection which a peaceful pursuit of its business
as a Federal corporation will necessarily secure it. This
measure has not met the approval of those who fear too
great concentration of power in the Federal Government,
of those who deny the right of the Federal Government
in such cases to grant incorporation. I believe the act to
be constitutional, and I believe that if enforced it would
furnish a solution of our present difficulties; but as it was not
specifically declared for in the Republican platform, I
do not feel justified in asking the adoption of such an act
as a party matter. I have brought it forward, however,
as a suggestion for meeting the difficulties which are likely
to be presented in the prosecution of suspected illegal
trusts as a means by which they can put their houses in
order and take their places among those engaged in legitimate
business.
If the other measures to which I have referred are enacted
into law, and the pledges of the Republican party performed,
there would seem to be no good reason why the party should
not receive renewed approval by the electors of the country
in the coming congressional campaign. But there are signs
which many construe as an indication that the Republican
majority in the present Congress will change to a Democratic
majority in the next. This is based chiefly on the dissensions in
the Republican party, and upon the very severe attacks, made
by a great many of the newspapers having Republican tendencies, upon the party and its leaders in Congress and in the
nation. I am glad to say that so far as the legislation which
I have indicated above is concerned, there seems to be a
clear party majority in both Houses in favor of its passage
and the consequent redemption of the party pledges. There




AND STATE PAPERS


583


is, however, a very decided difference as to the proper rules
to prevail in the House and as to the personnel of the leadership.
It would seem as if these questions were questions that
might well be solved within the party lines, but they have been
so acute as to produce what has been called an insurrection
and to awaken the country over a controversy between the
insurgents and the regulars, so-called. I am hopeful that
as we approach the lines of battle for the next year, the settlement of these internal questions can be effected without
such a breach of the party as to prevent our presenting an
unbroken front to the enemy.
We among the Republicans may be discouraged when
we consider our own dissensions, but when we look to the
possibility of any united action on the part of the Democrats
for any policy or any line of policies we must take courage.
It was General Grant who said that when he first went
into battle he had a great deal of fear, but he overcame that
feeling by maintaining in his mind the constant thought
how much more afraid his opponent was. And so we who
find ourselves at times given over to the thought that Republican control is at an end should not forget to consider not
only our own factional strife but also that of our ancient
enemy. If the Democratic party were a solid, cohesive
opposition, guided by one principle and following the same
economic views as a whole, the situation would be far more
discouraging than it is. The Republican party has been
the party responsible for the Government for the last seventeen years. It has discharged those responsibilities with
wonderful success.  The problems growing out of the
Spanish war and those which have come from the rapid
accumulation of wealth, and the greed for power of its accumulators, it has fallen to the party to meet, and while they
have not yet all had a perfect solution, the record is one of
which we have no reason to be ashamed.
Mr. Roosevelt aroused the country and the people to the.
danger we were in of having all our politics and all our places




584        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
of governmental authority controlled in corporate interests
and to serve the greed of selfish but powerful men. During
his two terms of office, by what almost may be compared
to a religious crusade, he aroused the people to the point of
protecting themselves and the public interest against the
aggressions of corporate greed, and left public opinion in an
apt condition to bring about the reforms needed to clinch
his policies and to make them permanent in the form of
enacted law.
But as an inevitable aftermath of such agitation, we find
a condition of hysteria on the part of certain individuals,
and on the part of others a condition of hypocrisy manifesting
itself in the blind denunciation of all wealth and in the
impeachment of the motives of men of the highest character,
and by demagogic appeals to the imagination of a people
greatly aroused upon the subject of purity and honesty in
the administration of government. The tendency is to
resent attachment to party or party organization, and to an
assertion of individual opinion and purpose at the expense
of party discipline. The movement is toward factionalism
and small groups, rather than toward large party organization, and the leaders of the party organization are subjected
to the severest attacks and to the questioning of their motives
without any adequate evidence to justify it.
I am far from saying that the Republican party is perfect.
No party which has exercised such power as it has exercised
for the last seventeen years could be expected to maintain
either in its rank and file or in its management men of the
purest and highest motives only. And I am the last one
to advocate any halt in the prosecution and condemnation
of Republicans, however prominent and powerful, whose
conduct requires criminal or other prosecution and condemnation. It should be well understood that with the Republican party in its present condition, with its various divisions
subjected to the cross fire of its own newspapers and its
own factions, any halt or failure on the part of those in
authority to punish and condemn corruption or corrupt




AND STATE PAPERS


585


methods will be properly visited upon the party itself, however
many good men it contains.
We shall be called upon to respond to the charge in the
next campaign that the tariff, for which we are responsible,
has raised prices. If the people listen to reasonable argument, it will be easy to demonstrate that high prices proceed
from an entirely different cause, and that the present tariff,
being largely a revision downward, except with respect
to silks and liquors, which are luxuries, can not be charged
with having increased any prices. But this will not prevent
our Democratic friends from arguing on the principle of
post hoc propter hoc, that because high prices followed the
tariff, therefore they are the result of it. And we must not
be blind to the weight of such an argument in an electoral
campaign. The reason for the rise in the cost of necessities can easily be traced to the increase in our measure
of values, the precious metal, gold, and possibly in some cases
to the combinations in restraint of trade. The question of
the tariff must be argued out. The prejudice created by the
early attacks upon the bill and the gross misrepresentations
of its character must be met by a careful presentation of the
facts as to the contents of the bill and also as to its actual
operation and statistics shown thereby. I believe we have
a strong case if we can only get it into the minds of the
people. Should disaster follow us and the Republican majority in the House become a minority in the next House, it
may be possible that in the Democratic exercise of its power,
the people of this country will see which is the party of
accomplishment, which is the party of arduous deeds done,
and which is the party of words and irresponsible opposition.
I only want one more word. From time to time attacks
are made upon the Administration, on the ground that its
policy tends to create a panic in Wall Street and to disturb
business. All I have to say upon that subject is this: That
certainly no one responsible for a government like ours
would foolishly run amuck in business and destroy values
and confidence just for the pleasure of doing so. No one




586        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
has a motive as strong as the Administration in power to
cultivate and strengthen business confidence and business
prosperity. But it does rest with the National Government
to enforce the law, and if the enforcement of the law is not
consistent with the present method of carrying on business,
then it does not speak well for the present methods of conducting business, and they must be changed to conform to the
law. There was no promise on the part of the Republican
party to change the anti-trust law except to strengthen it,
or to authorize monopoly and a suppression of competition
and the control of prices, and those who look forward to
such a change can not now visit the responsibility for their
mistake on innocent persons. Of course the Government
at Washington can be counted on to enforce the law in the
way best calculated to prevent a destruction of public
confidence in business, but that it must enforce the law
goes without saying.
I am glad to be present at this meeting of the Republican
Club of New York and here meet your distinguished
Governor, whose name is such a power before the people of
this State and of the country, that to lose him as a candidate
for Governor by his voluntary withdrawal is to lose the
strongest asset that the Republican party has in the State
to enable it to win at the next election.
I am glad to be here at the meeting of the Republican Club
on Lincoln's birthday, because my knowledge and information with respect to the club is that it stands for stalwart
Republicanism, believes in party organization and party
discipline, but insists on the highest ideals and methods
in formulating the policies of the party and carrying them
out.




