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Author 
 
 U.S. President, 
 1901-1909 (Roosevelt) 
 
 Title: 
 
 Message of the President 
 of the United States,,. 
 
 Place: 
 
 Washington 
 
 Date: 
 
 1908 
 
 ? 
 
 D.C 
 
^^'S?ooH'^ 
 
 MASTER NEGATIVE « 
 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARJfc 
 PRESERVATION DIVISION 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET 
 
 ORIGINAL MATERIAL AS FILMED • EXISTING BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD 
 
 
 
 Presiient. 1901-1909 (Roosevelt) 
 
 3^c.f** Mes8ap,e of th;e President C3f the United States 
 communicated to the? two houses cf Confess at the 
 
 be Firming! of th.e second aer^sion of the eixtieth 
 Congress* Washington, Govt, Drirt* off,, 1, P^A, 
 44 p. plates*. 24 en. 
 
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 UNITED STATES 
 
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 TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE SECOND SESSION 
 OF THE SIXTIETH CONGRESS 
 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
 1908 
 

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 To the Senate and House of Representatives: 
 
 The financial standing of the Nation at the present time is excel- 
 lent, and the financial management of the Nation's interests by the 
 
 Government during the last seven years has 
 Finances. shown the most satisfactory results. But our 
 
 currency system is imperfect, and it is earnestly 
 to be hoped that the Currency Commission will be able to propose 
 a thoroughly good system which will do away with the existing 
 
 defects. 
 
 During the period from July i, 1901, to September 30, 1908, there 
 was an increase in the amount of money in circulation of $902,991,399. 
 The increase in the per capita during this period was $7.06. Within 
 this time there were several occasions when it was necessary for the 
 Treasury Department to come to the relief of the money market by 
 purchases or redemptions of United States bonds; by increasing 
 deposits in national banks; by stimulating additional issues of 
 national bank notes, and by facilitating importations from abroad of 
 gold. Our imperfect currency system has made these proceedings 
 necessary, and they were effective until the monetary disturbance 
 in the fall of 1907 immensely increased the difficulty of ordinary 
 methods of relief. By the middle of November the available work- 
 ing balance in the Treasury had been reduced to approximately 
 $5,000,000. Clearing house associations throughout the country 
 had been obliged to resort to the expedient of issuing clearing house 
 certificates, to be used as money. In this emergency it was deter- 
 mined to invite subscriptions for $50,000,000 Panama Canal bonds, 
 and $100,000,000 three per cent certificates of indebtedness au- 
 thorized by the act of June 13, 1898. It was proposed to re-deposit 
 in the national banks the proceeds of these issues, and to permit 
 their use as a basis for additional circulating notes of national 
 banks. The moral effect of this procedure was so great that it was 
 necessary to issue only $24,631,980 of the Panama Canal bonds and 
 $15,436,500 of the certificates of indebtedness. 
 
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2 
 
 During the period from July i, 1 901, to September 30, 1908, the 
 balance between the net ordinary receipts and the net ordinary 
 expenses of the Government showed a surplus in the four years 
 1902, 1903, 1906 and 1907, and a deficit in the years 1904, 1905, 
 1908 and a fractional part of the fiscal year 1909. The net result 
 was a surplus of $99,283,413.54. The financial operations of the 
 Government during this period, based upon these differences between 
 receipts and expenditures, resulted in a net reduction of the interest- 
 bearing debt of the United States from $987,141,040 to $897,253,990, 
 notwithstanding that there had been two sales of Panama Canal 
 bonds amounting in the aggregate to $54,631,980, and an issue of 
 three per cent certificates of indebtedness under the act of June 13, 
 1898, amounting to $15,436,500. Refunding operations of the 
 Treasury Department under the act of March 14, 1900, resulted in 
 the conversion into two per cent consols of 1930 of $200,309,400 
 bonds bearing higher rates of interest. A decrease of $8,687,956 in 
 the annual interest charge resulted from these operations. 
 
 In short, during the seven years and three months there has been a 
 net surplus of nearly one hundred millions of receipts over expendi- 
 tures, a reduction of the interest-bearing debt by ninety millions, in 
 spite of the extraordinary expense of the Panama Canal, and a saving 
 of nearly nine millions on the annual interest charge. This is an 
 exceedingly satisfactory showing, especially in view of the fact that 
 during this period the Nation has never hesitated to undertake any 
 expenditure that it regarded as necessary. There have been no new 
 taxes and no increases of taxes; on the contrary some taxes have 
 been taken off; there has been a reduction of taxation. 
 
 As regards the great corporations engaged in interstate business, 
 and especially the railroads, I can only repeat what I have already 
 
 again and again said in my messages to the Con- 
 Corporations, gress. I believe that under the interstate clause 
 
 of the Constitution the United States has com- 
 plete and paramount right to control all agencies of interstate 
 commerce, and I believe that the National Government alone can 
 exercise this right with wisdom and effectiveness so as both to 
 secure justice from, and to do justice to, the great corporations 
 which are the most important factors in modern business. I 
 believe that it is worse than folly to attempt to prohibit all com- 
 binations as is done by the Sherman anti-trust law, because such a 
 law can be enforced only imperfectly and unequally, and its enforce- 
 ment works almost as much hardship as good. I strongly advocate 
 that instead of an unwise effort to prohibit all combinations, there 
 
 » 
 
 shall be substituted a law which shall expressly permit combina- 
 tions which are in the interest of the public, but shall at the same 
 time give to some agency of the National Government full power of 
 control and supervision over them. One of the chief features of this 
 control should be securing entire publicity in all matters which the 
 public has a right to know, and furthermore, the power, not by judi- 
 cial but by executive action, to prevent or put a stop to every form 
 of improper favoritism or other wrongdoing. 
 
 The railways of the country should be put completely under the 
 Interstate Commerce Commission and removed from the domain 
 of the anti-trust law. The power of the Commission should be 
 made thoroughgoing, so that it could exercise complete supervision 
 and control over the issue of securities as well as over the raising 
 and lowering of rates. As regards rates, at least, this power should 
 be summary. The power to investigate the financial operations and 
 accounts of the railways has been one of the most valuable features 
 in recent legislation. Power to make combinations and traffic 
 agreements should be explicitly conferred upon the railroads, the 
 permission of the Commission being first gained and the combina- 
 tion or agreement being published in all its details. In the interest 
 of the public the representatives of the public should have com- 
 plete power to see that the railroads do their duty by the public, 
 and as a matter of course this power should also be exercised so 
 as to see that no injustice is done to the railroads. The share- 
 holders, the employees and the shippers all have interests that 
 must be guarded. It is to the interest of all of them that no swin- 
 dling stock speculation should be allowed, and that there should 
 be no improper issuance of securities. The guiding intelligences 
 necessary for the successful building and successful management of 
 railroads should receive ample remuneration; but no man should be 
 allowed to make money in connection with railroads out of fraudu- 
 lent over-capitalization and kindred stock-gambling performances; 
 there must be no defrauding of investors, oppression of the farmers 
 and business men who ship freight, or callous disregard of the rights 
 and needs of the employees. In addition to this the interests of the 
 shareholders, of the employees, and of the shippers should all be 
 guarded as against one another. To give any one of them undue 
 and improper consideration is to do injustice to the others. Rates 
 must be made as low as is compatible with giving proper returns to 
 all the employees of the railroad, from the highest to the lowest, and 
 proper returns to the shareholders; but they must not, for instance, 
 be reduced in such fashion as to necessitate a cut in the wages of 
 
the employees or the abolition of the proper and legitimate profits 
 of honest shareholders. 
 
 Telegraph and telephone companies engaged in interstate busi- 
 ness should be put under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Com- 
 merce Commission. 
 
 It is very earnestly to be wished that our people, through their 
 representatives, should act in this matter. It is hard to say whether 
 most damage to the country at large would come from entire failure 
 on the part of the public to supervise and control the actions of the 
 great corporations, or from the exercise of the necessary govern- 
 mental power in a way which would do injustice and wrong to the 
 corporations. Both the preachers of an unrestricted individualism, 
 and the preachers of an oppression which would deny to able men 
 of business the just reward of their initiative and business sagacity, 
 are advocating policies that would be fraught with the gravest harm 
 to the whole countr}\ To permit every lawless capitalist, every 
 law-defying corporation, to take any action, no matter how iniqui- 
 tous, in the effort to secure an improper profit and to build up 
 privilege, would be ruinous to the Republic and would mark the 
 abandonment of the effort to secure in the industrial world the spirit 
 of democratic fair-dealing. On the other hand, to attack these 
 wrongs in that spirit of demagogy which can see wrong only when 
 committed by the man of wealth, and is dumb and blind in the 
 presence of wrong committed against men of property or by men of 
 no property, is exactly as evil as corruptly to defend the wrongdo- 
 ing of men of wealth. The war we wage must be waged against 
 misconduct, against wrongdoing wherever it is found; and we must 
 stand heartily for the rights of ever>^ decent man, whether he be a 
 man of great wealth or a man who earns his livelihood as a wage- 
 worker or a tiller of the soil. 
 
 It is to the interest of all of us that there should be a premium 
 put upon individual initiative and individual capacity, and an ample 
 reward for the great directing intelligences alone competent to man- 
 age the great business operations of to-day. It is well to keep in 
 mind that exactly as the anarchist is the worst enemy of liberty 
 and the reactionar}- the worst enemy of order, so the men who de- 
 fend the rights of property have most to fear from the wrongdoers 
 of great wealth, and the men who are championing popular rights 
 have most to fear from the demagogues who in the name of popular 
 rights would do wrong to and oppress honest business men, honest 
 men of wealth; for the success of either type of wrongdoer neces- 
 sarily invites a violent reaction against the cause the wrongdoer 
 
 nominally upholds. In point of danger to the Nation there is 
 nothing to choose between on the one hand the corruptionist, the 
 bribe-giver, the bribe-taker, the man who employs his great talent 
 to swindle his fellow-citizens on a large scale, and, on the other 
 hand, the preacher of class hatred, the man who, whether from 
 ignorance or from willingness to sacrifice his country to his am- 
 bition, persuades well-meaning but wrong-headed men to try to 
 destroy the instruments upon which our prosperity mainly rests. 
 Let each group of men beware of and guard against the shortcom- 
 ings to which that group is itself most liable. Too often we see 
 the business community in a spirit of unhealthy class consciousness 
 deplore the effort to hold to account under the law the wealthy 
 men who in their management of great corporations, w^hether rail- 
 roads, street railways, or other industrial enterprises, have behaved 
 in a way that revolts the conscience of the plain, decent people. 
 Such an attitude can not be condemned too severely, for men of 
 property should recognize that they jeopardize the rights of prop- 
 erty when they fail heartily to join in the effort to do away with the 
 abuses of wealth. On the other hand, those who advocate proper 
 control on behalf of the public, through the State, of these great 
 corporations, and of the wealth engaged on a giant scale in busi- 
 ness operations, must ever keep in mind that unless they do scrupu- 
 lous justice to the corporation, unless they permit ample profit, and 
 cordially encourage capable men of business so long as they act 
 with honesty, they are striking at the root of our national wellbeing; 
 for in the long run, under the mere pressure of material distress, the 
 people as a whole would probably go back to the reign of an unre- 
 stricted individualism rather than submit to a control by the State 
 so drastic and so foolish, conceived in a spirit of such unreasonable 
 and narrow hostility to wealth, as to prevent business operations 
 from being profitable, and therefore to bring ruin upon the entire 
 business community, and ultimately upon the entire body of 
 citizens. 
 
 The opposition to Government control of these great corporations 
 makes its most effective effort in the shape of an appeal to the old 
 doctrine of States* rights. Of course there are many sincere men 
 who now believe in unrestricted individualism in business, just as 
 there were formerly many sincere men who believed in slavery- — that 
 is, in the unrestricted right of an indi\ddual to own another indi- 
 vidual. These men do not by themselves have great weight, how- 
 ever. The effective fight against adequate Government control and 
 supervision of individual, and especially of corporate, wealth engaged 
 
 
in interstate business is chiefly done under cover; and especially 
 under cover of an appeal to States' rights. It is not at all infre- 
 quent to read in the same speech a denunciation of predatory 
 wealth fostered by special privilege and defiant of both the pub- 
 lic welfare and law of the land, and a denunciation of centralization 
 in the Central Government of the power to deal with this centralized 
 and organized wealth. Of course the policy set forth in such 
 twin denunciations amounts to absolutely nothing, for the first half 
 is nullified by the second half. The chief reason, among the many 
 sound and compelling reasons, that led to the formation of the 
 National Government, was the absolute need that the Union, and 
 not the several States, should deal with interstate and foreign com- 
 merce; and the power to deal with interstate commerce was granted 
 absolutely and plenarily to the Central Government and was exer- 
 cised completely as regards the only instruments" of interstate 
 commerce known in those days— the waten\'ays, the highroads, as 
 well as the partnerships of individuals who then conducted all 
 of what business there was. Interstate commerce is now chiefly 
 conducted by railroads; and the great corporation has supplanted the 
 mass of small partnerships or individuals. The proposal to make 
 the National Government supreme over, and therefore to give it 
 complete control over, the railroads and other instruments of inter- 
 state commerce is merely a proposal to carry out to the letter one of 
 the prime purposes, if not the prime purpose, for which the Consti- 
 tution was founded. It does not represent centralization. It repre- 
 sents merely the acknowledgment of the patent fact that centrali- 
 zation has already come in business. If this irresponsible outside 
 business power is to be controlled in the interest of the general 
 public it can only be controlled in one way; by giving^ adequate 
 power of control to the one sovereignty capable of exercising such 
 power— the National Government. Forty or fifty separate state 
 governments can not exercise that power over corporations doing 
 business in most or all of them; first, because they absolutely lack the 
 authority to deal with interstate business in any form; and second, 
 because of the inevitable conflict of authority sure to arise in the effort 
 to enforce different kinds of state regulation, often inconsistent with 
 one another and sometimes oppressive in themselves. Such divided 
 authority can not regulate commerce with wisdom and effect. The 
 Central Government is the only power which, without oppression, 
 can nevertheless thoroughly and adequately control and supervise 
 the large corporations. To abandon the effort for National con- 
 trol means to abandon the effort for all adequate control and yet 
 
 I, 
 
 to render likely continual bursts of action by State legislatures, 
 which can not achieve the purpose sought for, but which can do a 
 great deal of damage to the corporation without conferring any real 
 benefit on the public. 
 
