-%<-^ • ' :;\-'

'^''f

'¦'i

':;"'iiM

EaTrTToT

"fglve thtft £oot^
for- the fovfiaUn^ if a. Colk^ in thit Celofiy''

Presented by the Author

Orations
Addresses and Speeches

OF

CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW

EDITED BY
JOHN DENISON CHAMPLIN

VOLUME VII
SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE

NEW YORK
PRIVATELY PRINTED
1910

Copyright, 1910,
By Chauncey M. Depew
7

INTRODUCTION
BY THE HONORABLE ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE
United States Senator from Indiana

OTHING is more difficult than to engage the atten
tion of the Senate by what is called "oratory" ; yet
Senator Depew never fails of an appreciative
hearing — and this, too, regardless of whether
Senators agree or disagree with him. It is easy to
understand how a natural orator like Senator De
pew could captivate an audience of men and women who only
occasionally hear a public address by a distinguished man. But
the Senate hears speeches all the time — some of them very
unusual and a few of them really notable.
Then, too, most Senators are themselves public speakers of
long experience; but most important of all, each of them is ex
ceedingly busy with the details of legislation — the drafting of
bills, the studying of precedents, the examination of authorities,
the hearing of those who favor or oppose measures before their
respective committees. All th^'e things and many more naturally
and properly make the Senate uncommonly indifferent to speech
making. So it is that there can be no higher tribute to a man's powers
as an orator than when his fellow Senators shed their blase
indifference, cease for awhile their engrossing work and listen
with interest to an oration of a fellow Senator. That is what
the Senate always does when Chauncey M. Depew speaks. His
Senate oratory is quite unique. Perhaps his engaging personal
ity, a sort of magnetism of geniality, is the foundation. This,
of course, is aided by his voice which has a ringing quality that
stirs and arouses, curiously modified by a soothing timbre which
pleases and mollifies. There is a strange aggressiveness of good
nature in his whole manner.
These things from the very beginning of his oration tend to
make the situation easy; but of course that would amount to
nothing were it not for what he says. He speaks to the point.
He develops his theme with logical precision. He does not wan-
Vol. vii iii

iv INTRODUCTION
der from the text. He enforces every point with a concrete illus
tration — one of the most necessary things in effective oratory.
Then, too, he is, as the whole country knows, a master of
rhetoric. His sentences are pleasing. Also he has the gift of
humor. He will suddenly throw into the most solemn argument
a flash of fun so naturally and so apropos that it illuminates the
whole subject. But in his Senate oratory he does not depend
upon his natural gifts. In his addresses he marshals facts from
his point of view, so that his Senate rhetoric combining all the
qualities I have mentioned above often convinces, always capti
vates. I think it will astonish the country who considers Senator
Depew as an orator in the strict sense of that term to know that
he is even a better debater than he is an orator; and to be a
thoroughly good debater on the floor of the Senate is more diffi
cult than to be a good orator on the floor of the Senate. Senator
Depew has astonishing resourcefulness in debate.
A single example to illustrate Senator Depew's sustained
power in rough and tumble debate:
In the memorable fight against the Quay Statehood Bill some
nine years ago, a period arrived when it was necessary that some
Senator should be prepared to take the floor instantly and hold
it for at least two days. This struggle lasting every day for three
months is the longest and most notable legislative battle in the
history of Congress. Senator Quay had secured the passage of
the bill through the House by an overwhelming majority and
had arranged what he believed to be an invulnerable combination
in the Senate before the bill even was considered in the upper
chamber of Congress.
That veteran political general, therefore, predicted with abso
lute certainty the passage of his measure at an early date in the
session. By all the rules of the game he was right in his proph
ecy. But the Committee on Territories, of which I was then
chairman as I am now, very thoroughly examined these bills and
came to the conclusion that these particular bills ought not to pass.
Therefore the Committee determined to fight them. This
meant a test of endurance. Senator Quay had secured a unani
mous consent agreement that his bill should be the "unfinished
business to continue from day to day until disposed of," which
is the most absolute form of unanimous consent which possibly

INTRODUCTION v
can be made. It meant that if a single Senator objected no busi
ness whatever could be transacted except the consideration of
Mr. Quay's bill.
Therefore three months of debate became necessary.
At the time of which I speak no one was prepared to take the
floor; and if no one did take the floor, then a vote would come
and Senator Quay's carefully arranged combination, perfected
before the bill had even been read to the Senate, would, of course,
prevail. In this dilemma I went to Senator Depew and said :
"It may be necessary for yoti to take the floor to-morrow and
hold it for at least two days."
"But," repHed Senator Depew, "I don't know the facts."
I replied, "All the material will be at your house by six o'clock
this evening. This will give you an abundance of time, as I do
not think it will be necessary for you to take the floor until day
after to-morrow."
But the very next morning it appeared that it would be neces
sary for Senator Depew to address the Senate without delay.
So with not more than two hours examination of the facts which
the Committee laid before him Senator Depew arose and
began his speech. Although the Senate had already listened to
more than two months of debate and were tired of the subject.
Senator Depew at once interested that debate-weary body. He
held the floor that day until adjournment speaking with a copious
ness of information that astonished all of us.
The next day at two o'clock he resumed his speech. Senator
Quay had agreed with me that at four o'clock we might take up
the Philippine Financial Bill. So as four o'clock approached
Senator Depew began the closing portions of his address. It
suddenly developed that it would be necessary for Senator Depew
to hold the floor on the next day ; so I went to Senator Quay and
asked him to take up the Philippine financial measure as per our
agreement. He answered :
"I am perfectly wilHng to do this, but first let Senator Depew
finish." The wily Pennsylvania political general saw that Senator De
pew was about to conclude.
"But," I said, "Senator Quay, Senator Depew will not finish
to-day."

VI

INTRODUCTION

"Well, then," said Quay, "I guess we will let him go on a
while." By this time Senator Depew had reached his peroration which
he was delivering with great efifectiveness. It was clear that he
would finish within a few minutes. So I wrote him a note, send
ing it to him by a page, saying, "You must not conclude. You
must hold the floor at all hazards until adjournment, no matter
how long that is." Senator Depew got that note just as he was
uttering these words :
"In conclusion, Mr. President  "
Glancing at the note he resumed :
"I was saying, Mr. President, in conclusion upon this branch
of the question  " *
And then, with his address completed, with all his data piled
on the desk next to him. Senator Depew plunged into a spon
taneous debate which for brilliant resourcefulness is not often
equaled in the Senate. He attacked the supporters of the bill
with such fierceness that in fifteen minutes he had three Senators
on their feet angrily interrupting him. This was just what he
had designed to do — a design formed upon the instant and exe
cuted as soon as it was formed.
The Senate became intensely interested, then excited. Every
chair was soon occupied. One after the other Senator Depew
discomfited the assailants whom he had angered into attacking
him, but in discomfiting them he purposely did not silence them ;
had he done the latter he would have been left with no occasion
for further debate. So while overwhelming them he still kept
them on their feet or else called up fresh recruits to the assault
upon him.
He had spoken three hours continuously on the day before ;
and on this day he had already spoken continuously for more than
two hours. Yet after all this and after his connected address
had been concluded, he sailed into the fray depending upon noth
ing except his fertiHty of thought and facility of speech and
engaged the entire forces back of Senator Quay's bills in a knock
down and drag-out debate for two hours more, and when the
Senate adjourned was holding the floor.
This exhibition of sustained power, of instantaneous inven
tion, of quick thrust and parry, elicited the admiration of the
whole Senate.

INTRODUCTION vii
I relate this incident to show Senator Depew's gifts as a
debater, in which field, I think, he equals his notable work as a
Senate orator. Senator Depew's name has become a household
word throughout the English-speaking world for felicitous elo
quence. Decades ago he won deserved renown as an after-dinner
speaker and as a political orator. His Senate oratory and Senate
debates of course differ from the speeches and addresses which
he has delivered in other fields of public activity. While having
the qualities of charm and persuasiveness that characterize all of
his speeches, his Senate orations may be said to have an added
note of dignity and distinction suggested by and fitting to the en
vironment of the place in which they are delivered. It is only a
statement of the plain truth that Chauncey M. Depew's career as
an orator in his own country and in foreign lands reaches its
climax in his Senate orations and debates. In the distinction and
vigor of his addresses in the greatest legislative body in the world
he has maintained and illustrated the oratorical traditions of that
high forum.
Washington, June 22, 1910.

>-A^>^^v^^i^

CONTENTS
PAGJ
Introduction by the Honorable Albert J. Beveridge, United States
Senator from Indiana.
Speech on the Government of the Philippine Islands, February
27, 1900 - - I
Speech on the Question of the Taxation of Porto Rico, April 2,
1900 - - - 15
Speech on the Ship Subsidy Bill, March 12, 1902 - - 31 j
Reply to the Speech of Honorable Joseph W. Bailey, of Texas,
on the Oleomargarine Bill, April 2, 1902 52
Speech on Submitting an Amendment to the Joint Resolution
Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution Providing for
the Election of United States Senators by Direct Vote of the
People, April 10, 1902 58
Speech in Favor of the Purchase of a National Forest Reserve in
the Southern Appalachian Mountains, June 7, 1902 - 63
Speech on the Concurrent Resolution Accepting the Statues of
Charles Carroll of Carrollton and of John Hanson, for the
National Statuary Hall, January 31, 1903 - 73
Speech on the Bill to Enable the People of Oklahoma, Arizona,
and New Mexico to form Constitutions and State Govern
ments and be admitted into the Union as States, February
II, 13 and 17, 1903 81
Speech on the Construction of the Isthmian Canal at Panama,
January 14, 1904 144
Speech on the Naval Appropriation Bill, March 5, 1904 - 162
Speech on the Reform of the Currency, February 25, 1907 - 189
Speech on an Amendment to the Agricultural Appropriation Bill
in Favor of the Bureau of Forestry, February 22, 1907 204
Speech in Favor of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, at the
City of Seattle, 1909, in the Senate of the United States,
February 6, 1908 - 210
Speech in Reply to Criticism of the Action of the President and
the Secretary of the Treasury during the Recent Panic,
February 10, 1908 - - - 218
Speech in Favor of a Subsidy for an American Merchant
Marine, February 24, 1908 - 230
Speech in Favor of Amending the National Banking Laws,
March 6, 1908 - - - - - . 240
Speech in Favor of an Appropriation for the Survey and Rec
lamation of Agricultural Lands, April 30, 1908 - - - 260
Vol. VII i«

X CONTENTS
PAGE
Speech on Forestry and the Conservation of Our Forests, May
7, 1908 262
Speech in Approval of a Government Postal Savings Bank Sys
tem, December 15, 1908 273^^
Speech in Favor of Increasing the Salaries of the President,
Vice-president, Speaker of the House of Representatives,
and Federal Judges, January 18, 1909 280^
Speech in Favor of Civil Service Examinations in Census Ap
pointments, April 10, 1909 - 290 -i!ii-
Speech on the Tariff, May 17, 1909 ------ 293 i!«^
Speech on the Finance Committee of the Senate and the People,
June IS, 1909 - - - 323
Speech on the Effort of the Porto Rican House of Delegates to
Coerce Congress by Refusing to Pass Appropriation Bills,
July 9, 1909 330
Speech on Hawaii, its Government and Conditions before and
since Annexation to the United States and Present Require
ments, February 24, 1910 346
Address on Resolutions in Memory of Senator Marcus A. Hanna,
of Ohio, April 7, 1904 - - 359
Address on Resolutions in Memory of Senator George Frisbie
Hoar, of Massachusetts, January 28, 1905 - - 368
Address on Resolutions in Memory of Senator Edmund W. Pet-
tus, of Alabama, April 18, 1908 375
Address on Resolutions in Memory of Senator William B. Alli
son, of Iowa, February 6, 1909 -----. jSi

ILLUSTRATIONS
John Jay --------- Frontispiece
PACE
Roger Sherman ---------- loo
William T. Sherman --------200
George Dewey ---•»----- 300

Vol. VII

SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES
SENATE

GOVERNMENT OF PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

SPEECH ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS,
FEBRUARY, 2."], IQGO.
R. President : In the wide range which has been
given to the discussion of the Philippine subject,
many questions have been raised which, in my
judgment, have been settled by events. They em
brace our right to govern the Philippines, to stay
there, the existence of a de facto Philippine Gov
ernment, alleged understandings from our Government to the
Filipino Government for a recognition of its independence, the
title of the United States to the archipelago, the power of the
United States to subdue insurrection within the islands, or to
impose its laws upon their people, and the power, under the Con
stitution, for the United States to acquire territories and to
govern them, except under the familiar Territorial form, with the
understanding that at the proper time they shall be admitted as
States. Most of these questions are purely academic. There are well-
meaning and honest people who gather every year in London,
and did last year in Boston, to protest against the beheading of
Charles the First. But Charles the First was beheaded two hun
dred and fifty years ago. By his death the chains which bound
a free people were broken. Cromwell, with all his mistakes, all
his errors, and all the injustice which can be charged against
him, created that reign of individual judgment and conscience
which has evolved into civil and religious liberty, which has
created the commercial spirit of the English-speaking peoples,
which has made them explorers, travelers, masters upon the sea
and land, as settlers and colonizers, and has carried, with their
influence, self-government and representative institutions all over
the world. It is still an academic discussion whether President
Lincoln had the right to coerce a soverign State, but the exercise
of that right saved and re-created this Republic and has made it
the foremost power of the world. There are constitutional law-
Vol. VII— 1

2 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
yers and writers upon public questions who still discuss the power
of Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, but
he did issue it, slavery was abolished, and the blessings of the act
are enjoyed by owner and bondman equally, by the free States,
and by those that were once known as the slave States.
We are in the Philippines ; we are there to stay by conquest
and by treaty rights. All which precedes the ratification of the
treaty by the Senate of the United States is an academic question.
Still the presentation of this ancient history, for the rapid progress
of events makes history speedily ancient, has occupied so much
of the time of the Senate that it is well briefly to review the
situation. I have heard no one dispute the righteousness of our war
with Spain. The contention is that, it having been undertaken
with the avowed purpose, and that only, of freeing Cuba from
intolerable oppression, the forces of the United States should
have been concentrated in and about the island, and when the
Spaniards were expelled our country should have confined its
efforts to the establishment of Cuban independence. The most
merciful way to prosecute war, the surest method of speedily en
forcing peace, is to strike the enemy wherever he may be weak
and vulnerable. To have permitted Spain ports for her fleet and
freedom of the seas and the ability to concentrate all her efforts
in Cuba would have been the madness of sentiment and criminal
folly. By capturing Porto Rico we closed the harbors where
fleets of Spain could go outside of Cuba and cut off )ier sources
of supply. By threatening with a flying squadron the coasts
of Spain we kept troops within her home fortifications and ships
within her own harbors. The wisest of the many wise orders
issued during the war was that to Admiral Dewey when at Hong
kong : "Find the Spanish fleet and destroy it." The destruction
of that fleet ended the power of Spain in the Pacific Ocean. By
the destruction of that fleet and the landing of our troops and
the surrender of Manila the United States stood as a conqueror
upon the enemy's soil. When the Spanish flag went down from
the citadel and the American flag flew from its flagstaff, the three
hundred years of Spanish dominion ended and the American
occupation began. At this point we hear of the alleged Filipino
republic and the alleged assault upon it by the United States.
That Dewey, that Merritt, that Anderson used the natives for

GOVERNMENT OF PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 3
the purpose of fighting Spain no one denies. It was within the
discretion of commanding generals to utilize the enemies of
Spain in such manner as in their judgment would best cripple the
enemy. When Dewey, before sailing from Hongkong, sent the
commander of the Petrel to Aguinaldo to secure his services,
Aguinaldo refused, saying that he had sold out, had taken Spain's
money, and was under obligation not to fight her any more ; and
it was not until after the battle of Manila that he concluded to go
back on his bargain.
I think it will be admitted that there was. in the far East no
one who could bind our Government to treaty obligations. There
has been read here a mass of serenade speeches and banquet ad
dresses and letters from consular agents of this country in China
and the Philippines. A consul has no diplomatic authority. His
commission covers only commercial questions in the port where he
resides. In the imperfections, which are still many, in our con
sular service these positions are held in many places by foreigners
who do not understand our institutions, who receive no salary
that would tempt an American to take the place, and yet who oc
cupy and administer important functions as the commercial agents
of the Republic. Treaties involving recognitions of governments
and cessions of territories are not made by unauthorized persons
in the enthusiasm of moonlight serenades or in the fervor of
banquet addresses.
Only the President of the United States could bind the coun
try, and he only with the subsequent assent of the Senate. Only
when war is progressing can the Commander-in-Chief of the
Army or the Admiral of the Navy make a committal which the
President would be bound in any form to consider or respect. Ad
miral Dewey alone had that power, and he most emphatically
denies any committal whatever to Aguinaldo for the independ
ence of his so-called government. President Schurman also em
phatically denies any committal on the subject on the part of
the Philippine Commission. The various generals of the Army
made no committals on their part. All the consuls concerned
positively denied having made any such suggestions. The instant
that there was brought to the notice of the President and the
State Department a statement that unauthorized persons holding
commissions from the United Stated for another purpose, had

4 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
made any such suggestions, they were immediately and author
itatively repudiated.
The alleged government, called here the de facto government
of Aguinaldo, rests upon an equally flimsy basis. Spain had
held these islands, with a slight interruption when seized by
Great Britain, for three hundred years. Her sovereignty over
them had been recognized by all the powers of Europe. Her
bad government produced frequent insurrections, which were
always suppressed and always local to one island or to a part of
an island. Sometimes these insurrections were stirred up and
promoted by the Captain-general and Spanish officials for the
purpose of securing the larger appropriations and the greater ex
penditures which war would permit, and in order to exercise the
powers of martial law for robbery and the confiscation of rebel
property. Aguinaldo headed one of these insurrections and formed a
revolutionary government, which, however, existed only on paper
and governed nothing but the camp which he had in the mountains
at Biac Na Bato. After continuing a desultory and mainly guer
rilla warfare for months, he finally opened negotiations with
the Spanish authorities, and sold his government to Spain for
$800,000, of which $400,000 was paid down. So that at the
time that Spain ceded the Philippine Islands to the United States
by treaty she had as her title the sovereignty of three hundred
years, and had removed the cloud upon her title by buying the
claims of Aguinaldo's government. The transaction stands
unique in the history of governments, if Aguinaldo's authority
constituted a government. It is the first time in ancient or
modern days when a power claiming sovereignty, asking for rec
ognition from foreign states, for a valuable consideration, which
was agreed to, gave a quitclaim of all its rights, its properties,
and its powers. The $20,000,000 paid by the United States to
Spain for the cession of her sovereignty and rights, also pur
chased the rights, if any, quitclaimed to Spain by Aguinaldo.
When Dewey was leaving Hongkong, Prince Henry of
Prussia, in command of the German fleet in the East, said, "Good
bye, Commodore, I fear I shall never see you again. You are
going on a desperate undertaking." This sentiment was the opin
ion of the admirals of the various European squadrons, and,
through them, of the Orientals. The Asiatics had heard of the

GOVERNMENT OF PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 5
great Republic the other side of the world, but had seen no
evidence of its power. The destruction of the Spanish fleet in
the harbor of Manila, the silencing of the guns of the forts, and
the landing of an American army ended the prestige and power
of Spain in the archipelago. The Filipinos, released from fear
of punishment and smarting under wrongs present and heredit
ary, would have flocked to the standard of General Merritt as
readily as they did to that of Aguinaldo, had such a course seemed
best. The victorious fleet and conquering army of the United
States created Aguinaldo's forces.
But for our demonstrated power appealing so dramatically
to the Eastern imagination, Aguinaldo would have remained revel
ing in Hongkong and his followers humbly subservient to the rule
of Spain. The signing of the terms of peace and the surrender of
Manila to our naval and land forces occurred at the same moment
of time. Dewey and Merritt refused to permit the troops of
Aguinaldo to enter and loot the city, and forced them to with
draw to a safe distance. The peace treaty, guaranteeing the
rights of property in the island by the United States, dissipated
the hopes and dreams of the Filipino leaders of division .ind en
joyment of the confiscated property of the religious societies, the
wealth of the church, and the riches of the Spanish residents.
Then, and not until then, did Aguinaldo and his party become
insurrectionists against the authority of the United States ; then,
inflaming an ignorant population with hes about the Government
and purposes of this country, he received the support which has
required a large army to suppress. This people had been cheated
and robbed of their rights for centuries. They had never known
the blessings of liberty and law, nor what they mean. It was
easy for the rebel chiefs to make them believe that we came to
plunder and oppress. We now understand why they said, "Better
the Spaniard than the American." It is only when peace and
order are established in the islands that we will gain both, their
confidence and their gratitude by a government which will guar
antee law and liberty, civil and religious, and promote their prog
ress and prosperity.
Territorially, constitutionally, and by the decisions of the Su
preme Court, the United States have been expanding for nearly
a century. At the close of the Administration of Washington
our country was bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Ohio

6 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
River. England on the north, and Spain and France south and
west, blocked the possibilities of development and commercial
power. Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Inde
pendence, of the strict-construction theory of the Constitution,
and of the extreme doctrine of State rights. He is claimed by the
anti-expansion party to-day as their example and guide. He
saw that the West must have an outlet or the fairest portion of
our country remain a wilderness. He opened negotiations with
Napoleon for a harbor at the mouth of the Mississippi and transit
over its waters.
Bonaparte had received the vast territory called Louisiana
from Spain for a gift to a Bourbon prince of the right to rule a
petty principality. He saw he could not hold his acquisition
against the power of Great Britain on the ocean, and astonished
the American envoys by offering to sell the entire territory. It
extended from the Gulf to the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific,
and is the seat to-day of a large part of the wealth, population,
and political strength of the Republic. Jefferson saw immediately
a meaning and a sovereignty in the Constitution which opened his
mind almost as was that of Paul on his journey to Damascus.
He eagerly said, "We will," to the remark of Talleyrand, Napol
eon's famous minister, "Why not take it all?" and for $15,000,000
the inhabitants, French, Spanish, and Indian, and the territory
became ours.
Monroe followed Jefferson's example and in 18 19 bought
Florida from Spain for five millions, and Pierce Arizona from
Mexico for ten millions, while Seward secured Alaska from
Russia for seven millions. Texas came by annexation, and we
claimed and Great Britain yielded Oregon to be ours by right
of discovery, because an adventurous Yankee skipper had ex
plored the Columbia River. Mexico lay at our feet crushed and
bleeding after the war, but by the treaty of peace we gave her
fifteen millions for California and New Mexico, and assumed
the debt of three millions five hundred thousand which she owed
to American citizens. Under the same broad, generous, and wise
policy of dealing with defeated enemies, in confirming the title
we had by conquest to the Philippines, we have conceded to Spain
for her rights and sovereignty twenty millions.
Constitutional objection and indiscriminate abuse preceded,
attended, and followed each of these acquisitions. The grim

GOVERNMENT OF PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 7
specter of the ruined Republic was each time dragged out from
the stage properties of the spectacular drama of despair, only
to be laughed back into its crypt by prosperity, population, thriv
ing industries, mutual benefits to the old and new States, and the
blessings of American law and liberty impressing the people
with the wisdom of the expansion. There have been tyrants and
usurpers, if President McKinley is one, doing these same things in
the past as he has done, and they are Thomas Jefferson, James
Monroe, James K. Polk, and Franklin Pierce. All of them were
leaders and teachers of the old Virginia school of strict construc
tion of the Constitution.
Our country on this continent and without including the
Spanish islands, numbers 3,692,125 square miles. Washington
governed a republic of 1,378,981 square miles, and 2,313,144
have been added from the close of his Administration to the
beginning of President McKinley's.
The United States has a domain with nearly three times great
er area than it possessed when it became a nation, and it stands
original and alone in the beneficent processes of its growth. Its
authority has been extended over new lands covering an area
as large as two-thirds of the Continent of Europe, at a mere
trifle of the cost to Frederick the Great of the Province of Silesia,
or to France of the narrow limits of Savoy. For ninety-seven
years we have, in the exercise of that sovereign power which is
inherent in nations, gained property by all the processes known
to government, but we have waged no war for conquest or sub
jugation. We have treated our defeated enemies with unusual
mercy and consideration. Whether our territories have come
by conquest and treaty, by purchase, annexation, or discovery,
the people. Congress, and the country are unanimous in the affirm
ation of our title. The time will be brief until by similar una
nimity Porto Rico and Hawaii, Guam and the Philippines are
held to be equally and sacredly territory of the United States.
Many honest minds have been confused by the supposed appli
cation of the consent of the governed to the government which
Congress provides for new Territories or colonies, and that it
is impossible to rule them except by the usual Territorial process
until by right they are admitted into the Union as States. Here
again, a study of the past removes these difficulties, Jefferson
was the author of the Declaration of Independence, and that is

8 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
the one act which he directed should be engraved upon his tomb.
He certainly knew the breadth and limitations of its axioms.
The government which he organized for the Territory of Louis
iana had every element which has been denounced as despotism
in the Philippines.
The act of October 31, 1803, passed by Congress and signed
by Jefferson, vested —
All military, civil, and judicial powers in such person or persons and
to be exercised in such manner as the President of the United States
should direct.
There was no consultation with the inhabitants, no par
ticipation in their government accorded them, and no rights as
sured to them except "The free enjoyment of their liberty, prop
erty, and religion." It is no answer to this precedent to say
that because there were only 30,000 white people in the Territory
it was unnecessary to gain their consent. The constitutional
rights of 30,000 are as precious and as sacred as the rights of
30,000,000. From 1803, when this colonial and imperial gov
ernment was imposed upon Louisiana, until 18 19, when Florida
was conquered, purchased, and ceded by Spain, was ample time
in which to discover a vital blow at the Declaration of Independ
ence and a deadly assault upon the Constitution of the United
States. Sixteen years of legislative action, judicial examination and
decision, and popular discussion had intervened since Jefferson's
arbitrary government had been imposed on Louisiana ; but again,
and in the same terms, did Congress, March 3, 1819, pass and
President Monroe approve an act for the government of Florida
vesting —
All civil, military, and judicial powers in such person or persons and
to be exercised in such manner as the President of the United States
shall direct.
When this pure colonial and unrepresentative government
was extended over Florida that Territory was not a wilderness.
It had been settled for two hundred and nine years, and, in
addition to its Spanish, French, and English inhabitants, had
several flourishing American settlements.
From 1798 down to 1849 the statesmen and jurists whose

GOVERNMENT OF PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 9
names and fame are our most precious heritage framed govern
ments for Mississippi, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Illinois,
Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa, Oregon,
and Minnesota. Some of these Territories were within the limits
of the original thirteen colonies and States, and some in our after-
acquired possessions, and to all of them were extended certain
specific laws of the United States; but, as if to emphasize the
power of Congress in their government, the "Constitution and
laws" of the United States were not extended over any of them.
In still further emphasizing the power to govern, to grant, and
to withhold, the acts of 1850 and afterwards, establishing Terri
torial governments for New Mexico and Utah, departed from
this unbroken line of legislation and specifically made the Consti
tution and laws of the United States of the same force and effect
as in the United States, the language of the laws indicating that
without their legislation they did not operate.
Citizen is a broad generalization. In one sense it includes all
the inhabitants of every age and sex under the jurisdiction of the
United States, and to all of them are guaranteed protection for
life, liberty, property, and religion. In another and larger way
it means those who, in addition to these rights, are entitled to the
suffrage, to trial by jury, and to every privilege and protection
under the Constitution and laws of the United States. The right
to vote and participate in the government has been treated with
singular freedom. Property qualification or tax, or both, as a
prerequisite to vote were common in all the States until 182 1 and
in Rhode Island until 1888.
Our friends in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana
who stand shivering with fear lest the Filipinos, by becoming citi
zens, will have the constitutional right to vote, or by being de
prived of that vote will become the victims of a despotism more
autocratic than Russia, say our only safety from this dilemma is
to scuttle and run. They have found no difficulty, however, in
excluding from the ballot a large number of their citizens. South
Carolina, by the new constitution of the State, makes the requisite
for voting the ability to read understandingly the Constitution of
the United States, and the possession of $300 worth of property.
If this test were imposed on the Philippines, it would effectually
deprive the whole native population of the suffrage. They make
for their denial of the consent of the governed the ingenious plea

10 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
that neither by the Declaration of Independence nor the Consti
tution did the negroes acquire rights or recognition; that the
fathers never meant to include them. Certainly, if this be true,
it applies with greater force to the alien races who inhabit the
Philippine Islands, whose existence was unknown to the signers
of the Declaration, the framers of the Constitution, or, in the
language of that instrument, to "We, the people of the United
States," who "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and
to our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
United States of America."
By uniform 4egislation from the formation of the Republic
and by repeated and clear decisions of the Supreme Court these
principles are established : First, that the Constitution thus formed
was meant for the States in the Union as they severally adopted
it. Second, that it becomes operative upon every State subse
quently admitted into the Union. Third, that it does not extend
by its own force over territory acquired after the adoption of the
Constitution, but that Congress has the power to grant so much
of its provisions as it deems wise.
The third section of Article IV. of the Constitution says :
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful
rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property belong
ing to the United States.
The sixth article of the Constitution says:
All treaties made under the authority of the United States shall be
the supreme law of the land.
Here is the charter for the Government and the duty to hold
and govern the PhiHppines. By the treaty with France for Louis
iana, with Spain for Florida, and with Mexico for territories ac
quired, the ceding nations reserved specific rights for their in
habitants and a pledge of future statehood. The treaty of Paris
with Spain stands alone in the baldness of the cession. Spain
reserved nothing by treaty rights for her subjects in the Pacific
islands and the archipelago. The treaty simply says :
That the civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of
the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by
the Congress.

GOVERNMENT OF PPIILIPPIXE ISLANDS H
The ratification of this treaty by the Senate made it, in the
language of the Constitution, "the supreme law of the land."
The President and Congress have no discretion. They must obey
this law. They must hold these territories as they must hold New
Mexico. They must provide government for them as they must
also for Alaska. They must suppress insurrection by the same
right and duty as they did when Geronimo and his tribe rebelled
in Arizona. It has been repeatedly said here that government by the United
States in these islands will be a despotism. Such a belief shows
a singular ignorance or misapprehension of the constitutional limi
tations upon our powers and the spirit of our institutions. While
the Constitution does not extend over the Territories of its own
force and without legislation, its prohibitions are binding on Con
gress. In those prohibitions, which are also privileges enjoyed
by the people wherever our jurisdiction extends, is a complete
charter of rights which Congress can neither limit nor impair.
All personal privileges and immunities, such as religious freedom,
property rights, freedom of speech and the press, and equality
before the law must prevail wherever our flag floats. But out
side of the Constitution and laws is an unwritten law created by
the genius of the institutions of the paramount power and con
trolling its acts and officials in all colonial governments.
We know from Cicero's oration that even a Roman proconsul
was subject to this idea. England received her lesson in the dan
ger of violating this spirit when she lost her American colonies
by our successful Revolution, and she has to-day the greatest and
most loyal colonial empire the world has ever known by granting
such measures of self-government as each colony demonstrates its
ability to maintain. Electricity and steam have annihilated time
and distance. The Phihppines are nearer Washington by months
than New Orleans was in Jefferson's Administration. The flag
carries with it everywhere the genius and spirit of American lib
erty and law. No American governor, council, and judiciary
would be tyrants if they could, and could not be if they would.
An insult or a blow at civil or religious liberty by an American
administration in far-off Luzon would be flashed under the ocean
and across the land. The people would rise in hot indignation,
demanding justice and punishment, which the President and Con
gress would be swift to grant and inflict.

12 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
All other nations have been familiar through the ages with
the power of sovereignty. Their people have gradually won in
dividual rights from the throne, but without impairing in its na
tional relations this power. Louis XIV. said, "I am the State."
Since then France has been governed by Robespierre and the revo
lutionary committee, by Emperor, King, President, Emperor
again, and President and Assembly, but the sovereign powers of
the nation were unimpaired. We have developed the other way.
Slowly and reluctantly we have surrendered individual rights that
we might be a nation. We have been a hundred years trying to
understand that a government of the people has all the strength,
perpetuity and powers of sovereignty, but with an ever-present
responsibility to the people. The great debate between those who
affirmed and those who denied that we are a nation continued long
after Webster's unanswerable argument in the Senate and Chief
Justice Marshall's imposing decision from the Bench. When sub
mitted to the arbitrament of the sword, the sacrifice of a million
noble lives on one side and the other opened the minds of friends
and foes to a broader and more elevated understanding of the in
dissoluble unity, the vast and expansive possibilities, the creative
and beneficent spirit and the mighty and glorious power of the
United States.
The fears daily expressed by Senators of disastrous conse
quences to ourselves from the productions and industries of these
islands have no justification in the long experience of other na
tions. Great Britain has found her best markets in her colonies
and no invasion of her industries from them. The same is true
of the crowded, highly organized, and sensitive industrial interests
of Holland. The people of the temperate zones govern all tropical
countries outside the Americas. The Northern races are the mi
grators, the colonizers, the rulers, and the organizers of the pro
ductive energies of the world. There is a closeness and contact
between all parts of the lands and peoples which are under one
general government. Though Great Britain has no greater com
mercial advantages with her colonies than other and competing
countries, yet she furnishes 45 per cent, of their imports, and if
analyzed so as to select only the articles she produces the propor
tion would be greater. The rapid development of wants and
ability to gratify them created by civilization and stable govern
ment will enormously increase the consumption and purchasing

GOVERNMENT OF PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 13
power of the inhabitants of our island possessions, and by the
same law close commercial relations will follow political unity.
America and Europe are the beneficiaries and the victims of
the marvelous development of the nineteenth century. Electric
ity, steam and invention have stimulated production beyond living
limits, unless new markets can be discovered. The great migra
tions of ancient and modern times appear insignificant when com
pared with the exodus from Europe in the last seventy-five years.
The figures reach the enormous volume of 17,000,000 of human
beings whose exile from home and country has been mainly en
forced by congestion from overproduction and revolution in em
ployments by inventions and development in the arts and indus
tries. Our fertile lands have attracted most of them, but they are
practically exhausted, and now the world's problem of markets
for the surplus of farms and factories, or low wages, want of
employment, idleness, and want is near our own doors. Vv^e
must remember the startling fact that during the twentieth cen
tury our population will grow to 300,000,000.
The markets for the products of our farms and factories
accessible by the Atlantic Ocean will soon be filled. But across
the Pacific are limitless opportunities. Within a distance from
Manila not much greater than Havana from New York live
900,000,000 of people, purchasing now annually from all nations,
of the things which we produce, to the sum of a thousand
millions of dollars, of which we furnish five per cent. And yet
with our Pacific Coast and its enterprising people the opening of
the canal across the isthmus and an American merchant marine
that five per cent, should be fifty. With railroads opening up
these countries and civilization stimulating their people, the pos
sible increase in their trade dazzles the imagination. To relieve
home congestion, starvation and revolution, England, Germany
and France are increasing their armies, enlarging their fleets, and
either waging war or on the eve of great conflicts while partition
ing Africa, threatening China, seizing Asiatic principalities and
madly building railroads across the continents of Asia and Africa.
By victorious war and triumphant diplomacy we are in our own
territory within easy reach, at Manila, of China, Siam, Korea,
Annam, the East Indies, and Japan. Without war or entangling
alliances we will have equal rights with other nations to the ports
pf the Orient, with all that it means for the demonstrated supe-

14 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
riority of our manufactures and the surplus harvests of our
farms. This is not a sordid view, nor can any right apprehension of
our Philippine policy or our relations to our island colonies be
sordid or purely commercial. Commerce and civiHzation always
go together. In spite of ourselves we have colonial possessions.
We have no policy to declare, no glittering resolutions or proc
lamations to make and in the future to embarrass us. We will
stamp out the insurrection and establish a stable government.
We will organize local government. We will constitute courts.
We will insure with the whole power of the United States security
for life and property, freedom of religion, and the equal and just
administration of the law.
The kindergarten of liberty, under competent instructors,
rapidly develops its pupils for larger responsibilities for citizen
ship, respect for law, for judicial duties and for a constantly
increasing share in their local and general assemblies. One year
of rule by the United States in Cuba is a convincing object lesson.
Brigands have become farmers, and revolutionists conservative
citizens. Order has taken the place of anarchy, and law of
license. The Cubans are developing their industries and rapidly
acquiring habits of self-government. So the uplifting of the
people of the Philippines to the comprehension and practice of
orderly industry, respect for individual rights, confidence and
then participation in government will add enormously to their
happiness and reciprocally to the strength, prosperity and power
of our country.

PORTO RICAN TARIFF

SPEECH ON THE QUESTION OF THE TAXATION OF PORTO RICO,
APRIL 2, 1900.
Mr. President : I have been listening with great interest to
the many and very able speeches which have been delivered upon
the Porto Rican tariff.' I have endeavored to find in them a
solution of the singular political conditions which seem to have
arisen out of the presentation of this measure. I have thought
perhaps the fact that the country is divided into storm centers
and normally placid conditions is due to the extended discussion
of the constitutional question having obscured the real meaning
•,'f a measure of revenue and relief.
There is no division among the majority in either House as
;o the power of Congress to legislate on this subject. The ma
jority all agree that the Constitution does not extend by its own
power over these new possessions, and that Congress can legislate
for them as it deems wise, subject only to the prohibitions upon
Congress in the Constitution. The Democratic Party accepted
the other view, that the Constitution does extend by its own force
into the Territories, from the moment that it was invented by John
C. Calhoun for the purpose of carrying slavery into the new
Territories, when it was impossible against the aroused conscience
of the country to secure legislation to that effect. It is but fair
to say that while the action of the country by the unanimous con
sent of all statesmen and of all parties for fifty years, and the
trend of the decisions of the Supreme Court, sustain the power
of Congress to take the whole or any part of the Constitution
and the laws of the United States into new territories and to estab
lish governments for them, yet the questions raised by the acqui
sitions of Cuba, Hawaii and the Philippines, when presented to
the Supreme Court, must result in such a broad and comprehen
sive interpretation as will make clear for all time the position of
the United States upon the government of territories which come
to us.
'The Senate had under consideration the bill (H. R, 8245) temporarily to provide
revenues for the relief of the island of Porto Rico, and for other purposes, — Ed.
15

16 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
While the practical part of this measure has received some
consideration, yet it has resulted in pictures of Porto Rico and
its inhabitants which are utterly misleading. The lower house
of the Iowa Legislature the other day adopted a resolution for
free trade with Porto Rico on the sentimental ground that her
people had accepted our sovereignty willingly, while other islands
were resisting it. The sudden collapse of the Spanish power,
and the almost instantaneous dropping into our hands of the
island possessions of Spain, found different conditions in these
possessions. It is admitted, for instance, that Cuba is to be under
our Government only until she is capable of governing herself.
We all know that, with the revolutionary elements and profes
sional agitators of that island, if any excuse or opportunity had
been offered there would have been a revolt against our authority.
We all know that in the Philippines there would have been uni
versal acceptance of government by the United States except
that professional agitators, who revolutionized for revenue and
had made fortunes in previous revolts, played upon the imagina
tion of an ignorant people and led them into insurrection, hoping
the United States would follow Spanish precedents and purchase
their allegiance. It is equally true that in Porto Rico the popu
lation is so poor and so crowded, and the conformation of the
island makes it so easy for an army to put down insurrection,
that, though the same government existed in Porto Rico as in
Cuba and in the Phihppines, it was impossible to inaugurate revo
lution in Porto Rico. The Porto Ricans knew that they must
come under some government, and after three hundred years of
Spain hailed with delight the transfer to the United States.
Porto Rico has been pictured here and presented to the coun
try as if it were a Vermont, a Massachusetts, a Connecticut, or an
Iowa, populated by an intelligent and educated people who had
instantly grasped the problems of Government and the institu
tions of the United States, and were in all respects fitted to early
assume a place among the States of the Union; that prior and
preliminary to this statehood they were entitled to every privilege,
every law, every constitutional right which belongs to the citizens
of the States. Porto Rico has been described as a bride deco
rated with flowers and tropical coloring, and in culture, education
and training worthy to be the companion and helpmeet of the

PORTO RICAN TARIFF 17
idealization of the highly developed, liberty-loving, and broad-
minded American.
To get a horizontal view of this question we must come back
to the testimony of Porto Rican citizens and foreigners and of
the officers of the United States which was given before the Com
mittee on Porto Rican Affairs. Like judges and juries who see
and hear the witnesses, the members of that committee who, for
hours every day during three weeks, saw these witnesses and
heard their testimony, received impressions stronger than the cold
type of the evidence presents.
Right here I wish to express my profound appreciation of the
great ability and conscientious industry with which the chairman
of our committee, the senior Senator from Ohio [Mr. Foraker],
has conducted the investigation and the legislative management
of this measure.
Porto Rico is more thickly populated than any country in
Europe. It is one of the most fertile territories on earth. From
seashore to mountain top it can be cultivated. With capital,
enterprise, and modern machinery the possibilities of increase in
its productiveness can not be calculated. It is a little over two-
thirds the size of Connecticut, but has a much larger population.
Its industries are purely agricultural. As in all countries where
there are no varied industries, the young men and the young
women have no opportunities to engage in different pursuits.
Where agriculture is the only occupation of thickly settled com
munities the conditions of India are repeated, and so there pre
vails in Porto Rico a widespread and grinding poverty unknown
in Europe or in America. There are, in round numbers, a
million people upon the island. Seventy thousand are negroes,
250,000 of mixed negro and white blood and about 700,000 are
the result of the settlement by the wild adventurers, of all races
and nations, who, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, sailed
and fought on the Spanish Main. One hundred thousand of
these people can read or write ; about 50,000 can do both. Nine
hundred thousand are in absolute ignorance.
Of this million, 800,000 derive their living from agricultural
pursuits. They live in huts, consisting of one room; they have
work only during the season for coffee, for sugar and tobacco.
The children from ten to sixteen years of age earn about ten
cents a day ; vigorous manhood receives thirty cents, and old age.
Vol. VII-2

18 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
again, from ten to fifteen cents. They live on sugar cane and
the fruits that grow, and are so cheap, in the Tropics, and it is
estimated can sustain life on five cents a day per individual.
Most of them have never known bread or meat as it is familiar
to our people. They are hired by the day, tlje contract closing
with the sun. By this means the owners of the large estates are
free from responsibility for their care or maintenance, a responsi
bility which would come if the contracts were by the month or
by the year. There are no schoolhouses in the island. Thus
eight-tenths of this population are ignorant of pohtics, of govern
ment, of Spanish or American rule, and intent only upon the
always immediate and exigent necessity of subsistence and life.
In the majority of the families the heads are unmarried because
they had not the money under Spanish rule to pay the expenses of
the marriage ceremony, civil or religious. The 200,000 remain
ing consist of the landholders, merchants and factors, and of the
carriers and skilled artisans in the towns and the small storekeep
ers in the country.
The island itself consists of two millions of acres. There are
1,200,000 acres in pasture, 181,000 in coffee, 70,000 in sugar,
14,000 in tobacco and the rest is in forests, orchards, gardens and
underbrush. The land of the island is owned in 43,000 estates.
A large proportion of these owners are Spaniards, English and
other foreigners. The coffee, sugar and tobacco estates are
mortgaged for about one-quarter of their value at rates of interest
varying from ten to twenty-five per cent. The profits of pro
duction are so great, even with the antiquated machinery in use,
that with normal crops and with the Dingley Tariff in full force,
as it has been, against them for the past four years, they were
enabled to meet this interest and enjoy as much prosperity as is
possible under Spanish rule. The government by Spain was
oppressive to a degree. The taxes were enormous, no roads were
built, no schoolhouses erected, no public improvements main
tained, but these great revenues were dissipated by the Spanish
officials. There was no justice in the courts, favoritism and
bribery being universal. There was no habeas corpus, and civil
rights were not respected. Arbitrary arrests were made and
citizens lay in dungeons for years because there was no way by
which they could get a trial. The Spanish Government gauged
its exactions by the profit of the planter, and managed to take

PORTO RICAN TARIFF 19
nearly everything that the planter could make which he could
fairly call net above maintenance, his own support, and the
interest upon his debts.
For the five years preceding our occupancy the average yearly
value of the exports of the island was $16,000,000, of which
$10,000,000 were coffee, $4,000,000 sugar, $700,000 tobacco, and
the rest molasses, cattle and hides. Such was the condition of
this island when it was occupied by our troops, and submitted to
our authority with scarcely a struggle. The introduction of
American methods and Government were rapidly producing most
beneficent results, when a calamity occurred which has no parallel
as affecting the whole people of a country.
As will be seen from these figures, the great staple of the
island, which employs, in one form or another, nearly three-
quarters of the population and capital, is coffee. The coffee
plantations are upon the steep mountain sides, and run from the
foothills to the peaks. The coffee berry can not thrive under
the tropical sun unless protected by partial shade, and so the
original forests which clothed these mountain sides were cleared
of underbrush and in its place the coffee-bearing trees were
planted. The hurricane which swept over the island destroyed
nearly the whole of these plantations. It threw down the forest
trees or broke off the branches, and they fell crisscross, producing
a network over the coffee bushes which made the farm a wreck.
Under the tropical sun the weeds which choke the berries unless
kept out began to grow luxuriantly.
The testimony showed that every day added to the danger of
the annihilation of the coffee plantation ; that in six months most
of the coffee-berry plants would be killed, the plantations would
have to be planted anew and it would take five years for the plant
to reach maturity. The coffee planters, being all of them in debt,
had no credit and no resources with which to clear off their farms.
They had no machinery, but could have worked out the problem
by the superabundance of labor with which they were surrounded
if they had had the capital to employ it. The hurricane produced
very great but not equally disastrous damage upon the sugar and
tobacco plantations. So within twenty-four hours 800,000
people were left without any occupation or means of support,
and the proprietors without any credit or money with which to
clear their farms and employ the laborers who .were clamoring

20 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
for work and starving all about them. I have no hesitation in
saying that if the island had not in this distress been under the
United States, but had remained under the old Spanish regime,
the amount of suffering and starvation would have appalled the
world. But the President and the Secretary of War, acting
through General Davis and the officers of the Army, used about
$1,000,000 of the emergency fund in feeding these poor people
and in preventing one of the ghastliest horrors of modern times.
The suspension of coffee, sugar, and tobacco industries reacted
upon the people in the towns who lived by handling these products
and by furnishing the supplies to the people of the interior.
There was paralysis on the one hand of the purchasing power of
their former customers, and on the other of the occupations by
which they themselves earned a living. With the island in this
stricken condition, and the people in this deplorable situation, it
was impossible to raise revenues for schools, for roads, for courts,
for police or for any purpose of government by direct taxation.
The Porto Rican government must be supported and the means
found for the recuperation of Porto Rican industries and the
resurrection of Porto Rican farms and the salvation of the Porto
Rican people either by taxing the people of the United States, by
taking money bodily out of the United States Treasury and
pauperizing the island, or by finding a method by which the island
itself can secure income and credit. It was when these condi
tions had become familiar to our committee that we changed
our bill from free trade to the tariff measure which is now before
the Senate, a tariff measure which is not a Chinese wall, not an
oppressive act of arbitrary power, but the most generous and
beneficent revenue system ever adopted by any government,
because it gives to the island of Porto Rico not only the duties
collected at her own ports, but the duties collected under our
laws at our ports upon products coming from the island.
When Daniel Webster was charged with being inconsistent
in his later opinion, he said, "It is the privilege of wise men to
change their minds." The members of our committee do not
make any special claim to wisdom, but we have considered this
question with open minds. The President has an open mind, and
in view of the later and overwhelming testimony about Porto
Rican conditions, is satisfied with the solution of them which this
measure gives. General Davis, the governor of Porto Rico,

PORTO RICAN TARIFF 21
whose ability and fairness no one questions, has an open mind,
and after disbursing a million of dollars for the relief of the
Porto Rican people, and becoming personally familiar with their
conditions, on March 31 — that is, last Saturday — gave this
authoritative opinion :
"I have not felt it proper for me to discuss Congressional matters, fill
ing, as I do, an executive position. I have expressed my views fully,
however, on Porto Rico's needs, and I might say if Congress should
adopt free trade the receipts of the custom-houses would naturally cease.
One million five hundred thousand dollars has been collected during the
fiscal year, and with free trade this will fall off. What, then, will run
the island? Although I have received no official advices regarding an
appropriation, I understand through the newspapers that an appropria
tion was decided upon, and I infer that this appropriation will be
spent on insular government expenses. If free trade is adopted I
can not see how the necessary funds for the conduct of the
affairs of the island are to be raised by myself or those who succeed me.
Two million dollars are the present expenses, and this amount will be
needed annually. There is only a small revenue incoming from stamps,
liquors, tobacco, and mercantile licenses, and it is impossible to collect
taxes because of the conditions."
I wish in this connection to congratulate my friend, the hon
orable Senator from Georgia [Mr. Bacon], that he has an open
mind. He introduced on Friday our original bill as a substitute
for this one, which shows that my eloquent and able friend is
within two months of us. Within twenty-eight hours this bill
is going to pass ; the procession is moving on, and he had better
get into the band wagon before it is too late. I say to my friend,
the Senator from Georgia, and his colleagues, that within twenty-
eight hours is the opportunity. There are vacancies on the pray
ing benches for salvation, and they had better come in.
We come naturally now to the question of hardships upon the
Porto Rican people and of cruelty to the inhabitants of our new
possessions by the proposed legislation. We were told with won
derful eloquence and passionate rhetoric when the Porto Rican
relief bill to appropriate $2,000,000 was before the Senate, that
it was our plain duty to return to the people who have paid the
duties under the Dingley Tariff Act since our occupation the
money which had been collected. The whole policy of the Re
publican Party, from the President to Congress, has been to give

22 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
back to Porto Rico all the taxes levied and collected upon her
products at the ports of the United States and also all the duties col
lected at her own ports — to give them back to her for the purposes
of her government and for the purposes of her improvement and
her progress. These duties had been paid by the sugar trust,
which controls the sugar products of the island, and the tobacco
trust, which controls the tobacco product of the island — two of
the richest and greatest money-making corporations in the world.
They had bought the sugar and tobacco at a price which included
the Dingley Tariff duties and sold them to the people of the
United States at a large profit after the duties were paid. In
the bill which we have just passed appropriating this $2,000,000,
instead of paying these duties back to these corporations, which
have been the subject of so much abuse and with whom we have
been charged with being allied, we have given them back to the
people of Porto Rico for their schoolhouses, for their roads, for
the relief of their starving and for the employment which will
come in the proper administration of the fund.
The analysis of the productions of the island which are ex
ported shows that above five-eighths is coffee. There is no duty
on coffee, and so there is no outrage there. There is a duty at
present of $1.60 per hundred pounds upon sugar and $1.85 per
pound upon tobacco under the Dingley Tariff Act. There are
millions of dollars' worth of this sugar and tobacco, owned by the
sugar and tobacco trusts, which is held from the market and
stored in warehouses in Porto Rico awaiting the action upon this
bill. This sugar and tobacco was bought from the planters of
Porto Rico at a price which included these Dingley Tariff duties
and still left a large profit for the purchaser. Every concession
made from the Dingley Tariff is that much more clear profit, not
to the producer, or the laborer, or the citizen of Porto Rico, but
to these purchasers of their products. So by this act we are, out
of the hundred per cent, of additional profit which the sugar
trust and tobacco trust would receive under free trade, taking
fifteen per cent, for the people of Porto Rico and leaving the
purchasers eighty-five per cent, for their own income. The only
difference between the original recommendation of the President
of the United States and the action of the House of Representa
tives and of the Senate committee is in the method by which the

PORTO RICAN TARIFF 23
people of Porto Rico can receive the whole of the revenue from
the tariff.The President's recommendation of free trade was made in
order that Porto Ricans might have the use of these duties in
Porto Rico by not having to pay them — that is, by keeping the
money for public purposes in the island. The proposition of the
House of Representatives and of this committee is that those
duties shall be collected and returned to the people of Porto Rico,
because it is the only way by which the people of the island will
get a dollar of benefit from them. Now, from whom will they
be collected? In the last twenty -five years sugar has fluctuated
as much as any other product in the market ; coffee has been sub
ject to the opening of new sources of supply, to failures of crops
and to all those elements which add or take away from 25 to
50 per cent, of the market price. But while coffee and sugar
importers have grown rich and by their skill, their capital and
their far-sightedness been able always to calculate future pros
pects and to make money, no matter what the conditions, the
laborer upon the plantations who produced these crops has never
known any difference in his wage. Unhappily for him, the labor
market was always overstocked ; unhappily for him, there was no
industry but the land to which he or his family could apply for
help. He was "the man with the hoe," meeting all the conditions
of Dr. Markham's remarkable poem. He was too ignorant to
know when good times were making fortunes for those who
handle the product which he raised by his labor ; he was too pov
erty stricken to subsist in an organized effort to increase the
remuneration for his toil. It will be many a year before these
conditions change for the masses of the Porto Rican people.
They can never change when an overcrowded population has but
one means of livelihood and there are no varied industries for
its relief. Then who pays this tariff, and who gets the benefit of it?
For the first time in the history of Porto Rico it is paid by those
who make money out of her, by those who are enriched by her
toil, by those who are far removed from the ignorance and the
suffering and the squalor of her population. The tariff money
taken from them goes really to the people of Porto Rico who
never before received any benefit. It will go for schoolhouses
and school-teachers, which will make the next generation worthier

24 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
of citizenship and self-government; it will go for roads, which
will give employment and opportunities for other industries than
merely agricultural; it will go for those ordinary functions of
government which must be maintained or you have anarchy, and
they will be maintained by this process without those burdens of
direct taxation which, in the present condition of Porto Rico,
would be such a terrific brake upon her progress.
Now as to the charge that it will stifle the industries of Porto
Rico. Porto Rican coffee, representing five-eighths of her prod
uct and of her labor, will come in free ; Porto Rican sugar and
tobacco will come into our ports in competition with the sugar
and tobacco of Cuba. Porto Rican sugar and tobacco, when the
Dingley Tariff applied equally to both Cuba and Porto Rico,
found a ready and remunerative market in this country. Under
the operations of this bill, by which full tariff duties are paid by
all others and only fifteen per cent, of them by Porto Ricans, the
Cuban sugar men will pay in Dingley Tariff duties $i.6o for
every lOO pounds, while the Porto Rican sugar man will pay
24 cents. The price of sugar, because of the enormous demand
in this country, which is in excess of the supply, will be main
tained. The Cuban sugar dealer will make a profit after paying
$1.60 duty, and the Porto Rican sugar man will make the same
profit with an addition, on account of the concession of 85 per
cent, to him of $1.36 on every hundred pounds. This will prac
tically give the controllers of the sugar product of Porto Rico
a return of from fifty to eighty per cent, on their investment.
Precisely the same conditions and precisely the same excess of
profit will be the good fortune of the Porto Rican tobacco pro
ducer or dealer under this concession of 85 per cent, from the
Dingley tariff as against his Cuban competitor. There can be
but one result of this concession of 85 per cent to Porto Rico
as against Cuba, and that is an enormous stimulus, on account
of the enormous profit, to both sugar and tobacco areas and
productions in the island of Porto Rico.
Bearing in mind these figures and these enormous profits
under this concession of 85 per cent, from Dingley tariff duties,
and still greater profits with free trade, the following opinion
from President Havemeyer, of the sugar trust, is a contribution
of great importance to this discussion. It settles emphatically in
what direction lie the interests of the sugar trust :

PORTO RICAN TARIFF 25
New York Bureau Chicago Tribune,
New York, March 2p.
President Havemeyer, of the American Sugar Refining Company,
was the center of interest in speculative circles to-day, owing to the cut
of 5 cents a hundred pounds announced by the Arbuckles and the possible
action of the Havemeyer interests. The sugar king, in discussing the
whole situation, was plain and outspoken regarding the position of
Porto Rico and the Philippines, and declared that there was no reason
in the world why sugars should not be admitted free of duty from those
countries. "I am much in favor of it," he said, "and I believe the time is not far
off when they will be admitted free of duty. Why, both of those coun
tries are part and parcel of the United States, and no matter what action
Congress takes, I am confident the Supreme Court will hold that the
products of those colonies are entitled to free entry here.
"There is no more reason why a duty should be placed upon the
products of Porto Rico than on stuff coming into New York from
Long Island. There is only a wide ditch between the United States
and Porto Rico. Well, if Porto Rican sugars are brought in free, it
will not be long before some similar policy is adopted with reference
to Cuban products."
Here also is the opinion given Saturday by W. T. Townes,
president of the Porto Rico- American Tobacco Company :
W. T. Townes, president of the Porto Rico-American Tobacco
Company, says that the proposed tariff will keep Porto Rico out of
the American market; that Porto Rico will sell to Europe, China, and
Japan, and not a pound to the United States.
Porto Rican industrial conditions, because of surplus popula
tion, lack of remunerative employment and paralyzing poverty,
have thrown the transactions of the island into a few hands. As
I have said before, the land is divided into 43,000 estates in a
population of 1,000,000 people. The business of supplying the
demands of the population, as well as handling the products of
the island, is conducted by comparatively a handful of as keen
and enterprising business men as there are in the world. Under
these conditions they will control the price both of the things
which the island consumes and which the island produces until
education, intelligence and varied employments have redeemed
the island. A startling instance is given of this by cable, which
informs us of the rise in the price of food during the last fevy

26 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
days. Under the Executive orders of the President all bread-
stuffs now enter Porto Rican territory free of duty, and yet the
few men who control the supplies which feed the Porto Rican
people and import them from the United States, though they go
in absolutely free, have raised the price lOO per cent, to these
poor, starving people, who are unable to get any relief. The
tariff of IS per cent, if it had been imposed would not raise
this price ; it would be paid by these dealers. It would amount
to four cents a barrel on flour, and to a proportionately small
amount on other products, but the vivifying influences of revenue
in the hands of an intelligent government and the great profit
in the importations would speedily open the way for the farmers
of the United States to ship into that market their products in
such measure that, while they made money, these exactions could
no longer be imposed upon the Porto Rican people.
Under this bill this tariff lasts only two years, and may be
ended by the Porto Rican Legislature at any time. It is a tenta
tive measure; it is wholly for the benefit of the people of Porto
Rico ; its proceeds are used for no other purpose than to improve
their conditions and enlarge their opportunities. Congress is
always in session, and two years will be an object lesson in the
experiment of caring for and governing the Porto Ricans.
The singular thing about this whole matter is the isolation of
sentiment. There seems to be a storm center of hostile senti
ment in Indiana and none in Ohio ; that there is a fever in Minne
sota but not in Michigan ; that there is great indignation in
Oregon and not a particle in New York or Pennsylvania or New
England, except Vermont. Why Vermont at this season of the
year should melt is one of the mysteries of the phenomena of
nature. It even warmed up my distinguished friend, the senior
Senator from Vermont [Mr. Proctor], into a glowing sympathy
and tenderness for free trade as a panacea for a stricken people
which I have seldom witnessed, even with the most emotional of
my friends. Why is it?
The history of remedial legislation presents no example of
baseless excitement like that which prevails over this measure in
certain parts of the United States. The localization of the storm
is unprecedented. It has great volume and force in one State,
with little evidence of it in the adjoining Commonwealth, A
Northwestern State may have the fever, while the Middle States

PORTO RICAX TARIFF

li

and New England are normal. In every instance in the contests
of parties where a principle was at issue, the sentiment of the
party in one State has been equally pronounced in every State.
This phenomenal localization of interest compels the conclusion
that a mere matter of providing means for carrying on govern
ment and reheving distress has been exaggerated into an acute
struggle over a fundamental principle of right, or morals or
both. This bill is the people's law. It restricts, as far as can be
done, the power of trusts or combinations or concentration of
industries. It puts upon the free list these products going from
the United States into Porto Rico — the food products from the
American farmer — so that the American farmer has this market
free as against the agriculture of other countries, whose imports
must pay Dingley Tariff rates. It gives to the Porto Ricans the
fullest opportunity for cheap food. Agricultural implements,
which are so necessary for the resurrection of island cultivation,
and the adoption of modern machinery to aid in lower cost and
larger crops, are free. Rough lumber for mills, coopers' mate
rials for sugar, molasses and tobacco, and bags for coffee, are
free. Carriages to cheapen transportation and trees and plants to
give variety in crops by raising large and small fruits, for which
the island is pecuharly adapted, are free, as are all drugs which
are used in the malarial diseases of tropical countries. In a
word, every product of the farm or factory in the United States
which will help Porto Rico, enable her to rise triumphant from
her ruins and give remunerative use for capital and employment
and wages to her people, are on the free list. The luxuries con
sumed by the prosperous are, as they ought to be, taxed for the
support of the government.
But this is not all. The whole question of taxation is re
mitted by this bill to the people and government of Porto Rico.
Here is the charter of Porto Rican self-government. It is the
spear which punctures the huge and swaying balloon of tyranny,
oppression, and violations of the Constitution and Declaration of
Independence so laboriously blown out and expanded in the past
few weeks. While standing on the collapsed canvas, and viewing
its tragic mottoes, listen to the plain and passionless words of
this bill :

28 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Sec 4. And whenever the legislative assembly of Porto Rico shall
have enacted and put into operation a system of local taxation to meet
the necessities of the government of Porto Rico by this act established,
and shall by resolution duly passed so notify the President, he shall
make proclamation thereof, and thereupon all tariff duties on merchan
dise and articles going into Porto Rico from the United States or com
ing into the United States from Porto Rico shall cease, and from and
after such date all such merchandise and articles shall be entered at
the several ports of entry free of duty ; and in no event shall any such
duties be collected after the ist day of March, 1902.
In a word, what is all this contention about? What is the
apple of discord which is lashing some friends to fury? The
President proposed free trade, and this bill gives free trade in
all the necessaries of life, in all implements and manufactures
required for the resuscitation, development and working of indus
tries, and a tariff amounting, on the average, to six per cent.
upon their market value, on other products.
This tariff comes off by operation of law in two years, and
as much sooner as the people of the island, through their own
Legislature, decide to abolish it because they can raise the reve
nues necessary for the support of their government, their roads
and their schools, and for their general welfare by direct taxation.
The opposition to this bill is the result of the usual tactical
operations for advantageous positions in a presidential year. The
Calhoun theory of the Constitution and the century-old fight of
free trade to destroy protection have made a united and desperate
charge upon the policy and provisions of this measure. The
Democratic position in regard to our island territories is clearly
defined. They will claim that the moment any territory becomes
the property of the United States by conquest, purchase, cession,
or discovery it is under our Constitution and laws; that its
people and products have the same rights and are entitled to the
same freedom of movement all over the United States as the
people and products of any State in the Union; that statehood
must speedily come and can not be denied ; that this would break
down every protective barrier against pauper labor and admit free
into our ports the things produced by people working in our
tropical possessions for a few cents a day and would degrade our
citizenship, and, therefore, if they get in power they will at once
abandon these islands.

&

PORTO RICAX TARIFF 29
The Republican Party stands upon the action of Jefferson,
Monroe, Jackson, Polk, Pierce, and Seward, that Congress has
the power to govern these acquisitions subject only to the prohibi
tions of the Constitution.
I was very much pleased in listening to my friend, the distin
guished Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Bate], to find him advo
cating what Jefferson did and what Monroe did and what Pierce
did and what Polk did, because they were all Southern and all
Democrats. At the same time he vigorously opposed precisely
the same legislation for our new possessions which they had
enacted for territories acquired by them. We stand where Jef
ferson did and legislate as he legislated ; where Monroe did, and
legislate as he legislated; where Pierce and Polk did, and legis
late as they legislated. But my friend and his associates have
wandered far from these old leaders of their party.
I recall for the consideration and admonition of my Demo
cratic friends that story of General Jackson's governorship of
Florida, to which he was appointed by President Monroe, under
the act of Congress of March 3, 1821, providing "that all mili
tary, civil and judicial powers shall be vested in such person and
persons and shall be exercised in such manner as the President of
the United States shall direct." He claimed and exercised the
executive, legislative and judicial functions of government under
this commission, and was sustained in them all. As Legislature he
enacted laws which brought him, as governor, in conflict with
the ex-governor under Spain. As governor he promptly ar
rested and imprisoned that ex-official, and as judge proceeded to
punish for contempt the Federal district judge, who had issued
a writ of habeas corpus for the Spaniard's release. It was after
all this that he became and has since continued to be claimed as
leader, counselor, and inspiration for the Democratic Party.
Under this power we can and will provide both for the de
velopment of our new possessions and the protection of industries
and employment within the United States. As time and experi
ence demonstrate the necessity for new laws and changes of
existing laws, they will be enacted, but always with intent to main
tain the high standard of American citizenship and the scale of
American wages. Preferential tariffs will promote trade be
tween the United States and all these islands.
Porto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, Tutuila and the Philippines are

30 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
lo be held and governed by the United States with an imperative
duty on our part to their inhabitants for their civilization, the
encouragement of enterprises which will utilize their resources,
and for their constantly increasing participation in their local and
general governments, and also for their and our commercial
progress and growth. I do not believe that we will incorporate
the aUen races, and civilized, semi-civilized, barbarous and savage
peoples of these islands into our body politic as States of our
Union. Order, law, justice and liberty will stimulate and develop our
new possessions. Their inhabitants will grow with responsibili
ties of governing themselves, constantly increasing with their
intelligence into conditions of prosperity and happiness beyond
their wildest dreams of the results of that self-government they
now so vaguely understand, while the United States, in the in
creasing demand for the surplus of our farms and factories in
Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines, and in the tremendous
advantages of position from Manila for reaching the limitless
markets of the Orient, can view without apprehension and with
hopeful pride the inevitable expansion of our population and
productions. With that belief I hail with faith, I hail with hope, I hail
with joy that expansion of our own country in its products,
agricultural and manufacturing, and in its population, which it
is evident will go on during the twentieth century.

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE

SPEECH ON THE SHIP SUBSIDY BILL, MARCH 12, I9O2.
Mr. President : There has been so much said upon this
subject,^ it has been illuminated by so many eloquent speeches
on both sides, that I do not feel hke occupying the time of the
Senate except for a brief period. But, as a member of the Com
mittee on Commerce and of the majority which reported the bill.
I think that I ought to express my dissent from some of the views
and some of the arguments which have been advanced by gentle
men upon the other side.
Mr. President, the junior Senator from Georgia [Mr. Clay],
the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest], and other Senators upon
the Democratic side have made exceedingly interesting and elo
quent contributions to the discussion of this bill. I find, however,
on reading their speeches, that I must take issue with them upon
the essential points which they make. For instance, the eloquent
Senator from Georgia said :
I favor legislation which will give to the United States a foreign
mail service equal, if not superior, to England, Germany and France.
He fails to explain, because it can not be explained, by what
process such a mail service is to be secured by the United States
except with the assistance of the Government. Every year for a
quarter of a century the demands of our foreign mails and their
tonnage have been constantly increasing. With the enlargement
of our commerce and its extension around the world there has
naturally been an increase of mail. With the constantly increas
ing volume of American travel, tourist and commercial, there
has been still further increase of mail, but there has been no
addition, or practically none, to American mail facilities in the
foreign service.
,^j We are still dependent upon foreign nations for the efficiency
and the r-egularity of our mail service. We are deriving no
'The Senate, in Committee of the Whole, had under consideration the bill (S. 1348)
to provide for ocean mail service between the United States and foreign ports, and the
common defense; to promote commerce, and to encourage the deep-sea fisheries. — Ed,
31

32 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
benefits in a commercial sense from its growth and expansiorK"
Great Britain requires that all of her outward-bound ocean mails
shall be carried under the British flag and by steamers under
British control. Germany since* 1885, when the North German
Lloyd Asiatic contracts were made, has made practically the
same requirement, and all outward-bound German mails are
carried to North America, to Asia, to Africa, to Australia, in
German steamers.
Germany is also now engaged, by the assistance of the Govern
ment, in establishing mail routes to South American points. The
French mails to all parts of the world are carried upon French
steamers and under the French flag. In order to accomplish this
result. Great Britain expends $2,000,000 per year in mail subsi
dies in excess of her receipts. France spends two millions,
though her mail service is much less, and Germany and Japan
each spends a million in excess of receipts in order to accompHsh
this result. '\ These commercial nations, who have a heredity of
hundreds of years of ocean transportation and foreign trade, and
who look with unusual scrutiny at expenditures and receipts,
would never conduct their mail business with foreign countries at
so great an annual loss unless they were certain of compensating
gain. That compensating gain is found in the fact that every
mail steamer is an ambassador of trade, is an agent for the ex
pansion of commerce, is a means for the opening and the enlarge
ment of markets for the surplus products of the countries whose
flag the mail steamer carries.-^-:
We all join in the patriotic aspiration of the Senator from
Georgia that our mail service shall be equal if not superior to that
of England, Germany, and France, but so long as our mail service
is carried on the vessels of those countries we are putting them
each year still farther onward in the race for equaHty or suprem
acy, and making it that much more difficult for the United States
to catch up.C This sensitiveness on the part of our friends on the
other side to a remunerative mail service and loss in the carrying
of the mail has never been exhibited in our domestic service.
The strength and value of the post-office" service of the United
States, inland and domestic, is that, regardless of profit or loss,
it has been constantly extended with the settler to new regions
and outlying settlements.^^
The mail service through the new Territories is always run at

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE 33
a great loss to the Government for the time, but with incalculable
profit to the Government in the assistance which it has rendered
to settlement, cultivation, and production. We have not passed
the period in our internal mail service of unproductive routes.
There is not a Senator in this Chamber who would cast a vote for
the abandonment of one of these services which, by the report of
the Post-Office Department upon our desks, is managed at a loss
to the Government.
Under the contracts which Great Britain, Germany, and
France have with their subsidized mail steamers — I use the word
"subsidized" because the whole remuneration is practically that —
when the loss is so great, they insure that regularity of the service
without which, commercially, a mail route is of little value.
While this is true of the mail service and its value to Great Britain,
Germany, and France, the United States in its mail service to
South America, to the Orient, to almost all parts of the world,
is dependent upon the policy, or the whim, or the accident of the
foreign ship which carries the mail.
We may have a valuable trade at some point or many points,
and the foreign mail ship which reaches that place may be taken
off by its government because that government does not find it
necessary or profitable to longer help a line to run there or because
that line or ship may be used as an auxiliary cruiser. Then the
American service, the American communication, the American
connection utterly fail, and this great Government is helpless so
far as that section of the world is concerned. The German Gov
ernment permits its lines to lay off their fast steamers during the
winter season, and during that period the American mail service
must follow the line of policy and the wishes and the business
opportunities of the owners of the German line.
During the Boer War so many British mail ships were with
drawn by the government into their service as auxiliary cruisers
and transports that the mail service between the United States
and Europe was seriously impaired, and we were utterly helpless.
¦jlR admit that we save money by the present process. We would
probably save two millions per year when all the mail routes were
established, but we would save it at the expense of our commer
cial independence; would save it in order to contribute to the ef
ficiency and the strength of foreign merchant marines and foreign
naval service/
Vol. VI— 3

34 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Our friends upon the other side are fond of quoting the Dec
laration of Independence, Washington's Farewell Address, and
the patriotic literature of the Revolution. But it was Washing
ton who said that "It is folly in one nation to look for disinter
ested favors from another; it must pay, with a portion of its
independence, for whatever it may accept under that character."
I commend to our fellow-Senators that part of Washington's
Farewell Address.
The Senator from Georgia [Mr. Clay], always exceedingly
careful to be accurate in his figures, will sometimes make mistakes
in his comparisons.
For instance, when he says that England's foreign mails are
more than three times what our foreign mails are, the statement
conveys an impression which I am sure he did not intend. The
foreign mails of Great Britain are three times greater than our
foreign mails, but how distributed? Half of the British mails
for Europe go only across the channel, from Dover to Calais, an
hour's trip, or from Harwich to the Hook of Holland, or from
New Haven to Dieppe, a four or six hours' trip. But the foreign
mail service of Great Britain, mile for mile and pound for pound,
is not greater than the foreign mail dispatched from the United
States. On the contrary, the United States mail is the larger. The
difficulty with this statement of my distinguished friend is when
he says that we would pay two millions annually for our foreign
mails in excess of receipts, while Great Britain pays about
$4,500,000 for hers, meaning that, while Great Britain's mail
tonnage is three times ours, it pays for it only a little over twice
as much as we do. But when you compare mile for mile and
pound for pound and find that by that method the United States
mail is greater than, the foreign mail dispatched from England
and nearly equal to the foreign and colonial mails combined dis
patched from that country, then you discover it is the real secret
of the success of the English mail service, that as a matter of
fact they pay over twice as much as does the United States, and
by that method secure mail service, not only to their colonies, but
all around the globe.
All the Senators who have spoken against this measure have
laid stress upon the statement that there is no limit of time, and
that therefore there is no sum which the subsidy may not attain.

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE 35
But, gentlemen, this question is always in the power of Congress.
It is as much in the power of Congress as it was when Congress
withdrew the subsidy from the Collins Line fifty years ago and
crushed that line out of existence. Every year Congress will
have the reports of the Post-Office Department, showing the
amount of subsidies paid and the amount of mail service earnings.
'Every year the committee in charge of these questions in the two
Houses will be investigating rigidly whether the point of mainte
nance has been so far passed in profit as to create monopoly or
undue revenue; so that Congress itself will be to blame if at any
time there is an abuse under this measure^f;'
If the hopes of the friends of this bill are realized, ships will
; be built cheaper and cheaper in the shipyards of the United States,
the efficiency of the service will grow with its magnitude, compe-
, tition, working the same on the sea as it has on the land, will
: reduce prices, and the beneficiary will be the Government as well
as the individual.
One of the most eloquent and charming and attractive speak
ers upon this or any other question whom the Senate and the
country are privileged to hear is the distinguished Senator from
Missouri. He presented in its most formidable way the current
impression that American shipyards haVe more orders than they
can fill in the next two or three years. The Commissioner of
Navigation reports that there have been eighteen vessels, aggre
gating about 100,000 tons, which have been launched from
American shipyards during the last eight months; but the ways
from which these ships were launched are now vacant, and the
workmen who were employed upon these ships are now idle.
He reports that it would require, in addition to present orders,
75,000 tons of steamers in the course of construction to keep the
yards to their limit and their men fully employed during the com
ing summer. It is a curious fact that during the last twelve
months not a single steamer for foreign trade has been contracted
for in an American shipyard, though most of such yards would be
glad to receive the orders.
Mr. Bacon, I will state to the Senator that the Korea, I
understand, has just been completed for the service of the Pacific
Mail Steamship Company, It is the largest steamship, probably,
that will be on the Pacific Ocean, and was built for the trade
between San Francisco and Hongkong.

36 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Mr. Depew. If that is true, then I stand corrected as to that
one ship. Are there any more ships ?
Mr. Bacon. I understand that there is another one, but I
cannot recall it.
Mr. Depew. I now recall that the two ships are the Korea
and the Sierra, and they are both included in the total tonnage
which I have before mentioned as having been launched from
American shipyards within the last year. These two steamers
were contracted for about three years ago, when the annexation
of Flawaii and the application of the coasting laws to that trade,
under which these steamers could do an exclusive and therefore
a profitable business, were inevitable. Well, upon the question
as to what has been done in American shipyards I have here inter
esting statistics. Of course the contention of my friend, the Sen
ator from Georgia, and his friends is that the American shipyards
are doing all that they can ; that they are working at a profit ;
that they at least need no assistance and no help, and that no
measure of this kind will add or could add to their present effici
ency or the amount of business they do or the number of ships
that they turn out.
I think it will be admitted that American talent, American
skill, American workmanship, American material are just as
good as those of any other country in the world. I think it will
be admitted that in many respects they are better. That being
the case, if ships could be constructed as cheaply in our shipyards
as they can in those of Great Britain, then there would be in the
competition a fair share of their business coming to the ship
yards of the United States.
Under present conditions there seems to be little prospect
after this year for work in our shipyards except for the American
Navy and coastwise vessels. That this is a large business we
admit, but we ought not to rest satisfied with the building of
American naval ships and the construction of vessels for our
coasting tradcivThe demand for shipping under the American
flag to go all over the world should be such as to enormously
increase our present shipyard capacity, both in old yards and in
new. The writers in magazines and in reviews have been quoted
extensively to prove that the American ships can be built as
cheaply and run at as little cost as those of foreign nations.

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE 37
Against this I present the official report of the Commissioner of
Navigation for 1901. He takes the best ship of the American,
the British, and the German lines — the St. Louis of the Ameri
can, the Oceanic of the British, and the Kaiser Wilhelm der
Grosse of the German Line. It shows that the total number of
officers and men in every department on the St. Louis is 380; on
the Oceanic, 427, and on the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, 500;
and yet the wages, month by month, of the St. Louis are
$11,306.09; of the Oceanic, $9,891.32; of the Kaiser Wilhelm
der Grosse, $7,71 5-55-
The report of the Commissioner shows that these averages of
from 20 to 30 per cent, run equally distinct through the vessels
of less tonnage and of slower speed. It distinctively establishes
the fact of this difference of operation under the American, the
British, and the German flag. Our friends the enemy admit that
wages are higher in American shipyards than they are in the
British, the German, or the Scandinavian, but they claim that this
difference is made up in efficiency of service. The reports of
the Commissioner of Navigation year by year and the statistics
gathered by the distinguished Senator from Maine apply to ships
of equal tonnage and exact counterparts built at shipyards in the
United States and abroad.
,;f In each case the difference in cost has been not less than 25
per cent, in favor of the foreign shipyard. If this were not so,
Yankee skill, ingenuity, push, and energy would be competing
for and securing these contracts for foreign ships which are fill
ing the yards of Great Britain and Germany while our yards
could successfully do so much more work. We have overcome
this difference in wages in locomotives and in steel rails and in
other manufactures because of the volume of the product and the
magnitude of the demand.
We can not overcome it in shipbuilding until we expand from
a retail to a wholesale business^^" Where we build one large ship
foreign shipyards build a hundred, while the reverse is true in
the output of those manufactures with which we are successfully
competing in the markets of the world. On this subject I quote
an authority which I am sure my Democratic friends will not
dispute. The Democracy of the country, in looking for an issue, has
also been trying to escape from the handicaps upon their race.