LXXI


ADDRESS AT THE BANQUET OF THE BOARD OF
TRADE, NEWARK, NEW JERSEY
(FEBRUARY 23, 1910)
Gentlemen of the Board of Trade of the City of Newark:
T IS an opportunity to be able to speak to the business
men of New Jersey, of whom   this is a most representative gathering. The proximity of New Jersey to
New York, and the fact that from the West one can hardly
get to New York without passing through New Jersey,
make one forget at times the importance of Newark and of
all the rest of the hive of industry that spreads west from the
Hudson River far into and across this prosperous State.
It comes to a stranger with considerable surprise to find a
city of 350,000, nine miles west of Jersey City, so extended in
its manufacturing industries, so solid in its invested capital.
When I accepted the invitation to come here, I learned
that I was to have the pleasure of being a fellow-guest with
my friend, Senator Lodge, and that he was to take up the
question of high prices, a question which has occupied the
attention of all the people and has invited the investigation
into its causes of the Congress of the United States and some
of the State legislatures.
For my part of the evening, I should like to direct your
attention to a more prosy subject, to the question of government expenses and government revenues, and the possible
economies, and what expenditures are essential at whatever
burden of taxation.
In the first place, it should be said that we have been so
far from exhausting the resources of national taxation, and j
Federal revenues have been collected so easily and in such an /
587




588        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
amount, that we have failed in the past to adopt a budget
system which is practiced in every other civilized country.
By a budget system I mean a reference of proposed expenditures and receipts to some one authority or tribunal, which,
after determining what the revenues are to be, must also
determine what the expenditures can be, and make a budget
without a deficit.
In our legislative body, which provides the revenue qnd
authorizes the expenditures, time was when the Committee
on Ways and Means, on the one hand, determined the
revenues of the Government, or provided the laws for raising
them, and, on the other hand, determined the appropriations and measured the expenditures. But for many years
in our Congress these functions have been divided. The
revenues are provided by the Ways and Means Committee
of the House and the Finance Committee of the Senate,
and submitted to their respective Houses, while the appropriations are made by the appropriation committees of the
House and the Senate, and in too many instances without
apparent reference to the revenues which are to be available
to meet the appropriations.
It has so happened that in many years of the past, the
revenues have increased more rapidly than the expenditures,
and there has been a surplus. During the life of the Dingley
Bill, which carried us from 1896 to 1908, the appropriations
exceeded the expenditures by about $250,000,000; but the
surplus took place in the earlier years, so that in 1908 we had
a deficit, and in 1909 we had a deficit. The pinching effect
of the falling off of the revenues and the continuance of the
expenditures at the same rate attracted the attention of
Congress, so that now a preliminary duty is thrown upon the
Secretary of the Treasury to make a budget; that is, by law
he is required to receive all the estimates of all the Departments, himself to make an estimate of the probable revenues,
and if his calculations show a deficit, to recommend legislation for additional taxation or the raising of money by bonds
sufficient to meet it.




AND STATE PAPERS


589


The calculation of the Secretary of the Treasury for 'the
present year showed that the deficit was likely to be
$34,000,000 in respect to ordinary receipts and expenditures. I am glad to say that the operation of the new tariff
bill has been so much more productive of income that this
deficit for the current year is likely to be considerably reduced.
In addition, however, to the ordinary deficit, we have to
add the Panama Canal expenditures for immediate provision
$38,000,000; or what was estimated to be a total deficit
of $72,000,000 is now reduced considerably by the better
rates under the present tariff bill.
By meeting the expenditures on the Panama Canal with
the proceeds of bond issues, we have enough cash in the
Treasury to meet the deficit in our ordinary expenses for
the current year, and if we meet the expenditures on the
Panama Canal for the following year, we shall have a surplus
of $35,000,000; or if the revenue-producing capacity of the
new tariff keeps up to its present indications, this surplus
may be increased to $50,000,000. On the other hand, if
the Congress proposes to add to the expenditures of the
Government over those estimated for, for new enterprises
in the Rivers and Harbors Bill, and for the construction
of Federal buildings under a building act, it will be very
easy to consume or exceed the entire surplus.
Every one must admit the wisdom of providing for the
payment of the canal expenditure by bonds. The original
act made provision for the issuing of bonds, and while the
amount therein estimated was far short of the actual cost,
the policy of the Government in supplying funds for the
enterprise by bonds was sufficiently declared. This is a work
of a permanent character for the millions who come after
us, and it seems only fair that that which we provide in such
a generous measure for posterity should be paid for, in part
at least, by posterity.
Not only is the application of such a principle just and
right in the case of an enterprise like the Panama Canal,
hut it seems to me wise and appropriate to adopt it with




590


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


reference to other projects which commend themselves to
Congress, and the economical completion of which requires
the issuing of bonds. I refer to those definite projects that
have been agreed upon in respect to the improvement of
our inland waterways. I would not begin the expenditure
of any money on any project the wisdom of which had not
been fully vindicated by experts and the cost of which had
not been fully ascertained by the most experienced engineers;
but having determined to put through the improvement,
it ought not to be done by fits and starts, but it ought to be
done as one job, and provision for its completion ought to
be made by the issuing of bonds, unless the current revenues
afford a sufficient amount to complete it within a reasonable
time.
This statement has peculiar application to the River and
Harbor Bill, which now has passed the House. There the
Ohio River improvement, to cost $63,000,000, is entered
upon, and an appropriation made for its continuing. The
same thing is true of the improvement of the Mississippi
from St. Paul to St. Louis, and the same river from St. Louis
to Cairo; and of the Missouri River from Kansas City to
St. Louis. These projects seem to be warranted by the
traffic in sight.
While I am dealing with the Panama Canal, however,
I ought to refer to the discrepancy between the estimated
cost of the enterprise and the actual cost as we are now able
to fix it with very considerable accuracy within four or five
years of its completion. The estimated cost of the engineering and construction of the canal was $139,700,000. Its
actual cost for engineering and construction will be
$297,000,000, an increase of about $157,300,000. This
'increase is to be explained first by the very great appreciation
in the cost of labor and material between the time when
the estimate was made in 1900 and the time when the work
was done between 1904 and 1909. Second, by the fact
that the canal has been enlarged substantially beyond the
original dimensions estimated for. You know that the




AND STATE PAPERS                  591
great work of excavation in the canal is called the Culebra
Cut. This is where the backbone of the continent, reduced
to its lowest height, is cut through in order to permit the
flowing of the canal; and through five miles of that cut,
which altogether is about nine miles long, for purposes of
economy the original plan and estimate made the bottom
of the canal in the rock 200 feet wide. This would not
enable two of the largest steamers to pass each other in the
canal with any degree of safety, and would require that one
of them should tie up to the bank while the other went by.
In order to avoid this delay in that part of the canal it has
been thought wise to increase the bottom width from 200 to
300 feet in a place and in material that of course make the
change most expensive. So, too, in order that the canal may
be adapted to the largest size of steamers possible, the dimensions of the six locks have been increased from 900 feet,
usable length, by 90 feet width, to 1,000 feet, usable length,
and 110 feet width. This was done at the instance of the
Navy Department, on the ground that they could look
forward in the future and see vessels of a beam exceeding
100 feet.
It has also been found necessary to change the character of
the canal on the Pacific side from a lake with a dam and
locks on the shore of the Bay of Panama to a sea level canal
running four miles inland, so as to remove the locks four
miles inland and beyond the possible reach of the guns of
an enemy in Panama Bay. These two changes also have
added very considerably to the cost.
Again it has been found wise to enlarge the canal into a
lake or basin at the foot of the Gatun locks, and with other
variations in the plans which experience in the construction
has demonstrated the necessity for, the more than doubling
of the cost of construction and engineering has been made
necessary. In addition to this, the cost of sanitation and
government, without which the canal could not have been
built, will be about $73,000,000, and will carry the entire
cost of the canal to $373,000,000.