 I believe that the more farsighted corporations are themselves 
 coming to recognize the unwisdom of the violent hostility they 
 have displayed during the last few years to regulation and control 
 by the National Government of combinations engaged in interstate 
 business. The truth is that we who believe in this movement of 
 asserting and exercising a genuine control, in the public interest, 
 over these great corporations have to contend against two sets of 
 enemies, who, though nominally opposed to one another, are really 
 allies in preventing a proper solution of the problem. There are, 
 first, the big corporation men, and the extreme individualists among 
 business men, who genuinely believe in utterly unregulated busi- 
 ness — that is, in the reign of plutocracy; and, second, the men 
 who, being blind to the economic movements of the day, believe in 
 a movement of repression rather than of regulation of corporations, 
 and who denounce both the power of the railroads and the exercise 
 of the Federal power which alone can really control the railroads. 
 Those who believe in efficient national control, on the other 
 hand, do not in the least object to combinations; do not in the 
 least object to concentration in business administration. On the 
 contrary, they favor both, with the all important proviso that there 
 shall be such publicity about their workings, and such thoroughgoing 
 control over them, as to insure their being in the interest, and not 
 against the interest, of the general public. We do not object to 
 the concentration of wealth and administration ; but we do believe 
 in the distribution of the wealth in profits to the real owners, and 
 in securing to the public the full benefit of the concentrated admin- 
 istration. We believe that with concentration in administration 
 there can come both the advantage of a larger ownership and of a 
 [more equitable distribution of profits, and at the same time a better 
 service to the commonwealth. We believe that the administration 
 should be for the benefit of the many ; and that greed and rascality, 
 practiced on a large scale, should be punished as relentlessly as if 
 practiced on a small scale. 
 
 We do not for a moment believe that the problem will be solved 
 by any short and easy method. The solution will come only by 
 pressing various concurrent remedies. Some of these remedies must 
 lie outside the domain of all government. Some must lie outside 
 the domain of the Federal Government. But there is legislation 
 
 I 
 
 
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8 
 
 which the Federal Government alone can enact and which is abso- 
 lutely vital in order to secure the attainment of our purpose. IVIany 
 laws are needed. There should be regulation by the National Gov- 
 ernment of the great interstate corporations, including a simple 
 method of account keeping, publicity, supervision of the issue of 
 securities, abolition of rebates and of special privileges. There 
 should be short time franchises for all corporations engaged in public 
 business; including the corporations which get power from water 
 rights. There should be National as well as State guardianship 
 of\iines and forests. The labor legislation hereinafter referred 
 to should concurrently be enacted into law. 
 
 To accomplish this, means of course a certain increase in the use 
 
 of not the creation of — power, by the Central Government. The 
 
 power already exists; it does not have to be created; the only ques- 
 tion is whether it shall be used or left idle— and meanwhile the 
 corporations over which the power ought to be exercised will not 
 remain idle. Let those who object to this increase in the use of the 
 only power available, the national power, be frank, and admit 
 openly that they propose to abandon any effort to control the 
 great business corporations and to exercise super\4sion over the 
 accumulation and distribution of wcallli; fur such supervision and 
 control can only come through this particular kin«l of increase of 
 power. We no more believe in that empiricism which demands 
 absolutely unrestrained individualism than we do in that empiricism 
 which clamors for a deadening socialism which would destroy all 
 individual initiative and wonld rnin the country with a complete- 
 ness that not even an unrestrained individualism itself could achieve. 
 The danger to American democracy lies not in the least in the con- 
 centration of administrative power in responsible and accountable 
 hands. It lies in liavinq- the power insufficicnlU- concentrated, so 
 that no one can be held responsible to the people for its use. Con- 
 centrated power is palpable, visible, responsible, easily reached, 
 quickly held to account. Power scattered thron,o;h many adminis- 
 trators, many legislators, many men who work behind and through 
 legislators and administrators, is impalpable, is iniscen, is irrespon- 
 sible, can not be reached, can not be held to account. Democracy 
 is in peril wherever the administration of political power is scattered 
 amono- a variety of men wdio work in secret, whose \ery names are 
 unknown to the common people. It is not in peril from an\- man 
 who derives authority from the people, who exercises it in sight of 
 the people, and who is from time to time compelled to give an 
 account of its exercise to the people. 
 
 |.vl 
 
 There are many matters affecting labor and the status of the wage- 
 worker to which I should like to draw your attention, but an exhaust- 
 ive discussion of the problem in all its aspects 
 Labor. is not now necessary. This administration is 
 
 nearing its end; and, moreover, under our form 
 of government the solution of the problem depends upon the 
 action of the States as much as upon the action of the Nation. 
 Nevertheless, there are certain considerations which I wish to 
 set before you, because I hope that our people will more and 
 more keep them in m.ind. A blind and ignorant resistance to 
 ever>^ effort for the reform of abuses and for the readjustment of 
 society to modern industrial conditions represents not true conserv- 
 atism but an incitement to the wildest radicalism; for wise radical- 
 ism and wise conservatism go hand in hand, one bent on progress, 
 the other bent on seeing that no change is made unless in the right 
 direction. I believe in a steady effort, or perhaps it would be more 
 accurate to say in steady efforts in man}- different directions, to bring 
 about a condition of affairs under which the men who w^ork with 
 hand or witli brain, the laborers, the superintendents, the men who 
 produce for the market and the men wdio find a market for the arti- 
 cles produced, shall own a far greater share than at present of the 
 wealth they produce, and be enabled to invest it in the tools and 
 instruments by which all Avork is carried on. As far as possible I 
 hope to see a frank recognition of the advantages conferred by 
 machinery, organization, and division of labor, accompanied by 
 an effort to bring about a larger share in the ownership b}' wage- 
 worker of railway, mill, and factory. In farming, this simply 
 means that we wish to see the farmer own his own land; we do 
 not wish to see the farms so large that they become the prop- 
 erty of absentee landlords who farm them by tenants, nor yet so 
 small that the farmer becomes like a European peasant. Again, 
 the depositors in our savings banks now number over one-tenth 
 of our entire population. These are all capitalists, who through 
 the savings banks loan their money to the workers — that is, in 
 man\' cases to themselves — to carry on their various industries. 
 The more we increase their number, the more we introduce the 
 principles of cooperation into our industry. Every increase in the 
 number of small stockholders in corporations is a good thing, for 
 the same reasons; and where the employees are the stockholders 
 the result is particularly good. Very nuich of this movement must 
 be outside of anything that can be accomplished by legislation; but 
 legislation can do a good deal. Postal savings banks will make it 
 
 
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 easy for the poorest to keep their savings in absohite safety. The 
 reo-nlation of the national hij2:hways nuist be snch that thev shall 
 serve all people with eqnal jnstice. Corporate finances ninst be 
 supervised so as to make it far safer than at present for the man of 
 small means to invest his money in stocks. There nuist be pro- 
 hibition of child labor, diminution of woman labor, shortening- of 
 hours of all mechanical labor; stock watering- should be prohib- 
 ited, and stock gambling so far as is possible discouraged. There 
 should be a progressive inheritance tax on large fortunes. Indus- 
 trial education should be encouraged. As far as possible we should 
 lighten the burden of taxation on the small man. We should put 
 a premium upon thrift, hard work, and business energ}-; but these 
 qualities cease to be the main factors in accumulating a fortune 
 long before that fortune reaches a point where it would be seriously 
 affected by any inheritance tax such as I propose. It is eminently 
 right that the Nation should fix the terms upon which the great 
 fortunes are inherited. They rarely do good and the>' often do 
 harm to those who inherit them in their entirety. 
 
 The above is the merest sketch, hardly even a sketch in outline, 
 of the reforms for which we should work. But there is one matter 
 
 with which the Congress should deal at this scs- 
 Protection for •'^ic»n. There should no longer be an\- paltering 
 
 Wageworkers. ^vith the question of taking care of the wage- 
 
 workers who, under our present industrial system, 
 become killed, crippled, or worn out as part of the regular incidents 
 of a given business. The majority of wageworkers must ha\ e their 
 rights secured for them by State action; but the National Govern- 
 ment should legislate in thoroughgoing and far-reaching fasliion 
 not only for all employees of the National Government, but for cdl 
 persons engaged in interstate commerce. The object sought for 
 could be achieved to a measurable degree, as far as those killed or 
 crippled are concerned, by proper employers' liability laws. As far 
 as concerns those who have been worn out, I call >our attention to 
 the fact that definite steps toward providing old-age pensions have 
 been taken in many of our private industries. These maybe indefi- 
 nitely extended through \'oluntary association and contributory 
 schemes, or through the agency of savings l)anks, as under the 
 recent IMassachusetts plan. To strengthen these practical measures 
 should be our immediate duty; it is not at present necessary to 
 consider the larger and more general governmental schemes that 
 most European governments have found themselves obliged to 
 adopt. 
 
 II 
 
 Our present system, or rather no S3'stem, works dreadful wrong, 
 and is of benefit to only one class of people — the lawyers. When a 
 workman is injured what he needs is not an expensive and doubtful 
 lawsuit, but the certainty of relief through immediate administrative 
 action. The number of accidents which result in the death or crip- 
 pling of wageworkers, in the Union at large, is simply appalling; 
 in a very few years it runs up a total far in excess of the aggregate 
 of the dead and wounded in any modern war. No academic theory 
 about "freedom of contract" or ''constitutional libertv to contract" 
 should be permitted to interfere wdth this and similar movements. 
 Progress in civilization has everywhere meant a limitation and reg- 
 ulation of contract. I call your especial attention to the bulletin of 
 the Bureau of Labor which gives a statement of the methods of 
 treating the unemployed in European countries, as this is a subject 
 which in Germany, for instance, is treated in connection w^ith mak- 
 ing provision for worn out and crippled workmen. 
 
 Pending a thoroughgoing investigation and action there is certain 
 legislation which should be enacted at once. The law, passed at 
 the last session of the Congress, granting compensation to certain 
 classes of employees of the Government, should be extended to include 
 all employees of the Government and should be made more liberal 
 in its terms. There is no good ground for the distinction made in 
 the law between those engaged in hazardous occupations and those 
 not so engaged. If a man is injured or killed in any line of work, 
 it was hazardous in his case. Whether i per cent or lo per cent of 
 those following a given occupation actually suffer injury or death 
 ought not to have any bearing on the question of their receiving 
 compensation. It is a grim logic wdiich says to an injured employee 
 or to the dependents of one killed that he or they are entitled to no 
 compensation because very few people other than he have been 
 injured or killed in that occupation. Perhaps one of the most 
 striking omissions in the law is that it does not embrace peace 
 officers and others whose lives may be sacrificed in enforcing the 
 laws of the United States. The terms of the act providing com- 
 pensation should be made more liberal than in the present act. A 
 year's compensation is not adequate for a wage-earner's family in the 
 event of his death by accident in the course of his employment. And 
 in the event of death occurring, say, ten or eleven months after the 
 accident, the family would only receive as compensation the equiva- 
 lent of one or two months' earnings. In this respect the generosity 
 of the United States towards its employees compares most unfavorably 
 with that of every country in Europe — even the poorest. 
 
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 The terms of the act are also a hardship in prohibiting payment 
 in cases where the accident is in anv wav dne to the neofliircnce of 
 the employee. It is inevitable that daily familiarity with danger 
 will lead men to take chances that can be constrned into ne<rli<jence. 
 So well is this recognized that in practically all conntries in the civi- 
 lized world, except the United States, only a great degree of negli- 
 gence acts as a bar to secnring compensation. Probably in no other 
 respect is our legislation, both State and National, so far behind 
 practically the entire civilized world as in the matter of liability 
 and compensation for accidents in industry. It is humiliating that 
 at P^uropean international congresses on accidents the United vStates 
 should be singled out as the most belated among the nations 
 in respect to employers' liability legislation. This Crovernmcnt is 
 itself a large employer of labor, and in its dealings with its em- 
 ployees it should set a standard in this cotintry which would place 
 it on a par with the most progressive countries in Murope. The 
 laws of the United States in this respect and the laws of European 
 countries have been suiumarized in a recent Bulletin of the Bureau 
 of Labor, and no American who reads this sunnnary can fail to be 
 struck by the great contrast between our practices and theirs — a 
 contrast not in any sense to our credit. 
 