38 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
One of these handicaps has been Tammany — Tammany govern
ment, Tammany mismanagement, and Tammany corruption.
Now, however, there is rejoicing all over the land in the
Democratic households, camps, and conventions that Tammany
has reformed ; that a gentleman of education, of high honor, and
of distinction has been placed at the head of the organization, and
the Democracy of the country through its press and every organ
of opinion welcomes him as an evangel of light and truth. Mr.
Louis Nixon, the new leader, is a shipbuilder, as well as a highly
educated engineer, I read an extract from a paper presented by
Mr. Nixon at the annual meeting of the Society of Naval Archi
tects and Marine Engineers within a few months. This society
is composed of experts who could not be misled and to whom a
statement could not be successfully made unchallenged unless it
was absolutely true. The following is the abstract :
When we are in such a position that we can build several hundred
merchant ships a year, we will then have the demand which will enable
us to so arrange the building of merchant ships that we can build with
reasonable economy, and I have no doubt in the world that by that time
we shall be able not only to meet the price of the foreigner, but to come
under it. But in order to bring about that condition it is absolutely
necessary that there should be a demand for ships which we have not
now, and until we can get that it is absurd to talk of building merchant
ships as cheaply as they can be built abroad.
In one of the largest shipyards in this country there are five slips,
each capable of building a Campania. On one was a tug, on another was
a battle ship, on another was a ferryboat, on another a yacht, and on an
other a revenue cutter. It is absolutely impossible to practice economies
under such circumstances and build the ships so that they would com
pare favorably in cost with ships built abroad.
The same rule in regard to this difference of from 20 to
30 per cent, in the cost which has thus been demonstrated in the
construction and in the operation is continued in the maintenance.
Thus the three elements of cost, operation, and maintenance,
upon which depends profit or loss in ocean navigation, are all
against the ship built in America and sailing under the American
flag. But if these things are true, "why," says the distinguished
Senator from Georgia, "why," says the distinguished Senator
from South Carolina, "why is it that Mr. Morgan has purchased
the Leyland line of steamers? Why is it that so acute, so able.

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE 39
and so distinguished an investor should put his money and that
of his friends in this business?"
I do not know whether they have or not, but, accepting the
public reports that they have, the reason is very plain. It is be
cause ocean navigation is profitable. It has been found so by
all the maritime countries of the globe. It is profitable, however,
only under conditions where competition is upon equal terms.
*'In the close transactions of modern business, whether on land
or on the ocean, competition settles the survival of the fittest.
If the terms upon which the contest is carried on are equal, then
skill, enterprise, and genius for business have their opportunity
and win; but a sufficient handicap can make success impossible
for the greatest genius in the world.'lf''''
If these American capitalists have bought these lines, it is not
to place them under the American flag; it is not to run them
under American conditions; it is not to be handicapped by the
difference between American wages and American food as pre
scribed by law and the wages and the food of the British and the
German and the Scandinavian and the Belgian lines ; but it is to
run them under the flags of those countries where conditions will
place the ships and the business on that equality which enable
business efficiency to do the business at a profit.
-^ There are millions of American money now invested in ship
ping — invested because it is a money-making business. But the
ships which this American capital owns and runs are run under
alien flags because of the inhospitable conditions under our own,
because we will not make it possible for these enterprising .gen
tlemen to use their capital under the flag which they love quite
as well as we do, and under which they would far prefer to sail
their vessels. ;f#/
There were constructed in the United States during the ten
years up to 1901, exclusive of the coasting trade and naval vessels
and inclusive only of steamers built exclusively for the foreign
trade, ships aggregating 83,715 gross tons. This includes the
ships from San Francisco to Australia by way of Hawaii, built
since Hawaii was annexed; five steamers, built since Cuba was
occupied for that trade, and four for the trade between New
York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Jamaica; two for Venezuela;
and one, the Pacific mail steamer, between San Francisco and
Japan and China.

40 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
The output of the British yards during that period of ten
years I have not been able to obtain, but of steel steamers of over
i,ooo tons burden the British yards launched last year 1,327,979
tons. I ask Senators to place these figures together. I ask Sena
tors who are claiming that we can do as well in the construction
of ships as any nation in the world to put these figures upon the
walls of their study, carry them in their memorandum books, and
paste them in their hats. As against British construction for
one year of 1,300,000 tons is the beggarly showing of the United
States for ten years of 83,000 tons.
Mr. Teller. Will the Senator allow me to call his attention
to a statement made by the Commissioner of Navigation on page
28 of his report, where he says:
Eight, possibly ten, trans-Atlantic steamships will be built in the
United States during the next two years, which by 1903 will increase the
American representation absolutely.
Then he goes on to say that it will not be increased so much
in proportion to the other countries, perhaps, as it ought to be.
Mr. Depew. I have the figures here only for 1898. I find
that the total seagoing tonnage of the world is 11,163,000 tons,
probably this year about 12,000,000 tons. Of this, 7,310,000 is
British and 3,853,000 is the rest of the world. There were built
in British shipyards about 1,400,000 tons, and in all other ship
yards of the world 672,000 tons.
Now, the other shipyards of the world included those of Ger
many, which has been wonderfully stimulated; of Scandinavia,
of France, and of Belgium. Without having accurate figures, the
Senator will still see that the figures which he has in his hat will
not make him proud of his country.
Mr. Bacon. They are very vastly different, though, from
those suggested by the Senator in his previous statement.
Mr. Depew. Within the last ten years the United States has
become a creditor nation. During the period of development and
construction we drew upon the capital of the world to build our
railroads and telegraphs, to dig our canals, to open our mines, and
to develop our resources ; but the development of the past forty
years has been such that our financial position is reversed. In the
last decade we have discovered our strength and resources. We

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE 41
have paid off our indebtedness to Europe and repurchased, as far
as possible, our securities which were held upon the other side.
American capital, the accumulation from the products of
farms and factories and mines, of industry and of labor, has been
seeking investment in every direction. Our national wealth was
estimated in 1890 at $65,000,000,000 and in 1900 at about ninety-
five billions. In round numbers there has been an increase in the
national wealth of $30,000,000,000 in the last decade. While
much of this is the increase in values of properties which existed
ten years ago, a portion of it is profit in cash, which must go
somewhere for profitable employment. It has diligently pursued
every channel, first through the cautious investor, seeking secu
rity at the lowest rate of interest, and next through the venture
some and enterprising, who are willing to take risks for larger
gains. There has been invested in construction of railways during
this period $1,800,000,000, seeking an average return of 4 per
cent, interest. There has been invested in the enlargement of old
and the building of new manufacturing enterprises $3,300,000,-
000. There have been loaned to Europe at 3^ and 4 per cent
over $50,000,000. Other millions have gone into mines in Mexico,
in the different countries of South America, and in exploitations
in Asia and Africa.
.^'4*> Never in the history of the world, in any nation, has there
been such vast wealth controlled by such energetic, able, and in
formed capitalists, ready to take up, in this country or abroad, on
the land or on the sea, any enterprises which would promise re
turns. If the contentions of the opponents of this bill are correct,
why has it gone into speculative undertakings, into these oper
ations involving risk and loss, into these investments giving such
small returns of interest, if American ships could be built and
navigated as cheaply as the ships of any other country of the
world?'* j''Why, Mr. President, if that proposition was true we would
not be here to-day discussing measures for the promotion of the
American mercantile marine, nor lamenting the disappearance of
American merchant vessels from the ocean and seas of the earth,
nor wondering why the United States alone of nations has no
place in the maritime calculations of shippers, but we would be
rejoicing in the fact that the American flag, now unknown and nn-

42 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
seen on almost all of the routes of commerce, was again a familiar
sight to the eyes of the American traveler in every port, and the
place of the United States among maritime nations was as high
as it is among those same nations in competitive industries and
in finance.,;/ r
- The eloquent Senator from Missouri characterizes this meas
ure as "class legislation." But never, in any country, has any
measure which added to the national defense been regarded as
class legislation.; " The $26,000,000 a year in bounties, or sub
sidies, or mail contracts, or whatever form it may take, which are
paid by European nations, has the double motive of the promotion
of commerce and the command of the sea. These ships become
auxiliary cruisers. England has fifty such vessels, swift, made
of steel, up to every modern requirement and subject at all times
to the requisition of the British Government.
Without this auxiliary fleet she would have been practically
helpless in the transportation of the 300,000 troops she sent to
South Africa. One of the most enlightened and progressive
rulers in the Old World is the present Emperor of Germany. All
of his powers are bent to the promotion of German interests, the
extension of German commerce, the employment of German
labor and markets for German productions. Within the last
ten years he has brought Germany to practically a unanimous
support of the subventions, or mail contracts, or direct subsidies,
or rebates upon German railways, which amounts to the same
thing, by which the German merchant marine has been rapidly
overtaking that of Great Britain. He has built up German ship
yards by making it a condition that those ships should be built
by German labor and in German yards ; he has emancipated the
German shipper from dependence upon Great Britain, to which,
until within recent years, he was subject.
All these great ships are auxiliary cruisers and part of the
German Navy. The performance of the Kaiser Wilhelm der
Grosse and of the Deutschland across the ocean, surpassing all
records, at once receives by proclamation the plaudit of the Em
peror and by resolution the plaudit and encouragement of the Ger
man Parliament.,' Not only is direct pay given to encourage this
mercantile marine, but indirectly the Government-owned rail
ways of Germany are made to contribute; Both exports and
imports passing over the German railways have part of the freight

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE 43
remitted to the steamship in order to increase the earnings of
the vessels. In addition to that, Germany has recently inaug
urated a system of perferential rates to the German manufact
urer upon the German railway for goods exported to the com
peting markets of the world. ,f', This operates in the nature of a
bounty to enable the German manufacturer to outbid his com
petitors or to sustain himself against their activity, energy, and
cheaper production. ,,
I read from the Board of Trade Journal of February 20, 1902,
a report of the British consul at Hamburg on this subject. He
says: His Majesty's consul-general at Hamburg has forwarded to the
foreign office a memorandum on the subject of preferential rates for
German iron and steel on German railways, of which the following is
a copy: "It has recently been notified by the German newspapers that from
and after January i, 1902, the rates charged on German railways ac
cording to the preferential special "seaport tariff,' which hitherto were
applicable only to German steel and iron destined for oversea exporta
tion to Asiatic ports east of Aden, to Australia, and to islands of the
Pacific Ocean, have now been extended and made applicable to German
steel and iron destined for oversea exportation to all non-European
countries, without exception" —
That includes the United States —
"It is evident that the extension of the advantages accorded by the
rates of this preferential tariff to the German steel and iron trade and
industries has taken place in view of the comparatively unfavorable posi
tion in which those industries (and many others) are placed at present;
but it is also probable that once introduced for steel and iron intended
for oversea exportation, those rates will become permanent, especially
in order to enable the German steel and iron industry to compete with
that of the United States of America. The rates in question have, for
the above first-described destinations, been in force since 1890, and
amount to 2.2 pfennigs per metric ton per kilometer, plus 12 pfennigs
for working expenses (in place of 3.5 pfennigs plus 12 charged for iron
and steel according to the ordinary tariff rates).
"Up to the present these preferential rates have been chiefly ad
vantageous to the North German Lloyd steamers which run from Ger
many to the far East and Australia, as they have attracted goods to those
destinations. There can be little doubt that the further extension of

44 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
the advantages offered by these reduced rates will give an impulse to
ward the oversea export trade of German steel and iron to other coun
tries besides those just named — for instance, to South America."
It gives about 25 per cent, of the freight rates to the German
manufacturer as a rebate when he exports goods from that which
he pays when he sends them locally to the seaboard for local pur
poses, and that 25 per cent, goes into the pockets of the German
manufacturer in order to enable him to compete in the American
market in spite of our tariff.
Mr. President, I was curiously impressed in finding on investi
gation that 95 per cent, of the American mail is carried mainly
in English, German, and French vessels ; that all over the world,
except for immediate communication between the United States
and Europe for certain points, and in this one line that runs via
Hawaii to Australia and one Pacific mail steamer running to
the Orient, the vast volume of American mails is carried under
foreign flags.
Here is the situation which has a side to it that is anything
but flattering to American pride. Upon the heads of our postage
stamps we have the faces of Frankin, of Washington, of Jackson,
of Lincoln, of Grant, of Garfield, of Sherman, of Webster, of
Clay, of Jefferson, of Perry, of Madison, and of Chief-justice
Marshall. Mr. President, there is a galaxy of patriots, of worthies, of
men distinguished in arms, in statesmanship and diplomacy, such
as has never been seen before. They were all patriotic Americans ;
they were all builders of our country; but they can not get their
images anywhere in the world except under a British or a Ger
man or a French flag. What would be the feelings of George
Washington, who had such sentiments hostile to foreign alliances
and dependence upon foreign countries, if he knew that his face
and figure when carried upon an American letter had to go under
a British or a French or a German flag all over the world?
What would be the feeling of General Jackson, rising, as he
might, from behind the cotton bales at New Orleans, if he dis
covered that he was dependent upon the vessels of foreign na
tions in order to get his features upon an American postal card or
an American letter to any part of the world? There would be
heard the familiar imprecation from the old hero : "By the Eter-

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE 45
nal, you degenerate representatives of my principles and party
have turned my victory over the British for American independ
ence on the seas into a pitiful surrender to England of the carriage
of the mails of our country and the commerce of our people
around the earth." This may not be much of an argument, but
in any event some tribute ought to be paid to the feelings of these
deceased statesmen that their country, now rich and powerful be
yond any dreams in which they ever indulged, should not sub
ject their images to such humiliation.
"Class legislation" has been the cry against protection since
the organization of our Government. The cleavage upon this
question is upon lines as old as the first acts to promote American
shipping and to give an impulse to American manufacturers in
the first term of General Washington. The statesmen to whose
genius we owe our institutions saw as clearly a hundred years
ago, as Captain Mahan did when he wrote his famous book, that
the sea power controls the world. They saw that if the United
States was to be capable of sustaining in comfort a population
equal to that which its territory invited it must be independent
of other countries both on the land and on the sea. They advised
the protective measures first for the ocean and then for the land.
,^J; By tonnage dues and preferential rates to goods shipped in
American vessels they built up an American merchant marine
which at one time carried 72 per cent of the foreign commerce of
the United States. But the cry of "class legislation," ineffective
against protection at home, because protection at home was
brought to the door of every citizen, was fatal to our position
upon the sea. '>i Upon one pretext and another we made treaties
which prevented our continuing these privileges to our citizens.
The high tide of opposition to the efforts to equalize our ship
ping with the shipping of other nations on the ground of "class
legislation" was reached when the mail subsidy was withdrawn
from the Collins Line, and we retired as a nation from the sea.
The energy and activity of our people, their skill as construct
ors and sailors, enabled us to hold the sea with our wooden chp-
per ships for a while, but when the iron ships were substituted
the superiority of Great Britain in the manufacture of iron, that
industry being in its infancy then with us, gave the monopoly of
this construction to England, f Now, while we talk of being a
world power, with our limitless resources, with our genius for

46 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
trade and commerce, we carry only 8j4 per cent, of our own prod
ucts in American ships under the flag of the United States. ;,
It is the wonder of political economists that Great Britain,
with a trade balance against her of about $700,000,000 a year,
should remain so rich. The problem which the English statesman
has to face is how to feed 42,000,000 of people in the British Isles
and furnish them with remunerative industries when the British
Isles have to import food for 30,000,000. It is this which makes
this enormous balance of trade of $700,000,000 a year against
her. If she had to take it out of her capital she would soon be
exhausted and impoverished.
The steam tonnage of the world is about 11,000,000 tons, of
which Great Britain owns 7,300,000, leaving 3,700,000 for all the
rest of the world. The output of new vessels from the British
yards is about 1,400,000 tons, against 672,000 tons for all the
rest of the world. This vast preponderance of British shipping
earns nearly the whole of the balance of trade against her, its
earnings being about $700,000,000 a year. Of course, the enor
mous investment of British capital and the tremendous loans
of the British money to other nations, which do not appear in the
balance of trade, make Great Britain still the creditor nation of
the Old World.
But while protection has been withdrawn, in deference to
the cry of "class legislation," from the ocean, happily for the
United States, fortunately for our people, the policy has been
maintained in our internal affairs. I will not go over the old story
of the financial cataclysms and industrial paralysis which have
followed the interference with this policy at different times during
the last century. For forty years this policy of protection to
American industries has been practically supreme. In that forty
years we have made the phenomenal progress which astonishes
no one more than ourselves. There is no lesson so clear, no fact
so irrefutable as those based upon the operations of the protect
ive policy in our land. We successfully compete in the open and
the opened markets of the Orient; we successfully compete in
their own markets with the highly organized industrial nations
of the Old World.
. The sale of the surplus of our industries abroad prevents the
congestion of our labor and keeps it at a scale far higher than
that of any other country and constantly advancing. But for the

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE 47
protective policy we would have congestion, paralysis, and suffer
ing upon the land, though we might not reach the condition of
absolute poverty which is ours upon the ocean. By the protective
policy we are receiving an average of $500,000,000 a year of
trade balance in our favor, and then we pay of that about $200,-
000,000 to foreign shipping to carry American products. If
we had upon the ocean an adequate merchant marine, it is difficult
to picture the benefit to American labor which would accrue from
the employment of this vast sum in our own industries and among
our own people^ ;.¦
^ The great difficulty with our friends upon the other side is
the Democratic conscience. It is a conscience which believes every
act or policy unconstitutional for which explicit authority can
not be found plainly written in the Constitution. For one hun
dred years it has suffered and been sorely tried. It bobs up se
renely in opposition whenever the nation endeavors to do any
thing which will add to its wealth, greatness, and power, and then
becomes elastic when the people will no longer respond to its
rigid constructions J^ It was created by Thomas Jefferson, but
was the plague of his life. No proposition so clear was ever
presented to a statesman as the acquisition of Louisiana and the
control of the Mississippi ; but it was against the Democratic
conscience which he had just brought into life and made exceed
ingly virile. Nevertheless, he took in Louisiana, which now con
tains fifteen of our most prosperous States, and opened the
Mississippi to the nation as an American highway, and stepped
on that conscience.
When the Democratic President Polk and the Democratic
President Pierce and the Democratic President Monroe took
territory from Spain and from Mexico, and governed them by
means which were not recognized in the strict letter of the Con
stitution, the Democratic conscience again received frightful
wrenches. But we took the territory and we governed it. The
Democratic conscience is opposed to internal improvements by
the Government, but Democratic Senators and Members of Con
gress and Presidents all support them.
The Democratic conscience denounces the river and harbor
bill and its appropriations, by which the Government steps within
the limits of States and beyond the line of national control of
navigable and unnavigable waters, but it votes every time for the

48 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
old flag and an appropriation^ We had before us a few days
ago the subject of irrigation. It was clearly "class legislation"
upon Democratic arguments and Democratic contention. It was
not for the national defense, but for the promotion of the in
terests of a certain section of the United States and of peoples
living exclusively within those jurisdictions. I voted in favor of
it, and I am in favor of it ; but all I am speaking of is the difficulty
that the Democrats had in voting for it. That difficulty was ex
plained in this way : That it was a beneficent measure ? No ; they
did not say that. That it would develop public lands and make
them fit for settlement ? No ; they did not say that. What they
did say was that in the distribution of unconstitutional river and
harbor appropriations these several States and Territories where
the arid lands are received no direct benefit, and therefore they
should have unconstitutional money in order to even them up.
It is not the expense to be incurred under the provisions of this
bill, but it is the Democratic conscience — so elastic for one hun
dred years, so yielding whenever party necessity requires it —
which is fighting this bill.,;
We will spend during the next year probably $145,000,000
for pensions, $130,000,000 for the Army, $100,000,000 for the
Navy, $133,000,000 on the Post-Office, and yet for this measure,
which, if successful, will enormously help, enormously strengthen
the American Navy, our highest possible expenditure for the com
ing year is $800,000. Our highest possible expenditure under
the postal clause, over and above receipts, is $2,000,000 and that
only when the postal routes all over the world have been opened
and in successful operation.
Under the subsidy provision for vessels not receiving mail
pay it would be impossible for us to build over 200,000 tons every
two years at an expenditure of $30,000,000 and the employment
of a vast number of American workingmen. So that the highest
expenditure possible, with our mail routes built and our merchant
service full — and this will take from five to ten years — would be
$7,500,000 a year. The river and harbor bill this year, which
will carry nearly $60,000,000, is purely for domestic trade and
domestic commerce. There is no doubt of its beneficence.
To establish an ocean mail service which would enable us to
earn $4,700,000, which would be $2,000,000 in excess of receipts
from the mails, will require 24 new, large, fast ocean mail steam-

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE 49
ers, aggregating 240,000 gross tons. It would take more than
three years and largely increased shipbuilding facilities to con
struct and place upon the ocean these vessels. The total cost of
this number of mail steamers constructed within that period
would be nearer forty than thirty-five millions of dollars. It
would mean the steady employment of 18,000 men and an ex
penditure in wages of at least $18,000,000. ''
In considering the vessels which are to be paid a bounty, as
distinct from mail service, and for that bounty to carry the mails
free, we find this: That during the calendar year 1900 these sub
sidy ships, excluding mail steamers, would have earned in the
voyages which they made during that year $1,000,000, from
which deduct the $200,000 for mails which they carry free, and
that would leave the subsidy for the present year $800,000. If
this $800,000 should increase in the next few years to the extent
of $800,000 more in subsidies, it would be necessary to add 100,-
000 tons of ocean steamers and 40,000 tons of sail vessels to our
mercantile fleet. If this output were doubled and the subsidy
doubled, the United States then as a shipbuilding nation would
be ahead of Germany.
One of the most significant facts, which illustrates with
startling emphasis our poverty upon the ocean, are the statistics
gathered by the Senator from California [Mr. Perkins] upon
the relations of the revenues derived through the custom-house
service of the United States, and the amounts paid to foreign
ships for freight upon American exports. For thirty-one years
prior to 1901, the total revenue from customs service received
by the United States was $5,999,449,241. During the same
period of thirty years there were paid by American farmers,
manufacturers and other shippers to foreign ships for carrying
American products abroad $5,867,671,350. So that during these
three decades the people of the United States have paid to foreign
vessels owned by foreign capitalists and sailing under foreign
flags for the carrying of American products nearly the whole of
the vast sums collected through our protective tariff at the various
ports of the country and paid into the Treasury of the United
States. It has been said in the debate that the American Line would
receive the whole of this subsidy. I have looked into the matter,
and I find that the American Line has only four ships which by
Vol. VII— 4

50 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
any possibility could under this bill receive a penny of this sub-
sidv. Those four ships are now under contract which will not
expire for three years, so that during that period they will receive
no benefits from this bill. If the American Line does receive
benefits from this bill, it must enter into competition with all the
capitalists of the country who desire to go into the shipbuilding
business and who believe that under this subsidy ships sailing
under the American flag will be a profitable investment.
We read in the reports of the consuls in Asia and in Africa
that they have not seen an American flag among the crowded ship
ping of the places to which they are accredited during their terms
of service. Our late American minister to Siam says that in
going up and down for four years the whole coast of the Orient
he never once saw an American flag on a merchant vessel among
all the vast fleet which carries the interchanges of that coast. If
the expectations of this bill are realized, then for this compara
tively small expenditure of $7,100,000 a year this reproach will
be removed from American enterprise and American progress.
/ Then, again, the American flag, floating over American steam
and sailing vessels, will be seen in every port of the world. Then,
with the American flag and American skipper, will come the
American commercial agent and the American financial ex
changes and we can have the methods for that competition in
which we believe we should be more successful than any other
nation, but which is as yet only a dream and a hope.
The financial expert who rises from the appropriations of a
billion dollars a year to be frightened by the expenditures possible
under this bill in the coming years must remember that the bill
is always subject to repeal and modification and that if abuses
occur it will be the fault of American Presidents, American Secre
taries of the Treasury, and of commerce, the American Congress,
the American people, and the American press.
I am in favor of protection on land and on sea ; I am in favor
of the improvement of our rivers and harbors ; I am in favor of
an irrigation system which will make fruitful the waste places of
our land; I am in favor of the Isthmian Canal, built and owned
by the United States Government, and so, to be entirely consistent,
I must be in favor of and the country should be in favor of any
measure or any system which will give to us once more the com
mand of the ocean ; which will make more valuable the lands re-

PROMOTION OF COMMERCE 51
deemed by irrigation and the rivers and harbors improved by
legislation; which will make useful to us, as well as to the rest of
the world, that great canal which is to connect our Eastern with
our Western coast ; which is to give us, if we have a merchant
marine, the Pacific as almost an American lake, a leading place
in the commerce of the Orient, and the gaining of what we ought
to have, and are entitled to, the trade of our sister republics of
South America.

OLEOMARGARINE BILL

REPLY TO THE SPEECH OF HON. JOSEPH W. BAILEY^ OF TEXAS, ON
THE OLEOMARGARINE BILL, APRIL 2, I902.
Mr. President : I desire to say that I shall be compelled to
be absent to-morrow, and therefore shall not have an opportunity
to record my vote on this measure. If here, however, I should
vote for the bill of the committee with the amendments which
they have proposed.^
I say this notwithstanding the very eloquent and entrancing
speech which has just been made by the Senator from Texas [Mr.
Bailey]. In my brief experience as a Senator I certainly never
have heard any effort in this Chamber which has so affected my
imagination, has so fired my fancy, and has had so little influence
upon my judgment. Unlike the Scotch member of Parliament,
whom the Senator mentioned, in stating how I should vote if
present here to-morrow, I am stating both how I would talk,
think, and act if called upon to answer the roll call.
I have been a student and somewhat of a practitioner all my
life of that kind of oratory, which appeals to my imagination as
much as it does to anyone, of the progress of our country and the
opportunities of its citizens ; but the speech of the Senator from
Texas was the finest tribute to which I have listened in many a
day to the opportunities which will exist if this bill does not pass,
but which will be forever destroyed if it becomes a law. If I
understand aright the Senator from Texas, this bill will defeat
the opportunities for progress of the young man of the future,
because the growth of our country is built upon oleomargarine;
the growth of our country is built upon some kind of a misrepre
sentation, and all success is due to fraud.
I am a thorough believer in the doctrine, which the Senator
'The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, had under consideration the bill (H, R,
9206) to make oleomargarine and other imitation dairy products subject to the laws of
any State or Territory or the District of Columbia into which they are transported, and
to change the tax on oleomargarine, and to amend an act entitled "An act defining
butter, also imposing a tax upon and regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, and
exportation of oleomargarine," approved August 2, 1886,
52

OLEOMARGARINE BILL 53
advanced, that competition is the life of trade and that the growth
of business, the perfection of our machinery, and the creation of
communities which have become the happy homes of artisans and
the places where prosperity dwells, have been due to that principle
that competition is the life of trade, but I have been taught, also,
that-:Gompetition must be honest," Where an honest merchant is
selling honest flour and the man on the next block is saying that
his flour is just as good when it is half plaster of paris, that is
not honest competition; and if the man who sells flour which is
half plaster of paris or ground earth, or what not, is to be com
mended because he drives the honest merchant out of business,
then I say that'the honest merchant should be protected by law
and that the dishonest merchant should be punished for fraud.'
A friend of mine, who knows the secret test by which oleo
margarine can be detected, was in a fashionable restaurant re
cently, and when a beautiful pat of butter was placed before him,
he subjected it to his test, and then he said to the waiter, "How
do you pronounce, sir, o-1-e-o-m-a-r-g-a-r-i-n-e ?" And that in
telligent servitor of that magnificent place of pleasure responded,
"I pronounce it, sir, butter; else I lose my job." This legislation
is to protect the conscience of that waiter; it is to prevent his
being driven out of employment, reduced to poverty, and his fam
ily reduced to great distress unless he lies.
This waiter probably came to us from a foreign land. He
probably never learned our language until he arrived upon our
shores, and then, in order to earn an honest living, he applied him
self diligently, as all our adopted citizens do, to learn the only
language in the world in which God's truth can be clearly and per
fectly expressed, 'and then he discovers that in this great and
glorious country, where he has come for the enjoyment of every
privilege and every liberty, upon the principle which my eloquent
friend from Texas advocates, he has got to pronounce a word in
the English language entirely different from anything that he has
been taught in the books or learned in his family, or what it
means, in order to retain a position where he is earning an honest
living. My friend from Texas says that he has talked with the
farmer, and that the farmer never has expressed a desire for this
measure. The farmer says, "Let me alone ; I want to let every
body else alone." My impression is that my eloquent friend has

54 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
been talking with the agriculturist, and not with the farmer. The
agriculturist does not raise butter, unless it be the bull butter
which my friend is so anxious to have presented to the public. I
have received thousands of appeals for this measure from the
farmers of New York.
'¦ We have no objection to oleomargarine sold as such; we have
no objection to filled cheese sold as such ; we have no objection to
flour which has in it a substance that will never digest, if people
want to put in their stomachs things which will constitute monu
ments over their graves after they are dead. But what we do
object to is that the citizen who pays a dollar for a good article,
an honest and reputable article, to take home to his wife and
children, should be deluded by getting something else.:...
The cow does not complain of oleomargarine. The cow com
plains that oleomargarine, which she does not produce and can
not produce unless she is killed and carved and then put into a
pot and boiled, should be called that delightful substance which
comes out of the wonderful chemistry which God has given the
cow for the delight of the world and for the sustenance of
children. Mr. President, it seems to me that the line comes very clear
on this class of legislation, not only on this article, but on all
others. There is no Legislature in the United States which has
not had before it at one time or another, and which has not passed
at one time or another, bills which have been enacted into law for
the purpose of protecting the public against these chemical horrors
which the ordinary household has not the means of detecting.
/'Nobody objects to competition when it is free from fraud.
Nobody objects to competition when it is free from deceit. On
the contrary, under such circumstances and conditions, let the
best brain, the best energy, the best industry, the best grasp of
the situation win. But there is no ability, no capacity for busi
ness, no energy, and no industry which can successfully compete
with a good article against a fraudulent article where the public
and the customers are deceived and where they can not detect
the fraud.,#i
I believe that if this legislation becomes a law there will be no
diminution in the sales of oleomargarine or in the profits of its
manufacture. I believe that it has been so long before the public
that it can be sold upon its merits and that there will be a grow-

OLEOMARGARINE BILL 55
ing constituency who would prefer it to a poor article of butter,
if their circumstances are such that they can buy nothing but a
poor article of butter.
It is a strong point which my eloquent friend made that butter
is colored, and therefore why not color oleomargarine? But col
ored butter is still butter, and colored oleomargarine is not still
oleomargarine, according to what its seller says. To color butter
does not destroy its taste, does not destroy its chemical properties,
does not destroy its wholesomeness. It is still butter, with that
particular color given to it which the customer wants in his butter.
But when the oleomargarine is colored, it is colored not to sell
it as oleomargarine, but in order to follow butter as butter
through all the grades of the article.
There was one part of my eloquent friend's speech which
shocked me — absolutely shocked me. It would not seem possible
that a gentleman who has such a command of the English lan
guage, who is so chivalrous, who talks and thinks and acts upon
such a high plane as does my eloquent friend, the Senator from
Texas, could shock me. But he did. When he compared the
color of oleomargarine to the art by which a young lady wins
the heart of her lover, I felt that the American girl had been put
in a wrong position before the American people.
Mr. Bailey. I forgot for the moment a recent occurrence in
the life of the Senator from New York or I should not have said
it. Mr. Depew. And but for that occurrence I should have left
it for a younger man to come to the defense of the American girl.
It was the Senator's youth and beauty which astonished me when
he made that remark. If he had been sour and acrid, if he had
been disappointed in love, if the sex had treated him in any way
which would lead him to speak of them in that way and remark
about them in that way, then I could understand it. But no one
can meet the Senator, no one can meet him socially or in his
grave and dignified position as a Senator in this Chamber, no
one can see his photograph on Pennsylvania Avenue, no one can
come in that contact with him which is always a pleasure without
knowing that his geniality, his happiness, his eloquence have
come because the American girl has loved and has admired him.
And he never ought, so soon after she appeared so entrancing in
her Easter hat and gown in the churches and on the avenues of

56 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Washington,*'to have gone back on her to-day by saying that she
is a fraudulent specimen of living oleomargarine. With all her
finery, flowers, and ribbons and colors, she was still the incompar
able American girl. "
Mr. President, I did not rise to make a speech, but I have
been betrayed into it because of the peculiar, as well as eloquent
way in which my distinguished friend, the Senator from Texas,
presented in most attractive form the proposition that fraud and
misrepresentation stand on the same plane with truth, and honesty,
and open-mindedness ; that fraud and misrepresentation are the
honest competitors of truth and virtue. Up in Peekskill, where
I was born, that was not taught in the old-school Presbyterian
Church in which I was reared. It may be that in the wilds of
Texas that is the way the people think, but along the Hudson
River we people of Dutch ancestry learned to call a spade a
spade. We learned to call butter butter and milk milk, and we do not
learn to call anything else, made in some other way, by the won
ders of chemistry, whether it is better or worse, by an honest
name; but we learned to call an article just what it is, and then
we take it or reject it upon a full understanding of what we are
buying. We are not brought up in the belief that one of the
enterprising citizens of the metropolis who discovers an honest
yeoman from Texas — not an agriculturist, but a farmer — in New
York, and then, appealing to his cupidity, sells him a gold brick,
is an honest competitor with the jeweler across the way. On the
contrary, in the State of New York we have laws by which this
active, energetic, and enterprising business man of our State, who,
accepting the Senator's views of competition, captures this inno
cent agriculturist from Texas and sells him a gold brick, is seized
and punished, not for selling the gold brick, but because he sold
it as gold. If he had sold it as a gold brick, as amounting to
nothing but brass outside and sand in, and got a gold price for it
from a farmer from Texas, then the laws of New York say that
that is honest competition. It is the deceit which we punish ; not
the art.Mr. President, this debate has gone into many fields, and espe
cially this evening. It is fortunate for modern eloquence that it
has led on the one side and the other to two of the most attractive
speeches I have ever heard in a legislative body — the Senator

OLEOMARGARINE BILL 57
from Iowa [Mr. Dolliver] on the cow, and the Senator from
Texas [Mr. Bailey] on competition. The cow and competition
will live in the annals of American oratory as presented under
the forms of rhetoric, of eloquence, of fancy, and of flights of
imagination which place these two Senators along with the Mil-
tons and the Byrons of the English language.

ELECTION OF SENATORS BY DIRECT VOTE

SPEECH ON SUBMITTING AN AMENDMENT TO THE JOINT RESOLU
TION PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION
PROVIDING FOR THE ELECTION OF UNITED STATES SENATORS
BY DIRECT VOTE OF THE PEOPLE, APRIL lO, I902.
Mr. President: I will briefly state my reasons for propos
ing this amendment to the pending resolution amending the
Constitution of the United States by providing for the election of
United States Senators by popular votes instead of by the Legis
latures of the several States.^ The adoption of this amendment
to the Constitution revolutionizes our scheme of government as
it was devised by the framers of the Constitution and as it has
existed and worked admirably for one hundred and fifteen years.
The idea of the founders of the Republic was a popular assem
blage elected by the people and then a Senate in which all the
States, large and small, should have equal representation.^ The
Senate was to be a body in which the sovereignty of each State
had its representation in the nature of an independent republic,
and the sovereignty of the State necessarily must be represented
in its corporate capacity. It was not because of distrust of the
people that this provision was adoptedj^but to create a chamber
of independence and dignity in which the States, without con
sideration of size or population, should have an equal voice in
their sovereign character.
The amendment under consideration, to which I offer an
addition, proposes to make the Senate a popular body and re
verse the principle upon which the Government has existed down
to the present time. With the adoption of such an amendment
to the Constitution, if it is adopted, this addition which I offer
to it is the clear and logical sequence.
'¦"" A number of States have by various devices prevented a
third, or a half, or more, of their citizens, recognized as such
'The amendment, submitted by Mr. Depew, read as follows: The qualifications of
citizens entitled to vote for United States Senators and Representatives in Congress
shall be uniform in all the States, and Congress shall have power to enforce this article
by appropriate legislation and to provide for the registration of citizens entitled to rote,
the conduct of such elections, and the certification of the result.
58

ELECTION OF SENATORS BY DIRECT VOTE 59
by the Constitution of the United States, from exercising the
right of suffrage. The local reasons which have led to the
adoption of these measures are not pertinent to this discussion.
The adoption of these new constitutions in several States, how
ever, containing "grandfather" and other clauses and devices to
take away the privilege of voting from those who are made
citizens by the Constitution of the United States, has led to a
movement in the House of Representatives and in the Legis
latures of some of the States to change the representation^in
the House of Representatives from population to the reduction,
under the Fourteenth Article of the Constitution, of the number
of representatives in Congress of any State based proportionately
upon the number of male inhabitants of such States, being twen
ty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, who are
denied the right to vote. That will reduce very largely the num
ber of Congressmen which those States are entitled to. That
measure does not receive the attention it would because, the
House of Representatives being elected by the people, the vast
majority of populations vote by manhood suffrage, and, there
fore, the States in which they so vote have such a large majority
in the House over States which restrict the suffrage that they
do not feel acutely the discrimination which these measures
bring about.!-"
,:;;¦ But if in the election of United States Senators a small
oligarchy in any State can send here a representation equal to
that of great States like New York which have manhood suf
frage; if States in which half of the votes are disfranchised are
to have an equal voice in this body with States like Pennsylvania,
of five or ten times their population and with manhood suffrage ;
if New York, which casts, because of its manhood suffrage,
1,547,912 votes, is to be neutralized in legislation affecting her
vast interests by Mississippi, casting 55,000 votes, because the
majority of her citizens are disfranchised — then the situation
becomes intolerable. If United States Senators are to be elected
by the direct vote of the people, the people must vote. .^
:fe I am not, under ordinary circumstances and normal condi
tions, in favor of the proposed reduction of Representatives in
the Southern States; I am not in favor of any legislation by
the General Government which interferes with the local afi'airs
of those Commonwealths'/ but if the door is opened by the adop-

60 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
tion of this amendment to the Constitution for the changing of
the character and constitution of the Senate of the United
States, then that measure must necessarily be accompanied by
power to insure a full and honest vote of the citizens of the
Republic, and protect this body in .the election of those who may
be designated here as Senators.'
There are nineteen States which have in the aggregate less
population and smaller industrial, commercial and financial in
terests than the State of New York, which are represented here
by 38 votes, while New York has only two. Twenty-three
States, with a population of thirteen million seven hundred and
fifty-five thousand three hundred and sixty-four (13,755,364)
and casting two million three hundred and sixty-three thousand
two hundred and eighty-five (2,363,285) votes, have a majority
in the Senate, while 22 States, with a population of sixty million
eight hundred and fifty-one thousand eight hundred and fifty-
seven (60,851,857) and casting eleven million six hundred and
nine thousand one hundred and seventy (11,609,170) votes, are
in the minority.
If a popular vote could be had as at Athens, where the
whole body of the electors gathered on the Attic plain, and after
hearing the candidates expressed their choice, I should be heartily
in favor of it. That was possible in a small and compact com
munity like Athens, but impossible in our States. 5^^he present
proposition is simply to make the State conventions of the polit
ical parties, which are in session one day, and whose members
can not know or consult with their associates and are elected
or appointed by every process but the vote of the people, which
are bodies generally of nearly a thousand delegates, which ad
minister no oath of office and keep no records and have no re
sponsibility, a substitute for the two houses of the State Legis
lature whose members are nominated and elected upon the Sen
atorial issue, and must go upon the record and to their con
stituents on their votes. .^J^The State conventions submit to the
voters a ticket of from six to twelve candidates for various
offices, and the people can only vote for one or the other ticket,
and they generally do it as a whole and upon party lines, t The
United States Senator would be upon those tickets bunched
in with candidates for governor, lieutenant-governor, judge
ships, attorney-general. State treasurer, State comptroller, and

ELECTION OF SENATORS BY DIRECT VOTE 61
other purely State and local positions. In a body like the Senate,
where experience and service count for more than in any other
legislative assembly in the world. Senators would probably in the
trading of localities, like governors, never have more than one,
or at most two, terms.'- The voter, if dissatisfied with the nom
inee, is helpless except to vote for a candidate for Senator on
the opposition ticket, who will, if elected, act and work for the
next six years against every principle, measure, and policy in
which the voter beheves. /The Legislature, on the other hand,
has one question before its members when they are elected, one
candidate to be voted for who is discussed in the press until the
Legislature meets, and when the Legislature votes the whole
State is interested, and practically present, and the question of
the highest importance for the moment is. Who of our citizens
who have demonstrated ability and distinction for the position
can best represent this Commonwealth in the Senate, where its
interests are to be advanced or protected in a grand assembly
of independent and coequal sovereign States?,^
I have the profoundest reverence for the Constitution. Every
scheme of government in every other nation of the world has
failed and been changed during the last century. Our Constitu
tion alone has stood the test of time, experiment and expansion,
and has proved the most perfect system of government ever de
vised for a self-governing people. Revolutions never go back
ward. With the proposed change in the constitution of the Sen
ate the people will and ought to be fairly and equitably repre
sented here.. --'The next and inevitable step will be to have the
people and not the States control this body. '^ Now the Senate
cannot go behind the Legislatures of the States and investigate
the election of their members, but it can investigate a charge of
irregularity or corruption in the Legislature in the election of a
Senator. With election by the people all the polling places are
legislatures, and the Senate can go into the regularity and re
turns of every election precinct and^ contests of Senatorial seats
will be the leading work of every session. „
4. The invasion of the States by partizan committees, inquiring
into qualification of voters and the accuracy of the counting and
returns under State election laws, would be little short of a
national calamity, and the contests in this Chamber upon their
reports would be derogatory of the dignity of the Senate'and im-

62 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
pair its usefulness.'^i But such committees would be the result
of every contest or dispute.
An amendment to the Constitution, providing that each
State shall have two votes in the Senate and one additional vote
for every 500,000 inhabitants, has been introduced by the Sen
ator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Penrose] ."^^Tf the change should
be made from the election of United States Senators by the
Legislature, which represents the sovereignty of the State, to a
popular vote, it is a serious question whether the representation
does not cease to be that of the States and become the represen
tation of the people. "^ It is also a serious question if after the
change in the constitution of the Senate is adopted by electing
Senators by popular vote, and such an amendment as that of
Senator Penrose should be submitted by Congress and adopted
by three-fourths of the States which have the greater popula
tions, whether the Senate, being the sole judge of the qualifica
tions of its members, could not admit this enlarged membership,
and thus make the Senate in every sense a popular body, like
the House of Representatives, and end forever the influence and
power of the smaller States."^ If that did happen, and it would
be the natural and inevitable sequence of the proposed reversal
of the fundamental law, policy and practice of our Government
for the past one hundred and fifteen years, the equality of the
States, as now assured in the Senate, would be destroyed and
the revolution would be complete.

NATIONAL APPALACHIAN FOREST
RESERVE

SPEECH IN FAVOR OF THE PURCHASE OF A NATIONAL FOREST
reserve IN THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS,
JUNE 7, 1902.
Mr. President : Senate bill 5228, for the purchase of a na
tional forest reserve in the Southern Appalachian Mountains,
to be known as the "National Appalachian Forest Reserve," has
been carefully examined and received a unanimously favorable
report from the Committee on Forest Reservations and the Pro
tection of Game.
As a member of that committee I was deeply impressed with
the testimony presented. The results of the investigation were
so convincing and satisfactory that legislation seemed to the
committee to be imperative.
President Roosevelt in his message to the present Congress
under date of December 19, 1901, says:
I heartily commend this measure to the favorable consideration of
the Congress.
The Secretary of Agriculture, Hon. James Wilson, in his
report to Congress of the same date, says :
The agricultural resources of the southern Appalachian region must
be protected and preserved. To that end the preservation of the forests
is an indispensable condition, which will lead, not to the reduction, but to
the increase, of the yield of agricultural products.
The preservation of the forests, of the streams, and of the agricul
tural interests here described, can be successfully accomplished only by
the purchase and creation of a national forest reserve.
The States of the southern Appalachian region own little or no land,
and their revenues are inadequate to carry out the plan. Federal action
is obviously necessary, is fully justified by reasons of public necessity,
and may be expected to have most fortunate results.
Nature has been so prodigal in her gifts of forests to the
63

64 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
United States that the important question of their preservation
has been neglected too long. The attacks of the settlers upon the
woods for clearings and a home have been indiscriminate and
wasteful in the extreme. The settlers are not to blame, nor are
the lumbermen. The destruction which has been going on with
such frightfully increasing rapidity during the last fifty years is
due to a lack of that governmental supervision in the interest of
the whole people which can only come from education and expe
rience. The lumberman wishes to realize at once upon his pur
chase, and as a rule vast fortunes are made in deforesting the
land. Railroads are run into the woods, all the appliances of
modern inventions and machinery are at work, and this magnifi
cent inheritance is being squandered with a rapidity which is
full of peril for the future.
Intelligent conservation of the forests of a country is the high
est evidence of its civilization. The climate, the soil, the produc
tive capacity of the farm, the equability of the rainfall, and the
beneficent flow of the streams are all dependent upon the science
of forestry. ' We have wisely set apart already in the West 41
national forest reserves — about 46,000,000 acres. One of them
is already paying expenses and yielding a slight revenue.
The experience of the older countries of the world is of
great value in this investigation. Forestry has been practiced
in Germany for hundreds of years. Except for this wise and
thoughtful care by the Government, the fatherland would be
wholly unable to sustain its crowded population. Twenty-six
per cent, of the land of that country is in forests, of which the
Government owns two-thirds. We have left in our own country
only 26 per cent, of our territory in woods. Germany has special
schools of forestry for the education of her youth in this science.
The young forester is taught ail that books and lectures can
give, and then is placed in a course of from three to seven years
in the practical application of his work and personal study upon
the ground. In that way he becomes fitted for his career. The
Government not only cares for its own forests, but it brings
under its supervision, laws, and rules those of private owners.
In France 17 per cent, of the country is in the forest, of
which the Government owns one-ninth. The ruin caused by
floods and by the drying up of streams from deforesting the
mountain sides led one of the ablest statesmen of France, Col-

NATIONAL APPALACHIAN FOREST 65
bert, during the reign of Louis XIV., in 1669, to prepare and
put in force a code of forest laws. Under this code, as per
fected, all the forests in France, whether owned by the Govern
ment, by communes, or by individuals, are under the direct
supervision and control of the department of agriculture.
The same is true in Italy, in Switzerland, and in Austria.
European Governments are going still further in the line of
forest preservation. The Italian Government found that their
valley farms were being destroyed by the floods which in the
rainy season poured down from their deforested mountain slopes.
They came to the conclusion that it would be true economy for
Italy to reforest these hills. They have arranged for the ex
penditure of $12,000,000, and this reforests only 500,000 acres,
France, feeling the same disastrous effects upon her agriculture
and from the same cause, expended $12,000,000 in the reforest
ing of 800,000 acres, and has made arrangements for the ex
penditure of $28,000,000 more to complete her plan. It costs
' for this reforesting $24 an acre in Italy and $50 an acre in
France. Notwithstanding this large expenditure, it will be a half
a century before the full benefit of the reforesting can be felt.
It will be many generations before the soil in the woods will
have acquired that quality of absorption and retention of the
water which makes it both a reservoir and a protection for the
farms below.
The proposition before us is not to reforest at $24 an acre,
as in Italy, or at $50 an acre, as in France, but at an expense of
about $2 an acre to preserve the forests which have been form
ing for over a thousand years in trees and soil. Scientific for
estry in Germany, France, and Italy gathers an annual crop from
the trees which have reached the point where they are com
mercially valuable and can be cut, not only without injury to,
but, on the contrary, for the benefit of the whole forest, of from
$1 to $5 an acre per year net, after paying all the expenses of
their care.
There are many villages in Germany which pay all their taxes
from the revenue derived annually from forests which they own,
while other communities which sold or deforested their common
lands have poor lands and are pauperized by their burdens.
Switzerland presents for our mountain regions a remarkable
illustration of the necessity as well as of the benefit of forest
Vol. VII-5

66 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
culture. The Swiss discovered centuries ago that with the de
foresting of their steep mountain sides after every raiinfall the
soil was washed down into the valleys and ran off in the streams
and that their country was likely to become a desert. They were
the pioneers in this industry of industries. As early as the be
ginning of 1300 they had a complete system of forest preserva
tion and control. In the six hundred years of which they have
had the records they have brought their system to such perfec
tion that the Swiss forests not only are the salvation of Swiss
agriculture, both on the hillsides and in the valleys, but they
yield net to the Government $8 per acre a year. It is a form of
revenue which is not subject to accidents, but can be realized
upon with absolute certainty under all circumstances. Forests
under such conditions are a perpetual and increasing mine of
wealth to the Government on the one hand and to the whole
people on the other in their influence upon farms and harvests
and upon industries.
While 46,000,000 acres of land have been rescued to the
West, there has been nothing done in the East. The country had
a superb property, unique in every way, unequaled for richness
and rarity and for the value of its product, in the redwood
forests of the Pacific slope. Through carelessness simply Con
gress yielded to the shrewd representations of the speculator, who
under that homestead plea, which is properly so attractive to
the American, secured the enactment of laws by which any settler
could secure 160 acres in these forests of priceless value. Then
came the harvest of the lumbermen. Each of their employees
staked out 160 acres. The sailors upon the vessels that carried
off their lumber were induced to make claims for their 160 acres
each, and the land was then transferred to the lumber companies,
until, for a mere song, this magnificent inheritance of the people
fell into the hands of different corporations who are mercilessly
destroying the timber.
Negligence of this kind on the part of Congress becomes al
most a crime. Those wonderful woods should have been pre
served, not for speculators and bogus settlers, but for the whole
people of the country. :' They would, under scientific forest man
agement, have been for all time to come not only self-supporting
and revenue producing, they would have been more — they would
have been the source of supplies of wood for all purposes for

NATIONAL APPALACHIAN FOREST 67
the inhabitants of the Pacific Coast. They would Have been
additions to the rural scenery, which in every State and country,
when attractive, helps culture and civilization. They would have
been the home of game, where sportsmen could have found
health and pleasure. But, instead, the land will become an arid
waste, the streams will dry up, and the country will lose not only
one of its best possessions, but there will be inflicted incalculable
damage upon a vast region which otherwise would have remained
always full of happy homes and cultivated farms.
The Appalachian forest reserve as proposed in the pending
measure is about 150 miles in length and of varying breadth. It
is from 400 to 600 feet above the sea. It runs through the States
of Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama, and Tennessee. The slopes of these mountains aje
very steep, varying from 20° at the lowest to 40^". The walers
which flow from the perpetual streams, fed by the perpetual
springs, run on the one side to the Atlantic and on the other to
the Gulf of Mexico. The streams from this mountain forest are
the tributaries of these important rivers : The James, the Roan
oke, the Catawba, the Savannah, the New (Kanawha), the Ten
nessee, the French Broad, the Coosa, the Yankin, the Chatta
hoochee, the Broad, the Hiwassee, the Nolichucky, the Pigeon,
the Tuckasegee, the Watauga, and the Holston. The region
affected by these streams is from 100 to* 150 miles in width on
the Atlantic side, and more than that on the other. It comprises
part of the richest agricultural country in the United States.
The timber in this forest is all hard wood, and- is the largest
body of hard wood on the North American Continent. It is
a museum of forest growth, embracing, on account of its loca
tion, the woods which can be grown in temperate, semitropical.
and tropical countries. There are 137 varieties, making this
forest one of the most interesting in the world. The deep soil
has been forming for a thousand years or more, and in its in
terlacing of tree roots and humus, of grass and leaves, there
has been created an enormous sponge for the absorption, re
tention, and distribution of the rainfall.
The rainfall in this region is greater than in any other part
of the United States except the North Pacific Coast. It ranges
from 60 to 100 inches a year. The downpour at one time during
the past year was 30 inches. Where the forests are intact the

68 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
water finds its way through this thick and porous soil, goes into
the crevices of the rocks and into the gulches and forms springs
and rivulets. Nature, always beneficent in her operation, so
arranges this vast collection of the rainy season that during the
rest of the year it flows out naturally and equably through the
rivulets into the streams and through the streams into the rivers,
and waters and fertilizes half a dozen States.
' The results of an attack upon this fortress, created by nature
for the protection and enrichment of the people, is more dis
astrous than the sweeps of an invading army of savages over a
thickly populated and fertile country;™ They kill, they carry off
captives, they burn and they destroy, but after the war the sur
vivors return to their homes and in a few years every vestige
of the ruin has disappeared. In its place there are again cities,
^f{'Aa.ges, and happy people. But the lumberman selects a tract
of hard-wood forests upon the Appalachian Mountains. The
trees, young and old, big and little, surrender to the ax and
the saw. Then the soil is sold to the farmer, who finds abundant
harvests in its primeval richness. For about three years he
gathers a remunerative and satisfactory harvest, but he sees,
as the enormous rainfall descends, his farm gradually disappear.
At the end of three years he can no longer plant crops, but for two
years more, if lucky, he may be able to graze his stock. At the end
of five years the rains and floods had washed clean the mountain
sides, have left nothing but the bare rocks, have reduced his farm
to a desert, and created a ruin which can never be repaired.
But this is not all. That farm has gone down with the
torrents, which have been formed by the cutting off of the pro
tecting woods, into the streams below. It has caused them to
spread over the farms of the valleys and plateaus. It has turned
these peaceful waters into roaring floods, which have plowed
deep and destructive gullies through fertile fields and across
grassy plains. One freshet in the Catawba River last spring,
occasioned wholly by the deforesting of the mountains, swept
away a million and a half dollars' worth of farms, buildings,
and stock. The damage done by the freshet of last year alone,
in the large territory fed by the streams and rivers which came
from these mountains, was estimated at over $18,000,000.
This destruction can not be repeated many years without
turning into a desert the fairest portion of our country. This

NATIONAL APPALACHIAN FOREST 69
process of destruction is constantly enlarging because of en
croachments upon the forests on account of the growing scarcity
of hard wood. The lumbermen are running light railways so
as to reach the heretofore inaccessible depths. The giants of
the mountains, which are four or five hundred years of age, and
many of them 7 feet in diameter and from 140 to 150 feet
high, are falling in increasing numbers every month before the
pitiless and ruthless invasion of the ax and the saw. In ten
years the destruction will be complete, the forests will be prac
tically gone, the protecting soil will have been washed off the
hillsides, and the newspapers will be filled each year with tales
of disaster to populations, to farms, to villages, and to manu
facturing enterprises, occasioned by unusual and extraordinary
rains and the torrents which have been formed by them and
flowed down through the valleys.
It has been estimated that there is in these mountain streams
1,000,000 horsepower which can be easily utilized. This means
a saving of $30,000,000 a year in coal alone, which would other
wise have to be used for the generation of that amount of power
for manufacturing purposes. But it means more. This 1,000,-
000 horsepower that these streams, which flow equably all the
year round because of the nature of the sponge which forms the
reservoir that supplies them, would create an incalculable amount
of electrical power. With the successful demonstrations which
have been made in California and Niagara Falls of the distance
to which this energy can be transmitted, the value of these
streams, kept in their original condition, to the future of these
States can not be estimated. There are in these conditions all
the elements necessary for transportation, for light and heat,
for manufactures and mining, in a very large section of the
United States.
The proposition in the bill is to authorize the Secretary of
Agriculture, at an expense not exceeding $10,000,000, to pur
chase 4,000,000 acres of these forests. They are held now in
large tracts of from 1,000 to 5,000 acres. They are being rap
idly bought up by lumber companies at from $1.50 to $2 an
acre. The owners, as I am informed, would much prefer selling
them to the Government than to individuals or corporations.
The reason is obvious. It is estimated by the Department of
Agriculture that within five years the forests would be self-

70 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
sustaining, and after that a source of increasing revenue for all
time to come. It is impossible for the States to undertake this
work. New York, in order to protect the Hudson and Mohawk,
has been purchasing a large domain through the Adirondack
forests which she proposes adding to every year. This is pos
sible because the whole territory is within the limits of the State
of New York. ¦' But in the Appalachian region one State can
not buy the forest sources of the streams because they are in
another State. The State which has the forests can not be ex
pected to go to the expense of protecting them in order to pre
serve the streams and agriculture and industries of adjoining
Commonwealths. ''''
The Government does much in many ways to create wealth
for the people. Every river and harbor bill carries with it
millions of dollars to create wealth by dredging harbors, rivers,
and streams. The irrigation propositions which are always be
fore us and some of which have passed the Senate are also for
the creation of wealth by making fertile the lands which have
always lain arid. Here, however, is a proposition not for the
creation of wealth, but for its preservation.* This is a scheme
not for many local improvements like the $70,000,000 public
buildings bill or the $70,000,000 river and harbor bill, or the
innumerable other bills which we pass for localities, but, it is a
public and beneficent measure to keep for future generations in
many States and over a large area the productive energies which
nature has stored for the comfort, the living, and the happiness of
large populations, and for the wealth of the whole country."'^
It differs from all other schemes of governmental aid in
another way. The advantages derived by the Government from
the improvement of rivers and harbors is incidental and indirect.
The same is true of irrigation, of public buildings, and public
expenditures of every kind; butiJIn this broad and beneficent
scheme the Government protects its people by entering upon a
business impossible for States or individuals, and which no ma
chinery but that of the Government can carry on, and which
the experience of other countries has demonstrated will prove
a source of perpetual revenue..?*
We have been the happy possessors of such extensive forest
territories that we have not yet, like other nations, felt the
poverty of wood. There has not been brought home to us how

NATIONAL APPALACHIAN FOREST 71
dependent we are upon it for all purposes in our domestic, home,
and business life. It would be little short of a national calamity
if we should feel acutely the loss of our wood. That this will
occur, and wood become so high as to make it a luxury, is cer
tain if this forest denudation goes on. From the cottage of the
poor man and the home and outbuildings of the farmer to the
highly polished woods whose artistic graining ornaments the
palaces of the rich, this wise provision of nature is our necessity.
We can only keep these hard woods, which every year are be
coming scarcer and more costly, within reasonable reach of the
demands of the people by the Government entering upon this
process of scientific forestry. Instead of this 150 miles of hard
wood forests being destroyed, as they will be in ten years unless
measures are taken for their preservation, they would under
this scheme last forever, and yield annually a harvest for the
uses of the people. "A few corporations or individuals may accu
mulate in a short time large fortunes by deforesting, fortunes
which will disappear in a generation or two, but wise ownership,
preservation, and administration by the Government will give
employment, property, industries, and homes to multitudes for
all time."
I To sum up briefly, then, this is a work which only can be
done by the Government of the United States. It should be
done by the Government because it interests many States and
in a large way the people of the whole country:' It preserves
the hard-wood forests and their product for future generations.
It keeps upon the hills and mountain sides the woods whose in
fluence upon climate, soil, and rainfall is most beneficial to a
vast territory. It prevents mountain torrents, which will in time,
as the destruction of the forests goes on, turn a large agricul
tural region into a desert. It conserves for manufacturing pur
poses that enormous water power which will be utilized for a
multitude of industries which will give employment to thousands
and add enormously to the wealth of the country. Instead of
being an expense and a drain — and it would be the best expense
which the Government could make if that was necessary — it will
be one of those beneficent improvements which will shed bless
ings everywhere, and at the same time be self-sustaining and
a source of everlasting revenue to the Government.
Mr. Hale. Mr. President, before the Senate proceeds to

72 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
consider any other matter I wish the Senator from New York
would tell us, after we have had the positive delight of listening
to the rhythmic flow of his eloquence, what is the practical
plan he has in view to accomplish the very great object upon
which he has spoken.
Mr. Depew. I am very much obliged to my friend the Sen
ator from Maine for asking that question.
There is a bill brought in by the Committee on Forest Reser
vations and the Protection of Game, unanimously reported after
an exhaustive consideration, which provides the plan for the
accomplishment of this result. It proposes to give to the Secre
tary of Agriculture the right to purchase a reservation upon the
Southern Appalachian Mountains, and appropriates $10,000,000
for that purpose, to be used as the scheme is perfected and the
purchases are made.
The testimony before the committee was that these forests
now lie in one body; that the invasion upon them so far by
farmers and settlers has been very slight; that they are all in
the market for sale, and that without any doubt the whole of
the 4,000,000 acres can be purchased for $10,000,000.
Mr. Hale. Making a great public governmental reservation.
Mr. Depew. It makes a great pubhc governmental reserva
tion,' the same kind as the 41 forest reservations that we already
have in the new States.
Mr. Hale. I do not think that anyone listening to the
Senator can fail to have been impressed with the very great im
portance of this subject as he has presented it. Business is so
diversified here, and as pretty much every one of us is devoting
his time and attention to special purposes and objects, I was not
aware of the extent of the scheme proposed by the bill. Some
thing ought to be done about it at the present session. The very
thing that is going on, the ravage of this region, which will, as
the Senator says, make it a desert in ten years, ought to be
arrested, and at no distant day.
I hope if the Senator is not here other Senators upon the
committee will see to it that the bill which he has explained to
us is brought before the Senate and that the Senate will prop
erly appreciate the purpose and the work, so that we may em
bark on this most important enterprise of the Government to
save that great forest region.

MARYLAND'S STATUES

SPEECH ON THE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION* ACCEPTING THE
STATUES OF CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON AND OF JOHN
HANSON FOR THE NATIONAL STATUARY HALL, JANUARY 3I,
1903.
Mr. President : Materialism is ever crowding with increas
ing force upon sentiment. It is destructive of ideals. As wealth
increases and competition grows and larger opportunities inten
sify the struggle for existence or for great accumulations,
unselfish sentiment becomes more distant and difficult. The war
of the Revolution was, in its best and highest sense, inspired by
sentiment and for a principle. Actual oppression had not reached
that acute form which precipitated other revolts. As Burke
said :
In other countries the people, more simple and of a less mercurial
cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual griev
ance; here they anticipate the evil and judge of the pressure of the
grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment
at a distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.
The Continental Congress differed from all other bodies which
have overthrown and created governments. All of its members
were men of substance, who had nothing to gain, beyond the es
tablishment of those principles of government in which they be
lieved, and everything to lose in the contest. Carroll was the
richest of the signers and the second richest man in the United
Colonies. Washington was the wealthiest, his fortune being
reckoned at $750,000, while Carroll assessed himself at half a
million dollars. Hancock was the wealthiest man in Massachu-
^The concurrent resolution was as follows:
Resolved by the Senate, (the House of Representatives concurring). That the thanks
of Congress be presented to the State of Maryland for providins: the bronze statues of
Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John Hanson, citizens of Maryland, illustrious for their
historic re'nown and distinguished civic services.
Resolved, That the statues be accepted and placed in the National Statuary Hall in
the Capitol and that a copy of these resolutions, duly authenticated, be transmitted to the
governor of the State of Maryland. 73

74 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
setts, Morris the wealthiest in New York, and in each delegation
was some one similarly situated in his colony. It was mostly an
American convention. Forty-nine of the signers were born in
this country, two in England, two in Scotland, two in Ireland, and
one in Wales. They were all thoroughly versed in the principles
of English liberty and in the rights of British subjects. They
knew what they were entitled to under the great Charter and
the Bill of Rights. Their average age was forty-five years. The
oldest were Franklin and Hopkins, who were seventy, and the
youngest were Rutledge and Lynch, who were twenty-seven.
Hancock was forty and Jefferson thirty-three years of age. The
proportion of lawyers to the whole number was numerically less
and of doctors greater than in any subsequent Congress of the
United States. There were sixteen lawyers, nine merchants, five
doctors, five planters, three farmers and one clergyman. The
other seventeen were, like Franklin, men of letters and of science,
who had made their mark in various careers. Eighteen were
graduates of American universities, three were graduates of
Cambridge, England, and one was a graduate of Edinburgh Uni
versity. Twenty-one were liberally educated in institutions of
learning in this country and abroad and by private tutors and
travel. Eleven were self-taught, but they were by no means the
least learned of their associates. Roger Sherman, who began
life as a shoemaker, was a man of such transcendant ability that
he was regarded in the Convention as its ablest lawyer and pos
sessing a judgment to which universal deference was paid.
None of them had any title, nor were they statesmen, as that term
was then understood. They were the products of a self-govern
ing people, who had developed, in the course of a century and a
quarter, a habit of independence.
The colonial forces had learned the art of war and been the
most efficient soldiers of Great Britain in the struggle on this
continent with France. The signers were not seeking fame by
speeches which would command listening Senates, for they sat
with closed doors and without reporters. We know that the
discussions were upon a lofty plane and carried on with ability
and power. Jefferson bears witness that John Adams on the
side of independence was a Colossus in debate. These fifty-six
patriots represented accurately the constituencies which elected
them. They voiced the sentiment of the vast majority of the

MARYLAND'S STATUES 75
American people. They were so conspicuous and influential that
the British Government would gladly have rewarded them with
the titles which are now so much coveted by the residents of the
British colonies all over the world and granted to them as per
sonal favor or distinction. They not only spurned these honors,
but were conscious that if they failed in their revolt their lives
would be forfeited for treason and their estates confiscated. Two
of them were already proscribed by proclamation as beyond all
possibility of pardon if the colonies were subdued — Samuel
Adams and John Hancock.
In other revolutions the violent men, the demagogues, those
who had everything to gain by disorder, were in the main thrown
to the front. With success came the struggle for power, and
bloodly proscriptions were as merciless and as general by those
who succeeded in capturing the State against their associates in
the Revolution as against the tyrants who had been expelled.
This happened in the French Revolution, and has been the ordi
nary course of history in the South American Republics. But the
signers of the Declaration of Independence never claimed for
themselves any rewards of their countrymen for what they had
done. None of them made any effort to seize the Government or
to secure special individual favors. They knew what they were
doing and that it was for posterity. Two of them became Presi
dents of the United States and one Vice-president, but the suc
cession after Washington of John Adams and after Adams of
Jefferson, in the cleavage which came and lasted until the Civil
War between State rights and the Nation, was the natural choice
of the free will of a free people. Most of them were selected at
different times during their lives for the diplomatic service, for
Congress or the Senate, for the judiciary or the executive office
in their several States, but they performed their duties as con
scientiously and retired to private hfe as willingly as if they had
never had any connection with the creation of the institutions
which they served. Although their education had been local and
their public life in colonial affairs, they commanded as diplomats
the admiration of the oldest cabinets of Europe. The securing
of the consent of monarchical France to an alliance, with the
assistance of her fleet and armies, was a marvel of diplomacy,
while the judicial decisions, acts of Congress, reports of Cabinet
ministers, and State papers of the fathers have guided the course

76 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
of Government from their day to ours and remain an unequaled
monument of creative wisdom.
The course of Rome for many centuries was controlled by the
mysterious revelation of the Sibylline leaves, but there was no
mystery about the Declaration of Independence, no mystery
about the Constitution of the United States, no mystery about
the Farewell Address of Washington, and no mystery in the
writings which have come to us from the fathers of the Revolu
tion. Forty-seven of the signers lived to see the independence which
they had declared seven years before recognized by Great Britain.
Forty-three hailed the new Constitution which was adopted in
1787, and which is our guide and government to-day practically
unchanged. Happily for the country, three of them lived for
more than fifty years after that eventful epoch-making Fourth of
July. The influence not only of the teachings, but of the exam
ple of these surviving signers during the first half of our existence
can not be calculated. The death of Jefferson and of Adams,
occurring on the same day, on the Fourth of July, on the fiftieth
anniversary of the hours during which the Declaration of Inde
pendence was adopted, brought vividly before the people the senti
ment and the principles for which the signers stood. Their
political antagonism had been forgotten in the last two decades
of their lives, and in their union in death there appeared, as it
were, on that memorable day spread upon the heavens in view
of all the people the immortal Declaration of Independence, and
on the one side Jefferson, the author, and on the other side
Adams, the Colossus in debate, by whose eloquence it was unani
mously agreed to.
We can place among the immortals John Hanson, who has
also been selected by the Commonwealth of Maryland, as her
representative in the gallery of State patriots in this Capitol, as
President of the Congress of the Confederation during the later
years of the struggle, and he had appended to his name the unique
title of "President of the United States in Congress assembled."
Charles Carroll of Carrollton lived six years longer than
Jefferson and Adams. In his youth he spent twelve years abroad,
studying in the best institutions of England and of the Continent.
His wealth and social position at home brought him in contact
with the leading minds of those countries. He was four years in

MARYLAND'S STATUES 77
the Temple at London studying law. At the age of twenty-seven
he returned to his home equipped with every appliance of oppor
tunity and of learning that the times afforded him. This was in
1764. The colonies were aflame with the discussion of taxation
without representation. Carroll instantly jumped into the arena.
His pamphlets commanded universal attention. To the royal
governor of Maryland, who had endeavored to impose a tax not
sanctioned by the Legislature, he wrote this revolutionary senti
ment and dangerous expression for a colonial subject twelve
years before the Declaration of Independence: "In a land of
freedom this arbitrary exercise of prerogative must not and will
not be endured."
Ten years later and two years before the final act, conferring
with some members of Parliament, one of them said: "If you
revolt, we will send 6,000 veteran English soldiers to your coun
try, who will march from one end of it to the other, for there is
nothing with you which could resist them." Carroll's answer
was: "So they may, but they will be masters only on the spot on
which they encamp. If we are beaten on the plains we will re
treat to the mountains." Carroll was not present when the
Declaration of Independence was passed. Maryland had suf
fered little and was not feeling seriously the effects of the extraor
dinary exercise of the royal prerogative, so the Maryland
Legislature was reluctant to take the extreme step of separation.
Carroll made it his mission as a member of that Legislature to
bring his State into line. Nothing could resist his impetuous
patriotism and sound reason. He had more at stake than any of
them, and he brought his State finally to withdraw its opposition
and to authorize its delegates to sign the Declaration. Then with
this mission, won mainly by his efforts, he went to Philadelphia
and took his place as a delegate in Congress.
When the time for signing came, and in bantering each other
as to whether in case of failure they would hang singly or hang
together, the remark was made to Carroll, "You can escape, be
cause there are so many Charles Carrolls." His answer, imme
diately emphasized by the inscription following his pen, was,
"Charles Carroll of Carrollton." It is the only title in our Revo
lution. There have been many men of distinction in different
ages and countries whose proud boast was that they had and
could transmit to their descendants their name as of the duchy.

78 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
the earldom, or the barony which had been bestowed upon them
by royal grant for distinguished services or as favors of the
Crown. But here was a distinction not bestowed, not granted,
but assumed by the writer, not as a title of nobility, not as a
claim, like the lands at Blenheim, to a great estate conveyed by a
grateful country, but as the location and description which would
enable the executioner to find him if the cause of liberty failed.
The members of revolutionary conventions, as a rule, when the
revolution was successful, have met with bloody deaths or been
driven into exile. But the signers of the Declaration of Inde
pendence experienced all their lives that sweetest incense to a
patriot and a statesman — the love and reverence and admiration
of a grateful people.
A writer records a visit made to Carroll at his home when he
was the only survivor of that immortal band. He was at that
time ninety-five years of age. The visitor says that as he entered
the parlor, from a bundle of shawls on the sofa came a figure so
slight and emaciated that it seemed scarcely human. But Mr.
Carroll began at once to question him about the Virginia states
man from whom he had come and then to discuss tlie old days
in the light of the new. That visitor, a man of imagination,
cared little for what was said. He was grasping a hand which
had signed the Declaration of Independence. He stood in the
presence of the last of the immortals. There must have appeared
to him the Congress in session on that great day. He could see
Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia, seize John Hancock, who had
just been elected President, and carry and place him in the chair,
saying, "We will show mother Britain how little we care for her
by making the Massachusetts man whom she has excluded from
pardon by public proclamation our President." He would see
Benjamin Franklin calling attention to the fact that upon the
back of the President's chair was a picture which represented the
rising sun, the same chair which Washington occupied eleven
years afterwards as President of the Constitutional Convention,
when the sun of American liberty had risen, never to set. He
would recall that then and there was the dawn of a new era in
the affairs of the world. Constitutional liberty, self-government,
the equality of all before the law, absolute religious freedom, and
freedom of the press — these were new forces, which, if success
ful, must permeate all countries and affect all institutions of 'every

MARYLAND'S STATUES 79
land. Charles Carroll at ninety-five, fifty-six years after he had
signed the Declaration of Independence, could look back trium
phantly at the results. He could see three generations of his own
descendants enjoying its blessings. He had witnessed the perils
of the Confederation, the cementing of the bond of union, and
the creation of an imperishable nation by the Constitution of
1787. As a friend and adviser of Washington he had taken part
in that formative period of the first two presidential terms, when
the fabric was so feeble and seemingly tottering daily to a fall,
and when it was held together mainly by the character and confi
dence of the people in that foremost man of all the world, "The
Father of his Country." He had witnessed the perils of a French
alliance, which had been avoided, and seen the successful issue
of a second war with Great Britain. His country was strong
and prosperous. Every nation had its representatives at its capi
tal. It possessed a powerful Navy and mercantile marine, which
carried its commerce all around the globe, its flag was on every
sea and in every port and the prosperity and happiness of its
people were unexampled. There was but one danger, and that
was acute in 1832 — the danger of disunion. When the Declara
tion was signed, in 1776, the perils of the country were wholly
from without. In 1832 they were entirely from within.
"One people" was the term used in reference to the citizens of
the Thirteen United States of America in the Declaration of Inde
pendence. "We, therefore, the Representatives of the United
States in Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of
the world, declare that these United States are, and of right ought
to be, free and independent States," was the closing of that docu
ment. "That the people of the United States, in order to form
a more perfect union," are the words under which our Con
stitution was written. Washington received his sword from the
Congress of the United Colonies, and returned it when trium
phant to the Congress of the United States. All who were born
and all who accepted citizenship under that Declaration and that
Constitution came into the inah enable inheritance of all the
rights, the powers, and the liberties of the Union of the States.
The danger to the Union from the conflicting ideas of State rights
and nationality, which clouded the last days of Charles Carroll,
culminated in 1861 in the bloodiest civil war of modern times.
That struggle it is now clearly seen was a providential inter-

80 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
position in our affairs, not only to extirpate slavery, but to per
petuate the Union. We witness the unprecedented spectacle of
the victors and of those who failed, both fighting as our blood
only can fight for an ideal, now sitting side by side in this Con
gress, equally loyal to the flag and to the Union. " The passions
of Civil War have died while the generation which fought it is
living. With this question settled the progress and development
of the country in all that constitutes the wealth and power of a
nation has been five times greater in the thirty-seven years since
the Civil War than in the preceding eighty-nine years.
As the signers, from above, note the honor this day conferred
upon the one of their number who lingered longest on this side
they recognize that, great as were their aspirations, fond as were
their hopes, mighty as were their dreams of the future of their
country, yet in every element which makes a happy people enjoy
ing the blessings of the largest liberty and a nation foremost in
the affairs of the world, the Republic which they created has
surpassed all they hoped or dreamed or prayed for.

STATEHOOD BILL

SPEECH ON THE BILL TO ENABLE THE PEOPLE OF OKLAHOMA,
ARIZONA, AND NEW MEXICO TO FORM CONSTITUTIONS AND
STATE GOVERNMENTS AND BE ADMITTED INTO THE UNION
AS STATES, FEBRUARY II, I3 AND I7, I903.
Mr. President: We debated in Congress, on the platform,
and in the newspapers for over sixty years the question whether
a State had a right to retire from the Union. We fought over
that question for five years in the bloodiest civil war of modern
times. The result of that war settled forever the question of
the nationality of the Republic of the United States. It settled
forever that a State once in the Union could neither retire by
its own volition nor be expelled by its sister Commonwealths.
Under that decision, thus made permanent, the position of a
State in the Federal Union is enormously enhanced, its value
is enhanced, and the condition under which a Territory should
be admitted should be more carefully inquired into than at any
other previous period.
" The State that comes into the Union now, so far as the
House of Representatives is concerned, affects only in propor
tion to its population the legislation of the country. But the
State which comes into the Union now has two United States
Senators in this body. Those two Senators may represent a
population wholly inadequate for a sovereign State, and at the
same time they neutralize the wishes, neutralize the voice and
the vote of the 7,000,000 people in New York, of the 6,000,000
in Pennsylvania^ and of the millions in all the other States in
the Union so far as they negative the one State which those two
Senators oppose.
We, in considering this question, are not in the dark as to
the conditions in these Territories which are included in the
omnibus bill. The Committee on Territories took elaborate tes
timony, heard witnesses, and gathered a volume upon this ques
tion. Not satisfied with that, they appointed a subcommittee of
their own number, who, at great labor, great trouble, and great
VqI. vii— 6 gj

82 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
sacrifice, went through these Territories, meeting the inhabi
tants, ascertaining their views, finding what was the quality of
the population, what were its productions, what the present con
ditions which justified statehood, and what were the future
prospects. Now, the Government of the United States has betome so
vast, its interests have become so enormous, the questions which
press upon Congress are so acute and require such immediate
action, that we have been in the habit of investigating by com
mittees, it being impossible for individual Senators out of the
committees to ascertain the facts necessary for legislation.
So with the Government of the United States, with its vast
matters of internal commerce, or foreign commerce, of internal
revenue, of tariff, of Territories, of colonies, of finance, of cur
rency, it has become common for the committees of this body to
take up these questions, to examine them, as committees here do,
and when their results are arrived at to present their report to
the Senate.
Except when there is a political question involved, that re
port is never questioned. Except when there is politics involved,
politics to be defeated or politics to be progressed, the conclu
sions of the committee are always accepted by the Senate, be
cause the Senate has confidence in the committee and the com
mittee knows what individual Senators can not by any possibility
ascertain. Now, here is a question which ought not to be political. It
is a question affecting the integrity of the Senate, affecting the
future legislation of our country, a question affecting the ad
mission of six Senators into this body and of a larger number
of representatives into the Electoral College, 'for the election of
a President. That question should not be political, but it should
be decided upon its merits.
Nevertheless, Mr. President, we have here the extraordinary
spectacle of one party lined up solidly for this statehood bill
against the report of the committee and against the report of
the subcommittee. Now, it would be impossible for a Senator
on the Republican side or a Senator on the Democratic side to
know as much on this question as the committee has ascertained,
or to be familiar enough, as a matter of intelhgence or informa
tion, to conscientiously vote against the conclusions of the com-

STATEHOOD BILL 83
mittee. So when one of the sides of this Chamber stands pat
for this omnibus bill as it is, refuses to discuss it, will not argue
it, wants to vote upon it regardless of the report and the testi
mony, there must be hidden somewhere a political purpose other
than the admission of these new States or their rights to be ad
mitted. There have been two exceptions only among our Democratic
brethren on the policy of silence which they have imposed upon
themselves. One was the impassioned utterance of the Senator
from Utah [Mr. Rawlins], demanding and calling and crying
for the privileges of American citizenship for these poor people
in the Territories of Arizona and Oklahoma and New Mexico
who were deprived of them. It was a presentation not to move
the judgment, but to move the sympathy for these poor people
who were living in this condition, where apparently they were
not enjoying the rights and the privileges and the immunities of
American citizenship. But there was about that appeal this in
consistency: That sympathy was narrow. That sympathy has
bounds and confines to it. That sympathy did not go out at all
by a single word or expression to the Americans in the Indian
Territory, numbering more than those in Arizona and New
Mexico combined. There it might be said that they did not
have the privileges of American citizenship. There it might be
said that they could not own land, that they could not acquire
titles to farms, that they could not vote, that they could not do
any of the things which constitute American citizenship in the
other Territories.
Mr. Beveridge. The Senator made an interesting statement
and a very significant one about there being in the Indian Terri
tory more of white population than there is in Arizona and New
Mexico combined. That is exactly true, but it is not all the
truth. There are over one hundred thousand more there than
ia both the other Territories combined. I thought the Senator
would not object to having that fact brought out.
Mr. Depew. I am very glad to be corrected, whether I
minimize or whether I enlarge the fact.
Mr. Bate. In this connection I wish to state that in the
Indian Territory all the lands belonged to the 70,000 Indians, or
whatever the number, in common and in tribal form, except small
parts that have been given for railroad purposes or for town sites.