i.     IPRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
To return to the stabte of finances, I repeat that the-surplus
for the year ending June 30, 1911, for which we are now
making provision in this Congress by appropriation, will be
about $35,000,000, if the estimates made by the Departments as transmitted by the Secretary of the Treasury to
Congress are not exceeded, and if the revenue from the
tariff bill equals that which the Secretary of the Treasury
has estimated it as likely to be. This surplus is also upon
the supposition that the $38,000,000 necessary annually
in the construction of the Panama Canal will be met by
bonds.
In view of the threatened shortage for the year ending
June 30, 1911, I directed the heads of Departments in
making their estimates to cut them to the quick and to avail
themselves or every possible economy and reduction. The
result was that the total of the estimates forwarded by the
Secretary of the Treasury was $42,818,000 less than the
total of the appropriations for the previous year, ending
June 30, 1910.
A river and harbor bill has now been introduced and
has passed the House, which appropriates nearly $40,000,000.
This is a very considerable increase over the amount estimated for by the Secretary of the Treasury. If, in addition
to this, a building bill passes Congress, appropriating
$15,000,000 or $20,000,000 for the coming fiscal year, there
may still be a deficit unless the receipts from the tariff bill
and the corporation tax exceed what was originally estimated
from them. I am bound to say that the results of the tariff
bill thus far indicate a considerable increase over the estimate of the Secretary.
Now, I would like for a moment to go into the question of
what it was that we cut down in our estimates for the coming
year in the departments.
The reduction in the estimate of the War Department
below the appropriations of last year amounted to
$10,000,000. The reduction in the estimate of the Navy
Department for the expenses of the year ending June 30,




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593


1911, also amounted to $10,000,000. The reduction in
the Interior Department of estimated expenses for 1911
below the appropriations for 1910 amounted to $8,000,000.
The reduction in the Treasury and in the Post-Office Department made up the balance of the $42,000,000.
Speaking with reference to the Army and the Navy, it
should be said that the reductions were not in what may be
called the permanent expenses of the Departments, but were
rather in cutting down proposed improvements, which if
the plans of the Departments are properly carried out
must be some time met. In other words, it is a postponement only of expenditures that are necessary until the
income shall be sufficient to meet them.
Let us take the War Department. There was a very
considerable cut in the expenditures needed to complete
with modern appliances the coast defences on the Pacific
and Atlantic seaboard. There is needed at the mouth of
Chesapeake Bay, between Cape Henry and Cape Charles,
an artificial island upon the so-called middle ground, which
shall command the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. Chesapeake Bay is the most important body of water from a
strategic naval standpoint on the whole Atlantic coast, and
must be defended.
So, too, we have now determined that the great naval base
of the Pacific for us is to be Pearl Harbor, near Honolulu.
For years there was discussion as to whether we ought to
make the naval base at Subig Bay or at Cavite, in Manila
Bay, in the Philippines. By unanimous consent of naval
and military authorities, it is now concluded that we do not
need a naval base in the Philippines at all; that we ought
to make Corregidor Island, at the mouth of Manila Bay,
impregnable, establish a naval supply station in Subig Bay,
but rely upon the Sandwich Islands as our base. This
will all involve a heavy expenditure at Honolulu, but for the
present the amount proposed is comparatively small.
In the naval expenditures we have retained a provision for
two battleships of the large 25,000 ton capacity, and we have




594        PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
done this on the ground that until the Panama Canal is completed we ought to go on and add to our naval strength.
The Panama Canal will certainly be completed in 1915,
and if we have two battleships a year until that time, the
opening of the canal will so double the efficacy of our Navy
for the protection of our Pacific and Atlantic coasts that we
can then abate and reduce our expenditures in new construction.
The reductions in the Treasury Department were I think
more of them in the administration than in the expenditures
for improvements, and this was also the case in the PostOffice Department.
The reduction in the Interior Department was $5,000,000
of it due to a reduction of the amount of pensions to be
paid out, and we may reasonably expect that as the years now
go on this amount will gradually be reduced.
On the other hand, there are certain of our Departments,
to wit, the Agricultural Department, with its Forestry
Bureau, the War Department in so far as it is a constructive department for the improvement of rivers, the Department of Commerce and Labor, including as it ought, it
seems to me, a Bureau of Health, which, as the opportunities
for bettering the condition of the people by governmental
investigation increase, grow in importance and in cost;
and we ought not to expect a reduction either in the expenses
growing out of a conservation of our resources.
For some time it has been said that we have "billion
dollar" Congresses. The statement in itself is an unjust
one, because it is generally construed to mean that the
total expense of the Departments to be paid out of taxation amounts to a billion dollars a year. This is quite an
error, for the reason that in making up the billion dollars,
the expenses for the Post-Office Department are always
included, whereas the expenses of the Post-Office Department are not paid for out of the proceeds of taxes. They
are paid for out of the receipts of that Department from
the sale of stamps, with the exception of $17,500,000, which




AND STATE PAPERS


was the excess of the cost of the Post-Office Department
last year over its receipts. This, therefore, reduces the cost
of the Government by taxation each year to something like
$750,000,000.
It is now proposed to appoint a Congressional commission
to look into the question of a general reorganization of the
Departments of the Government, with a view to reducing
the expense of administering the Government. I think I
have already made clear the distinction between those
expenditures of the Government that go into permanent
improvements and that may be reduced one year and must
be increased another, and the actual routine cost of administration. A reduction in the cost of proposed improvements
is not an elimination of them, but merely a postponement
of them; whereas a reduction in the cost of administration
would be a permanent economy that, of course, on that
account, becomes most important.
It has been stated on the floor of the Senate that it will
be possible by this commission to reduce the cost of administering the government $100,000,000 a year, and that if
a free hand were given to a business man the reduction in
the expense of administration might be doubled or trebled,
I am unable to confirm these statements as to exact amount,
but I am very sure that a conservative, prudent, and fearless
commission could make a most material reduction in the
cost of administering the government. They will find
opposition in Congress to every change recommended,
because there is no branch or bureau so humble that it can not
secure its adherents and defenders within the legislative
halls. But, if by the totals that it shows this commission
shall justify its existence, it is probable that it can secure a
majority sufficient to carry through its proposed reforms.
This Government has been constructed not all at one time,
but bureau has been added to bureau, and department
to department, and it has been impossible to avoid duplication and expensive methods. In creating a new bureau,
there was no time to go back and reform the Government




596


PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES


with reference to the adjustment of that bureau to its proper
place or to consider the work of the entire Government with
reference to it. This proposed commission, as I understand it, is to take up the bureaus of all the Departments,
to see whether they may not often be consolidated, and also
to lay down such rules governing the civil service as will
secure the utmost efficiency from each civil servant or each
unit of labor. It is undoubtedly true to-day that we have
a great many more persons employed in the government
than we would need, if every person in the government
rendered to the government a service of a high degree of
efficiency. This commission will have to take up the question, which has troubled great industrial corporations and
great railroads, as to the method of disposing of superannuated servants. Our military pensions have reached
so large an annual sum, to wit $150,000,000, that we have
avoided the suggestion of civil pensions, but I am convinced
that some method must be adopted by which superannuated
civil servants may be retired on an income sufficient to support them, and that such a provision will ultimately bring
about great economy in the administration.
It has been reported by the Postmaster-General that we
are carrying in the Post-Office Department the weekly
periodicals and magazines at a loss to that department of
upward of $60,000,000, and that the business of the Government in the Post-Office Department is now run at a general
loss of $17,500,000. The committees of Congress are investigating the correctness of this view. The owners of magazines
dispute the correctness of the figures. There ought to be
some way certainly of determining this fact, and if it is a
fact it calls for a reform, and an increase in the postage
of a sufficient amount at least to take away the deficit in the
Post-Office Department. Should the two postal committees
not be able to reach a conclusion satisfactory to them upon
this question, the whole matter may well be left to the commission to consider. It will be essential for this commission
to employ expert men who have had to do with the organiza



AND STATE PAPERS


597


tion of great businesses and who are familiar with the most
modern methods of economy. The truth is that the success
of modern business has been the adoption of successful
economies, and the time has come for us to make an effort
at least to introduce something 'of these economies into an
administration of the greatest business that we have in this
country, the business of our Federal Government.
I am quite aware that things done by the Government
are done under conditions so different from those of a business concern that there are certain expenditures necessary,
in view of the fact that the government business is done for
the benefit of all the people, and that therefore all the people
are entitled to know how it is done, and a number of them
are entitled to be selected in a fair way to share in its doing.
But in spite of the added expenditure of administration
incident to the requirements of popular government, every
one familiar with government methods now in vogue must
recognize the possibility of reforms leading to great economy,
if the Congress shall have the courage to adopt plans which
may be recommended by this commission after a full examination by business experts.
I have already occupied your time too much, and I perhaps have not made this statment very informing or interesting, but I can not close without congratulating you and
myself on the prospect that the present tariff bill offers
such an increased income as to make deficits under any
condition unnecessary. Of course if there were to be a
halt in our prosperity and a panic, the reduction in imports
might be so substantial as to lead to deficits again. Let
us hope, however, that the prosperity of our country is
founded on such a substantial basis that no flurry in the
stock market and no other temporary cause may prevent
the continuance of good business on a substantial basis.