 The Congress should without further delay pass a model employ- 
 ers' liability law for the District of Cohimbia. The employers' 
 liability act recently declared unconstitutional, on account of appar- 
 ently including in its provisions employees engaged in intrastate 
 commerce as well as those engaged in interstate commerce, has been 
 held by the local courts to be still in effect so far as its provisions 
 apply to the District of Columbia. There should be no ambiguity 
 on this point. If there is any doubt on the subject, the law should 
 be reenacted with special reference to the District of Columbia. 
 This act, however, applies only to employees of common carriers. 
 In all other occupations the liabilit}- law of the District is the old 
 common law. The severity and injustice of the common law in 
 this matter has been in some degree or another modified in the 
 majority of our States, and the only jurisdiction under the exclusive 
 control of the Congress should be ahead and not behind the States 
 of the Union in this respect. A comprehensive employers' liability 
 law shotild be passed for the District of Columbia. 
 
 I renew my recommendation made in a previous message that 
 half-holidays be granted dtiring summer to all wage-workers in 
 Government employ. 
 
 I 
 
 13 
 
 I also renew my recommendation that the principle of the eight- 
 hour day should as rapidly and as far as practicable be extended to 
 the entire work being carried on by the Government ; the present 
 law should be amended to embrace contracts on those public works 
 which the present wording of the act seems to exclude. 
 
 I most earnestly urge upon the Congress the duty of increasing 
 the totally inadequate salaries now given to our Judges. On the 
 
 whole there is no body of public servants wdio do 
 The Courts. ^s valuable work, nor whose moneyed reward is so 
 
 inadequate compared to their work. Beginning 
 with the Supreme Court the Judges should have their salaries dou- 
 bled. It is not befitting the dignity of the Nation that its most 
 honored public servants should be paid sums so small compared to 
 what they would earn in private life that the performance of public 
 service by them implies an exceedingly heavy pecuniary^ sacrifice. 
 
 It is earnestly to be desired that some method should be devised 
 for doing away with the long delays which now obtain in the 
 administration of justice, and which operate with peculiar severity 
 against persons of small means, and favor only the ver>^ criminals 
 whom it is most desirable to punish. These long delays in the final 
 decisions of cases make in the aggregate a crying evil; and a remedy 
 should be devised. Much of this intolerable delay is due to improper 
 regard paid to technicalities which are a mere hindrance to justice. 
 In some noted recent cases this over-regard for technicalities has 
 resulted in a striking denial of justice, and flagrant wTong to the 
 body politic. 
 
 At the last election certain leaders of organized labor made a vio- 
 lent and sweeping attack upon the entire judiciary of the country, 
 an attack couched in such terms as to include the most upright, 
 honest and broad-minded judges, no less than those of narrower 
 mind and more restricted outlook. It was the kind of attack admir- 
 ably fitted to prevent any successful attempt to reform abuses of the 
 judiciary, because it gave the champions of the imjust judge their 
 eagerly desired opportunity to shift their ground into a champion- 
 ship of just judges who were unjustly assailed. Last year, before 
 the House Committee on the Judiciary, these same labor leaders 
 formulated their demands, specifying the bill that contained them, 
 refusing all compromise, stating they wished the principle of that 
 bill or nothing. They insisted on a provision that in a labor dis- 
 pute no injunction should issue except to protect a property right, 
 and specifically provided that the right to carry on business should 
 not be construed as a property right; and in a second provision 
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 their bill made legal in a labor dispute any act or agreement by 
 or between two or more persons that would not have been unlaw- 
 ful if done bv a single person. In other words, this bill legalized 
 blacklisting and boycotting in every form, legalizing, for instance, 
 those forms of the secondary bo>-cott which the anthracite coal 
 strike commission so unreservedly condemned; while the right to 
 carry on a business was explicitly taken out from under that pro- 
 tection which the law throws over property. The demand was 
 made that there should be trial by jury in contempt cases, thereby 
 most seriously impairing the authority of the courts. All this rep- 
 resented a course of policy which, if carried out, would mean the 
 enthronement of class privilege in its crudest and most brutal form, 
 and the destruction of one of the most essential functions of the 
 judiciar}^ in all civilized lands. 
 
 The violence of the crusade for this legislation, and its complete 
 failure, ilhistrate two truths which it is essential our people should 
 learn. In the first place, they ought to teach the workingman, 
 the laborer, the wageworker, that by demanding what is improper 
 and impossible he plays into the hands of his foes. Such a crude 
 and vicious attack upon the courts, even if it were temporarily suc- 
 cessful, would inevitably in the end cause a violent reaction and 
 would band the great mass of citizens together, forcing them to 
 stand by all the judges, competent and incompetent alike, rather 
 than to see the wheels of justice stopped. A movement of this 
 kind can ultimately result in nothing but damage to those in whose 
 behalf it is nominally undertaken. This is a most healthy truth, 
 which it is wise for all our people to learn. Any movement based 
 on that class hatred which at times assumes the name of " class 
 consciousness" is certain ultimately to fail, and if it temporarily 
 succeeds, to do far-reaching damage. "Class consciousness," where 
 it is merely another name for the odious vice of class selfishness, is 
 equally noxious whether in an employer\s association or in a work- 
 ingman's association. The movement in question was one in which 
 the appeal was made to all workingmen to vote primarih', not as 
 American citizens, but as individuals of a certain class in society. 
 Such an appeal in the first place revolts the more high-minded and 
 far-sighted among the persons to whom it is addressed, and in the 
 second place tends to arouse a strong antagonism among all other 
 classes of citizens, whom it therefore tends to unite against the 
 ver>^ organization on whose behalf it is issued. The result is there- 
 fore unfortunate from every standpoint. This healthy truth, by the 
 way, will be learned by the socialists if they ever succeed in estab- 
 
 15 
 
 lishing in this country an important national party based on such 
 class consciousness and selfish class interest. 
 
 The wageworkers, the workingmen, the laboring men of the 
 country by the way in which they repudiated the effort to get them 
 to cast their votes in response to an appeal to class hatred, have 
 emphasized their sound patriotism and Americanism. The w^hole 
 country has cause to feel pride in this attitude of sturdy independ- 
 ence, in this uncompromising insistence upon acting simply as 
 good citizens, as good Americans, without regard to fancied — and 
 improper — class interests. Such an attitude is an object-lesson in 
 good citizenship to the entire nation. 
 
 But the extreme reactionaries, the persons who blind themselves 
 to the wrongs now and then committed by the courts on laboring 
 men, should also think seriously as to w^hat such a movement as 
 this portends. The judges who have shown themselves able and 
 willing effectively to check the dishonest activity of the very rich 
 man who w^orks iniquity by the mismanagement of corporations, who 
 have shown themselves alert to do justice to the w^agew^orker, and 
 sympathetic wnth the needs of the mass of our people, so that the 
 dweller in the tenement houses, the man w'ho practices a dangerous 
 trade, the man who is crushed by excessive hours of labor, feel that 
 their needs are understood by the courts — these judges are the real 
 bulwark of the courts ; these judges, the judges of the stamp of the 
 President-elect, who have been fearless in opposing labor when it has 
 gone wTong, but fearless also in holding to strict account corpora- 
 tions that w^ork iniquity, and far-sighted in seeing that the working- 
 man gets his rights, are the men of all others to w^hom w^e owe it that 
 the appeal for such violent and mistaken legislation has fallen on deaf 
 ears, that the agitation for its passage proved to be without substantial 
 basis. The courts are jeoparded primarily by the action of these Fed- 
 eral and State judges who show inability or unwillingness to put a stop 
 to the wrongdoing of very rich men tnider modern industrial con- 
 ditions, and inability or unwillingness to give relief to men of small 
 means or wageworkers wdio are crushed down by these modern 
 industrial conditions; who, in other words, fail to imderstand and 
 apply the needed remedies for the new wTongs produced by the new 
 and highly complex social and industrial civilization which has 
 grown up in the last half century. 
 
 The rapid changes in our social and industrial life which have 
 attended this rapid growth have made it necessary' that, in applying 
 to concrete cases the great rule of right laid down in our Constitu- 
 tion, there should be a full understanding and appreciation of the 
 
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 new conditions to which the rules are to be applied. \Miat wonld 
 have been an infringement upon libert}- half a century ago may be 
 the necessary safeguard of liberty to-day. What would have been 
 an injury to property then may be necessary to the enjoyment of 
 property now. Every judicial decision involves two terms — one, an 
 interpretation of the law; the other, the tniderstanding of the 
 facts to which it is to be applied. The great mass of our 
 judicial officers are I believe alive to these changes of conditions 
 which so materially aflect the performance of their judicial duties. 
 Our judicial system is sound and effective at core, and it remains, 
 and must ever be maintained, as the safeguard of those principles 
 of liberty and justice which stand at the foundation of American 
 institutions; for, as Burke finely said, when liberty and justice 
 are separated, neither is safe. There are, however, some members 
 of the judicial body who have lagged behind in their understanding 
 of these great and vital changes in the body politic, whose minds 
 have never been opened to the new applications of the old princi- 
 ples made necessary by the new conditions. Judges of this stamp 
 do lasting harm by their decisions, because they convince poor 
 men in need of protection that the courts of the land are profoundly 
 ignorant of and out of sympathy with their needs, and profoundly 
 indifferent or hostile to any proposed remedy. To such men it 
 seems a cruel mockery to have any court decide against them on the 
 ground that it desires to preserve "liberty" in a purely technical 
 form, by withholding liberty in any real and coustructive 
 sense. It is desirable that the legislative body should possess, 
 and wherever necessary exercise, the power to determine whether 
 in a given case emplo}'ers and employees are not on an equal foot- 
 ing, so that the necessities of the latter compel them to submit to 
 such exactions as to hours and conditions of labor as unduly to tax 
 their strength; and only mischief can result when such determina- 
 tion is upset on the ground that there must be no " interference with 
 the liberty to contract "—often a merely academic "liberty," the 
 exercise of which is the negation of real liberty. 
 
 There are certain decisions by various courts which have been 
 exceedingly detrimental to the rights of wagcworkers. This is 
 true of all the decisions that decide that men and women are, by 
 the Constitution, "guaranteed their liberty" to contract to enter a 
 dangerous occupation, or to work an undesirable or improper num- 
 ber of hours, or to work in unhealthy surroundings; and therefore 
 can not recover damages when maimed in that occupation and can 
 not be forbidden to work what the legislature decides is an excessive 
 
 17 
 
 number of hours, or to carr}- on the work under conditions which 
 the legislature decides to be unhealthy. The most dangerous occu- 
 pations are often the poorest paid and those where the hours of work 
 are longest; and in many cases those who go into them are driven 
 by necessity so great that they have practically no alternative. 
 Decisions such as those alluded to above nullify the legislative effort 
 to protect the wage-workers who most need protection from those 
 employers who take advantage of their grinding need. They halt 
 or hamper the movement for securing better and more equitable 
 conditions of labor. The talk about preserving to the miser}-- 
 hunted beings who make contracts for such service their " liberty " 
 to make them, is either to speak in a spirit of heartless irony or else 
 to show an utter lack of knowledge of the conditions of life among 
 the great masses of our fellow-countrymen, a lack which unfits a 
 judge to do good service just as it would unfit any executive or 
 legislative ofBcer. 
 
 There is also, I think, ground for the belief that substantial injus- 
 tice is often suffered by employees in consequence of the custom of 
 courts issuing temporary injunctions without notice to them, and 
 punishing them for contempt of court in instances where, as a 
 matter of fact, they have no knowledge of any proceedings. Out- 
 side of organized labor there is a widespread feeling that this system 
 often works great injustice to wageworkers when their efforts to 
 better their working condition result in industrial disputes. A tem- 
 porary injunction procured ex parte may as a matter of fact have 
 all the effect of a permanent injunction in causing disaster to the 
 wage-workers' side in such a dispute. Organized labor is chafing 
 under the unjust restraint which comes from repeated resort to 
 this plan of procedure. Its discontent has been unwisely expressed, 
 and often improperly expressed, but there is a sound basis for it, and 
 the orderly and law-abiding people of a community would be in 
 a far stronger position for upholding the courts if the undoubtedly 
 existing abuses could be provided against. 
 
 Such proposals as those mentioned above as advocated by the 
 extreme labor leaders, contain the vital error of being class legisla- 
 tion of the most offensive kind, and even if enacted into law I believe 
 that the law would rightly be held unconstitutional. Moreover, 
 the labor people are themselves now beginning to invoke the use of 
 the power of injunction. During the last ten years, and within my 
 own knowledge, at least fifty injunctions have been obtained by 
 lal)or unions in New York City alone, most of them being to pro- 
 tect the union label (a "property right"), but some being obtained 
 
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 for other reasons against employers. The power of injunction 
 is a great eqnitablc remedy, which shonld on no acconnt be 
 destroyed. Bnt safegnards should be erected against its abnse. 
 I believe that some snch provisions as those I advocated a year ago 
 for checking the abuse of the issuance of temporary injunctions 
 should be adopted. In substance, provision should be made that no 
 injunction or temporary restraining order issue otherwise than on 
 notice, except wlierc irreparable injury would otherwise result; and 
 in such case a hearing on the merits of the order should be had 
 within a short fixed period, and, if not then continued after hearing, 
 it should forthwith lapse. Decisions should 1)e rendered immedi- 
 ately, and the chance of delay minimized in every way. Moreover, 
 I believe that the procedure should be sharpU- defined, and the 
 judge required minutely to state the particulars both of his action 
 and'^of his reasons therefor, so that the Congress can if it desires 
 examine and investigate the same. 
 