84 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
They are the owners of that soil. It is their home, and whoever
comes there is more of a visitor than a proprietor. The manner
in which the Indians in Indian Teritory have conducted them
selves has been applauded by all intelligent, upright, and Christian
people. They have won the favor of all Christian churches and
are communicants therein — the Methodist, the Baptist, the Pres
byterian, the Episcopalian, the Catholic, all of whom have their
churches and their schools among them; and the schoolhouses
were put up at the common expense of the Indians and the
teachers are paid by them.
Not only that, but they established courts of justice there
after the fashion of ours. They have their judges, their lawyers,
their jurors, their inferior courts, their clerks, and sheriffalty
and constabulary ; they have their witnesses, and all the machin
ery pertaining to the administration of justice amongst the most
civilized nations. Their courts are conducted in a manner after
the fashion of those in the United States, and they have been
conducted most successfully.
Not only have they their district schools, but they have mag
nificent colleges. Among many others, there is one at Tahlequah
which is one of the most beautiful structures and efficient in
stitutions of learning west of the Mississippi River, the beauti
ful building costing from seventy-five to one hundred thousand
dollars. It is for the education of girls.
The interest which they have manifested in the education
and training of their girls is something which peculiarly attracts
the attention of those who like and respect the Indians and wish
to aid in elevating them in the scale of civilization. Mr. Presi
dent, whenever you find a disposition to protect woman, to
guard her honor and cultivate and refine her gentler nature —
to lift her from a lower to a higher degree in the scale of educa
tional and social life — you find evidences of an advancement in
civilization and refinement. As I have said, they have estab
lished thase schools for girls, and the one to which I have re
ferred is the finest west of the Mississippi River, the cost of
which has been paid out of the Indian funds, and no man will
appreciate this more highly than the distinguished Senator from
New York [Mr. Depew], to whose courtesy I am indebted at
this time for the permission of the floor.
Mr. Spooner. It is my recollection that the Senator from

STATEHOOD BILL 85
Minnesota [Mr. Nelson] in the very able and exhaustive speech
which he made upon this floor, stated that by some act of 1890
or 1891 Congress had made citizens of the Indians in the Indian
Territory independent of the question of allotments. I should
like to ask the Senator whether my recollection is accurate?
Mr. Nelson. That is perfectly correct. By the act of
March 3, 1901, 31 Statutes at Large, page 1447, every Indian
in the Indian Territory is made a citizen of the United States.
There is also a general law, commonly called the Dawes allot
ment act, under which every Indian who owns an allotment be
comes a citizen. But under the act to which I first referred
every Indian in the Territory, whether he belongs to these Five
Nations or otherwise, is a full citizen of the United States to
all intents and purposes.
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, I am very glad of this inter
ruption, because it reveals what I did not know before, that
there are 100,000 more Americans in the Indian Territory than
there are in the combined white population of Arizona and New
Mexico. This adds to the gravity of the charge which I have
made, that the Democratic Party seems to confine its sympathy
to the Mexicans of New Mexico rather than extend it to the
Americans of the Indian Territory; that while they want to
grant these privileges, statehood rights and American citizen
ship, while they are yearning to give them to the Mexicans of
New Mexico and to the Mormons of Arizona, as has been ex
hibited by the very eloquent speech of the Senator from Tennes
see [Mr. Bate], they have not a single throb for the 450,000
white Americans in the Indian Territory.
I listened to the speech of my friend from Tennessee with
the greatest interest, as I always do, and that beautiful tribute
of his to womanhood did justice to his chivalric heart and to
his glorious record as a soldier. He could not speak otherwise
than in those high terms of American women and of Indian
womenl^tiut I wish, while he was telling us of what the Indians
were doing for their girls, placing them upon that high plane of
civilization, that he had spoken one word at least in behalf of
these 450,000 white people, men and women, to enable them to
get into the Union, to enjoy the rights of citizenship, and not
charged them with being interlopers, charged them with being
where they had no right to be, charged them almost by implica-

86 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
tion with having the purpose of taking away from the Indians
their lands by some process of expropriation^ybut that he had
come out nobly and said, "I am in favor of-amending this bill
by adding the Indian Territory to Oklahoma, which the Indians
themselves apparently want, in order that the privileges of state
hood may be extended over all this population."
Then I have noticed another lack of sympathy on the part of
the Democratic brethren. They have not one word to say for
the 100,000 white people in Alaska, that they may have the in
estimable privileges of statehood and the inestimable privileges
of American citizenship that can only be had through statehood.
I have heard from our friends on the other side the most
frightful and calamitous predictions as to what would happen
if Porto Rico should become a State, and yet Porto Rico has
established within one year a school system which has called
hundreds and htmdreds of school-teachers from the United
States. The last report of the Governor of Porto Rico shows
that they are taxing themselves for these schoolhouses; that they
are erecting them at every crossroads, and that within a year
there will not be a child in Porto Rico who will not have the
benefits of an American school. The testimony is that not only
the children but the adults are attending those schools in order
to acquire the English language, in order to be able to read Amer
ican newspapers in the English language, in order to legislate in
the English language, and in order to be in all respects American
citizens. There is not one word of sympathy for the Porto Ricans,
who are in a condition not even so fortunate, so far as the op
portunities of American citizenship are concerned, as are the
people in the Territory of New Mexico. And yet there is an
abounding sympathy for the Mexicans — 90,000 of them in New
Mexico — who for three generations have not made an attempt
to acquire the English language or to become American citizens.
It seems to me that the position is as inconsistent as possible, and
that it can only be accounted for by some high method of politics.
I beg pardon for making the statement that there has been
no argument advanced by our Democratic friends who are stand
ing solidly and silently in an unbroken phalanx behind their dis
tinguished leader, my able friend the Senator from Pennsylvania
[Mr. Quay], for there has been one speech on that side — very

STATEHOOD BILL

87

eloquent, very exhaustive, and very convincing; I refer to the
eloquent and able argument on behalf of statehood which just
closed to-day, when the venerable and eloquent Senator from
Alabama [Mr. Morgan] took his seat. For four and five hours,
sir, the Senator from Alabama advocated the omnibus bill. He
based it upon the fact that the Indian is far superior to the white
man when you give him an equal opportunity. He based it upon
the fact that we have violated or propose to violate the protocol
which exists between Colombia and some other Central Ameri
can State.
Under those conditions it seems to me that the argument for
statehood as it comes from the Democratic side presents features
which it is almost impossible for us to meet. There is this diffi
culty about the presentation made on behalf of statehood by the
eloquent, the able, and the venerable Senator from Alabama. If
the 27,000 Indians in Arizona are superior to the 90,000 whites
who are there; if the 30,000 Indians in New Mexico are superior
to the Mexicans who are there, the difficulty is they are in the
minority and they can not exercise those high qualities which, as
the Senator says, have passed their names down through all the
centuries since the Pilgrims first landed on Plymouth Rock. It
may be that there are in New Mexico and Arizona, among the
27,000 in one Territory and the 30,000 in another, men who
might make those Territories, if they came in as States, worthy
of statehood if their patriotic and intelligent purposes could be
carried out — men like these, who have been named by the Sen
ator from Alabama : Black Hawk, Brandt, Canastogo, Comanche,
Egeromont, Ensamore, Jim Fife, George Sagamore, and George
Guess. Mr. President, with 27,000 such patriots of a race which has
done such heroic deeds in one Territory and 30,000 in another
I am not sure, if I could agree with the Senator from Alabama
in his estimate of the race, but that I should vote for the state
hood bill if the Senator from Pennsylvania would consent to
have a clause put in their constitutions that none but Indians
should vote.
Mr. President, why do our friends on the other side stand in
such a solid, silent phalanx behind this measure ? They will deny
that there is politics in it. The public press says there are sure
to be two Democratic Senators from Arizona and two from New

88 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Mexico, and that Oklahoma is already going the same way be
cause of the large immigration that is going in from Texas,
Arkansas, and Missouri. So it might be claimed, if the press is
correct, that there will be six Democratic Senators added to this
body and nine Democratic votes in the electoral college.
I make no such charge, because our Democratic friends would
never move for a measure like this on considerations such as six
Senators and nine votes in the electoral college. They have never
before been united on a question of statehood. They have never
before shown this anxiety for the admission of new States. On
the contrary they have opposed many of them and given reasons
which I confess ought to have prevailed.
I want to say — and I say this from experience and observa
tion — that while the old lady of the Democracy who is so fre
quently typified in picture and in caricature, is still young, still
frisky, and still attractive, and while she has been successful in
her flirtations for a hundred years, flirting with the Greenbacker
arid capturing him, flirting with the Populist and capturing him,
flirting with the Silverite and absorbing him, that when she
undertakes this most perilous flirtation with that most dangerous
and fascinating gentleman whom she is now following, the Sen
ator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Quay], she is in more danger
than she ever was in her life. He has hypnotized her, and be
fore he gets through I do not know what will happen.
Mr. President, there have been many reasons for making
States. Nothing more able and eloquent has been presented on
that question here than the speech of my friend the Senator from
Ohio [Mr. Foraker]. But in the making of States there are
rules which apply to different ages and periods that do not apply
to others. When the Republic was first formed one question
which met our fathers on the threshold was how to make equal
the small and the big States; how Delaware and Rhode Island
were to have their equal voice and action compared with New
York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.
It was necessary then in the forming of a government to
make a compromise. We were not then letting in new States,
either to expand and enlarge our suffrage and our power or to
diminish it. But there were thirteen colonies which had been
fighting together to form a more perfect union, and they had to
compromise. That compromise w^s that population should gov-

STATEHOOD BILL 89
ern in the popular branch, but, without regard to population, the
sovereignty of the State should be represented by ambassadors
in the Senate of the United States, elected by the Legislatures of
the States, representing in their corporate capacity the sover
eignty of the Commonwealth. But any obligation to let in a
new State ceased with the formation of this compact, ceased
with the creation of the Republic under these conditions.
But we were then a small country so far as population was
concerned. It was necessary for us to extend our power along
the Ohio and to the Mississippi, and so a rule was adopted, which,
if applied now, would rule out this bill absolutely — a rule of pro
portionate population, by which, under the ordinance of 1787,
whenever the Territory reached 60,000 inhabitants it must be
admitted into the Union. The same proportionate number now
would require nearly eleven hundred thousand for Statehood.
Everybody knew the conditions of that Territory. Everybody
knew that it had fertile plains, that it had vast possibilities of
agriculture, that it had abundant and abounding opportunities
for great populations in the future. Everybody knew that we
were taking no risk whatever of admitting States which would
stand still or go backward.
When that rule had worked out in that way, then it became
necessary to apply another rule imposed upon us by the necessity
of the hour. We had to acquire the Territory of Louisiana
against the conscientious scruples and prejudices of President
Jefferson, in order to round out our country and to grant to us
the mouth of the Mississippi, essential to the growth, population,
commerce, and agriculture of those Northwestern States. But
in acquiring that Territory, already settled, we had to compromise
again with France and compromise with Spain as to the terms of
concession. Of course, France wanted to look after the French
men in Louisiana and Spain wanted to take care of her subjects
in Florida. So treaties were made under which, without regard
to population, but in conformity to those treaties, the States of
the Louisiana purchase came in.
There it was known again that these Territories were rich in
fruitful soil, rich in irrigating streams, rich in everything in the
virgin condition of the country which promises population com
merce, trade, wealth, and prosperity of every kind.
Then came the dark period of our history, when it was com-

90 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
promise again in the admission of States — compromise between
slavery and freedom. The very able men who were protecting
the institution of slavery saw that the constantly increasing pop
ulations in free communities were to people these western areas
and would bring in, not only to the House of Representatives
but to the Senate, majorities which would be hostile to the insti
tution of slavery. Already in the House of Representatives the
preponderance of free sentiment had become alarming to the
slave oligarchy, and they made up their minds that their only
safety was, without regard to population, to become intrenched
in the Senate.
Under that compromise it is curious to see how the different
States came in. A glance at the dates shows how it worked.
Maine, in 1820, was offset by Missouri in 1821 ; Indiana, in 1816,
by Mississippi; Illinois, in 1818, by Alabama; Arkansas, in 1836,
by Michigan ; Florida by Texas, and California by another South
ern State. In order to protect themselves it was also provided
and understood that as these free communities grew, when Texas
was annexed, Texas might be divided into four Commonwealths.
which would naturally be on the side of slavery.
Then came the Civil War. Then we got out from compro
mises by which there should be a balance of power between free
dom and slavery in the Senate of the United States; and then
came political conditions. Then we began to admit States for
votes ; States to pass constitutional amendments ; States to get
certain legislation which was regarded by the party in power as
essential for the coimtry. Under those political conditions West
Virginia, Nevada, and other States came in. Several of the
mountain States were admitted under those political conditions
in the hope or the certainty of votes for the time being without
regard to the future. .,
But, Mr. President, we have now come to a period when none
of these conditions and none of these considerations exist. We
are not forming a government now. We are the most powerful
nation in the world, and consolidated into a nation. We are
not compromising between slavery and freedom now. That
question has disappeared forever. ' We are not acting upon po
litical considerations now, for there are no pending measures for
which more votes are needed in the United States Senate — meas
ures of such magnitude, in the view of the majority of this body,

¦ STATEHOOD BILL 91
that we can risk the whole future of equal State representation
to get a few votes for the hour.'^That condition no longer ex
ists. It has passed away.
r^'The only condition under which the admission of a State
should now be thought of or discussed is, regardless of politics,
how it lines up in population, in the character of that population,
in area, and in the possibihties of a future with reference to equal
statehood in the Union< Judged by these considerations, I have
failed to hear, I have failed to see presented or to hear read, one
single argument, statement, or item of statistics that for one
moment justifies the passage of the pending statehood bill and
the admission of these States into the Union.
It is admitted by the Senators who have spoken, so far as
they have spoken, in favor of the statehood bill that New Mexico
and Arizona are not up to the standard, but they say that is be
cause they are Territories ; that if they were created States, popu
lation would flow in and capital would go in and Arizona and
New Mexico would speedily become equal to the other great and
growing and populous Northwestern States, with their splendid
futures. The difficulty with this argument is that we are pre
sented right at its threshold with Oklahoma. Oklahoma has no
statehood. Oklahoma is under Territorial conditions. But while
New Mexico has been nearly sixty years in the condition of a
Territory, while Arizona has been forty years a Territory,
Oklahoma, as against the sixty and against the forty years,
has been only eleven years a Territory. Yet Oklahoma in
those eleven years has attained four times the population of either
Arizona or New Mexico in fifty years. Oklahoma has five times
the wealth of Arizona or New Mexico in the fifty years. Okla
homa has ten times all that constitutes a prosperous business
community. Mr. Beveridge. The Senator from New York has men
tioned two of the principal claims of those in favor of statehood,
which are that statehood in itself by some mysterious process
would increase population and increase the investment of capital.
The Senator is answering that. But I think the Senator himself
can give testimony on that point, and that is the reason why I
rise to interrupt him. The Senator from New York is not only
the first orator of our land, but he is also one of those men who is
justly entitled to the name that is so often used, a captain of in-

92 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
dustry, and a man who all his life has had to do with the invest
ment of large capital.
I wish to ask the Senator whether in his long and very wide
experience he ever knew capital to be invested in a place simply
because it was in a State ? I want to ask the Senator whether it
is not true, as we who have nothing to do with capital in a prac
tical way understand it to be upon theory, that capital invests
for the dividends to be returned ? I want to ask him whether it
is not true that if mines exist it is quite immaterial whether they
are on the one side or the other side of a Territorial or a State
line ; that if farms are fertile, streams are full, rainfall adequate,
and resources abundant at a given place, that is the place to
which capital goes? Is it not that that attracts capital, and not
merely because some gentleman who wants to be governor wants
a different form of government, equally free? I want to call to
the aid of the Senator's argument his own personal experience,
because his word upon this subject is not the word of opinion, but
the word of weight based upon experience.
Mr. Depew. Answering the question of the Senator from
Indiana, statehood is not the attraction for capital. Statehood is
not the incentive for enterprises. I know of numberless expedi
tions of explorations, and a great number of enterprises in the
course of exploitation or of operation where capitalists have gone
to Mexico. There are scores of American companies which have
gone to Mexico and invested their capital under the laws and the
conditions that prevail in that country. There are scores of
American companies, with American capital, that have gone to
the different countries of South America for the building of rail
roads, for the opening and working of mines, for the running of
cattle ranches, for every industry in which money can be invested
with the possibility of large returns. Statehood has nothing to
do with the capitalist. It is the opportunity. It is the riches that
may be had. It is the return which is possible upon the invest
ment. Mr. Beveridge. It is said that trade follows the flag. Then
capital follows opportunity.
Mr. Depew. Capital follows opportunity. Capital wants to
be safe, and yet capital takes tremendous risks when there is op
portunity of gain by investing in these South American countries,

STATEHOOD BILL 93
where it is liable at any moment if not to be seized at least to
have its operations suspended by revolution.
Mr. President, how is it that Oklahoma gets on so many times
more rapidly in everything that constitutes a healthful and pros
perous community than New Mexico and Arizona — in ten years
almost ten times as much, if you take it all, as those two Territo
ries have done in fifty years? Why is it?
Mr. Hoar. And more than some of the old States.
Mr. Depew. Yes ; more than some of the old States. As the
Senator from Massachusetts says, Oklahoma has increased more
rapidly than several of the old States. It is because Oklahoma
has the climate, it has the soil, it has the streams, and it has that
bounteous flow of rains from heaven and the soil to receive and
absorb it, without which no harvest can come to the husband
man ; that is the reason.
I know of no picture in the story of settlement, no picture in
the creation of nations or of States, which reads so like a romance
as that of the settlement of Oklahoma. I remember how my
blood was stirred as the accounts filled the papers day by day of
the row of American citizens lined up in every kind of vehicle —
men, women, and children — held by the Army until the clock
should strike twelve of the day when the barrier was removed and
the Indian title was eliminated. And how the moment that the
guns were fired along that hne of hundreds of miles the rush took
place across the border; and how that night — that night — there
were thousands of families living under their own vine and fig
tree, who had located their 160 acres of homestead ; and that there
were 20,000 people in the city of Oklahoma within twenty-four
hours. There were not only 20,000 people in the city of Okla
homa, embracing men who had never met before, but there were
women who had never before had any social relations together,
strangers, and yet in forty-eight hours they had as Americans an
American Government. In forty-eight hours they had their
mayor, they had their council, they had their magistrates, they
had their policemen, they had their jail.
I can see those happy people finding pasture for their stock,
finding water for their cattle, finding a soil which would yield them
support for the future ; laying out their schoolhouse here, staking
out their village there, locating the courthouse yonder; looking
where the churches were to be of the different denominations, and

94 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
looking around among the likely people among them for their
members of the Legislature, for their Delegate in Congress. I
can imagine what would have happened if those 30,000 people
had landed on the alkali plains of Arizona. I can see the cattle
dying all around them. I can see them with their parched lips
and eyes crying to heaven for water that does not exist, and they
can not get back to the water which they left behind.
Mr. President, you might advertise the desert of Sahara and
throw it open to the populations of all the world for all time to
come, and there would be no rush of those people from southern
Europe who are now crowding to our ports in order to find home
and liberty and citizenship.
Why do not these people go to Nevada? She invites these
populations. Millions of acres are there awaiting the husband
man; millions of acres are there awaiting the plow. But the
trouble is that through the baked lands of unirrigated alkali
the plow will not work and water does not exist. It is one of the
beneficences, as also one of the limitations of Providence, that
human beings can not live and can not make prosperous communi
ties where harvests will not grow and water will not run.
Arizona, Mr. President, has 73,000,000 acres. She has been
forty years a Territory. She has been promoted by every pro
cess by which an advertisement can reach a human being who is
adventurous or has a dollar to invest. Out of her 73,000,000
acres she has, after forty years, 255,000 acres of farm land.
New Mexico has 78,000,000 acres. She was captured by
General Kearny in 1846, sixty years ago. She had then a popu
lation which had been there for nearly three hundred years — a
population of agriculturists — and yet in three hundred years of
settlement and sixty years of Territorial condition, with all the
privileges of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitu
tion of the United States and the laws which apply to American
citizenship, out of 78,000,000 acres she has only 327,000 acres
under cultivation, while Oklahoma in ten years has reduced
6,000,000 acres to cultivation, against 255,000 acres in Arizona
and 327,000 acres in New Mexico.
Mr. Burton. How much greater is the product of the mines
of Oklahoma than the product of the mines of New Mexico and
Arizona? Mr. Depew. Mining populations do not create States. A

STATEHOOD BILL 95
mining population alone is a shifting population; it is not a set
tled population. Tombstone, in Arizona, had, when it was a min
ing center, 12,500 people. The mine gave out, and in a week it
had 1,200.
Mr. Beveridge. It has 600 now.
Mr. Burton. Before the Senator begins, do I understand
hitn to take the position that mining is not a stable industry?
I should be very much pleased indeed if he would give in con
trast with the figures he has just now given the product of the
mines of Arizona and New Mexico as against the product of the
mines of Oklahoma.
Mr. Depew. I do not know, Mr. President, that there are
any mines in Oklahoma. I know that the wealth produced in
Oklahoma is nearly ten times as much as the wealth produced in
Arizona or in New Mexico, with all their mines, their cattle
industry, their agriculture, and everything else. When you
speak of mines constituting a State, I point to the history of the
introduction of Nevada. Nevada was brought in here for politi
cal reasons. The party in power wanted two votes in the United
States Senate, and they let Nevada in, and they let in two of the
most brilliant men who ever were upon this floor.
Mr. Hoar. They wanted to carry the thirteenth amendment.
Mr. Depew. They wanted Nevada to carry the thirteenth
amendment. One of those brilliant Senators went from New
York to be a Senator from Nevada.
Mr. Beveridge. The Senator from New York is entirely
right when he says that a mining population, and particularly a
mining population based upon mines of silver or gold, or even
copper, is no substantial basis for statehood, for the reason that
that industry is transient, whereas statehood is permanent.
The other night we had here a debate which, perhaps, lasted
for two hours. The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart] par
ticipated in that debate. In the course of that debate it appeared
that Nevada had actually shrunk in population since she had been
admitted into the Union. The Senator from Nevada said that at
the time of Nevada's admission Virginia City had 27,000 people
in it, and now it has only 4,000 or 5,000, and that the reason for
that remarkable shrinkage was the fact that the mines had become
exhausted. Now, Mr. President, when we are doing something that will

96 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
last as long as this earth endures, the Senator from New York I
think is exactly right, in the light of the history of what are called
mining camps, when he says that the industry of mining alone
is no permanent basis for a State.
Mr. Nelson. I want to call the Senator's attention to the
fact that the number of the people engaged in mining in those
two Territories is very insignificant. There are only about 7,dbo
people of all classes engaged in mining in Arizona and a little
over 4,000 in New Mexico, and the mining of gold, silver, and
coal all combined is very limited in New Mexico.
The only mining industry of any consequence in either of
these Territories is in Arizona, and that is in reference to copper.
The gold output and the silver output in Arizona is very limited,
and in New Mexico it is still more limited. In New Mexico they
have a little coal, but even that is limited.
The mining industry of those two Territories combined does
not equal to-day the mining industry that is going on within the
limits of the Indian Territory. There are more people engaged
in coal mining and in the asphalt and coal industry in the Indian
Territory to-day than there are engaged in mining of all classes
in Arizona and New Mexico.
Mr. Burton. I call the attention of the Senator from Indi
ana to the fact that manufactures and the sources of wealth of
West Virginia and Pennsylvania depend upon the mines.
If you say that Nevada has gone back, I would answer that by
saying that seventy-five years ago farm lands were worth more
in New England than they are now. They have gone back also.
Now, another thing, if the Senator will allow me, I do not
believe this country has ever lost anything by the admission of
Nevada. I do not believe that the general legislation of this
country has suffered. I believe Nevada has contributed her full
share toward wise and beneficent legislation ever since the State
has been admitted into the Union.
Mr. Hoar. Mr. President, may I ask the Senator if Nevada,
taking the situation exactly as it is at this moment, would now
apply for admission as a State, would he vote to admit her?
Mr. Burton. I certainly would, Mr. President. I would
vote to admit all the Territories on this main continent where the
people want to become States and exercise all the high privileges
of American citizens.

STATEHOOD BILL 97
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, I will answer the question of
the Senator from Kansas, and without attacking Nevada. That
is ancient history. It emphasizes the fact that when a State is
once in the Union it is there to stay. Nevada might get to a
condition where the only population would be her two United
States Senators, and she would still stay, and those two Sen
ators would neutrahze the Senator from Kansas and his colleague
upon matters which might be vital to Kansas and to which these
two Senators were opposed.
As to the question of mining, take a purely mining State and
what are the prospects of its growth? Nevada is the illustra
tion. Nevada had 42,000 in 1870. She had 62,000 in 1880,
That was at the height of the productive power of the Comstock
mines. She had 45,000 in 1890 and 42,000 in 1900.
Now, it is a fact that a State can become prosperous and
populous and grow without mines, but a mining Territory can
not grow unless it has agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and
varied interests. Senators cite the case of the New England
States, and the fact that land is worth less in Massachusetts to
day for agricultural purposes than it was one hundred years ago.
That may be true. But Massachusetts is so situated —
Mr. Hoar. I beg the Senator's pardon. I do not wish to
unnecessarily interrupt him, but I should like to state the county
where I dwell is the fourth or fifth county — I have not looked
at the last census — in the whole Union in the value of its agri
cultural products. There are abandoned farms in Massachusetts
on the hilltops. For some unexplained reason, probably to get
rid of malaria, the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts settled on
the tops of hills. Most of our old country towns where there
are hills have their old town centers on the very tops of the hills
without regard to the quality of the land. There are old rocky
farms that have diminished in value, but to say that the agri
cultural lands in Massachusetts have, as a whole, diminished in
value is incorrect. They have increased immensely in value by
reason of their neighborhood to numerous manufacturing towns
and cities. Vegetables, small fruits, and such things are raised
there and sold fresh in those towns. The fact is that the farms
which have diminished in value are what are called the hilltop
farms, distant from villages.
Mr. Depew. I am very glad of that statement of the Sen-
Vol. VII— 7

98 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
ator from Massachusetts, and so I correct my statement as to
the farm lands of Massachusetts having diminished in value in
a hundred years.
Here is Massachusetts, which has no mines. I have just
cited the case of Nevada, which has been almost constantly de
creasing in population since the closing of the Comstock lode.
Massachusetts, with agriculture, with manufactures, and with
commerce, had a population — I am giving round numbers — of
523,000 in 1820; of 610,000 in 1830; of 737,000 in 1840; of
994,000 in 1850; of 1,231,000 in i860; of 1,457,000 in 1870; of
1,783,000 in 1880; of 2,238,000 in 1890 and of 2,805,000 in
1900. Take the two States which the Senator from Kansas [Mr.
Burton] cited for illustration. West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
If Pennsylvania had nothing but her coal mines, if she had no
fertile soil, if she had no well-watered plains, if she had no vast
manufacturing interests, made possible because of her agri
culture, if she had no commerce — and commerce does not come
from mines; it comes from agriculture and the products of agri
culture and manufactures — Pennsylvania to-day would consist
of settlements around the openings of her coal mines in the lim
ited portion of her territory — of her anthracite and bituminous
fields. Pennsylvania would be in the condition these Territories
are in unless water can be found to irrigate them, and Pennsyl
vania, outside of the one county where her anthracite coal is and
the ten counties where her bituminous coal exists, would be a
desert. She would have no population and she would have no
growth. Mr. President, the point was made here, in his very eloquent
and able speech, by my friend from Ohio [Mr. Foraker] that
the internal-revenue receipts and the post-office receipts, coming
from a State or Territory into the Treasury of the United States,
were the measure of its prosperity and the hope for its future;
and the Senator gave figures.
Arizona paid last year internal-revenue taxes amounting to
$61,698.96; New Mexico, after sixty years of existence in the
country and three hundred years of government, contributed
last year in internal revenue to the Treasury of the United States
the magnificent sum of $58,609.31. I emphasize the cents, Mr.
President, because they are important in figures like these.

STATEHOOD BILL 99
I find against $58,000 for New Mexico and $61,000 for Ari
zona, that here is Illinois with $54,000,000; Indiana with $25,-
006,000 — and neither of these States has the age of settlement
of New Mexico — Kentucky with $21,000,000 — that is an old
State — Pennsylvania with $32,000,000; Wisconsin with $10,-
000,000; California and Nevada — and of course California con
tributed the most of it — $3,785,000; and Connecticut and Rhode
Island, $3,000,000. Even Hawaii has about $20,000 more than
New Mexico, and $10,000 more than Arizona.
When you come to post-office receipts, which are in a meas
ure an index of population, an index of the intelligence of a
people, of their schools, of their colleges, their commerce, and
their internal trade, we find these astonishing results : The post-
office receipts for Arizona for the year ending June 30, 1902,
amounted to $129,267.95, and the post-office receipts for New
Mexico for the same period amounted to $93,684,17.
I have here the post-office receipts of fifty-one cities of the
United States, which run from $11,000,000 in New York to
$218,000 in Racine, Wis.; $213,000 in Allegheny, Pa., and
$314,000 in Syacuse, N.Y. In every one of these fifty-one
cities the post-office receipts are larger than, in fact more
than double, those of New Mexico and nearly double those of
Arizona. But here is a significant comparison as to Oklahoma. We
have, in making these figures, to return constantly to the years
of settlement, and so I have to repeat that New Mexico has been
in the Union sixty years and under Territorial government for
fifty-one years, while Oklahoma has been only thirteen years
open to settlement, and has had a Territorial government only
about twelve years. With twelve years against sixty, the post-
office receipts from social letters, commercial letters, trade letters,
letters of activity, which make a State, were in New Mexico
$93,000 and in Oklahoma $267,000, almost three times as much,
and Oklahoma only twelve years in a Territorial condition.
For forty years Arizona has been exploiting her mines, hav
ing her cities increase 10,000 to 12,000 almost in a night and run
down from 12,000 to 600 almost in a night. She has been for
forty years open to the most favorable settlement, and exploited
by the most enterprising people in the United States, and yet her
post-office receipts last year were only $129,000 against Okla-

100 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
homa's $267,000, after being only twelve years in a Territorial
condition. There is one point which has been dwelt upon here, which, in
my studies, seems to me to grow in importance. It seems to me
to indicate that there has been another hand in" the preparation
of this bill than the people who are interested in statehood. This
bill received little or no consideration in the other House. It
was prepared by the interests which wanted statehood given to
these Territories immediately, whatever those interests were. It
passed the House in that sort of general consideration which
sends so' much of undigested legislation to the Senate 

The Presiding Officer. The Chair must remind the Sen
ator that it is not in order to comment upon the action of the
other House.
Mr. Depew. Am I commenting on the other House?
The Presiding Officer. It so appeared to the Chair.
Mr. Depew. Well, I beg pardon. I was going to pay the
House a compliment. I was going to remark in regard to the
House that it passed an enormous amount of legislation, a pro
digious amount of legislation, which it gets from its committees
and passes to the Senate, such volumes of bills as to indicate on
that side a vast capacity of statesnfianship for construction on the
spur of the moment. I hope I am now within parliamentary
lines. And in grasping these colonial, continental, internal, and
external matters, it has prepared and sent to us this bill, as to
which our Democratic friends will not permit us to add a dot,
to cross a "t," or make any suggestions whatever.
The one question in which the good people of this country
are more interested than in any other is Mormonism in the Ter
ritories which it is proposed to admit to statehood. It was sup
posed when the Edmunds bill passed, making it a felony to per
form polygamous marriages or to live in a polygamous state, that
the main prop was taken away from Mormonism, that the Mor
mon Church would gradually decay, and that it would die out
with its professors of the hour. But the Mormon Church has
increased enormously since that time — increased in numbers and
in power. Mormon missionaries are all over the world. They
are gathering recruits through the whole of the Scandinavian
country, and are now successfully invading Germany and south
ern Europe. Nothing so illustrates the power of concentration

ROGER SHERMAN

W-. ¦

STATEHOOD BILL 101
or the ability of concentrated power as the history and the pres
ent dominance of the Mormon Church.
There are 7,000 Mormons in Arizona — one-twelfth of its
white population — in other words, one in every twelve of its
people is a Mormon.
I call attention to the fact that this bill has nothing in it to
prohibit polygamy in these Territories when they are admitted
as States. It has been demonstrated here that the clause which
is pretended to accomplish the purpose of prohibiting polygamous
marriage and polygamous living to be put into the constitutions
of these States is a sham. It has been shown here that under this
provision in these constitutions polygamous marriages can take
place and there can be no punishment.
Now, notwithstanding that that has been shown, there has
been no proposition from any Democratic Senator or any Demo
cratic source that under any circumstances the antipolygamous
provision shall be strengthened. On the contrary, when that sub
ject was under discussion here a few days ago, my friend the
senior Senator from Colorado [Mr. Teller], instead of saying
"Yes, I want the provision in regard to polygamy made just as
strong as human language can draw, it," said there was no need
of such a provision, because, if I remember him rightly, the anti-
polygamous people of those States would never permit this insti
tution to flourish after the State was admitted into the Union.
Friday, February /j, /poj.
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, when I was interrupted by a
motion for an executive session, I was discussing the question of
Mormonism in its relation to the pending statehood bill. I was
saying that the statehood bill had made no provision which was
effective in the requirement which it exacted from these proposed
States when they came into the Union in reference to the pre
vention of polygamy and polygamous marriages. It seems from
the character of this provision and from the facts that it failed
utterly to meet the case, that the fine Itahan hand of the Mormon
apostles had been at work in the preparation of the measure, and
that the influence, the concentrated influence, of the Mormon
hierarchy could be seen in the determined effort to prevent any
amendment which would perfect completely the exclusion of
polygamy in the constitutions of these three proposed States.
Under those circumstances, Mr. President, it becomes exceed-

102 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
ingly interesting to ascertain what is the attitude of the Mormon
Church and what is its influence wherever it has numbers which
it can vote.
Senators upon the other side claim that there is no necessity to
limit in those constitutions the power of the States which are to
come into the Union to deal with this question. They claim that
the sentiment in those States, without any provisions being placed
in their constitutions by act of Congress, would be all powerful
lo enact such laws as would prevent polygamy or polygamous
marriages in these various States.
Mr. President, in the Territory of Arizona at present one-
twelfth of the population is attached to the Mormon Church. If
we could carry that number into the State of New York, it would
constitute 600,000 people in that State who would belong to and
be under the control of the Mormon Church.
It is not disputed by anyone that the votes of the members
of the Mormon Church are absolutely controlled by the central
hierarchy of that organization. I want to say that in the close
politics of the State of New York, if there were 600,000 of that
population, representing something over 100,000 votes, as it
would, which could be controlled by one mind, by one purpose,
appealing first to this party and then to that, they would be en
abled to exact terms from both parties for their own protection,
for such legislation as they wanted and for the prohibition of
such legislation as they did not desire. Everyone knows how in
the election of members of a Legislature, if there is a solid body
of votes sufficient to control a district, both parties are willing to
pledge their candidates to that vote for whatever that vote desires.
I have here an address delivered on the fiftieth year of
Mormonism, in 1880, by the ablest and most eloquent bishop of
that church. It was delivered at a great convention held at Salt
Lake City for the purpose of celebrating the triumph of Mormon
ism, its past, its then present, and its future. The bishop said:
Like a grain of mustard seed was the truth planted in Zion; and it
is destined to spread through all the world. Our church has been or
ganized only fifty years, and yet behold its wealth and power. This is
our year of jubilee. We look forward with perfect confidence to the
day when we will hold the reins of the United States Government.
That is our present temporal aim; after that we expect to control the
Continent,

STATEHOOD BILL IO3
When told that such a scheme seemed rather visionary, in
view of the fact that Utah could not gain recognition as a State,
Bishop Lunt replied :
Do not be deceived; we are looking after that.
We intend to have Utah recognized as a State. To-day we hold the
balance of political power in Idaho, we rule Utah absolutely, and in a
very short time we will hold the balance of power in Arizona and Wy
oming. A few months ago President Snow, of St. George, set out with
a band of priests for an extensive tour through Colorado, New Mexico,
Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Arizona to proselyte. We also expect
to send missionaries to some parts of Nevada, and we design to plant
colonies in Washington Territory.
In the past six months —
And remember this was twenty-two years ago —
We have sent —
I call attention to that. I call attention to the fact that these
are not voluntary immigrants. I call attention to the fact that
these are not colonists moving, as they do in those Western
States, in prairie schooners from the farmhouses to settle for
themselves after they have found a proper location, but that they
are sent by the church in those large and compact bodies — not
colonists primarily, not to secure farms primarily, not to make a
living, for they have a living already and already have farms,
but in order to colonize their followers in sufficient numbers and
in sufficiently compact bodies to control the legislation of the
Territory. So I repeat from the bishop's sermon :
In the past six months we have sent more than 3,000 of our people
down through the Sevier Valley to settle in Arizona, and the movement
still progresses. 'All this will build up for us a political power, which
will in time compel the homage of the demagogues of the country. Our
vote is solid, and will remain so. It will be thrown where the most good
will be accomplished for the church. Then, in some political crisis, the
two present political parties will bid for our support. Utah will then
be admitted as a polygamous State, and the other Territories we have
peacefully subjugated will be admitted also. We will then hold the bal
ance of power, and will dictate to the country. In time our principles,
which are of sacred origin, will spread throughout the United States.
We possess the ability to turn the political scale in any particular com-

104 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
munity we desire. Our people are obedient. When they are called by
the church they promptly obey. They sell their houses, lands, and stock,
and remove to any part of the country the church may direct them to.
You can imagine the results which wisdom may bring about with the
assistance of a church organization like ours.
Mr. Rawlins. Can the Senator give me the name of the
author of the address from which he has been reading?
Mr. Depew. Bishop Lunt.
Mr. Rawlins. Can the Senator inform me at what place
that sermon was supposed to have been delivered ?
Mr. Depew. According to this pamphlet, it was delivered to
celebrate the fiftieth anniversary, the jubilee, of Mormonism.
Mr. Rawlins. At what place?
Mr. Depew. The pamphlet does not state at what place.
Mr. Rawlins. I think it is but fair to the Senator to say
that that address is in its authorship fictitious; that there is, I
think, no bishop of that name in the Mormon Church; certainly
none that I ever heard of. But I have heard before of the ad
dress, and I am quite sure it is fictitious because it describes a
condition which is impossible. No Mormon bishop would talk
about sending 3,000 colonists through the Sevier Valley into
Arizona, because it is a route that is utterly impossible. Besides,
I am quite sure that is a fictitious address prepared by someone
to disclose his idea of the purposes of the Mormon Church. I
think the Senator has been imposed upon; and I thought it but
just to call his attention to that fact.
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, I would not under any circum
stances quote from a sermon which I did not believe had been
delivered, or state beliefs of the Mormon Church which I did not
suppose were its beliefs.
This pamphlet has been gotten out by the League for Social
Service, of New York, under the sign manual and responsibihty
of Rev. Josiah Strong, D.D., one of the ablest clergymen of the
Presbyterian Church, and the author of two books, one of them
called "Our Country," and the other "The New Era" ; which are
amongst the most valuable contributions to the statistics which
mark the growth and progress of the United States.
Mr. Rawlins. The Mormon Church organ has, I think, re
pudiated that sermon and the correctness of its statements. Of
course, some prominent Mormon leaders have given expression

STATEHOOD BILL 105
to the idea that theirs was to become the paramount church, and
things of that sort ; but I think some individual has prepared that
address as exemplifying what he conceived to be the purposes of
the Mormon Church.
Mr. Stewart. Mr. President, I think this discussion is un
fortunate. Much is said about the Declaration of Independence.
It has been regarded as a great step in human progress. I think
that other declaration, in the Constitution of the United States,
which guarantees to every citizen of the United States the right
to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience,
is, if possible, more important than any declaration which pre
ceded it.
I regret that such a question should be discussed here; that
religion should be brought into this discussion. It has nothing to
do with polygamy. I regret that sectarianism has been dragged
into the question of admitting a State into the Union. It seems
to me it is wrong in this body. We ought to be above such con
siderations. *******
Senators talk of Nevada. Nevada needs no defense. Nevada
has added more to the commerce of the country than any of the
Western States, except perhaps California. Colorado perhaps
comes next. Nevada has produced about eight hundred millions
of gold and silver. She has taken from the Government nothing.
She has been no expense and no drawback. She has paid her own
expenses. But her progress has been slow. The reasons for it
are obvious. Agriculture could be conducted only by irrigation,
and the various beautiful valleys over the State were a long dis
tance from transportation. The main industry — mining — was
cut down by the demonetization of silver. It took time to build
up Nevada. Thank God, it is being built up rapidly now. Every
valley is being invaded by hardy settlers. New mines are being
opened everywhere, and there is more agricultural land in Nevada
which will be developed and make homes for men than there is
in very many States of this Union. I can name several States
combined which would not begin to have as much.
Now, of course, you must wait a little for it. Nevada did not
ask to be admitted into the Union. You can not blame her
people. It is not fair to talk about her in that way. A year

106 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
before her admission the Legislature authorized a vote to be taken
on the question whether we would come into the Union as a State.
It was voted down almost unanimously.

Now, why speak of those people as if they had committed
some crime? If they had not given up polygamy, it would be
different. But in this question of States, why bring them in
collaterally and discuss their conduct? Outside of polygamy,
they compare favorably with the conduct of the Puritans or any
other people who ever landed upon these shores. If you go and
see their homes, see their thrift, see their industry, see their
domestic happiness, you would not have it in your heart to raise
your hand or your voice against them.
3fC ^ *J* 3f» #f« *J» Jp
In Utah you had your prosecuting attorneys and you were
greatly troubled about polygamy. You have admitted Utah as
a State, and the trouble is over. So it will be when you give the
American people the right of self-government under the Declara
tion of Independence and under that higher declaration which
allows every man to worship God according to the dictates of his
own conscience. It has inspired a sentiment in this country that
will prevent any injurious element from entering into the gov
ernment of the people. Crime will be reprobated and driven to
hide its head and truth, justice, and progress will prevail^ The
time is not far distant when these Territories that you s6 much
condemn to-day will be proud States. You yourselves will live
long enough to boast of them on the Fourth of July. There is
no doubt about it, particularly the Senator from New York [Mr.
Depew], as he is in the habit of making Fourth of July oration^''
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, I listened with great interest to
the speech of the Senator from Utah [Mr. Rawlins] and also to
the speech of the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart]. I find
that everyone who apologizes for the Mormon Church is in favor
of this statehood bill. That is one of the curious developments
of this discussion. I would not criticise Nevada, and I am sorry
that her distinguished Senators have left the Chamber; but in
the decadence of that State from a population of 62,000 down to
42,000 in 1900 I am glad, and I know the country will be, to be
assured that now there are multitudes of farmers pouring into

STATEHOOD BILL 107
her valleys and that in a short time she will line up alongside of
New York in population and production.
But, sir, the best contribution that Nevada has made to the
wealth of the country has been the two Senators whom she has
kept here for a quarter of a century.
When I heard my friend from Nevada speaking in that glow
ing and patriarchal way of the pleasures he enjoyed in Mormon
families fifty years ago, and as he passed from the capital to
Nevada, what comfort, what peace, what family relations, what
observance of every family requirement by the father and mother
and children he witnessed, and how pleased he was with it, I
could not help recalling a lecture I once heard by Artemus Ward,
that great humorist, nearly forty years ago, delivering his lecture
then upon Utah, which was to us in the East an unknown country.
This is what I remember of his visit to a Mormon family of
whom he spoke in much the same glowing terms as did the
Senator from Nevada. He said :
Having delivered a lecture in Salt Lake City, I received a note from
a Mormon widow saying that she was greatly bereaved and wishing me
to call upon her in the family circle. As I entered the parlor she held
out to me her lily-white hand — seventeen of them.
Now, this patriarchal relation is one which has been con
demned as no other institution that has existed among any sect in
the United States has been.
I thoroughly agree with all that has been said by the Senator
from Nevada on the question of religious freedom and religious
toleration. Every man and every woman in this country has a
right to any creed which they choose to adopt and any creed
which they choose to profess. They have a right to practice
their religion anywhere and everywhere so long as that religion
in its practice does not strike at the foundations of the family
and at the morality of the State.
There can be a so-called religion, sir, which steps beyond the
bounds of religious freedom and of religious tqleration. There
can be a so-called religion, sir, which can be made a cloak for
immorality, which can be made a cloak for crime, which can
be made a cloak for the purpose of breaking up the family circle,
which can be made a cloak for the degradation of womanhood
and for the corruption of childhood.

108 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
i^l*Any law which permits, or any law which does not prohibit.
and punish penally, a religion of that kind is unworthy of a free
country and of a free people. We stand, as the Senator from
Nevada [Mr. Stewart] in one part of his speech has said, for
absolute freedom of conscience and absolute toleration of re
ligion; but it must be religion, and not immorality, not crime. '
Mr. President, why this sensitiveness on the part of the advo
cates of this bill about immediately divorcing themselves from
Mormonism ?# I take issue with my friend from Utah [Mr.
Rawlins] on his proposition that we solidify Mormons, that we
prevent them from leaving their faith, that we estop them from
surrendering their tenets ; that, if they are bigoted, we make them
more bigoted by , discussing their religion or by assailing them
upon this floor.. i^'
Nobody assails the Mormon as such. Nobody assails the
Mormon religion as such. If the Mormons choose to believe the
revelations made by Smith and by Brigham Young, that is their
affair. If they choose to regard them as saints and their books as
the real Bible, that is their affair. If they choose, within the law,
to worship according to the tenets of those revelations, they
stand on the plane which the Christian Scientists and others do,
who believe differently from the tenets that are entertained by
evangelical churches or by those who have no religion at all.
It is not on their faith, it is not on the book of Mormon, it is
not on their religious practices, it is not on their temples that
we are discussing this proposition here to-day, but it is because
they have never really and actually abandoned the tenets of polyg-
gamy, and there is a wide suspicion that they have not in secret
abandoned its practice.
The Senator from Nevada recalled the fact that a member of
the other House who had been elected from Utah was expelled
from the last Congress. Sir, why was he expelled ? Because he
believed in the book of Mormon ? No. Because he was a Mor
mon apostle? No. Because he had a creed which was assented
to by no single member of the House of Representatives? No.
He was expelled because — notwithstanding the professions of the
Mormon hierarchy as to the abandonment of polygamy — he would
not deny that he was a polygamist, and he defended on the floor
polygamy as a sacred and divine institution. He stood there as
the representative of the church before the whole nation in the

STATEHOOD BILL 109
most conspicuous attitude possible, in the presence of the repre
sentatives of the people and of the country, to defend not Mor
monism, but the liberty to live in polygamous relations wherever
men believed that that was the proper doctrine to practice.
It has been proved here that a company of Mormons have gone
into Mexico and settled there in a place where the Mexican Gov
ernment wants industry, which those people undoubtedly have,
and the concentrated colonization for protection against savages
and for the development of agricultural resources, which those
people undoubtedly have, but they have gone there because in
Mexico they can freely practice polygamy.
ji^'Mr. President, the discussion of this Mormon question is legi
timate just here for the very reason that at this moment there is
no question upon which the American people are more unani
mous, no question upon which they are more exigent and more
acute than the prohibition by every possible means of the prac
tice of polygamy in any State in the country. They are seeking
to secure the adoption of a constitutional amendment so that the
Government can reach polygamy in the States."^ Then why the
discussion here ? Simply because the moment that this Territory
comes into the Union as a State, that moment the Edmunds law
no longer is effective, that moment the Federal Court no longer
has jurisdiction.
The moment it is a State that whole question is remitted to the
State, and it is free to act as it pleases ; and where there is a con
solidated minority who, by casting their votes according to the
tenets of their church and the order of their spiritual superiors,
they will threaten either party with destruction that goes against
their wishes. That is the danger that the Senators who favor
this bill are inviting, and that is what we who oppose it are en
deavoring to prevent.
I do not agree with the Senator from Utah that the true way
to meet polygamy is to let the State in, then let the people fight it
out, and let civilization and education work their way. If you
let in a community where one-fourth or one-fifth or one-sixth or
one-twelfth, if you please, are sohdly Mormon, where there is no
prohibition which is sufficient to meet the case in the organic law,
where the Edmunds law can no longer prevail, and the Federal
power is weakened, I believe that that minority appealing to the
ambitions of party leaders on either side will prevent any legisla-

110 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
tion or any penal statute which will deprive them of the right of
carrying out the patriarchial tenets of the creed which they
believe. Mr. President, leaving that branch of the subject, I now come
to New Mexico and to Arizona in reference to their future. Cer
tainly there has been no presentation made here by anybody as to
the present condition of the Territory which fines up either one of
these Territories as now possessing every qualification for state
hood. The question now is as to the future. It has been urged by
advocates — not on this floor, because there have been none here —
by advocates in the press and by citizens of New Mexico and
Arizona who have come here, that the real merit of Arizona and
of New Mexico is in the future ; that there is to flow into those
Territories, as my eloquent friend from Nevada [Mr. Stewart]
says, there is to flow into Nevada, large populations and manifold
industries. But we have, in regard to Arizona, this extraordinary posi
tion: She has only 122,000 people, of whom 27,000 are Indians.
Of her 95,000 people, 20,000 are unmarried men. There is no
such proportion of celibacy anywhere in the United States ; and it
is exceedingly refreshing, I will say to my friend from Utah, to
proceed from the discussion of polygamy to the question of celi
bacy. Twenty thousand out of 95,000 inhabitants are single men.
What does that mean ? It means that Arizona is largely a mining
camp; it means that a large proportion of its population are not
genuine settlers; that they are not there to stay; that they are
the active, adventurous young men proceeding from every neigh
borhood in the country seeking their fortunes in mines ; that they
are prospecting in the mountains, and they are abiding where
they can discover a lode, which they may work or which they
may take East and sell. They have no real interests in the Ter
ritory, and they are not and never will be part of its permanent
population. So the population of the Territory grows and diminishes ac
cording as they discover mines or as there is a rush when state
ments are made that, in this range of mountains or in that,
tremendous opportunities for getting rich suddenly are in sight
for those who have the courage to go to the wilderness to seek
their fortunes.
But, sir, you can not build a State on a mining population and

STATEHOOD BILL HI
on a shifting crowd like- this. The best evidence in the world
that Arizona presents none of the features which will make her
grow and all of the features which will align her alongside of
Nevada for all time to come is that in forty years of settlement,
in forty years of exploitation, and in forty years of Territorial
condition there has been no population going there for the pur
pose of living upon agriculture and becoming permanent citizens.
In forty years Arizona, out of 73,000,000 acres, has only re
duced to cultivation 254,520 acres. New Mexico, after sixty
years of Territorial condition, has, out of 78,000,000 acres, only
reduced to farming lands 326,873 acres, making the total in those
two Territories of only 600,000 acres reduced to cultivation out
of 150,000,000 acres, while in Oklahoma, which has only been ten
years a Territory, 6,000,000 acres have been reduced to farms;
and in the Indian Territory, where the difficukies are so great
for the white settler, 400,000 Americans going in there have re
duced 3,000,000 acres to farms. So you see in Oklahoma and you
see in the Indian Territory all the elements that constitute a
State — you see the soil, you see the opportunities, you see the
invitation to the settler, and you see that he becomes a farmer
and a citizen of the Territory.
Another evidence that there is no future, so far as popula
tion is concerned, for these two Territories is that New Mexico
and Arizona in forty years have gained only one and one-tenth
to the square mile in population, while Oklahoma in ten years
has gained fourteen to the square mile in population. In the
one case you have stagnation and retrogression ; in the other you
have the elements that constitute a State.
But in considering what constitutes a State, when a Terri
tory is to be admitted, we must have regard to the character of
the population; we must have a regard for their literacy or il
literacy* to the educational systems which they have adopted,
and to their conforming to those conditions which not only
show American citizenship, but which permit American citizen
ship to be made in the coming generations.
On the question of illiteracy we have in the United States
the lowest percentage of any country in the world. Owing to
our magnificent common-school system in those States where
there are the population and the wealth which permit the expense
of the education of the people, there are in the schools of the

112 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
country to-day 16,000,000 American boys and girls. The result
of a school system so beneficent and so wise is that the average
of illiteracy in the United States is only about six per cent. ; and
you must remember that in getting at that six per cent, the gen
eral average is increased by the illiteracy among the negroes in
the South, by the illiteracy among the Indians, and by the illit
eracy among the Mexicans in New Mexico. While the illiteracy
of the whole country under those handicaps is only six per cent.,
while the illiteracy of Oklahoma, only ten years a Territory, is
only six per cent., the illiteracy of Arizona is 27 and the illiter
acy of New Mexico is 32 per cent.
In considering the attributes of statehood, I ask what would
be the result in any one of our great States which constitute this
Republic if, over the age of ten years, one of every three of the
inhabitants could neither read nor write? I ask if before ad
mitting Territories as States where one of every three of the
inhabitants can neither read nor write, if we ought not to apply
to them the old Scriptural injunction, "Tarry at Jericho until
your beards be grown?" I know of no handicap to good citizen
ship like ignorance — like illiteracy.
It has been urged here as an excuse for the illiteracy of these
Territories, and as an argument that their citizens will be worthy
of the citizenship of the United States, that every year we admit
through our various ports from the different countries of Eu
rope immigrants among whom the average of illiteracy is 33 per
cent. I regret, as everybody else does, that the immigration of
the country in the last ten years has fallen off from the high
average of material for making good citizenship which prevailed
during all the preceding part of our history. I have advocated
and sustained here with all my might a bill which would restrict
immigration into this country to those who are worthy of our
citizenship by character, by equipment, and by education.||///
//But because we have made a mistake heretofore by leaving
the bars down for ignorance to come in, anarchy to come in,
non-support to come in, pauperism and crime to come in, is no
excuse to hold that up as a rule for our guidance for the future
even on immigration. This Congress ought not to adjourn until
it has placed upon the statute books a law which will protect our
citizenship against this degenerate or unworthy immigration into
our country. :-

STATEHOOD BILL 113
But, sir, there is a great difference even between these immi
grants and the Mexican population of New Mexico. These im
migrants, 500,000 of them, if you please, scattered about in the
States among 75,000,000 people, are lost in the general average,
and by contact, environment, and association are rapidly lifted
up until by the time they get out their papers and are entitled to
vote most of them are able to read, and they become good citi
zens. Then there is another difference between them and the
Mexican population in New Mexico. In the second generation
the racial differences disappear. In the second generation the
boys and girls have gone to the common schools. They have an
American education. They have become imbued with American
ideas and American principles, and in the second generation they
are just as good citizens as those whose ancestry has been for
hundreds of years or more on this soil. But see the difference
in New Mexico. We acquired New Mexico practically in 1846.
To-day, according to the Governor of New Mexico, there are
45,000 more Mexicans in New Mexico than there are Americans.
Of the 195,000 inhabitants of New Mexico only 75,000 are
Americans. For sixty years, or two full generations, or if you count
those who were past mature age when we acquired the Terri
tory, three full generations, this enormous majority of the in
habitants of New Mexico have remained Mexicans. They have
remained Mexicans in language, Mexicans in tradition, Mexi
cans in habits and associations, and Mexicans in their methods
of life. They have resisted, until ten years ago, the introduction
of any school system, and most of them are unable to read either
the English or the Spanish language. Those of them who can
read at all can read only the Spanish language and understand
only the Spanish tongue.
Now, see the difference between them and your illiterate im
migrants. Here is your Mexican father of 1846, a Mexican,
speaking the Spanish language. He becomes a citizen of the
United States and his son he brings up a Mexican, speaking the
Spanish language. His grandson is brought up a Mexican,
speaking the Spanish language, and his great grandson is brought
up a Mexican, speaking the Spanish language. There is no tes
timony that there is any change as yet in this racial and hngual
Vol. VII— 8

114 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
isolation from the other people of that Territory and the people
of the United States.
These conditions produce results, so far as justice is con
cerned, which are a revelation and a reversal of all our ideas of
courts and of juries and of the administration of justice. The
interpreter is as much an oflficer of their courts as is the sheriff
or the clerk. Even in the sacred precincts of the jury room the
interpreter must go for the purpose of interpreting the testimony
as he heard it and the argument of counsel on either side as he
understood it to the Mexicans on the jury who did not under
stand it. This occurs both in civil and in criminal actions.
Not only that, but in political conventions there must always
be an interpreter to interpret to the Spanish delegates the nomi
nating speeches and the resolutions that are adopted. The inter
preter is as much an officer of their Legislature as are the clerks
of their upper and their lower houses.
There has been testimony here, gathered by the committee, to
the effect that when it comes to election, the vast majority of the
Mexican voters can not read the ballot; that it has to be ex
plained to them. They do not vote by names ; they do not vote
by party affiliations, because, being Spaniards, practically, they
can not understand it, but they vote by emblems. The leader of
the county goes among his constituents and says to them, "You
must vote for the rooster," or "You must vote for the coyote,"
and understanding that, when the electorate come to the polls,
they vote as the party leader has said — for the rooster or for the
coyote. Mr. President, if this Territory comes in as a State under
these conditions what will be the result ? The American popula
tion is concentrated in the towns. The agriculture is almost
wholly in the hands of the Mexicans. Therefore in that appor
tionment which must necessarily come, according to territorial
lines, the Mexicans will control the country districts all over the
State. Their votes are cast by the party leaders for the man who
has their confidence.
,;V'Generations of them in slavery for over two hundred years,
down to 1865, has left a hereditary desire to be led. So one am
bitious and one strong man in whom they have confidence casts
the vote of the county, casts the vote of the town, casts the vote
of the legislative district, v Necessary in the Legislature, which

STATEHOOD BILL 115
will elect two United States Senators to this body, there will be
a majority of Mexicans, and of Mexicans coming from the con
ditions which the testimony reveals.
In the antagonism that will then come up, which has been go
ing on for a thousand years between the Latin and the Anglo-
Saxon, does anybody believe that these Mexicans, controlling a
majority of the legislative districts and a majority of the Legisla
ture, will surrender to the Anglo-Saxon the prize of the United
States Senatorships ? They may on the first election, for the first
terms, divide between a Mexican and an American; but if I know
anything of Latin characteristics and Latin ambitions, if I know
anything of the Latin hanging together and acting in common
and in concert, the whole future for a generation will be that in
this Chamber will sit two Mexicans from New Mexico represent
ing as Senators that State-j^^"
I myself have been almost thrilled at the pictures, presented in
lurid language by my Democratic brethren, of the horrible con
dition which would prevail if there came into this Chamber
Spaniards from Cuba, Porto Ricans from Porto Rico, citizens
from Hawaii and Guam and' Tutuila, and also representatives
from the Malay Archipelago — the Philippines. And yet they are
endeavoring to create a condition for party purposes to let in two
Mexicans into this body for all time to come.
The history of New Mexico is one of the romances of Ameri
can settlement. Twenty years before the Pilgrims landed on
Plymouth Rock, and in the cabin of the Mayflower adopted that
constitution which was an epoch in the history of the world, for
the first time declaring that they were to form a government
founded upon just and equal laws, there were a government and
Spanish population in New Mexico.
There were a government and Spanish population in New
Mexico before Pocahontas saved Capt. John Smith, or before im
migrants were to be found in Charleston or anywhere along our
Atlantic coast, and even before the Spaniards were in Florida
there were a settlement and a government and a governor in New
Mexico. So here we have a Territory which has been settled by
Europeans and has had some form of government for over three
hundred years.
How does that three hundred years, commencing twenty
years before Plymouth Rock with its forty-one inhabitants, com-

116 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
pare with Plymouth Rock ? Seven hundred people settled in New
Mexico twenty years before forty-one landed upon Plymouth
Rock. From those forty-one on Plymouth Rock have come, by
the common consent of historians, the institutions of the United
States; the liberties not only of the American people, but of man
kind all over the world; the commonwealths which largely go
to make up the American Union; and the principles which en
acted into laws and permeating the population and taught in the
schoolhouses, the academies, and the colleges, made the American
nation and its people what they are to-day — principles which by
virtue of their all-pervading and uplifting power have gone
through every nation and have changed the form of government
in every civilized nation on earth.
/.'^'Now, compare what has come from those forty-one Pilgrims
with what has come from these 700 Spaniardsl 'iThey have re
mained during the whole of these three hundred years practically
what they were when they first entered New Mexico. Compare
these 700 Spaniards and the growth during the three hundred
years of the country in which they settled with the settlement of
Illinois. Practically the settlement of Illinois began in 1800, and
New Mexico had two hundred years the start. And yet Ilhnois
to-day in population, in cities, in industries, in manufactures, in
agriculture, in schools, in colleges, in universities, in railroads, in
telegraphs, in telephones, in newspapers, in magazines, and in
the literary productions of its people would, if it stood alone
among the nations of the world, be recognized as a great com
monwealth, with every requisite of power and of majesty, of
happiness for its people and of example for the world. It almost
appalls the imagination to think of these people, who are to gov
ern the State, existing as they have right upon this continent,
bordering upon us, and for sixty years a part of us, in such a con
dition as they are to-day.
The settlement of the northern and the southern colonies went
on without their knowledge. The great debate of the right to
tax without representation, which preceded the Revolutionary
War, shook the world — was a subject of discussion in every cabi
net in Europe — but it was unknown, unheard of, in this New
Mexican colony. The War of the Revolution dragged its bloody
length along for seven years. The Declaration of Independence
emancipated the world, but the colony of New Mexico never

STATEHOOD BILL • 117
heard of the Revolution, never heard of the Declaration. Ninety
per cent, of its people were slaves to their own people. The ter
ritory was divided into great haciendas with one supreme family
master of life, of hmb, and of liberty, and all the rest were its
peons or slaves, attached to the soil.
After the Revolution and the Declaration of Independence
came the French Revolution, that mighty upheaval which over
turned thrones and emancipated the whole Continent of Europe.
But New Mexico never heard of it. Napoleon, who, whatever
may be the charges as to his motives or his crimes or whatever
may be said as to his achievements, did more than any man in
Europe for civilization — Napoleon's great victories, his wonder
ful conquests, his dramatic defeat, his exile on a barren rock, all
passed by. New Mexico never heard of them. New Mexico
knew nothing of them.
And New Mexico would be sleeping to-day in the sleep of ig
norance, which is the sleep of mental death, except that the great
emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday was celebrated
all over the country yesterday, by his proclamation struck the
bonds from the limbs of every bondman, black or white or of
whatever color, in this land. But the Mexican did not hear of it.
The Mexican did not know it, and he would not have discovered
it except that in 1865 a Colorado army swept through the country,
driving back the Confederates who had almost captured it, and
then the army said to the Mexicans, "You are free."
j^ Now, my friends, I have been told that if I made a speech of
this kind — in fact, I was told by a New Mexican politician — "If
you make a speech of this kind, you will surely make New Mexico
Democratic for all time to come. The orators will travel up and
down New Mexico, and they will repeat this speech, and when
they do we will be driven off the stump. We will have no op
portunity to win. We will not be anywhere." But, my friends,
the orator has to translate this speech into Spanish, and then he
has to try to make somebody believe that I delivered itj'%
But when that interpreter interprets the Spanish there is only
one question which will arise in the mind of that New Mexican
audience. They were Democrats once. Their sole industry is
wool and sheep. But along about 1894 and 1895 they found that
the wool for which they had been getting thirty cents a pound
was selling for seven, and tRe sheep for which they had been get-

118 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
ting five dollars a piece were selling for a dollar and a half.
Then these Mexican farmers, who had been peons or slaves up to
1865, rushed to the county leader and said, "Who has done this?
We are ruined. We can not raise sheep for a dollar and a half
and we starve on wool at less than twenty cents a pound."
That interpreter said (and if he did not say it there was a Re
publican there who imderstood Spanish who did say it), "There is
a new party in power which has not had possession of this Gov
ernment since you came into the Union, or since the Civil War,
and since you were free ; that new party has been doing things to
sheep and to wool by taking the tariff off ; and if you do not un
derstand what that means, it means that they have reduced the
price in order that New Mexico shall clothe the people of this
country with their wool and feed them with their sheep, to their
own poverty and detriment." Cattle came in from Mexico and
nearly ruined the cattle-producing countries of the West. The
New Mexican farmer will go home after that meeting, having
been down to Santa Fe or to Albuquerque, and having sold his
sheep for four or five dollars, and having sold his wool anywhere
from twenty to thirty cents, and he will hand the money over to
the good woman — for the Mexican knows nothing about banks,
and buries his money until it is needed — and she will say, "Al-
fonzo," or whatever may be his- Spanish name, "they are going
to fool you about speeches made in the United States Senate in
order to get you again to give away your sheep and give away
your wool, but, Alfonzo, stand by your family and your home";
and the Mexican will.
If what has been said by our Democratic friends is correct
as to the growth of this State, the Mexicans can not save it.
They say that populations are going in there from Texas, from
Arkansas, and from Missouri, under this irrigation which is to
make New Mexico as solidly Democratic, despite these Mexicans,
as Arkansas, or Missouri, or Texas themselves.
We now come naturally to the wonderful results that are to
be derived from irrigation. The amount of misinformation and
ignorance that there is on the subject of irrigation in the Senate
would fill a volume ; it would fill a library. I voted for the irri
gation bill. When my friends from these alkali and cactus States
and Territories appealed to me as to what would be done by stor
ing water and letting the little rivulets flow, it occurred to me

STATEHOOD BILL 119
that $100,000,000, more or less, was nothing if that result would
be attained. So I enthusiastically supported the bill for irri
gation. Now, my amazement is the testimony which has been delivered
here on that behalf before this committee. Speaking of testi
mony, as my friend, the Senator from North Dakota [Mr. Hans-
brough], is here, I want to say that in the discussion, when the
able speech of the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Burn-
ham] was being delivered, he showed that the testimony of one
Martinez Amador, a Mexican, had been voluntarily given and that
the testimony of Martinez Amador was to the effect, first, that
the Mexican population did not know what statehood was, and,
next, if they did know they would be against it. My friend, the
Senator from North Dakota, sent up and had read by the Secre
tary a letter in which the value of the testimony of Martinez Ama
dor was impeached. Attached to it there is no affidavit. In this
letter the writer says :
Now, Martinez Amador is one of our old cranks here to whom no
one pays any attention. I have heard him called the "Las Cruces anar
chist" and also "the town fool."
Then, in the peculiar contradiction which characterizes every
thing that comes from the statehood side, the writer of this letter
goes on to show that this crank, this anarchist, this town fool is
the only rich man there is in the place, and that he made his own
money. Every American certainly wants this great desert to blossom
as the rose. It is no pleasure for any Senator to stand here and
describe the conditions which exist in this Territory. It is no
pleasure for any Senator to produce the testimony which shows
that the hopes which were held about irrigation will never be real
ized. Everybody here would be delighted beyond language if
they could be. The Fourth of July oration which the Senator
from Nevada has said I ought to make, I would make with all
the power I possess if the expenditure of $100,000,000 or $500,-
000,000 would irrigate these arid plains and enable large popu
lations to live here ; would produce homes, villages, cities, indus
tries, and add to the wealth and glory of our country. But I
pause on the threshold of the introduction of a new State into
the Union when the argument for that State is that its growth is

120 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
to come from irrigation, when an examination shows that irri
gation has about reached its limits.
New Mexico can be irrigated only by the Rio Grande and
Pecos rivers. The testimony shows that these rivers have
reached their full flood, and that the rivers in Arizona in many
cases have fallen off.
There is the testimony taken at Phoenix, where the land irri
gated is less to-day than it was forty years ago. There is the
testimony that the Salt River of Arizona, upon which a large
portion of that Territory depended for irrigation, has diminished
in volume 70 per cent, in the last five years. We also know
that as population increases in Colorado and at the headwaters
of the rivers upon which everything depends more and more
water is absorbed every year, and that the Rio Grande, which
two hundred years ago had water its whole length, now
two-thirds of the year and for two-thirds of its distance is ab
solutely dry.
Now, there is the testimony which shows that something
over two hundred years ago there was a population of 400,000
people in New Mexico. Why is it that those 400,000 people in
two hundred years have gotten down to less than 200,000? It
is because the streams dry up or are dried up by artificial pro
cesses. After forty years of irrigation in Arizona, with all the cap
ital that has gone out there from New York and through East
ern cities, with all the effort made to develop that agriculture by
irrigation, and with the land free for anybody, of the 73,000,000
acres there are only 186,000, in round numbers, which are irri
gated. One-fourth of one per cent of the whole area of that
vast Territory, after forty years of exploitation, is all that they
have irrigated.
When you come to New Mexico, out of 78,000,000 acres
there are only 205,000 irrigated. In other words, there only
one-fourth of one per cent has been irrigated.
Mr. Patterson. Mr. President, when Territories such as
New Mexico and Arizona are having their natural resources dis
credited, when the property and the interests of every citizen of
such Territories are being depreciated and their status in the in
dustrial and commercial world is being assailed, I think it is com
mon justice that the character of the testimony that is the basis

STATEHOOD BILL 121
of an attack of that character should accompany the assault. It
is for that reason that I say the entire testimony is the testimony
of one man, and the committee who had this investigation in
charge brought that testimony in at the very close of the exam
ination and gave to the other side no opportunity to combat it or
to rebut it.
This line of attack upon New Mexico and Arizona is a grave
wrong to every resident of those two Territories. It is an as
sault upon every dollar of capital that is invested in them. It is
the most serious drawback that could be conceived of to the fu
ture advancement of the country involved. Usually, Mr. Presi
dent, members of the Senate and others delight in picturing the
glories, the grandeur, the greatness, and the prosperity of the
country, but for some reason Senators who are opposed to the
admission of these Territories as States, see nothing in them but
evil, and have nothing but wrong in them to proclaim.
Tuesday, February ly, 1903.
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, the debate closed while I had
the floor at the last hearing upon the statehood bill with an elo
quent speech on the part of the Senator from Colorado [Mr. Pat
terson] in reply to what I was saying at the time. He was
taking exception to my remarks and giving to them an interpre
tation and a free expression of his own views. He took the broad
ground that the position of the opponents of this omnibus state
hood bill amounted, in the first place, to an attack upon the West,
the great West; in the second place, that it was a tremendous
injury to the investments and the population of these Territories
to have the statements made here become a permanent record
in regard to their condition with the testimony delivered before
the Committee on Territories and the views of scientists upon
their condition, and, lastly, he complained that the committee
and the speakers had been guided in what had been said by the re
ports of a scientist when the testimony of practical men would be
of more value.
Now, I yield to no one in my respect and admiration for the
great West. I do not' propose, however, to assent to Territories
which are no part of the great West, which have none of the
characteristics of that magnificent part of our imperial domain,
coming into the Senate under the cloak of those great Common
wealths. The Middle West, formed out of the Territories ceded

122 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
by Virginia, Maryland, New York, and other States, are to-day
not only among the most prosperous of the States of the Union,
but they have before them a wonderful future. The States
formed out of the Louisiana Purchase, fifteen of them, are to
celebrate next year the one hundredth anniversary of the pur
chase of that territory. Those fifteen States are centers of civili
zation, of population, and of wealth, which add enormously to
the power of the Republic.
The Northwestern States, great and growing, and the State of
my friend the Senator from Colorado, great and growing, are all
parts of this Great West. This Great West has over 30,000,000
of the 76,000,000 of the people of the United States, and it can
not be put in comparison with Arizona and New Mexico. That
territory which came from Mexico to us, which is a part of Colo
rado (the poorest part). New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and
Utah — that is not the Great West. It was known while the Great
West was being built up as the Great American Desert on the
maps which we had in the schoolrooms in our boyhood. That ter
ritory was settled long before the Great West had a white inhabit
ant. It was under territorial governments of Mexico two hun
dred years before the Great West had Territorial governments or
populations. While that territory has remained stagnant, the
Great West which I have alluded to, the States under the ordi
nance of 1787, the States of the Louisiana Purchase, and the
other States of the Northwest, have grown to be nearly one-half
in population, in power, and in wealth of the Republic, and
are advancing more rapidly than any other part of this great
nation. So I, sharing any enthusiasm which my friend the Senator
from Colorado may have, will join in his most glowing periods of
the Great West. But I can not stand here and permit him to hide
behind this magnificent association of Commonwealths, of areas,
of civilization, and of all that makes a great country, these al
kali plains and arid wastes and these unpopulated districts, which
in three hundred years have stood so far behind the Great West,
and call them the Great West and equally deserving statehood.
Mr. President, as to the suppression of the truth or as to mis
statements, I have seen no misstatements in regard to the present
conditions which prevail in Arizona and New Mexico. They are
not the vaporings of the platform; they are not anonymous com-

STATEHOOD BILL 12:^
munications to the press; they are not the mere statements of
people which are unverified, but they are the testimony of wit
nesses on the ground, summoned and appearing and giving their
testimony before one of the committees of the Senate. And giv
ing that testimony under oath, each witness subject to all that
brings out the truth in our courts and tests the veracity and credi
bility of witnesses by a cross-examination by those who are anx
ious to let in those Territories as States and who wanted as fav
orable testimony as possible. There has been no perversion of
the truth and there has been no suppression of the truth.
It would be a great misfortune if in adding at this period of
our history new Commonwealths to take their equal position
through their United States Senators in this Chamber they should
come in here under false pretenses, under a suppression of the
truth, or under a keeping back of the facts which, if known,
would prevent the American people justifying their arriving yet
at statehood. The suppression of the truth, Mr. President, is not in telling
the exact facts about these States, and therefore preventing their
immediate admission, but it is in admitting them. We all re
member the old couplet, so often recited and never controverted :
"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again ;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among its worshippers."
But, for the first time since that couplet was quoted in ser
mons, in orations, and in schoolbooks, the admission of these Ter
ritories, unless the truth were told, would bury truth so that it
could never rise again, because if these Territories came in as
States without our knowing all about them — no matter if the truth
did injure property, no matter if it did stop booms, no matter if
it did interrupt speculations, no matter if it was hostile to pro
moters — if they came in because the truth was suppressed, on
that account, then, as no State can ever be put out of the Union,
truth would be buried under the Dome of this Capitol, and truth
could never rise again until in the crack of doom and on the day
of judgment there was a dissolution of the Union.
I was very much surprised at the position which my friend, the
Senator from Colorado, took at this late day in reference to the

124 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
superiority of the practical man to the scientist on a question like
that of the possibihties of irrigation, of the possibilities of storing
water, of the area that could be made water by storage, and of
absorption and evaporation.
The old river Nile has flowed from its mythical source — myth
ical until our generation — for millions of years, making fertile by
the overflow of its banks the territory through which it ran. As
the headwaters became settled the flow ceased to be as great, and
distress came to that country, which, during the whole classic
period, was the granary of the world. "The man with the hoe"
and the plow, and the men with the boat propelled by oar or sail
or rope or pole, the men who traveled up and down, were all intent
upon the relief of agriculture along this great river. Twenty odd
dynasties came in the ancient period, and were unequal to the
task. The highest civilization was succeeded by Mohammedan
ism, and the best brain o-f all civilization during historic and
nonhistoric periods has given itself to this problem of the Nile.
The Nile differs from the Rio Grande and the Pecos and the
Salt River o^ our Territories in the fact that it flows all the year
round, but at the flood it overflowed its banks and made agri
culture possible. It has been reserved for the last decade, for
the engineer under the government established there by Great
Britain, to solve the problem of old Nile and to harness her to
industry. The great dam at Assuan, the most wonderful structure
of ancient or modern times, has impounded those waters in -such a
way that hereafter there will be no more drought in Egypt and
no more suffering among the farmers. Instead of relying upon
the uncertainties of weather, of sunlight, of drought, and of flood,
the river is controlled, and controlled by science.
A scientific gentleman, selected by the United States Govern
ment because he is at the head of his profession, is appointed the
chief hydrographer of the United States Geological Survey, Prof.
F. H. Newell. He has no private purposes to- accomplish, he has
no political or personal aims in view, but under his oath of office,
knowing that this work is to be Verified or disputed by all the
selfish interests — and property selfish interests — affected in those
vast Territories, he is sent out thfere by the Government for the
purpose of making investigation and report. He visits every part
of those Territories with his assistants ; he travels up and down
those rivers ; he goes to the mountains ; he looks at the lakes ; he

. STATEHOOD BILL 125
estimates the rainfall, and he ascertains the storage capacity of
the water there is in all that country.
Now, his conclusions are disputed, because it is said that the
practical man knows more on this subject than the scientist pos
sibly can. I will admit that the cowboy knows more about herd
ing his cattle and taking care of them than a professor of the Geo
logical Survey ; I will admit that the farmer will know more as to
the management of his crops and the miner as to the working of
his mines, but it is simply absurd to say that the cowboy or the
farmer or the miner or the prospector, in the limited area in which
he works, with the limited information that he has on such sub
jects, can state what is the amount of the flow of the Rio Grande,
of the Pecos, and of the Salt River; that he can tell what is the
amount of water which is gathered and which may be stored in
the mountains and at the sources of these rivers ; that he can tell
how much acreage of water is necessary for the purpose of
irrigating an acre of land. His testimony would be absolutely
worthless. But here is an expert of the Government, a distin
guished scientist, whose object in testifying is simply to tell the
truth. Mr. Beveridge. Before the Senator from New York reads
the testimony of Professor Newell, I wish to say that Professor
Newell is not only the hydrographer of the United States Geolog
ical Survey, and a scientist of great eminence, as the Senator from
New York says, but also that he has personally and practically
familiar knowledge of the section of country of which he testi
fies. That appears, as I think the Senator from Colorado [Mr.
Patterson] will remember, on the face of the testimony itself.
So that the testimony of Professor Newell is not only the testi
mony of a scientist such as the Senator from New York has
described, but also the testimony of a practical man, who has
examined the situation on the ground. Therefore the value of
his scientific testimony is reenforced and emphasized by his prac
tical and personal examination of the subject-matter.
Me. Patterson. It is not my purpose to interrupt the Sen
ator from New York at all in his speech to-day, as I under
stood him to say on yesterday that he was anxious to conclude
this afternoon, as he was obliged to leave the city, so I shall not
now indulge in any interruption, except to say that if an oppor
tunity is offered, without trenching too much upon the Senator

126 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
or taking too much of the time of the Senate, I shall be able to
demonstrate from official documents in the Department and on
the testimony of the Department itself that Professor Newell is
sadly mistaken about the capabilities of New Mexico as to the
amount of water and everything that pertains to the agricultural
possibilities of the Territory.
I think I shall also be able to demonstrate in the most conclu
sive way that the suggestion of the Senator from New York [Mr.
Depew] that New Mexico is standing still and is not progressing
with the West, that the new life and new blood which is now
coursing in this country from one end of it to the other is not
flowing into New Mexico — I think I shall be able to demonstrate
that the Senator is sadly mistaken in that respect also. But I do
not think it would be fair to him, in view of the matter of time,
to interrupt him to do so now.
Mr. Depew. Professor Newell says that it has been his duty
to examine from a scientific standpoint the physical conditions of
New Mexico and Arizona, and that since 1888 he has spent con
siderable time in those Territories and in the adjoining States. I
read the following from his testimony :
The Chairman. Will you state to the committee, in your own way,
the situation in the Territory of New Mexico with reference to the
question of aridity?
Mr. Newell. The Territory is well within the arid region, and agri
culture there is dependent almost entirely upon the artificial application
of water. The Chairman. By the artificial application of water you mean ir
rigation? Mr. Newell. Yes, sir ; irrigation. The principal source of supply is
the Rio Grande and its largest tributary, the Pecos River. The United
States Geological Survey has been measuring the flow of the Rio Grande
where it enters New Mexico, and at various points along its course.
We have also measured some of its tributaries, and have measured where
it leaves the Territory to form the boundary line between Texas and the
Republic of Mexico. We have been making studies of the extent to
which that water can be used for irrigation purposes in the future.
Now, where is the man of the rule of the thumb, the practical
man, who has made investigations of that kind? And where is
the man who has made investigations of that kind who had the