THE END




I
I~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




INDEX


Abuses, business, 3.
reform of, 3.
Acceptance, speech of, 3.
Adams, Judge, I6I.
Administration of justice, improvement of, I99.
Administration, the chief function
of, 6.
constructive work of, 7.
Africa, development of, 45I.
missionary work in, 436.
Agriculture, Department of, 484.
reorganization of, 7.
Alaska, coal of, 278, 295.
development of, 283.
disposition of, 292.
future of, 285.
government of, 282, 283, 293, 294,
327, 483.
history of, 282, 293.
territorial legislature for, 295.
wealth of, 282.
Alaska - Yukon- Pacific Exposition,
address at, 28I.
Aldrich, Senator, I86.
Algiers, 505.
Aliens, protection of, 60.
Alsop & Co., claim of, 458.
Amendments to Constitution, thiiteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth, 64.
American Federation of Labor, 143,
147, 60,578 -American Republics, International
Bureau of, 450.
American   Sugar   Refining  Co.,
469.
Anarchy, prevention of by courts,
27.
Ansel, Governor, 418.
Anthracite Coal Commission, I50.


Anti-trust law, 240, 479, 524.
aggregation of capital not violation of, I5.
amendment of, I2, 54, 187, 313.
construction of, I2.
enforcement of, 315, 427.
prosecutions under, 5.
President  Roosevelt's  amendment of, II.
President  Roosevelt's  prosecution under, 4.
violations under, 44, 526.
Appomattox, surrender at, 98.
Argentine Republic, trade with, 455.
Arid lands, reclamation of, 43, 270.
27I, 318, 332, 426, 543 -Arizona, statehood for, 483, 578.
Armstrong, General, 445.
Army, the, 34, 57.
changes in, 473.
engineers, commendation of, 343,
495'
Democratic Party's policy, re, 34.
President McKinley's policy, re,
34.
of the Potomac, 98.
regular, I22.
reorganization and improvement
of, 43 -President Roosevelt's policy, re,
34 -officers, retirement of, 473.
Arthur case, I5I, I52.
Asiatic immigration, 35, 59.
Republican platform's policy, re,
35 -Athens, Ohio, speech at, I6I.
Atlanta, University, II4.
Atlantic Deeper Waterways Convention, Norfolk, address at, 440.


599




600


INDEX


Auditorium, Richmond, Va., address at, 424.
Augusta, Ga., address at, 418.
Bacon, Senator, 403.
Ballinger, Secretary, 280.
Bank deposits, guarantee of, 30, 50.
Banking laws, amendment of, 60.
Banking system, 185, I87.
amendment of, zo8.
Bankruptcy, 550, 553.
Barra, Ignacio de la, 360.
Barry, Maj. Gen., I64.
Bartlett, Representative, 403.
Bates, Lindon, 137, 139.
Beecher, Mr., 264.
Bilibid prison, 104.
Birmingham, Ala., address at, 399.
growth of, 400.
Birney, General, 98.
Blockade, 449.
Board of Trade and Chamber of
Commerce, Washington, address at, 80.
Board of Trade banquet, Newark,
N. J., address at, 587.
Boll-Weevil, 380.
Bolivia, boundary dispute, settlement of, 454.
Bonds and stocks, over issue of, 4.
President Roosevelt's policy, re,
5 -Boston, Mass., address at, I82.
Boxer trouble, 437.
Boycotts, secondary, 21, 68, 144,
148, 194, 342, 314.
Brewer, Justice, 158.
Bricklayers' Union, 148.
Bright, John, 263.
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 151.
Brown, Governor, 418.
Brussels, world's fair at, 450.
Bryan, Mr., bank deposit policy of,
50.
charges Republican Party controlled by corporations, 51.
injunctions in labor disputes, 147.
policies of, 50.
policies of, destructive, 13.


Bryan, prosperity delayed by his
election, 17.
refers to Mr. Taft as " father" of
injunctions, x60.
successor of Mr. Roosevelt, 47.
tariff policy of, 51.
Budget system, 588.
Buenos Aires, 455.
Bunau-Varilla, 137, I39.
Burbank, General, 12i.
Burnham, Mr., 85.
Butt, Captain Archibald W., 360.
362, 404.
Campaign funds, necessary, 51.
Campaign, issues of, 43.
Campbell, Governor, 360.
Canadian International boundary,
448.
Canal Zone, control of, 40.
Cannon, Speaker, 144, 394.
Capital, advantage of combination
of, 14.
investment of in foreign countries, 455.
Caraboa, the, 566.
Military Order of the,Washington,
address to, 559.
Carnegie, Mr., I x.
Carriers, duties of, 518.
Casey vs. Typographical Union, I59.
Catholic Summer School of America, address at, 178.
Cavite, 593.
Central American wars, 43.
Central Bank of issue, i86.
Centralization, 550.
Chaffee, General, 342.
Chamber of Commerce, Birmingham, address at, 399.
Los Angeles, address at, 341.
Champlain, 179, S8I.
Charleston, $. C., address at, 409.
Charlotte, N. C., address at, IoI.
Chesapeake Bay, fortification of,
443, 473, 593 -Child labor, 552.
law for District of Columbia, 67.
Chicago, Ill., address at, 191.
Chile, 458.




INDEX


601


China, 460.
development of, 286, 297, 328,
436.
indemnity fund of, 461.
missionary work in, 505.
railroad loan to, 460.
students of, sent to American
schools, 461.
Church and State, separation of,
323,367,439~
Cincinnati, Ohio, address at, 3.
Cincinnati, Society of the, 171.
Civil law, delays in, 476.
necessity for reform of, 195.
Civil pensions, establishment of, 468.
Civil procedure, improvement of,
428.
Civil Service Commission, 487.
Civil War, 170.
Cleveland, President, address on,
71 -Cleveland, Lorain   &   Wheeling
R. R., 157.
Cliff Haven, N. Y., address at, I78.
Coal, Alaskan, 295.
case, 157.
lands, disposition of, 270, 278.
Coast defenses, 473.
Cceur d'Alene, strike troubles, I59.
Colton, Col. Geo. R., 78.
Columbia, S. C., address at, 415.
Columbus, Miss., address at, 396.
Commerce Court, 234.
Commerce and Labor, Dept. of, 485.
corporations, registrations under,
II.
reorganization of, 7, 54.
supervision of certain industrial
corporations, 6.
Comparative negligence theory, 20.
Competition, suppression of, 532.
Conaty, Bishop, 349.
Congo, independent State of, 451.
Congresses, billion dollar, 594.
Conservation of national resources,
36, 57, I88, 243, 270, 318, 330,
372, 381, 385, 419, 426, 484,
537, 553, 579 -administration's attitude toward,
279.