 The chief lawmakers in our countr\- may l)e, and often are, the 
 judges, because they are the final seat of authority. Every time they 
 interpret contract, property, vested rights, due process of law, liberty, 
 they necessarily enact into law parts of a system of social i^liiloso- 
 phy; and as such interpretation is fundamental, they give direction 
 to all law-making. The decisions of the courts on economic and 
 social questions depend upon their economic and social philosophy; 
 and for the peaceful progress of our people during the twentieth 
 centur\- we shall owe most to those judges who hold to a twentieth 
 centurv economic and social philosophy and not to a long outgrown 
 philosophy, which was itself the product of primitive economic con- 
 ditions. Of course a judge's views on progressive social philosophy 
 are entirelv second in importance to his possession of a high and 
 fine character; which means the possession oi such elementary vir- 
 tues as honesty, courage, and fairmindedness. The judge who owes 
 his election to pandering to demagogic sentiments or class hatreds 
 and prejudices, and the judge who owes either his election or his 
 appointment to the money or the favor of a great corporation, are 
 alike unworthy to sit on the bench, are alike traitors to the people; 
 and no profundity of legal learning, or correctness of abstract con- 
 viction on questions of public policy, can serve as an offset to such 
 shortcomings. But it is also true that judges, like executives and 
 legislators, should hold sound views on the questions of public policy 
 which are of vital interest to the people. 
 
 The legislators and executives are chosen to represent the people 
 in enacting and administering the laws. The judges are not chosen 
 
 19 
 
 to represent the people in this sense. Their function is to interpret 
 the laws. The legislators are responsible for the laws; the judges 
 for the spirit in which they interpret and enforce the laws. We 
 stand aloof from the reckless agitators who would make the judges 
 mere pliant tools of popular prejudice and passion; and we stand 
 aloof from those equally unwise partisans of reaction and privilege 
 who deny tlie proposition that, inasmuch as judges are chosen 
 to serve the interests of the whole people, they should stri\e 
 to find out what those interests are, and, so far as they con- 
 scientiously can, should strive to give effect to popular conviction 
 when deliberately and duly expressed by the lawmaking body. 
 The courts are to be highly commended and staunchly upheld 
 when they set their faces against wrongdoing or tyranny by a 
 majority; but they are to be blamed when they fail to recognize 
 under a government like ours the deliberate judgment of the 
 majority as to a matter of legitimate policy, when duly expressed 
 by the legislature. Such lawfully expressed and deliberate judg- 
 ment should be given effect by the courts, save in the extreme and 
 exceptional cases where there has been a clear violation of a 
 constitutional provision. Anything like frivolity or wantonness 
 in upsetting such clearly taken governmental action is a grave 
 offense against the Republic. To protest against t}Tanny, to pro- 
 tect minorities from oppression, to nullify an act committed in a 
 spasm of popular fury, is to render a ser\'ice to the Republic. But 
 for the courts to arrogate to themselves functions which properly 
 belong to the legislative bodies is all wrong, and in the end works 
 mischief. The people should not be permitted to pardon evil and 
 slipshod legislation on the theory that the court will set it right; they 
 should be taught that the right way to get rid of a bad law is to have 
 the legislature re2:>eal it, and not to have the courts by ingenious hair- 
 splitting nullif)' it. A law may be unwise and improper; but it 
 should not for these reasons be declared unconstitutional by a 
 strained interpretation, for the result of such action is to take away 
 from the people at large their sense of responsibility and ultimately 
 to destroy their capacity for orderly self restraint and self government. 
 Under such a popular government as ours, founded on the theor}- that 
 m the long run the will of the people is supreme, the ultimate safety 
 of the Nation can only rest in training and guiding the people so 
 that what they will shall be right, and not in devising means to 
 defeat their will by the technicalities of strained construction. 
 
 For many of the shortcomings of justice in our countrv^ our peo- 
 ple as a whole are themselves to blame, and the judges and juries 
 
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 merely bear their share together with the public as a whole. It is 
 discreditable to us as a people that there should be diflficulty in con- 
 victing murderers, or in bringing to justice men who as public 
 servants have been guilty of corruption, or who have profited by 
 the corruption of public servants. The result is equally unfor- 
 tunate, whether due to hairsplitting technicalities in the interpre- 
 tation of law by judges, to sentimentality and class consciousness 
 on the part of juries, or to hysteria and sensationalism in the daily 
 press. For much of this failure of justice no responsibility whatever 
 lies on rich men as such. We who make up the mass of the people 
 can not .shift the responsibility from our own shoulders. But there 
 is an important part of the failure which has specially to do with 
 inability to hold to proper account men of wealth who behave badly. 
 
 The chief breakdown is in dealing with the new relations that 
 arise from the nnitualism, the interdependence of our time. Every 
 new social relation begets a new type of wrongdoing — of sin, to 
 use an old-fashioned word — and many years alw^ays elapse before 
 society is able to turn this sin into crime which can be effectively 
 punished at law. During the lifetime of the older men now alive the 
 social relations have changed far more rapidl}tlian in the preceding 
 two centuries. The immense growth of corporations, of business 
 done by associations, and the extreme strain and pressure of 
 modern life, have produced conditions which render the public 
 confused as to who its really dangerous foes are; and among the 
 public servants who have not onh' shared this confusion, but by 
 some of their acts have increased it, are certain judges. Marked 
 inefficiency has been shown in dealing with corporations and in 
 re-settling the proper attitude to be taken by the public not only 
 towards corporations, Ijut towards la])or, and towards the social 
 questions arising out of the factory system, and the enormous growth 
 of our great cities. 
 
 The huge wealth that has been accumulated by a few individ- 
 uals of recent }-ears, in what has amounted to a social and indus- 
 trial revolution, has been as regards some of these individuals made 
 possible only by the improper use of the modern corporation. A 
 certain type of modern corporation, with its officers and agents, its 
 many issues of securities, and its constant consolidation with allied 
 undertakings, fmally becomes an instrumeu.t so complex eis to 
 contain a greater number of elements that, under various judicial 
 decisions, lend themselves to fraud and oppression than any 
 device yet evolved in the human brain. Corporations are necessary 
 instruments of modern business. They have been permitted to 
 
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 21 
 
 become a menace largely because the governmental representatives 
 of the people have worked slowly in providing for adequate control 
 over them. 
 
 The chief offender in any given case may be an executive, a leg- 
 islature, or a judge. Every executive head who advises violent, 
 instead of gradual, action, or who advocates ill-considered and sweep- 
 ing measures of reform (especially if they are tainted with vindic- 
 tiveness, and disregard for the rights of the minority) is particularly 
 blameworthy. The several legislatures are responsible for the 
 fact that our laws are often prepared with slovenly haste and 
 lack of consideration. Moreover, they are often prepared, and 
 still more frequently amended during passage, at the suggestion of 
 the very parties against whom they are afterwards enforced. Our 
 great clusters of corporations, huge trusts and fabulously wealthy 
 multimillionaires, employ the very best lawyers they can obtain to 
 pick flaws in these statutes after their passage; but they also employ 
 a class of secret agents who seek, under the advice of experts, to 
 render hostile legislation innocuous by making it unconstitutional, 
 often through the insertion of what appear on their face to be drastic 
 and sweeping provisions against the interests of the parties inspiring 
 them; while the demagogues, the corrupt creatures who intro- 
 duce blackmailing schemes to '' strike" corporations, and all 
 who demand extreme, and undesirably radical, measures, show 
 themselves to be the worst enemies of the ver}' public whose 
 loud-mouthed champions they profess to be. A ver>' striking illus- 
 tration of the consequences of carelessness in the preparation of a 
 statute w\as the employers' liability law of 1906. In the cases aris- 
 ing under that law, four out of six courts of first instance held it 
 unconstitutional; six out of nine justices of the Supreme Court held 
 that its subject-matter was within the province of congressional 
 action; and four of the nine justices held it valid. It was, however, 
 adjudged unconstitutional by a bare majority of the court — five to 
 four. It was surely a very slovenly piece of work to frame the leg- 
 islation in such shape as to leave the question open at all. 
 
 Real damage has been done by the manifold and conflicting inter- 
 pretations of the interstate commerce law\ Control over the great 
 corporations doing interstate business can be effective only if it is 
 vested with full power in an administrative department, a branch 
 of the Federal executive, carrying out a Federal law; it can never 
 be effective if a divided responsibility is left in both the States and 
 the Nation; it can never be effective if left in the hands of the courts 
 to be decided by lawsuits. 
 
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 The courts hold a place of peculiar and desen'ed sanctity under 
 our form of government. Respect for the law is essential to the 
 permanence of our institutions ; and respect for the law is largely 
 conditioned upon respect for the courts. It is an offense against 
 the Republic to say anything which can weaken this respect, save 
 for the gravest reason and in the most carefully guarded manner. 
 Our judges should be held in peculiar honor ; and the duty of respect- 
 ful and truthful comment and criticism, which should be binding 
 when we speak of an>body, should be especially binding when we 
 speak of them. On an average they stand above any other serA'ants of 
 the community, and the greatest judges have reached the high level 
 held by those few greatest patriots whom the whole country delights 
 to honor. But we must face the fact that there are wise and unwise 
 judges, just as there are wise and unwise executives and legislators. 
 When a president or a governor behaves improperh' or unwisely, 
 the remedy is easy, for his term is short; the same is true with 
 the legislator, although not to the same degree, for he is one 
 of many who belong to some given legislative body, and it is there- 
 fore less easy to fix his personal responsibility and hold him account- 
 able therefor. With a judge, who, being human, is also likely to 
 err, but wdiose tenure is for life, there is no similar way of holding 
 him to responsibility. Under ordinary conditions the only forms 
 of pressure to which he is in any way amenable arc, public opinion, 
 and the action of his fellow judges. It is the last which is most ini- 
 mediatelv effective, and to which we should look for the reform of 
 abuses. Any remedy applied from without is fraught with risk. It 
 is far better, from every standpoint, that the remedy should come 
 from within. In no other nation in the world do the courts wield 
 such vast and far-reaching power as in the United States. All that 
 is necessary is that the courts as a whole should exercise this power 
 with the farsighted wisdom already shown by those judges who scan 
 the future while they act in the present. Let them exercise this 
 great power not only honestly and bravely, but with wise insight 
 into the needs and fixed purposes of the people, so that they may do 
 justice, and work equity, so that they may protect all persons in 
 their rights, and yet break down the barriers of privilege, which is 
 
 the foe of right. 
 
 If there is any one duty which more than another we owe it to 
 our children and our children's children to perform at once, it is 
 to save the forests of this country, for they constitute the first and 
 most important element in the conservation of the natural re- 
 sources of the country. There are of course two kinds of natural 
 
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 23 
 
 resources. One is the kind which can only be used as part of a 
 process of exhaustion; this is true of mines, natural oil and gas 
 
 wells, and the like. The other, and of course 
 Forests. ultimately by far the most important, includes the 
 
 resources which can be improved in the process 
 of wise use ; the soil, the rivers, and the forests come under this head. 
 Any really civilized nation will so use all of these three great 
 national assets that the nation will have their benefit in the future. 
 Just as a farmer, after all his life making his living from his farm, 
 will, if he is an expert farmer, leave it as an asset of increased 
 value to his son, so we should leave our national domain to our 
 children, increased in value and not worn out. There are small 
 sections of our own country, in the East and in the West, in the 
 Adirondacks, the White Mountains, and the Appalachians, and in 
 the Rocky ]\Iountains, where we can already see for ourselves the 
 damage in the shape of permanent injury to the soil and the river 
 systems which comes from reckless deforestation. It matters not 
 whether this deforestation is due to the actual reckless cutting of 
 timber, to the fires that inevitably follow such reckless cutting 
 of timber, or to reckless and uncontrolled grazing, especially by the 
 great migratory bands of sheep, the unchecked wandering of which 
 over the countrv means destruction to forests and disaster to the 
 small home makers, the settlers of limited means. 
 
 Shortsighted persons, or persons blinded to the future by desire 
 to make money in every way out of the present, sometimes speak as 
 if no great damage would be done by the reckless destruction of 
 our forests. It is difficult to have patience with the arguments of 
 these persons. Thanks to our own recklessness in the use of our 
 splendid forests, we have already crossed the verge of a timber fam- 
 ine in this countr}^, and no measures that we now take can, at least 
 for many years, undo the mischief that has already been done. But 
 we can prevent further mischief being done; and it would be in the 
 highest degree reprehensible to let any consideration of temporar}^ 
 convenience or temporary cost interfere with such action, especially 
 as regards the National Forests which the nation can 7iow^ at this 
 very moment, control. 
 