STATEHOOD BILL 127
scientific knowledge to make his investigations of any earthly
value ?
The Chairman. Will you state to the committee the extent to which
that water is used at present?
Mr. Newell. The usual summer supply is entirely employed, and
there is now a considerable acreage under cultivation for which there
is not a sufficient supply of water in all seasons.
That is now.
The spring flow— the floods — in large part go to waste, and water
storage is absolutely essential to the future development of the Terri
tory. He then goes on to state that there is some water storage, but
that it could be greatly improved. Then Senator Patterson
takes up the cross-examination in regard to this water storage :
Senator Patterson. Tremendous volumes of water come down those
rivers during certain seasons of the year, do they not?
Mr. Newell. They are very large.
Senator Patterson. If the waters could be conserved a very heavy
percentage of land could be put under irrigation, could it not?
Mr. Newell. We have been measuring the amount of water, and if
it could all be saved several hundred thousand acres could be irrigated.
"Several hundred thousand acres," and you must remember,
Mr. President, that in these two Territories are 151,000,000
acres. This scientist says that if the water which is available is
stored, several hundred thousand acres more can be irrigated.
Senator Patterson. Is that the limit — several hundred thousand?
Mr. Newell. I think so. The limit is the total amount of water
which comes down the Rio Grande and Pecos. The measurements at
various points on the Rio Grande give the actual amount of water
which has passed that point during various years in succession. Those
figures I can insert in the testimony if you wish.
Mr. Teller. I call the Senator's attention to the fact that
Professor Newell was not speaking of the two Territories, but
of New Mexico alone. That statement has no relation to Ari
zona at all.
Mr. Depew. But the testimony that is here in regard to Ari-

128 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
zona is substantially to the effect that the condition of Arizona
is worse than that of New Mexico.
Mr. Teller. Mr. President, however that may be, it has no
relation to the Pecos River, but only to the Rio Grande. No part
of Arizona would be watered by the Rio Grande.
Mr. Depew. I understand. But Professor Newell testifies
concerning Arizona quite as fully as he does concerning New
Mexico. Here is what he says :
The Chairman. You may state to the committee what portions of
this Territory may be used — whether there is a possibility of agriculture
in this Territory except by irrigation.
Mr. Newell. It is not possible excepting on the northern portion of
the Territory. There, at an elevation of about 7,000 feet, settlers are
raising small areas of potatoes without irrigation, and some cereals, cut
green, for feeding cattle.
The Chairman. Aside from that, the occupation of agriculture is
not possible there, except by irrigation from streams. Is that true?
Mr. Newell. Yes.
The Chairman. In order to make this brief, I will state that the
committee understands that the irrigated area is about Phoenix, some on
the Gila River, and some near Yuma.
Mr. Newell. Yes.
The Chairman. What can you state about the sufficiency or the in
sufficiency of the water supply for the irrigation canals about Phoenix?
Phoenix, we must remember, Mr. President, is the most im
portant, as well as the most promising, part of the Territory of
Arizona. Mr. Newell. The condition at Phoenix is extremely serious, as the
land under cultivation exceeds in area the available supply of water.
Remember, that is now.
For the last two or three years there has not been sufficient water
for more than half or two-thirds of the land which has been normally
under cultivation.
The Chairman. Is that because there is not enough water in the
river ?
Mr. Newell. It is because of the shrinkage of the river during the
past few years.
The Chairman. Is there any other source of water supply for ir
rigation, except that water from the river?
Mr. Newell. That is the only source excepting a small amount of

STATEHOOD BILL 129
water to be obtained from deep or artesian wells, and from shallow wells
in the gravels near the river channel.
The Chairman. Could any appreciable quantity of water be ob
tained in that way, taking into consideration the whole area?
Mr. Newell. That would probably not represent more than i, 2, or
3 per cent, of the entire area that is irrigable.
The testimony is here that the rivers about Phoenix, especially
the Salt River, have diminished seventy per cent, in volume in
the last five or six years.
Mr. Patterson. Mr. President, upon the theory that I will
not interfere with the Senator's movements after to-day, I will
venture to interrupt him at this time for the purpose of making
some suggestions upon the area of irrigable land in New Mexico
as we find the subject treated by the Department of the Interior,
and especially now with reference to New Mexico. Professor
Newell summed up his statement with reference to the amount of
lands subject to irrigation in New Mexico as follows :
Mr. Newell. We have been measuring the amount of water, and if
it could all be saved several hundred thousand acres could be irrigated.
Senator Patterson. Is that the limit — several hundred thousand?
Mr. Newell. I think so. The limit is the total amount of water
which comes down the Rio Grande and Pecos.
So that Professor Newell took into consideration the two
rivers in this part of his testimony — the Rio Grande and the
Pecos. He furnished the committee later, and it is inserted in
the testimony, with a table of the amount of water that comes
down the Rio Grande according to measurements at two different
points. Based upon these facts and these data, and based upon the ex
periences of men who have lived in the Territory, with the possi
bilities for the economical use of water in view, the opinion of
the best and the most practical men in the Territory of New
Mexico is that, instead of 200,000 or 300,000 acres being the limit
of land that may be reclaimed in the course of a comparatively
few years, at least 10,000,000 acres of land in the Territory of
New Mexico will be made to bloom and blossom as the rose.
Having those facts in mind, I suggested the other night that
very great injustice was being done both to the Territory of New
Mexico and to the Territory of Arizonia by taking the testimony
Vol. VII— 9

130 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
of a single man. Professor Newell, who is a scientist and a theo
rist and is not a practical man, with a practical knowledge of the
possibilities of the economical use of water in irrigating districts.
If these Territories are admitted as States into this Union, I be
lieve, so strong is the love of justice in the heart of the Senator
from New York, that within ten years, if he is then a member
of this body — and I trust he will be — he will rise in his seat and
apologize to the people of New Mexico and Arizona for having
given credence to some of the statements that were made before
the committee.Mr. Depew. Mr. President, I appreciate the compliment of
the Senator from Colorado, but I think the great difference be
tween the Senator from Colorado and me is that the statements
which have been given him and from which he reads are those of
the promoter, of the speculator, of the local man who is interested
in booming the Territory, while mine are from a cold-blooded,
clear-headed, thoroughly trained scientist who knows what he is
talking about.
I am not disputing the word from his standpoint of a promoter
or a speculator. I fall in with them all the while. So many of
them come to New York with mining propositions that I have be
come acquainted with every inhabitant of both Territories. Phil-
anthropically ahve to my welfare, regardless of cost to them
selves, they present to me every week the opportunity to secure
fortunes that would make those now talked of all over the world
pale into insignificance. My distrust is not of their sincerity,
honesty, or truthfulness, but it is of the basis upon which they
build those tremendous statements.
I was induced some years ago, under statements in regard to
irrigation, artesian wells, stored waters, and canals, with the
wonderful production which would surpass that of any fields in
the world, to make an investment in an irrigating company, pri
marily to make money, secondarily to develop the Territory, so
that before ten years elapsed I might view the millions settled
upon the reclaimed land coming here and demanding statehood —
the owners of millions of acres yielding three crops a year by irri
gation. The voice of the siren sounded in my ear, the siren be
ing moved by stored water. That irrigating proposition is still
working. The lands are still there ; the canals are there ; the stor-

STATEHOOD BILL 131
age reservoir is up in the mountains. Sometimes water comes
into it ; sometimes it does not. It takes a large part of the revenue
to get the silt out which is the inevitable adjunct of waters com
ing down from the mountains.
A very considerable part of New Mexico is in its mineral de
posits. Its future prosperity will come largely from the devel
opment of these resources. This statement seems to negative and
ignore those millions of agriculturalists whom the hopeful imag
ination of my friend the Senator from Colorado sees gathering
and cultivating lands around these mytbical streams and marvel
ous springs.
Mr. Patterson. The theory of the Senator from New York
is based upon a lack of knowledge of what the paper he reads
contains. It may be true that there is relatively a small amount
of agricultural land yet subject to be taken up by private indi
viduals, but if he will examine the map furnished by Professor
Newell he will discover that probably a third of the 70,000,000
acres have already been taken up and are now controlled by pri
vate ownership, and presumably the best of the New Mexico
land is embraced within those areas.
The Territory was covered with Spanish grants, with hardly a
grant for less than a hundred thousand acres, and some of them
for four and five and six million. I presume there are 40,000,000
acres of the best land in the Territory of New Mexico now held
in private ownership either by private individuals or corporations,
the origin of the title being a grant. So the statement from this
educational body in no wise conflicts with what the Senator from
New York is pleased to term a glowing picture portrayed by my
self. May I in this connection show the Senator how New Mexico
is growing in the matter of manufactures, because I know he
wants enlightenment? I have here some figures taken from the
census of 1900. Let me show the Senator from New York how
New Mexico is growing in the matter of manufactures alone.
In 1870 the manufactures in New Mexico amounted to $1,-
489,868; in 1880 to $1,284,846; in 1890 to $1,516,195; in 1900,
in a period of ten years, the manufactured products of New Mex
ico increased from a million five hundred thousand dollars to
$5,605,795. Mr. Depew. Mr. President, I am very glad to hear those

132 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
figures in regard to New Mexico. I am afraid there are none of
a similar kind for Arizona. But during that period see how the
country has grown. It is said that the barometer of national
wealth is iron. In the United States there were produced of pig
iron in 1870, 1,700,000 tons and in 1900 14,000,000 tons. There
were produced of steel in 1870 69,000 tons and in 1900 io,ooo,0oo
tons. The production of cotton in this country has grown in that
time from 3,000,000 to 9,500,000 bales, and the value of our
manufactures from four billions of dollars to thirteen billions;
and so I might go on indefinitely.
Mr. President, in one of the ablest speeches made on the side
of statehood in the Senate, by a Senator who is always very care
ful and exceedingly studious in his researches — I refer to the Sen
ator from North Dakota [Mr. McCumber] — he estimated that
ten per cent, of Arizona and New Mexico could by one process
and another be brought under irrigation. That was his hopeful
view as a statehood man. From that he estimated that in time
to come there would be a million people in each of those two
Territories. But there are a hundred and fifty-one million acres in those
two Territories, and if only ten per cent, can be brought under
cultivation, that is only 15,000,000 acres. It leaves a hundred
and thirty-seven million acres of desert or arid land, of cactus
and of alkali, to be represented in the United States Senate by
four Senators as against the States which came in under the
Northwest Ordinance, possessing all together httle more territory,
and those four Senators from the arid lands would neutralize
Ohio and Illinois or Indiana and Michigan in the Senate of the
United States.
Mr. President, reverting again to the number of years of set
tlement, I find that New Mexico, with three hundred years of
settlement and fifty-odd years of a Territory, has $5,605,000 of
manufactures, while Oklahoma and Indian Territory, with twelve
or thirteen years of settlement, have $11,000,00 of manufactures;
that New Mexico after three hundred years of settlement has
$7,000,000 of live stock, while Indian Territory and Oklahoma
have $30,000,000 after twelve years of settlement; that the farm
crops of New Mexico after three hundred years are $3,000,000
in value, while Oklahoma and Indian Territory are $43,000,000.
I am not without some personal knowledge of this water ques-

STATEHOOD BILL 133
tion in New Mexico. Having been born on the banks of the
Hudson and believing that to be the most beautiful stream in the
world, my attention has been called from early boyhood to the
great rivers of the globe. I read all about the Amazon with its
3,000 miles of navigation. I took great pride in the Mississippi,
the father of waters, with its affluents furnishing 4,000 miles of
navigation. I studied the story of old Nile and of the Tiber, and
then I would come every now and then to the Rio Grande. Every
now and then I would find a glowing description of the Rio
Grande, of the immense territory that it drained and fertilized,
and the statement that it received its name from its Spanish dis
coverers of the grand river. I saw many of these other rivers,
comparing them with the Hudson, and wondering at their size
and their commerce, but it was only about five years ago when I
had the opportunity of gratifying the desire of a lifetime to see
the Grand River of New Mexico. When we arrived at El Paso,
without stopping for anything else, I immediately left the train
and walked on and on to see this Rio Grande, to witness the com
merce floating upon its bosom, to see its river craft for the car
riage of freight, and its palaces, like we have on the Hudson, for
the carriage of passengers, to view the wharves with their busy
warehouses, and their thousands engaged in the traffic of the
great river. After walking for more than an hour and not hear
ing the thunder of its flood nor the noise of commerce I
turned and walked back. I saw an aged man who looked like the
oldest inhabitant, and therefore likely to give me the truth. I
said, "My friend, I am looking for the Rio Grande, the grand
river of New Mexico. Can you tell me where to find it ?" Said
he, "Sir, you have already crossed it twice on foot." And then,
sir, I found that possibly the reason why it was called the Rio
Grande is the peculiarity which those New Mexican rivers have,
which belongs to no other streams in the world — their bottoms
are on top.
There is something about a contact on the affirmative side with
this effort to let these arid regions into the Senate with United
States Senators to remain here forever that fires the imagination
of the gentlemen who favor it. Every little while we see in the
newspapers an account of explorers across those great deserts
discovering the bones of prospectors. The position of the dead
and the location of the camp tell the story. In that rainless re-

134 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
gion the brazen sky, the torrid sand, and the clear atmosphere
produce what is known as a mirage. There rises up before the
vision of those thirsty travelers a lake, and they see the water and
the trees; and the stock sees the water and trees; and the men
and the women and the cattle and the horses go forward on their
remaining strength in eager search for those visionary lakes, with
their overhanging trees along the banks, which recede as they
advance. I am surprised if the Senator from Colorado did not find in
the mirage the waters that were to produce those marvelous re
sults which I am to wonder at and make apologies for ten years
from now, after the four Senators from those States have been
for ten years casting twice as many votes in the Senate as the
two Senators from New York.
When my friend the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Foraker] one
of the most eloquent men in the United States, whether upon
the platform or in the Senate, was discussing* this question in the
best contribution that has been made so far on the statehood
side, he drew a picture of the conditions which would prevail in
Arizona and New Mexico when the irrigation scheme had been
fully developed.
In that picture the streams were let over these alkali plains,
and we saw crop after crop every year of alfalfa grass coming
up, and we saw the herds of cattle and of sheep increasing until
the beef problem was solved, until the prophecies of those who
say that the increase of population of the world is greater than
the growth of the beef supply were negatived, until we saw that
the best cuts of beef and the best quarters of lamb and of mutton
had been brought within the reach of the poorest people in the
United States for their daily food, until we had the surplus which
would go abroad to feed the world and make up the deficiencies
of old Europe, where the population increases so much more
rapidly than the meat supply that a large proportion of the people
now never know what meat is.
But the difficulty with the statement, when you come down to
science again, is that cattle can only live when within five miles
of a watering place, or what they call out there a sink hole, and
that it takes thirty acres of grass to feed one cow. Now, these
sink holes are wide apart. They have all been discovered. There
is not one of them that has not been exploited, and there is no pos-

STATEHOOD BILL 135
sibility of creating more. I had not then studied this question,
and so it seemed to me as I was carried along by the eloquence of
my friend that I saw in reality the old sacred description of the
"cattle upon a thousand hills" and a thousand cattle upon a hill.
But in the case of New Mexico and Arizona there are no hills,
and so it was the cattle around a thousand sink holes, only there
are not a thousand sink holes around which the cattle can gather.
Now, Mr. President, all of us would wish that these opti
mistic views were true. We wish they were realities and no
pictures. Everybody who visits the Netherlands and goes
through the Holland g'alleries and sees those superb paintings
of the Flemish masters — those pastoral scenes — would hke to
have those scenes repeated, not in pictures, but upon the soil
all over Arizona and New Mexico.
There is in The Hague a picture by Paul Potter of a bull
under a tree with his herdsman, which was taken by Napoleon
when he overran Europe and looted the art galleries of their
masterpieces to enrich the Louvre. Holland bought back that
picture for $50,000. It is valued at $500,000, and Holland
would not take a million dollar^ for it. I wish that instead of
its being a million-dollar picture with a solitary bull under a
tree in The Hague that kind of cattle might be scattered all
over Arizona and all over New Mexico. But at present they
only exist in the imagination of Senators who draw these beauti
ful pastoral pictures to try and pass a bill — the omnibus state
hood — ^by creating water where little does or can exist.
Something has been said here, in fact a great deal, compar
ing the conditions of the Northwest Territories after the ordi
nance of 1787 and the conditions which exist in Arizona and
New Mexico. Sir, there is no one single possible parallel be
tween the two cases. The one subject which was pressing the
Union under the old Confederation was the conflicting titles of
Virginia, Maryland, New York, Connecticut, and other States
to that great Northwest Territory. Maryland did a noble part
in leading the way by ceding her title to the General Govern
ment, and then all the other State owners followed. General
Washington and the Congress of the United States wanted to
settle that wilderness.
The conditions were not then what they are now ; they knew
that it was fertile and they wanted people to go there. So in

136 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
the invitations which were extended and in the discussions which
prevailed it occurred to the son of Gen. Israel Putnam, himself
a general in the Continental Army, to settle this Northwest
Territory for the purposes of patriotism by the veterans of the
Continental Army, by the soldiers who had won the independ
ence of the United States.
No such immigration ever before went anywhere. No such
embodiment of gallantry, courage, and patriotism ever formed
the foundations of great States as this of the veterans of the
Continental Army in the Northwest Territory. They demanded
peremptorily that slavery should not be permitted on that free
soil. The ordinance of 1787, creating the Territory, had before
failed in Congress because it had a prohibition of slavery in it;
but these soldiers of freedom demanded as the price of their
settlement that the prohibition of slavery should be put into the
ordinance, into the fundamental law, and that then the law
should be passed, and they had their way.
They did not accept these lands as gifts. They paid into the
Treasury of the United States a million and a half dollars,
which, judging between the value of money then and now, was
an enormous price for the wilderness. But they stood there as
a barrier against the savage Indians along the Miami, who were
threatening western New York. They took possession of the
disputed lands when the title had not been settled between Great
Britain and the United States, and they built up those communi
ties into States which have become the five great Common
wealths of the Middle West.
You can not compare those conditions and those Continental
soldiers with their families, those patriots, all Americans, going
there on the urgent request of the Congress of the United States,
going there because Washington urged that it was their duty to
do so in order to build up the country, with the populations
scattered over this vast Territory of Arizona and New Mexico,
at the rate, after hundreds of years, of about one to a square
mile. Senators, the Senate is now on trial before the people as it
never before has been since the organization of the Government.
In one of the leading magazines for the current month a
well-known writer on public questions has an article upon the
overshadowing power of the Senate. In all representative Gov-

STATEHOOD BILL 137
ernments there is an upper house, but none like this one. In the
British House of Lords the membership is hereditary, but it
can act only as a check upon the House of Commons. It will
defeat a radical measure once. The second time it rejects it
there will be an appeal to the country, and then if a House of
Commons is returned favorable to the measure, the House of
Lords dare not offer any further opposition. If it did its aboli
tion would be certain.
The English seem to like this check upon hasty action on im
portant questions on the part of the popular branch.
In France the Senate they elect has no functions except in
legislation. One of the most distinguished of public men in
France told me that the Senate had been the salvation of the
Republic. He said — and he was one of those who assisted in
perfecting the framing of the government of the Republic —
that after studying the legislatures of all countries the conserva
tive men came to the conclusion that the best form was an upper
house upon the lines of the United States Senate. So, while
their House of Deputies is elected like our House of Representa
tives, the Senate is a delegated body.
France did not possess independent States as we have them,
but the country was divided into large districts, and the boards
of aldermen, the councilmen, and the members of the various
cities and municipalities in the district and the members of the
lower house from its subdivisions formed a Legislature which
elected the Senator. He said there had been several times in
the thirty years of the existence of the French Republic when
in the stress of intense political excitement the House of Depu
ties had been swept off its feet, and except for the Senate there
would have been a revolution — a revolution in which the country
would have turned to a strong man and a military one, and in
the overthrow of the Republic there would have been socialism
succeeded by anarchy and followed by a dictator.
But in our Senate sovereign States are represented by two
Senators elected by the members of the two branches of the
Legislators of the several States, who are themselves the selected
representatives of the smaller and larger constituencies which
constitute the senatorial and assembly districts of the several
Commonwealths. But our Senate differs from the upper house,
either in Great Britain or in any of the countries of the Con-

138 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
tinent, in the vastness of its power. We not only have our legis
lative functions, but we are, with the Executive, the appointing
power and the real treaty-making power.
The Senate does not assert itself in any offensive way. It
does take an independent attitude on legislation, especially rev
enue measures, which would not be permitted anywhere else.
This is submitted to because, as the limit of a Senatorial term
is six years, one-third of the Senate goes back for instructions
from the States every two years.
I remember in Senator Sumner's time that he insisted upon
it that the Senate should not surrender, even on the social side,
its prerogatives of precedence which count so much in the social
life of every capital. He said that the judges of the Supreme
Court and of all the Federal courts, the Cabinet ministers, the
ambassadors and representatives abroad of the United States in
every capacity, the whole military and civil force of the Gov
ernment, receive their appointment by the joint action of the
President and the Senate; that the creator is always superior
to the creature, and that, therefore, the officers who thus owed
their existence to the action of the Senate must necessarily be
subordinated to the appointing power. Sumner was logically
correct, but the Senate, which cares little for social matters, has
surrendered or suspended its rights and permits judges of the
Supreme Court to outrank it in the social world.
The Senate has been called upon many times in recent years
and has fearlessly responded to the call, to amend, check, defeat,
or originate legislation. The fact that it holds the rein upon
lawmaking and the estopper upon the Executive is producing
every day a closer scrutiny of the powers of the Senate, of its
make-up, and of its representative character. By the admission,
under one excuse and another, but always because of a tempo
rary emergency for votes to carry the measures of the dominant
party, of States with sparse populations and little prospect of
growth the people have grown more distant from the Senate.
iytThis is not a question of the election of Senators by the
people or by the Legislatures, for that would not change the
result so long as each State, whether it has 7,000,000 of inhabi
tants or 40,000, has two, and only two. Senators. As the Senate
is constituted to-day, sixteen States having a population of
6,000,000 people can, under the two-thirds rule required for the

STATEHOOD BILL 139
ratification of a treaty, defeat an international arrangement
agreed upon by the President and the Secretary of State, and the
rest of the Cabinet, and desired by the other 70,000,000 of the
American people.''' As the Senate is constituted to-day, twenty-
three States, witli a total population of 13,755,364, and casting
2,363,285 votes, have a majority in this Chamber, while twenty-
two States, with a population of 60,851,857 people, are in a
minority. The proposition before us is to give six Senators to a popula
tion of 800,000 in communities which possess little possibilities of
growth in the future, thus adding tremendously to the discrep
ancy between the power in this branch of Congress and the people
who are represented here,,,^^We make one Mexican in New Mex
ico and one Mormon in Arizona equal in political power to
twenty-one citizens of New York and eighteen of Pennsylvania.
Ours is a Government by majorities. Every year the sentiment
becomes stronger for majority rule, and more and more impa
tient of minority dictation. It is possible to conceive of condi
tions where Senators representing a very small minority of the
people might defeat legislation which the great majority not only
demanded, but which was for the larger interests of the country.l|!
I call the attention especially of the smaller States to the peril
which they are inviting. Their sole protection now against a
popular movement to make the Senate represent the people is the
clause in the Constitution which says that no State can be de
prived of equal representation in the Senate without its consent.
But if for partisan purposes or to gratify ambitious friends in
the Territories who are seeking national distinction, or for neigh
borly feeling, or for indifference, the Senate becomes more and
more, year by year, with the introduction of areas as against
populations, of farms as against people, of mines as against citi
zens, the stronghold of the minority, the people will find a way to
remedy the difficuhy and to control both branches.
If two-thirds of the larger States, impelled by political consid
erations to take care of the increasing number of ambitious and
aspiring statesmen within their borders, should pass a constitu
tional amendment making the representation in this body based
upon population instead of upon sovereign States, and three-
fourths of the States, each having a grievance against the minor
ity, should adopt that amendment, it may happen that in the

140 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
refinements possible in the judicial mind "equal representation"
could be so explained away by the Supreme Court of the United
States as to hold that such an amendment was not a violation
of the Constitution, or if a convention should be called by two-
thirds of the States to amend the Constitution in that convention
the process would be simpler. That convention would be based
upon the representation in the House of Representatives and be a
popular body. The largely populated States would have an im
mense majority and could do as they pleased. From such a body
would certainly come amendments to the Constitution little short
of revolutionary against this minority representation.
^ Before Senators whose experience here has shown them the
value of this branch of our Government invite an attack upon it,
and encourage the hostile criticism which is growing so rapidly,
they should give to the subject more consideration than this
propostion has received and should hesitate long before increasing
the distance of the United States Senate from the voter, the
power and the principles of the majority of the American peopl^
Mr. Teller. Mr. President, I do not wish to interrupt the
Senator, and yet I must confess that after a quarter of a century's
service, most of the time in this body, I can not hear with much
patience the threat of revolution in this country ; that the Govern
ment organized by our fathers is to be destroyed because the
original plan by which the small States were to have in this body
the same power that the large States have is now objectionable to
the Senator from New York. It is not any small thing to talk
about changing the political conditions in this country, changing
the form of this Government under which we have lived and
grown so great and so strong. You can not maintain in this
country a Government upon the theory upon which this Govern
ment was established if you concentrate all the power in the
hands of the great States.
The United States Senate was organized by the wisest men
who ever lived on this continent, at least, and I think I should not
exaggerate if I said upon any other. They organized it wisely.
They provided that the smaller States should have in this body
the power that the great States have, and now, after more than
one hundred years, is there any reason for any man to stand in
this Chamber and condemn that system of Government?
New England, with its twelve Senators in this body, has not

STATEHOOD BILL 141
as many people as has the State of New York. Has this Gov
ernment ever suffered, Mr. President, by the small States of New
England being represented in this body ? I say here, and I want
to say it to the Senator, that he does not represent anybody in
this country when he talks about breaking up the form of gov
ernment which our fathers established, and which the experience
of more than a hundred years has shown to be the wisest of any
government ever established under the sun.
I have listened to a good deal of nonsense, and I have listened
without protest during this debate to a good deal that I consid
ered beneath the dignity of the Senate; but I could not listen to
what the Senator from New York has said without saying here,
as a Senator from one of the sovereign States of this Union and
as a citizen of the United States, that I resent the insult, and I
think the American people will resent this insult from the Senator
from New York.
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, I regret that the Senator from
Colorado feels insulted by what I said. I am not advocating this
revolution; I am not in favor of it; I would be against it; but
when we add to the minority representation in this Senate and
take it still farther away from the people; when we make the
vote of one Mexican in New Mexico equal in this Senate to
twenty-one votes in New York and eighteen in Pennsylvania we
are calling attention to a condition where we can not tell what
the people may do in the discussions of the future.
The Legislatures of several States have voted to ask Congress
to call a convention for the purpose of making amendments to the
Constitution which are specified. But a constitutional conven
tion can not be limited. It has the power to make a new Con
stitution and substitute it for the immortal instrument under
which we have marvelously developed for over a hundred years.
In that convention, where New York will have thirty-nine dele
gates, Pennsylvania thirty-four, Illinois twenty-seven, Ohio
twenty-three, Massachusetts sixteen, Texas eighteen, Colorado
five, Idaho three. North Dakota four. South Dakota four, Wyo
ming three, Nevada three, Delaware three, and Utah three, and so
on, this discrepancy existing and increasing in representation in
the Senate will be among the acute questions certain to be brought
forward. There will be others radical and revolutionary enough
to halt prosperity and progress until the country knows the

142 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
amendments adopted and their fate when submitted to the States.
I deem it my duty to warn the smaller States, who are favoring
this statehood proposition of Senators without adequate constitu
encies, of possibilities which we all may deplore.
Mr. Teller. For many years a number of Senators from
some of the New England States have represented constituencies
whose numbers were eighteen to twenty times smaller than the
constituency represented by the Senators from the State of New
York, but this is the first time I have ever heard any complaint on
that account. I know the public service has not suffered by that
representation, and I am sure it will not suffer if it shall continue.
Mr. Depew. The only difference between the Senator and
myself, Mr. President, is that to his imagination — for the imagi
nation seems to affect somewhat the discussion of this subject —
Arizona and New Mexico are placed upon a plane with New
England. The situations are not the same. New England is in
the Union, and these other States are in the Union. The ques
tion is now. Shall we dilute the majority still further and call
more acute attention to the conditions now existing where one-
tenth of the people of the United States govern them through this
body; that fourteen millions of people have greater power than
sixty-one millions, and two and a half millions of voters can de
feat the wishes of eleven and a half millions.
¦Except candidates for United States Senators or promoters
who are anxious to secure for their enterprises the additional
credit which comes from statehood, corporations who wish State
or municipal aid and are barred by the provision of the Harrison
Act which prevents Territories and their counties and munici
palities from bonding themselves for more than four per cent, of
their assessed value, there is no interest to be served by haste in
the admission of these Territories to statehood, jf/
New Mexico has been applying here for fifty years and
Arizona for a score, and there will be no harm done in waiting
until Congress meets next December. The merits of these Terri
tories for statehood have never been discussed before, and the
country ought to have an opportunity of examination before we
pass judgment upon their admission.
Oklahoma and Indian Territory united to-day possess the
requisites of statehood in population and prospect for their future.

STATEHOOD BILL 143
If Arizona and New Mexico are admitted they should be united
into one State. Even then they would have but little more than
the number requisite for a Representative in Congress. It would
be wise to make a permanent settlement of this question by thus
creating one State out of Oklahoma and Indian Territory, and
one State of New Mexico and Arizona, to be admitted after the
next presidential election in 1905.^
'Oklahoma and the Indian Territory were admitted into the Union as the State
of Oklahoma in 1907, and Arizona and New Mexico as separate States in 1910. — Ed,

THE PANAMA CANAL

speech on the construction of the isthmian canal at
Panama/ January 14, 1904.
Mr. President : The most interesting and vitally important
question to the American people is the construction of the Isth
mian Canal* There is absolute unanimity of opinion for the work
to be begun, prosecuted and completed at the earliest possible
moment. The opponents of the treaty are really aiding the
enemies of the canal. -t If there ever has been a concert of action
among any great railway corporations to defeat this most benefi
cent work of commerce and civilization, I am not aware of it;
but if such a combination does exist, then its allies and its most
efficient assistants are to be found among those who, under any
device or excuse, are endeavoring to defeat the treaty with the
Republic of Panama.
Piercing the Isthmus of Darien is no new idea. It has ap
pealed to statesmen for hundreds of years, and now, four centu
ries after Columbus sailed along the coast of the Isthmus trying
to find the opening which would let him into the Pacific, the
completion of his dream is near at hand. Charles V. was the
ablest ruler of his century. The power of Spain under him and
his successor included Cuba and Porto Rico, territories on the
Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, and the Isthmus of Darien
and the Philippine Islands. His knowledge of geography was
limited because of the meager discoveries of his period, but he
did see that here was an opportunity for an Eastern and
Western empire by connecting the two oceans, and set about
energetically to accomplish the task.
Before his plans had matured he was succeeded by his son,
that phenomenal bigot and tyrant, Philip II. He declared that it
was sacrilege to undo what God had created, and therefore
wicked to cut through the mountains for a canal. For three
'The Senate had under consideration Senate resolution No. 73, by Mr. Gorman,
calling upon the President for certain information touching former negotiations of the
United States with the Government of New Granada, or Colombia, etc.
144

THE PANAMA CANAL 145
hundred years the wall of superstition built by this monarch pre
vented the union of the oceans. The initiative was with the
United States, whose people are opposed to the opinions of King
Philip, and believe the duty of man is to exploit, develop, utilize,
and improve the waste places of the world, the air, the water
and the earth. As early as the Administration of John Quincy
Adams, our statesmen saw the necessity for this work. It was
encouraged by almost every succeeding Administration. It orig
inated the American idea of Henry Clay and has always been a
bulwark of the Monroe Doctrine.
In the past fifty years our Government has repeatedly asserted
the necessity for the canal, and that it would look with extreme
hostihty upon its being built, or owned, or dominated by a foreign
power. The discovery of gold in California and the rush of
our people to the Pacific Coast in 1849 opened the eyes of all
Americans to the necessity of the United States controlling this
highway between our Eastern and Western States. We made
treaties with Great Britain to- encourage private enterprise to do
this work, and to prevent any European power from undertaking
it. Our necessity was so great that we permitted without pro
test the French Canal Company of De Lesseps to proceed with
their work. After the failure of that company and of private
enterprises on the Nicaragua route, the duty of our Government
became clear.
*' When we succeeded to the inheritance of Charles V., by the
acquisition of Porto Rico, by the establishment of a friendly re
public in Cuba and by the possession of California on our Pacific
Coast, of Hawaii midway and the Philippines at the gates of the
Orient, the responsibility upon us to construct this canal was as
much greater than it was upon that monarch as has been the
growth of commerce and civilization from the fifteenth to the
nineteenth century. For national defense, as well as national
unity, there must be an unbroken line of coast from the northern
most limits of Maine to the northernmost limits of Alaska. For
the employment of our capital and our labor in the ever-increas
ing surplus of our productions, we must reach, with the advan
tages which the canal would give us, the republics of South
America and the countless millions in the old countries across
the Pacific, i'
The Republic of Colombia recognizing this need sent here a
Vol. VII— 10

146 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
diplomatic representative carrying a proposition. With scarcely
any modification on our part this tentative agreement presented
by Colombia was embodied in the Hay-Herran Treaty. In that
instrument was the most generous treatment of all interests to be
acquired. We were to buy the plant and the properties of the
French Company for $40,000,000. We were to give to Colombia
$10,000,000 for a franchise which would be of incalculable bene
fit to that country. While we were permitted to exercise certain
powers within a zone, six miles wide, for the protection of the
canal, yet the sovereignty over that strip was recognized in every
line of the treaty as remaining with Colombia. This concession
was a weakness in the treaty for our interests.
The excuse for this concession was that our power was so
great our interests could never be imperiled. ?:viThere is no en
lightened government in the world whose financial condition is
not strong enough to construct through its territories a public im
provement of such vast moment to its people, which would
not grant freely the right to build to- any company or government
which would spend their millions to confer upon its citizens com
merce, trade, industries, and development. ; '^ This Colombian
treaty, agreed to by the President, approved by the Secretary of
State, and ratified by the Senate of the United States, was carried
back to Bogota by the Colombian minister. Then began upon
the stage of that capital a drama of unequaled interest, whether
we look upon it as tragedy, comedy or opera bouffe. Marroquin.
the Vice-president, had three years before, by a revolution, im
prisoned the President, suspended the constitution, established
martial law and begun ruling as dictator.
After many revolts against his authority, in a final revolution
he defeated the liberals in a great battle, and they fled from the
field, leaving upon it 7,000 of their dead. Marroquin was now
absolute master of the constitution, the laws, the lives, and the
property of the people of Colombia. He evidently proposed this
treaty to secure $10,000,000 from the United States Government.
He wanted money, and ten millions in gold, reckoned by the
value of Colombian currency, would be about fifty millions in that
Republic. But the speed and alacrity with which his offer was
accepted opened his mind to visions of boundless wealth. He
certainly developed, in his effort to compass these riches, Machia
vellian statesmanship of a high order.

THE PANAMA CANAL 147
He declared the constitution operative, ordered an election
and summoned a Congress. He had the army and absolute
power; he controlled the machinery of elections, and brought to
the capital his own representatives. He was in a position at any
moment to again suspend the constitution, prorogue Congress or
send them to jail. But he said, "This is my treaty, which I sent
up to Washington when I was the government, which the United
States has agreed to, and there must be some excuse which will
appeal to the powers at Washington for more money. I must
create an opposition to my government." So he granted for
the first time in three years a restricted liberty to the press, he
liberated the editors and permitted the confiscated newspapers to
resume. The "cue" given to them was to assail the treaty and
the United States. This was to create the impression that
there was a violent opposition, in a country where only five per
cent, of the people can read, against the Hay-Herran settlement.
Next he created an opposition to the Government in Congress.
The orators to whom this role was assigned, with all the tropi
cal luxuriance of Latin eloquence, denounced this infamous agree
ment, this frightful surrender of the rights and interests of
Colombia. Marroquin, as Vice-president, presiding over the
Senate, listened with pleasure to these fusilades upon his own
statesmanship prearranged by himself. Every citizen of Colom
bia who had any intelligence, and every member of either House
of that Congress knew that Marroquin had but to lift his finger
and the vote for the treaty would be unanimous. This drama,
accurately reported by our Minister Beaupre to the Secretary of
State, closed with Vice-president Marroquin saying to us sub
stantially: "You see the trouble I have in this uncontrollable
opposition. Of course I want to carry out my treaty, but unless
concessions are made, not to me, but to the pride and sentiments
of my country, I am helpless. But if the United States will
gi\e $10,000,000 more, I think I can satisfy this opposition; at
least I will risk my popularity, reputation and power in the
effort." The answer of the United States was an unmistakable and
emphatic no. That answer has the unanimous approval of the
public sentiment of our country. The Vice-president then said
to the French company, "If you will pay that $10,000,000 extra
out of your $40,000,000, we will ratify the treaty." The French

148 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
company rejected the proposition. Then both the mirrister of
Great Britain and the minister of Germany were approached to
see whether a "dicker" could not be arranged and a sort of
auction set up, with Great Britain, Germany and the United
States as the bidders. sgJi The folly of this proposition was in its
violation of the Monroe Doctrine by a Republic which had been
many times its beneficiary, a Republic which now has quarrels
upon its hands with Great Britain and France because of out
rages committed upon the citizens of those countries, which would
lead to summary and drastic measures of reprisals except for the
Monroe Doctrine. ¦
No better illustration of the understanding by the European
governments of the sanctity of this article of American interna
tional law has been shown of late than this action of the repre
sentatives of these powers. No stronger proofs have been given
of the interest of every great commercial nation in the construc
tion o-f this canal in the interest of commerce and civilization
and its construction and control by the United States.'^ These
patriotic efforts of the Vice-prfesident and dictator to secure more
money by many methods of holdup were discouraging, but he did
not despair. He had received an emphatic negative from the
United States, had been refused by the French Panama Canal
Company, and turned down by Great Britain and Germany. But
he had been trained in many revolutions where money had to be
raised by other processes than the orderly ones of assessments
and taxation upon all the people and properties of the country
upon an equal basis. His resourceful genius was equal to the
occasion. He had called together his Congress, to carry out his pro
gramme of exploiting this asset of Colombia for many times
more than the price at which he had agreed to sell it. Then oc
curred to him an idea of high finance which ought to make the
most imaginative and audacious of our promoters blush at their
incapacity. The Panama Canal Company had received from him
while dictator upon the payment of a million dollars and 5,000,-
000 francs at par of stock of the new company, a concession
which ran until 19 10. The old concession expired in October,
1904, and for this the French company had paid Colombia
12,000,000 francs. With every concession, where vast amounts
of money have been expended in good faith and large sums

THE PANAMA CANAL 149
paid for the franchise, there are always equities to the defaulting
party, but the new scheme dismissed the equities, the extension
of the charter and the million dollars consideration paid, which
had been spent.
The Congress, to the tearful regret and over the wishes of
the dictator and Vice-president, rejected the treaty by an almost
unanimous vote and then adjourned. But Congressmen talk
after adjournment. It is their habit in all countries, and the
Senators and Representatives who participated in this picturesque
drama of national aggrandizement said that the object of the
adjournment was to wait until the old concession of the Panama
Canal Company had expired, in October, then to recall Congress
in extraordinary session in November, declare the concession
canceled and seize upon the property of the French Canal Com
pany. Then, they said, we will offer to the United States the
properties of the French Canal Company for the $40,000,000
which are to be paid that corporation and the ten million which
are coming to us. "Of course," they argued, "the United States
will be quite willing to enter upon an agreement of this kind,
because the sum which they pay will be the same in amount as
they have agreed upon under the terms of the Hay-Herran
Treaty and the contract with the French Canal Company."
There are two considerations in thi^ choice bit of financiering
which seemed never to have occurred to the statesman who
guides the destinies of Colombia and the orators whom he placed
in various roles to play their instructed parts. The first was an
utter indifference or ignorance of the fact that the United States
had a national conscience. We are a commercial nation. Our
people are trained to all the refinements of business obligations
and all the reciprocal relations of contracts. Much as we want
the canal, we never could have taken it by becoming a partner in
this highway robbery of the property of the citizens of France.
The Panama Canal scheme has been unpopular in France for
many years, and French statesmen and politicians have been
afraid to have any connections with it.
It is because of the millions of dollars lost by the French
people in the investment and the scandals caused by the corrupt
use, by the officers of the company, of much of the money sub
scribed. But here would be a case which no government could
neglect. The French Canal Company, representing its several

150 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
hundred thousands of French citizens, could say to the French
Government, "Here are equities of great value, and here is a prop
erty for which we have paid our money that has been arbitrarily
confiscated." Then we would have had upon our hands difficul
ties, compared with which the present ones are infinitesimal. We
could not deny the justice of the demand of the French Govern
ment to land its army upon the Isthmus and enforce its claims.
Here again the shrewd and able leader of Colombia — for he is
both shrewd and able — counted first upon the cupidity of the
United States to become a party to this robbery of the French,
and then to the assertion of the Monroe Doctrine to prevent
France from demanding and maintaining the rights of her citi
zens. Colombia, after faihng to confiscate the French property in
the canal, now appeals as a stockholder in the French Canal Com
pany, to prohibit the transfer of the canal property to the United
States without the consent of Colombia. France has recognized
the Republic of Panama. In so doing she is committed to the
transfer to the new sovereignty of all public property within its
jurisdiction. The Colombian Government has no better claim to
the Panama Canal, or jurisdiction over it, than Great Britain has
over Bunker Hill. The same rule and construction will apply in
case Colombia should, as has been suggested here, commence an
action in New York against the Panama Railroad Company, a
New York corporation, to compel a continuance of the subsidy of
$250,000 a year to Colombia, instead of to Panama.
Up to this time, it will be said, no matter what was the con
duct, no matter what the double dealing, no matter what the
breaches of faith, no matter what the character of the hold up by
the responsible Government of Colombia, that Government could
act as it pleased upon granting rights, franchises, and properties
within its own jurisdiction. This leads us at once to the new
phase of the problem presented by the organization of the Repub
lic of Panama. Panama was one of the first settlements made in
the Western Hemisphere. After the city of Panama had been
raided, robbed, and burned by Morgan and his pirates it was
moved about seven miles, to the present site. It was the depot for
hundreds of years for the commerce going between the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans. The province was one of the last to throw
off the yoke of Spain.

THE PANAMA CANAL 151
When General Bolivar succeeded in the revolution which he
organized, he formed a loose-jointed republic out of the States of
Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. There was little in
common, territorially, commercially, or industrially between
these States. After a few years Venezuela seceded and formed a
separate government. Three years afterwards Ecuador did the
same. Panama remained to all intents and purposes an inde
pendent Republic. In the new arrangement which was made
Panama joined Colombia under a constitution which distinctly
recognized the right of secession for any cause, and bound
the several parts only to federal contributions according to their
judgment. It was almost a counterpart of the Articles of Fed
eration in our own country which were succeeded by the Federal
Constitution. This relation continued practically from 1861 to
1886. Then a dictator arose by the name of Nunez and got control
of the army and navy and all the resources of the country. He
suspended the constitution, the Congress, and the laws, and gov
erned the country according to his own desix)tic will for a num
ber of years. He subjugated the several States, overturned their
sovereignty and forced them to become mere departments of the
centralized power of Bogota. He adopted a system, under a so-
called constitution, by which they were ruled as Spain governed
Cuba — ^by governors, who were really captain-generals, with ab
solute power.
His enemies in the several States, and the patriots who re
sisted this suppression of liberty, were punished by imprisonment,
exile or execution. From the time of this arbitrary destruction of
the rights and liberties of the independent State of Panama that
Republic has been in a continued condition of unrest and revolt.
The duties collected at its ports of Panama and Colon were trans
mitted to Bogota. The taxes levied all went to Bogota. Of the
subsidy of $250,000 a year paid by the Panama Railroad Com
pany, $225,000 went to Bogota and $25,000 to the governor of
Panama, appointed by the President of Colombia, to distribute
in his judgment in the Department of Panama. Though Panama
had only one-fifteenth of the population of the Republic, she con
tributed a large part of its revenues, but under this arbitrary con
stitution to which Panama never assented and never accepted, a
constitution imposed by force and maintained by an army and an

152 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
alien governor, she received during all these years practically no
moneys for highways, for development, for education or for any
of the needs of a live and growing State.
It is an interesting and picturesque view of the situation that
the obligation of the United States to keep free transit across the
Isthmus has worked both ways with Colombia. There have
been many revolts in Panama in the effort on the part of tyran
nized, plundered and patriotic citizens to regain their liberties and
rights. Every one of them has been sternly and ruthlessly sup
pressed by the central Government at Bogota. The success of the
Bogotan Government was due in nearly every instance to the fact
that the United States would not permit interruption of transit
across the Isthmus. When the revolutionists would have seized
the railroad which connected the oceans, the United States was
the ally of the Bogotan Government to keep that open.
The result was that it was easy for the Government forces
every time to put down a rebellion because the recruits of the
State could not be gathered into a successful army. But lo ! the
working of this provision the other way. Citizens of Panama in
Novemljer of this year, without a dissenting voice, reasserted the
sovereignty of the State, which they had never surrendered, and
proclaimed a Republic. The Colombian army joined the revolu
tion. With the military forces of the Bogotan Government en
listing under the flag of the new Republic, the authority of Pan
ama was complete throughout all its borders. When, therefore,
some time after the Republic had been established and was in •
working order, and had at Panama its army, a Colombian army
landed at Colon for the purpose of invasion and battle, the United
States took toward it the same position that it had toward the
revolutionists in the many efforts made by them for the freedom
of Panama.
;'" Our Government simply said to these soldiers, "You can not
take possession of this railroad and interrupt traffic across the
Isthmus. You can not engage in a battle or a series of battles
which would stop communication for an indefinite period."' : At
this point occurs an episode of which I find no parallel in ancient
or modern history. The generals of the invading army said to
the authorities of the new Republic, "We are here to suppress
you, arrest you, carry you prisoners to Bogota and overthrow the
Republic, but what will you give us to quit ?" The sum of $8,000

THE PANAMA CANAL 153
was paid to the general, $5,000 for the officers and $3,000 for the
men, and the invading army sailed away with the proud conscious
ness of having become the possessors of a part of the assets of
the new Republic.
The story of the rule of Panama by these arbitrary satraps,
sent down from Bogota, reads like the history of the rule of a
Roman proconsul or the story of the methods of a Turkish gov
ernor. Arbitrary arrests and imprisonments without trial were
common. Arbitrary assessments of shopkeepers and people of
property were of everyday occurrence. These victims have been
afraid heretofore to speak, but now the newspapers are filled with
their stories. The price of life and liberty, after forcible seizure
of person and property, was dependent upon the amount that the
citizen disgorged. Under this tyrannical rule he was helpless
before the courts or upon appeal to the central Government. Pan
ama had as much right to revolt as did Greece from Turkey in
the early part of the nineteenth century or Bulgaria in the lat
ter part, and even more, for she had never consented to surrender
her sovereignty to Colombia.
The people of Colombia outside of Panama number about
4,000,000, of which 2,000,000 are of Spanish descent and 2,000,-
000 a mixture of Caucasian, Indian and negro. There are few
or no railroads or other highways in the country, there is no sys
tem of general education, and dense ignorance prevails. A very
small proportion of the people — a few thousand — are educated in
the United States or in Europe, and form the governing class.
Colombia is separated from Panama by hundreds of miles of
mountains and impenetrable forests and swamps, inhabited by
hostile Indians. Panama, on the other hand, has every facility,
under good government, for a prosperous State. It is about as
large as Maine. It has the same agricultural possibilities as the
other Central American republics. It is rich in minerals and tim
ber. Great cities, thriving populations and varied industries
have always grown along the lines of commercial highways.
^' While the Panama Canal is being constructed and $150,000,-
060 spent within the Republic, there will be a wonderful industrial
development. When the canal is opened and the commerce of
the world is passing to and fro, the population of Panama will
speedily rise above the million point. Merchandise of every kind
for the supply of the ships sailing through it will bring capital

154 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
and business talent to the cities on either side and through the
interior. Sanitation, which has done so much for Cuba, will
make the Isthmus as healthy as any part of the United States.
With American ideas and American sovereignty over the large
strip between the two seas, and American influence and example,
schoolhouses will dot the land and the people become educated to
an appreciation of their liberties and the proper exercise of them
and of their marvelously favorable commercial, fiscal and indus
trial position. - '
But, it is said, the position of the United States in recognizing
the Republic of Panama is a reversal of our national position on
the subject of secession. I can not conceive of the argument by
which comparison is made between the States of the American
Commonwealth and Panama and Colombia. One hundred and
seventeen years ago our forefathers saw that a nation could not
be held together by such a rope of sand as the Articles of Federa
tion. They met in convention, not under the rule of a dictator,
not under the guidance of an autocrat, but as the accredited rep
resentatives of the people of the various States. When their
labors were completed the country read, and the world was aston
ished by, the marvelous instrument which they had prepared.
The opening sentence of this great charter tells the story of
the perpetuity of our national life : "We, the people of the United
States, in order to form a more perfect union, estabhsh justice,
insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, pro
mote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitu
tion for the United States of America." For eighty years the
national sovereignty was questioned only in debate. To preserve
the institution of slavery, which was alien to our Declaration of
Independence and a stain upon the spirit of our institutions, the
Civil War was inaugurated. To-day in every part of the country
public sentiment is unanimous of its approval of the verdict which
came from the arbitrament of arms. Our Union is sustained by
a continued series of decisions of our highest court, by the judg
ment of our Presidents and Congresses and by the results of war,
and, unimpaired by the passions of the conflict, will continue on
forever. It is sacrilege to compare this majestic and impregnable
fabric of government with the position of Panama in the Repub
lic of Colombia.

THE PANAMA CANAL 155
In 1886 Mr. V. O. King, United States minister to Colombia,
in a dispatch to Mr. Bayard, Secretary of State, tells precisely
how the Colombian constitution was formed. He says :
At the close of the late revolution President Nunez, whose term of
office had then nearly expired and whose reelection was forbidden by
the constitution then in force, issued a proclamation annulling that in
strument and declaring an interregnum in the Government. He ap
pointed provisional governors in all of the nine states, and directed
them to nominate two delegates each, who, together, should constitute
a national council to convene at the capital.
And this is the convention which is compared with that which
formed our Constitution !
On assembling in November, 1885, the first acts of this body were
to ratify the conduct of Doctor Nunez and to confirm his appointments.
It then elected him as chief magistrate of the nation for the term of
six years, and proceeded to formulate a projet of fundamental principles
for a new constitution to be submitted to the corporate vote of the mu
nicipal boards of aldermen throughout the country. Upon canvassing
the returns of, the council —
This council of his own —
declared a majority of such votes to be in favor of the new constitution,
and thereupon proceeded to elaborate the instrument that is herewith
submitted, which, from the number, fullness, and precision of the pre
cepts enunciated, has left but little of the machinery to be devised by the
executive or legislative power.
It will thus be seen that President Nunez, who was both a
usurper and dictator, arbitrarily annulled the constitution under
which Panama consented to become a part of the Republic of
Colombia, retaining, however, her entire sovereignty and right of
secession. , The tremendous difference between the formation of
our Constitution and that of Colombia in 1886 is in the fact that
this so-called convention, which framed the constitution destruc
tive of the State, was composed of the instruments of the dictator,
appointed by himself, and that neither in the election of delegates
to the convention nor the ratifying of the treaty did the people of
Panama or their representatives have any voice whatever.^'
; Panama, an independent State, robbed by armies of her liber
ties, tyrannically and arbitrarily governed without her consent.

156 SPEECHES IN UNITEP STATES SENATE
suffering under intolerable tyranny and threatened with the con
fiscation of a public improvement upon which depended her exist
ence, simply retakes, and demonstrates her ability to hold, the
sovereignty of which she had been despoiled. But, say the critics
of the President, the officers of the United States inaugurated
this rebellion and ships were dispatched to aid the revolt before
it was ever intended. No one doubts that it was the duty of the
President to keep the highway open across the Isthmus. No one
doubts that if the rights of American citizens were in peril because
of revolution or anarchy the United States must have a force on
the spot sufficient for their protection.'* The dispatches of Min
ister Beaupre are illuminating on this subject.
The forces of the United States arrived at the Isthmus on
November 3. The revolution broke out on November 4. The
building of the canal was vital to Panama. Except for the money
to be distributed at Bogota for the concession, its construction
was of little account to the Republic over the mountains. The
delegates from Panama to the Congress were apparently the only
independent members of that body. When they arrived on July
5 they immediately notified Vice-President Marroquin that if the
treaty was rejected Panama would revolt. This notification was
so public that the minister of the United States was enabled to
write it to our Government.
On August 17 the treaty was rejected and the representatives
from Panama expressed their purpose so emphatically that our
minister was able to inform the Secretary of State that they had
determined to break loose from the Bogota Government and form
an independent republic. Two things are evident: One, Marro
quin believed his forces upon the Isthmus were sufficient to pre
vent the revolt from succeeding. He evidently thought it would
be the old process by which the patriots would organize at differ
ent places and could not come together without having a conflict
along the line of the railroad with the forces of the central Gov
ernment, that such a conflict would interrupt travel and commu
nication and that the United States would, as before, prevent the
revolutionary army from concentrating or making any headway.
It never occurred to him that his own army would go over to the
revolutionists, and then he would be outside the breastworks.
It is perfectly plain that these delegates, on returning in Au
gust to Panama, were joined by all the leading citizens, and that

THE PANAMA CANAL 157
they had plenty of time between the middle of August and No
vember 4 to perfect their plans for a successful revolution. So
the President knew perfectly well by advice from our minister at
Bogota, from our naval officers at Panama and Colon and from
newspaper reports which were the common property of everyone,
that such an uprising would occur as to require of the United
States the presence of a force sufficient to protect our citizens and
to carry out our treaty obligations.
The farcical character of the action of the Colombian Con
gress and its complete control by Marroquin, together with the
fact that Colombia could not subdue the revolution in Panama
without the aid of the United States, are demonstrated by tlie
following dispatch, sent November 6, two days after the revolu
tion in Panama, by our Minister Beaupre :
Knowing that the revolution has already commenced in Panama, 
 says that if the Government of the United States will land troops
to preserve Colombian sovereignty and the transit, if requested by the
Colombian charge d'affaires, this Government will declare martial law,
and by virtue of vested constitutional authority, when public order is
disturbed, will approve by decree the ratification of the canal treaty as
signed; or, if the Government of the United States prefers, will call ex
tra session of Congress and new and friendly members next May to ap
prove the treaty.
Because it was a telegram the name was indicated by a blank.
The blank undoubtedly meant Marroquin, for no one else could
have made such pledges.
Mr. President, that is an exhibition of arbitrary power, of the
confidence of the dictator of his ability to do whatever he pleases,
of which I think there is no parallel anywhere. He says, in ef
fect, to the United States : "A revolution has broken out in Pana
ma, my army has gone over to the Republic and I am helpless.
Now, if you will put down that revolution at my request I will
abandon the claim of $10,000,000 more than agreed to which our
Congress made. I will dismiss all pretense that this Congress
had any power or was other than myself. I will do everything
you want. I will suspend the constitution. Then I can do any
thing and will ratify this treaty — the Hay-Herran treaty — or do
any other old thing you may desire ; or, if you have constitutional
lawyers in the Senate who doubt my ability or power to act under

158 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
a suspension of the constitution, I will put the constitution again
in force and summon the members of Congress here. Each one
of them will do what I tell him, and Congress will ratify the
treaty in any form that you suggest."
Yet our friend the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Newlands]
has just eloquently and at great length proved — to his own satis
faction — that war exists between the United States and Colombia ;
that war exists by the act of the United States landing 42 marines
on the Isthmus, when Marroquin had 1,500 soldiers who deserted
his standard and 400 others who left for home when their general
got $8,000 ; that war exists between the United States and Colom
bia when, during all the time from the first telegram of President
Roosevelt until now, the Colombian minister has been here, hav
ing daily communication with the Secretary of State. When
every diplomatic condition which means peace, and continuing
peace, exists between the United States and Colombia, the Sen
ator from Nevada says we have war. There must be lurid im
aginings among Senators who, instead of living within the limits
of the city, where they are in contact with hard facts, reside and
muse in the rural outskirts of the capital.
Our diplomatic history bristles with recognitions of de facto
governments formed by revolutions. Where the sympathies of
our people were with the revolt. Presidents have paid little atten
tion to the possibilities of success or the offensive or defensive
means of the revolting provinces or states. The principle of
international law that recognition is wholly in the discretion of
the power which makes it and is not a cause for war is too ele
mentary to discuss. Our position with Cuba went far beyond
this. We warned the Spanish Government to get out of Cuba
when there was no war between us simply because of intolerable
internal conditions on that island. We finally drove the Spanish
army out of Cuba and then governed it for two years. We re
fused to let Cuba recognize the Cuban debt, the bonds of which
had been sold in Europe based for security upon Cuban revenues.
Our obligation for forty-eight years to Colombia, to Panama,
to our citizens and the world has been to keep communication and
transit open and unmolested between the oceans. It is a terri
torial burden and runs with the land. It binds the United States
to keep off the premises all hostile trespassers, whether they are

THE PANAMA CANAL 159
the armies of the great powers of Europe, of Colombia, or of the
contiguous people of Panama.
Marroquin, amidst the ruins of his scheme by the successful
revolt of Panama, is not discouraged. He rises gaily and hope
fully to new efforts. He proposes, notwithstanding his machine
Congress has adjourned, to give us now the canal on our own
terms if we will suppress the Panama Republic. When that is
rejected, he has another resource. It appears in a dispatch in the
Washington Post of January lo, dated January 8, from Bogota,
from Clifford Smythe, former consul at Cartagena, Colombia.
Mr. Smythe says he is authorized by President Marroquin to
quote him as follows :
The people of Colombia —
That is delightful from Marroquin — "the people of Colom
bia"— still hope that actual conflict may be averted through Democratic in
tervention in the Senate. Personally, I count on the assistance of the
Democratic Party and the great American people to save the sacred
rights of Colombia, which have been so scandalously wounded.
The trouble with President Marroquin is, in the first place, he
does not understand that the Democratic Party is not in a ma
jority in the two Houses of Congress and that it has not the
Presidency; he does not understand that it is not likely in the
near future to have either ; he does not understand that the rela
tions between the Democratic Party and the people are such that
if he did understand he would not couple them in the way he has
in this authorized dispatch.
Then he does not understand another thing, Mr. President — I
say this not to do injustice to the Democratic Party — that the
Democratic State of Louisiana has unanimously, by its Legisla
ture, directed its Senators to vote in favor of the ratification of
this treaty ; that the Democratic State of Mississippi has, through
its Legislature, directed its Senators to vote to ratify this treaty;
and that in all probability if the other Southern States, who will
be more benefited a hundred times over than all the rest of the
United States by the construction of this canal, should meet in
their Legislatures, they would not stand in the position of saying.

160 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
"We keep the goods while we denounce the method by which
they were secured."
The Republic of Panama had absolute authority over its terri
tory without any pretense of opposition from outside or inside of
the Republic at the time of its recognition by our President, and
has still. Our Government recognized the Republic of Panama
on November 13. Certainly there had been no change in the
conditions there when three days afterwards France did the same,
nor when eleven days afterwards Austria-Hungary also extended
its recognition ; nor, still more significant, when, fourteen days
afterwards, GeiTnany — most particular and scrupulous about
anything occurring on this hemisphere — extended her diplomatic
recognition. In less than fifty days sixteen of the powers of the
world had established relations with the young Republic. If these
old countries — Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, China,
Japan, Sweden and Norway, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and
Denmark — find the conditions such upon the Isthmus that they
can take a step which in the chancelleries of the Old World means
so much, surely our younger and more progressive diplomacy
has ample excuse for preceding them by a few days.
Now, sir, we had no other hand nor part in this revolution
than the example of the American colonies and the successful ap
plication of the principles of liberty in the United States, which
have created republics and undermined thrones all over the world.
The advantages of the treaty with Panama over that with Co
lombia to the United States are incalculable. Instead of six miles
for the canal zone, there are ten on each side of the waterway.
Instead of a limited sovereignty, which would necessarily lead
to endless complications, this territory is ceded outright and in
perpetuity to the United States. At the termini of the canal it
is vital that there should be unquestioned jurisdiction of the
United States. In this territory the Government has complete
authority for three marine leagues from Panama into th'e Pacific
Ocean and three leagues from Colon into the Caribbean Sea. The
Republic of Panama surrenders the right to impose port dues or
duties of any kind upon ships and goods in transit across the Isth
mus. The sole power to impose tolls and collect them rests with
the United States.^
Every nation and the people of all countries are interested in
this great work. There is a unanimity unequaled in history that

THE PANAMA CANAL 161
it should be constructed, operated and owned by the United
States. We are distant by 3,000 miles of ocean from Europe.
We are not in conflict and can not be embroiled in the jealousies
or conflicts of the great powers. They trust our honor to keep
this waterway inviolate as the highway of the nations. They see
that the problem which Columbus sought to solve will so find its
solution under the auspices of the United States and it will not
be, as it would under the auspices of Charles V., a Spanish canal,
nor will it be, as under De Lesseps, a French canal, but for all
the purposes of commerce and of intercourse between the East
and the West it will be an open sea, subject only to such restric
tions as are admitted by all the world necessary for the protec
tion of the waterway or for the protection or defense of the
United States.
.**¦' In the providence of the creation and decay of nations no
State ever became independent so completely, so righteously, or
so timely as Panama. The hour struck for her when the world
was watching the clock. ^i-No President ever did a more timely or
patriotic act than did President Roosevelt in his recognition and
defense of the Republic of Panama.

Vol, VII— 11

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL

SPEECH ON THE NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL, MARCH 5, I904.
Mr. President : I have listened with great pleasure, as I
always do, to the speech of my friend the Senator from Georgia
[Mr. Clay]. He seeks to separate the distinguished Secretary of
War from my own State, who recently retired from office, from
the Republican Party on the question of the retention of the
Philippine Islands. My own impression is that if Mr. Root shall,
as he doubtless will during the coming campaign, give a full ex
position of his views from the platform, and not in the way in
which an interview often misstates a man's opinions, it will be
found that he does not differ from the line in which the Republi
can Party has acted and, I think, will continue to act. To use
a common phrase, the American people are not "quitters." They
never yet have given up anything which they deemed it advisable
to obtain. •'
I am not at this time going into a discussion of the reasons
why we will find stronger arguments every year for establishing
closer relations with the Philippines, but I will say that I believe
no one now living will see those relations weakened. I believe
that the extraordinary progress which has been made by those
people, as testified to by Governor Taft, in education, in civihza-
tion, and in the industries, will continue with accelerated speed
as the schools become more numerous, the education more gener
al, and the communication between the United States and the
Philippine Islands more constant and rapid. I do not think we
yet fully understand two things. First, how much the Philippine
Islands are to be advantageous to us in their own development;
what they are to grow to when they have absorbed the spirit and
are putting in practice the principles of American hberty, Ameri
can law, and American enterprise.* And the other, that we can not
yet comprehend until the war clouds in the Far East are over and
years have passed by„the increasing importance to the United
States, on its commercial and industrial side, of the possession of
162

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 163
those territories, with their harbors and their depots so near to
that market for which all the world is contending.
The Senator from Georgia was very vigorous and forceful in
demanding that there should be universal investigations of the
operations of the Government. He was alarmed for fear that in
all the Departments there is either extravagance or corruption,
which he said should be disclosed and corrected by an investigat
ing committee on the part of Congress. He took the ground that
now there is no supervision, no care, or attention of the operation
of the great Departments of the Government. But, sir, every
penny which is expended by these Departments has come here
and gone to the other Hause before appropriated. The Appro
priation, Finance, Ways and Means, the Naval, Post-Office, and
Mihtary committees are all of them investigating committees in
perpetual session. Upon every one of them is a minority mem
bership, selected by the minority, of members on their side, who
are most competent to serve their party as well as their country
upon these great committees.
They have the opportunity for months, as the programme
comes in from the Post-Office, Navy, War, and other Depart
ments, to look at each one of the proposals for the future and to
examine what has been done in the past, and if the committee
dared — which it would not — refuse an inquiry as to any item or
as to any officer asked for by a minority member, a Senator or
Member can go before the House or Senate explaining that he has
been denied the privilege as a member of a great committee of re
ceiving information or making an investigation which he wants,
and neither House would for a moment stand before the country
as obstructing any such inquiry.
But, sir, there has been an inquiry — an inquiry not made by an
investigating committee or on the initiative of the Democratic
members of any committee, but an inquiry made by the President
of the United States, when the disclosures might bring disasters
to his party, upon the principle which he has always maintained,
of finding rascality if there is any, and punishing the rascal when
he is caught.
There have been several speeches made in both Houses assail
ing the good faith and the earnest intentions of the President in
this regard, but he has moved forward on his motto that no guilty
man should escape, regardless of criticisms or complaint.

164 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
He set the whole machinery o<f justice at work, and the result
is seen in the indictment of men in high position in the Govern
ment and out of it, and a few days ago in the illuminating expo
sition in this District of the conviction of men who had for years,
under all administrations, had the confidence of the Department
and, as far as they were known, of the country.
But, sir, I intend to make a few remarks upon the broader
subject which was so ably discussed this afternoon by my friend
the distinguished Senator from Georgia [Mr. Clay]. The pres
ent naval bill provoked much more debate in the House of Repre
sentatives than it has done here. The general charge against it
has been very much on the line so vigorously portrayed by the
Senator from Georgia, against the size of this appropriation and
the dangers of its increase in the future.
Mr. Clay. Mr. President, I spoke entirely in regard to what
should be the size of our. appropriations in the future. I said I
did not believe we should continue at the rapid rate we have been
going during the last six or seven years, and I did not speak
against the passage of this bill.
Mr. Depew. I accept the correction. I misunderstood the
Senator. But certainly in the other House the objection was of
that character.
Now, I find no fault with rigid economists in public life. I be
lieve in the "watchdog of the Treasury." It is a most disagree
able and unpopular position, but it is one which ought to be held
by somebody in every deliberative body. No matter how rich we
may be, and our wealth is constantly exploited, it is no reason
for extravagance or foolish or unwise expenditures.
But, sir, we have been liberal in every direction, and especially
in those directions about which complaint is made, that in order to
take care of the Navy we are neglecting internal improvements
and the construction of public buildings. We have been engaged
for years in the most liberal expenditures for rivers, harbors, and
bays. We have made those expenditures, though they are en
tirely local, out of the Treasury of the whole people, and out of
taxation of the whole people, because we believed that it is the
duty of the Government to promote navigation and safe carriage
of our goods everywhere in the country.
We have gone a step further and made large appropriations
for irrigation in territories which are sparsely inhabited, which

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 165
will never have large populations, which 99 per cent of our people
will never see, because we believed that what was for the benefit
of one part of the country was the benefit of all, and that if we
could bring vast regions of desert into productive agriculture we
would be accomplishing a good result in the increase of the wealth,
the opportunities for homes and employment, and the good living
of our citizens.
We have made like appropriations with great liberality for
the construction of public buildings all over the country, until the
criticism has been made that many of them are beyond what the
needs of the localities are or ever can be.
Every great power has found it necessary to provide protec
tion for its commerce, its foreign trade, its ports, and its people
doing business or traveling in other countries. We have become a
great power. It is not an idle expression ; it is a fact. We to-day
line up alongside of the five great powers of the world. We have
assumed responsibilities by this expansion from which we can not
escape, and ought not to if we could.
Therefore it is incumbent upon us to act on the lines of the
nations which are our rivals and competitors and whom we hope
to keep our friends. We are free from invasion. Nobody sup
poses for a moment that it would be possible for any nation to
send here an army that could secure a foothold upon our land.
Our forts in our harbors and our submarines are protection for
our coasts, and the Volunteer Army, which is always ready on
call, would annihilate any army which any fleet, if by possibility
it reached our coast, could land upon our shores.
^.But, sir, we are and have become within a few years, in being
a world power, subject to perils and conditions which never ex
isted before. We have obligations to the island of Cuba, where
we have said to the world we will protect her against assault or
invasion, against any attack upon her independence or the integ
rity of her territory or her institutions. We have Porto Rico,
which can be defended only from the sea, as Cuba can be defended
only from the sea. We have Tutuila, Guam, Hawaii, and the
Philippines, far from the United States, all of which must be pro
tected from the sea. '
But we have assumed another obligation which is much great
er, and that is the isthmian canal. " We have the longest line of sea-
coast of any power in the world except one — 7,000 miles, and in

166 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
addition to that Alaska. Alaska is growing in wealth and in
population to an extent which is enlisting attention everywhere,
and has to be defended from the sea. "-'
But, sir, the isthmian canal has opened a new era for America
and the world. Already the treaty has been signed, the negotia
tions have ended, the Commission has been appointed. We are to
establish soon a government upon the tract ceded to us and as
sume the responsibility for order and law. The spade is on its
way. The steam drill and the dredge will be heard within a few
months. One of the most inspiring lines of hterature is Emer
son's, "Here once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot
heard round the world," and the sound of the dredge and the drill
on the Isthmus will be heard around the world, because it is to
alter the paths of commerce and to chang-e the relations of nations.
The future of the Monroe Doctrine is in the custody of our
Navy. Its peaceful recognition will be the tribute which other
nations pay not to the doctrine, but to our sea power. "^
: We do not appreciate until we study the subject that the acute
commercial jealousies and alarms which now exist in Europe
against us will be accentuated by the construction and completion
of this canal. Not alone our States on the Pacific, but the whole
line of ports on the Atlantic coast will come into this competition,
for the ports on the Atlantic coast will be as near in miles to
Japan, China, and the Orient by the isthmian canal as are the re
servoirs that gather for distribution abroad the products of con
tinental Europe or London through the Suez Canal.
We all remember that during the Spanish- American War the
prime minister of Austria did his best to bring about a holy alli
ance against us among European powers because of what he
termed an industrial invasion which threatened the living of the
people of the Old World. He failed in forming that combination
because of international jealousies, but with the opening of the
isthmian canal those jealousies are to increase, for the highly or
ganized industrial nations of Europe are now making so much
more than they can consume that they must have either a con
gestion of population and production, with its result of despera
tion, poverty, and anarchy, or they must find markets. There is
only one market which is free, and that is among the dependent
peoples of Asia and Africa.
Now, when through the isthmian canal all products of the in-

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILl, 167
dustrial energies of this country ran reach that market just as
quickly and cheaply as can the manufactures of the Old World,
then, sir, will come a competition which will be most acute be
cause of the skill of our artisans and business talent of our people.
There will be no difference between it and competition between
individuals. We all know what competition means between men,
firms, or corporations, and in the progress of civilization all great
nations have become business concerns, each looking in a mate
rialistic and business way for the production of manufacturing
and agricultural products which shall give employment to and
support its people and a market for the surplus of those products.
Now, sir, we can not protect that commerce by an army or
treaties alone. We can not protect our commerce and expand
our trade by arbitration at The Hague alone. We can only main
tain our commerce by having a sea power adequate for its protec
tion, for the security of our islands, and to prevent a hostile fleet
from destroying in a week the isthmian canal after it has cost us
two to four hundred million dollars and ten years to build— ^a sea
power, sir, which will not be aggressive, but will stand for and
keep peace. Our peculiar position gives us a stronger place on
the ocean than any other country, because we are less vulnerable
upon the land. If we have a sea power so that our floating for
tresses will be second or third in rank, no power, no matter what
its industrial or diplomatic jealousies or its aggressive tenden
cies, no matter what its feelings beneath its professions, will ever
incur the peril of a contest when there is so much to lose and so
little to gain.
Mr. President, every year, by the natural increase in popula
tion and the tremendous immigration which is pouring in upon us,
we are stimulating our industries and our productiveness beyond
that of any other nation in the world, and that stimulation in
creases a surplus for export which will grow larger as the years
go by. ;,!¦ Unless we can carry out the broad policy of expansion
of markets, which has been so successfully pursued up to the
present hour, there is danger to our business, employment, wages,
and peace, f
Mr. Patterson of Colorado. I should like the Senator to be
a little more exact in his suggestion as to danger unless we carry
out our present plans or proceed along the broad line of expan
sion which we have inaugurated. Does the Senator from New

168 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
York mean that we are to continue the securing of additional
outlying territory, seeking conquests or purchases in different
countries ?
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, I do not mean that we shall se
cure more outlying territory. I do not think the occasion will
ever arise, so far as at present the situation is visible, where we
will need or accept other lands. But I do mean that we shall, if
possible, have a mercantile marine some day or other. I do mean
that we shall have a Navy adequate to protect our commerce all
over the world, our people everywhere, and the outlying territo
ries we possess. I do mean that we shall follow continuously,
from our Executive and State Department, the line upon which
the notes of Secretary Hay to the foreign powers for the open
door and 'the integrity of China against partition proceeded, and
that this will continue to be a policy for the benefit of the growing
commerce, industries, and productiveness of the United States
We all remember, who were in Europe after the formation of
the German Empire and who had the opportunity of knowing,
what were the views of that greatest statesman of the German
race, Bismarck, that at that time he saw infinite peril to the Ger
man people because the increase of population and productive
ness was so far beyond their home markets that he said he saw a
congestion which might lead to a social revolution unless outlets
could be found. So he sent his agents all over the world looking
for territories which could be acquired or settled in South America
or carved out of Africa or Asia for German colonization and for
places where the productive German cradle could find homes and
happiness. He was followed by Emperor William, one of the most en
lightened and far-sighted executives who ever inherited a throne.
He saw these conditions and he improved upon them, both in the
German mercantile marine and in the German navy. Under the
inspiration of his energetic genius, under the inspiration, if you
please, of his impulsiveness and strenuosity, the German mercan
tile marine has received encouragement from the Government by
which, within ten years, it has grown from a very small place
until it now ranks next to Great Britain. Its mighty steamships
have their full share of the carriage of American products, and
in every sea and in every port and in every trade in the world is
found the subsidized ship of the German mercantile marine.

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 169
Coincident with that this enlightened and far-sighted Emperor
has taken up the question of the navy of Germany. Germany
is a most economical country, and yet the German navy, under
the pressure of the enlightened opinion now shared universally
by the intelligent and progressive people of that country, has
risen from a low rank within ten years to be third in equipment
and power.
I was in England some years since when a wave of pessimism
was rolling over Great Britain and pervading Parliament. The
general opinion was that the expenses of the naval armament
were in excess of the needs of the country and a burden which
could not be borne by the British taxpayer. That sentiment af
fected the budget. The admiralty could not get from Parliament
what it asked and required.
There appeared at the time a book, and I am free to say that
no book ever published from a private citizen and an ex-officer
produced such an immediate impression upon the naval powers of
the world as the "Sea Power" of Captain Mahan. It had the
widest circulation and was generaly read in Great Britain. News
papers took it up. It became the talk of the clubs, the drawing
rooms, and the workshops. The debate was enlivened in Parlia
ment. I heard men of the highest distinction, from royalty
down, talk with enthusiasm of the revelations and teachings of
this book and the wisdom of acting upon its suggestions. Very
soon a new programme was adopted by Great Britain, a pro
gramme which provided that, no matter what other countries
might expend or do. Great Britain would always have a fleet equal
to the combined fleets of the two largest naval powers.
We have given our thought and energies mainly during the
hundred and seventeen years of our organized existence to the de
velopment of our territory and its settlement, to invention and
manufactures, to the building of railroads and canals, and to de
veloping and encouraging our internal commerce; and we have
paid very little attention to the sea.
Our position upon the sea has been spasmodic and not logical
until within the last fourteen years. Whenever we have been
forced upon the ocean the record of our Navy has been brilliant
and glorious. The story of our ships with John Paul Jones in
the Revolution, Hull, Decatur, Perry, Lawrence, McDonough,
Rogers, and their associates in the War of 1812, Farragut, Porter,

170 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Foote, and others in the Civil War, and Dewey and the Santiago
heroes in the Spanish War has proved that upon the sea we only
need the ships, for we have the officers and the men.
But, sir, after the War of 1812 there was little done for our
Navy. The old frigates, whose names and victories were the in
spiration of all of us in our school days and are still war cries on
battle ships and cruisers, went into dry dock and were either brok
en up or became practice vessels or museums. Then, when the
Civil War came suddenly upon us, we bought everything which
could float, much of which was only fit for the scrap heap. It is
admitted that what that Navy did during the Civil War was one
of the principal means in bringing it to a close, and if we had
possessed at that time a Navy adequate to our needs it would have
ended much sooner, notwithstanding that it was an internecine
conflict and mainly upon land and carried on under conditions
which could never exist in a war with a foreign power.
After the war we sold most of our fleet and devoted ourselves
to recuperation, to repairing the losses and disasters of the strife,
and paid little attention to our Navy.
Then came the Spanish- American War. We had progressed
somewhat in the naval programme then, or I do not know where
Dewey would have been, or how we could have conducted the
Cuban campaign. We had not the proper armament in our forts.
We had nothing adequate in our harbors in the way of torpedoes,
submarines, and the like. If that war, coming up in a night, had
been with Germany, Great Britain, or France our situation would
have been deplorable. Happily for us it was with a nation which
could not compare with us as a sea power, and therefore its fleet
was quickly destroyed.
, Now, sir, the situation is changed. We have a programme
which was adopted some fourteen years ago. It has been pursued
with reasonable consistency up to the present time. It has given us
ships which have raised us from the twentieth in rank to the fifth,
and with the ships in course of construction and the programme
carried out which is in this bill we will be second in sea power./'
One of the most valuable presentations made on this question
has been the very able speech of the Senator from Maine [Mr.
Hale], the chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. But I
will go for an instant outside of the hmits of the official state
ment into the general character of this question.