Constitution, Federal, 556.
amendment of, 167.
thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth
amendments of, Io5.
guaranties under, 103, 109.
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments of, 34.
Consular service, improvement of,
463.
Contempt cases, 148, I63.
Contraband, 449.
Contributions, campaign, publicity
of, 36.
political, publicity of, 488.
Contributory negligence rule, abolition of, 67.
Court of Commerce, establishment
of, 515.
Courts, Federal, Democratic platform's attack on, 25.
duties of, 146.
full power of necessary to avoid
anarchy, 27.
power of, 145.
upholding of, 578.
State, upholding of, 578.
Corporations, industrial, classification of, 6.
Federal incorporation of, 533.
objections toFederal incorporation
of, 535 -prosecution of, 530.
interstate commerce, Federal control of, II.
interstate commerce, Democratic
platform's attitude on, II.
interstate commerce, classification
of, II.
legislation for, 45.
regulations of, 532.
violation of law by, 311.
Corporation tax, 246, 249, 253, 304,
305, 307~
Corpus Christi,Texas, address at, 37.
Corregidor Island, 593.
coast defenses at, 474.
Cosio, Gen. Manuel Gonzales, 360.
Creel, Governor, 360.
Criminal law, delays in, 476.
necessity for reform of, I95.






602                         INI
Criminal procedure, improvement of
428.
reform of, i98.
Cromer, Governor, 399.
Crowder, Colonel, 164.
Cuba, 30, 433, 457 -annexation of, 560.
re-establishment of government of,
43.
Cuban pacification, army of, I64.
war, 433 -Culberson, Senator, 379.
Currency system, 27, 6o.
Republican platform's policy, re,
28.
Cushing, General, zz2.
Cushman, Representative, 290.
Customs, frauds in collection of, 469.
Dallas, Texas, address at, 379.
Davis, Mr., I29.
Debs's boycott, 77, I54, I58.
Declaration of London, 449.
Deficit, government, 39, I66, 227,
246, 465, 580, 588.
amount of, 69.
meeting of, 56, 303.
DeLesseps, 124.
Democratic Party, charges deficit,
39 -charges increase of offices and expenditures, 38.
defeat of in I896, 25.
free coinage of silver policy of,
46.
pension policy of, 39.
Philippine policy of, 49.
Democratic platform, attack on
power of courts, 25.
bank deposit policy of, 29.
business affected by, 6.
compulsory sale of products at
fixed prices, 13.
destructive policy of, I6.
election of senators by the people,
37.
income tax policy of, 37.
injunction policy of, 22, 25, 148.
interstate corporation policy of,
II.


)EX


Democratic platform, limits corporations to ownership of 5o per
cent, of plant and product, I2.
pensions for veterans of Civil and
Spanish Wars, 33.
tariff policy of, I8.
Democrats, independent, 41,
Deneen, Governor, 5os.
Denver, Col., address at, 245.
Departments, Government, reorganization of, 58o, 595.
Dependencies, our, I20.
Republican Party's policy, re, 30.
Des Moines, Iowa, address at, 231.
Diaz, Gen. Felix, 363.
Lieut.-Col. Porfirio, Jr., 363.
President, interview  with, 360,
456.
Diaz, toast of, 364.
Dickens, Charles, 264.
Dickinson, Secretary J. M., 360,
367.
Dingley, Tariff, 44, 209, 588.
cotton schedule of, 217.
crockery schedule of, 2z8.
enactment of, 55.
passage of, s8.
print paper, I29.
schedules of, 214.
District of Columbia, franchise in, 83
government of, 81.
jail of, 479.
model child labor law, for 67.
Eight hour law, passage of, 19.
Eliot, Dr., 444.
Emancipation Proclamation, 488.
Emery Co., claim of, 458.
Employee and employer, difference
between, 20.
Employees, government, classification of, 468.
Employers' liability act, 66.
passage of, 19.
right to bring suit under any place,
524.
England, income tax in, 252.
Erasmus, 174.
Erie Railroad, stock controversy of,
24.








INDEX


603


Escandon, Col. Pablos, 360.
Excise tax, 168, 227, 250.
Executive power, limitation of, 201.
Exhibition, international agricultural, 455.
Expenditures,  governmental,  39,
465, 587.
Extra session, calling of, 55.
Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, address at, 325.
Falconio, Monsignor, 439.
Farmer, the, and Republican Party,
I9.
Far East, 460.
Federal judiciary, act of 1789, 144.
Fee system, abolition of, I99.
Fellow servant rule, abolition of, 19,
67.
Filipinos, the, 435.
Fisheries on North Atlantic coast,
447.
Fish, Frederick P., I85.
Fisk University, I I4.
Fitch, Rev. James, I73.
Flint, Senator, 342.
Foraker Act, Porto Rico, 88, 95.
amendment of, 90, 95.
Foreign countries, investment of
American capital in, 455.
Foreign policy of government, 40.
Foreign trade, encouragement of, 6I.
Forests, Government, 373, 379, 386.
destruction by fire annually, 27I.
extent of, 270, 331, 545.
preservation of, 270.
regulation of, 271.
Forest lands, private ownership of,
545.
Forest service, investigation of, 548.
Fortifications, partially completed, 58
Fort Stedman, battle of, 98.
Free coinage of silver, repeal of, 75.
Freedman's Savings and Trust Co.,
488.
Freeman, Mr., I29.
Frees, Captain, 343.
Free trade, with Porto Rico, 93.
with Philippines, 61, 63, z27, 286,
296, 306, 327.


Fresno, California, address at, 335.
Friars, the, 435.
Frissell, Dr., 444.
Full dinner pail, 50.
Fur Seals in North Pacific, 449.
Galveston, harbor of, 376.
Garfield, President, 33.
Georgia-Carolina fair, address at, 418.
Gettysburg, address at, 119.
battle of, 129.
Gibbons, Cardinal, 178,439.
Gift chapel, San Antonio, dedication of, 366.
Glenwood Mission Inn, Cal., address
at, 349 -Goethals, Colonel, 63, 130, 133.
Gomez, General, I65.
Gompers, Mr., 143, I6o, I62, 578.
Gordon, General, 98.
Gorman-Wilson Tariff Bill, 44, 46,
48.
President Cleveland refuses to
sign, 74 -Government employees, compensation of, for injuries received,
20, 67.
Government expenditures, 465.
Governors, conference of, at White
House, address to, 555.
Grand Army of the Republic, 170.
Granger, Mr., 137, 139.
Grant, President, 33, 97, 364, 583.
Greenbackism, 50.
Gregg, General, 98.
Green fly, 380.
Guadaloupe, Hidalgo, treaty of, 282.
Guaranties of Constitution, 103, I09.
Guaranty of bank deposits, 28, 30.
Gunnison tunnel, opening of, 271.
Habeas Corpus, writ of, 104.
Hadley, Governor, 385.
Hague tribunal, 58, 447.
usefulness of, 40.
Hammond, John Hays, 360.
Hampton Institute, 113.
address at, 444.
Hancock, General, 98.
Harrison, President, 33.