 All serious students of the question are aware of the great damage 
 that has been done in the IMediterranean countries of Europe, Asia, 
 and Africa by deforestation. The similar damage that has been 
 done in Eastern Asia is less well known. A recent investigation 
 into conditions in North China by IMr. Frank N. Meyef, of the Bureau 
 of Plant Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture, 
 
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 24 
 
 has incidentally furnished in vety striking fashion proof of the ruin 
 that comes from reckless deforestation of mountains, and of the 
 further fact that the damage once done may prove practically 
 irreparable. So important are these investigations that I here- 
 with attach as an appendix to my message certain photographs 
 showing present conditions in China. They show in vivid fash- 
 ion the appalling desolation, taking the shape of barren mountains 
 and gravel- and sand-covered plains, which immediately follows 
 and depends upon the deforestation of the mountains. Not many 
 centuries ago the country of northern China was one of the most 
 fertile and beautiful spots in the entire world, and was heavily 
 forested. We know this not only from the old Chinese records, 
 but from the accounts given by the traveler, IMarco Polo. He, for 
 instance, mentions that in visiting the provinces of Shansi and 
 Shensi he observed many plantations of mulberry trees. Now there 
 is hardly a single mulberry tree in either of these provinces, and the 
 culture of the silkworm has moved farther soutli, to regions of 
 atmospheric moisture. As an illustration of the complete change 
 in the rivers, we may take Polo's statement that a certain river, the 
 Hun Ho, was so large and deep that merchants ascended it from 
 the sea with heavily laden boats; today this river is simply a broad 
 sandy bed, with shallow, rapid currents wandering hither and 
 thither across it, absolutely unnavigable. But we do not have 
 to depend upon written records. The dry wells, and the wells 
 with water far below the former watermark, bear testimony to 
 the good days of the past and the evil days of the present. Wher- 
 ever the native vegetation has been allowed to remain, as, for 
 instance, here and there around a sacred temple or imperial bur}'ing 
 ground, there are still huge trees and tangled jungle, fragments of 
 the glorious ancient forests. . The thick, matted forest growth form- 
 erly covered the mountains to their summits. All natural factors 
 favored this dense forest growth, and as long as it was permitted 
 to exist, the plains at the foot of the mountains were among the 
 most fertile on the globe, and the whole country was a garden. 
 Not the slightest effort was made, however, to prevent the un- 
 checked cutting of the trees, or to secure reforestation. Doubt- 
 less for many centuries the tree-cutting by the inhabitants of the 
 mountains worked but slowly in bringing about the changes that 
 have now come to pass; doubtless for generations the inroads were 
 scarcely noticeable. Ihit there came a time when the forest 
 had shrunk sufficiently to make each year's cutting a serious 
 matter, and from that time on the destruction proceeded with 
 
 M mm » 
 
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 ■^w«p«li 
 
 25 
 
 appalling rapidity; for of course each year of destruction ren- 
 dered the forest less able to recuperate, less able to resist next 
 year's inroad. Mr. ]\Ieyer describes the ceaseless progress of the 
 destruction even now, when there is so little left to destroy. Every 
 morning men and boys go out armed with mattox or axe, scale the 
 steepest mountain sides, and cut down and grub out, root and 
 branch, the small trees and shrubs still to be found. The big trees 
 disappeared centuries ago, so that now one of these is never seen 
 save in the neighborhood of temples, where they are artificially 
 protected; and even here it takes all the watch and care of 
 the tree-loving priests to prevent their destruction. Each family, 
 each community, where there is no common care exercised in 
 the interest of all of them to prevent deforestation, finds its profit 
 in the immediate use of the fuel which would otherwise be used 
 by some other family or some other community. In the total 
 absence of regulation of the matter in the interest of the whole 
 people, each small group is inevitably pushed into a policy of 
 destruction which can not afford to take thought for the morrow. 
 This is just one of those matters which it is fatal to leave to unsu- 
 pervised individual control. The forests can only be protected by 
 the State, by the Nation; and the liberty of action of individuals 
 must be conditioned upon what the State or Nation determines to 
 be necessary for the common safety. 
 
 The lesson of deforestation in China is a lesson which mankind 
 should have learned many times already from what has occurred in 
 other places. Denudation leaves naked soil; then gullying cuts 
 down to the bare rock; and meanwhile the rock-waste buries the 
 bottomlands. When the soil is gone, men must go; and the process 
 does not take long. 
 
 This ruthless destruction of the forests in northern China has 
 brought about, or has aided in bringing about, desolation, just as the 
 destruction of the forests in central Asia aid in bringing ruin to the 
 once rich central Asian cities; just as the destruction of the forests 
 in northern Africa helped towards the ruin of a region that was a 
 fertile granary in Roman days. Shortsighted man, whether bar- 
 baric, semi-civilized, or what he mistakenly regards as fully civilized, 
 when he has destroyed the forests, has rendered certain the ultimate 
 destruction of the land itself. In northern China the mountains 
 are now such as are shown by the accompanying photographs, 
 absolutely barren peaks. Not only have the forests been de- 
 stroyed, but because of their destruction the soil has been washed 
 off the naked rock. The terrible consequence is that it is impos- 
 
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 26 
 
 sible now to undo the damage that has been done. IMany centuries 
 wonld have to pass before vsoil would again collect, or could be made 
 to collect, in sufficient quantity once more to support the old-time 
 forest growth. In consequence the IMongol Desert is practically 
 extending eastward over northern China. The climate has changed 
 and is still changing. It has changed even within the last half 
 century, as the work of tree destruction has been consummated. 
 The great masses of arboreal vegetation on the mountains formerly 
 absorbed the heat of the sun and sent up currents of cool air which 
 brought the moisture-laden clouds lower and forced them to pre- 
 cipitate in rain a part of their burden of water. Now that there is 
 no vegetation, the l)arren mountains, scorched by the sun, send up 
 currents of heated air which drive away instead of attracting the rain 
 clouds, and cause their moisture to be disseminated. In consequence, 
 instead of the regular and plentiful rains which existed in these 
 regions of China when the forests were still in evidence, the unfortu- 
 nate inhabitants of the deforested lands now see their crops wither 
 for lack of rainfall, while the seasons grow more and more irregular; 
 and as the air becomes dryer certain crops refuse longer to grow at 
 all. That ever}'thing dries out faster than formerK- is shown by 
 the fact that the level of the wells all over tlie land has sunk per- 
 ceptibly, many of them having become totally dry. In addition to 
 the resulting agricultural distress, the watercourses have changed. 
 Formerly they were narrow and deep, with an abundance of clear 
 water the }^ear around ; for the roots and lunnus of tlie forests 
 caught the rainwater and let it escape by slow, regular seepage. 
 They have now become broad, shallow stream beds, in which 
 muddy water trickles in slender currents during the dry seasons, 
 while when it rains there are freshets, and roaring muddy torrents 
 come tearing down, bringing disaster and destruction every- 
 where. Moreover, these floods and freshets, which diversify the 
 general dryness, wash away from the mountain sides, and either 
 wash away or cover in the valleys, the rich fertile soil which it took 
 tens of thousands of }-ears for Nature to form; and it is lost forever, 
 and imtil the forests grow again it can not be replaced. The sand 
 and stones from the mountain sides are washed loose and come roll- 
 ing down to cover the arable lands, and in consequence, throughout 
 this part of China, many formerly rich districts are now sandy wastes, 
 useless for himian cultivation and even for pasture. The cities 
 have been of course seriously affected, for the streams have grad- 
 ually ceased to be navigable. There is testimony that even within 
 the memory of men now living there has been a serious diminution 
 
 I 
 
 
 27 
 
 of tlie rainfall of northeastern China. The level of the Snneari 
 River in northern jVIanchuria has been sensibly lowered during the 
 last fifty years, at least partly as the result of the indiscriminate 
 cutting of the forests forming its watershed. Almost all the rivers 
 of northern China have become uncontrollable, and very dangerous 
 to the dwellers along their banks, as a direct result of the destruction 
 of the forests. The journey from Pekin to Jehol shows in melan- 
 choly fashion how the soil has been washed away from whole valleys, 
 vso that they have been converted into deserts. 
 
 In northern China this disastrous process has gone on so long and 
 has proceeded so far that no complete remedy could be applied. There 
 are certain mountains in China from which the soil is gone so utterly 
 that only the slow action of the ages could again restore it; although 
 of course much couldbe done to prevent the still further eastward exten- 
 sion of the IVIongolian Desert if the Chinese Government would act at 
 once. The accompan}'ing cuts from photographs show the inconceiv- 
 able desolation of the barren mountains in which certain of these 
 rivers rise — mountains, be it remembered, which formerly supported 
 dense forests of larches and firs, now unable to produce any wood, 
 and because of their condition a source of danger to the whole countr}^ 
 The photographs also show the same rivers after they have passed 
 through the mountains, the beds having become broad and sandy 
 because of the deforestation of the mountains. One of the photo- 
 graphs shows a caravan passing through a valley. Formerly, when 
 the mountains were forested, it was thickly peopled by prosperous 
 peasants. Now the floods have carried destruction all over the land 
 and the valley is a stony desert. Another photograph shows a 
 mountain road covered with the stones and rocks that are brouo-ht 
 down in the rainy season from the mountains which have already 
 been deforested by human hands. Another shows a pebbly river-bed 
 in southern IManchuria w^here what was once a great stream has 
 dried up owing to the deforestation in the mountains. Only some 
 scrub wood is left, which will disappear within a half centur}'. Yet 
 another shows the effect of one of the washouts, destroying an arable 
 mountain side, these washouts being due to the removal of all vege- 
 tation; yet in this photograph the foreground shows that reforestation 
 is still a possibility in places. 
 
 What has thus happened in northern China, what has happened 
 in Central Asia, in Palestine, in North Africa, in parts of the Medi- 
 terranean countries of Europe, will surely happen in our country if 
 we do not exercise that wise forethought which should be one of the 
 chief marks of any people calling itself civilized. Nothing should 
 
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 28 
 
 be permitted to stand in the way of the preservation of the forests, 
 and it is criminal to permit individnals to pnrchase a little gain for 
 themselves through the destruction of forests when this destruction 
 is fatal to the wellbeing of the whole country in the future. 
 
 Action should be begun forthwith, during the present session of 
 the Congress, for the improvement of our inland waterways — action 
 
 which will result in giving us not only navigable 
 Inland Waterways. but navigated rivers. We have spent hundreds of 
 
 millions of dollars upon these waterways, yet 
 the traffic on nearly all of them is steadily declining. This con- 
 dition is the direct result of the absence of any comprehensive and 
 far-seeing plan of waterway improvement. Obviously we can not 
 continue thus to expend the revenues of the Government without 
 return. It is poor business to spend money for inland navigation 
 unless we get it. 
 
 Inquiry into the condition of the IMississippi and its principal 
 tributaries reveals very many instances of the utter waste caused 
 by the methods which have hitherto obtained for the so-called 
 '' improvement " of navigation. A striking instance is supplied by 
 the "improvement" of the Ohio, which, begun in 1824, ^^'^s con- 
 tinued under a single plan for half a century. In 1S75 a new plan 
 was adopted and followed for a quarter of a century. In 1902 still 
 a different plan was adopted and has since been pursued at a rate 
 which only promises a navigable river in from twenty to one hun- 
 dred years longer. 
 
 Such shortsighted, vacillating, and futile methods are accompanied 
 by decreasing water-borne connnerce and increasing traffic conges- 
 tion on land, by increasing floods, and by the waste of public money. 
 The remedy lies in abandoning the methods which have so signally 
 failed and adopting new ones in keeping with the needs and demands 
 of our people. 
 
 In a report on a measure introduced at the first session of the 
 present Congress, the Secretary of War said: "The chief defect in 
 the methods hitherto pursued lies in the absence of executive 
 authority for originating comprehensive plans covering the country 
 or natural divisions thereof." In this opinion I heartily concur. 
 The present methods not only fail to give us inland navigation, but 
 they are injurious to the army as well. What is virtually a perma- 
 nent detail of the corps of engineers to civilian duty necessarily 
 impairs the efficiency of our military establishment. The military 
 engineers have undoubtedly done efficient work in actual con- 
 struction, but they are necessarily unsuited by their training and 
 
 29 
 
 traditions to take the broad view, and to gather and transmit 
 to the Congress the commercial and industrial information and 
 forecasts, upon which waterway improvement must always so 
 largely rest. Furthermore, they have failed to grasp the great 
 underlying fact that every stream is a unit from its source to its 
 mouth, and that all its uses are interdependent. Prominent officers 
 of the Engineer Corps have recently even gone so far as to 
 assert in print that waterways are not dependent upon the con- 
 servation of the forests about their headwaters. This position 
 is opposed to all the recent work of the scientific bureaus of the 
 Government and to the general experience of mankind. A physician 
 who disbelieved in vaccination would not be the right man to 
 handle an epidemic of smallpox, nor should we leave a doctor 
 skeptical about the transmission of yellow fever by the Stegomyia 
 mosquito in charge of sanitation at Havana or Panama. So with 
 the improvement of our rivers; it is no longer wise or safe to leave 
 this great work in the hands of men who fail to grasp the essential 
 relations between navigation and general development and to 
 assimilate and use the central facts about our streams. 
 