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 171
The necessity for a navy which will place us third or second
in rank I have already in a measure outlined. It takes five years
to build a battle ship. It takes a proportionate number of years
to build armored cruisers, torpedo boats, submarine boats, and
torpedo-boat destroyers. A navy can not be extemporized or
constructed in a day or a year.
I have no doubt, in addition to the tariff walls which have been
put up all over Europe against us, and which prevent further ex
pansion of our trade on the Continent of Europe, that Mr. Cham
berlain will succeed in England. - I think he will be defeated in
the next general election, but the sentiment will grow, and there
will be a short life for the party which comes into power on the
old free-trade programme. Mr. Chamberlain will find himself in
five or six years, with an increased majority behind him, coming
into power on an entire reversal of the traditional pohcy of Great
Britain. The example of the United States, the tremendous develop
ment of our resources and industries by reason of the protective
tariff, our enormous growth in wealth, because we have made
America for Americans, have already made Germany, France,
Russia, Italy and Austria adopt the protective system.
Their tariff walls are raised against us because the enterprise
of our manufacturers and the skill of our artisans and cheap trans
portation are making our competition dangerous. When England
reverses her policy, when she ceases to be a dumping ground for
our surplus, when her ports are no longer open to our cereals, our
fabrics in cotton and wool, our manufactures in wood and steel,
when she enacts a tariff which will keep her factories going and
her own workmen employed at living wages against foreign pro-
ducerSj/then we will find that the American business man, the
American factory, the American farm, and the American work-
ingman will demand that we enter those markets of the East,
which will not be opened and kept open for us except by an ade
quate Navy.
I do not know what will result from this war between Russia
and Japan. We are taking no part with one side or the other,
but we do know that whatever happens is of infinite moment to us.
Ten years ago, from a commercial standpoint, we would not
have cared what happened to China. To-day what becomes of
that ancient Empire is vital to American commerce, industry, and

172 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
trade. If Russia should succeed, for instance, and take Man
churia, which is a large portion of Chinese territory, with its
millions of people, with what Great Britain, Germany, and France
have sliced off from that country, if in the general adjustment
there should be further division and occupation, it would all mean
that other doors were to be closed and other barriers to be raised
against American production and its entrance into those markets.
, So our policy is, and must be, to maintain as far as possible the
integrity of China and her autonomy." We are going to be con-
suhed when that time comes and this Russian-Japanese War is
over, no matter which side is the victor. We are to be consulted
because the adjustment is not to be made nor to be permitted by
the rest of Europe to be made by those two powers, but by a
European congress, the same as it always has been.
Mr. Patterson. Mr. President, this is a very interesting
portion of the distinguished Senator's speech, touching upon
China and its future. He speaks of the possibility or the proba
bility of European powers dividing up China, and says that we
must be consulted. Suppose the European powers divide up China
without consulting us, has the policy of the United States been
so changed, under a Repubhcan or other Administration, that
we shall enter into a foreign war to prevent the disposition of
China by European powers ?
Mr. Depew. No, sir ; not that exactly, but  ;<;--
Mr. Patterson. Well, not exactly, but pretty close to it ?
Mr. Depew. Just only so close as this: If we have a navy
which is second among world powers at that time, and we will
come pretty near it 
Mr. Patterson. But suppose, Mr. President, England, with
its navy as large as the navies of any other two powers, or Ger
many, whose navy at least will then be third in size, or France —
this is the task we are undertaking — with the combined navies of
those countries outclassing ours as three to one, what, in the
opinion of the distinguished Senator from New York, will the
United States do to prevent it? If mere negotiation fails, then is
it the Senator's understanding that the policy is war?
Mr. Depew. My observations on this question are based
upon broader lines than the possibilities of our going to war. They
are based upon the position which the United States will hold

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 173
among nations so jealous of one another that our friendship, even
in a moral way, will be eagerly sought.
The partition of China is not to be done without immense fric
tion. It is not to be done without tremendous antagonisms among
European nations. Why are they now accepting a very unpopu
lar note from Secretary Hay and assenting to it when we have no
adequate Navy? It is because none of the great powers of the
world want any irritation of any kind with the United States,
even with her present equipment, for they recognize our bound
less resources.
Mr. Patterson. Mr. President, the Senator from New
York, I think is aware that the note from Secretary Hay to which
he refers was not on the initiative of Secretary Hay, but was sug
gested to him by the German Government, and when Secretary
Hay sent out his note to the different powers he simply acted as
the mouthpiece of Germany, according to the reports which have
been uncontradicted now ever since that note went out.
Then one additional matter— passing from that, and the Sena
tor can take it up — suppose the moral force and power of the
United States is disregarded ? The Senator has not yet answered
that question.
Mr. Depew. I beg pardon. Will the Senator please repeat
his statement?Mr. Patterson. Suppose the moral influence, the moral
power, upon which the Senator from New York enlarges so elo
quently and clearly, is disregarded by those European powers,
the European powers going upon the theory that "the United
States, under the Monroe Doctrine, excludes us from the West
ern Continent, therefore we will exclude the United States from
our continent;" what, then, is the United States to do? The
Senator from New York has not seen fit to answer, although
the question relating to that particular phase of the subject has
been pretty pointed.
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, I thought I had answered.
Mr. Nelson. Will the Senator allow me?
Mr. Depew. Certainly.
Mr. Nelson. I want to say to the Senator from Colorado
[Mr. Patterson] that the case he put is not a supposable case.
The interests of the United States, England, and Japan are, in
the nature of the case, one. They are all in favor of and believe

174 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
in maintaining the "open door" as against Russia and whatever
power may be associated with her. The conditions which the
Senator from Colorado presupposes are never likely to exist. It
is purely a far-fetched hypothetical case.
With our Navy in those Eastern waters, with our power in
those Eastern waters, we will be in exactly the condition we
were when the Boxer rebellion broke out in China. With a
few of our troops from the Philippine Islands and with part of
our Navy we participated in suppressing that Boxer Rebellion,
and the voice of the United States was as potential as that of any
of the great nations of the world in settling those Boxer troubles
and bringing peace to China.
Mr. Patterson. Mr. President, in reference to the reply of
the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Nelson] I understand now
that he goes upon the theory that there is some sort of an alliance
between the United States and Great Britain and Japan.
Mr. Nelson. With the permission of the Senator from New
York, I will say there is nothing of the kind ; there is no alliance
other than that alliance which arises from a mutuality of inter
est. We have interests in common ; we are interested in the Phil
ippine Islands and we are interested in the building up of our
commerce in the Orient. England is interested in maintaining
her commerce in those countries ; she has possessions there, and
her commerce is immense. So with Japan. Their interests are
identical with ours, and their interests are, in the very nature of
the case, hostile to the dismemberment of the Chinese Empire or
the absorption of Manchuria by Russia.
Mr. Patterson. Then, with the permission of the Senator
from New York I understand, according to the Senator from
Minnesota [Mr. Nelson], there is no actual alliance, so far as
he has knowledge, between the United States and Great Britain
and Japan. It is simply a temporary alliance arising out of mu
tuality of interest. I am quite free to confess, if that is the case,
that so long as that mutuality exists and it is not overcome by
interests of still greater weight of one or the other of the three
nations referred to by the Senator it is very likely that those three
nations will stand united and opposed to the other nations which
insist upon a different policy.
But, Mr. President, how long will an alliance based upon mu
tuality of interest exist where there is no obligation resting upon

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 175
one nation having such an alliance with the other, except present
mutual interest in a certain line of policy in the Far East ? How
long, Mr. President, would it require Great Britain, if it came to
the conclusion that it was either war or a division of the Chinese
Empire, to side with Germany and France and Italy and Spain
and conclude, "Since China is to be divided, we will unite with
the other European nations and get the lion's share if we can?"
It is useless, it is childish, it seems to me, Mr. President, to rest
for any considerable length of time upon a present friendly feel
ing between three far-distant nations — one in the Far West, an
other in the Far East, and the other between them — that depends
solely upon present interests happening to be mutual for the time,
because there is danger to the one or the other if they should
disunite or seek benefits along another line. It becomes a mere
matter in the future of greater interest or greater results for
either one or the other to abandon the alliance that is based sim
ply upon mutuality.
So, Mr. President, both Senators should look the proposition
squarely in the face, since we are talking about our great Navy,
and having become a world power, and that we must be con
sulted when the question of the division of the Chinese Empire
may arise. The question the people of this country are inter
ested in — since both of the Senators represent, in my opinion,
the average sentiment of the Republican Administration — is what
is to be the course of the United States in the event of these in
terests changing and Great Britain uniting with other powers for
the dismemberment of China?
Mr. Hale. I do not desire, Mr. President, that the scope of
the debate upon this appropriation bill, purely a matter of the
Navy, should extend to extraneous matters ; but I do not want
the statement the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Nelson] has
made in the Senate to go unchallenged. I do not want it to be
quoted, as it will be, and stated as a proposition covering the
attitude of the United States, now that this war in the East is
going on, to the countries involved in that war or to the inter
ests that other countries or we may have.
I do not agree that there is any such common interest as the
Senator from Minnesota states between the United States and
Great Britain and Japan upon the one side against Russia and
Germany or France or any other country on the other side. The

176 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
attitude of the United States, as taken by the State Department,
the attitude of the Administration, is one of complete neutrality
between those parties ; and when it is said that we have to-day a
common interest with Japan and with England with reference to
Manchuria, that is a statement that the Government of the United
States and its interests and its tendencies are against Russia and
in favor of Japan.
I do not want that statement to go unchallenged. I do not at
tempt to forecast — I can not pierce the future — ^but if I were
called upon to prophesy, I should say that in the future, particu
larly if Japan emerges triumphant from this war, the country the
United States will find her greatest rival in trade, her greatest an
tagonist in competition, the nation most likely to aggress, to mon
opolize, and control China is not Russia, but is Japan.
Now, I do not want to say, following that, that our interests
and our attitude are in favor of Russia as against Japan ; but I do
not want it said, on the other side, that our attitude and our sym
pathies and our trade are all with Japan and with England and
against the other powers.
Take the Philippines. If we hold that people in our power as
colonies and continue to keep them under the yoke, the first power
that will give us any trouble in the Philippines will not be Ger
many, nor Russia, nor France, nor England, but the growing, ag
gressive, ambitious power of the Orient — the Japanese Empire.
It is not a feeble people ; it is not a small people.
Mr. Patterson. Just one word, because I recognize that
we already have trenched too long upon the time of the Senator
from New York. I simply want to emphasize, if possible, the
attitude of the Senator from Maine [Mr. Hale] in insisting that
this country shall be regarded as absolutely impartial in its feel
ings, if that were possible, and in its course as between the two
fighting nations. Whether that is wise or not, or whether the
public mind of the United States will permit it or not, is a question
that need not be discussed now.
But, as I understand the attitude of the Senator from Maine, it
is that, being impartial, the United States is in a position to take
advantage for the benefit of the United States, whichever side
may win. If it is Russia, the United States will be in with Russia ;
if it is Japan, the United States will be in with Japan ; and there
will be no antagonism between the United States and either thie

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 177
one nation or the other ; and, following the commercial instinct,
the United States will be in a position to secure the greatest pos
sible benefit whichever way the war may end.
Mr. Hale. I do not go to that extent. I suppose if we main
tain this neutrality, whatever the outcome may be, we shall not
have made an enemy ; but I do not feel that we are maintaining
that attitude for the sake of any great benefit to the United States.
I do not join in the feeling that a very critical thing for, a very
great thing to the United States, and a thing of great magnitude
in our commerce is this oriental trade. It is a very small matter
compared either with our other foreign trade or our immense
home trade and home market. We have, through the events that
have taken place in the last four or five years, not gained trade, but
we have lost trade relatively.
When the troubles broke out in China, when the Boxer re
bellion came to the surface, we were beating all the nations of the
world in the trade with China. We did not want the "open
door" ; we had the preference of the Chinese. We had let China
alone. England had bullied her; France had insulted her; Ger
many had derided her ; Russia had despoiled her, and the United
States had kept hands off. If we had not, through our position
there, through our naval force and the proximity of the Philip
pine Islands, joined the armies of the predatory nations — of which
we were not — the Chinese Boxers would have taken the legation
of the United States, borne it in friendly arms to the seaboard,
and kept it there while fighting with the other powers.
People have not reflected exactly upon that situation. We
were beating the world, and if we had not been involved in any of
these Eastern troubles we should have had no question of the
"open door." They were with us. We alienated them for the
time, and I do not want to see them further alienated,^ Again, I
say that the question of trade out there is nothing to be compared
with our foreign trade and our immense home trade; it is
very small.'* Therefore, when I am in favor of maintaining neu
trality, I have not got any view that we are going to, when this
war is over, drive a bargain that will be of any great importance
to us with either power that comes out ahead. But we ought to
keep our hands off of these oriental combinations and intricacies
and policies. It will be an ill day for the United States when she
takes upon herself the proposition that it is her business to main-
Vol. VII— 12

178 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
tain the integrity of China, as Europe has taken the proposition
that it is their business to maintain the integrity of Turkey ; be
cause, as in Turkey's case, that means ultimately when it comes,
war, if it is necessary to enforce that proposition.
I am not in favor of any policy that involves us at last in the
immense expenditures, the stupendous losses, and the unspeak
able wickedness of the American people and the United States
being involved in a war upon any issue that arises in those seas,
7,000 miles away from us. So I want neutrality, and I want
nothing said anywhere that will be quoted by either of those
powers to inflame the other power, and so I deprecate the state
ment of the Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, my speech has had a very in
teresting interruption, as it always has when the keen intelligence
of the Senator from Colorado [Mr. Patterson] is watchful of
the interests of his party ; but when he states that the note of Sec
retary Hay, which has aroused such world-wide interest and such
universal approval, was inspired by the German Government it
would indicate that his enterprising paper, the Denver News, has
Marconi relations with the palace at Potsdam, where the Emperor
resides, not enjoyed by other newspapers of the United States.
Certainly, the revelation is brand new, and the Senator from
Colorado would not make it unless, under the broad seal of Ger
many and the royal arms of its Emperor, he was in receipt of the
information. Mr. Patterson. Mr. President, just one moment. The
Associated Press, which communicates to all the papers of the
country, made that statement ; and if the Senator from New York
was conversant with the Associated Press news as published in
the great dailies of the empire city of his own State, he would be
just as familiar with it as though he were a subscriber for and a
constant reader of the Denver News.
Mr. Depew. I am a careful reader of the New York metro
politan newspapers, the country journals which are sent me by
my friends the country editors, and the papers of Washington.
I think they will be delighted with this revelation which has come
to them this afternoon from the Senator from Colorado.
Now, this interruption has developed the fact that the Repub
lican Party is the most liberal party in any free country of the
world where parties exist, because in essentials there is unity.

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 179
and in nonessentials liberty. Certainly the debate between the
distinguished Senator from Maine and the distinguished Senator
from Minnesota indicates that we can differ broadly and yet sup
port this bill. While the Senator from Minnesota expressed his
oreferences for Japan, with a vigorous statement and straight
forwardness characteristic of him, the Senator from Maine, in
calling him rigidly to account for expressing in his position as
a Senator any preference for one side or the other in this contest,
said he was going to conceal his views.
Nobody in this Chamber, however, who heard what the Sena
tor from Maine said has the slightest doubt where his sympathies
are. So while the outspoken expression of the Senator from Min
nesota is for Japan and the concealed views of the Senator from
Maine are plainly for Russia, the Senator from Colorado adopts
the position which comes from Democratic teachings and Demo
cratic seekings for issues, without much regard to principles — he
is for the side that is going to win, after it has won.
To return, Mr. President, from the politics of the world to the
construction of our Navy, we all know that a navy can not be
built in time of war. We all know what supreme folly it is to
wait for that. We can raise an emergency army in a month, but
it takes five years to build a navy.
I remember being in the Executive Mansion at one time and in
Mr. Lincoln's office when a telegram was handed to him which
gave the information that a brigadier-general, through foolish
ness of an extreme sort, had been captured down in Virginia. In
his command was a long train of pack wagons and mules. Mr.
Lincoln read the dispatch and then took up his pen and said:
"With that pen I can make a brigadier-general in a minute, but
[ can not replace those mules."
Now, some one, in the exaggeration of American description,
has said, while that may be true in the creation of brigadier-gen
erals, it takes forty years to make an Admiral. We must have, if
we are to occupy the position which seems to be admitted on all
sides to be ours, the ships on which the future Admiral can be
trained. Our Navy happily differs from every other navy in the
world, because it has developed a democratic tendency. There
is no navy except that of the United States where the sailor has
the incentive to work because he can reach a commission. But
with us the sailor is trained so completely in every branch of the

180 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
service that if he has the genius, industry, temperance, and am
bition he rises through the several grades until he gets his com
mission. We all know that during the Spanish-American War — and
none better than my friend here, the distinguished Secretary of
War at that time and now the Senator from Michigan [Mr.
Alger] — when we endeavored to secure additions to our Navy
there were no ships for sale. One of the most interesting compe
titions in trade which ever occurred was between the United
States and Spain in trying to buy war ships. We knocked with a
golden fist on the doors of every navy department of every nation,
great or small, and the answer of all was : "No matter how much
we want your money, it takes us too long to replace a ship, and
you can not have it." Finally we discovered there were two build
ing in the shipyards of England for a South American republic.
I happened to be in London at the time, and the amount of diplo
matic business and trading ability which was brought to bear, each
bidding over the other, surpassed anything I had ever seen before
in any trade. Of course the Yankee talent for barter came out
ahead and we got the ships, but the Spaniard ran us a much closer
race in trade than he did on the sea.
We know that in the present war both Japan and Russia, or
Russia and Japan, so as not to place either first, tried to buy war
ships, and in the whole world there was only one available ; and
I suppose the Senator from Minnesota is pleased that Japan got it.
I agree with what the Senator from Maine has said in regard
to our position, but the fact that can not be concealed that every
man, woman, and child in the United States is lined up on one side
or the other in this fight, as Americans always are. Wlien there is
a fight on, no matter what it is, whether a battle between nations,
or a strife between parties, or a contest between individuals, or
baseball or football, or a horse race, Americans instantly take
sides ; and they are lined up on one side or the other of this con
test. But so far as we as a nation are concerned, our position has
been expressed by the President of the United States in this proc
lamation, and we unanimously approve his action. Behind that
we individually can say what we like.
Now, in this connection, for I had hoped that my friend the
Senator from Maryland [Mr. Gorman] would enlighten us, as
the leader of his party, in regard to the views of the opposition

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 181
Upon the naval programme this afternoon, I beg to call attention
to a speech which he made on February 4, which created a great
deal of comment in this country and interest abroad, as the utter
ances of the distinguished Senator always do. He said :
Mr. President, an overgrown navy, an unnecessary navy, an unneces
sary army, mean what? It is inevitable that the officers, the admirals
without number, and captains too many to be counted in the great
fleets which are unnecessary for our protection, will find a way to make
trouble. It appears to me that the action of the Commander-in-Chief,
the President of the United States, in the occurrences now upon the
Orient in moving that unnecessary fleet from the presence and from
the very ground where a conflict, if it comes, is likely to occur, was a wise
precaution. There was more statesmanship shown in that act than in
any other order issued to the Navy. It was done so that we might be
kept out of what, as everybody thinks, was the desire of the patriotic
and brave commander of that fleet to participate.
We have naval vessels everywhere. Have you not enough now?
Everybody will answer "Yes," unless it is true, as was floating around
in high naval circles, that we are marching around the globe with a chip
on our shoulder, looking for the one great nation that troubles us more
than any other in our trade relations, to get up some trouble. Who
wants it ?
Mr. President, there is nothing in the history of our new
Navy, begun by my valued friend, that eminent New Yorker who
recently died, and whose death is a loss to the country, William C.
Whitney-^there is nothing in the history of our Navy under its
expansion by Republican Presidents, nothing in that Navy as it
appears to-day in all the waters of the globe, which justifies a
suggestion that the war ships of the United States are cruising
about the world with chips on the shoulders of their admirals,
their commodores, and their commanders, seeking trouble.; I
know of no trouble which we have ever got into by the indiscre
tion of officers of our Navy. They receive a training which is so
perfect, an education which is so complete, they pass so many
years in the Naval Academy and then so many years as subordi
nate officers before reaching supreme command that they have
the age for command and the conservatism of age and experience.
No matter how large our Navy, wherever it is it will stand not
for war, but for peace. No matter how great our Navy, it will
stand not for aggressiveness, but for defense. I do not believe

182 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
that the admiral of the fleet in the Eastern waters was seeking for
trouble or would have involved us in a war with any nation out
there or into taking sides with either of the combatants even if
he had not been ordered away. We have twenty- four great ships
now in those Eastern waters in the neighborhood of the hostihties ;
and we can absolutely trust their commanders, while preserving
the honor, the rights, the trade, and the territories of the United
States, not to invite trouble with anybody.
There is no better insurance policy than a navy. I am a be
liever in insurance.: In a free country, where institutions rest
upon the people and opportunities are alike for all, every school-
house, every church, every asylum, every college,"every hospital,
every influence of every name, nature, and description which
educates the young or looks after those who are invalided and
helpless is an insurance policy of a high kind for the safety, the
peace, the good citizenship, and the future of the Republic^; A
large navy, adequate to the needs of the country, which is strong
enough both to protect and defend it, is a minister of peace.
In these days, I would say to my friend the Senator from Col
orado, with the tremendous results that follow war, no nation is
going to seek war unless it is to gain more than it is to lose. We
are to be aggressors nowhere. We are to be assailants nowhere.
We simply, when we have the power, are to say what our rights
are, and we will state them so conservatively that they will not be
denied if we have the Navy. But if we have not the Navy, no
matter what we assert, it will be denied. :-
Wars arise in a minute, and, as I said before, it requires years
to build a navy. Our Spanish-American war came on overnight
almost. Nobody anticipated it. The Japanese-Russian War,
each side complain, came on unexpectedly, when they were nego
tiating. I will tell a little incident, and I do not vouch for its
absolute accuracy, though I received it from a distinguished man
who was in every way credible, which illustrates how a hair's
breadth stands between peace and war.
I was told by this gentleman that when President Cleveland's
Venezuelan message arrived in London, one of the strongest and
most eminent members of the British cabinet said :
This evinces a disposition and a desire for war. If a war is to occur
between Great Britain and the United States and if the feeling of that

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 183
country is as evidenced in this message, then the time to fight is now.
America has no navy that cannot be swept by us off the sea in a few
months. Her ports have no forts. They have no guns. Her harbors are
unprotected by torpedoes or any other appliances. The war would be a
calamity beyond any which has ever occurred in history, and would leave
both nations harmed to a degree that the imagination can hardly pic
ture; it would set back civilization, but it is the time, if war is inevitable,
when Great Britain can fight successfully for a peace with honor, be
cause the Americans will appreciate soon what a sea power is, and when
they do the United States will be the most formidable power in the
world because of their inaccessibility upon land.
Now, that statement, so I was told, was overruled by the
unanimous judgment of his associates and by the unanimous feel
ing of the British people that they would have good relations with
the United States under any circumstances. But the incident
shows, if the incident was as narrated by my friend, that there
stood just a hair's breadth between peace with honor, as it came in
the arbitration which we brought about, and the most disastrous
war of modern times, with the United States absolutely unpre
pared. My friends the enemy have frequently assailed the President
on account of the danger to the country with a great navy in his
hands. Through several speeches which have been made there
has run that current, that it would be dangerous to place in the
hands of the President a naval power such as we will have when
the ships now under construction are completed and this pro
gramme is carried out.
Mr. President, I want to say that, with all the wonderful accu
mulation of epithet with which this phrase of unsafety has been
sent over the country and repeated in the two Houses of Congress
over and over again, there is nothing in the utterances or in the
acts of President Roosevelt which justifies the charge. He had
the opportunity, with the whole country behind him, to make
trouble at the time of the Canadian arbitration, if he had chosen.
Suddenly there had been discovered within the disputed territory
untold wealth in the mines, and thousands upon thousands of
American citizens had rushed up there and accumulated great
interests and made large investments.
The whole country stood by the President in maintaining the
line we claimed, which brought these rich mines and this valuable

184 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
territory under our flag. It would have taken but little to have
stood firmly for our rights and to have said "We yield not at all,"
and a less wise and more impulsive and impetuous President
would have seen there the opportunity of arousing the enthusiasm
of the country for his course. But the President laid that aside.
He suggested and secured arbitration.
When the Alaska Boundary Commission — upon which were
the very able Secretary of War, the very able Senator from
Massachusetts, and the very able ex-Senator from Washington on
the one side and the equally able and distinguished commissioners
on the other, with that great lawyer and judge, the chief-justice
of England — met in London, the whole country looked on at this
mighty contest of testimony and of law.
We have sent abroad at different times in our history several
commissions who discharged their duties with distinction, but
none displayed higher judicial temperament and judgment or
won more important results for our country than this one on the
Alaskan boundary.
When the trial was over and the judgment rendered, nothing
in modern history so excited in all countries among right-thinking
people greater gratification than that event and its example. The
country will and the country does owe to President Roosevelt
a debt of gratitude for the wisdom and the patriotism with which
he initiated and carried to a successful conclusion that arbitration.
, Mr. President, nations change rapidly. There is no telling
what may occur in the realignment after the closing of the Rus
sian-Japanese War. There is no telling what may be the position
of Japan. Thirty-eight years ago I was appointed minister to
Japan. You would not think it to look at me. I did not go,
happily for my future, but I was confirmed by the Senate and
studied the question for months. It took then, thirty-eight years
ago, six months to get there. It now takes six weeks. Japan at
that time was in the feudal condition of Europe in the twelfth
century. She had no navy except junks. Her army was equipped
with spears, and bows and arrows, and clad in armor. Thirty-
eight years have passed by since the opening of Japan at that time,
and she has been studying the methods of Western civilization so
completely that she has advanced as far in thirty-eight years as
Europe did in six hundred years.
Now she has a representative government, a constitution, a

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 185
parliament, universal suffrage, colleges and schools, and a free
press and railroads, telegraphs, telephones and electric lights, and
an army built upon the plan of and quite as efficient as that of
Germany, and a navy built upon the plan of and quite as efficient,
as far as it goes, as that of Great Britain. She advanced because
her people saw if they were to keep up with the rest of the world,
now that they had become part of its activities, they must follow
the example of the successful nations and get abreast of the best.
She saw that while in her isolation she might live in her old way,
if she became a power of the world she must have its tools and
weapons, intellectual and physical. She saw the necessity of a
naval power, and she began ten years ago to develop both her
mercantile marine and her navy.
In doing that she secured for herself commerce and markets
for her products and a naval power which has enabled her to
arouse the wonder of the world for the last few weeks. In the
alignment of nations a government with a possibility of 300,000
troops against a government with 3,000,000 seems to be nowhere,
and would be nowhere if the contest was on land. But the com
mand of the sea illustrates what Captain Mahan has said, that it is
the sea which will govern the world for the future; and if the
command of the sea proves complete, then this war is to result in
conditions which will be the surprise of everybody.
Now, as to our ability. We are a nation of 80,000,000 people.
According to Mulhall we have one hundred and twenty-seven
thousand million dollars of wealth. Great Britain has 42,000,000
people and $65,000,000,000 of wealth. France has 39,000,000
people and $54,000,000,000 of wealth. Germany has 56,000,000
people and $45,000,000,000 of wealth.
The commerce exports and imports of the United States last
year were $2,606,000,000; of Great Britain, $4,000,000,000; of
France, $1,669,000,000, and of Germany, $2,453,000,000. Ger
many is under us by $150,000,000, and France is under us by
nearly one-half.
And yet the cost of the navies now on the sea and in course of
construction are $629,000,000 for Great Britain, with one-half of
our population and less than one-half of our accumulated wealth;
$327,000,000 for France, with less than one-half of our popula
tion and less than one-half of our accumulated wealth, and $182,-

186 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
000,000 for Germany, with less than three-quarters of our popu
lation and less than one-half of our accumulated wealth.
The actual cost of the vessels in commission and those that
will be when the present construction is carried out for the United
States, against the figures for these other countries, will be $182
000,000. The United States now occupies the fifth place, wit'i
294,405 tons, as against 387,874 for Germany, 416,158 for Rus
sia, 576,108 for France, and 1,516,040 for Great Britain. When
the vessels of all nations now building are completed, then Great
Britain will have 1,867,250 tonnage, France 755,757, and the
United States 616,275, and while the United States will be in the
third rank, Russia and Germany will be very close to us. There
are 723 battleships, armored cruisers, and other cruisers and
scouts above 1,000 tons built and building belonging to all the
nations of the world. Of this number the United States has 93.
It has been one of the claims of all writers on the monarchical
side that republics, where the people govern, will not have that
high appreciation of international relations which maintains the
national honor. I have read repeatedly in nearly all English
newspapers, when there has been the election of a workingman
or an extreme radical, a prediction that if his party got in power
Great Britain would lose her place among the nations by cheese
paring policies and legislation on finance and industry which
would result in the loss of her prestige and power and the dechne
of that commerce upon which she depends. But, sir, the United
States stands as a living refutation of all those charges. Our
appropriations are upon a scale of liberality unequaled in his
tory, but justified by our resources.
We have spent $450,000,000 for the improvement of our
rivers and harbors, $150,000,000 of it in the last seven years.
We have appropriated more in the last ten years for the improve
ment of our rivers and harbors than the entire cost of our Navy,
both that already afloat and that which will come out in the next
five years from our shipyards.
Republics are not ungrateful. We are paying $140,000,000 a
year in pensions to the soldiers and their widows of a war which
ended forty years ago. We are paying it cheerfully and grate
fully. The time is not distant when there will be added $30,000,-
000 or $40,000,000 for a service pension, and then we will be
paying to these heroes who saved the country and to their widows

NAVAL APPROPRIATION BILL 187
a sum greater than the cost of the active army of any great nation
in the world, and a sum equal to the present cost of the American
Navy, with that added which is now in the shipyards. The cost
of the active French Army is about $143,000,000 and of Germany
$129,000,000. At the same time we have with great liberality built public
buildings everywhere. We have established and are establishing
forest reservations for the preservation of our magnificent domain
of the woods and for the protection of farms from the floods
which come from denuded hills. We have wisely appropriated
some twenty-odd millions of dollars for expositions which were
purely local in their immediate administration, upon the ground,
and the wise ground, that by bringing anywhere the products of
other countries for the study of our skilled artisans and the exhi
bition of our skill for other countries we were promoting the best
interest of the trade, commerce, employment, and happiness of
our people.
. Mr. President, I have talked longer than I intended, but I have
been helped by so many to extend the time that I think I may be
excused. But I trust that I may be permitted to offer a fervent
aspiration that after this programme of naval equipment is com
pleted, this programme of naval equipment which, in my judg
ment receives the almost unanimous approval of the American
people, then we shall enter into some enlightened system, I care
not much what it may be, by which we can have a mercantile
marine that will save us from paying $200,000,000 a year to for
eign ships to carry the products and the merchandise of America,
while we are paying $100,000,000 a year for a navy which could
be happily employed in conjunction with our mercantile marine.
The American flag is seldom seen in any port or on any sea or
navigable water of the world except upon a fighting ship. We
are in every sense a peaceful and a producing people. We are
not a fighting nation except under necessity and provocation and
for defense. Our clipper ships over fifty years ago were the
fastest vessels afloat, models for other nations, and carried 60
per cent, of our commerce. Now only 8 per cent, goes under the
American flag and 92 per cent, in foreign vessels. I look for
ward hopefully to a near future when, by the adoption of a wise
and patriotic policy, an American mercantile marine will reverse
these humiliating conditions and bring 92 per cent, of our ton-

188 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
nage under our flagi'when $100,000,000 spent upon our Navy
annually will have an offset in the transfer of two hundred mil
lions per annum, now paid to alien shipowners for the carriage
of our trade, to an American fleet to find its stimulating way into
every channel of our internal commerce and every department of
our industries.^"
I want the world to know that we are a commercial nation by
becoming familiar with the flag of the United States upon steam
ers and sailing vessels carrying our products and the exchange of
exports and imports. I want our flag, as an emblem of peace,
of expanding commercial relations, and of prosperity, to be on
every sea and in every port in the world.

REFORIVI OF THE CURRENCY

SPEECH ON THE REFORM OF THE CURRENCY, FEBRUARY 25, I907.
Mr. President: I know of no legislation more important
than the passage of measures for the relief of our monetary condi
tions, and to give greater elasticity to our currency. Our whole
industrial and commercial fabric rests necessarily upon a finan
cial policy and practice in accord with sound principles. No one
pretends that our present method of hoarding public money and
keeping it out of use and circulation is either wise or economical.
Everyone conversant with affairs admits the need of more elastic
ity in our currency. We have been doing business, and almost
miraculously succeeding in it, upon make-shifts, brought about by
political bitterness and party passion on the one hand and a de
vice to meet an immediate financial crisis on the other.
A brief review of the situation will demonstrate our condi
tion and its needs. There is an almost passionate feeling in the
country that we should become a world power in all that phrase
means. In national wealth, in marvelous productiveness, in agri
culture and manufacture, in ability to command markets by the
genius, skill and industry of our citizens, and in the unparalleled
opportunities which are here afforded, we are in a commanding
position. We are isolated from attack and invulnerable because
of our situation and resources.
Our Navy commands peace and our diplomacy has been bril
liantly effective in maintaining it, but the flag upon our battle
ships is about the only evidence in the ports and harbors of the
world of our ability as a sea power. Our commerce is carried
under alien flags and in foreign ships, whose officers are neces
sarily more friendly to their own people than to ours. No
nation can hold a first place whose goods and mails are depend-
'The Senate had under consideration the following resolution;
"Resolved, That the Committee on Finance be authorized to investigate and report
what legislation, if any, may be necessary in relation to the deposit of public moneys
and the issue of currency to prevent conditions of abnormal and dangerous rates of
interest at certain periods of the year and provide such elastidty in the currency that
it will he more responsive to the conditions of busineiss."
189

190 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
ent upon foreigners for transportation ; but, apart from that and
for immediate consideration, we must deal with a Chinese wall
and triple-barred gates, built about that natural flow of money
to meet industrial and commercial necessities, which prevent our
having the place which our resources should command of finan
cial supremacy. Passion, rather than a careful study of the
lesson of successful practices in other highly developed countries,
has governed our legislation.
Alexander Hamilton was one of the most marvelous creative
geniuses the world has ever known. At 17 he so clearly stated
the underlying principles of the American Revolution as to com
mand the attention of all the colonies ; while not yet 30 his con
tributions to the Federalist remain still a guide and text-book,
and his labors in the New York Convention and the Constitu
tional Convention contributed more than those of any other to
the Constitution of the United States.
When Robert Morris, the Philadelphia banker, was patriot
ically financing the Revolution, Hamilton, then in the Army and
only 23, formulated a plan which if adopted would have pre
vented the collapse of the Continental currency. When he became
Secretary of the Treasury, in the Cabinet of General Washing
ton, he devised our system for treasury and customs, which has
expanded, but has not been altered from his day, and made the
report to Congress upon manufactures which has been the basis
of all tariff legislation and of development under the tariff from
his day until ours. He saw, with the prophetic vision with which
he was gifted, that a country like ours, of undeveloped resources,
must have a system of protection until it should be self-sustain
ing in every department. He saw that the country, with its vast
undeveloped wealth in forests, mines, and agriculture, and its
limitless possibilities in manufactures, must, to attain perfect re
sults, have a sound and scientific financial system, both as regards
the money collected by the Government and the issue of currency.
At this point, unhappily, came the breach between the ideas
of Hamilton and Jefferson, which has retarded our growth, an
tagonized the people at different times for a century, and, culmi
nating in the Civil War in an undreamed-of centralization of
power, continues still to vex our politics and our policies.
The first national bank was the product of the teachings of
Hamilton, and during its existence a most efficient help to both

REFORM OF CURRENCY 191
the Government and the people. The persistent opposition of
Jeffersonian principles refused it a new charter, though its
enemies, who declared the whole legislation which created it vi
cious and unconstitutional, did not hesitate when in power to
put into the Treasury the $573,000 profit which the Government
made by the sale of the stock the Government owned, through
an advance of 28.7 per cent, upon the original investment, be
cause of the admirable management and beneficent influence of
the bank.
It took a panic, which shattered the credit of the Government
and ruined the business of the people, to bring about the organi
zation of a second national bank. This, like the first, was
founded upon sound principles, and proved to be a great suc
cess. Through it the money collected from the people for cus
toms and taxes was available for the people's use. Through it
and its branches the Government had an agency by which it
could use its credit to advantage for a market for Government
bonds at an advantageous rate of interest. Through it the peo
ple had a circulating medium which contracted and expanded
according to the necessities of trade ; but Jeremiah Mason, stand
ing beside Daniel Webster in reputation and ability, as presi
dent of a branch bank at Portsmouth, N.H., incurred the hos
tihty of the "Jethro Bass" of that period, if I may quote from
Winston Churchill's novel, and he immediately declared war
upon the national bank. Practical politicians, impractical the
orists and ambitious statesmen saw in this question an oppor
tunity to create a popular issue against corporate wealth.
Andrew Jackson, one of the strongest characters in our public
life, a man of dauntless courage, audacity, and ineradicable prej
udices, was made to believe by these strong and able men about
him that the bank had been made a political machine for his
overthrow. After four years of determined warfare he drove
the bank out of business. Then came the panic of '37, in which
practically the whole country was sold under the hammer. Then
we had the device of State banks for the deposit of public
moneys and for circulating medium under charters which dif
fered as widely as the States, until by the failure of many of
such banks, which were often speculative political enterprises,
the Government lost large sums of money and the business of
the country was deranged. Then we had the subtreasury scheme

192 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
for locking Government money up and so far as national legis
lation was concerned the States were left to themselves to pro
vide currency. Wise scientific methods were adopted in New
England, under the Suffolk bank system, in New York and Indi
ana and in some other States, but in still other States there was,
wild-cat banking and the so-styled yellow dog and pup currency,
always uncertain and often of no value, which demoralized busi
ness everywhere, and when the panic of '57 came there were no
banking means of preventing or controlling it.
When it became necessary for the preservation of the nation
during the Civil War, that money should be had for carrying
it on, our helplessness, because we had no financial or banking
machinery which the Government could use, nearly lost us the
battle. From the necessities of the hour the present system
of national banking was inaugurated mainly for the purpose
of creating a market for the sale of the bonds of the Govern
ment. To still further provide money the Government issued
an irredeemable currency which fluctuated between par and 40
cents on the dollar, and under it the war cost a thousand milhons
of dollars more than if we had been upon a proper basis.
When the Civil War closed we had for our industrial and
financial necessities in the upbuilding from its ravages the sys
tem of locking up Government money, and issuing an irre
deemable currency. The wildest speculation of our time ensued
and then followed the panic of 1873, the most disastrous, the
most revolutionary, the most ruinous which any civilized coun
try has experienced, and at the same time helpful in its results.
But time has demonstrated that no mistakes of legislation or
of unwise practice by the Government can permanently check our
national development with our limitless resources and opportuni
ties, and our people possessing the ability to adapt themselves
to any conditions and the energy to rise triumphant out of dif
ficulties and misfortunes.
Our lessons are not to be derived from the marvels done,
but the greater marvels possible if we had been wise. The
wheat fields of the West, and the mines in the mountains and
in the bowels of the earth were productive with primitive ap
pliances and hand-power, but it is invention, steam, and electric
ity, which have brought about present results in spite of the de
ficiencies of our fiscal system and its unscientific methods.

REFORM OF CURRENCY 193
Ever since the destruction of the national bank by the refusal
to renew its charter and the fierce political controversies which
followed there has been a prejudice against banks and bankers.
It is still too strong to revive in any form the old national bank.
Ignorance on this subject has been the fruitful source of a library
of loose literature.
As illustrating how little of sensible discussion and how
much of bitter pohtics only there was in the debate on the ques
tion of the renewal of the charter of the national bank, I quote
from the remarks of Congressman Desha, of Kentucky, who
said: The question was whether we will foster a viper in the bosom of
our country that will spread its deadly venom on the land and finally
affect the vitals of our republican institutions, or whether we will, as
is our duty, apply the proper antidote by a refusal to renew the charter,
thereby checking the cankering poison. He thought the bonus offered
by the bank was a bribe offered to the nation. He had no doubt that
George III was a principal stockholder in the bank, and that the Eng
lish monarch regarded it as an instrument in effecting his nefarious pur
poses against the United States, and would bid up several millions of
dollars rather than not to have the charter renewed. This is a safer
method than encountering Americans in arms. Of that we made him
extremely tired when we were in a state of infancy.
Old George the Third was at this time a lunatic.
A member of the committee on banks in the New York Legis
lature, who was engaged in other business where he required
the use of his credit to furnish him with capital, and this capi
tal could only be had from the banks, seriously inquired of me
whether it would not be both justifiable and wise to enact a
law to compel banks to discount notes but prohibit their charg
ing interest.
First, as to Government deposits. The practice has so far
relaxed as to permit receipts coming from other sources than
customs to be deposited in the banks. The customs receipts,
however, which last year were over three hundred millions of
dollars, are immediately locked up and that currency taken out
of circulation. There are times when this hoard of the circula
ting medium amounts to two hundred and sixty millions of dol
lars. It is never less than twelve millions, and the average is
greatly in excess of this minimum.
Vol. VII— 13

194 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
The Secretary of the Treasury in times of great financial
disasters from want of currency takes out a portion of this
money and deposits it temporarily in banks which are Govern
ment depositories. It is done under a power which has been
questioned. There should be no question whatever upon a trans
action of this nature. It should not rest absolutely in the dis
cretion of any one man, no matter how able, how pure, or how
great, to contract or expand the currency. This power has
never been abused, but there is always the possibility of scan
dal even when not abused. The market responds instantly and
prior knowledge means a fortune.
In every civilized country except ours money, when col
lected by the government, is immediately deposited in the banks.
There is no disturbance whatever in the natural flow of the cur
rent. Suppose the one hundred and thirty millions of dollars
which are collected in October and November in New York City
should be locked up; suppose this practice should prevail in
every city, village, and town in the United States. The disas
trous consequences to business would be beyond calculation.
There can be no question as to the safety of these deposits. If
there was the Government would have no right to make any at
all. Under our national banking system failures are few in
proportion to the number of banks and the amount of deposits.
It is possible always to secure the Government, and it is a re
markable fact that the few banks which have failed have paid
an average of 78 per cent, to all classes of their creditors; but,
with the rigid examinations now in force and the penalties
which are provided for neglect or mismanagement, it is almost
impossible for a bank to fail. The adoption of the practice by
the Government, which prevails in the fiscal transaction of every
city, village, and township, would at once give a measure of re
lief by preventing arbitrary contraction, bad at all times, and
in periods of financial stringency periling the whole fabric of
credit. The currency of other countries are bank notes and gold and
silver coin, but we have one thousand five hundred million dol
lars of gold certificates, five hundred million dollars of sil
ver certificates, three hundred and fifty million dollars of green
backs, and five hundred million dollars of bank notes se
cured by the deposit of Government bonds with the Government.

REFORM OF CURRENCY 195
These silver certificates are a reminder of the crises and crazes
through which we have passed, of the fallacies of fiat money
and fluctuating silver as a standard of value, which nearly cap
tured the country in the frenzied efforts to make it so. It is
safe to say that with a scientific system of currency circulation
we never would have had the fiat money and silver delusions
which came near wrecking our industries and destroying our
prosperity. We are the only one of the highly organized financial and
industrial countries which has a currency absolutely inelastic;
a currency which responds in no way to the requirements of
business or to the needs of the people. Our interest rates fluctu
ate from I per cent, to 125 per cent, per annum, but the volume of
our currency never changes. In England, France, Germany,
Scotland, and Canada the volume of currency contracts or ex
pands automatically according to the needs of business, while
interest rates never fluctuate more than 2 or 3 per cent.
The German banks have a currency based upon assets, which,
up to one hundred and thirty-five millions, are untaxed, and
beyond that subject to a tax of 5 per cent. During most of
the year the amount issued is less than the untaxed limit, and
it is rare that it exceeds it. If it does it is only for an emer
gency which may last a week or less. There is no effort on the
part of the bank to put the currency out or call it in, but it goes
out or is redeemed as business requires. The same is true with
France, where the currency is not taxed to the authorized limit
of one thousand four hundred millions of dollars, and the amount
issued has never reached anywhere near this limit. The volume
of it contracts or expands automatically according to the re
quirements of the people. In Canada the banks are authorized
to issue a credit currency based upon their assets to 100 per cent.
of their capital. This currency is taxed less than i per cent, for
the purpose of furnishing a guaranty fund for banks which may
fail. The amount of notes outstanding has never been equal to
the limit authorized. In the fall conditions exist the same as
with us. Then there is a marked increase in the amounts paid
out by the banks. When the emergency is over and the demand
ceases the notes return to the banks for redemption and the cir
culation is decreased by that amount. Under these systems the
average life of the notes of France and Germany is about ten

196 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
days ; of Scotland, eighteen days ; of the Canadian banks, thirty
days, while the notes of our national-banking system remain out
on an average of seven hundred and thirty days or two years.
The limited time that the notes remain out in countries which
have a scientific system of banking indicates its immediate re
sponse to the needs of the community.
The fact that our currency remains out until the paper is
used up shows that it does not respond at all to the fluctuating
demands of our business. In all great manufacturing and pro
ducing countries the conditions are practically the same, only
differing in degree. On account of the extent of our territory,
the volume and variety of our products, and the tremendous
volume of our internal commerce, the demand fluctuates much
more widely than in these older countries. Commencing with
the cotton crop in the South and continuing with wheat and
corn in the West and Northwest, farmers require currency with
which to pay their help and conduct their harvesting operations.
This demand is estimated at anywhere between one hundred and
fifty and two hundred millions of dollars. The local bank has
a part of its reserve with its reserve agents in reserve cities, and
they have part of their reserve in the central reserve cities of New
York, Chicago, and St. Louis. The demand for the currency
made by the farmer at his local institution goes to these reserve
banks and then to the reserve cities of New York, Chicago, and
St. Louis. The demand must be responded to immediately, and
this vast sum of currency is taken out of these centers and
shipped bodily for distribution all over the country. As it comes
out of the reserve of lawful money it results in the contraction
of credits to four times the amount called for, which in no case
will be less than six hundred milhons and which often reaches
eight hundred millions of dollars.
No wonder when this contraction of eight hundred millions
of credit takes place and demand loans are called in and accom
modations refused that money rises by leaps and bounds to lo,
20, 50, and 100 per cent, a year. The usurer has his opportunity,
the bank which is run for speculative purposes reaps its harvest,
business contracts, disasters come, houses which require credit
and are entitled to it can not secure loans, the wheels of indus
try slacken, the worker's time is reduced, and the effects reach
every home, from the banker to the merchant, from the merchant

REFORM OF CURRENCY 197
to the manufacturer, and from the manufacturer to the farmer
and the artisan.
When the crop harvest is over and the farmer receives his
money he deposits it in the country bank and the reverse proc
ess is gone through. It is returned to the reserve cities first
and then to the central reserve cities of New York, Chicago,
and St. Louis. In the effort to put out this redundancy, interest
rates go down to i and 2 per cent., there is a carnival of specu
lation and a subsequent harvest of disasters and distrust.
This has occurred year after year since the Civil War. It in
creases with the growth of business. It is the incident, not the
accident, of our banking system, but politics, ancient and mod
ern, and century-old prejudices, accentuated by demagogues and
doctrinaires, have prevented any remedies.
The percentage of contraction and expansion in Scotland and
Ireland would, if applied to our currency, be $90,000,000, and
in Canada, so applied, would be $165,000,000 yearly — quite suf
ficient for our needs. We are out of competition for leader
ship in the world's markets and controllership of the world's
financial transactions. The old world will be fearless of the
advance in our material interests so long as there is no cor
responding progress and development in our financial system and
tools of trade and commerce.
The recommendations from the committee of the Associated
Bankers of the United States and from the Chamber of Com
merce of New York are substantially the same, and are as fol
lows: First. Any national bank having been actively doing busi
ness for one year and having a surplus fund equal to 20 per
cent, of its capital shall have authority to issue credit notes as
follows, subject to the rules and regulations to be determined by
the Comptroller of the Currency:
(a) An amount equal to 40 per cent, of its bond-secured cir
culation, but not to exceed 25 per cent, of its capital, subject to a
tax at the rate of 2^4 per cent, per annum upon the average
amount outstanding. Provided, that if at any time in the fu
ture the present proportion of the total outstanding unmatured
United States bonds to the total capitalization of all going
national banks shall diminish, then the authorized issue of credit

198 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
notes shall be increased to a correspondingly greater percentage
of its bond-secured notes.
(b) A further amount equal to 12^ per cent, of its capital,
subject to a tax at the rate of 5 per cent, per annum upon the
average amount outstanding in excess of the amount first men
tioned. The total of credit notes and bond-secured notes shall not
exceed the capital.
Second. The same reserves shall be carried against credit
notes as are required by law to be carried against deposits.
Third. The taxes provided upon credit notes shall be paid in
gold to the Treasurer of the United States, and shall constitute
a guaranty fund for the redemption of notes of failed banks, and
for the payment of the expenses of printing and the cost of
redemption. In order that the guaranty fund may be ample
from the beginning, any bank making application to take out
credit notes for issue shall deposit with the Treasurer of the
United States in gold an amount equal to 5 per cent, thereof.
The unused portion of this initial payment shall be an asset of
the contributing banks, respectively, and shall be refunded from
time to time when this may be done without reducing the guar
anty fund below an amount equal to 5 per cent, of the credit
notes taken out.
Fourth. The Comptroller of the Currency shall designate
numerous redemption cities conveniently located in the various
parts of the country. Through the agency of the banks in such
cities adequate facilities shall be provided for active daily re
demption of credit notes.
Fifth. The provision of existing law limiting the retirement
of bond-secured notes to $3,000,000 per month shall be repealed.
Sixth. All public moneys above a reasonable working balance,
from whatever source derived, shall be currently deposited from
day to day in national banks without requiring collateral se
curity or special guaranty therefor, but in no case shall the bal
ance carried with any bank exceed 50 per cent, of the capital
thereof. All banks receiving such public moneys on deposit shall
pay into the United States Treasury interest thereon at the
rate of 2 per cent per annum.
It is well to consider what are the claims to consideration by
Congress of the gentlemen who ask this legislation — what do

REFORM OF CURRENCY 199
they represent, and what is their expert knowledge? They are
the Chamber of Commerce of New York and associated bankers
of the country.
The Chamber of Commerce is the oldest commercial organiza
tion in the United States. For more than a century it has
worked for the best interests of our internal and foreign com
merce. It includes in its membership leaders in every depart
ment of commercial and industrial activity. Their names are
synonymous with banking, mercantile, and manufacturing prob
ity and success in our own country and abroad. Citizens from
every State in the Union are in its councils and participate in
its dehberations. The crisis became so acute and the peril so great last year,
with money ruling over loo per cent., that the New York Cham
ber of Commerce was moved as rarely ever before to consider
the causes of the trouble and their remedies. After an inquiry
covering the whole field of financial legislation in the United
States and currency conditions in Europe and Canada, the Cham
ber of Commerce came unanimously to the conclusions substan
tially embodied in the recommendations which I have stated.
The efficiency, the success, and the solvency of our national banks
demonstrate the ability and honesty of those who manage them,
and a committee representing these six hundred and odd institu
tions came practically unanimously to the same conclusions.
It is rare, from so many independent and able thinkers and
practical men, to find such unanimity. It is safe to say that
these two bodies voice the best judgment and the highest and
most intelligent expression of the people's thought on this grave
subject. Though the banks can now issue currency secured by Govern
ment bonds in the Treasury to the full amount of their capital,
only 62 per cent, of that amount has been issued. The reason is
plain, that owing to the price of Government bonds and the ex
penses incident to the present system currency is not as profit
able to many of the banks as other business which they are per
mitted to do. Bankers and bank directors do not differ from
farmers or manufacturers or merchants- in the conduct of their
affairs. They do not feel authorized to employ the money of
their stockholders or risk the cash of their depositors in any
enterprise which does not make a profit. Experience has dem-

200 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
onstrated that this bond-secured currency, instead of being re
sponsive to commercial needs, fluctuates according to the price
of United States bonds in the market. The holdings of the
banks represent so large an amount of the national debt that
they keep the price of the bonds at present figures, and it would
be disturbing to the stability of business and credit if there was
a radical change, which would permit or compel the throwing
of this volume of Government obligations on the market. But
the proposal of these committees conserves existing conditions
and only adds privileges and powers which will enable the banks
— in a word, entice banks — to issue additional currency within
the limits of the present law, which will be sufficiently elastic to
prevent annual perils due to the present unscientific system.
It is conceded that the present currency secured by Govern
ment bonds is absolutely and uncontrovertibly safe. The ques
tion arises whether credit currency can be equally safe. We
can not idly dismiss the experience of nearly one hundred years
and the lessons it teaches. That experience has demonstrated
that upon the lines of these recommendations credit currency is
perfectly safe, that it has never failed either to meet commercial
demands or to be redeemed at its face value. Scotland, Ireland,
Germany, France, and Canada are living witnesses. We can
recall examples from the past in our country. The Suffolk
system lasted for about forty years. Through it all banks in
New England issued credit currency under a plan by which the
Suffolk Bank, of Boston, was the redemption agency. The
amount of currency issued by these banks fluctuated widely, ac
cording to the monthly needs of the communities where they were
situated, but it never reached one-half the amount authorized
by law, thus showing that no inflation is possible, because it does
not pay, and that issues in this elastic system will go out or come
back according to the conditions of commerce.
The State bank of Indiana was a brilliant example in the
same direction, and the safety fund banks in New York would
have offered no exception, except that the tax intended by its
originators to be a safety fund for currency alone was held by
the chancellor to apply to all obligations of the banks. It has
been estimated that if the currency of the banks which have
failed in the forty years of the national banking system had not
been secured by Government bonds, but the bill holders were

WILLIAM T. SHERMAN

REFORM OF CURRENCY 201
forced to take their chances with other creditors in the general
assets of the bank, the loss would have been about five millions
of dollars. It has also been estimated in regard to the safety of
this credit currency that the tax upon the circulation during the
same period, of i per cent, up to 1900, and one-half of i per
cent, since, if applied as a safety fund, would have yielded nearly
ninety millions of dollars with which to meet this five millions
of loss. In addition to this guarantee fund nearly twenty times
greater than demanded for safety, upon the calculation of aver
ages by which life insurance lives, there is also provided a re
serve of 25 per cent, in lawful money.
The fact that a tax of 2j4 per cent, upon the first 25 per cent.
and 5 per cent, upon the balance would make the credit cur
rency unprofitable, except in times of extreme stringency and
high rates of interest, would force the return of these notes for
redemption as rapidly as the profitable need for their use ceased.
Under the present system of bond-secured notes redemption
is very slow, because, in the first place, there is a limit allow
ing only three milhons a month to be redeemed, and because
of transportation and other expenses ; but the new system pro
vides that there shall be numerous redemption agencies with ade
quate facilities for the active daily redemption of credit notes,
that there shall be no expense for transportation to the shipper,
and that the redemption agencies shall never be more than twen
ty-four hours from the issuing bank. All these are elements
which insure elasticity by the speed, ease, and inexpensiveness
of issue and redemption.
A brief review of the progress of the country during the forty
years of our present system presents an illuminating contrast
between our cotmtry's growth, expansion, and necessities and
the ironclad limitations of the system upon which our business
depends. Happily for our business and the possibility of con
ducting it under present conditions, 95 per cent, of the vast trans
actions of trade and production are carried on by checks. They
are almost the sole medium in commercial centers. They dupli
cate and reduplicate in manifold forms the deposits upon which
they are drawn. There is no difference in a bank's obligation
to its depositor or to its note holder, who equally rely upon the
credit of the bank, its management, and its 25 per cent, reserve,
except that the note holder is better off than the depositor, be-

202 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
cause he will have a guarantee fund in the hands of the Gov
ernment which absolutely secures his safety.
The greater the commerce internal and external, the greater
the productiveness of the farms and mines, the greater the out
put of the factories, and the larger the demands upon transpor
tation facilities by rail and water, the more need there is for a
sound and scientific financial system upon which these factors
of wealth, prosperity, development and employment depend. It
can almost be said that the advance of the country has been due
to the ingenuity of its bankers and business men, by their checks,
drafts, and clearing-house certificates, in spite of Government
hoarded money and inelastic currency.
Since 1870 the value of farm properties has increased from
nine thousand millions to twenty-seven thousand millions of
dollars, and the number of people engaged in agriculture from
six millions to nearly twelve millions. Since 1870 the value
of farm products has grown from two thousand millions to
seven thousand millions of dollars. From 1870 our railroad
mileage has increased from fifty-three thousand to two hundred
and twenty-three thousand, or, with double tracks and sidings,
to about three hundred and fifteen thousand miles.
Our population has increased from thirty-one and a half mil
lions in i860 to eighty-five millions in 1906. From the produc
tion in i860 of 821,000 tons of iron, the basis of most manufac
tures, our iron production has grown to 25,000,000 tons, or nearly
one-half of the world's output, and we have made a proportionate
advance in steel. From about 50,000,000 of tons of coal in i860
the production has grown to 425,000,000 in 1906. In petroleum
and copper productiveness has been equally marvelous. Petro
leum came upon the market at the commencement of the Civil
War with a limited demand, while now there is an output of
134,000,000 barrels per year; and copper has increased from an
inappreciable amount in i860 to over 420,000 tons in 1906. Our
mineral products have advanced from not over $250,000,000 in
value in 1870 to $1,400,000,000 in 1906.
We furnish 80 per cent, of the world's supply of cotton,
and incident to our own use of this and other materials our
manufacturing interests have developed from 140,000 manufac
tories of various kinds in i860, to over 600,000 in 1906; from
1,311,000 employees to over 6,000,000; the capital in these indus-

REFORM OF CURRENCY 203
tries has increased from a thousand millions to fourteen thou
sand millions, and the value of the product of our manufactories
from two thousand millions to seventeen thousand millions of
dollars. For forty years we were the debtor nation in imports
over exports, but since 1900 we are the creditor nation to the
extent of between five and six hundred millions a year, and our
foreign commerce has grown from fifteen hundred millions in
1880 to three thousand millions in 1906. Bank clearings have
more than trebled, and have reached the astounding figure of
about one hundred and forty-five thousand millions. Our de
posits in the savings banks have grown since 1880 from eight
hundred to over three thousand millions of dollars, and the de
positors from two millions three hundred thousand to eight
millions. Mr. President, here is an exhibit unequaled in the ancient,
medieval, or modern world in everything which makes a nation
great, prosperous, and powerful. This advance is without a
parallel, and yet, for two months in every year it is retarded,
partially paralyzed, and put in peril. Scientific methods in every
department have increased beyond calculation. They have added
immeasurably to the productiveness of farms and mines, to the
capacity of manufactories, and the facilities of our railroads and
steamships. A compromise, makeshift, and unscientific system of
finance retards our development at home and our equality abroad.
The time has been ripe for years for reform, and the remedy
should come as quickly and completely as is the testimony of its
needs and the evidence of the ways and means for its accomplish
ment.

FOREST RESERVES

speech on AN AMENDMENT TO THE AGRICULTURAL APPROPRIA
TION BILL IN FAVOR OF THE BUREAU OF FORESTRY/ FEBRUARY
22, 1907.
Mr. President: I hope the amendment will be adopted.
I will not detain the Senate more than a few minutes in giving
my reasons.
I have listened with the utmost interest to the debate, and
while it has taken a wide range it nevertheless has been in
structive in the elucidation of the question which has been raised
by the effort to add this provision to the pending bill. Some
three years ago I had occasion to study the forestry policy upon
a question then pending in relation to the Appalachian Mountains.
Since then to the Appalachian proposition has been added an
amendment covering the White Mountains. Here we have the
direct reverse of the question which has received so much atten
tion and excited so much opposition from the Western Senators.
Here is the East, the older States, asking that the Government
policy of forest reserves may be applied within their borders, the
forests they have left, preserved, and the regions laid waste by
ruthless destruction reforested.
The discussion has tended to prove, if it has proved anything,
from the standpoint of Senators who have talked so ably and so
eloquently, that the whole forest -reserve system as now adminis
tered is a great mistake. But, Mr. President, this forest-reserve
system is now only about fifteen years old. If I remember
rightly, it was begun in its present form only about ten years
ago, and it has already accomplished extraordinary results.
One would think, to hear the speeches of Senators, that for
estry was an innovation in our country and that it has never
been practiced anywhere else. There is no system for the benefit
of a country and its people which has been better thought out and
more practically demonstrated than this in the older countries
^The Senate had under consideration the amendment to the agricultural appropriation
bill adding $1,000,000 to the general appropriation for the Bureau of Forestry.
204

FOREST RESERVES 205
of the world. It began in Switzerland a thousand years ago.
Five hundred years ago Switzerland had a scientific method of
forest reserves. Except for what that government did so intelli
gently, Switzerland would be to-day practically depopulated.
As you go in the railways through the valleys of Switzerland,
the most attractive thing is the scene presented by the Swiss cot
tages up as high as the eye can see on farms which are upon
the almost perpendicular slopes of mountains. They are held
there and populations are supported by reason of a systematic
and scientific system of forest reserves. Under it you will see
at once that ail that mountain country is so dotted with forests,
large and small, that they catch the snow and hold the rainfall
and prevent the mountains from being denuded of their soil and
the farms in the valleys from being carried off into the rivers.
It is the same in Germany. As you go through Germany
and look out of the car windows or make excursions by automo
bile through the territory you find the beneficent results of a
scientific system of forestry which has been in existence for hun
dreds of years.
The attack has been specially made here upon the college man
and the man educated for this particular purpose who is exploit
ing our reserves, and it is said the conditions in the West can only
be known by the settler and the hard-headed man upon the soil,
who has never given a moment's attention to the study of forestry.
Sir, in Germany they have had for numberless years schools
of forestry the same as they have their famous universities for
the education of their professional and scientific men, and no
man there can enter upon the forest occupation under the Gov
ernment until he has won his diploma and is certified by the
schools of forestry for his occupation.
We have in this country about one-fifth of the forest lands
owned by the Government. In Germany 26 per cent, of the
forest lands are owned by the government, and not only that, but
every individual owner is compelled by rigid government laws
and government inspection, under the direction of this criticised
body of foresters, to look after his own trees upon his own land.
But we have another lesson from those countries, sir, and
that is the reforestation of the land. Italy found that she was
losing her soil and productiveness and injuring her people because
of conditions which had arisen from the deforesting of the land

206 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
in the centuries which had gone by, and poor as Italy is to-day —
and her taxes are, I think, greater than those of any other coun
try in the world— she is spending $12,000,000 now to reforest
the lands to bring back those trees and groves which inspired the
genius of Horace and of Virgil and the poets whom we studied in
our youth in the colleges.
In France they established a scientific system of forestry in
the time of Louis XIV. But the destruction of the forests had
gone to such an extent that shortly afterwards it was discovered
that they must not only perserve the forests that were in exist
ence, but that they must reforest, as far as possible, vast sections
of land. Within the last twenty-five years there has been spent
in France in reforestation $18,000,000, and $24,000,000 has been
appropriated for the continuation of the process of foresting
under scientific rules all over the country.
This reforesting is costing in Italy $20 an acre; it is costing
in France $34 an acre, and we are securing now, where the
forest still exists, forest reserves without costing anything in
taxation upon the people except their preservation by a proper
system. The system of making money out of these forests has been
assailed. The forests of Germany yield an income to the gov
ernment of from $1 to $5 an acre, and the older and more
scientific methods in Switzerland yield an income to the gov
ernment of $8 an acre. We have here the report of the Chief
Forester that within two years our own forests will be self-
sustaining. Why should not the Government derive an income
from this system when the purpose of the income is to preserve
the sources of the water supply and to preserve for the people
of this country what is equally as important, the wood, with all
that that means ?
Now, take the conditions in the Appalachian regions, which I
have had occasion to study. There is the only territory with
hard wood upon it which exists in this country in any consid
erable area. Hard wood is becoming so scarce and at the same
time so valuable they are running light railways up into those
mountains, and with the indiscriminate manner in which the
lumberman cuts his wood they devastate the whole country.
The big trees and the little trees all come down, and then when
they are cut off the farmer has his opportunity.

FOREST RESERVES 207
We have here in perfection exactly the system which my
eloquent friend from Idaho [Mr. Heyburn] was so admirably
advocating a few minutes ago — that the present generation and
the present time shall enjoy the benefits of the soil and of the
wood. After the lumberman has swept off the forests from the
Appalachian Mountains, then comes the farmer. There is under
those trees a humus several feet in thickness, the accumulation
of centuries, which acts as a sponge. There is a greater rain
fall in the Appalachian Mountains than there is in any other
part of the country, and that rainfall is held in that sponge and
percolates out into the streams and into the rivers for the preser
vation of agriculture in the valleys of seven rivers and of six
States. What have been the results from practical experience of de
foresting that region as far as it has gone? These results I
state from study and observation. For the first three years the
farmer from this rich soil gathers an abundant harvest, a harvest
which enables him probably to pay for his farm. Then with the
floods carrying off his farm into the valleys he has three years
more in which the grass will grow, and nothing else, where he
can graze his stock. Then the rocks are bare, and he has to
move on after the lumberman for new farms, until they also
have disappeared in the valleys.
But there is another result which has come from the defor
esting first and then the denuding of the mountain sides. The wa
ters not being held pour down in floods into the valleys and tear
great gullies through the valley farms and run them off into
the rivers and out toward the ocean.
Four years ago one flood in the Catawba Valley cost that
valley a million and three-quarters of dollars, and within the
whole area three years ago of those six States there were
$18,000,000 in value of farm lands wiped out of existence by the
floods, which came from this inexpert, unwise, and unscientific
method of deforesting.
Mr. President, not only are the people of certain States, as has
been claimed here, interested in this matter, but the people of
all the States, the whole people of the United States are inter
ested. They are interested in keeping the wood so that we shall
have a wood supply forever. They are interested in keeping
the farms so that the product shall feed our Eastern and Middle

208 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
States, where we can raise only about one-tenth enough from
the farms to feed our population.
In regard to the administration of the forest reserve and the
attack which has been made in a good-natured way upon the
Forester, and in a way the opposite of good nature upon the
Secretary of the Interior, that seems to me to require only a
word. If forestry is scientific, it needs a scientific man and an
educated man to be at the head of it. If the forestry depart
ment is a scientific department, it requires trained men to manage
it. It certainly is to the credit of the Chief Forester that out
of this chaos he should have brought a system under which he
has persuaded succeeding Presidents of the United States, and
the different Secretaries of Agriculture while he has been in
office, to recommend to Congress, and has persuaded Congress
to make the legislation by which we have the forest reserves, by
which we have their administration, and by which we have the
continuance of the system.
Senators speak about him as if he were an autocrat, acting
alone upon his individual judgment. But it must be remembered
that the recommendations which come here in regard to for
estry come from the Secretary of Agriculture, and in regard to
other lands in the forestry division from the Secretary of the
Interior, and all of them from the President of the United
States, so that before the matter of administration is acted upon
it always has the approval of not only the Chief Forester, but
also of the men who stand at the head of these great departments
in the Cabinet of the President, and of the President of the
United States.
I know the feeling there is against the Secretary of the Inte
rior, and I think that feeling in its geographical division marks
the sentiment in the East and in the West in regard to this
forestry question. In the East the Secretary of the Interior is
regarded as one of the most courageous and high-minded public
officials the country has ever had, and west of the Missouri
River apparently the sentiment, at least in some of the States,
is voiced by the remark of the witty Congressman who said that
if the Secretary of the Interior retired, as was expected, on the
4th of March, there would not be a dry throat from the Missouri
River to the Pacific Ocean.
But, Mr, President, it seems to me that we are acting most

FOREST RESERVES 209
unwisely in cutting down, as we shall do, unless this amend
ment is adopted,' the appropriations for the continuance of this
work. The experiment has gone on for ten years. The experi
ment has produced wonderful results, which have received the
approbation of every man who has studied and become familiar
with this question. It has produced results which have placed
us in the hne of the older countries with their experience in the
conservation and preservation for all posterity of this magnificent
heritage. The Forester says that in two years these vast domains will
become self-supporting and in five years they will give a large
revenue to the Government. He is justified in saying that by
the results which have come during the ten years of administra
tion and segregation, and he is justified in saying it from the
results of hundreds of years in the older countries where from
necessity this system has been practiced and these wise measures
have been adopted.
So I say it is both good legislation and wise administration to
permit the President, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Chief
Forester to continue and complete this plan, and then see whether
the results which they promise and prophesy come about. If
they do, then these criticisms are a mistake. If they do not,
we have lost nothing in the two years ; we have lost nothing in the
five years; instead we have preserved for all the people of the
United States, instead of giving them up to great combinations
of lumbermen, this magnificent heritage of the forests of our
country. In our own State of New York we have felt the unwisdom of
our forefathers in grasping for their generation and for im
mediate profit the woods. As soon as we began to enlarge our
canal we found that the water had to be supplied which would
give the depth necessary for the navigation which was desired,
and then a diligent study showed that we must preserve, as far
as possible now, the sources of the water supply. The State
entered into a plan of forestry in the Adirondack region based
upon that of the General Government, in which it has already
spent millions of dollars and will spend millions more. The ex
perience of New York will be the experience of every one of
these States if, now while we have the opportunity, the Govern
ment is permitted to carry on this system wisely and efficiently.
Vol. vii— 14

ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC EXPOSITION

speech in favor of the alaska-yukon-pacific exposition at
the city of SEATTLE, I909, IN THE SENATE^ OF THE UNITED
STATES, FEBRUARY 6, I908.
Mr. President: I did not think there would be the least
opposition to this bill, and speaking certainly for the East, which
pays the largest amount of taxes, if the contributions to the
Treasury are to be taken into account, I believe we are unani
mously in favor of these expositions, and especially of this one.
I am somewhat of an expert on national expositions. I at
tended the one at Philadelphia in 1876, when Mr. William M.
Evarts, of New York, delivered that historical oration which
is one of our classics. I know of nothing at that period which
did so much to revive the study of Revolutionary history and
to create patriotic sentiment and to educate the youth of the
country as did the lessons of the exposition of 1876. We who
are old enough remember that the Revolutionary War had been
forgotten almost. Its heroes, with the exception of one or two,
were no longer remembered, and in the schools the teaching of
the history of the origin and growth of our country was no
longer a prominent part of the curriculum; but there was a
revival of patriotic discussion from the exposition of 1876 which
has been going on continuously ever since.
In addition, it gave to our people, those who could not travel
abroad — and it was difficult to travel abroad at that time — the
first opportunity to examine the productions of other countries
and to observe what we ought to do in order to rival them.
There is no doubt that the exposition at Philadelphia resulted
in an impetus to American manufactures in lines which had never
before been practiced that was of immense value to the country.
Mr. President, I delivered the oration at the opening of the
Columbian Exposition, at Chicago, and that necessarily kept me
'The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, was considering the bill (S. 627) to en
courage the holding of an Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition at the city of Seattle, State
of Washington, in the year 1909, which had been reported from the Select Committee
on Industrial Expositions with amendments. 210

ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC EXPOSITION 211
there for a week or more. A study of the material part of that
exposition was in itself a liberal education ; but, outside of that,
the whole country began to read about Columbus, and, with
Columbus, about the early navigators and the discovery of this
country, and the people of different races who came here, and the
people who ultimately dominated it, and what the result had been
to the civilization not only of this country, but of the whole
world. I had the pleasure and honor also of delivering the oration
at the opening of the Charleston Exposition, and was there with
my friend the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Tillman] —
there from New York, from the center of its predatory wealth
and its big banks, which have been so eloquently assailed this
morning by the Senator from Texas [Mr. Culberson], from
that standpoint of teaching civilization with a Southern flavor,
as the Senator said, to the people of the United States. It led
to my being adopted temporarily as the third Senator from the
State of South Carolina. It was an honor which I appreciated
at the time, although it never materialized in any power outside
of South Carolina for the few days I was there. I will say,
however, that the courtesies of South Carolina, the wonderful
hospitality of Charleston, the whole-souled way in which it en
tertained those who were its guests, gave an actual realization
of that romance of Southern hospitality of which I had heard
all my life and had pictured in the imagination as beyond the
possibility of practical experience. But I found that practical
experience surpassed all that I had dreamed in the imagination.
I also delivered the oration at the opening of the Omaha Ex
position, and I never saw a more wildly enthusiastic people on
the subject of expositions than the constituents of my friend
the Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Burkett]. Every man,
woman, and child was telling me upon the street, as soon as they
got an idea who I was — the speaker of the occasion — what a
great thing it was for the country to have that exposition ; how
the country would see what Nebraska was, and seeing what Ne
braska was, the people would appreciate what the Western States
were, what the Great West meant.
Then there was a little incident which indicated that what
ever may be the financial ability of the Yankee, on occasions it
is surpassed when he gets West and settles in one of those West-

212 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
ern States. I was led by the manager of the exposition into one
of the side shows which it was said had been a failure. It was
empty when I entered, but soon filled up; crowds stood on the
benches. My guide said he could not understand it. When I
went out I found that the barker at the door was shouting, "Walk
in, ladies and gentlemen, step in ; only ten cents to see the orator
of the day." So I was utilized both as the speaker and as an
exhibit. Now, for the representative of a people who have the enter
prise and ingenuity to promote a great world exposition to rise
here in the Senate and oppose another exposition anywhere in
this country seems to me an effort which can not be repudiated
at home. The Jamestown Exposition was a failure in the material
sense, because no exposition can succeed unless there is a con
tributory population within the immediate radius for whom it
is easy and cheap to get to the fair. Unfortunately, to preserve
the historical unity, instead of having the exposition at Richmond,
where it would have been a success, they had to have it where
John Smith landed, and while John Smith and Pocahontas are a
beautiful picture upon the canvas, they do not materialize for an
exposition. But, sir, that exposition had its educational influence. I was
in Europe during the summer, and everywhere, especially in
England, I heard conversation with reference to the exposition
at Jamestown. It was caused by two reasons. One was that
Jamestown was the first English settlement upon this continent.
The other, that the bishop of London had been sent here to bring
a Bible from the King, representing the sentiment of the English
people toward the first church that had been built upon this con
tinent and which is still in existence as it was originally founded,
and where worship is still carried on in the old form, with the
liturgy of the Church of England. There was a special interest
in the old country because of romantic associations connected
with everything which relates to Virginia and Pocahontas and of
her reception as a princess when she went over with her husband,
and the fact that he came near being tried for high treason at
that period when Divine right hedged about the throne for having,
as a subject of the king, married a princess of royal blood. Un
happily Pocahontas died and was buried over there, but I believe

ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC EXPOSITION 213
the blood of Pocahontas can be found in hundreds of thousands
of proud and patriotic Americans, if you will believe the gene
alogy which they themselves furnish.
But, as a matter of fact, sir, the speech of the President on
that occasion was one of the best he ever made. He has made
a great many speeches, some to the public, some to Congress,
and the country appreciates them all. He is the only man in
public life whose public utterances are like the Marseillaise
among national anthems — which goes itself and stirs the blood.
His speech on the three hundredth anniversary of the coming of
people speaking the English tongue and all that went with it —
Magna Charta and the liberties acquired by our ancestors — and
then his description of what followed up to the completion of
the centuries, was a noble and inspiring address, and it went all
over Europe. It gave an idea over there of our country and led
to study of its institutions, resources, power, and history which
no other utterance had done in a generation. Throughout our
own country everywhere, in the colleges, in the academies, in the
common schools, in debating societies, in reading rooms, and at
the gatherings of our people, wherever they are accustomed to
meet, it inspired a discussion and study of what that exposition
meant and the lessons it taught which could have been had in no
other way.
Now, this exposition, sir, seems to me to make less demand
upon the Treasury than any which has preceded it, when we
consider the magnitude of what is to be presented and what is
proposed to be done. Suppose an exposition has been held within
150 miles. The Portland Exposition was for the State of Ore
gon, and this exposition means much more than a State. This
exposition will include not only the State of Washington, not
only the Pacific Coast, not only the story of the American pioneer
in his prairie schooner, braving the dangers of the wilderness,
wild beasts, and savage Indians, so graphically, eloquently, and
beautifully portrayed here the other day by the Senator from
Washington [Mr. Piles]. It will also be a demonstration of
the wealth of the Pacific Coast, and the wonderful resources of
Alaska, of which as yet we know little, and whose surface has
barely been scratched. Sir, if I remember aright the figures,
Alaska is yielding every year more than seven times as much as
Secretary Seward paid for it.

214 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
There is now being organized in New York City a competitive
automobile race, to start from New York and go through Alaska,
crossing over Bering Sea, and down through Siberia to St.
Petersburg, and thence to Paris. As day after day reports come
in from that country, which we have believed ever since it was
purchased, until recently, to be most inhospitable, both as to
climate and soil, if it appears that this automobile trip is a
success, and these new machines can get through, they will de
velop great possibilities, not only in mining but for large settle
ments of agricultural population.
But in the meantime, far more interesting than the automobile
and its narrow pathway across Alaska will be, with the assistance
which can be given by the Government, an exhibit of its minerals,
of its woods, of the products of its fields, its rivers, its coasts,
and the marvels which will result from their development. All
of these things, potential with wealth and prosperity to the whole
people of the United States, will be exhibited at this exposition
at Seattle as they could be in no other way.
Besides that, sir, it will bring over to us the Filipinos, show
ing their progress since we took possession; the Hawaiians,
exhibiting their progress since we came into the sovereignty of
those islands, with all that is educative both for us and for them
when they go back home — to the Filipino in his rise to self-
government and to the Hawaiian in what is necessary for his
improvement. Here in this city of Washington are gathered materials of
inestimable value. They form all the elements of a broad na
tional university. Few of our people ever see them in their
various repositories. But gathered and arranged in a Govern
ment building, they educate and graduate visiting thousands, who
carry their information to near-by and distant homes, north,
south, east, and west.
I trust, therefore, sir, that the Senator from Nebraska [Mr.
Burkett] will curb on this measure his economical tendency,
which is generally an admirable trait in a legislator ; that he will
remember the generosity of the country to his own State on one
occasion ; that in recalling the enthusiasm of his people, and their
deep, intense, overwhelming, and resistless anxiety for an expo
sition at Omaha, he will withdraw his opposition and let this bill
pass unanimously.

ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC EXPOSITION

SPEECH IN FAVOR OF THE ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC EXPOSITION
TO BE HELD AT THE CITY OF SEATTLE IN I909, FEBRUARY
28, 1907.
Mr. President : I can hardly agree with the Senator from
Maine [Mr. Hale] or the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr.
Lodge] on this question.^ I was early brought in contact with
these expositions, and from study on the ground I have become
impressed with their value and usefulness. It is not a new de
parture for us, nor is the policy one upon which no experiment
has been made.
It must be remembered that we commenced these expositions
in 1876, and that we have had a great many of them since,
every one to commemorate something which appealed to all of
the United States as well as to the Congresses which made lib
eral appropriations. In each of these expositions the city and
the State within whose boundaries it was held became necessarily
the largest contributors, and in every one of them both the city
and the State have felt that the money which they advanced and
which was not returned, because the Government as a creditor
comes in first, was not lost, but was well invested.
Now, I became familiar with these expositions because I
delivered the address at the opening of the exposition at Chi
cago and also at the one in Omaha, and I think one other. That
of 1876, commemorating the Declaration of Independence, was
educational to a degree to a generation which knew nothing of
what had led to the formation of our Government and of the
deeds of our forefathers, except as they had read them in his
tories ; and I am sorry to say that in our material progress, both
in the schools and on the platform, 1876, and all that its events
meant, had largely ceased to be taught or discussed, but the
exposition of 1876 revived patriotic feeling in the country, and
not only that, it revived a study of the source and origin of our
Government and the principles upon which it was founded.
'The Senate had under consideration the bill to encourage the holding of an Alaska-
Yukon-Pacific Exposition at the city of Seattle. State of Washington, in the year 1909.
215

216 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
So the exposition of 1893 at Chicago, celebrating the four
hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Colum
bus, led to the distribution of an immense amount of literature
and information in regard to the discovery of this continent
and what had followed from it in its influence upon humanity
and the world. So the exposition at St. Louis, which I attended,
similarly called to mind the early French voyagers and all that
followed from the development of the southwestern country
and the Mississippi, and the one at Portland recalled that won
derful trip of Lewis and Clark across the continent which gave
to us our territory on the Pacific coast. All of these, without
enumerating any more, have been educational in the first place
and immensely valuable in the second in two ways: one in
bringing together the inventors and the manufacturers of our
own country, and the other in bringing from abroad the in
ventors, manufacturers, and producers to exhibit their wares.
We have done more to educate the people of Europe as to
what we had to sell and what we could produce in these exposi
tions than we could possibly have done in any other way by
agents or prospectuses or literature. After each one of them
there has been a distinct and recognizable advance in every
department of American industry and energy. They have in
spired our merchants and manufacturers to seek foreign markets,
and not only to go beyond the seas to Europe, but to South
America, Mexico, and Canada, for the purpose of exploiting and
expanding our commerce in the things which we can produce
and whose exportation will be beneficial to the country in its
productions and labor.
Now, I know of no exposition, having been familiar with
them all and attended many of them, which appeals to me more
than this, which celebrates the purchase of Alaska. I remember
very well when Mr. Seward purchased Alaska. I remember
the howl that went up all over the country against the Admin
istration, and especially against that distinguished citizen of
New York. I remember how it was denounced in Congress
and upon the platform and in the newspapers as throwing away
for an idle dream by a dreamer $7,200,000 for ice and snow.
I remember how Russia was congratulated and her foreign
minister received the highest praise from the opposition press
because in dealing with the Yankee he had outwitted him to

ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC EXPOSITION 217
such a marvelous extent, because that Yankee did not represent
the commercial instinct of the country, but had always lived in
the clouds and was a dreamer upon most questions.
I can not recall it now, because it is many years since I saw
it, but it would be instructive to read what Mr. Seward said
would be the benefit of that purchase, the prophecy which he
made as to the results of the annexation of Alaska to the United
States, both for our protection in extending our coast line on
the Pacific coast and for the products and development which
would ultimately come from it, and then compare those criti
cisms with the realization of to-day. Here before us is the mes
sage of the President of the United States and the report which
has just been read, showing what has been the result within
the few years which elapsed since this dreamer, who was more
than a dreamer, sir, because he was one of the greatest states
men this country ever produced and one of the most farsighted,
bought for the United States the Territory of Alaska for $7,-
200,000. According to this report the Government has received
in revenues $11,000,000, and the country has been enriched
$300,000,000 by the products of a land whose territory has not
yet been scratched and whose interior has not yet been explored.
I believe, sir, that this exposition will lead to capital going to
Alaska for the building of railways and settlers going there
when it is known what that Territory has of resources of every
kind in agriculture and minerals and possibility for manufac
tures. Not only the Pacific Coast but the whole country will
benefit by this exposition. It will demonstrate in a remarkable
way the wisdom of the purchase by Mr. Seward and the realiza
tion of his prophecy.

DEFENCE OF SECRETARY OF THE
TREASURY

SPEECH IN REPLY TO CRITICISM OF THE ACTION OF THE PRESI
DENT AND THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY DURING THE
RECENT PANIC^ FEBRUARY lO, I908.
Mr. President : At the last session of the Senate on Thurs
day the Senator from Texas^ delivered an able and thoughtful
address in an effort to prove two very serious charges ; one that
during the recent panic the Secretary of the Treasury had re
peatedly violated the law, and the other that the banks of New
York City had utilized the help which they had received from
Government deposits to encourage stock speculation. These are
very grave accusations to come from the distinguished leader of
the minority. On examining the subject I have come to the con
clusion that he is in error. The adage that figures will not lie
has been proven to be false by the text-books of the great political
parties. Each of them uses the same tables of the financial
officers of the Government, and the one proves that we never
enjoyed such phenomenal prosperity, while the other satisfies its
readers that our present conditions were never so bad nor the
future so hopeless.
Not only the New York bankers, but those of the whole coun
try, were facing a crisis unequaled in our history. It came sud
denly and at a time when the Government in its resources, the
banks in their condition, and business in its activities were never
so sound and strong. It is not difficult to account for the peril
or the means by which it was averted. I will say at the outset
that the business and financial conditions were saved by the cour
age, wisdom, and patriotic action of the Secretary of the Treas-
'Mr. Culberson of Texas had submitted a resolution, as follows:
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he is hereby, directed to inform
the Senate if any national banks outside the city of New York complained by telegrams
or letters to the Treasury Department, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Treasurer of
the United States, or the Comptroller of the Currency, between October 1, 1907, and
November 15, 1907, of the refusal of national banks of New York City to pay in cash
New York exchange or to respond to calls for reserves; and if so, the Secretary is di
rected to send to the Senate copies of all such telegrams and letters.
218

DEFENCE OF SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 219
ury and the phenomenal genius of Mr. Pierpont Morgan in
associating with him the strongest financiers and bankers and
devising the methods to save the situation.
There are 6,600 national banks in the United States and some
1 1 ,000 State banks and trust companies. The national banks in
the central reserve and reserve cities have a reserve for the
security of depositors of 25 per cent., while those in the country
ha\e 15 per cent. These national banks had on deposit in round
Lumbers $4,322,000,000. The State banks, savings banks, and
iru.st companies had on deposit about $9,000,000,000. The aver
age reserve in State banks and trust companies against this enor
mous sum was only about 5 per cent., and that not in gold but in
bills. There were in all these institutions about $13,000,000,000
of deposits, payable on demand, while the currency of all kinds
in these institutions combined was not much over $1,000,000,000.
It will thus be seen that if the millions of depositors who owned
these $13,000,000,000 become frightened and want their money
at once in cash the machinery of business and commerce stops.
It has been found by experience that under our credit system, by
which 95 per cent, of our commercial transactions are carried on,
little cash comparatively is required, except in the fall of the year,
when nearly $300,000,000 have to be shipped by the central re
serve and reserve cities to the West, Northwest, and South to
move the crops. But our banking system is so defective that a
shock paralyzes it. The only help available in a crisis must come
from the Government, and the resources of the Government are
very hmited compared with the demand. Confidence must be
restored so that the normal relations between the banks and their
creditors are established and maintained or our whole fabric goes
to pieces. It is here the Government plays a most important part
in restoration of confidence, and here the Secretary of the Treas
ury fills a position of awful responsibility.
A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and the weak
link in the recent situation was the trust companies, with their
enormous deposits and limited reserves. There is no question
about their soundness and their possession of a large surplus
beyond all their obligations to their stockholders and depositors.
Nevertheless, while doing a banking business, they were not
equipped for a banking emergency. A run was started on the
Knickerbocker Trust Company, whose stock was selling at twelve

220 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
hundred dollars for a hundred-dollar share. The spectacle of
millionaires jostling clerks and bank messengers in the rush to get
to the window for their money before the cash was exhausted
was illuminating. It showed that in a panic human nature works
the same with rich and poor. After paying out $8,000,000, the
trust company closed its doors. Rumor, nobody can tell from
where, within twenty- four hour^ had precipitated a run upon two
other trust companies and some banks. It was a question not of
weeks, but of hours, when there would be universal suspension of
all cash and credit agencies and of all exchanges and business
operations. It is idle to say that New York City alone would
have been affected. Texas would have been proportionately in
volved, and so would every State and city in the Union. The
crisis was appalling. The bankers met in Mr. Morgan's library,
raised and contributed for the threatened trust companies and
banks about seventy millions of cash, which was paid out in three
days; most of it was hoarded. There disappeared from the
banks during this period two hundred and fifty millions in cash,
which went into the boxes of safe-deposit companies. In other
words, one-tenth of the total circulating medium of the country
was locked up within three days. Then Mr. Cortelyou came to
the rescue and deposited available money in the national banks
until the balance in the Treasury was down to about five millions.
He says in his report that one of the reasons for making
deposits in such large amounts in the national banks of New
York and other important cities, in addition to the effectiveness
of such deposits in financial centers where they would find their
way to the points where the need was greatest, was the fact that
these banks were able more promptly to obtain the bonds required
as security. The emergency was too acute to assign deposits to
banks which were not in possession of bonds or could not obtain
them promptly, either by purchase or by borrowing from large
financial institutions not engaged directly in the business of note
issue or the demand of deposits. This action of the Secretary
was accompanied by one of the President's characteristic letters,
which are read by everyone and understood by all. In this letter
the President approves of the issue of fifty millions of Panama
bonds immediately available for additional currency. He also
approves of the immediate issue of one hundred millions of 3 per
cent. Government notes running for a year. He then in emphatic

DEFENCE OF SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 221
language assured the people "that they should stop hoarding
money and attend to business." He continued:
Tliere is practically no risk involved in letting business take its own
course, and the people can help themselves and the country most by
putting back into active circulation the money they are hoarding. The
banks and trust companies are solvent. There is more currency in the
country to-day than there was a month ago, when the supply was
ample. Fifty-five millions of dollars in gold have been imported and
the Government has deposited another sixty millions. These are the
facts, and I appeal to the public to cooperate with us in restoring nor
mal business conditions. The Government will see that the people do
not sufifer if only the people themselves will act in a normal way. Crops
are good and business conditions are sound, and we should put the money
we have into circulation in order to meet the needs of our prosperity.
The action of the Government in placing $240,000,000 with
the banks, and this letter of the President, ringing like a clarion
note of confidence in every office, workshop, store, farmhouse,
and dwelhng of the country, together with the courageous action
of the New York bankers and banks in importing gold and help
ing institutions assailed, stopped the panic and saved the country.
The issue of these securities was lawful and within a fair
interpretation of the statute. The Panama bonds must be sold
from time to time according to the needs of the canal. Money
had been spent on the canal beyond the appropriation and it had
to be replaced in the Treasury from funds derived from these
bonds. This disposes of the charge on that account. Under the
law of 1898 the President is authorized to sell one -year notes for
Treasury necessities. The Secretary, it is said, could have
drawn this from the banks. Such action would at the time have
frightfully increased the panic, and in the financial chaos which
would have followed internal revenue and customs receipts would
have correspondingly fallen off. So the Secretary strained the
interpretation of the law, if you please, but with confidence re
gained by his action little over fifteen of the one hundred millions
were required. Both the bonds and notes were immediately used
by the banks for more currency.
The Senator complains that the Secretary in the deposit of
Government money neglected Texas, so that his great State re
ceived only 4 per cent., but the report of the Comptroller of the
Currency shows that on December 3 the banks of Texas were

222 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
hoarding the reserve money and required no help. The reserve
in the Galveston banks was nearly double the reserve required
by law. The Fort Worth banks had nearly 34 per cent., the Dal
las banks 27 per cent., the San Antonio banks 38 per cent, of
reserve currency, while New York banks in their effort to relieve
the situation and in their shipment of currency had drawn their
reserves down to 22 per cent. Similar conditions to those in
Texas prevailed in Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and St. Paul;
Wichita, Kans. ; Omaha, Nebr. ; San Francisco, Cal., and Port
land, Ore. I received these figures this morning from the
Comptroller of the Currency. The effective relief afforded the
whole country by deposits of Government funds in the New York
banks at the crisis is illustrated by a statement of the amount of
grain and cotton bills bought by a single bank in New York.
I use this illustration because the National City Bank is the larg
est, though others did their full share. During the months of
November and December the National City Bank bought for cash'
over $100,000,000 of bills drawn by country banks against ship
ment of grain, provisions, and cotton to Europe. This vast sum
was furnished to the people in the country at the most critical
period of the panic, when to have stopped such shipments would
have meant the spread of the panic everywhere and general disas
ter. The prosperity of the country in its production was such
that there was an unusual amount of grain and cotton ready for
shipment and a good foreign demand at remunerative prices.
The movement was checked and would have been stopped except
for the cash and credit to handle it furnished by the National
City and other New York banks. These banks of New York
had the facilities and the connections which put them in touch
with the banks through the whole country, and from long expe
rience and practice in transacting business with these institutions
of all the States the New York banks knew how and when and
where the business could and should be done. In putting the
Government money in what might be called the distributing reser
voir of the Republic the Secretary showed statesmanship and
financial wisdom.
We are now called upon to criticise and condemn the alleged
errors and the tactics of the generals who won the victory.
Under our banking laws the country banks are permitted to send
three-fifths of their reserves to the reserve and central reserve

DEFENCE OF SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 223
banks for deposit. If the reserve is fifteen thousand, the bank
can send ten thousand of it to New York, keeping only five
thousand in its vaults. The central reserve banks can also de
posit with the reserve bank one-half of their reserves, so that if it
is one hundred thousand there is fifty thousand of it in New
York. This money goes to New York for deposit instead of
other cities because, as every banker in the most remote com
munity knows, a draft on New York goes anywhere and is as
good as currency. The New York banks treat these deposits no
differently from other moneys which are left with them. Of
course they are loaned. In a crisis like that through which we
have just passed, the country banks get in their demand for the
return of their deposits in currency after the people on the spot
have presented theirs. To respond is impossible, as everyone
knows. No bank can transact business and liquidate in a day.
The Senator in his analysis of the mass of figures contained
in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury comes to the conclu
sion that only $10,000,000 went from the New York banks to the
banks of the interior. Surely the Secretary of the Treasury is an
authority upon whom we must rely, and who, if his reports can
be impeached, is unworthy of his office. He certified in his re
port to the Senate that between October 19 and December 7 the
shipment of currency by the New York clearing-house banks,
chiefly to the national banks of the interior, was $106,921,700.
Mr. Culberson, of Texas. The Senator from New York
unintentionally, of course, has misstated my position. I did not
state that the report of the Secretary showed that the national
banks of New York had sent only $10,820,511 to other national
banks, but I did say that the report showed that between August
22 and December 3 the net amount which the New York banks
owed national banks everywhere was reduced only the amount
stated. I said, in addition, Mr. President, and presented the letters
of the chairmen of clearing houses to show it, that the New York
City banks did ship money to other national banks, and charged
them a premium on it, ranging from $10 per thousand to $40 per
thousand, but that they had only sent this amount of ten million
and odd dollars to the banks to which they owed money and in
liquidation of their indebtedness to those banks.
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, the minutia of this statement

224 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
of the Secretary of the Treasury down to the dollar shows the
care and accuracy with which the statement was made.
In regard to the New York banks charging for the currency
which they sent, from 3J^ to 5 per cent, my own impression is,
and I think that will be established when the examination is made,
that the money which was sold in New York for a premium of
from 3I/2 to 4 and 5 and I believe at one time 10 per cent, did not
come from the banks. There was $240,000,000 in currency
locked up in the safe deposits of New York by frightened de
positors, and when those depositors thought that the banks were
saved, they made money by selling the currency and depositing
in banks the checks received therefor.
The Secretary also states that the increase in national bank
deposits, by which the Senator thus refutes this claim of shipments
to the interior, represented the transfer of loans and deposits from
the trust companies. The Senator attempts to prove the unfair
distribution of the Treasury money to the banks of the country
by percentages, and charges the Secretary of the Treasury with
undue favoritism to New York City. Percentages are always
illusive, and yet the Secretary's report is directly the reverse of
the conclusions at which the distinguished Senator arrives in his
laborious analysis. The Secretary shows that instead of calculat
ing upon action in taking individual States, if you take the New
England, Eastern, and Middle West States, including New York,
which are directly tributary to New York, that the percentage of
deposits from the Treasury to the capital and surplus of the
national banks was about 15 per cent ; that the banks of the South
ern, Western, and Pacific States had a proportion of nearly 18
per cent, while, eliminating New York from the Eastern group,
the percentage of the remaining Eastern and Middle Western
States was only about 12 per cent, so that in this distribution the
Southern, Western, and Pacific States were, on the basis of per
centages, 3 per cent better off than New York and its tributary
territory and 7 per cent better off than the Eastern and Middle
Western States standing by themselves. This passage from the
Secretary's report is illuminating :
In New England, where business is carried on less with borrowed
capital than in some other sections of the Union, the average per cent.
deposited in the national banks of the entire section was only 8 per
cent, and in Connecticut as low as 3 2-10 per cent.

DEFENCE OF SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 225
In other words, the great manufacturing State of Connecticut
was lower in its averages than the agricultural State of Texas.
Again, while Texas had only 4 per cent, the State of Louisiana
had 27.4 per cent, in deposits in proportion to its national-bank
capital and surplus. The financing of the cotton crop is not
done at Austin or at Houston, Galveston, or Fort Worth, but
at New Orleans. It is an emphatic demonstration of the sud
denness with which by heroic measures the panic was stopped
that while this currency crisis was so acute in centers great and
small all over the country, the little remote villages were not af
fected. Many of them had from 28 to 36 per cent, of reserve
money on hand for which they had no use. The farmers had
sold their crops at a profit ; the storekeepers' bills were promptly
paid, and there was little use or demand for money; but in a
week, if the panic had continued, they would all have been in
volved and cut off from the markets of the world.
As to the charge that these Government deposits were used
to permit gambling in the stock exchange, these figures are in
structive : Business of the stock exchange in 1901 was in bonds,
$981,781,000; in stocks, 250,000,000 shares. In 1905, at the
height of our prosperity, it was $1,000,000,000 in bonds and 260,-
220,000 shares of stock. In 1907 it was $540,000,000 in bonds
and 196,000,000 shares of stock. In other words, the transac
tions on the New York Stock Exchange in 1907, including both
stock and bonds, were about one-third less than they were in
1905. There was one hundred millions less loaned on collateral
or stock-exchange securities than there was in 1901.
The Senator asks what became of this vast amount of de
posits from individuals and from country banks and from the
Government, and the one hundred millions of gold brought from
Europe which was in the possession of the New York banks.
The necessities of the railroads, the prosperity of which had out
grown their facilities and equipment, was so great that they re
quired a thousand six hundred millions of dollars. This money
was to meet obligations which had already been incurred in ter
minals, equipment, and extensions for which contracts were out.
During the preceding years the credit of these great lines had
been such that they found no difficulty in floating their bonds to
meet requirements for long periods at 3^/2 per cent interest.
Called upon now to meet their contract obligations, they had to
Vol. VII— 15

226 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
offer short-term notes, bearing interest from 6V2 to 8 per cent.
They could not afford to put out long-term notes at such figures,
because the net returns upon their business would not justify it.
The banks financed something over a thousand millions of these
notes and then stopped. The industrial corporations had grown
so rapidly that the expansion of their business required six hun
dred millions of money, and the banks financed about one-half of
that at high rates of interest. The city of New York found in
these tight times that it could not sell bonds at any legitimate
figure and so they were borrowers on time loans of millions of
money. It is a fact, and a most creditable one, that notwithstand
ing the abnormal rates of interest upon call loans from day to
day, and notwithstanding the securities offered by powerful and
solvent corporations at high rates, the banks of New York stood
by their commercial customers, and the solvency during the crisis
of the merchants and the manufacturers shows that commercial
paper received proper consideration.
Bankers do not claim that they are in business for philan
thropy or their health. They do not deny that they desire to
make all the money they legitimately can, to pay good dividends
to their stockholders, and strengthen their institutions by adding
to their surplus. But no student of finance can rise from a study
of what the bankers, not only of New York but of Chicago and
other large cities, did in this crisis without feeling that the banks
of the country are officered and managed by wise, level-headed,
exceptionally able, and patriotic men. No better public service
can be rendered by bank officers and directors than to keep the
machinery of commerce going and to maintain strong and solvent
the institutions upon which the credit, the business, the employ
ment, and the living of the people depend.
The criticism made by the Senator upon there being more pub
lic moneys deposited in the banks of the District of Columbia
than there are in the State of Texas is a just indictment, not, as
he makes it, of the Secretary of the Treasury, but of the financial
system under which we have been living for forty years. Con
gress is the board of aldermen; the President, the mayor; and
the Secretary of the Treasury, the fiscal officer for the District of
Columbia. In every State, county, city, village, and town in the
country the tax collector deposits the money in the bank the day
of its receipt. In this way the people's money is not hoarded, but

DEFENCE OF SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 227
it IS continuously at the service of the people. At the same time
the tax money is where the public authorities can draw on it as
they require it during the year, because taxes, as a rule, are paid
that much in advance. The Government, therefore, treats the
District of Columbia precisely as municipal authorities everywhere
treat their communities. There is no shock to the business of the
District by taking out of circulation even for a short time the mil
lions required for taxes.
If, instead of the subtreasury system, the same methods should
be adopted by the Government, much of our financial difficulty
would be remedied and many of our financial problems would
be solved. So long as our laws connect the Treasury so closely
with the banks, so long as we make the Secretary of the Treasury
legally and morally responsible in a large measure for the condi
tion not only of the finances of the Government but of the
country, we must allow to him much discretion and judge him by
the results of his action. He might have followed the strict
letter of the law, which the Senator has quoted, and put the
$240,000,000 of Government bonds proportionately in each one
of the 6,600 banks of the country. The effect would have been,
so far as relief was concerned, like meeting a great fire in a great
city, where property is likely to be consumed of such value as to
impair the business of the whole country, not by concentrating
all the resources of the fire department upon the fire and blowing
up with dynamite adjoining blocks to prevent its spreading, as
they did in San Francisco, but by distributing the fire engines all
over the city and demanding them to divide the water equitably
among the different wards. The Secretary fearlessly and wisely
says he deposited the money where it would be most effective,
and the result demonstrated the wisdom of his action.
I was told once by a distinguished Army officer who was in
charge of a department that he had in the harbor several large
vessels loaded with winter supplies for the soldiers at the posts
under his command. A fire broke out on one of the largest
vessels. He hired a number of tugs, placed engines on them,
and saved the ship and its cargo. When the requisition came
to Washington to pay the tugs and firemen it was returned to
the general with this indorsement by the Auditor of the Treas
ury, "Disallowed because, in accordance with the law and the
regulations of the Treasury, an estimate had not first been sub-

228 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
mitted and approved." That Auditor was all right from his
standpoint and position and the general was all right from his.
One was a cheese parer and the other an empire builder. Con
gress reimbursed the general.
The disastrous panic in 1866 in England was instantly stopped
by the chancellor of the exchequer authorizing the Bank of Eng
land to disregard the banking law and issue currency to any
extent necessary to meet the emergency.
The offer by the Government of ten millions of Panama bonds
and ten millions of 3 per cent, notes would have created no im
pression, but the offer of a hundred and fifty millions meant
that the boundless resources of the Government were behind the
solvency of the country, and the people thanked God and took
courage. I was reading a few days since a little book called "Human
Bullets," in which a lieutenant in the Japanese Army describes
his own experience at the siege of Port Arthur. It is easy to
see from his description that companies, regiments, and bri
gades were murderously sacrificed in a way which if the siege
had failed would have justly condemned the Japanese general
as the most merciless and incompetent of commanders, but this
bloody struggle won victory for Japan. On the other hand.
General Stoessel, the Russian commander, who temporized,
saved his troops and his ammunition, and finally surrendered,
is on trial before a court-martial for his life. The prosecuting
officer of the Government demands upon the testimony that his
sword be broken and that he be degraded and shot in the presence
of the troops.
The living of 25,000,000 of industrious men and women was
at stake. The solvency of every national bank. State bank,
trust company, and savings bank was at stake. Twenty-five bil
lions of internal commerce dependent for its free movement not
upon the small percentage of cash, but upon credit, was at stake.
The panic was stayed. The fire was put out with a minimum
of loss. The country has resumed its normal condition. Pro
duction is proceeding apace to a market which is growing in
eagerness to buy. The Senator cries eloquently, "Let the ten
millions only which was sent to the interior ring in the ears of the
American people." But it is the action of the Secretary of the
Treasury and the New York banks in saving the situation which

DEFENCE OF SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 229
is ringing in the ears of the American people. One of the best
chapters in the financial history of this country will be that the
thousand billions of national wealth of the United States remain
almost imperceptibly impaired, and that the country is springing
like a young giant to larger endeavors and greater triumphs
because of confidence restored and hope renewed largely through
the wisdom and courage of the Secretary of the Treasury.

AMERICAN MERCANTILE MARINE

SPEECH IN FAVOR OF A SUBSIDY FOR AN AMERICAN MERCHANT
MARINE, FEBRUARY 24, I908.
Mr. President: The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr.
Gallinger] has made such a complete, exhaustive, and able
presentation of the case that it seems superfluous to attempt
to add anything to his argument, nor can it be done. But
I am so earnest in my belief in this policy that I am anxious
to be on record in support of it, not only to the extent advo
cated by the Senator from New Hampshire, but to the largest
and fullest extent which will make a subsidized policy for the
United States, and have auxiliary cruisers and a merchant ma
rine as good as that of any other country in the world.^
It is a singular fact that this question has been before Con
gress now for more than half a century, and while it has at
times received temporary attention and some support, never
theless of late years every effort which would practically put
an American merchant marine upon the ocean has failed.
Every endeavor to encourage the building and maintenance of
an American merchant marine by Government subsidies has
been defeated for years. The word "subsidy" has become an
epithet of political reproach. To secure any consideration for
this system, so vital to our future commercial relations with the
world, we have to adopt other and more euphonious terms for
the same thing. "The carriage of the mails" has not yet become
unpopular. "To increase the efficiency of the postal service" is
still permissible in political discussions. That our position upon
the ocean, both the Atlantic and Pacific, is lamentable every
body admits. The effort to remedy it by the methods prac
ticed by both free-trade and protective nations is defeated year
after year. We have been trying now for a quarter of a cen
tury other schemes than subsidies until our flag has almost dis-
•The Senate had under consideration the bill (S. 28) to amend the act of March 3,
1891, entitled "An act to provide for ocean mail service between the United States and
foreign ports and to promote commerce." — Ed.
230

AMERICAN MERCANTILE MARINE 231
appeared from the ports of the world, until our commerce is
carried under foreign flags, and until we take out of the pockets
of American workingmen $200,000,000 a year to pay to aliens.
This bill reduces the proposition to its simplest terms and meets
only the most acute situation iij our foreign commerce. In
1 89 1 a bill was passed granting $4 a mile outward bound for
the carriage of mails to 20-knot ships and $2 a mile to i6-knot
ships. Under that we managed to get four steamships on the
Atlantic Ocean and good lines to the West Indies. American
enterprise, always ready to enter upon any field in competition
with any people, tried the Pacific Ocean. The opportunities
were great, and so was the competition. There was the whole
Pacific coast of South America, and there were also Hawaii, the
Philippine Islands, Australasia, and the Orient. Sixteen-knot
ships were practicable for this traffic. Fifteen American steam
ers were built and entered into this trade under the law of 1891
of $2 a mile for carrying the mails. They had to compete, first,
with the subsidized ships of Great Britain and Germany, and,
lastly, those of Japan. But they were struggling against some
thing quite as serious as foreign subsidies. The $2 a mile
carried with it the requirement that the ships should be American
built and manned by Americans and run according to Ameri
can laws. We have rightly and properly taken good care legis
latively of our sailors, and prescribed a bill of fare upon which
they shall be fed. The labor unions have rightly and properly
taken care of their wages. The result is that the cost in wages
and food to run American ships under American conditions across
the Pacific is double that of European or Japanese steamers.
Our people kept up this unequal contest until they had practi
cally exhausted their capital and were compelled to retire from
the South American, the Australasian, the Chinese, and the
Japanese trade. Of the fifteen ships seven are laid off or have
been sold to foreigners, their American crews have been dis
charged, and Malays and Lascars have taken their place. It is
humiliating and injurious to our commerce that our mails, in
stead of going directly from our ports to the ports of South
America, should travel around the world in ships of foreign
nations ; that our diplomatic correspondence, the secrets of which
might be of the utmost importance, should be subject to the su
pervision of the postal laws and postal authorities of our rivals.

232 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
and, possibly, of our enemies; that our communications in this
roundabout service should take twice as long as they would if
sent direct.
The law of 1891, as originally drafted by the distinguished
Senator from Maine [Mr. Frye], provided for $6 a mile mail
pay for 20-knot steamers and $4 for those of i6-knots. This
schedule was changed in the House by the doctrinaires to its
present rate of $4 and $2, which has proved such a tragic
failure. Had the wise purpose of the Maine Senator [Mr.
Frye] and the Senate Committee on Commerce been adopted
we would now have a merchant marine worthy of our country
and an auxiliary fleet equal to the needs of our ships of war.
Under the broad, enlightened, and patriotic inspiration of the
Southern statesmen who at that time controlled the Govern
ment we began, as far back as 1845, ^^ enhghtened system under
which was the promise of an American merchant marine. Dur
ing the Administration of President Polk it was so far per
fected that American capital felt safe in embarking upon the
competition of the ocean, and the steamships called the Collins
Line were built. They soon gained the record for speed, and
increased the name and fame of American steamships. Our
position in the Atlantic trade between our country and Europe
was such that we were carrying one-half the tonnage and com
petition had reduced the rates from $35 to $20 a ton, thereby
giving our manufacturers a chance in the European markets.
But in the early fifties there grew up a hostile feeling against
Government encouragement to a mercantile marine on this side
of the ocean, while sentiment increased on the other side among
all maritime nations in favor of government assistance. We
withdrew our subsidies ; England increased hers. The Ameri
can line went into bankruptcy, the British bought our ships for
a song, and raised the rates of freight, and we became, so far as
commercial mastery of the ocean was concerned, the laughing
stock of the world.
After Government aid was withdrawn Commodore Vander
bilt made a characteristically gallant effort to compete for the At
lantic traffic. He captured and held the speed record, but found
that no individual, no matter how great his resources or his
talents, could successfully fight for his flag against foreign rivals
who had, in subsidies, the treasuries of their governments be-

AMERICAN MERCANTILE MARINE 233
hind them, while he could hope for no aid from his own to so
equalize conditions as to give him a fair field and a fighting
chance. Now, why this change of policy? The same arguments then
prevailed which we have heard every year since down to to
day — that a few firms or a few corporations would be supported
out of the Treasury of the United States. Building and run
ning ocean steamers is not within the capital or capacity of in
dividuals, nor can it be done by many corporations. The num
ber of ships necessary to carry on this commerce must be lim
ited. The important point is this: Shall the Government create
conditions where American capital can live, can dot the ocean
with Ai:aprican steamers, can put the American flag as it was
once, in every port of the world; can carry American products
in American ships, and can make the captain and the officers of
every American vessel active agents for the promotion and sale
of the products of American labor in the competitive ports of
South America, Australasia, China, and other Eastern coun
tries? Shall our communications with the islands we have
acquired — Hawaii and the Philippines — be maintained under
our own flag, or subject to our friendly or hostile relations with
other powers? Because the American farmer is protected in
his wool against Austrahan and South American competition
and in the other products of his fields and of his labor, we do
not say that that legislation is for the people of a class. Be
cause the iron worker, steel worker, coppersmith, silversmith,
goldsmith, and artificer in wool, cotton, wood, and other fabrics
are protected by tariff against pauper competition, we do not
say that this legislation is for the benefit of capital and labor
engaged in these industries. We say, wisely and patriotically,
that such legislation is to enable Americans to be fed and
clothed by Americans, to enable American labor to live under
conditions different from and better than those which prevail in
other countries. It is to make our country self-sustaining in
every necessity and almost every luxury; it is to promote and
encourage the skill of our artisans and the active employment
of our capital that we may successfully compete with industrial
rivals in other countries. Now, having subsidized Pacific rail
roads to go over the mountains to connect the Pacific and At
lantic coasts, having spent hundreds of millions to improve riv-

234 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
ers and waterways for our internal trade, and harbors for our
foreign commerce, we balk at the same policy that we may
reach under equal conditions competitive markets outside of our
own country.
Mr. President, one would think to hear the frantic appeals
for economy, based upon the alleged frightful cost of this en
couragement to an American merchant marine, that we were de
pleting the Treasury by the appropriation of sums of unequaled
magnitude. The profit to the Government on our ocean mail
service is $3,600,000 a year. The cost under this bill at the
maximum would not exceed that sum. For that sum it would
give us American lines to South American ports, Australasia,
and the Orient. If we should have a general bill which would
place us on equal terms with Great Britain, Germany, France,
and Japan on both the Atlantic and Pacific, the outside cost per
annum would not equal the cost of a single battleship.
Mr. Gallinger. The Senator always speaks entertainingly
and instructively. I should like to ask him if he has stopped
to think about the spectacle we will present when the Panama
Canal is completed, an undertaking that is going to cost some
where from $200,000,000 to $500,000,000. It impresses itself
upon the minds of some of us that it will be the greatest humilia
tion that we have ever suffered when foreign steamships pass
through that canal flying foreign flags and scarcely an American
merchant marine vessel will be seen. Doubtless battleships and
American yachts will pass through, and now and then a merchant
ship. The canal will be built practically for the benefit of other
nations than our own.
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, I am glad of the suggestion of
the Senator from New Hampshire. The greatest industrial
accomplishment of modern times is to be this union of the At
lantic and the Pacific. It is to revolutionize the commerce of
the world; it is to change the ocean routes; it is to build up
new commercial centers and to cause others to decay. It is to
accomplish infinitely more than did the Suez Canal, because of
the infinitely greater opportunities that are upon our Pacific
coast, in South America, hardly yet developed, and in the Orient,
where we hope to have the open door.
It will be built, so the engineer says, in six years. It will

AMERICAN MERCANTILE MARINE 235
cost us, the engineer says, about $400,000,000, and then it will
be the United States' contribution to the world.
Its benefits are recognized by all the world. The commerce
of the nations will follow this new route which will reduce so
greatly time and cost in the carriage of interchanges between
the Atlantic and Pacific. We will have the glory of this marvel
of the liberality of a great nation and the genius of its engi
neers, but if we have no merchant marine other countries will
reap the larger portion of its advantages. Our Atlantic and
Pacific coasts will be the more easily defended by our fleet,
but except on a man-of-war the canal wiU rarely see our flag
and our people will not reap the rich harvest of the commerce
which will flow through its waters.
We are now the second naval power in the world. The Gov
ernment asks for four new battle ships, and to complete the pro
gramme we should have them, and we should complete the pro
gramme. A large war fleet promotes peace and prevents war,
but it has other uses in time of war, as harbors and coasts are
fairly well protected by long-range guns, torpedoes, and subma
rines. The primary object of a great fleet is to protect the com
merce of the country, but we have no commerce under our own
flag to protect. We are without vessels or merchant marine
which can become auxiliaries to the fleet by which the battle
ships themselves can be protected. The policy of Great Britain,
Germany, France, and Japan has built up a merchant marine
which is virtually part of their navy. They can call upon these
ships, as Great Britain did during the Boer War, as we did upon
the four ships which we had during the Spanish War. During
the Boer War Great Britain took her best ships, because the navy
had a right to claim them, out of the American trade, and we
suffered millions of dollars by it — I think about $80,000,000.
They took them out to carry troops and munitions of war to
South Africa. Admiral Dewey has estimated the number of
vessels which ordinarily in times of peace would be in the mer
chant marine that are necessary in time of war to accompany
a fleet of battle ships, cruisers, scouts, torpedo-boat destroyers,
and torpedo boats. There should be in every maritime nation
a merchant marine large enough to carry on commerce after the
navy has been supplied with its requirements. If I reckon cor
rectly, there are to-day in the whole merchant marine of the

236 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
United Stafes, including the coastwise service, hardly enough
boats to meet a war emergency, and our coastwise service would
have to be fatally crippled.
The glad news came to us on Saturday that our fleet of
battleships had passed safely through the dangerous Straits of
Magellan and were upon the broad Pacific. The morning papers
are full of joy and enthusiasm with which our South American
brethren on the Pacific are emulating the hospitality of those
on the Atlantic in the reception of the fleet. But there is a fly
in the amber, a crack in the diamond, and a cloud in the ruby of
our national pride. Many of the colliers and supply ships are
chartered from foreign nations because our merchant marine
could not furnish them. This could not happen with any other
maritime naval power. There are thirty-seven colliers accom
panying the battle-ship fleet to the Pacific. Only nine of these
are American, while twenty-eight are chartered from foreigners.
In time of war the difficulty of securing two-thirds of our auxili
ary steamers from foreign powers would prove an almost fatal
handicap. It is a serious question if neutrals, from whom alone
we could hire ships, would be permitted to grant us this assist
ance. Our gallant sailors would be compelled to fight with a
crippled arm.
One of the most significant journeys ever made was that of
our Secretary of State, Mr. Root, to the South American Re
publics. It was far more important than the fabled voyages of
Ulysses and quite as picturesque. He removed prejudices of
the statesmen and people of the countries south of us who had
theretofore thought our interference in their behalf was to conquer
or dominate them. At all the ports and capitals this most level
headed, capable, and tactful American cemented North and South
American friendship.
But what do we or they gain? War is very remote. The
Monroe Doctrine is too firmly established for European aggres
sion. The whole sum and substance of closer relations between
North and South America is reciprocal trade. It was mortify
ing to the Secretary of State to have to report, as he did in his
great speech at Kansas City on his return, that as the war ship
on which he was sailed through the crowded shipping of every
port the flags of Great Britain, Germany, France, Sweden, Nor
way, and Japan were dipped in salute, and only once in all those

AMERICAN MERCANTILE MARINE 237
fleets was seen at the masthead the American flag. Why?
Because while we spend a hundred millions a year on the Navy,
a hundred millions a year on the Army, forty millions a year
in dredging harbors, and one hundred and forty millions a year
for pensions and other millions in forestry and reclamation, yet
we are driven off the ocean by the clamor that $3,600,000 for a
Pacific fleet would smash the Treasury. One of our consuls
reports that in the harbor of Chile last year were about 18,000,-
000 tons of shipping, of which, including sailing vessels and
everything that could float, the United States had 135,000 tons.
The Japanese are the wonders of the past half century. I
received at my law office in Peekskill forty-odd years ago most
unexpectedly a commission as minister to Japan. I had been
appointed and confirmed without my knowledge owing to the
friendly offices of Mr. Secretary Seward. At that time Japan
had but few ports open to the world, her navy was composed
of junks, her army equipped with bows, arrows, and spears,
and her government a feudal system like that of Europe in the
eleventh century. The Japanese, though living under the oldest
of monarchies, are the most progressive of peoples. They are
willing to adopt anything from any country if it can be proven
to be better than their own. These orientals differ from all
other orientals in not being bound by traditions or prejudices.
In forty-two years they have advanced as far as Western Europe
has in six hundred. They sent out a commission of their ablest
men to study other civilizations and governments. Their rever
ence for their Emperor, which is their religion, was such that
while they retained him they made him a constitutional monarch
restrained by a representative parliament. They established a
free press on American lines. They also, after investigation,
built up an educational system on American lines of common
schools, high schools, colleges and universities.
They adopted from England, the greatest of maritime powers,
their navy and justified their judgment when they swept the
Russian fleet from the ocean. They chose the German system
for their army, and Port Arthur and Manchuria are the trophies
of their broad-mindedness. They even sent a commission to
find if other religions were better than their own. The com
mission, unhappily, visited only the great cities, and did not come
in touch with what Christianity has really done for civilization.

238 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
humanity, and the uplifting of peoples, but seeing the amount of
drunkenness, immorality and crime there was in the cities of
Europe they went back and reported against any change in
religion. We believe ourselves to be the most progressive people
in the world, and yet we are bound by prejudices at which the
Japanese would laugh.
In 1812 Andrew Jackson defeated Welhngton's veterans from
behind the cotton bales at New Orleans, and in 1837 he smashed
the United States Bank from the White House at Washington.
He became and is one of the heroes of our history. These two
achievements are linked together in the American mind. The
result of the latter is that we refuse to study the systems of
Germany, France and Great Britain, which prevent panics, and
stand by General Jackson. Free-trade doctrinaires have cap
tured the outpost of the American merchant marine and the trade
of the ocean, and because of our reverence for the men who did
it we talk of the policy of free ships, which has been tried and
failed, we talk of tonnage duties, which, under our treaties, are
impossible, and decline to adopt the system which makes Great
Britain the master of the seas and which has built up the German
mercantile marine in the last twenty years to the second place in
the commerce of the world.
Japan ten years ago made up her mind that if she was to
take her place among commercial nations she must have a mer
chant marine. She tried free ships and the other devices ad
vanced by doctrinaires for our guidance and then discovered she
must build her own ships at her own dock yards, and her mer
chant marine must be Japanese from start to finish. So she
commenced to subsidize with no prejudice, no fears, but accepted
the wise, modern doctrine that "the best is good enough for us
no matter who invented it." So to-day her merchant marine is
three times as great as it was nine years ago. She is gradually
dominating the Pacific. She has bankrupted our Pacific fleet,
and is forcing England to take new and additional steps to pro
tect her trade between China and India.
We are now about one hundred millions of people. The
genius of our inventors, the skill of our mechanics, and our
exhaustless supply of raw material are constantly creating a
larger and larger surplus which must be sold abroad. Conges
tion imperils capital, wages, and production at home. Fifty

AMERICAN MERCANTILE MARINE 239
years from now the question of population and its profitable
employment will become very acute. If our across-ocean com
merce is to be held in the grip of these exploded prejudices the
condition will be more than acute. It will be perilous. I am
old enough to remember when our clipper ships were first in
speed, and with speed foremost in tonnage, and we were equal
to every maritime nation on the ocean and in the ports of the
world. I am old enough to remember when, with the supremacy
of steam, the subsidized Collins Line maintained and increased
our favorable position and secured 50 per cent, of the tonnage
across the Atlantic, and young enough, to know that while the
tonnage has enormously increased, only 9 per cent, of it is carried
under the American flag. I am old enough to remember when
our flag disappeared from the ocean upon our merchant marine,
and the free trade exultation for this triumph of its theories. I
am young enough to remember, and not with pride, that when
the whole world applauded the gaining of the ocean record on the
Atlantic, it was for the Deutschland, a German ship under the
German flag. I am young enough to remember that the Lusi-
tania and the Mauretania were cheered for their marvels of archi
tecture, of comfort, of capacity and of speed on both sides of
the ocean, but they were British ships under the British flag, sup
ported by a subsidy of $750,000 a year, with a postal payment
of three hundred and fifty thousand a year beside.
Mr. President, I look upon this bill as purely a tentative effort
to place us in our proper position commercially with our rivals.
I believe it should be followed by a broad and comprehensive
policy. We have the genius for invention; we have the archi
tectural talent ; we have the mechanical skill ; we have the prod
ucts, raw and manufactured, to compete successfully everywhere
around this earth. Our necessity is the disposal of our surplus,
the opportunity is the open market, and to win it we must have
American ships, built by American labor in American shipyards,
officered by American officers and manned by American sailors
and bearing the American flag.

AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL BANKING
LAWS

SPEECH IN FAVOR OF AMENDING THE NATIONAL BANKING LAWS,^
MARCH 6, 1908.
Mr. President : Presidents, Secretaries of the Treasury and
Corhptrollers of the Currency have for many years seen the
defects in our banking system and urged legislation. Eminent
bankers, both at home and abroad, have taken the same view.
For various reasons Congress has failed to act or even to con
sider seriously any of these suggestions. The legislative body
is always conservative, at least in the sense that it never acts
until there is a strong public pressure behind. Legislation may
at times seem radical, but it is always because the representatives
believe such measures properly interpret and put in force the
popular will.
We have had several disastrous panics, the most noted being
those of 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1907.
All but the last became subjects of rancorous party discus
sion, and there was no agreement at the times of their occurrence
as to the causes of their happening. But now contemporary
opinion with great unanimity puts the blame upon our system of
banking and currency and demands action and remedial legis
lation. ";- Under the delicate system of credit upon which the com
mercial transactions of the world are now based there wiU
always be panics. They may come from wars or from fabulous
destruction of property by earthquakes or fire or from over-
speculating, resulting in the bankruptcy of financial institutions,
succeeded by loss of confidence.;: These panics occur in every one
of the great industrial countries. They happen in England,
Germany, Austria, Italy and France, but less frequently in France
because the French are the most conservative and the least specu
lative of all peoples. They are a thrifty nation of savers and
'The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, had under consideration the bill (S.
3023) to amend the national banking laws. — Ed.
240

AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL BANKING LAWS 241
investors, and not of exploiters and promoters. They lose capi
tal, as they did in the Panama Canal, to the extent of hundreds
of millions, but it is taken out of their stockings and not out of
their business. While these financial and industrial disasters are
common to manufacturing, producing and trading nations, they
never imperil the whole structure of trade and finance in other
countries as they do with us. They never lead to such stringency
of money and phenomenal rates of interest. The rate of interest
marks the price which business pays for capital. As it advances
new enterprises stop, production is curtailed and industries shut
down, until finally, if money must be had at prices which neces
sitate great and continuing losses, the whole community is in
volved, capital and labor are both temporarily out of employment,
with bankruptcy for the one and starvation or reliance upon
charity for the other.
The United States is the greatest creator of wealth of all
countries, and its productiveness is almost as great as that of all
other nations who might be deemed its rivals combined. A
financial panic with us leaves the field strewn with the dead and
wounded, but our enormous possibilities for the creation of
wealth speedily bring back prosperous times. The new and
eager recruits and contestants for fortune fail to remember those
who have fallen in the battle and take little heed of the lessons
of the catastrophe. With our people so keen upon business
propositions, with our agricultural and mineral production throw
ing the balance of trade in our favor every year, with our gold
reserve kept at a higher average than that of any other nation,
because it flows in to us to pay the international balances which
are due, these recurring disasters, so universal and so terrible,
must be caused by deficiency somewhere in our system. ;•:' We
have a larger per capita currency than any other country in
Europe except France, and yet money, mere currency, has been
for months commanding a premium,^ and in one of our panics
gold was raised to 250 per cent. The German, French and Eng
lish financiers say such conditions are impossible with them.
They are unanimous in the opinion that their safety and our peril
are because;they possess central banks with power to issue
emergency currency, while our currency is rigid and inelastic,
and there is and can be no unity of action among our 6,600
independent banks, .jii*
Vol. VII— 16

242 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
There have been efforts made in this discussion to locate and
place the blame for this panic. It furnishes a fine field for
partisan attack, but a calm and judicial review of the situation
will develop many and sufficient reasons which are neither politi
cal, personal nor partisan. Undoubtedly the large and con
tinuing increase year by year in the production of gold, which is
the universal standard of value, deranges calculations and ex
changes. The figures of this increase for the last decade are
startling. The world's production of gold was $7,000,000 in
1700, $12,000,000 in 1800, $262,000,000 in 1900 and $425,-
000,000 in 1907.
This shows that while in the hundred years from 1700 to 1800
the increase was only five millions, in the hundred years from
1800 to 1900 it was two hundred and fifty millions and in the
short period of seven years from 1900 to 1907 it was one hundred
and sixty-three millions.
While according to Lord Cromer $150,000,000 are buried in
the ground by the Egyptians, who are universally money hoard
ers, and a large sum used in the arts, the amount available for
currency is constantly and rapidly increasing. The Russo-
Japanese War and the San Francisco earthquake and fire burned
up and destroyed a very appreciable percentage of the capital of
the world. Industrial expansion, the consolidation of industries
into strong and unified corporations with increasing productive
power and requiring more money, great enterprises by govern
ments and by corporations, the requirements of the railways
caused by the increase in traffic, and amounting within the last
year to a thousand millions of dollars, have locked up immense
amounts of capital otherwise fluid into permanent investments.
The railroad companies tried to raise in round figures $1,600,000,-
000, but could sell only a small portion of their 4 per cent, bonds,
and including what they obtained by the issue of short-term
notes carrying 6, 7, and 73^ per cent, interest, were able to
borrow only $960,000,000, or about two-thirds of their imme
diate practical needs. The industrials were having such pros
perity that they needed about $600,000,000, and nearly two-thirds
of the sum were secured by the stronger concerns at exorbitant
interest, but those which failed to get the money for their capital
requirements were forced into the hands of receivers. The tre
mendous volume of our internal commerce, the feverish activity

AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL BANKING LAWS 243
of our manufacturers and the active demand and high prices for
the food products of the West and Northwest, and for the cotton
of the South, and for our coal, iron, copper, gold and silver,
expanded our credit until probably at the time our trouble began
98 per cent, of our business was being done by credit agencies
and not more than 2 per cent, with currency.
When the annual demand came for $300,000,000 of reserve
money to be taken from the banks in the central reserve cities
to the West and South to move the crops, it called for a cur
tailment of over $1,200,000,000 in credits and the calling of loans
to meet this demand. If we had a central bank or if there was by
some Government agency concerted action among our 6,600 na
tional banks our affairs would never have reached this perilous
condition. In Germany, for instance, the commercial paper of
all banks in the Empire would have been indorsed by the banks
which had discounted it and, being rediscounted in the central
bank, have been the basis for currency to meet the demand and
tide over the crisis with.out endangering the whole manufacturing
and commercial fabric. But we have a currency which we can not
expand, except by processes too slow to do any good, and which
can not contract when the demand for currency relaxes. We
have to maintain a national debt to have any currency, and we
have to retain our present system to furnish a market for Gov
ernment bonds in national emergencies at a rate which makes
them from 15 to 25 per cent, higher on the same interest charge
than those of any other country.
There is no doubt that hasty and ill-considered legislation in
many States had much to do with the panic. One-seventh of the
wealth of the United States is invested in railroads. A very
large amount of the securities upon which business is done is
based upon these securities. There are many thousands of rail
road freight rates in force at the same time, and they are fre
quently changed according to the necessities of competition or
of the traffic. Whether a reduction of rates will be confiscatory
or not can only be ascertained by an investigation and the testi
mony of experts. This is thoroughly understood by the in
vesting public, both in this country and in Europe. Rate-reduc
tion bills were passed in many Legislatures without reference to
committees, without discussion, and with a whoop-la cry of "Hit
them again; they have no friends." The machinery of the

244 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Mauretania or Lusitania is as complex as a watch. Any man
could throw a crowbar into it and produce derangements which
might jeopardize the safety of the ship, or do damage which
would require experts and time and money to repair. Governor
Hughes stated the true principle of the treatment of rates when,
having advised and secured from the Legislature the creation
of public utilities commissions with full power, he courageously
vetoed a 2-cent fare bill, which had been unanimously passed,
on the ground that until those commissions had investigated and
reported neither the Governor nor the Legislature had any
information upon which to base intelligent action affecting the
securities owned by millions of investors and the employment
and wages of millions of men.
Much has been said here and everywhere against Wall Street,
and sometimes New York is made interchangeable with Wall
Street. One of the most eminent agricultural experts in the
country said to me recently:
If you New Yorkers would stop buying diamonds and automobiles
the farmers with their seven thousand millions of salable products this
year will save the country.
New York is the financial center of the United States, and,
if our banking system was scientific, would be of the world.
It is the greatest manufacturing city in the world. It has four
millions of inhabitants within its boundaries, and if those who
reside in the suburban districts and have their daily business
in New York are included, as they ought to be, six millions of
people belong to the metropolis, or more than the population of
fourteen of the sovereign States of the United States. Every
section of the country — North, South, East and West — has as
many representatives there as can be found in their largest cities.
Every country bank is in a sense a branch of New York institu
tions. If a railroad is to be constructed or extended or its facili
ties enlarged, a mine opened, a water power developed, a burned
town rebuilt, or a disaster like that of the Johnstown flood alle
viated by the raising of millions of dollars, the applicants all come
to New York, and if the money can not be raised there it can be
had nowhere. The various interchanges of the metropolis are
the thermometers of values and of advancing or receding pros
perity. Not over i per cent, of the people who operate in these

AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL BANKING LAWS 245
exchanges are New Yorkers. Every city in the United States
has branches representing the houses which buy and sell on the
stock, cotton, produce, coal and metal exchanges of New York.
Every bank in the United States sends its surplus funds, when
there is no opportunity for local investment, to New York to
get the interest prevailing there upon all loans, and also because
their exchange on New York is available all over the world.
Prosperity and high prices have paid off farm mortgages, and
Western farmers are depositors instead of borrowers. Thou
sands of rural banks find there is no neighborhood demand for
this money, so they send it to New York, where it produces a
redundancy which stimulates speculation and overtrading. When
an emergency arises in the West, the Northwest, or the South,
necessitating the return of this money to those sections, they call
for it immediately and expect it in lawful money. This always
leads to the sudden calling of loans, and interest goes up by leaps
and bounds. If confidence is a bit disturbed, then others with
draw their money. No bank in the world is strong enough or
possesses the liquid assets to respond in a day to a call for all or
a large part of its deposits. Then comes a panic which involves
the whole country, and the country banks and other sufferers
are, in the main, responsible for the stringency of which they
complain. There is, unhappily, always speculation, and at times
dangerous speculation, in the New York exchanges, but so there
is in the exchanges of London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfort, and
Vienna. The movement of trade would stop and all interchanges
and sales of products cease if there was not a central market
where people with goods could always find a purchaser. It is,
in a sense, the ocean of credit which supports the vessels of com
merce, great and small. Tidal waves can not be abolished with
out drying up the ocean and need not be feared by craft built and
manned to ride them safely in all weathers. The banks and
bankers of New York bought abroad $100,000,000 in gold, and
most of this was shipped to the West, and reserves were drawn
down to the danger line for the same purpose. The panic was
as unreasoning as it was unreasonable. It demonstrated that
there is no financial cleavage of classes in such a stampede. Men
and women who came in automobiles and carriages were equally
as clamorous as those who had their little all in the suspected
trust companies or banks.

246 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Many years ago a man came into my office and introduced
himself, saying that he had made a million of dollars in Western
mines, had brought it in cash to New York, but possessed experi
ence and intelligence far beyond the tenderfeet of Wall Street,
many of whom he had met, and wanted an introduction to New
York bankers and brokers. I stated to him the dangers, told
him that I had seen financial cataclysms which destroyed the best
calculations of the most level-headed speculators, with the largest
fortunes, but I might as well have attempted to stop a stampede of
a herd of Buffaloes. I said, "Well, I give you six months." He
lasted nearly a year, and then I gave him transportation to Den
ver, to begin life anew in the mountains of Colorado. In a few
years he returned with another million, dug out of the earth,
saying that he intended to get back from Wall Street what he
had lost. In three months I again enabled him to reach the
mining regions of the Rockies, but have never heard from him
since. His two millions did not go into the bank accounts of
New Yorkers only. It was found in the balance sheets of
traders who were on the opposite side of the market in Chicago,
Milwaukee and St. Paul, Buffalo, San Francisco and New
Orleans, Charleston, Atlanta, Galveston and Boston, Portland,
Me., Portland, Ore., and Seattle.
Commodore Vanderbilt once said to me that any fool could
make a million, but it took a wise man to keep it. It is these
fools who are responsible for the exaggerated fortunes of which
we hear so much, and it was the wise use of these fortunes in
the recent panic by the wise men who had accumulated and kept
them which saved from annihilation fools and wise men alike
whose all was embarked in their business.
The discussion of this question has taken a wide range, and
has been able and exhaustive. A stranger reading these argu
ments would come to the conclusion that there is neither specula
tion nor gambling anywhere in the United States except in the
New York Stock Exchange, and that the New York banks both
promote and help speculation, and thereby involve bankers and
banking institutions, national and State, all over the country who
are entirely innocent of such practices. Not only the United
States, but Canada, Mexico, the South American Republics and
the West Indies on this side of the ocean, and Europe on the
other, transact their purchases and sales of securities on the

AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL BANKING LAWS 247
New York Stock Exchange which are listed there. Pure and
simple speculative transactions are only the fringe upon its seri
ous business. I believe in the virtue of the country without
conceding the wickedness of the metropolis. There is not much
difference in the human nature of the pavement and of the field.
The banking mind works in like channels all over the world.
The Western and Northwestern farmers agree to withhold
their grain for higher prices. They are indebted, for the ex
penses of the harvesting and of carrying it to the granaries at
the stations and keeping it there, to the local banks who finance
them, and this is in the nature of a speculation. The same is true
of the cotton growers of the South, and they claim that by this
process, aided by their banking institutions, they have added
enormously to the value of their crop. Real estate booms in
prospective city and town lots are financed by banks all over the
country and they are purely speculative. The same human na
ture leads people to buy stocks or grain or cotton on the New
York exchanges. To carry this to the gold fields of Nevada,
the men in the shanties of these tented towns of the mining
districts are as eager watchers of the blackboards which record
the prices of their mining stocks as are those in the brokers'
offices of the cities. In some counties of Kentucky the price of
tobacco is now regulated by the shotgun. Night riders burn the
barns and lash the backs of those who are on the other side of
the market. The method is original and spectacular, but wholly
speculative. In my days of active railroading I made an extended tour
every year covering the Middle and Western States. Upon one
of these trips my train was stopped by an obstruction on the
track which was being repaired, and I saw among the laborers
a man evidently capable of better work. I told him so, and
asked him how he came to be simply a laborer on the track. He
said: Do you see that farm yonder with that good house and outbuildings?
That was recently mine. I was happy and comfortable. A man came
along and offered me $10,000. It was more than I thought the farm
worth and I accepted it. He paid me $1,000 down and gave me a mort
gage for nine thousand. I then moved to town and sat in the office day
by day, where the maps were displayed of the avenues, streets, parks
and university grounds of the town which was to cover miles about. I

248 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
saw my farm bought and sold until it brought $15,000. I got the fever
and became convinced that every foot of it was part of a city lot. I
bought it back for twenty thousand, gave the thousand dollars which I
had received and a mortgage for nineteen thousand and then the boom
burst. The farm was sold under the mortgage and brought $5,000 and
left me in debt under a deficiency judgment for three times what I was
worth when I parted with it. That is why I am working on the track.
I remember in another State where the mayor and other city
officials took me about in carriages, showing me what was and
what was to be. There was the real-estate exchange, the black
board, the excited bidders, the transfer of lots and all the para
phernalia of the stock exchange. At every corner I was shown
a house in which lived a man who had been a railroad conductor,
or a locomotive engineer, or a small farmer, or grain dealer, or
lawyer, or clerk, who was now worth hundreds of thousands
on paper. That was stimulating everybody to put what little
money he had upon margins for the purchase of lots. I finally
said to the mayor, "I see you have everything mercantile, indus
trial, financial, charitable, religious and educational which a great
city and large population may require, but I have noticed no
graveyard." "Oh!" he said, "Our cemetery was what is now
the center of our city as it is laid out. It was too expensive to
keep for that purpose and retarded our expansion, so we moved
it some miles over the hill and transplanted our dead to the new
location. That corner lot, now worth $20,000, was my family
plot. I was compelled to remove the remains of my wife over the
hill to the new location, but I knew her spirit approved of it,
because she was always most deeply interested in the growth of
our town." Traveling again through another State I saw a large
portion of the State staked out. I ascertained that the banks
were loaning money to carry on these operations. I stated the
facts to an interviewer at the next city, as I had ascertained them,
with the result that the train was stopped the next day at noon
and several bushels of telegrams were handed in, protesting
against the interview. It created a panic of considerable pro
portions in New York and London. One message stated that I
had cost honest people the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars,
while several from the booming towns assured me that leading
citizens with shotguns were on my trail. We all remember how
in the early days of the oil excitement in Pennsylvania farmers

AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL BANKING LAWS 249
on the poorest lands became rich and rich men became poor and
the wildest speculation prevailed, receiving encouragement in
every country banking office.
We remember the absurd and spectacular career of Coal Oil
Johnnie who arose to be a millionaire in a day and spent all in
a month. I want to assure Senators from the States where I
have noticed these things that there is no such reckless specula
tion on the stock exchange in New York. There is no currency
panic because of stock transactions on the stock exchange. There
is not a dollar passed there in money. It is all done by checks
and the balances adjusted between the banks in the clearing
house. The shares and bonds are actually bought and paid for
in all these vast transactions whose record presents such phenom
enal figures. Investors and buyers for a rise are inextricably
mixed, as the stocks and bonds are actually bought and paid for.
The demand loans are not nearly all for gambling on the ex
changes. There are thousands of transactions where the man
with securities which are bankable, but a permanent part of his
estate, borrows on demand, because he gets the money at a low
rate of interest and needs it for a turn in the sale of real estate
or of other property by which he may be able in a few days to
pay off the loan without having an interest charge running against
him for money for which he has no further use, or he uses the
securities for temporary loans in his business. While it is the
purpose of the creation of banks and their duty to aid business
and industries through the legitimate use of commercial paper,
nevertheless the enormous increase of bonds and stocks and their
use as security for loans for all purposes have imposed upon the
banks an enlargement of their business and an addition to their
responsibilities which did not exist fifty years ago.
One of the railroads of the country, to increase its equipment
and enlarge its facilities, either upon its own motion or the
order of the Legislature or the railroad commission, issues ten,
twenty, thirty or fifty millions of new securities. The railroad
has no means of disposing of them. It is not in the banking
business. It goes to one of the great bankers, and he immedi
ately forms a syndicate which buys these bonds at a price and
gives the railroad the money. The bankers are not supposed, in
the large transactions in which they are engaged, to have these
milhons in their vaults. They borrow the money upon these

250 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
securities and their credit from the banks. They may be able
to dispose of them in a very short time, but if there comes a
panic or a period of very active money, the bonds can not be sold
for some time without a loss. In either case the banks finance
the transaction until the bankers can find somewhere in the world
a market for these securities, but they are generally call or de
mand loans. Such transactions are as much an aid to commerce
and industries as loans upon commercial paper and the usual and
ordinary course of business in a bank of deposits and discounts.
They extend the facilities of the railroad. They give employ
ment to multitudes of men. They provide means for a larger and
cheaper distribution of the products of the farm, the factory
and the mine. In the round-up of the transaction the railroad
has enlarged its equipment and facilities, the bank has had a
profitable use for its money, the banker has made his commission
on the sales and the country is richer with larger possibilities
by the transaction. New York does this to an extent unknown
anywhere else, but it does it for every State, Territory and section
of the Union.
I fully realize the evils of gambling, whether in stocks or
grain or in any other way. Its demoralization and perils are
patent to everybody. I will aid in any effort to suppress it which
does not involve embarrassment or ruin to legitimate business.
But what I am saying is that in proportion to the volume of its
business and the magnitude of its transactions there is as little
of it in New York as anywhere else in the United States, and
it is under better control. We can not abolish doing business
on a margin of cash and the balance on credit. Every success
ful business man in the country has risen by the use of his credit.
All merchants, manufacturers and bankers would work within
very narrow limits if their transactions were confined to their
cash capital.
I heard an interesting discussion in London about twenty
years ago between English and American bankers of interna
tional reputation. Money was nominally i per cent, and in little
demand at that. Bankers of London were refusing to take de
posits. They could not derive incomes sufficient to pay for the
care of them. The opinion of these London and American finan
ciers was that the wealth-producing powers of the world had
exceeded investment possibilities. "The same thought found

AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL BANKING LAWS 251
expression in the most authoritative of the financial journals.
They saw no hope for people who were compelled to live upon
invested capital and who had not the ability to work. In their
view I per cent, was to be the standard of interest, and a man
would have to be worth a million to leave his family fairly com
fortable. These financiers and financial writers could not fore
see what the world has experienced in the tremendous, almost
miraculous, development of industries during the last decade.
It has created a demand for money which raised the rate of
interest in the Bank of England to 7 per cent, and made the
prevailing profitable charge in Germany seven and a half. While
we have the same conditions, yet our rate should never have
exceeded 10 per cent., but we all know it has varied from twenty
to one hundred and twenty during three months. These coun
tries had the scientific machinery, tested and tried by a century
of experience, while we were living within the bolted and barred
walls of an inelastic and unexpanding currency. Our financial
system is like a pyramid placed upon its apex. The higher it
is built the greater the danger of its toppling over, and yet
every new strata is evidence of what we call prosperity. The
systems of Germany and other countries construct the broadest
foundation for the pyramid of their expanding business and
credits, and as it rises the foundation becomes firmer.
The prosperity of the decade now closing, owing to good
harvests, good markets and high prices for products, has paid
off mortgages on farms and increased deposits in the country
banks beyond all precedent and all forecasts of the past. If
the farmer needs no money on mortgages, if the local demand
of the country merchant is easily satisfied, if, as has been the
case, money accumulates in these rural communities far beyond
any local needs, we have in large sections of our country the
conditions which prevailed twenty years ago when the bankers
and financial writers of London were predicting hopeless stagna
tion of capital. But capital is fluid as never before, and so it
flows from these rural neighborhoods to the places where it is
loanable at a profit.
Commercial paper issued legitimately in the great cities for
the necessary transaction of business appears among the assets
of these country banks with names unknown to the neighbor
hoods. This paper is bought upon confidence in their corre-

252 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
spondents in the cities and the relations between banker and
depositor and borrower which is the life of credit can not exist.
A trust company closing its doors, a bank failure, or an over
capitalized industry going to pieces undermines confidence.
Then with the inability of immediate response an unreasonable
alarm spreads all over the country. We have just escaped the
most potential possibility of financial and industrial ruin in our
history. We were in this peril at a time when production was
never so great; new wealth from the farms, the mines and the
forests never created so rapidly ; markets never so good and
the balance of trade in our favor never so large. Conditions
similar but not so acute happen every year when the crops are
to be moved, and bank reserves in the central reserve cities are
drawn down with the curtailment of $4 of credit for every dollar
shipped. The oft-repeated statement of our redundant currency
and of our per capita being greater by 25 per cent, than that of
any other country is largely a delusion. Take out of our cur
rency the amount which the Government holds in gold, the cur
rency which it keeps out of the banks and in the Treasury to
meet current expenses, and that which is locked up in bank
reserves against deposits and probably instead of three thousand
millions less than one-half of that will be in circulation.
There is no other people in the world whose per capita keeps
anything like so much money out of circulation by carrying it in
their pockets and hiding it in their houses. The circulating me
dium for the ordinary and necessary transactions of life, which
are done upon the cash basis in foreign countries, is largely gold,
silver and copper. The result is that only a hmited amount is
carried by the individual. Our citizens, whether men or women,
rarely have gold. They dislike silver and use bills. The aggre
gate of money upon the persons of men, women and grown-up
children of our country is enormous. The same is true of the
sums which are in nooks and corners and hidden recesses of the
homes of our people. (Immigrants from Europe who spend little
and save nearly all their earnings, to live in ease at home the
rest of their lives, send abroad annually about $250,000,000, of
which it is estimated nearly one hundred millions in cash are
carried by those returning. ) Twenty-five thousand millions of
current business was confronted, when loss of confidence im
paired credits, with the peril that it must have nearly the equiva-

AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL BANKING LAWS 253
lent of thirteen billions of deposits in cash to go ahead, and mil
lions of depositors wanted at once to draw out to hoard or to
hold in safe-deposit boxes for pay rolls all of that less than one
thousand five hundred millions of currency available.
For three days the most prosperous and progressive of peo
ples, at the high tide of the most wonderful prosperity of their
marvelous material development, were on the brink of the most
destructive and widespread financial and industrial breakdown
ever experienced. The situation was saved because the banks
had a leader of vast experience, of demonstrated genius for
affairs, and large resources, who could unite them and whom
they could follow, and because the banks of New York had the
courage and wisdom to act in concert, and because the Secre
tary of the Treasury, Mr. Cortelyou, met the situation with rare
firmness and ability.
We are in danger with our inelastic currency from another
source which has received little attention. What has been done
once can be repeated, and we have had artificial currency fam
ines brought on by audacious operators locking up money. With
the vast resources which a few speculators can now control, the
temptation is great to put the prices of securities or products
up or down by cornering the currency. Ours is the only coun
try where this is possible. The Bank of France could swamp
an unscrupulous syndicate attempting such a scheme with a
thousand milhons of dollars of currency, and other financially
civilized countries would be proportionately powerful, while our
banks are powerless to expand quickly in lawful money and
might be enjoined by speculators in their makeshift efforts to
save the situation by clearing-house certificates and credit de
vices. It is a tribute to the integrity, the morality, and the
patriotism of our much-abused bankers and men of great wealth
that they have used all their resources and all their power to
prevent, to make impossible, the success of such efforts.
A Senator upon this floor the other day placed Andrew Jack
son next to George Washington in the influence which eminent
men have had upon the destinies of the Republic. Alexander
Hamilton, the greatest original genius this country or any other
ever knew, in placing our chaotic finance upon a stable basis,
brought into existence, among other things, a central national
bank. Andrew Jackson, who hated all banks, not only destroyed

254 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
the central bank, but left a profound impression against it upon
the minds of his countrymen, and so deeply embedded that hos
tility in his own generation that to-day his dead hand clutches
with a grip which can not be loosened a central national bank.
We can not, without consequences not to be contemplated, change
our present basis of national banking and circulation based upon
Government bonds, but we can add to the present system an
elasticity which, while it will not prevent, will avert many of
the dangers now threatening us; dangers which will increase
as our country grows in population, wealth and productive
energies. I would prefer an asset currency for our emergencies such as
has proven eminently successful under conditions exactly the
same as ours in Canada, and which works with like success in
Scotland. I know that generations must pass before the traditions of
General Jackson will permit a central national bank. While
clearing-house certificates and other makeshifts of doubtful legal
ity, which have been held up to attack and ridicule here, have
been our only safety in these recurring financial difficulties, we
ought by legislation to supply practical and simple remedies.
There is as much danger in redundant as in restricted currency,
and if we add to our present system an elasticity which has been
demonstrated to be safe and effective under proper restrictions
of taxation, we are entering upon no new experiment, but simply
following the proved experience of other highly organized in
dustrial and financial countries. A currency based upon assets
which would go out automatically when the interest rate rose
so as to make it profitable and come back automatically under
a tax which would make it unprofitable when the interest rate
went down, would give us easily and instantly all the new cur
rency required. If it was printed in the same way as other bills,
presented the same appearance, had the sanction of the law, and
was issued only under the authority of Government officials, it
would meet emergencies satisfactorily and the demands of the
business of the country, preventing the curtailment of commer
cial credits for legitimate business and removing the danger of
cornering of the currency. Five thousand millions of dollars
were lost by investors in the shrinking of securities, and probably

AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL BANKING LAWS 255
one hundred millions to wage-earners in the stoppage of enter
prises and curtailment of employment in the recent panic.
There is a popular delusion about a rich man's panic. It
means a general belief and satisfaction that the so-called "multi
millionaires" have suffered serious losses. Men of great weakh
and financial genius foresee the storm long before it breaks.
If property is to be attacked by legislation or depreciated by a
panic they sell out when the public are buyers. They foresee
again when the storm has spent its force, repurchase at panic
prices, and double their fortunes. It is business men whose
capital is active and who are borrowers on their credit to keep
their business enlarging who suffer loss or are forced into liquida
tion or bankruptcy.
But while I beheve in an asset currency, under such safe
guards and restrictions as have proved successful in the expe
rience and practice of other commercial and industrial nations,
I have become convinced of two things: First, that it is impos
sible at this session of Congress to revolutionize our banking
and currency system; second, that it is absolutely essential that
we should have at the earliest possible moment some form of
emergency currency. We do not need this relief to-day, but
no one can predict when it will be required because of the limited
amount of available currency, amounting to less than 8 per cent.
of the total deposits in all the banks of the country.
Panics and bank suspensions are matters of confidence. The
fact that the banks are sound, as the recent panic demonstrated
to such an extraordinary degree, is of no avail. The first people
to draw money from suspected institutions were the banks and
trust companies which had deposited in those against which
rumor leveled its shafts. All that the public grasp when fear
prevails is that there is no way of furnishing money except by
the help which the Government can give in deposits and by
currency being issued under a process now too slow to be avail
able and of too limited amount to remedy any difficulties. Both
institutions and individuals forget, in their anxiety to get their
money out of the bank, that its assets are necessarily in commer
cial paper, securities and real estate which can not immediately
be turned into cash.
I would like to change our system of bond-secured currency.
I would like to have all our various kinds of currency consoli-

256 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
dated into one, and that based upon gold as a reserve, with
power to increase it in a crisis, as can be done under similar
conditions in Germany, France, England, Scotland and Canada.
But the Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Aldrich] says in his
very able and lucid speech that our system is a growth and make
shift created to meet emergencies at different periods.
That is the fact, and it has become so deeply imbedded in our
commercial, financial and industrial life that it can not be changed
in a day. During my earlier, more tumultuous and enthusi
astic years I expected the millenium to arrive as soon as needed
in every department of human endeavor, but I have learned in
the observations of a long life that reforms come slowly and not
at once. Those succeed which are tentative and proved by trial
until perfected. I think everyone will admit that we can not
go into a broad scheme which will undo absolutely the work
since 1862 and build within the next few months a wise and
enduring structure. That can only be done in times of industrial
prosperity, confidence and financial peace. That we have not
now. We are living in a period of unrest, and the wounds of
our catastrophe are not yet healed. The country is recuperating
and, with its enormous resources and productiveness, will recover
rapidly; but the basic condition of its restoration is confidence
in the belief that the banks will not again suspend and that the
depositors can have their money whenever they want it. This
bill tides over the crisis. In forty-eight hours five hundred mil
lions of new money can be had. The fact that this is possible is
in itself assurance and reassurance.
By the reports of two of the greatest railroad systems in the
country, the gross earnings of one of them had fallen off 12J/2
per cent, and of the other i8j4 per cent, for January, 1908, as
compared with January of last year. This meant that there had
been in each of these systems a corresponding percentage in the
reduction of expenses. "Reduction of expenses" is a sentence
of calamity to tens of thousands of workers and fear to them
all. If this reduction involves 50,000 men, it means 250,000
people who are without incomes. It means strained credit for
the storekeeper and possibly bankruptcy. It means a smaller
demand upon the manufacturer and from him upon the raw-
material producer. The effect of this percentage of decrease
in earnings on the railroads is idle cars, and, with the curtailing

AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL BANKING LAWS 257
of the movement of traffic, a reduction in the consumption of
coal, which again reacts with like effect upon the coal miner
and the coal operator. The managers of these properties be
lieve that the downward movement is checked. They see that
every condition exists for a renewal of the prosperity which
was so suddenly halted in October of last year, but they all be
lieve that the public must be assured that legislation has provided
means to increase the currency to meet emergent and exigent
demands, and with confidence that this has been done the tre
mendous forces of production will again energize industries and
transportation. The Aldrich Bill, so called, is simple in its remedies, practical
and easily understood. It is a makeshift, if you please, but as
long as we can not re-create our system at once, expedients which
are effective are essential to meet present conditions. The main
thing is to have securities available for the additional currency
which are so large in amount and so easy to be held or obtained
that the control or cornering of them is impossible. The bill
under consideration accomplishes this result.
This legislation should be supplemented by a commission. I
do not mean a commission of experts, so cahed, but a commis
sion composed of the joint committees of the two Houses of Con
gress. I have little faith in commissions selected outside of
Congress to recommend work for the National Legislature.
Such commissions are necessarily composed of specialists who
are limited in knowledge to the hne of their own studies and
activities and know little of other interests and have less confi
dence in their advocates, while legislators of long experience,
who are committed to no theory, who are practical and who have
heard all sides over and over again, can formulate into legisla
tion the results gathered from expert testimony bearing upon
questions in which they also have had broad and large experience.
I think we should strengthen the position of the Comptroller
of the Currency. So long as the Government is in the banking
business, his functions are as important as that of any officer in
the Government. The position requires a man of first-class abil
ity, training and experience. When he demonstrates this upon
the national platform, his services are required for life positions
at large salaries by the great financial institutions of the country.
These institutions, whether they be railroads or banks or trust
Vol. VII— 17

258 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
companies, understand that the salary, no matter how large,
which secures the right man — and there are very few compared
with the demand — is of little account. I have known in my own
experience several instances where the talent of the manager of a
corporation dealing in enormous figures was the difference be
tween surplus and dividends and deficiencies and bankruptcy.
The Comptroller of the Currency should have Cabinet pay and
a term of office not dependent upon changes of Administration.
The Government, having secured the best available talent, should
be able to retain it by the permanency and dignity of the office,
even though its salary was far below what a private corporation
would gladly give.
The number of bank examiners should be increased very
largely and their compensation be a fixed salary instead of fees.
I believe there are now eighty, and it is impossible for that num
ber, however competent or well intentioned, to make the frequent
examinations necessary to keep their fingers upon the 6,600 na
tional banks. I think the commission I have suggested should
provide some method by which the Secretary of the Treasury,
the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Treasurer of the United
States could be brought in intimate contact with a board selected
by the national banks and possessing supervisory and advisory
powers, with some executive responsibilities, which might con
centrate the banking power of the country for the prevention of
panics and also for the protection of depositors, stockholders and
the public against badly or corruptly managed institutions. This
would meet in a limited way the duties of a central bank without
its power. I agree with the Senator from Alabama that there
should be a larger amount of the reserve kept in the country banks
and that they should have the privilege of keeping part of them
in bonds which could be used for emergency currency. I believe
it would be a hazardous experiment for the Government to guar
antee deposits. The effect upon State banks, trust companies
and savings banks would be disastrous. They could not survive
the competition of national banks with the Government standing
sponsor for their deposits. It would eliminate the sense of re
sponsibility now resting upon officers and directors. It would
place a premium upon incompetency and carelessness. It would
penalize banks wisely, honestly and efficienth' managed by taxing

AMENDMENT OF NATIONAL BANKING LAWS 259
them to raise a fund to pay the debts of those which fall through
bad or dishonest officials.
The difficulties of this legislation are in the possession of
every Senator. Our mails are crowded with suggestions, all
different. I wrote a letter, mailing with it a copy of this bill, to
the officers of over 400 banks. Most of them have responded,
but there is no substantial agreement among them. The Bank
ers' Association of the United States prepared a bill, which I
think excellent, but that has been attacked by bankers of distinc
tion, and its passage at this session rendered impossible. Action
at the earliest moment possible is the demand of the people. In
dustry is waiting, as never before, upon the removal of a present
danger which excites general apprehension. Failure to agree
upon any legislation would result in suspense and partial paraly
sis. The country is prosperous, and its financial, transportation,
farming and manufacturing resources are unimpaired. Their
movement halts because of fear that our currency, notoriously
insufficient in times of trouble, will not have given to it by this
Congress an elasticity which will prevent a recurrence of crises
like that through which we have recently passed. The Aldrich
Bill is the result of the most careful study of one of the ablest
of committees on finance. It is the only one upon which there
is any promising unison of opinion. Therefore it is that I believe
this measure, amended along the lines of its original plan and
design by the suggestions which the debate has evolved, will
accomphsh the purpose of restoring confidence, preventing and
minimizing panics and meeting emergencies until a full and com
plete system for our banking and currency can be perfected.