604


INDEX


Harrison, President, maintained standard of Federal judiciary Io8.
Hartranft, General, 98.
Hartzell, Bishop, 509.
Hassayampa water, 356.
Hayes, President, 33.
Hazen, Mr., X29.
Health Bureau, 36, 420, 429, 486,
594.
Hemp, Manila, 32.
Hepburn Bill, iI, 233, 3Ii, 514.
High prices, cause of, 223, 489, 585.
Hitchcock, Postmaster-General
Frank H., 360.
Homogeneity of American people,
359, 382, 401, 422, 426.
Hook worm, 93.
Homestead act, 274.
Hornets' nest, xo6.
Howard University, Washington, address at, III.
Howland, Judge, 399.
Hughes, Governor, 37, 178.
Humphreys, General, 98.
Hunt, General, I22.
Immigration, Asiatic, 35.
Import, duties 56.
Inaugural address, 53.
Income of Government, 39.
tax, 37, I66, 247, 249, 252, 254,
304.
tax case, 142.
Independent, article in the, 43.
Indian, education of, 445.
Industrial organizations, Federal incorporation of, 513.
Inheritance tax, graduated, 56, I66,
247, 257, 303.
Injunctions, 49, I45, 477.
Democratic platform's policy, re,
22.
"father" of, i59.
in industrial disputes, 67.
labor, 23, 67, I43, 146, 232
legislation for, 192.
notice and hearing before issue of,
23 -remedy of, 22.
Republican Party's policy, re, 24.


Interior Department, 483.
investigation of, 548.
reduction in estimates of, 593.
International Fisheries Commission,
448.
International policy, our, 58.
International prize court, 449.
Interstate Commerce Commission,
change in jurisdiction of, 7.
enlargement of powers of, 311.
power of, to investigate increase
in rates, 520.
rates fixed by, 233.
reorganization of, 54.
railway traffic agreements approved by, 7.
should ascertain physical valuation of railways, Io.
should be relieved of its jurisdiction as an executive directing
body, 6.
should hear complaints against
unjust claims of merchants,
235.
Interstate Commerce corporations,
Federal control of, II.
Interstate Commerce Law, amendment of, 54, 187, 233, 237, 238,
428, 479, 5I3, 522.
Republican platform recommends
its amendment, 521.
Interstate trade, Federal protection
of, 582.
Inventors, American, 451.
Irrigated lands, payment for, 274.
Irrigation, necessity of, 273, 332, 380.
Jackson, Andrew, 142.
Jackson, Stonewall, 424.
Jackson, Mrs. Stonewall, IoI.
Japan, commercial strides of, 328.
control of Oriental trade by, 297.
merchant marine of, 288.
relations with, 462.
revision of treaty with, 462.
visit of delegation from, 462.
Johnson, Governor, i88.
Johnston, Senator, 399.
Judicial decisions as an issue in
politics, article on, 142.




INDEX


605


Judiciary, Federal, strongest bulwark we have, xo8.
Judicial system, attack on, 27.
procedure, delays in, 554.
Jury system, 196.
trial, effect of, 26.
Justice, Department of, 476.
reorganization of, 7, 54.
Kipling, 566.
Klopsch, Dr., 510.
Kuni, Prince, 462.
Labor, 232.
address on, I6I.
affected by change from protective to revenue tariff, 49.
injunctions, 49, 143, 232.
legislation for, 66.
unions, must obey law, 315.
non-organized, 2o.
organization of, 232.
Republican Party's policy, on
19.
rights of, 21, 156, 193.
rights of, re, strikes, 2I.
union of, 20, I92.
vote of, 19I.
what it cannot do, 21.
Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterways
Committee, address to at Washington, 501.
Lamar, Justice, 263.
Lands,   Government agricultural,
275.
classification of, 275, 540,
timber, 271.
Latin America, 454.
Law's delay, I99.
Lawyer, profession of, 407.
Laymen's Missionary Movement,
address at Washington, 432.
Lee, General Robert E., 97.
memorial to, 430.
Legare, Representative, 410I
Legaspi, 179.
Legislation, uniform state, 549, 556.
L'Enfant, 87.
Lennon, Mr., IS2.
Leo XIII, I80.


Letters of exchange, uniform legislation for, 450.
Liberia, 452, 508.
Light-house Board, 485.
Lincoln, President, 201, 568.
Litigation, reducing cost of, I98.
Littlefield, Mr., 144.
Lobnitz, method of excavation, 140.
Lodge, Senator, 587.
Lord, Dr. Benjamin, 175.
Los Angeles, Cal., address at, 341.
harbor of, 342.
Loyal Legion, I7I.
Macon, Ga., address at, 403.
Madeira, 505.
Magazines, postage for, 480, 596.
Magellan, I79.
Magoon, Governor, administration
of, I64,
Mail matter, second class, 48.
Malins, Vice-Chancellor, 159.
Manila Bay, 474.
Manufactures and Statistics, union
of bureaus of, 486.
Marine, foreign, development of, 41.
Merchant, 419.
mortgages and privileges, 450.
Maritime law, International, conference on, 450.
Marriage and divorce, 553.
Marshall, General, 496.
Marshall, John, 550.
Mason, Major John, 173.
McClure's Magazine, articles in, 124,
I42.
McDonnell, Father, 439.
McMahon, Dr., I78.
McKinley, President, 33, 434, 56z.
Navy policy of, 34.
Republican administration under,
43.
McVickar, Bishop, 444.
Methodist Episcopal missions in
Africa, address on, 503.
Meade, Maj. Gen. Geo. C., 98, I2I.
Meat inspection law, 5.
enactment of, 43, 45.
Mecklenburg Declaration, address
on, ioi.




606


INDEX


Mehmed V, 453.
Merchant marine, 287, 298, 329, 346.
Merchandise, c assification of, 235.
Merrimac, battle of, 442.
Merritt, General, 12I.
Messages to Congress
Conservation  of National resources, 537.
convening it in extra session, 69.
government of Cuba, I64.
interstate commerce and antitrust law and Federal incorporation, 513.
Porto Rican, affairs, 88.
second session, 6ist Congress,
447 -tariff revision for Philippines, 78.
tax on net income of corporations,
66.
Mexican war, regular army's service
in, 120.
Micawber, 375 -Miles, General, 77.
Militia, National, 57.
Milwaukee, Wis., address at, 201.
Mining, South Manchuria, 461.
Mischler, Wendell W., 360.
Missions, Chinese, 437.
description of, 506.
foreign, 350, 434 -Missionaries, 436.
duties of, 507.
Mississippi River, improvement of,
393, 492, 501, 547, 580, 590.
trip down, 49z.
Missouri River. improvement of, 492
580, 590.
Molina, Olegario, 360.
Monetary Commission, 60.
system, I87, 428.
laws, amendment of, 60, zo8.
situation, I85.
Monitor, battle of, 442.
Monopoly, 525, 532.
unlawful, 44.
Monroe doctrine, 57, 432, 456.
Monrovia, commission sent to, 45I.
Montague, Governor, 445.
Montcalm, 430.
Moores & Co., 148.


Moral reform, brought on by President Roosevelt, 584.
Mormon tabernacle, Salt Lake City,
address at, 258.
Moton, Major, 445.
National assembly in Philippines, 3 I.
National Civic Federation, address
before, 549.
National repudiation, 76.
National rivers and harbors congress, address to, 490.
resources, conservation of, 36, 57,
I88, 243, 318, 330, 372, 381,
385, 419, 426.
conservation of, 484, 537, 553, 579.
Naulahka, 566.
Naval observatory, 475 -Navy, the, 34, 442 -Democratic platform on, 34.
enlargement of, 38, 43.
need of commensurate, 58.
reform in, 474.
officers, reorganization of, 474.
yards, reorganization of, 475.
Negro freedom, semi-centennial of,
488.
Negro race, appointment to office of,
66.
education of, 34, II2, 445.
future of, 16.
leadership of, II3.
progress of, 34, 64.
rights of, 34.
South's toleration for, 114.
suffrage for, 65.
Neutral prizes, destruction of, 449.
Newark, N. J., address at, 587.
New Bowery Mission, address at,
510.
New England ancestry, I74, I89.
New Mexico, statehood for, 483, 578.
New Orleans, La., address at, 390.
New York City, address on President Cleveland, 71.
address at Lincoln birthday banquet of Republican Club, 568.
address at Diamond Jubilee of
Methodist Episcopal missions
in Africa, 503.