 Until the work of river improvement is undertaken in a modem 
 way it can not have results that will meet the needs of this modem 
 nation. These needs should be met without further dilly-dallying 
 or delay. The plan which promises the best and quickest results is 
 that of a permanent commission authorized to coordinate the work 
 of all the Government departments relating to waterw^ays, and to 
 frame and supervise the execution of a comprehensive plan. Under 
 such a commission the actual work of construction might be 
 entrusted to the reclamation service; or to the military engineers 
 acting with a sufficient number of civilians to continue the work in 
 time of war; or it might be divided between the reclamation servdce 
 and the corps of engineers. Funds should be provided from cur- 
 rent revenues if it is deemed wise — otherwise from the sale of bonds. 
 The essential thing is that the work should go forward under the best 
 possible plan, and with the least possible delay. We should have a 
 new type of work and a new organization for planning and direct- 
 ing it. The time for playing with our waterw^ays is past. The 
 country demands results. 
 
 I urge that all our National parks adjacent to National forests be 
 placed completely under the control of the forest service of the 
 Agricultural Department, instead of leaving them as they now are, 
 under the Interior Department and policed by the army. The Con- 
 gress should provide for superintendents with adequate corps of 
 
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 30 
 
 first-class civilian scouts, or rangers, and further, place the road 
 construction under the superintendent instead of leaving it with 
 
 the War Department. Such a change in park 
 National Parks. management would result in economy and avoid 
 
 the difficulties of administration which now 
 arise from having the responsibility of care and protection divided 
 between different departments. The need for this course is pecul- 
 iarly great in the Yellowstone Park. This, like the Yosemite, is a 
 great wonderland, and should be kept as a national playground. In 
 both all wild things should be protected, and the scener>' kept 
 
 wholly unmarred. 
 
 I am happy to say that I have been able to set aside in various 
 parts of the country small, well-chosen tracts of ground to serve as 
 sanctuaries and nurseries for wild creatures. 
 
 I had occasion in my message of ]\Iay 4, 1906, to urge the passage 
 of some law putting alcohol, used in the arts, industries, and 
 
 manufactures, upon the free list; that is, to pro- 
 Denatured Alcohol, vide for the withdrawal free of tax of alcohol 
 
 which is to be denatured for those purposes. The 
 law of June 7, 1906, and its amendment of March 2, 1907, accom- 
 plished what was desired in that respect, and the use of denatured 
 alcohol, as intended, is making a fair degree of progress and is 
 entitled to further encouragement and support from the Congress. 
 
 The pure food legislation has already worked 
 Pure Food. ^ benefit difficult to overestimate. 
 
 It has been my purpose from the beginning of my administration 
 to take the Indian Service completely out of the atmosphere of 
 
 political activity, and there has been steady 
 Indian Service. progress toward that end. The last remaining 
 
 stronghold of politics in that ser\nce was the 
 agency system, which had seen its best days and was gradually falling 
 to pieces from natural or purely evolutionary causes, but, like all such 
 survivals, was decaying slowly in its later stages. It seems clear that 
 its extinction had better be made final now, so that the ground can 
 be cleared for larger constructive work on behalf of the Indians, 
 preparator>' to their induction into the full measure of responsible 
 citizenship. On November i only eighteen agencies were left on 
 the roster; with two exceptions, where some legal questions seemed 
 to stand temporarily in the way, these have been changed to super- 
 intendencies, and their heads brought into the classified civil service. 
 Last year an amendment was incorporated in the measure pro- 
 viding for the Secret Service, which provided that there should be no 
 
 t 
 
 31 
 
 detail from the Secret Service and no transfer therefrom. It is not 
 too much to say that this amendment has been of benefit only, and 
 
 could be of benefit only, to the criminal classes. 
 Secret Service. If deliberately introduced for the purpose of 
 
 diminishing the effectiveness of war against 
 crime it could not have been better devised to this end. It fo'rbade 
 the practices that had been followed to a greater or less extent by 
 the executive heads of various departments for twenty years. To 
 these practices we owe the securing of the evidence which enabled 
 us to drive great lotteries out of business and secure a quarter of a 
 million of dollars in fines from their promoters. These practices 
 have enabled us to discover some of the most outrageous frauds 
 in connection with the theft of government land and government 
 timber by great corporations and by individuals. These practices 
 have enabled us to get some of the evidence indispensable in order 
 to secure the conviction of the wealthiest and most formidable crimi- 
 nals with whom the Government has to deal, both those operating 
 in violation of the anti-trust law and others. The amendment in 
 question was of benefit to no one excepting to these criminals, and 
 it seriously hampers the Government in the detection of crime and 
 the securing of justice. Moreover, it not only affects departments 
 outside of the Treasury but it tends to hamper the Secretary of the 
 Treasury himself in the effort to utilize the employees of his depart- 
 ment so as to best meet the requirements of the public service. 
 It forbids him from preventing frauds upon the customs service, 
 from investigating irregularities in branch mints and assay offices,' 
 and has seriously crippled him. It prevents the promotion of 
 employees in the Secret Service, and this further discourages good 
 effort. In its present form the restriction operates only to the 
 advantage of the criminal, of the wrongdoer. The chief argument 
 in favor of the provision was that the Congressmen did not them- 
 selves wish to be investigated by Secret Ser\ace men. Very little 
 of such investigation has been done in the past; but it is true that 
 the work of the Secret Ser\^ice agents was partly responsible for 
 the mdictment and conviction of a Senator and a Congressman for 
 land frauds in Oregon. I do not believe that it is in the public 
 interest to protect criminals in any branch of the public service, 
 and exactly as we have again and again during the past seven years 
 prosecuted and convicted such criminals who were in the executive 
 branch of the Government, so in my belief we should be given ample 
 means to prosecute them if found in the legislative branch. But if 
 this is not considered desirable a special exception could be made 
 
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 in the law prohibiting the nse of the vSecret Service force in investi- 
 gating members of the Congress. It would be far better to do this 
 than to do what actually was done, and strive to prevent or at least 
 to hamper effective action against criminals by the executive branch 
 of the Government. 
 
 I again renew my recommendation for postal savings banks, for 
 depositing savings with the security of the Government behind 
 
 them. The object is to encourage thrift and 
 Postal Savings Banks, economy in the wage-earner and person of mod- 
 erate means. In fourteen States the deposits in 
 savings banks as reported to the Comptroller of the Currency 
 amount to $3,590,245,402, or 98.4 per cent of the entire deposits, 
 while in the remaining 32 States there are only $70,308,543, or 1.6 
 per cent, showing conclusively that there are many localities in the 
 United States where sufhcient opportunity is not given to the peo- 
 ple to deposit their savings. The result is that money is kept in 
 hiding and unemployed. It is believed that in the aggregate vast 
 sums of money would be brought into circulation through the instru- 
 mentality of the postal savings banks. While there are only 1,453 
 savings banks reporting to the Comptroller there are more than 
 61,000 post-ofHces, 40,000 of which are money order offices. Postal 
 savings banks are now in operation in practically all the great 
 civilized countries with the exception of the United States. 
 
 In my last annual message I commended the Postmaster-General's 
 recommendation for an extension of the parcel post on the rural 
 
 routes. The establishment of a local parcel post 
 Parcel Post. on rural routes would be to the mutual benefit of 
 
 the farmer and the country storekeeper, and it is 
 desirable that the routes, serving more than 15,000,000 people, 
 should be utilized to the fullest practicable extent. An amendment 
 was proposed in the Senate at the last session, at the suggestion of 
 the Postmaster-General, providing that, for the purpose of ascertain- 
 ing the practicability of establishing a special local parcel post sys- 
 tem on the rural routes throughout the United States, the Postmaster- 
 General be authorized and directed to experiment and report to the 
 Congress the result of such experiment by establishing a special local 
 parcel post system on rural delivery routes in not to exceed four 
 counties in the United States for packages of f ourth-class matter origi- 
 nating on a rural route or at the distributing post office for delivery by 
 rural carriers. It would seem only proper that such an experiment 
 should be tried in order to demonstrate the practicability of the 
 proposition, especially as the Postmaster-General estimates that the 
 
 33 
 
 revenue derived from the operation of such a system on all the rural 
 routes would amount to many million dollars. 
 
 The share that the National Government should take in the broad 
 work of education has not received the attention and the care it 
 
 rightly deserves. The immediate responsibility 
 Education. for the support and improvement of our educa- 
 
 tional systems and institutions rests and should 
 al\\^ys rest with the people of the several States acting through 
 their state and local governments, but the Nation has an opportunfty 
 in educational work which must not be lost and a duty which 
 should no longer be neglected. 
 
 The National Bureau of Education was established more than 
 forty years ago. Its purpose is to collect and diffuse such informa- 
 tion ''as shall aid the people of the United States in the establish- 
 ment and maintenance of efficient school systems and otherwise 
 promote the cause of education throughout the country." This 
 purpose in no way conflicts with the educational work of the States, 
 but may be made of great advantage to the States by giving them 
 the fullest, most accurate, and hence the most helpful information 
 and suggestion regarding the best educational systems. The Nation, 
 through its broader field of activities, its wider opportunity for 
 obtaining information from all the States and from foreign coun- 
 tries, is able to do that which not even the richest States can do, 
 and with the distinct additional advantage that the information thus 
 obtained is used for the immediate benefit of all our people. 
 
 With the limited means hitherto provided, the Bureau of Educa- 
 tion has rendered efficient service, but the Congress has neglected to 
 adequately supply the bureau with means to meet the educational 
 growth of the country. The appropriations for the general work of 
 the bureau, outside education in Alaska, for the year 1909 are but 
 $87,500— an amount less than they were ten years ago, and some of 
 the important items in these appropriations are less than they were 
 thirty years ago. It is an inexcusable waste of public money to 
 appropriate an amount which is so inadequate as to make it impos- 
 sible properly to do the work authorized, and it is unfair to the great 
 educational interests of the country to deprive them of the value of 
 the results which can be obtained by proper appropriations. 
 
 I earnestly recommend that this unfortunate state of affairs as 
 regards the national educational office be remedied by adequate 
 appropriations. This recommendation is urged by the representa- 
 tives of our common schools and great state universities and the 
 
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 leading educators, who all unite in requesting favorable considera- 
 tion and action by the Congress upon this subject. 
 
 I strongly urge that the request of the Director of the Census in 
 connection with the decennial work so soon to be begun, be com- 
 plied with and that the appointments to the 
 Census. census force be placed under the civil service 
 
 law, waiving the geographical requirements as 
 requested by the Director of the Census. The supervisors and enu- 
 merators should not be appointed under the civil service law, for 
 the reasons given by the Director. I commend to the Congress the 
 careful consideration of the admirable report of the Director of the 
 Census, and I trust that his recommendations will be adopted and 
 immediate action thereon taken. 
 
 It is highly advisable that there should be intelligent action on 
 the part of th'e Nation on the question of preserving the health of 
 
 the country. Through the ])ractical extermina- 
 Redistribution of tion in San Francisco of disease-bearing rodents 
 
 Bureaus. our country has thus far escaped the bubonic 
 
 plague. This is but one of the many achieve- 
 ments of American health officers; and it shows what can be accom- 
 plished with a better organization than at present exists. The 
 
 dangers to public health from food adulteration 
 Public Health. and from many other sources, such as the menace 
 
 to the physical, mental and moral development 
 of children from child labor, should be met and overcome. There 
 are numerous diseases, w^hich are now known to be preventable, 
 which are, nevertheless, not prevented. The recent International 
 Congress on Tuberculosis has made us painfully aware of the inade- 
 quacy of American public health legislation. This Nation can not 
 afford to lag behind in the world-wide battle now being waged by 
 all civilized people with the microscopic foes of mankind, nor ought 
 we longer to ignore the reproach that this Government takes more 
 pains to protect the lives of hogs and of cattle than of human beings. 
 The first legislative step to be taken is that for tlie concentration of 
 the proper bureaus into one of the existing departments. I there- 
 fore urgently recommend the passage of a bill which shall authorize 
 a redistribution of the bureaus which shall best accomplish this end. 
 I recommend that legislation be enacted placing under the juris- 
 diction of the Department of Commerce and Labor the Govern- 
 ment Printing Ofhce. At present this office is under the combined 
 control, supervision, and administrative direction of the President 
 and of the Joint Committee on Printing of the two Houses of the 
 
 I-*** 
 
 35 
 Congress. The advantage of having the 4,069 employees in this 
 
 Government Printing ^^'^ ^'^^ ^^^ expenditure of the $5.7^1.377-57 
 Office. appropriated therefor supervised by an executive 
 
 department is obvious, instead of the present 
 combined supervision. 
 
 All Soldiers' Homes should be placed under 
 Soldiers' Homes. the complete jurisdiction and control of the War 
 
 Department. 
 Economy and sound business policy require that all existing 
 independent bureaus and commissions should be placed under the 
 
 jurisdiction of appropriate executive departments. 
 Independent Bureaus It is unwise from every standpoint, and results 
 and Commissions. only in mischief, to have any executive work 
 
 done save by the purely executive bodies, under 
 the control of the President; and each such executive body should 
 be under the immediate super\-ision of a Cabinet Minister. 
 
 I advocate the immediate admission of New Mexico and Arizona as 
 States. This should be done at the present session of the Congress. 
 