SOIL SURVEYS

SPEECH IN FAVOR OF AN APPROPRIATION FOR THE SURVEY AND
RECLAMATION OF AGRICULTURAL LANDS, APRIL 30, I908.
Mr. President: I dislike always in any way to disagree
with the conclusions reached by a committee, and would not in
this case have said anything if there had not been such a radical
change in the bill as it passed the House.
The Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Warren] asks us where
our information comes from, and if by any possibility it may be
better than that which the committee received. My informa
tion comes from agricultural societies and granges in the State
of New York. I have a letter here from a distinguished agri
culturalist inclosing a speech made by one of the members of
the New York delegation during the debate when this subject
was up before the House of Representatives.
It seems to me that the only question at issue is the time
which will be involved in the performance of this work. Every
body admits the necessity for the work and its enormous value.
The question is, shall it be done rapidly or shall it be spread
over a longer period, and that depends upon the amount of the
appropriation. The information which I have received from these people
who are so deeply interested and who have consulted with the
Bureau of Soils is that the difference in this appropriation as it
passed the House and is cut down by the Senate committee
makes just double the time required to perform the work al
ready mapped out.
This Bureau has done valuable service to the agricultural in
terests of the State of New Yo!-k. The surveys which it has
made in the counties along the Lake region in regard to grape
culture have enriched that industry in that part of the State.
They are now engaged in two kinds of work which interest
greatly the farmers of New York, one in relation to the aban
doned farms in the Southern tier and the other the cultivation
of alfalfa for the dairy interests. 260

SOIL SURVEYS 261
One would hardly suppose that there were abandoned farms
in the State of New York, but it is a fact that in some of the
counties in the southern tier the soil has become exhausted.
The people of the locality can not, by their own efforts, carry
on the investigations which are necessary to make those farms
sufficiently productive for profit or even for a living. The re
sult is that farms are abandoned. The work which has already
been done in a limited way by the Bureau of Soils survey has
brought many of those farms into production again, and the
whole of that section is looking with the liveliest interest to an
immediate and energetic continuation of the work because of
the results following what the Bureau has already done.
The dairy interests of New York are among the largest in the
United States, and those interests have been suffering by the
exhaustion of dairy soil and are alive to the necessity of find
ing fresh materials for feeding stock. It has been found that
this necessity is abundantly supplied by alfalfa if the soil can
be located which will economically and profitably produce it.
That has been discovered in a great district, nearly 400 miles
in length, between Albany and the Lakes.
Now, constituents of mine who are interested personally, and
public-spirited citizens whose studies are in the line of agri
culture, feel that unless this additional appropriation is made
the work both of reclaiming farms and producing alfalfa will
be delayed, to the infinite disadvantage of the agricultural in
terests of the State of New York.
We find that the committee of the House appropriated, on the
information which they had, $170,000. Then, in the debate, on
information received from practical farmers on the floor of the
House, the amount was raised there to $323,000. Now, the Sen
ate committee, on further testimony, has reduced it to $200,000.
So the whole discussion, from its origin in the House com
mittee until its arrival on the floor here, demonstrates that it is
a fluid question, to be determined by the information we can
derive from any source where that information can be procured.
Under the circumstances, Mr. President, I am compelled,
much as I regret it, to differ from the conclusions of the com
mittee and to vote for the restoration of the amount passed by
the House of Representatives.

CONSERVATION OF FORESTS

SPEECH ON FORESTRY AND THE CONSERVATION OF OUR FORESTS,
MAY 7, 1908.
Mr. President : I listened with great interest to the remarks
of the eloquent Senator from Idaho when this bilU was last
under discussion. He illuminates every subject which he touches,
but some of us are compelled to differ with him upon his prem
ises, his facts, and his conclusions. If we were back at the
time when the country was all forests and wilderness and there
were few settlements, his argument would be most impressive,
but even under such conditions the flaw in it is that as scientific
forestry is now understood and practiced the early settlers, in
stead of sweeping off the woods with reckless haste and waste,
would have preserved a portion of them for the benefit of them
selves and their posterity, both in wood supply and for water.
There are few subjects upon which the American people are
so keenly alive as this one of forestry. I do not believe there
is any branch of the Government where the appropriation com
mands more general approbation. The forests on the public
domain are an estate belonging to the whole people of the United
States. The cost of their houses and food largely depends in
the future upon scientific forestry. It has been our habit always
to get all possible out of the present without reckoning the
future. We nearly killed off our game and exterminated our
song birds and insect-destroying birds for sport before we be
came alive to the necessity of their preservation.
We had reduced the fish in our rivers to a point where this
food was no longer available at prices which brought it within
reach of the people before we adopted a system of fish hatch
eries. In some of the rivers when shad was thus propagated
the fishermen, who thought the price might be reduced by an
abundance of fish, attempted to assassinate the commissioners
of the State. Within our recent memory we have been deple-
'The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, had under consideration the bill (H. R.
19158) making appropriations for the Department of Agriculture for the fiscal year end
ing June 30, 1909. 262

CONSERVATION OF FORESTS 263
ting the forests of the country. It has been done by the most
wasteful methods. The business has made some of the largest
of multimillionaire fortunes. Now, in the older States, tree
planting is considered as necessary for agriculture or for profit
as tree cutting in the olden time was essential for the clearings.
The State of New York has within the last few years spent
nearly two millions of dollars in purchasing what remained of
primeval forests in the Adirondack region. They were being so
rapidly depleted by wasteful lumbering that the effect was already
disastrous upon the navigation of the rivers, water for the canals,
irrigation of the farms, and the prevention of floods. It was
only day before yesterday that a shipment of a million trees ar
rived in New York City from Germany in this movement to re
forest the Adirondack region.
We have in the United States now a supply of timber suffi
cient only for the next thirty years. When we consider the
economical uses of wood this is appalling. It will be a serious
blow to the poor man seeking to secure a home and independence
when his material must be either steel, brick, or concrete. The
cost then becomes prohibitive. Already hard wood for furniture
and domestic purposes has so risen in price as to prove a seri
ous tax upon the homes of the American people. Every tree
that is cut down for ties for the railroad requires two growing
ones to replace it, and forests are cut from year to year to sup
ply the tremendous demands of our 200,000 miles of railroads.
Every one of our great dailies exhaust in a short time 10 acres
of spruce cut for wood pulp jf' There is no doubt that if our
forests were thrown open as heretofore a few great lumber com
panies would make enormous fortunes, but at an expense to the
whole people of the United States in generations to come which
would be a thousandfold more than the fortunes thus accumu
lated in one generation to be dissipated in another. **''
Mr. Cleveland, who did many things in his Administration
for which he will receive the praise of posterity, commenced
the policy of forest reserves. He placed under the protection
of the Government about 20,000,000 acres, but for several years
there was no pohcy of administration for the forests. On the
contrary, they were practically locked up. This left them sub
ject to forest fires and timber thieves. Unpopularity of this
isolation of a product of public necessity led whole communities

264 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
to condone the stealing of the wood. In 1898 Mr. Gifford
Pinchot was asked to take the head of a Bureau of Forestry.
He was at that time the only thoroughly educated and expe
rienced forester in the United States. There were only two others
besides himself who had ever given attention or study to the
business. He was, happily, so situated as to independence that
he could lay aside careers which were open to him in the pro
fessional and business world, where large accumulations might
have been had, to devote his time, talents, and experience to the
public service. This he has done for ten years with astonishing
and most beneficent results. When he took up the work the
United States had but 40,000,000 acres of this locked-up and
unadministered forests. Now there are one hundred and fifty
millions, but so managed that the public of the whole country
are deriving inestimable benefits from their preservation and
use. Mr. Pinchot, as a profound student of this question, had
not only learned methods and results in older countries, but ex
perimented practically upon the estate of a gentleman who was
deeply interested in the preservation of the woods.
It is an illuminating experience for an American to travel
over the continent of Europe and to see the care and scientific
skill with which governments there look after the woods. I
know of communities in Germany where the forests, owned in
common by the municipality, pay the entire taxes by their an
nual yield under a system by which they are kept unimpaired.
Happily for Switzerland, the early inhabitants, over a thou
sand years ago, saw the effects upon their hillsides and valleys
of the destruction of the forests. After visiting deforested
mountain sides and devastated valleys in the United States, it is a
liberal education to see the Swiss mountains cultivated up to
the snow line, the farm houses perched so high that they look
like fairy cabins in the air, and the trees so growing as to catch
and hold the rainfall and the water from the melting snow.
Except for this intelligent care Switzerland would to-day be un
inhabitable, these farms would long ago have disappeared from
the mountain sides, the valley farms would have been destroyed
by torrents, and the streams rendered useless by the uneven
fall of the water. There is almost as much care in Switzerland,
Germany, and France of the tree as there is of a human being
to prevent injury or to punish injury.

CONSERVATION OF FORESTS 265
These countries not only keep their forests up to a full state
of efficiency and replacement, but they derive an income of from
$3 to $5 an acre from them. There was more wastefulness of
the forest in France than in any other of the European coun
tries ; but in repairing this France has been spending about $50,-
000,000 in reforestation. During the last year the floods de
stroyed in some departments of France twenty-five to thirty
millions of property and ruined thousands of families. The
French have found that this was wholly due to cutting the trees
from the hillsides, and it has led to an enormous increase of
efforts for reforestation.
I had occasion at one time to study the Appalachian situa
tion in our own country, and I came to the conclusion that with
the deforesting of the Appalachian Mountains, which has al
ready taken place, there has been a loss along the rivers which
find their sources in these hills of more than $20,000,000 a year.
Not only are floods caused by deforestation, but the floods are
succeeded by droughts, which destroy the navigability of the
streams, and the streams are filled up.
One of the greatest triumphs, in my judgment, of Mr. Pinchot"
and of his able assistants has been that he has captured the
intelligent lumbermen of the country. The lumbermen of the
country see already the necessity of the work he is doing. I
think it was at the last meeting of the Lumber Association of
the United States that they passed resolutions to endow a chair
of forestry in one or more of the universities of the country.
Of course there are some great interests that are still opposed
to this forest-reserve policy — and those great interests are sus
tained by honest, well-meaning, and intelligent people 
Mr. Clark of Wyoming. I dishke to interrupt the Senator,
but for my personal information I should like to be advised as
to what the great interests are and of whom they are composed
that are opposing the forest policy ?
Mr. Depew. I understand that many of the great sheep in
terests are opposed to the forest policy, and I understand that
many of the cattle raisers are opposed to the forest policy, and
I understand that many lumber companies — and they have come
into these forests in spite of everybody and everything — are
opposed to the forestry policy.
Mr. Clark of Wyoming. The Senator, however, would not

266 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
attempt to specialize as to what lumber interests are in favor
of the policy and what lumber interests are opposing it ?
Mr. Depew. No; I would not do that; but I know human
nature and how it works, and I know how it has worked in the
past. I call the Senator's attention especially to how the lum
ber interests have worked when they have had their own sweet
will, unrestricted by the Government or by anything but their
own judgment, in Wisconsin, in Minnesota, and in Michigan.
Mr. Clark of Wyoming. I would ask the Senator whether
or not he is informed that the largest private lumber interests
in the world, the Weyerhauser interests, are in favor of the
exact policy which the Forest Reserve Service is now carry
ing on?
Mr. Depew. Because they have been converted.
Mr. Clark of Wyoming. After having acquired, substan
tially, all of the lumber in the United States save that which
is owned by the Government.
Mr. Depew. Mr. President, under the administration of
Mr. Pinchot the work of forestry has been carried to the woods,
where it ought to be done. It is no longer mere bureau work
of secretaries and bookkeepers. In 1900 we had about eleven
foresters in this country who understood the business, and in
1908 we have more than twelve hundred. All European coun
tries have schools of forestry, where young men are educated
to enter upon forest care, both for the public and for private
individuals as a career. One of the greatest successes of Mr.
Pinchot is that he has convinced the lumbermen themselves how
unwise it is to destroy in a few years this source of perennial
wealth. There is no greater reproduction in actual life of the
fable of the goose that laid the golden egg than the cutting off
of the forests. The lumbermen now understand that, and at
their annual meeting they decided to endow chairs of forestry
in some of the universities. Under the system pursued up to
the present time the waste was incalculable and irreparable.
That lumberman made the most money — and making money was
all that was desired — who could best select the trees which would
pay the best and could be most rapidly and cheaply cut down
and conveyed to the sawmill or the market. Each year saw
t»ns of thousands of acres rendered worthless for all farming
or agricultural purposes forever.

CONSERVATION OF FORESTS 267
But they saw more than that. These vast fields were the
storage reservoirs of the rains which held the floods and dis
tributed the water during the dry seasons so that the streams
were kept up, navigation was secured, and farms could be irri
gated. But with the woods taken off, the humus gathered there
for centuries acting as a sponge to hold the water, the soil
was swept into the streams and down upon the bottom lands,
and then at the seasons of the melting snow or the big rainfalls
the torrents did incalculable damage to vast regions of country.
We do not have to theorize or romance in order to establish
the disastrous results of our former practice of lumbering. Cor
porations and individuals were working at their own free will
and without any Government supervision or control. Fifty
years ago the white pine forests around the Great Lakes stretched
continuously across the northern part of the States of Michi
gan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. They were the greatest ag
gregation in one body of this valuable wood in the world.
To-day white pine has become so scarce and expensive as to
be almost inaccessible to the ordinary purchaser. In these forests
a half century ago was the almost incalculable amount of 350,-
000,000,000 feet, board measure. The great lumber companies
rushed in, each striving to outdo the other in the harvest of the
woods. They cut at the rate of nearly 8,000,000,000 feet, board
measure, a year. They reduced the price by competition so that
it paid only to take the best trees. The cuttings and the slash
ings and the slabs were left and became fuel for forest fires.
These fires, fanned by the fierce winds of the North, burned over
the areas from which the wood had been cut and into the woods
themselves. They burned up the rich soil which had accumu
lated for centuries and left only the sand underneath. Then
came the floods which washed these sands into the rivers, so
that many of the streams of the Northwest which were formerly
navigable are now useless. Not only was it made impossible for
these woods to grow again, but the whole region became an arid
and uninhabitable waste.
The statement has been made that forests cut down this way
will easily reproduce themselves without assistance or care, but
it takes eighty years for a white-pine tree to reach maturity
where it can be profitably cut. The lumbermen, in sweeping
off the trees that were marketable and burning the rest, de-

268 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
stroyed the possibility of a new growth, and the same would
happen if our present forests were thrown open to this destruc
tive competition. We must remember all the while that this
destruction is upon the public domain belonging to the people
of the United States, and of the property which should be for
all time a source of protection and revenue to the people of the
United States.
With all the figures that were presented here in regard to
Idaho being deprived of her population in the future because
of forest reserves within her borders, if I have calculated cor
rectly from the figures given — I have not had an opportunity
to examine them since — there is only five per cent, of Idaho in
forest reserves. But under the intelligent supervision and un
der the intelligent care of the foresters to-day we accomplish
many things. They are running roads through the forests, to
which they objected. They are extending telegraph and tele
phone lines through the forests, which were objected to.
Mr. Borah. I wish to ask if the Senator stated that the
forest reserves in Idaho are only 5 per cent. ?
Mr. Depew. That is the figure I have arrived at from the
statistics presented. Is it more?
Mr. Borah. I think it is 30 per cent.
Mr. Depew. It is my mistake. I made the mental calcula
tion as the Senator's colleague spoke yesterday. They are run
ning telegraph and telephone lines through these forests, with
the result that there is free communication in the forests, with
the result that the homesteader can go through the forests, and
the wood can be got out.
It is said the homesteader is deprived of his claim. But
under the law passed two years ago any land within the forest
area which is fit for homesteading can be located the same as
it could ever have been before.
Mr. Clark of Wyoming. I will ask the Senator if he is
informed of the fact that the proclamations creating the forest
reserves since that time have especially warned every person
from making settlement therein ?
Mr. Depew. I do not know what proclamations have been
issued. But the law has not been repealed, and every home
steader has his right under the law, and any proclamation which

CONSERVATION OF FORESTS 269
is in violation of the law is invalid; and I do not think such a
proclamation would stand for an instant.
Mr. Smoot of Utah. For the information of the Senator
from Wyoming I will state that no matter whether proclama
tions have been issued or not, the people are now going into the
forest reserves and making homestead entries there, and within
the last few months over a thousand have been made in the
forest reserves in this country.
Mr. Depew. There is another way in which the home
steader is protected. He has a home on the outside of the forest
reserve, and under the administration of this great Department
he can get wood free out of the forest for his house and his
fences and his domestic purposes, while if the lands were in
private hands, he would be fenced out and he would have no
such privileges.
In the course of the debate on this question at various times
there has been much said about these woods being cleared to
furnish homes, but our experience has been that the methods
we have adopted for the clearing of the woods have destroyed
thousands upon thousands of homes already in existence and
left no region within what was the woods which could be util
ized for homes.
Asia in ancient times supported myriads of people in coun
tries which are now practically arid deserts. Modern scientists
have demonstrated that this vast destruction of the productive
power of the earth to sustain human beings has been the result
of the waste of the woods.
Our forestry system, under Mr. Pinchot and his assistants,
has gone far enough to demonstrate that the woods instead of
being destroyed in thirty years can last productively forever
for the people of the United States. With a sufficient number
of trained foresters, with pathways and roadways, with tele
phone and telegraph lines for communication, and with proper
apparatus, fires are reduced to a minimum and loss from that
cause is practically eliminated. An intelhgent cutting of se
lected trees and conservation of growing ones keeps the for
ests for all time in healthy and productive conditions. We are
exhausting the wealth with which nature has so richly endowed
us at a terrific pace. It is estimated that in a hundred years
our coal will be gone; that within fifty years our iron ore will

270 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
be exhausted, and our other minerals will be used up with equal
rapidity. But the forest is never exhausted. It replenishes itself. It
is a perpetual source of revenue, safety, health, and income,
and gives to the people of the country comfort and wealth,
without cost to the National Treasury. Experience and criti
cism have done away with every complaint which can be legiti
mately laid against forest reserves. Instead of the land being
taken out of public use, it is preserved for the public use. In
stead of grazing upon the public domain being a privilege of the
strongest and the most unscrupulous, it is now under the super
vision and operation of the bureau of forestry, brought within
the reach of every citizen who chooses to avail himself of the
opportunity. Of course cattlemen of great resources, who, few
in numbers, have virtually captured the whole grazing country
belonging to the United States, make ceaseless war upon this
opening to every citizen of his opportunity. Of course the more
unscrupulous of the lumbermen, who would combine and seize
upon and then destroy the forests, are opposed to the system
of preservation, conservation, and sale of the timber, without
favors to any.
The home seeker can not complain, because if there is any
part of the forests fit for him he can locate his farm. If he
has laid out his home upon the borders of the forest, it is not
the property of a gigantic lumber company which fences him
out, but under the rules of the Bureau of Forestry he is per
mitted to take the trees that are necessary for his fences or
his house and also the ground for the pasture of his stock.
Citizens seeking health or sport find that they are no longer
fenced out or driven out, but that the woods belonging to the
Government, and, therefore, to the people, are open to them,
and that the protection granted by the methods carried out by
the fire wardens protect them from that danger.*^ It has been
said that the United States has no right to go into the lumber
or grazing or cattle or sheep or goat business, but the United
States has the right, instead of letting a few individuals or
corporations have the public domain for nothing, to grant the
privilege to all the people who desire to take advantage of it
of entering upon the lumber or cattle or stock business within
the public domain, upon such terms that the people of the coun-

CONSERV.VTION OF FORESTS 271
try shall not be taxed to pay for the privileges which these few
citizens enjoy. Those who make money by using these forests
should contribute a portion of the cost of their administration
and preservation. ¦
The administration of the forestry division of the Govern
ment compares favorably not only with every other depart
ment, but with any private business in the country. The for
estry administration in 1899 was without revenue to the Gov
ernment, but in 1 90 1 the Bureau had been practically organ
ized. Then the cost of administration was $325,000 and the
receipts $296,000. In 1907 there was a profit of about $150,000,
and in 1908 the area of the forest reserves had risen from
about 40,000,000 to 150,000,000 acres. The cost of adminis
tration was, in round numbers, $3,400,000. If we take out of
that the permanent improvements and the forestry investiga
tion, which is also a permanent improvement, the cost of the
administration was only $1,450,000 and the receipts $2,000,000.
To show how the people of the United States, without favorit
ism, are enjoying the privileges of grazing within these forests,
and for which a small charge is made per head, the number of
cattle in 1901 was, in round numbers, 278,000, and in 1907,
1,200,000; of sheep and goats in 1901, 1,214,000, and in 1907,
6,660,000. The Government received for these grazing privileges in 1906
$515,000, and in 1907, $864,000. The timber sold in board feet
in 1904 was 113,000,000, and in 1907 1,045,000,000. The re
ceipts from sales of timber was, in 1904, $58,000, and in 1907,
$687,000. Mr. President, I submit as an irrefutable proposition that no
other Department of the Government can show results like these.
Our one hundred and sixty millions for pensions is a debt of
gratitude to the men who fought to save the Union and those
dependent upon them. Our two hundred millions a year for the
Army and Navy are for the public defense in case of war. Our
hundreds of thousands for the diplomatic and consular service
are for peace and commerce. Our taxation through the tariff
and the internal revenue are to pay this vast debt of gratitude
and the annual expense of maintaining our position as a world
power. We spend eighty millions neariy every year for rivers
and harbors, and forty of that is thrown away because the

272 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
streams are filled up again from the floods following the de
forestation of the lands.
But here is a Bureau which preserves the streams for naviga
tion and irrigation, preserves the mountain sides and the val
leys with their productive possibilities for the farmer, preserves
the timber for the manifold uses which are the necessities of the
American people, and keeps down the price of the lumber so
that it will remain within the economical reach of our citizens.
At the same time it is carried on with such skill, efficiency, and
integrity that, while thus preserving and enriching the nation,
its administration is without cost to the Government, but, on
the contrary, an annual profit is paid into the Treasury.
Sir, I trust that the amendment of the Senator from Idaho,
prohibiting the transportation of wood out of any State, will be
voted down, and that this appropriation, paid for already with
out taxation and without cost, will be passed as it came in the
recommendation from the Secretary of Agriculture.

POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS

speech in approval of a government postal SAVINGS bank
SYSTEM, DECEMBER 1 5, I908.
Mr. President: It is difficult to add anything to the ex
haustive and illuminating speech of the Senator from Montana
[Mr. Carter], to whom we have hstened with so much pleasure.
But I want to record my approval of this measure for a gov
ernment postal savings bank system.* Early in my life I was
connected with a savings bank and have always been deeply in
terested in them.
It is surprising that this work has not been given to the Post-
Office Department before. The record shows that a postal sav
ings bank system has been recommended by nearly every Post
master-general for thirty-five years. Bills have been repeatedly
introduced in one or the other House of Congress representing
the desire of the administration of the time on this subject, but
none of them has received any consideration. It requires about
forty years of agitation to bring about the adoption of any radi
cal change in government procedure or activities. We are the
most conservative people in the world, though having the reputa
tion of being the most radical. It is our dual system of Federal
and State powers which accounts for the slow pace of reforms or
improvements in the service or demonstrated beneficence because
of devotion to States rights and fear of federal encroachment up
on them, which is the bogy that is ever distracting the legislative
mind. i:,[
This is not a new or untried proposition. It was adopted
by Great Britain in 1861 and its success and popularity were
immediate. Within a few years every continental nation, except
Germany, had followed the British example. In Germany, large
ly because of the wide difference between federal government and
independent States, the matter was taken up and successfully
carried out by municipalities. The table which I here present is
'The Senate had under consideration the bill to establish postal savings banka for
depositing savings at interest with the security of the Government for repayment thereof,
¦nd for other purposes.
Vol. VII— 18 273

274

SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE

a remarkable exhibit of the working of the postal savings bank
in these countries. I find it in the annual report of the Post
master-general. POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS. I904-I906.

Country.

Europe: Austria —
Savings accounts.
Banking accounts
Belgium 
Bulgaria 
Finland 
France 
Great Britain 
Hungary —
Savings accounts.
Banking accounts
Italy 
Netherlands 
Russia 
Sweden 
North and South America;
Bahamas 
Canada 
Guiana —
British 
Dutch 
Asia: British East Indies — .
British India 
Ceylon 
Straits Settlements . . .
Dutch East Indies.. . .
Formosa 
Japan 
The Philippines 
Africa: Cape Colony 
Egypt 
Gold Coast 
Orange River Colony .
Sierra Leone 
Transvaal 
Australia: New South Wales ....
Tasmania 
Western Australia. . . .
New Zealand 

Date.

Dec,Dec,
Dec,Dec,Dec,Dec,Dec,Dec,Dec,Dec,Dec,
June,June,June,
June, Dec,Dec,

1905190.51905190419051905
1904 190519051906190619061905
19051906 1905
1905

Mar., 1906
Dec, 1905
Dec, 1905
Dec, 1906
Mar., 1906
Dec, 1906
June, 1907
June, 1905
Dec, 1906
Dec, 1905
June, 1905
Dec, 1905
June, 1905
June, 1905
Dec, 1905
June, 1906
Dec, 1905

Number of
depositors.

$1,900,194 67,804
2,316,633 124,007 53,455
4,577,390
9,673,717 563,973 13,581
4,689,669 1,259,681
1,488,432 667,032 1.864
164,542 9,9665,785

1,115,758 63,850 3,310
49,566
63,332
6,658,758 2,676
98,32859,084 862
5,6455,223
40,844
254,331 17,045
63,574
276,066

Deposits.

$42,536,862 62,225,584
155,646,121 2,723,182 1,004,488
246,703,726
721,819,296 13,975,80013,031,159
233,735,421 56,153,00059,649.925 14,648,559 114,027
45,736,489 324,075230,222

45,396,741 567,147
317,208
2,841,535 552,408
33,713,037 255,050
11,032,093 1,581,613 43,774
828,439303,081
5,224,635
38,702,715 2,216,107
11,271,698
42,158,735

Average deposit.

$22.59917.73 67.1921.96 18.79
53.9074.62
24.78
957.51 49.84
44..50 66.9525.83
61.17
277.96 32.5239.80

38.98 8.S8
95.8357.33 8.725.06
111.77112.20 26.77 50.78
146.76 58.03
127.94 152.17
130.02 177.30152.69

The most curious and striking feature of this exhibit is that
Government postal savings banks are in successful operation in
Europe, in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Great

POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS 275
Britain, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, and Sweden;
in Asia, in the British East Indies, British India, Ceylon, Straits
Settlements, Dutch East Indies, Formosa, Japan, and the Philip
pines before we acquired them ; in Africa, in Cape Colony,
Egypt, Gold Coast, Orange River Colony, Sierra Leone, and
Transvaal ; in Australia, in New South Wales, Tasmania, West
ern Australia, and New Zealand; in North and South America,
in the Bahama Islands, British Guiana, Dutch Guiana, and
Canada, and none in the United States.
The operation of the system in Canada is especially significant
for us. In European countries like Great Britain, France, Bel
gium, Holland, and Switzerland the populations are compact,
almost congested, in small areas compared with the territory of
the United States, but every subdivision of population large
enough to support a post-office presents the opportunity to the
thrifty to save their earnings. Our own statistics are startling.
No one now disputes the benefits of savings institutions to any
community. On the contrary, they are one of the best culti
vators of good citizenship, good morals, and healthy and in
dependent homes, f
I recall an instance in my own experience which illustrates
the situation. In the village where I was born and which had
many prosperous industries there never had been a savings
bank. The artisans in the founderies earned good wages, but
the shops were shut down during the winter and also when
there was a depression in the trade. All of the workmen lived
up to their wages, with the result that in these times of de
pression there was the greatest distress among them and their
families. f-;Thrift is not a natural gift, but an acquired habit.
Self-indulgence is according to nature. An astonishing number
of people must be placed upon their feet by agencies out of
themselves and kept there and kept moving by extraneous help.
That accounts for the wonderful and increasing movement for
the prohibition in the sale of liquor in the various States.^jAll
temperance laws were carried largely through the influence of
the women. In one of the great conventions of the ladies of
Georgia, one of the orators said:
The reason why we want and must have this legislation is that our
men are temperamentally so constituted that they can not resist tempta
tion.

276 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
There settled among us in the early years of my practice at
the Bar a savings-bank man from New York. He called to
gether the citizens and organized an institution. As an ex
ample and to start it, all who could deposited a hundred dollars.
The hundred which I put in, and which represented the extent
of my capital, I have never touched to this day, though nearly
fifty years have elapsed. Its influence as an anchorage in all
crises of a long life has been incalculable. It required eight or
ten years to cultivate among the people the saving habit, but
when success was assured for the bank distress disappeared
among the artisans and workingmen of the town. The money
for the rainy day was in the savings bank and hard times were
tided over without suffering, though a greater gain was that in
these deposits were the beginnings of the purchase of homes.
Before that time for an artisan or workingman to own his home
was exceedingly rare, but afterwards it became the rule and
not the exception. If Good citizenship, a keen interest in public
affairs, the prosperity of the church and the school, were all in
calculably promoted by the independence and self-respect in the
ownership of homeSi;^:; -
The savings-bank system in the various States is admirable,
the laws governing these banks are excellent, and they are safe
guarded in every way. There are no better managed or safer
institutions in the world. But under private management they
are established only where there is a large enough population to
support the machinery of a bank out of the surplus, after paying
interest to depositors. That machinery means bankings rooms,
officers, clerks, and other expenses, which increase with the mag
nitude of the business. In fact, it would be impossible to main
tain a savings bank in isolated communities. When a savings
bank is established, the expense of its maintenance and adminis
tration is supported for the first few years by the philanthropists
who have organized it. The deposits must be very consider
able before there will be, after 3 or 4 per cent, has been paid
the depositors, a balance sufficient to run the bank and to lay up
a surplus against the accidents of banking, such as depreciation
of securities and defalcations. The result is that 14 States have
virtually all the savings institutions and 32 States and the Ter
ritories have practically none. The deposits in 14 States aggre
gate three thousand five hundred and ninety millions of dollars.

POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS 277
in round numbers, while in the other 32 States and all the Ter
ritories the deposits are only seventy thousand. The 6 New
England States and New York have twice as many deposits as
all the other States put together. This demonstrates that a
savings bank, which is the greatest encouragement to industry
and thrift, exists and can exist only in crowded communities,
but industry and thrift are important everywhere. The only
agency which can make these opportunities universal is the post-
office. ' There are less than fifteen hundred savings banks in
the United States, and there are 68,000 post-offices. Those fig
ures tell the whole story.
;» Nearly every day in the newspapers are accounts of crimes of
murder and arson committed upon isolated farms, at coal mines,
mining camps, and lumber camps, and all of them for robbery.
The fact that farmers too distant to avail themselves of sav
ings banks hide their money in the house, and that this is true
among the thrifty in coal and iron mines and with the men who
are working upon the construction of railways or in the digging
of canals, has created a class of criminals whose specialty is
ascertaining the thrifty and preying upon them either by threats
or violence. There is no doubt if the post-offices in these neigh
borhoods could receive, as this bill suggests, deposits from $1
up with the confidence which exists everywhere in the Govern
ment, that the temptation for thieves and murderers would be
removed and criminal conspiracies broken upl 'The deadly dul-
ness of department figures is seldom relieved by anything of
human interest, but a pathetic incident in the routine of the
Treasury was the statement made recently that the work of
the bureau which endeavors to make out the numbers and de
nominations of burned bank bills which have been returned, in
order that new ones may be issued in their place, is very much
greater at the beginning of the winter than at any other sea
son of the year, because the farmer or his wife has hidden the
family money in the stove and when the fires are started this
risky safe deposit has been forgotten and the savings of years
are raked out from the embers of the fire in the hope of some
recovery by the care of the examiners of the Treasury Depart
ment. ,; In industrial crises, which will continue to be common with
us so long as our present unscientific system of currency exists.

278 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
the acuteness of the difficulty is accentuated by the hoarding of
money, but this would no longer be practiced if the people who
are distant from populous centers where savings banks can be
supported had a place for deposit.';, Judging from the example
of Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and
Canada it is safe to calculate that there would be on deposit in
the postal savings banks in the United States at least $500,-
000,000. This would be money in possession of the Government
available to prevent and minimize financial troubles. It would
be money which otherwise could not be reached by any process.
Fear leads depositors to make runs upon the banks in times of
panics, but confidence would cause every depositor with the Gov
ernment to leave his money in the Treasury and all who had
money hidden to take advantage of this solid security. Our Post-
Office Department, which began so humbly, has now reached
enormous proportions. Its receipts for 1908 were, in round
numbers, $191,500,000, and its expenditures $208,351,000. At
first its workings covered only letters. Then by reductions of
postage and new methods an enormous impetus was given to the
education which can be derived from the largest possible circula
tion of newspapers and magazines. Then to make it easy, safe,
and cheap for the people to send money to different parts of the
country, or to their relatives abroad, the money-order system
was adopted and is now in successful operation in about 38,000
post-offices. Through this medium, which is an awkward one,
it is estimated that nearly $20,000,000 are annually transmitted.
Ten years ago we entered with many misgivings upon the
rural free delivery. This now takes 16,000,000 farmers out of
their isolation and brings them in daily contact with the affairs
and markets of the world. Here we have an illustration of the
very gradual and conservative expansion of our post-office fa
cilities during a century.
Postal savings banks would not have been feasible years ago,
but now it will be a natural and expressive adjunct to the post-
offices of the country,;^ ?The Government allows 2 per cent, in
terest, and the postniaster deposits the money at the nearest
bank at 2^ per cent. The extra one-half per cent will pay all
the expenses of the administration and leave a surplus. This
rate of interest prevents the postal savings bank being brought
in competition with existing institutions. With only fifteen bun-

POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS 279
dred savings banks, and those in 14 States, with 32 States and
the Territories practically deficient, and with 68,000 post-offices,
the figures demonstrate that it is a new business outside of ex
isting savings-bank business and can not interfere with it to
any appreciable extent..A We have already enlarged the power
of the Secretary of the Treasury in the acceptance of bonds for
deposits, and there is no question but that Congress can author
ize the Secretary, if there is no use for these moneys in the
national banks, to invest them in interest-paying securities. f The
principal objection that I have heard to the postal savings bank
is the old cry of paternalism, with a suggestion, as usual, of
constitutional limitation, but we are already, in the development
of our resources, a paternalistic government in fields which pro
mote instead of weaken individual enterprise and independence. '¦,.
Our whole scheme of internal improvements is based upon this
consideration. The Rivers and Harbors Congress, recently in
session here, was composed of able and patriotic men from
every State in the Union. Among them were many of the
greatest statesmen for States rights as against the enlargement
of the powers of the Federal Government, but under a propo
sition to issue five hundred millions of bonds for the improve
ment of our waterways the congress unanimously and enthusi
astically arose and cheered an appropriation under the old flag.
We are spending two thousand millions a year for our Navy,
our Army, our rivers and harbors, our reclamation service, and
our civil service. The fruits of these expenditures are largely
protection against what may never happen, but in this proposition
we are adding to the solid wealth of the country, we are pro
tecting the thrifty in locaHties where now they are helpless, we
are encouraging the careless and extravagant to become thrifty,
and we are promoting the general welfare and good citizenship
and adding substantially to the national credit.

INCREASE OF SALARIES

SPEECH IN FAVOR OF INCREASING THE SALARIES OF THE PRESI
DENT, VICE-PRESIDENT, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRE
SENTATIVES, AND FEDERAL JUDGES, JANUARY l8, I9O9.
Mr. President : I listened with great interest to the discus
sion when this bill was last before the Senate,^ not only upon
the point of order made by the Senator from Idaho [Mr.
Borah], but also upon the general issues presented. I am in
hearty accord with the idea that there should not be general
legislation upon appropriation bills. It is a most dangerous way
of enacting laws. There is no time or opportunity for the proper
consideration of the measures. If general legislation, it is at
tached to a bill which must necessarily pass because of the neces
sities of the Government. I have seen during my service here
many things which ought never to become laws, and which were
not germane to the measures, pass in appropriation bills. I
remember several instances where general legislation was at
tempted in the Indian appropriation bills affecting the title to
lands in the Indian Territory and repealing the restrictions placed
by law upon Indian alienations. The same danger constantly
arises in the agricultural appropriation bill, where the broadest
general legislation is attempted and sometimes succeeds. But
after studying the rules I am convinced that in the present in
stance the point of order will not lie. The exception to the rule
prohibiting general legislation is in broad terms where the amend
ment is germane to the bill and has been reported favorably by a
standing or select committee. The increase of salaries of the
President, Vice-president, and Speaker above that which was in
the bill when it came from the House was reported favorably by
the Finance Committee, and again reported favorably by the
Committee on Appropriations. The increase in the salaries of
the federal judges was reported favorably from the Judiciary
'The Senate had under consideration the bill making appropriations for the legislative,
executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30,
1910, and for other purposes — Ed. 280

INCREASE OF SALARIES 281
Committee, and again reported favorably from the Committee on
Appropriations. That meets the requirements as to the necessity
of a favorable report from a standing or select committee. The
salaries of government officials are practically fixed every year in
the appropriation bills. The House has sent to the Senate a bill
making appropriations for the salaries of the President, the Vice-
president, the Speaker of the House, and the federal judiciary.
All that we are trying to do is to add to those salaries a sum
which is, in the judgment of the committees, and if it passes
will be in the judgment of the Senate, a proper compensation.
To say that in matters like this the Senate rules prohibit action
would be to declare that the Senate is simply a rubber stamp
upon the proceedings of the House. We would be deprived of
all legislative power by that narrow construction upon appropria
tion bills and compelled, like the Executive, to either accept or
veto them. Such has never been the theory or practice in the
Senate.^ 'If we admit that we can now legislate in this bill, as I
trust the ruling may be, upon this subject, the time, in my judg
ment has arrived when action should be taken for proper remun
eration of these high officials.
It has been suggested in this debate that we can not afford
at the present time to increase these salaries because, on account
of the condition of the Treasury and the revenues, it was doubt
ful if a river and harbor bill could be passed this session. A
river and harbor bill usually carries $80,000,000, while this in
crease will be only $404,500, and the increase for the Navy about
$20,000,000. The proposition is to give the President of the
United States $100,000 per annum. This is an increase of
$25,000 only, because he is now allowed $50,000 as salary and
$25,000 for traveling expenses. The Vice-president and the
Speaker of the House are to receive $20,000 instead of $12,000,
as at present; the judges of the Circuit Court of Appeals $10,000
each instead of $7,000, and the judges of the district courts
$8,000 each instead of $6,000.
.,ij The progress of our country in every field of endeavor and its
'development in resources, in wealth, and in opportunity for the
last half century are the wonder of the world. In material ad
vance we have outstripped every other nation, but we are behind
them all in making the compensation of public officials accord
with the varying conditions of the times.,/: Jeffersonian simplicity

282 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
is not an absolute but a relative idea. The simplicity of the
Garden of Eden would hardly do for this period of blizzards and
our modern notions of propriety. The simplicity of the Stone
Age, when our ancestors lived in caves and ate their beef and
fish raw and an animal's skin for the loins was their only garment
and in full accord with the taste of the times, would not at pres
ent be adopted by the most democratic member of this body.
Jefferson received a salary of $25,000 a year, and even with his
notions of the simple life he sought to maintain the dignity of his
office. He gave entertainments and made expenditures which
took the whole of it., In everything which relates to the cost of
living and to what the people expect of a President, $25,000 in
1800 would go farther than a hundred thousand in 1909. '^^^
I know no better illustration of the radical and rapid changes
which have taken place in aspiration, fortunes, and conditions
of living than this recollection from my early life. Sixty-odd
years ago I was a student in the preparatory course at the acad
emy in the village where I was born. The boys were from all
over the United States. The discussions among them then were
more for political and literary honors than great fortunes, and,
unhappily, now they are more for great fortunes than political or
literary honors. But the limit then for the most ambitious in
the way of accumulation was a hundred thousand dollars. There
was not at that time a dozen men in the populous and wealthy
county of Westchester who possessed that amount. Commodore
Vanderbilt and John Jacob Astor were the only ones in the United
States who were worth over a million. The families in the vil
lage, and it was a characteristic of the villages of the State, who
owned their houses and had $2,000 a year could keep a carriage
and horses and entertain as liberally in the simple and inexpensive
methods of those times as the social requirements of the place
demanded ; and even on a thousand a year, owning their own
houses, people managed to get all the comforts and many of the
luxuries of life.
Mr. Hale. At the time the presidential salary was fixed at
$25,000, how many incomes in the entire country does the Sena
tor believe exceeded that sum?
Mr. Depew. I do not think at the time that salary was fixed
there was a single income in the country that reached $25,000.
Washington was the richest man in the country, but his wealth

INCREASE OF SALARIES 283
was in lands, and the income from those lands never yielded him
any such amount.
Mr. Hale. The inventory could not have amounted to half
a milhon dollars.
Mr. Depew. No. He was supposed to have been wealthy;
but the estimates which were made later of the property which
he held at that time made the amount about $700,000, most of
it in unproductive property.
Mr. Borah. I should like to ask the Senator from New
York if he has any figures upon the cost of the necessaries of
life and of living at that time to the ordinary workingman.
Mr. Depew. I think there was not a mechanic or a work
ingman in the United States at that time who earned over a dollar
a day. Mr. Borah. And his dollar could buy at that time twice as
much of the necessaries of life as it will now.
Mr. Depew. I have not in my mind the price of material
at that time, but I do know in the village of Peekskill, where
I was born and where I lived, a house could be built for $2,000
which can not be built now for less than $10,000. That was
seventy-five years ago. The wages of those days for the arti
sans were one-third what they are now, and yet those wages at
that period secured for them quite as much as the increased
earnings do to-day. We can not reckon the present by the past,
but we must reckon the present by its own standards and neces
sities. We have been fortunate in our Presidents, in their abilities,
their characters, and their high appreciation and fulfillment of
the duties of the Chief Magistracy of this Republic, but no
American takes pride in the conditions which most of them had
to meet after their retirement from office..^, Washington was the
richest man in the United States, and his old age was passed
upon his estates in the useful and pleasurable occupation of
cultivating them and in dispensing a large and liberal hospitality.
The picture of his declining years is wholly in sympathy and
touch with the occurrences of his active life. Jefferson's won
derful position not only with his countrymen, but with states
men and men of letters of foreign countries, made his home
at Monticello a Mecca for the pilgrimages of his admirers. The
American people were proud and glad that the author of the

284 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Declaration of Independence could so live as to illustrate the
best traits of an American gentleman, but the misery of those
later years of the great statesman is the shame of his generation.
He could not close his doors nor deny a seat at his table to those
who had come so far to do him honor. His guests, who were
really the guests of the nation, ate him out of house and home.
His private fortune was exhausted. A lottery was suggested to
relieve him from debt. A popular subscription gave temporary
relief. The sale of his library, and the loss thereby of his best-
loved companions, was a little help, but he died in anguish and in
debt. His case presents the strongest possible argument that I
know for pensioning our ex-Presidents. The American people
do not look kindly upon their engaging again in the hot competi
tions of the Bar or of business. Monroe lives, after his eight
years in the Presidency, embalmed in the Monroe Doctrine, which
is the safety of the Western Hemisphere from European interfer
ence and conquest. He, too, lost everything in the effort to main
tain in a simple way the dignity of his great place, and died in
New York in poverty. Several of the Presidents who had private
fortunes, though not large, were enabled to pass their declining
days in a very modest way.
Harrison retired from the Presidency possessed of very lim
ited property. He was the greatest lawyer who ever occupied
the presidential office and one of the ablest this country ever
produced. He had to return immediately to the practice of his
profession. The only largely remunerative employment for a
lawyer of his rank is in the service of corporations. In the
eight years of his life, by the hardest kind of work and the sim
plest living, he gained a limited competence for his family. But
there was unpleasant criticism and a distinct feeling of annoyance
in the press, and a feeling of annoyance among the people, coming
home to him that he should be devoting his great talents to these,
the only activities where he could use them, to take care of those
who were dependent upon him.
Mr. Cleveland, another great President — great in his ability,
his equipment, and his courage — returned to the Bar. While wel
comed by the judges and lawyers, the situation was not satis
factory. He accepted a position as chairman of the board of
presidents of certain great corporations. The place was highly
honorable and remunerative, but the country would have been

INCREASE OF SALARIES 285
better served and better satisfied if, upon a liberal pension, he
could, with ease of mind, have devoted his great abilities and
experiences in the many ways open for such a man to serve the
public outside the holding of office and have left a noble monu
ment of contributions to constitutional interpretations and politi
cal literature for succeeding generations.
President Hayes said to me :
There is no place in the United States for an ex-President. If I
could go into any of the great business enterprises of the country, I
would be hardly fit, and the country would not think it proper, so I am
devoting my life to delivering lectures before schools, academies, and
colleges. As he passed me one day in New York, carrying his own grip,
I called the attention of a street vender of fruits to the fact that
he was Rutherford B. Hayes, ex-President of the United States,
and the opportunity was rare to see a man who had occupied
such a high place. "Oh!" he answered, "I don't care to see him.
He is down and out, and of no account."
It will be many years, probably, before there will be pensions
for retiring Presidents, but I think as long as we isolate so
completely from material affairs the man who is big enough to
fill this high position, and about whom public opinion places so
many limitations when he returns to private life, that we should
give him a salary out of which, after meeting, as the people want
and require him to meet, the expensive obligations of his place, he
should be enabled to save something for dignified retirement in
his old age. The American people are not niggardly. They are
far from it when propositions for expenditure are properly pre
sented and understood. A hundred and sixty millions a year for
pensions forty-five years after the close of the war is their answer
to that.
ii' The remark was made in debate that we pay our public of
ficials, like the President, the Vice-President, and the Speaker for
their services only, and that if they entertain it is their own affair,
and an incident in which neither Congress nor the people are
interested. I can not agree with that proposition.jj^ I have been
at capitals abroad where the American Minister could not be
found in the residence because he lived so cheaply in comparison
with his colleagues from other nations that he was ashamed to

286 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
disclose his social condition, and yet in the mere matter of com
munication with the foreign office was an efficient public servant.
But every American who came to that capital blushed for his
country. A furnished house in Washington large enough and
comfortably enough equipped to enable a Vice-President or a
Speaker to receive the representatives of other countries. Senators
and Representatives in Congress, and Cabinet ministers, can not
be had for a rental of less than $6,000 a year. Yet the American
people expect the Vice-President and the Speaker to be something
more than mere presiding officers of the two Houses.: Both are
in line for the Presidency, both are conspicuous in the eyes of
their countrymen and examples in their personality and living of
our American public life to the representatives here of foreign
governments. I knew of a Congressman in years gone by who fitted up a
few rooms on one of the floors of a house on a back street, found
places in the Government service for his children, whose wife did
the housekeeping, and who saved his salary. There never was
any criticism upon the service he rendered the Government in
the House or on committees. After two terms he purchased a
farm and became a landed aristocrat in his own State, but when
his constituents found out how he had lived here they never
returned him. The idea of a simple life was not the simple life
of the crossroads, but the hfe of a Representative in the Congress
of the United States who was not only performing the duties for
which he was paid, but was sustaining to the extent of his ability
the dignity of the high office to which they had promoted him and
the honor in that office of the district which had elected him.'
A cabinet officer in Europe receives, I think, about $40,000 a
year and a house, with all its appointments furnished by the
State. The Speaker of the House of Commons is grandly located
in the parliament palace, and, if I am not mistaken, receives
about $40,000 a year and a retiring pension. The same is true of
the President of the Chamber of Deputies in France. The Presi
dent of the French Republic has a salary of $114,000 a year, has
the Elysee in Paris, which is the French White House, a fine
country seat at Rambouillet, shooting in the great forest of Fon-
tainebleau, and a fund for expenses and entertainment. In ad
dition, all his traveling expenses, and they are many, especially
in visiting foreign courts, are paid by the State.

INCREASE OF SALARIES

287

Now, in regard to the salaries of the Presidents, these figures
are instructive :

Country.

Ruler.

Annual
civil list.

Popula tion.

Estimated na
tional wealth.

Revenue.

Austria-Hun- Rary.
Germany 
Great Britain
Italy 
Spain 

Franz Josef I.
William II. .
Edward VII.
Victor Em
manuel III.
Alfonso XI II.

$3,750,000 3,143,859 2,284,2003,011,000 1,430,000

45,273,048
56,367,17841,952,510 32,475,253 18,618,086

$24,310,000,000 45,010,000,00065,680,000,000 16,950,000,000 13,400,000,000

$240,994,000 471,002,000583,201,360317,349,332 170,998,000

These are the expenses in monarchical countries. When we
come to republics, the President of France receives $114,000 as
an annual salary and $1 14,000 expenses, making a total of $228,-
000. The Mexican President receives $109,000, the President
of Brazil $64,000, and the President of Argentina $86,000. But
then Mexico has only 13,000,000, Brazil 14,000,000 and Argen
tina 6,000,000 of people, against 90,000,000 in the United States.
, It seems to me that the poorest paid of all our public servants,
when we consider what we require of them in abihty, acquirement,
and equipment, are the judiciary. , Judges of equivalent rank to
our Supreme Court, though there is no court in the world which
has such supreme power, in England receive $40,000 a year and a
retiring pension of $20,000. The judges of all their courts are
proportionately liberally paid.
The following is a comparative statement of the salaries paid
to our federal judges and to the judiciary of England, Ireland,
and New York City :
United States judges:
Chief Justice  $13,000
United States Supreme Court associate justices  12,500
United States circuit court judges  7.ooo
United States district court judges  6,000
England :
Lord high chancellor, about  50,000
Master of rolls  30,ooo
Justices of King's bench  25,000
Probate and admiralty judges  25,000
City courts of London  12,500

288 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Ireland: Lord chancellor  40,000
Judge of court of appeals  30,000
New York :
Supreme court justices. New York City  17,500
General sessions  1 5,000
Special sessions  9,000
City magistrates  7,000
I think that the proposition is correct that the Chief-justice
of the United States Supreme Court should have, as has always
been the case, a salary as high as that of the Vice-President or
the Speaker of the House. The question of judicial salaries is
impressive because of differing conditions in different parts of
the country. All of them must be treated alike, and yet those
who reside where the cost of living is greater should not be fam
ished because their brethren are more happily located.
We all know of districts where a judge can save money on
$6,000 a year. There are districts where the judge can live
relatively as well and his family hold as reputable a social posi
tion on $4,000 a year as his brother can on twelve thousand in
New York. All will admit that relations with the judge ought
not to be confined to the court room. He should be in touch,
for his own information and education, with the social life of
his district. He should live so that he need not be ashamed to
receive visiting judges or lawyers who practice in his court and
other citizens. The rule which economists have given is that
a man's rent should be one-sixth of his expenditures. A fur
nished house in New York fit for a judge to live in and properly
located could not be had for less than $5,000 a year, nor a fur
nished apartment for less than $3,000. ,We pay our State supreme
court judges in the city of New York $17,500 a year, and they
can save nothing. When Governor Hughes became our chief
magistrate and reorganized our public-service commission, he sug
gested, and the Legislature adopted the suggestion, two commis
sions of five each — one for the city of New York and the other
for the country. The governor and Legislature thought that
properly equipped men for that place could not be had for less
than $15,000 a year, and that is what they are paid. But the dis
trict judges of the United States Court and the circuit judge living
in the same place with one of these commissioners and charged

INCREASE OF SALARIES 289
with duties requiring greater equipment, and passing upon ques
tions of far greater moment, are paid, the one $6,000 and the
other $7,000 a year.
It is a tribute to the lawyers of the United States that so
many who could earn in their private practice ten or twenty times
as much as the salary of a judge will, for the honor, accept these
positions. But as the expenses of living increase, as they are
rapidly increasing, and the privations of those who must maintain
large and conspicuous positions upon inadequate means become
more acute, the time may come when judicial positions can only
go to men who have accumulated a competence or to failures at
the Bar. The one crying necessity of our public life is to so com
pensate men who hold high and responsible positions, both at home
and abroad, that these offices shall not be confined by limitations
of salaries to wealth or incompetence.

Vol. VII— 19

CIVIL SERVICE AND THE CENSUS

SPEECH IN FAVOR OF CIVIL SERVICE EXAMINATIONS IN CENSUS
APPOINTMENTS, APRIL lO, I9O9.
Mr. President : I wish to say just one word to express my
approval of the action of the committee.^ I do it from my own
experience in the matter of these census appointments ten years
ago. At that time a distribution was made in the way suggested
by the amendment of the Senator from Texas. Under that dis
tribution I received twelve appointments. As soon as it became
known, I had 800 applications. I had no means of ascertaining
by any sort of an examination the merits of the 800 so that out
of them I might select 12 who could properly perform the duties
of the places for which they were apphcants.
But that was only the beginning of my trouble. The party
organization in each one of the 61 counties of the State de
manded its share of the 12 appointments. I then was confronted
with the question how I could keep my party status with 61 coun
ties and only 12 offices to assign. The net result of the whole
matter was that I appointed 12 people.
When they got in office I discovered that they and their spon
sors expected me to keep them there, whether or not they were
efficient and competent, and when the census work was over I
had the 12 on my hands, or, at least, 1 1 of them, for the next six
months, sustaining them by various contributions while they were
here in Washington, and I was besieging the various depart
ments to find places in which they could be put with more per
manence than they had had during the three years in the census.
I remember having a conversation prior to the convention of
1888 with the late Mr. Blaine. Mr. Blaine then announced to
me — and he believed largely in this system of appointments to
office by political considerations solely — that no President of the
United States would ever be reelected, because with the con
stantly increasing population the offices did not grow in propor-
^The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, had under consideration the bill (H. R.
1033) to provide fop the Thirteenth and subsequent decennial censuses.
290

CIVIL SERVICE AND THE CENSUS 291
tion, and therefore there would be more applicants every year
than there were offices, in geometrical ratio, until the President
would be overwhelmed by the defeated, who would be suffi
ciently strong in any election, if he succeeded in getting a renom-
ination, to prevent his reelection by the defection they would
cause in the party from the anger of themselves and of their
backers. The first sneer, I think, that I ever heard of against the
civil service came from as distinguished a man as President
Lincoln. I remember it very well, because we had no civil serv
ice or suggestion of it at the time, except in the Army, and there
the regular officers were sufficiently strong, especially after the
defeats which had come from ignorant commanders, to have a
sort of an examination. There was an officer who was recom
mended for a negro regiment, and Mr. Lincoln believed him
thoroughly competent, because he had shown efficient service
in the field. But the regular officers objected unless he passed
an examination upon some West Point schedule, which Lincoln
knew he could not succeed in passing. And so Lincoln said, with
considerable acerbity:
I intend to appoint this man as an officer without regard to whether
or not he can pass a civil-service examination as to the color of Julius
Caesar's hair.
Now, since that time we have progressed very far and very
rapidly. The first examinations of the civil service were ab
surd. The first steps in any new department, where officers are
untrained, must necessarily be absurd.
But I think that now we have progressed to a point where
there is a large degree of efficiency in the civil service, and the
best part of it is the relief which Senators and. Members of the
House have from the duties which were imposed upon them as
recently as when I entered the Senate, ten years ago. The Mar
ble Room out there kept me at least one-half my time listening
to the appeals of office seekers, no matter how long might be the
session of the Senate, and I never had any leisure at home. These
applicants were mostly people who were in distress. They had
lost their places generally in firms or corporations, or they were
dependent members of families in different parts of the country,
who sent them down here to get jobs. I found, then, that it was

292 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
understood all over the United States, where a breadwinner had
died and where the adult members were girls and their support
was falling upon their relatives, that the relatives should take this
method of providing for them by sending them to Washington
with letters from the local clergymen and the mayor of the town
and the supervisor and the member of the Legislature to the Sen
ator, each one stating that the writer knew that if the Senator
cared for him that place would be given to this most worthy ap
plicant. The amount of mental distress I suffered during that period
from the misery of these unfortunate applicants made me more
unhappy while it continued than I ever had been before in my
life. I was utterly helpless. I was eternally hammering at the
door of every Cabinet minister, eternally pestering and boring
every head of a bureau, establishing a species of information bu
reau by which I could find out when a man died or a woman was
discharged in order that I might get there first, so as to take care
of an unfortunate and starving constituent.
Mr. President, that system has so far passed away it is very
seldom now that I am called out into the Marble Room, which I
call the "room of sighs," and stand upon its floor, bedewed with
tears. I rarely am called out now, except on matters relating to
legislation, especially during the present session of the Congress.
So, Mr. President, I hope that the committee's proposition,
which I think is the result of the best experience of the last few
years of the administration of our Government, will be adopted,
that we may be relieved from this unnecessary work, where we
can do no possible good, and the public service may be better
and more efficient. Every one of us, if it were possible, would
find a place in Washington under the Government for every
boy or girl or man or woman who was recommended to us by
our constituents. But as long as we know that there is only
the possibility here and there at long intervals of a single place,
and that a minor one ; and when you have an army, all of whom
are informed that you can get each one of them a place if you
want to, to be relieved from that as a mere matter of peace of
mind as well as ability to attend to your public duties, is a great
gain in the public service.
I trust, therefore, Mr. President, that the proposition of the
committee will be adopted.

THE TARIFF

SPEECH ON THE TARIFF, MAY 1 7, I909.
Mr. President: I doubt if it is possible to shed much new
light upon the question of the tariff. It has been the subject of
legislation for centuries. It has been the cause of many great
wars and internal revolutions. The present discussion has wan
dered far afield. The experience which Senators have had with
the wants of their constituents and the requirements of their
States has developed the almost insurmountable difficulties which
are in the way of the preparation of a fair and just bill. New
York is the largest manufacturing State, and there is hardly an
industry in the 2,000 items in this measure which does not directly
or indirectly affect our citizens.
One result of this discussion has been to rescue the fame and
rehabilitate the reputation of the lamented General Hancock.
Little things, single remarks, make and mar the careers of
statesmen. General Scott's request that he might delay his let
ter accepting the nomination for the Presidency until he could
take a hasty plate of soup closed his campaign. General Han
cock's answer to the committee of notification that the tariff was
a local issue in his State of Pennsylvania laughed him out of the
canvass. In the cloud of generals who were famous in the Civil
War he is nearly forgotten. I remember as if it was yesterday
the telegram which General McClellan sent to his wife after one
of the great battles of the Civil War, "Hancock was superb to
day." All that is forgotten by the crowding events of advancing
time. But now it is brought home to every Senator and to the
whole country that General Hancock uttered a pregnant truth,
and his fame is likely to be embalmed in his phrase "The tariff is
a local issue" everywhere. It is breaking party lines in States
where its productive energies are producing prosperity. The
favorite method now of attacking the protective principle is to
proclaim loyalty to the principle of protection and oppose its appli

cation.'

The wool schedule gave to the Senate and the country one of
293

fa

294 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
the most entertaining addresses ever delivered upon this floor
by the senior Senator from Iowa [Mr. Dolliver]. We are apt
to think that wool is American as a political question. But wool
created and then destroyed Florence and Flanders ; impoverished
and then enriched Great Britain. Without going into a general
tariff discussion, the history of wool is illuminating. In the Mid-
de Ages the people of civilized countries were clothed in woolen
garments. Wool and its manufactured products were the com
merce of the world. England grew the wool and sold it to Flan
ders, where it was turned into the finished product. England did
not have the machinery nor could she procure from the Papal
states alum, a substance absolutely necessary in those days for the
finishing of cloth. But in the reign of Elizabeth alum was found
in sufficient quantities in England, and then began the tariff legis
lation which we have inherited. England placed an export duty
upon wool which made it impossible for continental nations to
compete with her manufactures. She placed a tariff duty which
shut them out of her market.
When Lancashire, the greatest cotton-manufacturing center
in the world, demonstrated in a small way that it could make cot
ton goods. Great Britain prohibited the importation of cotton
goods from India into England. Then the great English inven
tors, Arkwright and Hargreaves, gave to their country the per
fected spinning jenny, and Great Britain controlled the cotton
market of the world. I'Her own markets were closed to the for
eigner, and the English statesmen saw that this little island, with
its growing population which had come from manufactures, must
find foreign trade.J The greatest of English statesmen, Pitt, saw
that the philosophers whose ideas created the French Revolution
were controlling the policy of France. (Knowing that Great Brit
ain, because of her cheap coal and because of her monopoly of
inventions, could make woolen and cotton goods cheaper than
France, he proposed to the idealists that there should be free
traded] The proposition was hailed by the disciples of Rousseau
and Quesnay as an approach to the millennium. In a few years
every factory in France was closed. There have been many
causes assigned for the French Revolution. Undoubtedly tyranny
and bad government had much to do with it, but the French Revo
lution began in Paris, which was the manufacturing center of
France, and then spread to the other manufacturing cities. It was

THE TARIFF 295
the starving unemployed who had been driven from all occupa
tions by the genius of the British statesman and the folly of their
philosophers which more than anything else precipitated and pro
longed the French Revolution. Then came the struggle by the
Jacobins to support the people from the plunder of the nobility
and the cutting off of their heads; then the plunder of the rich
business men in every branch; then the plunder of the farmers,
because they would not accept the worthless paper money.
A million lives were sacrificed by the French terror, of whom
only 2,000 belonged to the noble class and the rest to the pro-
ductives who still had a little property in their farms or in their
small occupations and against whom was directed the rage of
the unemployed who had got possession of the Government.
Then, when the revolutionists had guillotined each other. Napo
leon came to the front. His first idea was that France could be
supported by the plunder of the Continent, but that great origi
nal genius, when in supreme power, soon saw his mistake and
built a tariff wall not only around France, but around the Con
tinent, and the reviving industries of his country provided the
means for his wars and recruited, clothed, and fed his armies.
Two men have had dominating influence upon American in
dustries, both men of extraordinary ability, and one a command
ing genius of all time. They were Alexander Hamilton and
Robert J. Walker. Hamilton was one of those marvelous intel
ligences which can be accounted for by no rule, who have no
predecessors or successors. We know little or nothing of him
before he landed in New York at seventeen. He asked Prince
ton if she would graduate him if he could do the four years in
two, and that sturdy old president. Doctor Witherspoon, said:
"No ; the curriculum must be gone through." Kings College, now
Columbia, in New York, accepted the proposition. Before he was
twenty he had so stated in a pamphlet the American argument that
its authorship was ascribed to the greatest minds of the revolu
tion. He proposed to Morris, the banker of the revolution, a
scheme for refunding the continental currency which would have
saved the national credit, and which was substantially adopted
during and after the Civil War. He organized the customs and
the internal revenue of the country upon a basis which continues
with few modifications to this day. He found our country purely
agricultural. He knew that Great Britain had prohibited manu-

296 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
facturing in the colonies and the entrance into the market of
products of any other lands except the mother country. He
grasped as no other man of his time did the boundless natural
resources of the United States. Tie saw that if we remained
purely agricultural we must be a country of limited populations,
widely distributed, and so dependent upon the rest of the world
that we never could become a prosperous, powerful, and produc
tive people. He was the first to recognize the fact that there is
no limit of growth to a country of sufficient area if it possesses
both the raw material and productive power. His report upon
manufactures made as Secretary of the Treasury to the Congress
is the foundation upon which we have builded the greatest in
dustrial nation the world has ever known]
IRobert J. Walker lived and was educated in a part of our
country whose almost sole product was cotton. Its people manu
factured nothing. They even relied upon outside territory for
their food and clothes. The practical question with him was the
cheapest products in clothing, food, machinery, and all the neces
sities of life for a people engaged in one form of agriculture^ But
it was more than that which created Robert J. Walker. If we
read the speeches of the Southern statesmen of his period, we
find in them a wealth of learning in the classics of English litera
ture and a complete absorption in the theories of Adam Smith.
Many of them were educated in the best schools abroad. (They
had leisure for wide reading and refined culture at home, and they
had no touch with or understanding of those thriving industrial
communities which were inviting immigration, building cities,
constructing railroads, and planting factories beside the water
powers. He declared that the tariff should be levied for the pur
poses of revenue only, and he committed his party to the principle^
The ideas of Hamilton and of Walker have been strugghng
ever since for the conquest of the world. Hamilton is master of
every State in our Union. No matter what plea may be entered
as to the purpose for which protection is desired, the Senator who
asks for it acknowledges at once the supremacy of Hamilton.
i|i Hamilton's policy has repaired the ravages of war. It has cre
ated in the States which were — and some still are — dominated by
the Walker view new industries, which are developing local and
national wealth and supporting large populations.\ The ideas of
Hamilton have crossed the oceans ; they have captured every coun-

THE TARIFF 297
try in the world except Great Britain ; they have become the con
trolling policy in every one of the British colonies. The fight to
the death is now going on in the last citadel of Adam Smith, Rich
ard Cobden, and Robert J. Walker — the British Isles. It is a
contest which I believe must result there, as everywhere else, in
the triumph of the ideas of Alexander Hamilton.
Great Britain's control of the wool and cotton industries now
is shared with protective countries whose markets she formerly
monopolized. She is fighting with them a losing battle in Asiatic
markets, where all the world competes. Her great rival, Ger
many, with as good machinery and cheaper labor and an equal
command of the raw materials, is entering the English market
under that well-known economic rule by which manufacturers
of every country, in order to keep their mills in operation and
their men employed, sell the surplus practically at cost in other
countries. This process is filling the English market and driving
one industry after another to the wall. 4'Great Britain is grasping
slowly the economic fact that anything produced in another coun
try and sold within her territory puts out of employment and re
duces to public charity exactly the number of men in England
who are employed in producing this article in Germany.
The unemployed wandering idly about the streets looking
for any stray job, however poor it may be, to satisfy the pangs
of hunger, see in the shop windows everywhere the things upon
which they at one time worked and could make a good living for
themselves and families marked "Made in Germany." It is
stated that there are to-day in Great Britain 7,000,000 of un
employed. How to care for them or furnish them support is
the most anxious problem of the British statesmen. John Mor-
ley has stated in one of his speeches that at one time in the course
of their lives 45 per cent, of the workingmen of Great Britain
who have reached sixty years of age have been in the pauper class.
Great Britain made a tentative experiment recently in pro
tection, though disavowing any such intention. A law was passed
affecting patents. Under it the goods manufactured under a
foreign patent must, to enjoy the advantages of the patent, be
made in Great Britain, otherwise the patent was open for use to
British subjects. Before that was in operation two years a hun
dred and thirty millions of continental capital has been invested
in England and tens of thousands of the unemployed found again

298 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
remunerative labor and wages. If England to-day had a tariff
which would equalize the cost of production with Germany, Bel
gium, France, and Holland, including fair wages to her people,
she might again become not the workshop of the world, as she
once was, but very much nearer to it than she is to-day. Anyway,
she could hold her own.
The eloquent and learned speeches which have been delivered
here have developed a new kind of protection. The new school
believe in the principle, but oppose its application. Our Southern
friends reject the principle of protection, but beheve in its apph-
cation to their own products. I believe if a committee were ap
pointed, composed exclusively of the Senators on our side who
object most violently to this bill, that they would have more
difficulty in agreeing with one another than it is understood our
Democratic Members had when they caucused the measure.
Human nature is fallible and so is human testimony. When a
committee whose ability, experience, industry, and integrity are
cordially admitted on all sides, after months of examinations
which have included the testimony of both sides, the manufac
turer and the importer, and have constantly at their sessions
and to aid in the review of this testimony the trained experts of
the Treasury Department, the General Appraiser's Office, and the
custom-house, make a report, I hesitate to place my judgment
against theirs, when theirs is unanimous, upon subjects on which
superficial inquiiy and a limited amount of information only are
possible to any Senator. I have found that I can do better after
hearing the statements of both sides to ascertain if I have gained
any information which was not available to the committee in
arriving at their conclusions. I know it is possible in the many
subdivisions of the different schedules for some article to have
had its relations to the markets so changed by invention or dis
covery that a new light has come not visible before even to the
parties most interested; but I have found in all such cases on a
fair presentation of the matter if there was anything new the
committee had an open mind for a review. There is scarcely an
article in these schedules upon which I have not received conflict
ing testimony from the parties interested, upon which it would be
possible to base an argument on either side. But it would be an
enormous and an impossible task for any Senator to constitute
himself a court of appeal and claim that he had greater sources of

THE TARIFF 299
information upon which to base a judgment than it was possible
during all these months for our committee to obtain. They
had the benefit of the 13 volumes of testimony taken by the
Ways and Means Committee of the House as well as their own.
The Senators who have criticised so severely the Finance
Committee are especially severe upon its chairman, the distin
guished Senator from Rhode Island. Some of these Senators
complain that the Senate is not informed. Their argument
amounts to this : That if the Senate would sit as a committee
of the whole month after month and listen to and question the
witnesses and sift the testimony, which work has been so faith
fully, ably, and laboriously done by the Finance Committee, they
would understand the bill. Such a system would produce chaos
from which eternity could not evolve order. Some Senators
claim that they can not vote intelligently upon these 2,000 sched
ules unless the chairman of the committee, the Senator from
Rhode Island, will furnish a detailed statement with each item of
the cost in the country or countries where it was produced and
the cost in the United States. Would these critical Senators
read the volumes which contained such information after a couple
of years had been spent in gathering it? On the contrary, I
fear that, still claiming they had no access to information upon
which they could intelligently vote, they would demand of this
most amiable, as well as most capable, of chairmen, who has so
superbly done the work which we elected him to do for us, the
data upon which he had furnished these figures and then denounce
the data as both insufficient and incorrect.
Nothing so amazes me as the frequent statement of certain
Senators that in some way they are deprived of their rights on
this floor by the chairman of the Finance Committee, and in
sisting they will have them, as if anybody stood in their way.
There are ten Members of this body; we are all equals. We
have practically no rules. Any Senator can talk when he likes,
on any subject he chooses, and as long as he is able. We select
our own committees in our own way by vote, and the Committee
on Finance, which is so much critized, received on its appoint
ment the unanimous vote of the Senate. The intelligence of the
entire Senate is never so seriously questioned as when such state
ments are made.
The Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Clapp], in a very eloquent

300 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
and attractive address, feared that the Republican Party was
rushing rapidly and blindly upon the rocks because the pledge
of the party and the expectation of the people were that there
should be a general revision downward. In my judgment the
pledge of the party and the expectation of the people are that
we should do exact justice in this matter, upon every schedule
in the bill, and upon every one of the 2,000 items which are
affected.'''^' I believe that the practice of protection, which has
made our country what it is and our people what they are, has
as firm a hold upon the electorate as ever. I believe that it is
thoroughly understood and assented to by the masses that we
should so arrange our tariff policy as to constantly enlarge the
area of production and employment within our own borders,
and do it by imposing a duty which will equalize the cost of
production, with due regard to the higher wage which we ex
pect our artisans to have over those which prevail in countries
in competition with us. •/
We have lost sight in this debate of changes in the cost of
production; that from i860 to 1909 wages have more than
doubled ; that they have advanced 25 per cent since the Dingley
bill was enacted; that the hours of labor have been reduced
from a third to a quarter; and that, inasmuch as in every pro
duction labor is from 60 to 90 per cent of the cost, we have thus
increased our cost from 25 to 50 per cent. We have lost sight
of the fact that this beneficent but almost revolutionary move
ment for the benefit of the workers has not advanced in anything
hke the same proportion in European countries.
'Our labor leaders recognize that one of the acute difficulties
which meet them is that the immigrants who come here are glad
at first to accept from a quarter to a third less in wages than
we are accustomed to. It is only the labor unions and the con
tract-labor laws against immigration which prevent us being
swamped in this respect. Congestion of population always re
sults in lower wages and longer hours^> When the line is closely
drawn between employment and starvation, because there are
two, or three, or four, or ten hungry for a single job, there is a
loss of independence and individuality, and the doctrine of self-
preservation compels conditions which are abhorrent to us. The
first principle of that American citizenship upon which must rest
our future, as has rested our past, is adequate compensation for

GEORGE d[<:wp:y

THE TARIFF 301
the American standard of living and the comforts of the Ameri
can home, f,'^ Immigrants, when they first come here and receive
our wages on a scale to which they have never been accustomed,
are apt to live as they did in their own country, with the re
sult that they save 60 per cent, and in a few years are able to
return to the land of their birth as capitalists. That process
is going on constandy with us to the extent of hundreds of
thousands a year. It is not healthy for our body politic to have
that kind of citizenship.^j^
The telegraph, the cable, the flying steamers, have made prac
tically all the world one. No country to-day of the highly or
ganized industrial nations has any superiority over another in
its machinery. The inventions of one land are quickly copied
and duplicated in another. The German chemists, who are the
most expert and patient workers in the world, have produced
some 400 different articles out of coal tar. They have enor
mously enlarged the pharmacopoeia of all nations. The formulas
are soon understood and other nations can use them. We have
the raw material. To the extent to which we can duplicate we
have that much more employment among ourselves. 'To the
extent that we purchase on the other side we lose just that
amount of employment in our own country.^ If all the world
was alike, if the cost of production was the same everywhere,
if wages and hours were the same in all nations and among all
races, then we could have the same conditions that exist between
our own States^
The city of Dundee in Scotland had a very large industry in
the making from jute of cotton bagging. It was a monopoly.
They made the bagging for the cotton not only for the United
States, but for all the other countries. Our manufacturers found
that with a sufficient tariff this bagging could be successfully
produced in this country. It led to the creation in different
States to some three hundred mills with the employment of many
thousands of people. The tariff did not destroy the Dundee
factories, because it was not high enough to prevent competition,
and the Dundee factories still had other fields than the United
States for their operation. But mills were established in India
where labor was 30 cents a day, against 75 in Dundee and $1.50
to $2 in the United States. Great Britain being a free-trade
country the Dundee millers were bankrupted, and a large popu-

302 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
lation added to the already increasing numbers of the unem
ployed. ( Now we are met with a demand to wipe out our own
mills and throw out of employment our own people in order to
let in this cheap Indian production, with which it is impossible
to compete except by tariff protection. Who would be benefited ?
There are no shrewder manufacturers and merchants in the
world than the English, and they control these factories and are
already in our market. | When they have a monopoly the cost to
the cotton farmer will be raised far beyond what he pays to-day
and he will be utterly helpless. You may say he could escape
that by again renewing the tariff, but it takes hundreds of thou
sands of dollars to organize a mill, and capital after such an ex
perience would never enter upon the uncertain sea of hysterical
legislation.}' Eighty per cent, of the petroleum in this country is produced
from wells owned by 500,000 farmers who are independent pro
ducers. It is purchased by the Standard Oil Company, which is
a refining corporation and not an oil-producing one, and by a
few independent refiners who are still in business. There has
been discovered in Mexico, on the Coast, an exhaustless field
of petroleum. It can be piped to the tank steamers of the
Standard Oil Company on the Gulf at 20 per cent, of the cost
which carries the oil from the Oklahoma field, or New York, or
Illinois, or West Virginia. The bogy of the Standard Oil Com
pany creates a sentiment dangerous to the politician against
giving any protection to the American farmer who produces
oil for fear it might help the Standard Oil Company, when it
is as plain as two and two make four that the Standard Oil Com
pany would be the sole beneficiary at the expense of the American
independent producers of the free trade in oil between Mexico
and the United States.
I might cite a hundred such instances where the changing
conditions of production and of cost, as governed by wages, by
hours, and by invention, make the rule of a revision downward
simply the adoption of practically free trade.
What has been accomplished by protection is happily in
stanced in our State of New York among many industries. Hats
have built up a thriving city at Yonkers and are building other
industrial communities in other parts of the State. .The protec
tion for men's gloves has created a community of 30,000 people

THE TARIFF 303
and reduced the price from two and one-half to three dollars, as
it was when England had the monopoly, to a dollar and a dollar
and a half. Now, the great English manufacturers are moving
to Gloversville. An equivalent protection for women's gloves
would lead in two years to the employment of 50,000 men to the
destruction of the foreign monopoly and would give to our own
people an article much cheaper and better than they have noWf,;
The same results have followed in a thriving community of 30,000
in the finishing of lumber at Tonawanda and corresponding re
sults at Ogdensburg and other places. I might enlarge this list
almost indefinitely.
No country can show figures like these :( That since Repub
lican protection became a fixed pohcy the weakh of the United
States has increased six times, our foreign trade three times,
the wages in our factories three times, our railroad mileage six
times, our foreign commerce three times, and the value of our
manufactured products seven times, our exports from 1897 to
1909 300 per cent. Except for these conditions we never could
have had our railroads carrying populations to the farms and
productive possibilities carrying the factory near to the raw
material ; we never could have had manufacturing centers which
brought the markets to the farmer's door; we never could have
had the consumers, whose numbers and whose prosperity give the
farmer his opportunity, the manufacturer his opportunity, the
merchant his opportunity, the railroad its opportunity, and the
steamboat and the canal their opportunities.
There never was greater nonsense than this attempt to estab
lish irreconcilable antagonism between producers and consum
ers. They are constantly interchangeable. Our country buys
one-third of the productions of the earth. Why? Because we
have the money. Why the money? Because we have the em
ployment, and with the employment the wages, and with the wages
the acquisition of the habits which make the luxuries of to-day
the necessities of to-morrow.
My friend, the senior Senator from Iowa, in one of the ablest
and most eloquent addresses delivered in this Chamber, has at
tacked the wool and cotton schedules. That speech has been
very widely quoted, more, I think, than any which has been
made here. A' can of dynamite intelligently exploded will get
more headlines and editorial comment than all the railroad

304 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
trains' of the country carrying the products of the farmer to the
factories and the market, and of the markets of the country
in distributing the results of their sales back to the farms and
the factories. Automatic prosperity is like the air we breathe —
it has to be questioned to interest anybody.
A close examination of the picturesque presentation of my dis
tinguished friend reduces his criticism more to the manner of
administration than to the subject-matter of the law. No tariff
act could be prepared covering, as we are attempting to do now,
the whole field of protective legislation without having para
graphs which are highly technical. Wool at one time was used
only for clothes ; now the subdivisions in which it is used are al
most infinite. The difficulty of compressing within the law lan
guage which will not permit the shrewd and dishonest to escape
its protection is exceedingly difficult.
The moment a tariff law is enacted tariff lawyers, importers,
and experts are at work to find out how its provisions may be
evaded by some change in manufacture or some device in the
mixture of other articles which will enable what was intended
to be placed under the highest duty to come in under the lowest.
That is the most subtle and ingenious method of smuggling. No
one can have read over even cursorily this testimony or listened
to the people from his own State who are engaged in these manu
factures without learning to what extent this species of smug
gling is carried on. It is right here that the customs expert
must be both able and honest. A deficiency in this respect is
the opportunity of the importer and the injury of the domestic
manufacturer and home labor.
The appraiser, the customs officer, the treasury official on a
salary of five or six thousand dollars a year is thus pitted against
the $50,000 lawyer and the $25,000 expert in the service of the
importer. It is a magnificent tribute to the civil service of our
Government that it has officers to do this work so ably and hon
estly. There are men in these departments who have ability
sufficient to be at the head of great business enterprises or to be
Cabinet officers who are proud to serve their country in these
minor positions with an intelligence and devotion deserving of the
highest commendation.
There is nothing which gives me more pain than to have my
idols broken. I wish that those professors of destructive criti-

THE TARIFF 305
cism who have murdered William Tell and Arnold Winkelreid
and almost destroyed our faith in George Washington and Napo
leon Bonaparte had never hved. The Bacon cryptograph which
demonstrates that there never was a Shakespeare does not appeal
to me. Much of the argument made by professing protectionists
has been to throw from their pedestals the statues of William
Allison, William McKinley, and Governor Dingley. These three
eminent creators and advocates of tariff bills are charged to have
known little about what they were doing. ' No one charges them
with dishonesty, either in thought or purpose, but the general
impression left by the criticisms upon them is that their country
men were never more mistaken than in the estimate which they
have of them that they were the most distinguishd as well as the
best informed of protectionists. We must believe, if we are to
credit the mistakes and failures which they are alleged to have
made in 1892 and 1897, that no statesman ever occupied perma
nent positions in either House who were so easily fooled. My
faith in them is unimpaired.
There is nothing new under the sun, and the oldest of free-
trade cries is the one of revision downward. In all the speeches
that have been made here, so far as I can recall them, the only
open and direct attack upon the protective system as a policy
or a system has been from the distinguished Senator from
Georgia [Mr. Bacon], but attacks have, nevertheless, been effec
tive and deadly, and have produced their impression upon the
country because they came from our own household, from those
who proclaim their undying faith in the principle, but claim that
in practice it leads to nearly all the disastrous results which are
charged against it by its open enemies. Congressman Morrison
presented the only true rule if we are to adopt a revision down
ward. He proposed a horizontal reduction in the whole schedule
of 25 per cent. To have accepted his plea would have been to
admit his contention that there should be no such thing as a duty
upon any article which should equalize the cost of production
between this and other countries with due regard to the wages
of American labor.
I was a delegate to the national convention at Chicago, and
mingled as much as anyone with the representatives of the
Republican Party. I was one of the vice-presidents. At din
ners given to favorite sons I frescoed and covered with flowers
Vol. VII— 20

306 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
of rhetoric their candidates, and while admiring friends prophe
sied his success, we all, except him, knew that he was in the
class of those "mentioned." I spoke at public gatherings and
in the halls of hotels for the candidate I wanted, and he, hap
pily, as Vice-president, is the presiding officer of the Senate. I
was up as late as the youngest and as early as the oldest mem
ber of the convention. The absorbing question was not revision
of the tariff, but the hope that Roosevelt would accept and the
fear that he might take a renomination. The subject upper
most in all minds was not the tariff, but whether anarchy or
sanity would prevail in the resolutions. When sanity won, there
were the same progressive predictions of disasters, which were
answered at the election by the largest of our popular majorities
for Taft and the platform. There was no discussion of public
or private, and no committals to, public or private, any methdd
of the revision of the tariff. There was an understanding, in
which all Republicans are agreed, that the constantly changing
conditions of production and invention and in cost in different
countries not only justified but demanded an examination of the
tariff schedules which have been in existence for ten years, with
a view to doing equal and exact justice to every one of these
items within protective principles which have been inserted in the
Republican platform ever since the formation of the party.
There has been brought to my attention by constituents of
mine changes which have taken place within the last few years
which entirely alter the relations of the American manufacturer
to particular articles. There are many industries which have
grown up in this country since the Dingley tariff, in which are
invested many millions of dollars and employment given to tens
of thousands of people. I refer now specially to industries
where the raw material has come from India, South America, or
the East. The change has come about by the English starting
factories in the countries where the raw material is produced and
where labor is nominal compared with ours. It is easy to name
several industries which were prosperous at one time which are
now struggling to live because the manufactured article comes
into this country either under no duty, because it was not pro
duced anywhere else at one time, or under a duty which is now
wholly inadequate because the English manufacturer in India,
South America, and the East has the raw material at his door;

THE TARIFF 307
has his wages at one-quarter those paid in the United States,
and much less when you consider the length of hours ; with whom
transportation is a negligible quantity ; and'^'who, unless the revi
sion is upward instead of downward, will command the American
market, drive our manufacturers out of business, and then, with
his monopoly, make his own prices to us, his helpless victims.
Undoubtedly there are other articles where the perfection of
American machinery, the command of the raw material, the op
portunities for transportation, and the elements of cost, including
higher wages, justify a reduction to a point where the tariff shall
not be prohibitive. Competition and not prohibition is the real
object of the principle for which we are contending. /;
The newspapers tell us that France is on the eve of a revolu
tion and that it originates, as always, in Paris. The remark
was once made by a distinguished observer that, to maintain
peace and order, Paris had to be shot over about once every
thirty years. I do not know that there is any truth in this broad
generalization, because broad generalizations are seldom true,
but it is true, and that has been our history, that it requires a
lesson in modified free trade to bring our people to a full realiza
tion of its effects. The lambs in their gambols frisked us fifteen
years ago into a wool schedule which reduced the flocks from
useful producers of national wealth to expensive ornaments on
the plains and on the hillsides. The lambs of the present day
have forgotten their experience, and it may require ii-cent
wool to smash, as it did twelve years ago, the rainbows and
dreams of the college idealists and the political theorist.
It has been charged here that the United States Steel Corpo
ration made last year $9 a ton profit in excess of any legitimate
return to which they were entitled. As the duty on their product
was $7, if that statement is true, it is evident, after taking the
entire duty off, they would still have made $2 more than a legiti
mate return upon their investment. There must be some error
in the calculation which would justify the remark quoted by my
eloquent friend from Iowa, that the chief practical use of statis
tics was to keep the other fellow from lying to you. Out of the
Carlyle generalization has grown an American one that figures
will not lie unless a liar makes the figures. No one charges and no
one believes that there has been an intentional misrepresentation
of the figures which have been presented by any Senator on any

308 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
of the schedules in these debates, but if the profits of the United
States Steel Corporation had been so preposterous, then the
independent companies which are as well situated, without any
water in their capital, with the latest machinery and the best of
management, would have been able to make large money.
-'fj; Even if it is true that the United States Steel Corporation
made $9 in excess of any fair and legitimate return, even if it is
true that the United States Steel Corporation can make iron $2
a ton cheaper than the independent companies, there would still
have been for the independent companies $7 of profit in addition
to a legitimate return upon their capital, fi^ As a matter of fact,
they got no return at all.
The question has been raised why we should keep a tariff
upon steel to protect independent producers, who have 50 per
cent, of the business and employment, at the expense of the Amer
ican public. Why not, in order to reach the United States Steel
Corporation, take the tariff all off and let the independent com
panies be absorbed and the wl^ole iron and steel business of the
country placed in one great monopoly? No one would dare
argue or urge that, because the sufferers would be the consumers
on the one side and the wage-earners on the other, with no pos
sibility of relief in sight. fe'Then why does not the United States
Steel Corporation, having the power, as it apparently has, to
produce more cheaply, crush its independent rivals ? The Ameri
can business 'man above all other qualities has good sense. With
equal opportunities he fears no rivals. With too great oppor
tunities he fears public opinion and legislation...^^ To crush out
the independent steel companies it would be necessary for the
United States Steel Corporation to forego dividends upon its
common and preferred stock and carry on its business on a scale
of meager profits for a number of years, while by dividing and
leaving the market open to fair and reasonable competition, with
the independent companies controlling one-half of the output and
the business, it is enabled to earn profits which keep its works
up to the standard, which give value to its bonds and its preferred
stock, and which now and then permit a return upon the common.
If it had a monopoly and the American market was thrown open
to competition, the laws of trade would lead to an understanding
with those gigantic trusts which control the markets of Great
Britain and of the Continent, especially Germany, to whose tyran-

THE TARIFF 309
ny and operations the lamp post would not be an effective remedy.
You can hang a man, not a corporation. You can hang a man
upon a basis which would bring about the terr9rs of the French
Revolution and the disruption of society, but|the United States
Steel Corporation is owned by 100,000 stockholders, of whom
27,500 are workers in the mines, the mills, and the furnaces, and
on the railroads, and the steamboats of the corporation^';.
My eloquent friend from Georgia, in his brilliant defense of
the South, claimed that the prosperity which has created a new
South would have come without any protective tariff, and that
the protection which, in our judgment, has made the new South,
has created a class who live by placing tax burdens upon their
neighbors who owe them nothing and receive no benefits what
ever from their existence. Now let us see. At the close of the
war the South, as he says, was purely agricultural, and all its
property destroyed but land, and, as the Senator from Massa
chusetts has so ably demonstrated, it was that which presented
such a frightful handicap during the Civil War upon as gallant,
brave, and resourceful a people as ever existed.
Soon after the Civil War protection enabled capitalists to
take advantage in the South of the principle that where the raw
material and the manufactory are side by side there is prosperity
for both. Now, see this remarkable result : The manufactured
products of the South in 1880 were four hundred and fifty
millions; in 1900 one billion four hundred and fifty millions; in
1908 $1,908,000,000. In view of these figures, where is the
claim that the South is still an agricultural country and depend
ent entirely upon agriculture for its living ?M There is not a per
son, I believe, interested in the manufacturing industries of the
South, who intelligently understands them, who would assent
to-day to the repeal of the tariff upon cotton products and iron
products because protection is an oppression upon their farm
ing neighbors.,/
Now, my friend the Senator from Georgia gave a very il
luminating exposition, as he always does, the other day upon
conditions in the South in reference to the principle of protec
tion. He is the only real, honest free trader who has spoken
here, and I love his courage.
Mr. Bacon. I am very much obliged to the Senator for
connecting my name with the very honorable epithet of honest.