INDEX


607


New York City, address at New
Bowery Mission, 510.
Nicaragua, 458.
route for canal, I24.
Noble, Alfred, 125.
Norfolk, Va., address at, 440.
North and South, good feeling between, 430.
Norwich, Conn., address at, I73.
Offices, governmental, Democratic
Party charges increase of, 38.
Ogden, Mr., 366, 444.
Ohio River, improvement of, 393,
498, 580, 590.
introduction of dams in, 547.
maintaining depth of, 492.
Ohio Valley Improvement Association, address to, 498.
Oil lands, disposition of, 270, 278.
Oklahoma, constitution of, 26, 358.
Olongopo, 474 -Open door, 59, 460, 564.
Opium conference, 46I.
Orchestra Hall speech, Chicago, 191.
Ordinance of I787, 282.
Oriental manners, 259.
trade, control of by Japan, 297.
Ostriches, industry in, 354.
Otis, General, o04, 341.
Overcapitalization of railways, 9.
Pacific, future of world's business on,
297, 328.
shipping trade on, 41.
coast, artillery force for, 326.
Panama Canal, 124, 564.
board of engineers for, 129.
bond issue to pay for, 57, 589.
'Chagres River, 125, 135, 138.
completion of, 43, 286, 328, 345.
construction of, 38.
cost of, 132, 138, 466.
Culebra Cut, I29, 132, 466.
efficiency of navy doubled by, 41,
330.
Gamboa Dam, I35, 137.
Gatun Dam, 62, 126, 131, I37, 39.
La Boca, I32.
lock type of, 62.


Panama Canal, Miraflores, 132.
progress of work on, 62.
San Pedro Miguel, 132.
trade affected by, 62.
trans-continental lines affected by,
330~ 345 -type of, 63, 126, 129.
world's commerce benefited by,
41.
Panama Canal critics, answer to,
124.
Panama Railroad, 126.
Pan-American   Congress, Fourth,
454 -Panama, straits of, 136.
Panic, cause of, I6.
country recovering from, 50.
decrease in receipts caused by,
39.
depression which followed it, 56.
disclosed lack of elasticity in our
financial system, 27.
prevention of, 28.
Parke, General, 98.
Parker Brothers, 14I.
Parker, Judge, I42.
Parties, political differences between,
42.
Pasamaquoddy Bay, 448.
Passports, 35.
Payne Tariff Bill, 211, 572.
best Republican Party ever passed,
222.
Peabody, George Foster, 444.
Peace, promotion of, 58.
Pearl Harbor, naval base at, 478.
Pearre bill, 144.
Pennsylvania memorial, unveiling of
at Petersburg, 97.
Pensions, for veterans of Civil and
Spanish Wars, 33.
Democratic Party recommends,
39 -People rule, 339.
Periodicals, postage for, 596.
Perkins, Senator, 333.
Persia, constitutional government
in, 453 -Peru, settlement of boundary dispute of, 454.




608


INDEX


Petersburg, Va., unveiling at of
Pennsylvania memorial, 97.
Phelan case, 154.
Philippine Islands, 31, 560.
army of, 367.
church and state question, I8I.
cost of, 32, 433, 563.
Democratic Party recommends
immediate independence for,
49 -free trade with, 63, 227, 286, 296,
306, 327.
government of, 3r.
missions of, 349.
progress of, 63.
regular army of, 33.
revision of tariff for, 78.
self-government in, 31, 327, 565.
tariff for, 28 5,296.
Philippine War, successful carrying
on of, 43.
Phoenix, Arizona, address at, 353.
Phosphate lands, disposition of, 270,
278.
Physical valuation of railways, 8.
President   Roosevelt's  policy
on, 9.
Pickett, General, i2x.
Pinchot, Mr., 270.
Pittsburg, Pa., address at, 117.
Pollock vs. Farmers' Loan and
Trust Co., I66.
Popular government, 337.
Portland, Oregon, address at, 302,
320, 322.
Porto Rico, 30.
charges of political oppression of,
94.
expenses of, 93.
Foraker Act for, 95.
free trade with, 93.
government of, 88, 95.
imports of, 93.
message to Congress on, 88.
prosperity of, 63.
Portuguese East Africa, 505.
Postal Savings Banks, o22, 428, 481,
575 -advantages of, 28.
Congress should pass bill for, 61.


Postal  Savings  Banks,  countries
which have them, 2o6.
Republican Party prefers, 30.
Ports, legislation for, 380.
Post Office Department, 480.
deficit of, 48I.
reduction in estimate of, 593.
Power, usurpation of by the Executive, 74.
Pure Food law, 5.
enactment of, 43, 45, 261.
President, the, power of, 405.
travelling of, 383, 411.
Pretorian Guard of Rome, 171.
Prescott, Arizona, speech at, 356.
Products, compulsory sale of, at
fixed prices, 13.
Projects, reclamation, issuing of
bonds to complete, 273, 544.
Prosperity, Bryan's election would
delay restoration of, 17.
country in high state of, 489.
era of, 200.
Protection of citizens abroad, 35, 59 -Protection, Republican doctrine of,
I7.
Querol, I79.
Railroads, discrimination by, 4.
legislation for, 19, 54, 192, 232,
238, 376.
passage of rate law for, 45, 577.
over capitalization of, 9.
physical valuation of, 8.
rates of, 9.
right of, to make and publish
traffic agreements, 517.
President Roosevelt's policy on
physical valuation of, 9.
treatment of, 9.
valuation of by Interstate Commerce Commission, Io.
Railway appliances, uniform construction of, 523.
Railway traffic agreements, approval by Interstate Commerce
Commission, 7.
Randolph, Isham, 125, 129.
Rate bill, passage of, 4, 46.




INDEX


609


Rates, railway, 9, 514.
Rebates, secret, 44.
abandonment of, by railways, 5.
granting of, 239.
Reclamation act, amendment of,
544 -Reclamation bureau, 427.
projects entered upon by, 272.
issuing of bonds for, 333.
Reed, Thomas B., 299, 329.
Reform, moral, 315.
President Roosevelt, leads movement for, 4, 53.
Regular Army, 368.
Mexican War service of, I2o.
monument to at Gettsyburg, II9.
Religious tolerance, 179, 35I.
Republican and Democratic policies,
difference between, 13.
Republican Club banquet, N. Y.
City, address at, 568.
Republican Party and the farmer,
9.
dissensions in, 582.
injunction policy of, 478.
labor policy of, 232.
promises of, 568.
Republican Party's appeal, article on
in Independent, 43.
Republican Party, charge that it is
controlled by corporations, 51.
Republican platform, Asiatic immigration, 35.
currency system, 28.
dependencies, policy of, 30.
Interstate Commerce amendment
approved by, 52I.
interstate  stocks  and  bonds,
policy of, 0o.
labor policy of, I9.
legislation  for controlling  corporations, recommended by, 45.
Negro policy of, 34.
pensions, for veterans of Civil and
Spanish Wars, 33.
Philippine tariff, policy of, 32.
postal  savings  banks, recommended by, 28.
protection policy of, I7.
statehood promised by, 357.