 The people of the two Territories have made it 
 Statehood. evident by their votes that they will not come 
 
 in as one wState. The only alternative is to admit 
 them as two, and I trust that this will be done without delay. 
 
 I call the attention of the Congress to the importance of the 
 problem of the fisheries in the interstate waters. On the Great 
 
 Lakes we are now, under the very wuse treaty of 
 Interstate Fisheries. April nth of this year, endeavoring to come to 
 
 an international agreement for the preservation 
 and satisfactory use of the fisheries of these waters which can not 
 otherwise be achieved. Lake Erie, for example, has the richest 
 fresh water fisheries in the world ; but it is now controlled by the 
 statutes of two Nations, four States, and one Province, and in this 
 Province by different ordinances in different counties. All these 
 political divisions work at cross purposes, and in no case can they 
 achieve protection to the fisheries, on the one hand, and justice to 
 the localities and individuals on the other. The case is similar in 
 Puget Sound. 
 
 But the problem is quite as pressing in the interstate waters of the 
 United States. The salmon fisheries of the Columbia River are now 
 but a fraction of what they were twenty-five years ago, and what they 
 would be now if the United States Government had taken complete 
 charge of them by intervening between Oregon and Washington 
 Durmg these twenty-five years the fishermen of each State have 
 
 /' 
 
 lii 
 
; 
 
 i 
 
 ■i 
 
 > 
 
 i 
 
 , 
 
 ! 
 
 36 
 
 naturally tried to take all they could get, and the two legislatures 
 have never been able to agree on joint action of any kind adequate 
 in degree for the protection of the fisheries. At the moment the 
 fishing on the Oregon side is practically closed, while there is no 
 limit on the Washington side of any kind, and no one can tell what 
 the courts will decide as to the very statutes under which this action 
 and nonaction result. Meanwhile \'ery few salmon reach the spawn- 
 ing grounds, and probably four years hence the fisheries will 
 amount to nothing; and this comes from a struggle between the 
 associated, or gill-net, fishermen on the one hand, and the owners of 
 the fishing wheels up the river. The fisheries of the :\Iississippi, the 
 Ohio, and the Potomac are also in a bad way. For this there is no 
 remedy except for the United States to control and legislate for the 
 interstate fisheries as part of the business of interstate commerce. 
 In this case the machinery for scientific investigation and for con- 
 trol already exists in the United States Bureau of Fisheries. In 
 this as in similar problems the obvious and simple rule should be 
 followed of having those matters which no particular State can 
 manage taken in hand by the United States; problems, which in 
 the seesaw^ of conflicting State legislatures are absolutely unsolvable, 
 are easy enough for the Congress to control. 
 
 The federal statute regulating interstate traffic in game should 
 
 be extended to include fish. New federal fish 
 Fisheries and hatcheries should be established. The adminis- 
 
 Fur Seals. tration of the Alaskan fur-seal service should 
 
 be vested in the Bureau of Fisheries. 
 
 This Nation^s foreign policy is based on the theory that right must 
 be done between nations precisely as between individuals, and in our 
 
 actions for the last ten years we have in tliis 
 Foreign Affairs. matter proven our faith by our deeds. We have 
 
 behaved, and are behaving, towards other nations, 
 as in private life an honorable man would behave towards his 
 
 fellows. 
 
 The commercial and material progress of the twenty Latin- 
 American Republics is worthy of the careful attention of the Con- 
 gress. No other section of the world has shown 
 a greater proportionate development of its foreign 
 trade during the last ten years and none other 
 has more special claims on the interest of the 
 It offers to-day probably larger opportunities for the 
 legitimate expansion of our commerce than any other group of coun- 
 tries. These countries wall want our products in greatly increased 
 
 Latin- American 
 Republics. 
 
 United States. 
 
 37 
 
 quantities, and we shall correspondingly need theirs. The Interna- 
 tional Bureau of the American Republics is doing a useful w'ork in 
 making these nations and their resources better known to us, and 
 in acquainting them not only wdth us as a people and with our pur- 
 poses towards them, but with what we have to exchange for their 
 goods. It is an international institution supported by all the gov- 
 ernments of the two Americas. 
 
 The w^ork on the Panama Canal is being done wuth a speed, effi- 
 ciency and entire devotion to duty, which make it a model for all 
 
 work of the kind. No task of such magnitude 
 Panama Canal. has ever before been undertaken by any nation; 
 
 and no task of the kind has ever been better per- 
 formed. The men on the Isthmus, from Colonel Goethals and his 
 fellow commissioners through the entire list of employees who are 
 faithfully doing their duty, have won their right to the ungrudging 
 respect and gratitude of the American people. 
 
 I again recommend the extension of the ocean mail act of 1891 so 
 that satisfactory American ocean mail lines to South America, Asia, the 
 
 Philippines, and Australasia may be established. 
 Ocean Mail Lines. The creation of such steamship lines should be 
 
 the natural corollary of the voyage of the battle 
 fleet. It should precede the opening of the Panama Canal. Even 
 under favorable conditions several years must elapse before such 
 lines can be put into operation. Accordingly I urge that the Con- 
 gress act promptly where foresight already shows that action sooner 
 or later will be inevitable. 
 
 I call particular attention to the Territory of Hawaii. The im- 
 portance of those islands is apparent, and the need of improving 
 
 their condition and developing their resources is 
 Hawaii. urgent. In recent years industrial conditions 
 
 upon the islands have radically changed. The 
 importation of coolie labor has practically ceased, and there is now 
 developing such a diversity in agricultural products as to make pos- 
 sible a change in the land conditions of the Territory, so that an 
 opportunity may be given to the small land owner similar to that 
 on the mainland. To aid these changes, the National Government 
 must provide the necessary harbor improvements on each island, so 
 that the agricultural products can be carried to the markets of the 
 world. The coastwise shipping laws should be amended to meet 
 the special needs of the islands, and the alien contract labor law 
 should be so modified in its application to Haw^aii as to enable 
 American and European labor to be brought thither. 
 
 tl 
 
 4 
 
 
38 
 
 
 
 ■ i 
 
 ,) 
 
 1 . 
 
 ; \ 
 
 HI 
 
 We have begun to improve Pearl Harbor for a naval base and to 
 provide the necessary military fortifications for the protection of the 
 islands, but I can not too strongly emphasize the need of appropri- 
 ations for these purposes of such an amount as will within the shortest 
 possible time make those islands practically impregnable. It is 
 useless to develop the industrial conditions of the islands and estab- 
 lish there bases of supply for our naval and merchant fleets unless we 
 insure, as far as human ingenuity can, their safety from foreign 
 seizure. 
 
 One thing to be remembered with all our fortifications is that it 
 is almost useless to make them impregnable from the sea if they 
 are left open to land attack. This is true even of our own coast, 
 but it is doubly true of our insular possessions. In Hawaii, for 
 instance, it is worse than useless to establish a naval station unless 
 we establish it behind fortifications so strong that no landing force 
 can take them save by regular and long-continued siege operations. 
 
 Real progress toward self-government is being made in the Phil- 
 ippine Islands. The gathering of a Philippine legislative body 
 
 and Philippine assembl}' marks a process abso- 
 The Philippines. lutely new in Asia, not only as regards Asiatic 
 
 colonies of European powers but as regards 
 Asiatic possessions of other Asiatic powers; and, indeed, always 
 excepting the striking and wonderful example afforded by the 
 great Empire of Japan, it opens an entirely new departure when 
 compared with anything which has happened among Asiatic 
 powers which are their own masters. Hitherto this Philippine 
 legislature has acted with moderation and self-restraint, and has 
 seemed in practical fashion to realize the eternal truth that there nnist 
 always be government, and that the onh- way in which any body of 
 individuals can escape the necessity of being governed by outsiders 
 is to show that they are able to restrain themselves, to keep dowm 
 wrongdoing and disorder. The Filipino people, through their 
 ofiicials, are therefore making real steps in the direction of self-gov- 
 ernment. I hope and believe that these steps mark the beginning 
 of a course which will continue till the Filipinos become fit to 
 decide for themselves whether the\' desire to be an independent 
 nation. But it is well for them (and well also for those Americans 
 who during the past decade have done so much damage to the F'^ili- 
 pinos by agitation for an innnediate independence for which tliey 
 were totally unfit) to remember that self-government depends, and 
 must depend, upon the Filipinos themselves. x\ll we can do is 
 to give them the opportunity to develop the capacity for self- 
 
 .1* V 
 
 39 
 
 government. If we had followed the advice of the foolish doc- 
 trinaires who wished us at any time during the last ten years 
 to turn the Filipino people adrift, we should have shirked the 
 plainest possible duty and have inflicted a lasting wrong upon the 
 Filipino people. We have acted in exactly the opposite spirit. 
 We have given the Filipinos constitutional government; a gov- 
 ernment based upon justice; and we have shown that we have 
 governed tliem for their good and not for our aggrandizement. At 
 the present time, as during the past ten years, the inexorable logic 
 of facts shows that this government must be supplied by us and not 
 by them. We must be wise and generous; w^e must help the Fili- 
 pinos to master the difficult art of self-control, which is simply 
 another name for self-government. But we can not give them self- 
 government save in the sense of governing them so that gradually 
 they may, if they are able, learn to govern themselves. Under the 
 present system of just laws and sympathetic administration, we 
 have ever>' reason to believe that they are gradually acquiring the 
 character which lies at the basis of self-government, and for which, 
 if it be lacking, no system of laws, no paper constitution, will in any 
 wise serve as a substitute. Our people in the Philippines have 
 achieved what may legitimately be called a marvelous success in 
 giving to them a government which marks on the part of those in 
 authority both the necessary understanding of the people and the 
 necessar}^ purpose to serve them disinterestedly and in good faith. 
 I trust that within a generation the time will arrive when the Phil- 
 ippines can decide for themselves whether it is well for them to 
 become independent, or to continue under the protection of a strong 
 and disinterested power, able to guarantee to the islands order at 
 home and protection from foreign invasion. But no one can 
 prophesy the exact date when it will be wise to consider inde- 
 pendence as a fixed and definite policy. It would be worse than 
 folly to try to set down such a date in advance, for it must depend 
 upon the way in which the Philippine people themselves develop 
 the power of self-mastery. 
 
 I again recommend that American citizenship 
 be conferred upon the people of Porto Rico. 
 In Cuba our occupancy will cease in about two months' time ; the 
 Cubans have in orderly manner elected their own governmental 
 
 authorities, and the island will be turned o\'er to 
 them. Our occupation on this occasion has 
 lasted a little over two years, and Cuba has thriven and prospered 
 under it. Our earnest hope and one desire is that the people of the 
 
 Porto Rico. 
 
 Cuba. 
 
 f 
 
 I 
 
 H 
 
 If 
 iff 
 
 4 
 
\m 
 
 il 
 
 ^1 
 
 ;i! 
 
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 K^: 
 
 Ml 
 
 ' I 
 
 40 
 
 island shall now g-overn themselves with justice, so that peace and 
 order may be secure. We will gladly help them to this end ; but I 
 would solemnly warn them to remember the g^rcat truth that the 
 only way a people can permanently a\-oid being governed from 
 without is to show that they both can and will govern themselves 
 from within. 
 
 The Japanese Government has postponed until 191 7 the date of 
 the great international exposition, the action being- taken so as to 
 
 insure ami)le time in which to prepare to make 
 Japanese Exposition, the exposition all that it should be made. The 
 
 American commissioners have visited Japan and 
 the postponement will merely give ampler opportunity for America 
 to be represented at the exposition. Not since the first interna- 
 tional exposition has there been one of greater importance than 
 this will be, marking as it does the fiftieth anniversary of the 
 ascension to the throne of the Emperor of Japan. The extraordi- 
 nary leap to a foremost place among the nations of the world 
 made by Japan during this half century is something unparalleled 
 in all previous history. This exposition will fitly commemorate 
 and signalize the giant progress that has been achieved. It is 
 the first exposition of its kind that has ever been held in Asia. 
 The United States, because of the ancient friendship between the 
 two peoples, because each of us fronts on the Pacific, and because of 
 the growing commercial relations between this country and Asia, 
 takes a peculiar interest in seeing the exposition made a success in 
 every way. 
 
 I take this opportunity publicly to state my appreciation of the 
 way in which in Japan, in Australia, in New Zealand, and in all 
 the States of South America, the battle fleet has been received on its 
 practice voyage around the world. The American Government can 
 not too strongly express its appreciation of the abounding and gen- 
 erous hospital it}- shown our ships in every port they visited. 
 
 As regards the Army I call attention to the fact that while our 
 junior officers and enlisted men stand very high, the present system 
 
 of promotion by seniority results in bringing into 
 The Amiy. the higher grades many men of mediocre capacity 
 
 who have but a short time to serve. No man 
 should regard it as liis vested right to rise to the highest rank in 
 the Army any more than in any other profession. It is a curious 
 and by no means creditable fact that there should be so often a 
 failure on the part of the public and its represenutives to under- 
 
 • 
 
 
 41 
 
 stand the great need, from the standpoint of the ser\nce and the 
 Nation, of refusing to promote respectable, elderly incompetents. 
 The higher places should be given to the most deser\^ing men with- 
 out regard to seniority; at least seniority should be treated as only 
 one consideration. In the stress of modern industrial competition 
 no business firm could succeed if those responsible for its manage- 
 ment were chosen simply on the ground that they were the oldest 
 people in its employment; yet this is the course advocated as 
 regards the Army, and required by law for all grades except those 
 of general officer. As a matter of fact, all of the best ofiScers in the 
 highest ranks of the Army are those who have attained their present 
 position wholly or in part by a process of selection. 
 
 The scope of retiring boards should be extended so that they 
 could consider general unfitness to command for any cause, in order 
 to secure a far more rigid enforcement than at present in the elimi- 
 nation of officers for mental, physical or temperamental disabilities. 
 But this plan is recommended only if the Congress does not see fit 
 to provide what in my judgment is far better; that is, for selection 
 in promotion, and for elimination for age. Officers who fail to attain 
 a certain rank by a certain age should be retired — for instance, if a 
 man should not attain field rank by the time he is 45 he should of 
 course be placed on the retired list. General officers should be 
 selected as at present, and one-third of the other promotions should 
 be made by selection, the selection to be made by the President or 
 the Secretary of War from a list of at least two candidates proposed 
 for each vacancy by a board of officers from the arm of the ser\'ice 
 from which the promotion is to be made. A bill is now before the 
 Congress having for its object to secure the promotion of officers to 
 various grades at reasonable ages through a process of selection, by 
 boards of officers, of the least efficient for retirement with a per- 
 centage of their pay depending upon length of service. The bill, 
 although not accomplishing all that should be done, is a long step 
 in the right direction; and I earnestly recommend its passage, or 
 that of a more completely effective measure. 
 
 The cavalry arm should be reorganized upon modern lines. This 
 is an arm in which it is peculiarly necessary that the field officers 
 should not be old. The cavalry is much more difficult to form than 
 infantry, and it should be kept up to the maximum both in efficiency 
 and in strength, for it can not be made in a hurr>\ At present both 
 infantry and artiller}' are too few in number for our needs. Especial 
 attention should be paid to development of the machine gun. A 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 xi 
 
f 
 
 \'!i\ :'• 
 
 •r J. 
 
 It V 
 
 W\ 
 
 42 
 
 general service corps should be established. As things are now the 
 average soldier has far too iiiiich labor of a nomnilitary character to 
 perform. 
 
 Now that the organized militia, the National Guard, has been 
 incorporated with the Army as a part of the national forces, it 
 
 behooves the Governnicnt to do every reasonable 
 National Guard. thing in its power to perfect its efficiency. It 
 
 should be assisted in its instruction and otherwise 
 aided more liberally than heretofore. The continuous services of 
 many well-trained regular officers will be essential in this connec- 
 tion. Such officers must be specially trained at service schools best 
 to qualify them as instructors of the National Guard. But the 
 detailing of officers for training at the service schools and for duty 
 with the National Guard entails detachiui: them from their re^-i- 
 ments which are already greatly depleted by detachment of officers 
 for assignment to duties prescribed by acts of the Congress. 
 
 A bill is now pending before the Congress creating a number of 
 extra officers in the Army, which if passed, as it ought to be, will 
 enable more officers to be trained as instructors of National Guard 
 and assigned to that duty. In case of war it will be of the utmost 
 importance to have a large number of trained officers to use for 
 turning raw levies into good troops. 
 
 There should be legislation to provide a complete plan for organ- 
 izing the great body of volunteers behind the Regular Army and 
 National Guard when war has come. Congressional assistance should 
 be given those who are endeavoring to promote rifle practice so that 
 our men, in the services or out of them, may know how to use the rifle. 
 While teams representing the United States won the rifle and revolver 
 championships of the world against all comers in England this }-ear, 
 it is unfortunately true that the great bod>' of our citizens shoot 
 less and less as time goes on. To meet this we should encourao-e 
 rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as 
 well as in the military services, by every means in our power. 
 Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving the 
 peace of the world. Fit to hold our own against the strong nations 
 of the earth, our voice for peace will carry to the ends of the earth. 
 Unprepared, and therefore unfit, we must sit dumb and helpless to 
 defend ourselves, protect others, or preserve peace. The first step — 
 in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit 
 for war if it should come — is to teach our men to shoot. 
 
 I appro\-e the recommendations of the General Board for the 
 increase of the Navy, calling especial attention to the need of addi- 
 
 
 43 
 
 tional destroyers and colliers, and above all, of the four battle- 
 ships. It is desirable to complete as soon as possible a squadron 
 
 of eight battleships of the best existing type. 
 The Navy. The Nor//i Dakota, Delaware, Florida, and Utah 
 
 will form the first division of this squadron. 
 The four vessels proposed will form the second division. It will be 
 an improvement on the first, the ships being of the heavy, single 
 caliber, all big gun type. All the vessels should have the same 
 tactical qualities, that is, speed and turning circle, and as near as 
 possible these tactical qualities should be the same as is in the four 
 vessels before named now being built. 
 
 I most earnestly recommend that the General Board be by law 
 turned into a General Staff. There is literally no excuse whatever 
 for continuing the present bureau organization of the Navy. The 
 Navy should be treated as a purely military organization, and every- 
 thing should be subordinated to the one object of securing military 
 efficiency. Such military efficiency can only be guaranteed in time 
 of war if there is the most thorough previous preparation in time of 
 peace— a preparation, I may add, which will in all probability prevent 
 any need of war. The Secretary must be supreme, and he should 
 have as his official advisers a body of line officers who should them- 
 selves have the power to pass upon and coordinate all the work and 
 all the proposals of the several bureaus. A system of promotion by 
 merit, either by selection or by exclusion, or by both processes, 
 should be introduced. It is out of the question, if the present prin- 
 ciple of promotion by mere seniority is kept, to expect to get the 
 best results from the higher officers. Our men come too old, and 
 stay for too short a time, in the high command positions. 
 
 Two hospital ships should be provided. The actual experience 
 of the hospital ship with the fleet in the Pacific has shown the 
 invaluable work which such a ship does, and has also proved that 
 it is well to have it kept under the command of a medical officer. 
 As was to be expected, all of the anticipations of trouble from such 
 a command have proved completely baseless. It is as absurd to put 
 a hospital ship under a line officer as it would be to put a hospital 
 on shore under such a command. This ought to have been realized 
 before, and there is no excuse for failure to realize it now. 
 
 Nothing better for the Navy from ever}- standpoint has ever 
 occurred than the cruise of the battle fleet around the world. 
 The improvement of the ships in every way has been extraordi- 
 nary, and they have gained far more experience in battle tactics 
 than they would have gained if they had stayed in the Atlantic 
 
 
! m i 
 
 ^ 
 
 n-, 
 
 waters. The American people have cause for profound grati- 
 fication, both in view of the excellent condition of tlie fleet 
 as shown by this cruise, and in view of the improvement 
 the cruise has worked in this already liigh condition. I do not 
 believe that there is any other service in the world in which the 
 averao^e of character and efficiencv in th.e enlisted men is as hii:h as 
 is now the case in our own. I believe that the same statement can 
 be made as to our officers, taken as a whole; but there must be a 
 reservation made in regard to those in the highest ranks — as to 
 which I have already spoken — and in regard to those who have just 
 entered the service; because we do not now get full benefit from 
 our excellent naval school at Annapolis. It is absurd not to grad- 
 uate the midslii]5men as ensigns; to keep them for two }-ears in such 
 an anomalous position as at present the law requires is detrimental 
 to them and to the service. In the academy itself, every first 
 classman should be required in turn to ser\-e as petty officer and 
 officer; his ability to discharge his duties as such should be a pre- 
 requisite to his going into the line, and his success in commanding 
 should largely determine his standing at graduation. The Board of 
 Visitors should be appointed in January, and each member should 
 be required to give at least six days' service, only from one to three 
 days' to be performed during June w^eek, which is the least desirable 
 time for the board to be at Annapolis so far as benefiting the Navy 
 by their observations is concerned. 
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 The White House, 
 
 Tuesday^ December <?, 1^08. 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 t 
 
 % 
 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 
 H 
 
 I 
 ji 
 
 ii; 
 
 No. 
 
 No- I- — Two HUNDRED SQUARE MILES OF ONCE WOODED MOUNTAINS WHICH A CEN- 
 TURY AGO PAID RICH REVENUE ON THEIR LUMBER PRODUCT. 
 Locality: District of Fou-ping, Chili Province, China. View from the top of a mountain 
 2,000 feet high, looking down on adjacent hills and valleys. Bailey Willis, January. 1904. 
 
 No. 2. — Chief city i.n a district formerly rich in timber. 
 
 Locality: Fou-ping district, Chili Province, China. View across the valley of the Ta- 
 Sha-ho (Rig Sandy River), including the city of Fou-ping and the neighboring mountains of 
 gneiss, a region closely resembling in situation and physical conditions the Piedmont district 
 of the Appalachians from \'irginia to Georgia. Bailey Willis, January, 1904. 
 
 3. — Originally wooded; settled, cleared, and ruined since 1725. 
 
 Locality: District of Fou-ping, Chili Province, China, near the headwaters of the Ta-Sha-ho 
 (Big vSandy River). This region being on the borders of Mongolia remained but sparsely 
 settled and timbered until the reign of a powerful emperor, 1705-1728, when immigration was 
 promoted and cutting of the timber began. Bailey Willis, January, 1904. 
 
 4.— Mountains resembling the Appalachians; once wooded, now b.^red; 
 
 ARTIFICIAL TERRACES WHEREVER PRACTICABLE. 
 
 Locality: District of Wu-t'ai-shan, northern Shan-si Province, China. These mountains 
 were <)ccni)ied by the earliest Buddhist monks, who came to China about 65 A. D., and during 
 succeeding centuries established many monasteries, and under their protection the sacred 
 mountains continued to be clothed with pine forests. But Chinese immigration having been 
 promoted about 1725 as a protection against Mongolian attacks, the timber was cut and the 
 mountains have been laid waste in less than two centuries. Bailey Willis, January 1904. 
 
 No. 5- — Trees remain only where protected in temple grounds. 
 
 No. 
 
 Locality: District of Wu-t'ai-shan, northern vShan-si Province, China. 
 January, 1904. 
 
 Bailey Willis, 
 
 No. 6. — Bottom lands buried ix waste from the deforested mountains. 
 
 Locality: District of Wu-t'ai-shan, northern Shan-si Province, China. Bailey Willis 
 January, 1904. 
 
 No. 7. — Saving what is left of the soil when the forests are gone. Arti- 
 ficial TERRACING. 
 
 Locality: District of W^u-f ai-shan, northern vShan-si Province, China. Bailey Willis, 
 January, 1904. 
 
 No. 8. — Farming in the p.^th of the flood. 
 
 Locality: District of Wu-t'ai-shan, northern Shan-si Province, China. A valley at the 
 base of the mountains which during the spring rains is covered by flood waters. The stone 
 walls catch some of the sediments and crops are grown on the soil thus saved. Bailey Willis. 
 January, 1904. 
 
 No. 
 
 No. 
 
 (. — Caravan passing through a valley where formerly prosperous 
 
 PEASANTS USED TO LIVE, WHEN THE MOUNTAINS WERE STILL FORESTED 
 
 Locality: Near the Wu-t'ai-shan, Shan-si, China. The floods have carried destruction 
 all over the land, and its aspect is like a stony desert. April 14, 1907. 
 
 A PEBBLY RIVER BED IN SOUTH MANCHURIA. 
 
 10 
 
 Locality: Near Fong huang sheng. South Manchuria. The formerly big stream has dried 
 up, on account of the climate having become more arid, since the destruction of the forests 
 on the mountain sides. Only some scrub wood is left, which will disappear within the next 
 40 or 50 years. June 27, 1906. 
 
 
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 Locality: Near the Wu-t'ai-shan. vShan-si. China. The floods have carried destruction all over 
 the land, and its aspect is like a stony desert April 14, 1907 
 
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 NO 10. — A PEBBLY RIVER BED iN SOUTH MANCHURIA. 
 
 I-OCALITy: Near Fong huang shcng. South Manchuria. The formerly big stream has dried up, on 
 account of the climate having become more arid, since the destruction of the forests on the 
 mountain sides. Only some scrub wood is left, which will disappear within the next 40 or ."if* 
 years. June 27, 1906. 
 
 !• 
 
7 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 •'11 
 
 NO. 9— CARAVAN PASSING THROUGH A VALLEY WHERE FORMERLY PROSPEROUS PEASANTS USED 
 TO LIVE, WHEN THE MOUNTAINS WERE STILL FORESTED. 
 
 Locality: W-ar tlic AVu-tai-sluin Sliaii-si. China. TIic Hoods ha\ «.■ carrit-d destruction all ovir 
 till- land, and its aspect is like a ston\ <lesert .Vpril 14. igo7 
 
 
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 NO 10. — A PEBBLY RIVER BED iN SOUTH MANCHURIA. 
 
 Locality- Near Touk liuanjz slienK, South Manchuria. The formerly big stream lias dried up. on 
 account of the climate liavinj.; become more arid, since the destruction of the forests on the 
 mountain sides. Only some scrub wood is left, which will disappear within the next 40 or ."><i 
 years. lime 27. i()o6. 
 
END OF 
 
 TTLE