Republican strength in maintenance of President Roosevelt's
policies, 3.
Restraining orders, 25, 48, 68, I45.
Retrocession, 86.
Revenues, governmental, 465, 587.
increase in, 580.
Rhodesia, 505.
Richmond, Va., address at, 424.
Richardson, Dr. J. J., 360.
Ricks, Judge, 151.
Rinderpest in Philippines, 33.
River and Harbor Bill, appropriation of, 592.
River and Harbor improvements,
39 -Riverside, California, address at,
349.
Rock Creek Park, 85.
Rodelph Shalom Temple, Pittsburg,
Pa., address at, I 7.
Roebuck, Mr., 263.
Roosevelt, President, 434.
administration  of  Republican
Party under, 43.
anti-trust law amendment, recommended by, II.
Army and Navy policy of, 34.
Conservation policy of, 372.
injunction policy of, 144.
Interstate Commerce Law amendment recommended by, 233.
moral reform brought about by,
4, 315, 401, 584.
physical valuation of railways
policy of, 9.
policies of, 3, 3I0.
policies of, progressive and regulative, 13.
policies, Republican strength in
maintenance of, 3.
stocks and bonds, policy of, 5, 45.
suits brought by under anti-trust
law, 4.
traffic agreements, policy of, 8.
Root, Elihu, Senator, 434, 549:
South American visit of, 40, 62.
Round Tops, battle of, I2x.
Routes, rights of shippers to designate, 238, 52I.




610


INDEX


Rural Free Delivery, extension of,
38.
Russian-Japanese War, 40, 43.
Safety devices, legislation for, 67.
Sage, Judge, 59.
Salaries  Government, no reduction in, 469.
Salt Lake City, address at, 258,
268.
San Antonio, Texas, address at, 366.
Sanders, Governor, 390.
San Francisco, address at, 325.
Sanitation, 420.
of South, 113.
Santo Domingo, 40, 433, 457.
Scott, General, zo0.
Seattle, Washington, address at, 28.
Sectionalism between East and West,
I88.
Self-government, 176.
Senators, popular election of, 37.
Seward, Mr., 295, 364.
Alaskan policy of, 281.
Shanghai, opium conference at, 46I.
Sherman anti-trust act, 479, 525,
repeal of, 75.
Sherry, vs. Perkins, I59.
Shipowners, limitation of responsibility of, 450.
Shippers, burdens on, 237.
protection of, 518.
Siam, treaty with, 462.
Sickles, General, 121.
Silver, free coinage of, 46.
Slavery, Io6.
suppression of, 5o8.
Slidell, Mr., 263.
Sloan, Judge, 353.
South, appointments in, IO8, 429
colored physicians needed in, II3.
development of, 402.
hospitality of, 413, 423, 443 -sanitation of, I 13.
tolerance of opinion in, 63, o09.
South America, trade with, 328.
Spanish War, successful carrying on
of, 43 -Spitzbergen Islands, 453.
coal of, 453.


Spokane, Washington, address at,
270.
Spooner Act of 1902, 125, 466.
Spreckels, Sugar Refining Co., vs.
McClain, I68.
St. Aloysius Church, Washington,
D. C., Address at, 439.
Stafford, Justice, 8i, 85.
Standard Oil trust, prosecution of,
58i.
State Capital, Columbia, S. C., address at, 415.
State Department, 462.
State Fair Grounds, Macon, Ga.,
address at, 403.
Milwaukee, address at, 20I.
Statehood, 353, 356, 578.
State Institute and College, Columbus, Miss., address at, 396.
Steamship lines between Atl ntic
ports and South America, 41.
between North and South America, 62.
Stearns, Frederic P., i25, 129, I3I,
Stevens, John F., 125.
St. Johns River, obstructions in,
448.
St. Louis, Mo., address at, 385.
St. Mary's Academy, Portland, Ore.,
address at, 320.
Stephenson, Dr. Benj. F., unveiling
of memorial to, 170.
Stock in competing railroad, prohibition of, 238, 522.
Stocks and bonds, over issue of, 4,
44, 45, 54, 522 -Republican platform's policy re
interstate railway, Io.
President Roosevelt's policy on,
5 -Stocks, watering of, 312.
Straits of Panama, I36.
Strong, Dr., I75.
Stuntz, Dr. Homer, 505.
Subig Bay, 593.
Subsidy, mail, 41, 62, 330.
ship, 298, 346,482.
Suffrage for women, 397.
Sugar, Philippine, 32, 63, 227.
Sugar trust case, 527.




INDEX


611


Swamp land, reclamation of, 381.
Swanson, Governor, 424s 440.
Sykes, Maj. Gen., I2I.
Tacoma, Wash., address at, 290.
Taft, President, response of, to toast
of President Diaz, 365.
Talladega University, 114.
Taney, Chief Justice, 550.
Tariff, the, 23I.
act of August 5, 1909, 464.
a downward revision of, 216, 302.
bill, Gorman-Wilson, 44, 46, 48.
board, appointment of, 228, 235.
309, 574.
board, uses of, 471.
Democratic Party's policy on, I8.
hides, 220.
high prices not caused by, 489.
lumber, 220.
maintenance of, 287.
maximum and minimum clause of,
62, 227, 308, 470.
Philippines, 32, 78, 285, 296.
prices alleged to be raised by,
585.
Republican Party's policy on,
17.
revision of, 18, 44, 47, 51, 54, 69,
I66, 187, 209, 246, 302.
speech on at Winona, Wis., 209.
wool schedule of, 220.
Tawney, Representative, 224.
Taylor, General, I20.
Tax, income, 37.
Tillman, Senator, 559.
Tobacco, Philippine, 32, 63, 227.
Tobacco  Trust,  prosecution  of,
581.
Toledo & Ann Arbor R. R., I50
Trade, restraint of, 317, 525.
Trades-unionism, 194.
Traffic agreements, publication of,
5I7.
rates, 240.
Treasury Department, reduction in
estimate of, 593.
Trial by jury, 197.
Trip around country, advantages of,
266.


Trust made articles, putting of on
free list, 47.
Trusts, 528, 58I.
bad, 531.
Democratic platform's policy to
end, I2, I6.
good, 531.
proper treatment of, 15.
Tobacco, and Standard Oil, 58I
unlawful, 14.
Turkey, Sultan of, 453.
Tuskegee Institute, 113.
Tyrol, Governor, Io6.
Uncas, I74.
Uncompaghre Valley, 272.
United States, vs. Knight, 527.
Universalist Church, Portland, laying cornerstone of, 322.
Urdeneta, I79.
Usurpation of power by executive,
47.
Van Buren, Mr., 142.
Vatican, negotiation with, I80.
Venezuela, 456.
Virginia Military Institute, 424.
Voyages, continuous, 449.
Vreeland Bill, 185.
Wachusetts Reservoir, 131.
Wagner, Charles C., 360.
Walker, Dr., 15.
War Department, 472.
reduction in estimate of, 593.
War of 1812, army of, 119.
Warner, Senator, 3, 501.
War, preparedness for, 59.
Washington and Lee University,
Richmond, establishment    of
engineer school at, 430.
Washington, future of, 84.
Waterpower sites, 275, 332, 373, 387,
427, 541.
disposition of, 270, 277.
Water power, use of, 276.
Waterways Convention, New Orleans, address at, 390.
Waterways, inland, 387, 392, 440,
490, 498, 501.




INDEX


Waterways, improvement of, 36.
issuing of bonds for, 381, 494,
money invested in, 373.
preservation of, 373 -Washington, D. C., addresses at,
Board of Trade and Chamber
of Commerce, 8o.
Conference of Governors, 555.
Howard University, III.
Inaugural address, 53.
Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterway Committee, SoI.
Military Order of the Caraboa, 559
addresses at, National Civic Federation, 594.
National Rivers  and   Harbors
Congress, 490.
Laymen's Missionary movement,
432.
BEOC2


Ohio Valley Improvement Association, 498.
St. Aloysius Church, 439.
Unveiling memorial to Dr. Benjamin F. Stephenson, s7J.
West Point, z20.
West Virginia coal case, 157.
Whisky, what is it? 26z.
White Slave Trade, 486.
Wilberforce University, 114.
Wiley, Dr., 84.
Winona, Minn., address at, 209.
Winthrop, Governor, 175.
Wise, Dr., 117.
Wolfe, 430.
Woman, Education of, 326.
Zelaya Government, complaint
against, 458.
r     ir


233
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