310 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
but I am not such a doctrinaire as to be a free trader. I be
lieve in a very liberal tariff, but I do not believe in one for
the protection of any particular business at the expense of every
body else.
Mr. Depew. That means that you are in favor of a tariff
for revenue only?
Mr. Bacon. The Senator has expressed it with absolute
accuracy. Mr. Depew. And that is free trade.
Mr. Bacon. No; it is not. It has no relation to free trade.
They are as far awide as the poles.
Mr. Depew. The relationship is so near that it would take
a genealogist to describe the difference.
Now, in that admirable speech of his he defends the South.
The South needs no defense. In the North to-day, wherever
you may find the northern man of to-day or the northern
woman of to-day, there is nothing but fraternal feeling; and,
more than that, admiration for the courage and the sacrifice of
the South during the Civil War for their ideas^under conditions
which to any other people than ours would have been absolutely
hopeless. As the Senator says, the South was handicapped so that she
could not make her arms, she could not clothe her people, she
could not do any of the things necessary for her, except as she
got them from the outside.
Mr. Bacon. Mr. President, the honorable Senator will par
don me, but I said no such thing.
Mr. Depew. Substantially.
Mr. Bacon. I did not mean to even imply any such thing.
On the contrary, I said that the resources were ample, but that
the odds were five to one against the South, and that the re
sources there were in the course of a merciless and bitter war
absolutely destroyed.
Mr. Depew. My memory is at fault. That was the state
ment of the Senator from Massachusetts. Now we have come
to the point I wished to make just now. All her industries
were destroyed, all her property of a personal kind was de
stroyed, her houses were burned, her stock was gone, and she
had the bare land to start anew on.
Now, accepting that, suppose there had been no protection.

THE TARIFF 311
would capitalists have been found in the South for industry,
especially for the cotton and iron industry?
Mr. Bacon. What is the Senator's question?
Mr. Depew. Suppose there had been no protection upon
cotton and iron as protection, would capitalists have been found
in the South or elsewhere for the cotton and iron industry?
Mr. Bacon. Mr. President, if the Senator will permit me
to reply, there certainly has been no protection as to the pro
duction of cotton.
Mr. Depew. I mean the manufacture of cotton.
Mr. Bacon. And cotton has not been produced —
Mr. Depew. I mean the manufacture of cotton and iron.
Mr. Bacon. Well, Mr. President, the manufacture of cot
ton and iron in the South has grown up after the prosperity had
been restored there, but their agricultural products, far from
having any assistance from the protective tariff, bore an onerous
and grievous burden all the time that they were thus restoring
prosperity. The manufactures of the South have been the re
sult of the wealth which has been dug out of the ground by
the agriculturalists of the South, and without any aid either
from the protective tariff or, generally speaking, from any other
source outside of their own energy and their own perseverance
and labor.
Mr. Depew. The manufactures of the South in 1880 were
$450,000,000; in 1900, $1,450,000,000; and in 1908, $2,000,-
000,000, in round numbers.
Mr. Bacon. And, Mr. President, all that magnificent growth
and development is the surplus profit which has been piled up
by the southern people in the prosecution of their agricultural
interests at a time when they have borne a most tremendous
tax to the manufacturing producer under the protective tariff,
when they themselves were receiving no reciprocal benefits from
it. Mr. Depew. Now, if that view of the Senator is correct,
and if his view is correct that no capital has come in from out
side sources, and these manufacturing developments have been
wholly by the profits of agriculture in the South, then the prof
its of agriculture in the South must be beyond anything ever
known in agricultural production and in surplus income anywhere
in the world. For instance, from 1865 to 1880, when the South

312 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
is acknowledged to have had no personal property, there was
$250,000,000 capital put into manufactures.
Mr. Bacon. Mr. President, what is $250,000,000 to a sec
tion that makes $800,000,000 worth of cotton and its by-products
a year? Of course, when I speak of the agricultural industry,
mercantile and other kindred industries grow up with it, and
there are reciprocal benefits between those who produce the
cotton and those who furnish other things upon which the men
who produce the cotton must live.
As I have said, it has been the result of the agricultural in
dustry, and, of course, other industries have accompanied it,
but they have been the industries of our own people. If the
Senator will figure a little, and not despise figures, as he indi
cated just now he would be prone to do, he will find that the
cotton crop of the South has not only enriched the South and
that out of its profits have grown these immense industries of
other kinds, manufacturing included, but he will find if he will
examine the balance sheets that but for that cotton and but for
that agricultural profit which has been made in spite of the
protective tariff and not through any aid of it, the balance of
trade would have been frequently against the people of the
United States.
Mr. President, the cotton crop sends out of this country some
thing like five hundred million dollars a year which is the equiva
lent of gold, and it brings back into this country either actual
gold or keeps gold from going out of the country by furnishing
bills of lading, which stand for gold.
Mr. Depew. As I said, from 1865 to 1880 the South got
$250,000,000 of capital in manufactures, from 1880 to 1890 she
found $650,000,000, from 1890 to 1900 she found $1,150,000,-
000, and from 1900 to 1908, $2,100,000,000. It would make the
farmers of the world stand up and listen if told that that $2,100,-
000,000 came from the surplus profits of agriculture in the South,
by which in that brief period people who had no^money and no
personal property to begin with could give to manufactures such
fabulous capital.
Mr. Gallinger. If we did not have a tariff on the finished
product of cotton, and foreign countries were supplying us with
cotton goods, as they did in the early days, what would become

THE TARIFF 313
of the $2,100,000,000 now invested in cotton manufactures in
the South?
Mr. Depew. I believe that^''if the protective principle was
taken out of our legislation the cotton industries of the South
would disappear.aii
Mr. Gallinger. Of course they would.
Mr. Depew. And with that would come a paralysis of all
industries of the South.' I believe that if this protective principle
was taken out of legislation,yinstead, as the Senator from Georgia
believes, the agriculturists contributing from their surplus for
the support of other people, they could do nothing for them, and
the iron and coal industries of West Virginia and of Alabama
and of Kentucky and of Tennessee would be destroyed^,;;
Mr. Bacon. If the Senator will pardon me, I wish to make
a statement, in order that what I have said may not be misun
derstood. When I speak of the manufacturing industries of
the South being solely the representative of the profit upon the
agricultural industry of the South, of course I do not mean that
absolutely the clear profit made is the only money which has
been invested in those industries. Of course the people of the
South have utilized their land and other property, which has
resulted from this agricultural prosperity as a basis for credit
to secure money which they have invested in manufacturing
enterprises. Money has been borrowed, but borrowing money
by our own people upon satisfactory security is a very different
thing from money being sent in by others for investment.
Mr. Depew. ¦! Repeal the protection upon cotton and you
wipe out the manufacturers in North Carolina, South Carolina,
and Georgia. Repeal the protection upon iron and the phenom
enal progress and development of Alabama, Tennessee, and West
Virginia will cease.,/ I do not wish to differ with my friend
from Georgia, but it is hard for me to understand, if his state
ment is correct, that the South found its own capital for these
manufacturing enterprises, where a purely agricultural people,
who had no personal property in 1865, got two hundred and
fifty millions of capital in 1880, six hundred and fifty millions
in 1890, one billion one hundred and fifty millions in 1900, and
two billions one hundred millions in 1908 and that none of it was
contributed from outside sources. The profits of cotton must be
beyond precedent,

314 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
My friends from Florida, I think, state as fairly as any of
the Senators on the Democratic side the Democratic position,
which is, that they wish the idea of protection to be entirely
eliminated from the schedules and that the tariff should be based
upon the Walker doctrine of only sufficient revenue to yield
the sum required for carrying on the Government. Upon that
basis the junior Senator from Florida made a most eloquent ap
peal on behalf of a revenue upon pineapples, not for protection,
but purely for revenue. Under the schedule proposed by Florida,
the duty upon pineapples will be raised to 128 per cent. The
distinguished Senator, in the course of his eloquent remarks, said
the nerves of the human anatomy were gathered at the base of
the spine, and an injury to the base of the spine attacking the
whole nervous system led to the paralysis of the entire body.
In the anatomy of our country, with the head in Maine, the base
of the spine, as he believes, is Florida. Then, a failure to put
128 per cent, not for protection, but for revenue, upon pine
apples would lead to national paralysis. We will take care of
pineapples, but not on a revenue basis. Under the practice of
protection, the national nervous system will be unimpaired.
New York is the largest manufacturing State and has the
greatest variety in the product of her mills and her factories.
I have been in receipt of at least a hundred letters a day for
months and have had at least a thousand of my constituents
here upon these questions. They have been the manufacturers,
and it has demonstrated the interdependence between the farm and
farmers and the people of the localities in which these manu
facturing industries are located. There is almost unanimity
of sentiment that they are all consumers as well as all pro
ducers. The 30,000,000 people who are in gainful pursuits, eliminat
ing those who are single, and giving an average family to those
who are married, make up nearly the entire population of the
United States. In their living as well as in their prosperity
they are absolutely dependent upon each other. None of them
can live by himself and no occupation can exist by itself. It is
the interdependence of the industries of our States which con
stitutes the strength of the American people and the wealth
of the American Union. I was asked by Mr. McKinley in 1896
to make campaign speeches through the wheat and corn belts

THE TARIFF 315
of the West. I found the farmers everywhere looking to free
silver or any other panacea for relief from their condition.
Wheat was 60 cents and corn 1 5 cents a bushel. Upon that they
could not meet the interest upon their mortgages and they had
difficulty in paying their taxes and there was no market for
their horses and cattle. ''V Why was there this condition among
the farmers? We had a larger population in 1896 than we had
in 1890 when they were prosperous. It was because the ex
periment of modified free trade had closed the factories and
turned 3,000,000 wage-earners in possession of jobs to 3,000,000
out of a job and out of money. In other words, the farmer had
lost his market because the consumer had lost his job.>..
We have had since 1897 phenomenal prosperity, employment,
and wages, the farmers now getting a dollar and twenty-five
cents a bushel for wheat and sixty cents for corn, and there is
an open market for their stock. , The farmers have paid off
their mortgages, they have large surplus in the banks, and they
are enjoying a prosperity such as has never been known by
any agricultural people in the world and never known by our
farmers before. It is because protection has created the market,
has created the money maker, has created the money spender,
and has demonstrated the interdependence between the farm and
the factory and between the producer and the consumer./!, The
rise in the cost of living is not in rents, clothes, boots and shoes,
or railroad travel, but it is in food. /To suppose that under these
conditions the farmers of the country believe that under this
principle they are burdened and oppressed in order to support
their fellow-countrymen who are engaged in other pursuits, and
who, by being engaged in these remunerative pursuits, are their
consumers and customers, is absurd.
I have admired the Senate all my life. The giants of the
early period — the great triumvirate, Webster, Clay, and Cal
houn — created the sentiment that this is the most august assem
bly in the world. But their speeches, wonderful in their liter
ature, covering exhaustively a wide range of subjects, very plati
tudinous and lengthy, would not command a Senate of to-day.
They are devoid of humor, and humor is necessary for a modern
statesman. The thoughtful and thoroughly prepared speeches
dehvered during this session are worthy the best efforts of the
greatest reputation of the Senate and more interesting.

316 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
An income tax has been urged by the Senators from Texas
[Mr. Bailey], Iowa [Mr. Cummins], and Idaho [Mr. Borah].
It is advocated with great ability and a great array of precedents
is cited to support their contention, and the answer of the Senator
from Utah [Mr. Sutherland], who has just taken his seat, has
been most able and conclusive.
The whole question rests upon these words of the Constitu
tion:
Direct taxes are to be laid in such a manner that each State shall
bear a proportion of the whole tax equal to its proportion of the whole
population. In rendering the opinion of the court in the Pollock case,
Chief-justice Fuller summed up his conclusions as follows:
Our conclusions may therefore be summed up as follows:
First. We adhere to the opinion already announced that taxes on
real estate, being indisputably direct taxes, taxes on the rents or in
come of real estate, are equally direct taxes.
Second. We are of opinion that taxes on personal property or on
the income of personal property are likewise direct taxes.
Third. The tax imposed by sections 2"; to 37, inclusive, of the act
of 1894, so far as it falls on the income of real estate and of personal
property, being a direct tax within the meaning of the Constitution, and
therefore unconstitutional and void because not apportioned according
to representation, all those sections, constituting one entire scheme of
taxation, are necessarily invalid.
The object and aim then of these long speeches which are
as able as any ever delivered at any time in this body are to have
the Senate reverse the Supreme Court. It is better when a de
cision of the court of last resort is against the judgment of
counsel to present to the public what the counsel would have
said if he had been a judge than to adopt the remedy which
Judge Grover, of our New York court of appeals, said was the
only one left for the defeated attorneys and that was to go down
to the tavern and curse the court. One Senator wishes dis
tinctly to challenge the Supreme Court with the idea that the
argument and decision in the Pollock case will be reversed.
Another Senator wishes to have it introduced as a principle in
our political economy, even if the tariff is to be reduced in order
that there may not be an excess of income over expenditures.

THE TARIFF 317
Unless, as in war times, there is an absolute necessity for an
income tax, it is the most direct possible attack upon the pro-
tective system. The only way in which the surplus revenues it
would produce, and which are not now needed, could be taken
care of, would be either a horizontal reduction of the tariff to
bring the revenues down to the expenditures or else to enter
upon a bacchanalian saturnalia of extravagance.
No one has been able to refute the conclusions of the Finance
Committee that the bill under discussion will yield several millions
in excess of expenditure. It is claimed that the income tax will
produce between sixty and eighty millions of dollars annually.
This would create a dangerous surplus and impose a burden for
no other purpose than to establish a theory. A theory which
will cost the taxpayers of the country, and, in the analysis of dis
tribution, all the people, $80,000,000 which the Government does
not need and for which it has no use, is the most expensive
educational propaganda ever exploited. .^Tt has been suggested
by its advocates that the tariff could be reduced to meet the ex
cess caused by the income tax, but a reduction would lead to
larger importations and greater revenues and at the same time
take our American market from our own workers and give it to
their foreign competitors. On the other hand, if a prohibitory
tariff was adopted to decrease customs revenues, that would de
feat the Republican doctrine of competition with protection and
create monopolies'^,,
There is one point which strikes me in the question as to
whether the fathers in forming the Constitution intended that the
clause providing that direct taxes should be apportioned among
the States according to population referred only to revenue from
land and not income from personal property. The Constitution
was a compromise between the large and populous and the small
and sparsely populated States. The small States demanded that
in some way they should be protected. The device to protect
them was that, regardless of their population, each State should
have in the Senate practically two ambassadors with equal vote
and equal power. There was as great disparity then as there is
now between the States of large population and those of smaller
population. The taxing power and its destructive possibilities
were thoroughly understood, and the great States of New York,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Georgia never intended that they

318 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
should be outvoted and made to bear undue burdens because of
the votes in the Senate of the smaller States. There are 15
States with 30 Senators in this body whose aggregate popula
tion differs only a few thousand from that of the single State
of New York with two Senators. & New York has one-seventh
of the property of the country. It has one-twelfth of the popu
lation. Yet, under an income tax, it would pay 33 per cent, of
the burdens of the Government. It is absurd to suppose that
with the States rights views that existed among the statesmen
of the formative period and in the constitutional convention they
ever intended that any system should prevail which would dis
tribute so unequally the burdens of the Government among the
various States, ".''i:)!
There is another view which strikes me very forcibly and
which has not been presented. i,\,The time has come to draw the
line between the sources of revenue for the Federal Government
and those which shall be left with the States. The Federal Gov
ernment has unlimited opportunities for revenue through the cus
toms and by internal-revenue taxation of almost limitless varie
ties and by other methods. The States must deal directly with
their people. ;, I was talking a few days since with the Hon.
Edwin A. Merritt, chairman of the committee on ways and
means of the lower house of the New York Legislature, who
expressed alarm at the inheritance and income taxes being ab
sorbed by the Federal Government. The expenses of the States,
with the public improvements which have become necessary by
the extraordinary development of the last quarter of a century,
are increasing in geometric ratio.
When I was chairman of the committee on ways and means
in the lower house of the New York Legislature, forty-six years
ago, a tax levy of $8,000,000 would have led to a political revo
lution. The tax levy this year is thirty-seven millions, and it
has increased from twenty-two to thirty-seven within the last
decade. There was levied in the State of New York in 1907
by direct taxes — ^that is, city, village, country, and town — $180,-
942,341.27, and by indirect tax, $32,339,707.49, making a total
of direct and indirect taxes of $213,282,048.76. A direct tax
for State purposes has been abolished in our State. The State
government is carried on by indirect taxation. This came be
cause of the enormous burdens of local taxation, amounting to

THE TARIFF 319
$181,000,000 a year. Our indirect taxation comes from taxes on
corporations, organization of corporations, inheritances, trans
fers of stock, traffic in liquor, mortgages, and racing associa
tions, according to the following table :
Tax on corporations  $ 8,581,223.44
Tax on organizations of corporations  391,423.18
Tax on inheritance  5'435.394-97
Tax on transfer of stock  5,575,986.64
Tax on traffic in liquor  9,697,504.24
Tax on mortgages  2,442,249.73
Tax on racing associations  215,925.29
Total  32,339.707-49
It is evident from this that, with the budget five millions more
than the amount raised from these sources last year, the State
must soon find other sources of, revenue. Several States have
already adopted an income tax. . << No one would advocate that
there should be double taxation by the General Government and
by the States, for the burden would be intolerable. It seems to
me, therefore, that it is a fair claim on behalf of the States that
this direct contact with their citizens by inheritance and income
taxes should be left to their administration. :
My colleague. Senator Root, clearly and ably answered the
question the other day as to whether the property owners bore
a substantial part of the burdens of the Government by proving
what they paid and its percentage in the country as a whole.
This New York tax levy, I think, is a close and up-to-date illus
tration of the same point from our own State. I know from
personal experience with the estates for which I am counsel that
real estate located in the best parts of New York City pay to-day
double the taxes which they did eight years ago and without any
increase in rents. The effect of this is that the income from
real estate in New York is nearer 3 than 4 per cent.
The taxes on railroads in the State of New York are first
upon their real estate, at full value, in the several towns, then
a franchise tax, then a tax upon capital stock, then a tax upon
bonded debt, gross earnings, and dividends. In the case of the
New York railroads which pay dividends, this amounts to over
15 per cent, of their net income. Of course this is an assessment
upon the income of the stockholders to that amount.

320 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
The income and expenditures of the Government can be cal
culated for a series of years to come with almost mathematical
certainty. I have heard no criticism which successfully con
troverts the conclusions of the Ways and Means Committee of
the House and the Finance Committee of the Senate. Includ
ing pensions, 55 per cent, of our total expenditure is on account
of war. ,! Expenditures are not likely to increase as fast as rev
enues,^ and there will necessarily come in the course of nature,
now that forty-four years have passed since the close of the Civil
War, an annual decrease in pension appropriations. The civil
expenditures are entirely in administrative control.
All European nations are burdened with gigantic national
debts. These debts are the inheritances of great and little wars.
Our national debt has been so reduced since the Civil War that it
is a negligible quantity compared with our resources. We should
enlarge the national debt, not for war but for the most benefi
cent purposes of peace, if we are to enter upon a proper policy.
We have begun on the right course in the Panama Canal by
borrowing the money for its construction. It is proper that
posterity should bear their proportion of a burden of which
they are to be the principal beneficiaries, i I f we enter upon,
as we will in the future, an intelligent and thoroughly prepared
scheme of inland waterways, that also should be done by the
issue of long-time bonds, for posterity again will be the benefi
ciaries and ought to bear their share of the burden.
We are all in receipt of letters and resolutions of commercial
bodies in reference to the creation of a permanent tariff com
mission. The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Beveridge] and the
Senator from Nevada [Mr. Newlands] have ably and elo
quently presented the affirmative of that proposition. They base
their argument largely upon the success of the Interstate Com
merce Commission, but there is no analogy between the duties
performed by and the obligations which rest on the Interstate
Commerce Commission and those which would devolve on a per
manent tariff body. It is the nature of a commission to seek to
enlarge its powers and to exploit its beneficence. A permanent
tariff commission, with a permanent lobby representing the 2,000
items in the tariff bill and backed by the influence of the Sena
tors and Members from the States where these particular in
dustries are located, would keep alive what the country most

THE TARIFF 321
deprecates and mojt fears— a perpetual tariff disturbance. Pass
some law quickly and adjourn is what the country wants.
I believe in the scheme outlined by our Committee on Finance
of creating from the experts of the Government, who are famil
iar with every phase of this question and in constant touch with
its administration, a body within the existing departments which
can inform the President, Congress, and the Secretary of the
Treasury of the inequalities as they arise in the practical appli
cation of tariff duties, so that without agitation, without an
eternal tariff war and a perpetual tariff lobby, with all that
means in the disturbance of business, an effective and noiseless
machinery would be automatically solving problems as they
arise. Such a commission would meet the criticisms upon the
ambiguity of the law and the mistakes in its administration,
which were so ably presented in the speech of the senior Sen
ator from Iowa.
¦f. I noticed in the papers of this morning that William J. Bryan
and Governor Johnson, of Minnesota, deplored yesterday the
situation of the Republican Party. They said that if this tariff
bill as suggested either by the House or Senate committee be
came a law it would lead inevitably to the election of a Demo
cratic House of Representatives two years from now and the
Senate and the Presidency to follow four years from now. The
tears which they shed should have been caught after the man
ner of the Pompeians, in a glass bottle, and preserved in the
archives of the Smithsonian Institution.,*' I am sorry for the
progressive brethren of our own household who are lamenting
with great earnestness the impending ruin which they are so
fearful will follow if they fail to have their way. I say to our
distinguished Democratic sympathizers with Hamlet to the ghost
of his father, "Rest, rest, perturbed spirit."
ij«Mr. President, the country wants speedy action upon this sub
ject. /In all the phenomenal times of prosperity of the past
none of them equal the present in its opportunities and its
promise. * • Large contracts for important construction are held
up, the stocks of the merchants are depleted, the storehouses
of the manufacturers are empty, the supplies on hand have been
used up, and no new production undertaken for fear of the re
sult in the action of this Congress, j
The impatient horses attached to the car of progress and
Vol. VII-21

322 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
prosperity are held in with difficulty, because of their impa
tience to enter upon the Marathon race of production and de
velopment. The fate of parties in power depends upon the ef
fect of their action on the country. If because of this bill, when
perfected, becoming a law we enter, as I believe we will, upon
another decade surpassing in its beneficent results that which
began with the Dingley tariff, popularity will follow prosperity
and the party can confidently rely upon the judgment of the
people.

SENATE FINANCE COIVIIVIITTEE

speech on the finance committee of the senate and the
people^ JUNE 15, 1909.
Mr. President : In regard to this matter^ and the Commit
tee on Finance, the bitter attack just made upon it by the Senator
from Nebraska seems to be the culmination of a criticism that has
been running against the committee since it presented its tariff
report to the Senate. The charge has been made as to the unfair
constitution of the committee and the way it has been formed,
and that charge has been repeated often to the Senate ; and now
the charge is made that it is playing petty politics in regard to
this matter of the duty on Philippine cigars and in other ways.
As to the Philippine measure, while I do not know the per
sonal views of the President, we all of us have read the declara
tions which he made both before he became President and since,
growing out of his intimate knowledge of Philippine conditions,
for the largest possible measure of free trade between the Philip
pine Islands and the United States. He has frequently declared
such a measure most important for the welfare and uplift of the
Philippine people and their loyalty to the United States.
I had no doubt, when this matter was presented by the
Finance Committee, that it was substantially in agreement with
the views entertained by the President, because they were the
views he has so often expressed. Only the proposition of the
Committee on Finance was less in what was granted to the Philip
pines than what the President had repeatedly said he thought
would be good policy in the development of those islands and the
creation of friendly relations between the Filipino people and
the United States.
In regard to this particular proposition, just before the Sena
tor from Wisconsin offered his amendment to reduce the cigars
imported free from 150,000,000 to 75,000,000, the president of
'The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, had under consideration the bill (H. R.
1438) to provide revenue, equalize duties, and encourage the industries of the United
States, and for other purposes. 323

324 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
the Cigar Makers' Union of the United States interviewed me on
the subject. He told me the views of the Cigar Makers' Union
and the condition of its members as to non-employment, and said
that what they wanted was to reduce the number of cigars im-
j^orted free to 75,000,000.
I want to say, if the Senator from Wisconsin had not offered
the amendment to reduce the number of cigars imported free
from the Philippines, I would have done so. The president of
the union is a New Yorker, and there are more cigar makers in
the State of New York than in any other State in the Union.
In regard to the charge that the committee reduced it from
75,000,000 to 70,000,000 to play politics against the Senator
from Wisconsin, it was the demand of the Senator from Connecti
cut, who had been speaking here for several hours and who repre
sents a great tobacco State, that the number should be reduced
from 75,000,000 to 70,000,000. I want to say that I appealed to
the committee personally, because of this presentation that had
been made to me by the Cigar Makers' Union, to have the num
ber reduced to the lowest possible figure which would satisfy the
Executive and the friends of the development of the Philippine
Islands. So much on petty politics.
Now, sir, it has been charged that this committee has been
unfairly formed, and one of the best posted of the correspond
ents of the great newspapers in the gallery, who are so keen and
clear on all matters, said to me the other day, when I explained
to him how the committee had been formed, that with his long
experience here he had not thoroughly understood it, because he
had not had occasion to look it up. I think it had better go into
the Record just how the committees of the Senate are formed so
that the country may know whether we are dominated by one-
man power and l?y an automatic and self -constituted committee.
How are the committees of the Senate formed? This being
a continuing body, we make new committees every two years,
when one-third of the membership is changed. Then, sir, the
officers of the caucus, elected for the previous two years, cause
a notice to be sent to all Senators on the Republican side asking
them to meet in the Marble Room for the purpose of organiza
tion. When we met there were 59 chairs. There are now
59 Republican Senators. Those chairs have no names upon
them. There is no assignment of seats for Senators of promi-

SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE 325
nence or long service. Everything is informal and free. Every
Senator can take any seat he pleases, and if it so suits him he
can take a front seat, where he can be most conspicuous. There
are no rules restricting any Senator as to what he shall propose
or how long he shall speak. We are equals in the caucus.
Then, in the usual and ordinary way a motion is made for
the organization of the caucus, by the election of a chairman and
secretary, and that is put to a vote by the oldest Senator in term
of service, according to a rule which has prevailed in the Senate
ever since its organization. When that is done a motion is
made that the Chair shall appoint ii or 13 Senators to consti
tute a committee on committees. That reaches the ideal that
the uplift reformers have been claiming in their venomous
attacks on the methods in the House. The attack upon the meth
ods in the House has been that it is wrong for the Speaker to
name the committees, and that they should be made by a com
mittee of the House itself.
This committee on committees is appointed by the Chair.
When it is complete, another caucus is called by due notice in
writing to submit this committee on committees for the action
of the Senators. The whole body thus assembled can reject,
change, or adopt the report. If the caucus votes to accept the
committee as reported, the committee goes to work. It addresses
a letter to every Senator, asking him what he wishes in commit
tee assignments ; and it does its best, according to my experience,
having gone five times through it, to gratify the wishes and
ambitions of each Senator.
But when you come to the conditions existing at the begin
ning of this extra session, they were peculiar. Everybody knew
that all the business of this session would come from one com
mittee, that of Finance, and of the 59 Republican Senators, a
large majority wished to get on that committee. The rules
restrict its membership to 14, of whom nine are Republicans.
To select nine from the great number of applicants was a prob
lem difficult for this committee on committees to solve. They
accomplished the task and reported the result of their con
clusions to the caucus, and it was a very full caucus. There
was the opportunity again for any Senator to charge that
the committee was unfairly made up; that the country, in its
different parts, was not properly represented. There was one

326 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
such protest in the caucus, but the Senator making the pro
test did not criticise the committee except to claim that his
own State ought to be represented on it. He did not, however,
make a motion or ask for a vote.
Therefore the committee as suggested by the committee on
committees received the vote of every Republican Senator who
was present in the caucus. But if any Senator was dissatisfied
with the committee, he still had another opportunity, because
that committee was reported to the full Senate, in order that
the Senate might vote whether that committee should stand as
the Committee on Finance or whether it should be changed in any
particular. On that vote the committee was accepted by the
Senate by the unanimous vote of Senators on both sides of the
Chamber. So that the committee stands before us having been
at least four times unanimously indorsed by the Republicans or
the joint votes of both sides.
I understand the same process exactly is pursued by the
minority Members of the Senate in the recommendations they
make as to who of their number shall go upon committees.
My colleague and I represent a State which has a great vari
ety of interests. I think the statistics show that New York is the
largest manufacturing State in the Union and has more varied
productions than any other State ; and my colleague and I, repre
senting those interests, both the employees and the employers,
have not hesitated to go day by day to the committee in order
to present the claims of these industries in New York for their
consideration, and in many instances we have succeeded in placing
before them views and testimony from people directly interested
which have led to a modification in rates which the committee
had reported to the Senate upon particular items in this bill. We
have found the committee, even when disagreeing with our views,
eminently open-minded and courteous.
Now, as to the charge that this committee is discredited in
this body, how are we to judge? How are we to know and how
is the country to know whether this committee is discredited?
Votes talk louder than speeches. We have been told here re
peatedly that the people of the United States are hostile to this
committee and the bill they have reported and recommended.
We have been told here repeatedly that only the Senators who
oppose the committee and their work know what is the opinion

SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE 327
of the people of the United States. We have been told here
repeatedly that every Senator who supports this committee is
marching headlong to political destruction, and he does not know
it ; the only people who know it are the critics of the committee.
If that be so, then the Senate is the most extraordinary suicide
club which has ever existed. There have been here — taking the
wool schedule, which it was said was the real test of popular
feeling — practically 51 Republican Senators supporting the com
mittee and 8 Republican Senators opposing the committee ; 8 Sen
ators only with salvation free, and 51 going headlong and heed
less to oblivion; 51 not knowing the sentiment of their own
States, and 5 1 ignorant of what the people of the country think
and want, and only 8 fully enlightened.
When I look at the electoral college, which selected the Presi
dent of the United States and you, sir, for the high offices which
you adorn — both of you — I discover that the total electoral vote
is 483 ; necessary for a choice, 242. Taking the wool schedule,
upon which there was the greatest controversy, the Republican
Senators voting to support the committee represented 294 elec
toral votes, or a majority of 52 of the electoral college, and yet
the country has been repeatedly informed by several of the 8
Republican Senators who antagonize the committee that they
have a knowledge of the wishes, the opinions, and the desires of
the people which is not possessed by the Senators supporting the
committee who represent a majority of 52 in the entire vote.
Republican and Democratic, of the electoral college. President
Taft received 303 electoral votes; so that 294 is within 9 votes
of Taft's phenomenal majority. If we take the highest vote cast
against the 'committee by these Republicans on the most import
ant schedules, they represented 55 in the electoral college, while
the Republican Senators supporting the committee represent 272.
Now, sir, this committee has had duties to perform greater
than any that have fallen upon any other committee during my
ten years in the Senate. I was not here during the consideration
of the Dingley Bill, but it strikes me that the framers of that
measure had an easy task compared with the framers of this
bill. The committees of the two Houses which prepared the
Dingley Bill met when a terrific industrial disaster had over
whelmed the country, and the people believed that it was due to
the Democratic tariff measure which was then in force. The

328 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
demand of the country upon that committee was to protect the
industrial interests of the United States. The demand of the
country upon the committee was that the action of that committee
should be protective — protective everywhere — to give employ
ment to labor and employment for capital. The difficulty that
committee had to contend with was not to put rates up or down,
but to restrain the eager desire of the whole community for
rates so high as to be prohibitive in their practical application.
The action of the committee in this easy process was sustained
point by point by the concurring opinion of a distressed country.
But now we meet in the midst of great prosperity for the
purpose of revising the schedules which have been eleven years
in existence. The development of the country during that period
has been such in many lines of industry as to require changes.
I doubt very much — and I have many sources of information and
travel about the country almost as much as anyone — the strength
of the demand originally which led the national convention to put
the revision plank in the platform, and I believe, sir, that if that
plank had not been in the platform Mr. Taft would not have lost
a single electoral vote and that his phenomenal popular majority
of over a milhon would have been just as great.
But it was put into the platform, and in obedience to that
promise the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Rep
resentatives met immediately after election, in the early part of
November. They continued their work until March, and I think
into April, and then the work with all the testimony which had
been taken, filling 13 large volumes, with the discussions which
had been given to it in the public press, came to the Senate, in a
large measure perfected, and then the Finance Committee of
the Senate had to undertake on their part to meet the require
ments of the country first for revenue and next for protection.
I have been a member of many committees, and the older
Senators are familiar with the hard work of committees. They
know that there are Members of this body whose names rarely
appear in the Record, but who have their monuments in the
statute books; many Senators who rarely appear in debate, and
do not appeal to popular prejudice or popular passion, who are
working day and night with an energy, with an industry, and with
an intelligence, often impairing their health, giving their best
time and mind to what they believe, though knowing they will get

SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE 329
no individual credit for it, is for the best interests of the country.
Knowing as I do from intimate study of the action of this
committee and of its results, I believe that no committee intrusted
with so great a labor and so tremendous a responsibility has ever
more faithfully, intelligently, and patriotically performed its
work.

PORTO RICO

speech on the effort of the porto rican house of dele
gates TO coerce congress by refusing to pass appro
priation BILLS, JULY 9, 1909.
Mr. President: On the nth of May I introduced a bill
to amend an act entitled "An act temporarily to provide reve
nues and a civil government for Porto Rico, and for other pur
poses, approved April 12, 1900," substantially the same as the
one which passed the House and is now reported by the Senate
Committee on Pacific Islands and Porto Rico. It was impos
sible to have action taken by the Senate under the rule which
prohibited any matters being considered except the tariff bill
until that was disposed of. The House, however, awaiting the
action of the Senate, passed the present bill which is now under
consideration.^ There is an immediate necessity for the pas
sage of this bill. The fiscal year of the government of Porto
Rico ends on the 30th of June. At that date their appropria
tions were exhausted. It has been the custom for appropria
tion bills to be passed by the two houses. This year the house
of delegates refused to pass the appropriation bills, though there
was no objection to the provisions in them, unless the upper
house would consent to legislation which practically changed
the government of the island. The upper house could not con
sent to these measures, nor to a situation under which a practi
cal revolution would be brought about, unless an agreement was
had upon laws which were against the unanimous judgment of
the upper house and in violation of the organic act known as
the "Foraker Act." This can be altered or amended only by
the Congress of the United States. Under these conditions Presi
dent Taft recommended in his message of May 10 to the Con
gress that the same provision should be made for Porto Rico
that is in the organic acts for the Philippines and Hawaii. In
'The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, had under consideration a bill (H. R.
9541) to amend an act entitled "An act temporarily to provide revenues and a civil
government for Porto Rico, and for other purposes.
330

PORTO RICO 331
the Philippine and Hawaii acts, if the Legislature fails to make
the annual appropriations necessary for the conduct of the Gov
ernment, the appropriations for the previous year become auto
matically the law. Of course, the moneys are collected and in the
treasury before the end of the fiscal year available for the ensu
ing one, so that under the operation of this provision in the or
ganic act of these two territories there is no possibility of the
operations of the Government being suspended by an effort of
the lower house, which is a native house, to hold up the Govern
ment in order to force undesirable, or for that matter desirable,
legislation. This bill provides that the same process shall be available in
Porto Rico as exists in the organic acts of the Philippines and
Hawaii. In other words, if, as in this case, the house of dele
gates refuses to pass any appropriations unless they can have
other legislation, or for any other reason, the provisions of the
appropriation bills of the previous year become applicable in
payments to be made for all purposes for the current year.
There is one other provision in this bill which the President
considers very essential. Now the Porto Rico authorities re
port to four different departments of this Government. This
makes unnecessary labor and delay when the President wishes
to get any definite information. He must first ascertain in
which department it is, and it may be in several. Under this
bill such reports will hereafter be in the Bureau of Insular Af
fairs, thus making the process uniform for ah our insular pos
sessions. A brief review of the circumstances and conditions in Porto
Rico will explain the origin of this bill. The treaty with Spain,
under which Porto Rico was transferred to the United States,
was ratified on the lOth day of December, 1898. Under the
provisions of the act known as the "Foraker Law," which passed
April 12, 1900, the Government of the island consisted of a
governor, a secretary, an attorney-general, a treasurer, an audi
tor, a commissioner of the interior, and a commissioner of
education, to be appointed by the President, and to hold office
for four years, respectively. With the exception of the governor
these six officers, with five others, to be appointed by the Presi
dent, who must be native inhabitants of Porto Rico, constitute
the executive council. A legislative assembly was created to

332 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
consist of two houses, one the executive council, and the other
the house of delegates of 35 members, elected biennially. For
the purpose of election Porto Rico is divided into seven dis
tricts. A vote of two-thirds of the legislative assembly over
rides a veto by the governor.
Mr. Culberson. I understand the Senator to say that the
council, which, as I understand, is one of the legislative bodies
of Porto Rico, is composed of six Americans and five natives.
Mr. Depew. Five Porto Ricans.
Mr. Culberson. Five Porto Ricans. I will ask the Sen
ator how many of those six Americans are officeholders?
Mr. Depew. All of them. They are the executive officers of
the island, with the governor.
Harmony has existed between the executive council, which is
the upper house, and the house of delegates, so far as legisla
tion is concerned, until 1908. At this last session the house of
delegates refused to pass the appropriation bill unless the execu
tive council would consent to certain radical legislation.
There are 26 municipal judges elected by the people and 44
justices of the peace appointed by the governor. The demand
was that the justices of the peace should be abolished and the
number of municipal judges increased to 66. There is no call
whatever for municipal courts to this number. It was purely an
effort to secure more offices for the dominant party and to have
these judicial officers under the control of the executive com
mittee of that party.
The house also demanded the creation of counties in the
island, which is not desired by the majority of Porto Ricans.
This was to provide for more offices.
They demanded also the establishment of a manual-training
school. This was for the purpose of taking out of the hands
of the commissioner of education the administration of the edu
cation of the island and putting it in the hands of local officials.
Under the organic act the commissioner of education has en
tire charge of all matters pertaining to the education of the
people, and if a bill had passed the house of delegates and the
executive council and been signed by the governor it would have
been ultra vires.
They demanded an agricultural bank with two millions of
dollars of capital to be loaned to the people of the island.

PORTO RICO 333
There were no funds available, nor were there any means by
which these two millions of dollars could be secured.
They demanded the creation of industrial and professional
schools of the arts and trades. This also was a violation of the
organic act, which provides that the commissioner of education
"shall superintend public instruction throughout Porto Rico,
and all disbursements on account thereof must be approved by
him." This was a further effort to get more patronage and
offices for Porto Rican politicians.
In the effort of the house to recognize the judiciary by
abolishing the justices of the peace and appointing 66 munici
pal judges, they provided that appointments must be given to
such persons as belonged to the political party obtaining the
majority of votes in their respective municipalities during the
last elections of November 3, 1908; that the governor must
appoint the candidate suggested to him for such office by the
superior committee of the political party. The bill further pro
vides that the marshals and officers of the courts shall be se
lected in the same manner, and where the governor had to fill
vacancies he must act under the direction of the political com
mittees of the dominant party. The house of delegates made
a more strenuous demand for this bill than any other, and in
sisted that this measure was the sine qua non without wliich
no appropriation bills would be passed. The object of this bill
was to do away with the courts presided over by persons ap
pointed by the governor, and to have these courts in the hands
of judges selected at the dictation of the party leaders. The
judiciary system of the island has worked very well since the
civil government was organized. It is independent and able.
Under this bill there would have been substituted for it a scheme
which would wreck any judiciary system anywhere.
Another claim which they made was that when a mayor of
any municipality died or was removed, instead of his successor
being appointed by the governor, he should be elected by the
municipal council. The mayor is elected by the people. The
objection to this was that in case the mayor and the common
council were equally corrupt and the mayor removed because
of maladministration that his confederates should not select an
other of the same kind. But the house of delegates refused

334 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
to accept any suggestion which would prevent the common coun
cil from acting in this way.
In order to still further coerce the governor and the council
the house struck out of the appropriation bill the provisions
for the payment of jury and witness fees and traveling ex
penses of the United States district court; they reduced the
salaries of that court not fixed by Congress 9 per cent.; they
struck out all provision for the publication, as provided by law,
of the Official Gazette; they attempted to change the whole
system of property assessment by substituting boards in the
assessment districts controlled in each locality by three assessors
chosen by lot from the 20 largest taxpayers; they made a hori
zontal reduction of 5, 10, and 15 per cent, in all other salaries
not fixed by Congress. Under the organic law of the island the
council has the sole power to fix these salaries, so that this
action of the house was also beyond their authority.
The Legislature of Porto Rico assembled on the 12th day of
January, 1909. On the evening of that day, and before any
trouble of any kind had arisen between the house and the
executive council, the members of the house held a caucus. All
the members are of one party — the Unionist Party. But the
caucus was a joint caucus, because the members of the house
invited to their deliberations the central committee of the party.
The object of the caucus was to formulate a policy for the whole
session. At this joint caucus the following resolution was pro
posed, but after discussion was considered too radical, though
there was a general assent to its provision :
The house to abstain from the introduction of any bills and to
indefinitely postpone all bills of the council, declaring, if necessary, that
it adopts this attitude because it considers that the Foraker Act is a
tyrannical yoke imposed on Porto Rico, and that the house is a figure
head, whose laws are not even complied with and are in practice of no
account and useless.
As a substitute this was unanimously adopted:
I. That at all costs it is necessary to act energetically against the
existence of the Foraker Act, which destroys the personality of Porto
Rico, and against the manner in which the central offices are applying
it.

PORTO RICO 335
2. That, however, resort should not be had to any act of systematic
opposition, and it should only be understood that the house adopts a
position of irrevocable independence.
3. That the house of delegates ought to vote and support laws of
an automatic character for the entire life of the country, to enter upon
a severe criticism of the administration in its distinct services, and
utilize the political means that it possesses to the end that those laws
shall be approved and the administration corrected in an effective man
ner. Following this nom of conduct the central committee and the house
will do whatever circumstances require, and always within legal means,
making all possible sacrifices.
A committee was sent here from the house of delegates to
see the President and Congress. They stated that this meant
that there must be a change in the Government of the island,
or, as far as the house of delegates could affect it, a revolu
tion. The leaders of the Unionist Party who hold every seat in
the lower house claim that this has been their contention for
ten years.
The three commissioners sent here by the house of delegates
to take up these conditions with the President and Congress
presented a written communication in which they said :
The undersigned, as representatives of a people in servitude, beg of
you, their representatives of a free people, that before casting your vote
in Congress on the question of Porto Rico you read these short pages
and be convinced that we are simply asking for our rights and appeal
ing to your sense of justice.
They also added :
One million souls are living in Porto Rico in an unbearable state of
tyranny under the folds of the American flag.
One of their claims was that under the Spanish decree of
1897 they had greater liberty, autonomy, and self-government
than since the island passed under American control. This de
cree of 1897 was made by the Spanish Government, to apply
to Cuba and Porto Rico, in hopes of preventing or stopping the
revolt against the Spanish authority, which had assumed for
midable proportions. Henry K. Carrol, special commissioner to
Porto Rico, in his report of December 30, 1898, said:

336 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
This constitution was promulgated in Porto Rico on February ii,
1898, but was never fully installed. The war intervened, and the pro
vincial legislature, which was its most important feature, was dissolved
when Sampson's fleet appeared, and the governor-general conducted the
government practically on the old plan.
As a matter of fact, the Porto Ricans never had any autono
mous government or individual liberty, as we understand it,
under the Spanish Government. Their government was changed
every few years, according to the recommendation of the gov
ernor-general, or the desire to accomphsh some purpose there
or elsewhere by the Spanish Government. The royal decrees
of September 12, 1870, of January 4, 1883, and of March 15,
1895, all changed the form of government in the island. An
other law was passed December 31, 1896, which repealed all
former provisions and laws relative to provincial government.
The laws and constitutions of 1895 and 1896 gave a Legislature
to the island of twelve members, called the "provincial deputa
tion." The governor-general, however, was supreme and had
the power to suspend the orders of this assembly and to sus
pend the members themselves, and a deputy so removed by him
could not be reelected until after six years. When the gov
ernor-general suspended a deputy he had the power to fill the
vacancy with any person who had previously held the office by
election. This provincial deputation, or assembly, had no power
over the budget. They were authorized to prepare the appro
priation bills, but were compeUed to forward them to the gov
ernor-general three months before the commencement of the
fiscal year. If the governor-general disapproved, the whole mat
ter went to the colonial secretary at Madrid, and his decision
was final. But there was another provision in this organic law
of 1896 which reads as follows :
If the budget should not be approved at the beginning of the fiscal
year, the previous budget shall remain in foice in its necessary parts.
This provision of automatic continuance of the budget out of
the revenues collected for the ensuing year has been in force
under the Spanish Government of the island since 1870. Under
this decree or constitution of 1897, which the commissioners
who came here claimed gave them so much greater liberty than
they now enjoy, the Spanish Government retained the ultimate

PORTO RICO 337
power over the revenues. They reserved the right to the Span
ish Cortes of declaring what expenses should be made and of
fixing the amount every three years. This so-called liberal
grant of 1897, which is now appealed to by the Porto Rican
commissioners as a charter for them from the Spanish Govern
ment of autonomy and liberty greater than they now enjoy,
was a pretense and a pretext from the beginning. There was a
string to every privilege and every right in the firm hand of
the Spanish governor-general, of the colonial secretary of Mad
rid, and of the Spanish Cortes. The revolution had assumed
such proportions in Cuba, and disaffection in Porto Rico was
becoming so dangerous, that this ' was a sop intended to blind
the Cuban and the Porto Ricans without conceding any Spanish
right, and every right which was conceded was subject to nullifi
cation and recall by the Spanish governor-general and the home
authorities. This at once raises the question as to what the United
States has done for the people of this island since its occupation.
They have, under the Foraker Act, their organic law from the
American Congress, a provincial Legislature elected by the peo
ple. They have the right to make their own budgets and their
own appropriations subject only to approval by the Council,
of whom five are. native Porto Ricans. Under this bill we do
not take away this right. We simply legislate, as we have
legislated in the organic laws of our other insular possessions,
that if they do not provide a budget or appropriations to carry
on the Government, the budget of the preceding year, a budget
which was passed unanimously by the house of delegates, re
mains in force for the current year. Before our occupancy of
the island this scheme had been always in force under the Spanish
rule. There is no doubt if the house of delegates had confined
its attention to the appropriations and not attempted to make
them a medium to carry revolutionary legislation, there would
have been no difficulty in having the appropriation bills agreed to
between the two houses.
In the Porto Rican Congress, of the members of the two
houses 6 are Americans and 40 are natives. We have turned into
their treasury about three millions of dollars in cash, the amount
of duties which were collected in the United States on Porto
Rican products after the Spanish evacuation, and from the time of
Vol. VII— 22

338 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
our taking military possession in 1898 until their organic law of
1900 gave to the island free trade with the United States. By giv
ing free trade to Porto Rico we have surrendered $15,000,000 an
nually which would be otherwise collected upon Porto Rican prod
ucts imported into the United States. This free trade and
surrender of revenues on the part of the United States places the
island of Porto Rico, in regard to its products of sugar and to
bacco, in an immensely superior position industrially and com
mercially to Cuba and the other West India islands. When the
cyclone swept over the island a few years since and worked great
havoc among the coffee plantations, the Government of the United
States made to the people of Porto Rico a present of $200,000
to relieve the situation. The United States pays out of its own
treasury the whole cost of the Porto Rican regiment, and also
the harbor improvements, the marine hospital, the weather
bureau, the maintenance of agricultural experiment stations, the
revenue vessels, the light-house service, and the coast surveys.
Porto Rico is the favored territory of the United States. Im
ports going into Porto Rico are subject, of course, to the same
duties under the Dingley Act as imports from foreign countries
passing through the custom-houses of any other port in the
United States. The revenues derived from this source amount
to a million dollars a year. This is the average. In 1906-7
they were $1,138,555, and in the following year $979,990. These
duties are paid into the Porto Rican treasury for purely Porto
Rican purposes, though they belong absolutely to the Treasury
of the United States. The internal-revenue taxes collected in
the island amount to $1,917,000. These taxes, which belong to
the Treasury of the United States are also paid into the treasury
of Porto Rico for local purposes in the island. Thus the United
States surrenders from its own Treasury three millions a year
for the support of the Porto Rican government. There is a tax
levied upon the property of the people of the island which yields
about $1,200,000 a year. This, less 10 per cent., which is the
cost of collection, is remitted to the various municipalities for
expenditure by the local governments for their local and munici
pal needs and requirements. This fund of three milhons a year
out of the Treasury of the United States certainly should have
the supervision of the council, or upper house, and of the gov
ernor. It is virtually a gift by the United States to improve the

PORTO RICO 339
condition of the people of the island, and not to be made the
sport of politics and of factions. The neighboring English colony
of Jamaica is governed by one house, of whom the majority
are appointed. There is no doubt that except for the supervision
of the council, composed of the secretary, the attorney-general,
the treasurer, the auditor, the commissioner of the interior, and
the commissioner of education, and five native Porto Ricans of
the highest standing and character appointed by the President,
this large contribution of the United States for schools, good
roads, and the general welfare of the island would be distributed
among the municipalities, as the fund collected by taxes in the
island is, and largely squandered and misappropriated.
There never has been any question until this last year be
tween the house of delegates and the council as to how this
contribution of the United States of three millions of dollars
annually should be appropriated. There is no charge of any
kind against the efficiency or the integrity of the United States
officials in the island. On the contrary, the committees of both
houses who appeared before the committee of the Senate testi
fied to the integrity and ability of these officials. The beneficent
effect of this annual contribution of the United States upon the
people of the island is a romance as well as a reality of the up-
hfting power of the American Government.
In the matter of education, under the Spanish rule the island
had an attendance of 21,000 pupils in 551 schools of the most
primitive character. To-day there are 2,400 schools, with an
attendance of 114,367 students. In the last year of Spanish rule
there was spent for school purposes $35,000. During the year
just closed of American rule the appropriations for schools were
$1,146,619. The macadam roads of the island have been increased in
our nine years of occupation from 172 to 624 miles. In other
words, during the four hundred years of Spanish rule there were
constructed 172 miles of macadam roads. These roads were
mainly for military purposes, while the American roads are to
bring the farmer to the market and to develop the resources of
the island. While four hundred years under the old rule gave
to the island 172 miles, nine years of American rule have dupli
cated that 172 miles and added 452 more.
Under the old regime one regular Spanish steamer a month

340 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
supplied all the commercial facilities of the island. There was
an occasional call from a French or German steamer, but it
was not part of the commercial facilities which could be relied
upon. Now, instead of one monthly steamer, there are four
teen monthly American steamers.
In the agricultural section of the island land has risen from
ten to one hundred dollars an acre. Wages have increased
everywhere. Every township now has a good road to the sea,
and the roads are connecting towns with each other. Bridges
are built where there were formerly fords and ferries, which
in the rainy season could not be used. The roads have reduced
the cost of transportation to the farmers from $i a hundred
pounds a mile to 20 cents.
An American engineer with an efficient corps is perfecting an
irrigation scheme which will relieve the sugar cultivation from
the periodical droughts to which it is now subject.
In January, 1899, the Medical Corps of the Army undertook
to overcome smallpox, which was devastating the island. Of
the 1,000,000 inhabitants, 800,000 were vaccinated, and small
pox, which was the most destructive of epidemics among the
people, was practically eliminated. There had always existed
in Porto Rico a disease called "tropical anemia." Seven hun
dred thousand of the 1,000,000 inhabitants of Porto Rico were
chronic sufferers from this trouble, called uncinariasis. Eighteen
per cent, of all the deaths were due to this anemia. The ca
pacity for labor of the people of Porto Rico on this account
was reduced 20 per cent. Dr. Bailey K. Ash ford, an assistant
surgeon in the Army, accurately determined the nature of this
disease, and it. was found to be preventable and could be cured,
except in advanced cases. There were 11,875 deaths due to
anemia from 1900 to 1901, and in 1908 there were only 1,785.
Of the 81,375 patients treated for uncinariasis in 1908 only 93
died. I do not think in the records of any population in the
world has there been accomplished in the same period of nine
years the eradication of two such deadly diseases, which caused
such frightful results upon life and upon industries as in this relief
to these people from smallpox and anemia.
We can not too frequently recall the fact that the cost of this
marvelous medical service, the building of these good roads, the
installation of this irrigation plant, and the creation, extension,

PORTO RICO 341
enlargement, and maintenance of the public schools have been
paid out of federal taxes belonging to the United States and
not out of local taxes assessed upon the people of the island.
Universal suffrage has been granted to all male inhabitants
of the island above the age of 21. If the franchise were re
stricted to those who could read, there would be less than 50,000
qualified voters, but in the last election for delegates over 150,-
000 votes were cast.
The island of Porto Rico is 108 miles in length and from 37
to 43 miles across, and contains 3,600 square miles, a little less
than one-half the size of the State of New Jersey.
According to the census of 1900, the population consisted of
589,426 whites and 363,817 colored.
In the annual report for 1899 of Gen. George W. Davis, the
military governor, the population is given as 960,000, or 260 to
the square mile. He says: "Nearly 800,000 could neither read
nor write. Most of these lived in bark huts and were in effect
the personal property of the landed proprietors. They were
poor beyond the possibility of our understanding, and if they
were so fortunate as to have enough for the current hour they
were content." Later, in describing the effect of the hurricane
of 1899, he says: "A population of nearly a million souls, not
less than one-quarter of which was already suffering from chronic
starvation * * * ." As I have already stated, to relieve
that Congress appropriated and gave to the island $200,000.
From General Davis's report I make the following extract,
which describes the conditions in the island and of its inhab
itants at the time we took possession. It is an illuminating ex
hibition of the poverty, illiteracy, and morality of the people as
we found them:
In any country where more than one-half of the population is con
tinually on the verge of starvation or are pinched by hunger; where
labor, when employed at all, is remunerated only to the extent of from
20 to 35 cents per day; where thousands upon thousands are unable to
secure work at any rate; where only 10 or 15 per cent, of the inhab
itants can read and write; where the ordinary standards of public
morality are largely ignored; where half the children are illegitimate;
and, finally, where the functions of the government have been used to
discourage, repress, or prevent initiative and the people have no knowl
edge of any duty or obligation but to obey the orders of the governing

342 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
classes, it would be strange if, under such conditions, murder was un
known and pilfering, stealing, and plundering were uncommon. Let
it be supposed that under conditions such as are recited a government
of repression should be suddenly relaxed and for it another substituted,
which these ignorant people have heard of as one under which freedom
is the predominating characteristics, it would be still less strange if,
when released from restraint, the tendency to lawlessness should greatly
increase and a reign of terror should take the place of a reign of oppres
sion. Dr. Lyman Abbott, a most careful, conscientious, and intelli
gent observer, recently visited the island. He went to every
part of it and thoroughly investigated conditions, social, eco
nomic, and political. He conversed with sugar, tobacco, and
coffee planters, with business and professional men and the poli
ticians. He is very emphatic as to the immense improvement
which has been made in the island since American occupation
in every department which makes for the uplift and welfare of
the people. He pays a high tribute to the manner in which
American officials have conducted the Government, and says
that there is prosperity never known before and general con
tent and satisfaction except among the pohticians. He gives this
picturesque comparison :
In November, 1493, Columbus landed for water at Aguidilla, on the
western coast of Porto Rico. A monument marks the spot where he
filled his water cans. A mile below, in the town subsequently built
upon the shore of the sea, the villagers continue to this day to come
night and morning to this same stream to fill their water cans. The
waterworks of Aguidilla in 1909 are practically identical with those of
1493. The fact is typical.
While there are a great number of cases like this of the
waterworks of the time of Columbus being still the waterworks
of localities, nevertheless American government is rapidly eradi
cating these conditions and bringing the island generally and
its townships and municipalities rapidly up to American stand
ards. In other words, no progress has been made in the betterment
of the conditions of the people in the promotion of industries
or in the development of production in four hundred years of
Spanish occupation. I have recited what has been done in nine
years of American occupation in education, in sanitation, in

PORTO RICO 343
good roads, and in other respects; but the influence of Ameri
can legislation, association, and phenomenal generosity is evi
denced by the industrial progress in the island. With industrial
progress has come its attendant of better housing, better living,
larger intelligence and happiness, heaUh, and comfort.
In 1901 the value of the sugar exported from Porto Rico was
$4,700,000; last year it was $18,600,000, an increase of about
four times. In 1901 there were 100,000 acres devoted to sugar;
now 195,000, or double the acreage. In 1901 the value of the
tobacco was $681,642, while last year it was $5,401,195, or an
increase of about eight times in the nine years. The value of
the coffee grown in 1901 was $12,157,240; last year it was
$35-245.480, or an increase of three times in the nine years.
The value of all the fruits which were exported in 1901 was
$93,000; last year their value was $1,159,420, or an increase in
this industry in the nine years of over ten times. The imports
and exports of Porto Rico in 1901 were $17,951,190; last year
they were $56,470,151.
I do not believe that in the administration of any other old
settled and almost overpopulated community, like that of Porto
Rico, such a change as this can be shown. It would be marvelous
in a new country which offered rich opportunities and whose
newly discovered wealth had led to a great inflow of enterpris
ing settlers, but this marvelous growth in every department which
counts for prosperity, wealth, good citizenship, homes, schools,
and happiness in one of the oldest and the most thickly popu
lated communities of the Western Hemisphere in less than a
decade is a tribute, than which none could be higher, to the Ameri
can Government and administration and the uplifting power of
American liberty.
Porto Rico has a federal district court which commands the
respect of all the people of the island, irrespective of party. Its
local judiciary of five supreme court judges was praised for
ability, integrity, and judicial fairness by all parties who ap
peared before the committee. The American officers, the gov
ernor, the secretary, the treasurer, the auditor, the attorney-gen
eral, the commissioner of education, and the commissioner of
the interior are all gentlemen who had made their mark in the
United States in their profession and in the public service be
fore they were appointed to their present positions and who

344 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
have moved with their families and made their residence in
Porto Rico. They have learned the Spanish language and have,
as individuals and officials, the confidence of every citizen and
of all parties.
The whole of this trouble grows out of an anxiety on the
part of a few who are in control of the political parties. With
90 per cent, of the electorate illiterate, with generations of auto
cratic government behind them, emotional, suspicious and easily
influenced, it is not difficult for men with special talent in that
direction to exercise over them a large, if not dangerous, in
fluence. The Unionist Party, which now has gained all the of
fices and has every seat in the house of ' delegates, desires for
the Government of the island an autonomy something like that
of Canada, where there will be a nominal governor from the
United States, but the legislative and judicial branches shall be
in the power of the people of the island. The Republican Party
has for its platform the creation of Porto Rico into a State and
its admission to the Union. Every authority, official and gen
eral, which has visited the island and studied the conditions
are united in the opinion that as yet the people are not ready
for such a Government as is desired by the one party, nor for
admission to statehood as is demanded by the other.
Having been familiar all my life with party leaders and
party bosses, I pay tribute to the gentleman who absolutely con
trols the Unionist Party for having displayed a skill in secur
ing a power and maintaining it which places him in the front
rank of political leaders. He dominates the house of delegates,
having nominated all its members. They do not even decide
upon legislation without publicly summoning him and his execu
tive committee to their deliberations, and in reaching out for
the control of the local judiciary under a bill which would compel
the governor to appoint those nominated by him in every lo
cality he would have under his control not only the legislation
of the island, the appropriation bills and the expenditures, the
offices and the salaries, but also the administration of justice
and the decisions of the courts. This little island is too small
for such executive genius. No pent-up Utica of constitutional
authority should circumscribe the activities of talent so superior
in political management. With a free hand in a South American
Republic, he would become a figure of international importance,

PORTO RICO 345
There may be amendments required to the so-called Foraker
Act, which is the organic law. It would be strange, after some
years of administration and with such phenomenal progress as
has been made, if conditions had not arisen which would re
quire changes in the act, but they can come in the proper and
orderly way at the regular session of Congress. With this
temptation to secure power of the purse to promote legislation,
desirable or undesirable, patriotic or selfish, by revolutionary
methods removed we can confidently anticipate the two branches
of the Legislature will act as heretofore in harmony, and the
peace and the prosperity of the island be preserved, promoted,
and continued.

HAWAII

SPEECH ON HAWAII, ITS GOVERNMENT AND CONDITIONS BEFORE
AND SINCE ANNEXATION TO THE UNITED STATES AND PRES
ENT REQUIREMENTS, FEBRUARY 24, I9IO.
Mr. President : When this bilP was under consideration a
few days since, there were so many questions raised in regard
to it that I have concluded to make a general presentation of
the whole matter. This seems more necessary because the joint
resolution of annexation, which was virtually a compact between
the United States Government and the Republic of Hawaii, was
passed July 7, 1898, and the organic act providing in detail for
the new government under the sovereignty of the United States,
became a law April 30, 1900, and on the 30th of April of this
year this law will have been in effect ten years. During this
period many changes have taken place in the Hawaiian Islands,
both in their population, their commercial relations, and their in
dustries, but the organic act has not been amended in any essen
tial particular during this time. In fact, I think only few amend
ments have been passed, and those related to the Delegate and
increasing the power of the territorial Legislature. The bill
under consideration has been unanimously recommended by both
houses of the Hawaiian Legislature, is strongly advocated by the
governor, and is also approved by the Secretary of the Interior.
It has also the approval of the commercial and political organi
zations and the public press of Hawaii.
Before entering upon a detail of the changes which are pro
posed to the organic law by this bill, it may be well to recall
briefly the story of Hawaii and our relations to the islands. The
islands have enjoyed a government of laws for over a hundred
years. They were ruled by a king, who was an absolute autocrat
for about fifty years, and then by a king and congress of two
houses until the revolution, which established a republic in 1894,
'The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, had under consideration the bill (S.
3360) to amend an act entitled "An act to provide a government for the Territory of
Hawaii," approved April 30, 1900. 346

HAWAII 347
and then as a republic with a president and two houses of con
gress, modeled on the American system, until the annexation in
1900. The political history of the islands is not different in the de
velopment of government from the experiences of European na
tions. Among the petty kings there appeared in 1790 one of
those geniuses who arise among all primitive peoples called
Kamehameha. He conquered the islands, overthrew all the petty
kings, and concentrated supreme authority in himself. Though
he had no rules for guidance and knew no history, nevertheless
he established a feudal government like that which existed in
France during the middle ages.
In 1820 the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign
Missions sent seven married men with their wives to Honolulu.
The coming of these men and their famihes was the turning point
in the political and religious history of Hawaii and its social
conditions. In ten years they and other brethren who came
afterwards converted the entire population to Christianity. Ha
waii to-day with its high civilization, its very small percentage of
illiteracy, smaller than in any State or Territory, its free govern
ment, its peaceful and orderly subjection to law, its intelligent
exercise of all the powers of government through an elective
Legislature, its common-school system, and its commercial and in
dustrial progress is a monument to the work, devotion, and genius
of the missionary spirit. If the missions needed any defense,
the Hawaiian archipelago, separated from the world by thousands
of miles of ocean, and owing its changed conditions from sav
agery to civilization entirely to the efforts of the missionaries,
is a permanent and magnificent exhibit of their spiritual and tem
poral blessings. The sovereign and the nobles, after ten years
of Christian teaching, devolved upon the people self-government
and divided their authority with a Legislature consisting of two
houses. These early converts, in a rude effort to conform to the
teachings of their spiritual instructors, adopted as their first con
stitution and bill of rights the Ten Commandments.
Except for the efforts of succeeding sovereigns to regain auto
cratic power, which ultimately led to the overthrow of a mon
archy and the establishment of a republic, the islands were
wisely, intelhgently, and conservatively governed. AU the great
nations of the world saw the value of the Hawaiian Islands and

348 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
endeavored to secure exclusive privileges through the favor of
its sovereign. The British carried the King and Queen, as far
back as about 1826, to Great Britain as the guests of the nation.
King Kalakaua was received by all the governments of the world,
including our own. From San Francisco to New York his jour
ney was a sort of triumphal march in the reception which he
received from commercial bodies, who saw great advantages in
securing for the United States the commerce of Hawaii.
An incident in this trip was one of those rare contributions
to the sedate movement of history, which promotes good fellow
ship by adding to the gayety of nations. Chicago received the
King with impressive ceremonies on his arrival.' After a weary
day of parades and reviews, the then mayor of the metropolis of
the West found a King on his hands. He wished, of course, to
promote the commercial interests of the city over which he pre
sided. At the same time kings were not in his line, nor was he
familiar with their attributes or customs of court or the methods
of addressing them. To relieve himself of embarrassment he
drove His Majesty to the leading hotel and, leaving him in the
lobby, said, "Good afternoon. King. We have had a hard day,
and I think you had better go to your room and wash up."
I was in London at the time of the jubilee of Queen Victoria.
Every nation was specially represented, and the royalties who
came were received with the consideration due them on such
occasions. Among them was the Queen of the Sandwich Islands.
She demanded the fullest recognition of her rank as the
equal of the rulers of the great kingdoms of the earth. No better
testimony could be given of the feeling in the British Foreign
Office of the value of the Hawaiian Islands to Great Britain than
the fact that the Queen was accorded everything she asked —
her place in the procession, an escort of the guards, and a guest
at Windsor. There was current a story at the time that at the
dinner the Hawaiian Queen said to Queen Victoria, "Your
Majesty, I am a blood relative." To the astonished inquiry,
"How so?" the Hawaiian Queen answered, "My grandfather ate
Captain Cook."
Foreign historians and encyclopedists claim that our Govern
ment promoted the revolution in Hawaii for the purpose of an
nexation, and that the annexation was a violation of an unwritten
but friendly understanding between commercial nations of the

HAWAII 349
world — that the independence of Hawaii should be respected.
But the Government was so feeble and the population so small
that it was impossible for them long to continue their independ
ence. In fact, the islands had been repeatedly seized and Hono
lulu occupied, and overtures had been made to the United States
at different times under the monarchy for a union for the purpose
of protection. In 1829, Laplace, commander of a French frigate,
seized Honolulu and held it until he had forced upon the Gov
ernment a treaty. In 1843, Lord Pawlet, commanding a British
frigate, seized the islands in the name of Great Britain, but the
British Government subsequently released them on the remon
strances of the other powers. The French again seized the islands
in 1849 and held them for a considerable time, but finally gave
them up because of the opposition of the United States and Great
Britain. In 185 1, the King, to escape his difficulties with France
and England, gave to our representative a deed of cession of the
islands to the United States, to be held until an adjustment could
be made with these countries, and failing in that, to be held per
manently. In 1854 Secretary of State, Mr. Marcy, authorized
negotiations for an annexation treaty. The King made a draft
of a treaty which was accepted by Mr. Marcy, but before it was
ratified the King died In 1893 a treaty was negotiated between
our Government and that of the Hawaiian Islands for the annexa
tion of the islands to the United States. This treaty was with
drawn by the, President from the Senate. Again, June 16, 1897,
a treaty of annexation, similar in its provisions to the joint reso
lutions which were adopted in 1898, was agreed to by the Gov
ernment of Hawaii and duly ratified by their Senate. In 1900
the union was effected by the action of the United States of
America. This recapitulation shows that the islands came to us
in the natural course of events and not by illegal methods or
undue pressure.
A moment's consideration of the geographical position of the
islands will demonstrate why there was such universal anxiety
either to control or to capture them. Honolulu is 2,100 miles
from San Francisco, about 5,000 from Hongkong, and 4.000
from the Philippines. If Great Britain, or Germany, or France,
or Japan, had come into their possession, the protection of our
Pacific Coast would have been almost impossible. But with the
islands in our possession, property fortified and with a naval

350 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
harbor and equipment, it is practically impossible for any nation
to successfully attack or to reach our Pacific Coast. No Japa
nese fleet of warships could come to any of our harbors unless
they could coal in Hawaii, nor would it be possible in practical
warfare for a Japanese fleet to carry either coal or the colliers,
with Hawaii hostile and in our possession, to make a successful
attack upon our Pacific Coast or to have any hope of ever
returning. The strategic value of the islands is admitted by the military
and naval experts of all countries. Pearl Harbor in Hawaii is
of incalculable value. It will accommodate our whole Navy. It
is reached by a long and deep channel which can be easily forti
fied. On its shores can be built shipyards, coal yards, and all
the equipment of a first-class, up-to-date naval station. The
possession of the Hawaiian Islands and the utilization of Pearl
Harbor give to the United States for war, for peace, and for
commerce the command of the Pacific Ocean. There are eight
inhabited and several uninhabited islands, extending in single file
about 400 miles. Their total area is 6,449 square miles. The
islands are of purely volcanic origin and were thrown up out of
the sea. They consist of mountains running up to 14,000 feet,
with fertile valleys between, in which under their chmate are suc
cessfully grown sugar, rice, coffee, bananas, pineapples, oranges,
limes, lemons, guava, and figs.
At the time of the annexation the population of Hawaii was
154,000. It is now 200,000. The population at that time con
sisted of 37,635 Hawaiians and part Hawaiians, 61,115 Japanese,
25,762 Chinese, 15,675 Portuguese, 7,283 Americans and Ha
waiian born foreigners, 1,730 British, 1,154 Germans, 410 Nor
wegians, 2,584 other foreigners, and 653 Polynesians. In the
relative proportions now the Hawaiians and part Hawaiians re
main about the same, others have gained moderately, but the
Japanese have increased from 61,000 to about 80,000.
The climate is particularly healthy. The average tempera
ture is 72°, and never below 55" nor higher than 88°. There is
never any frost or snow except on the high mountain peaks.
At the time of the annexation the Territory had a common-
school system based upon that of the New England States, and
87 per cent, of its native population could read and write. It
is reported now that all the natives can do so. In 1900, at the

HAWAII 351
time of annexation, there were 15,000 pupils in the pubhc schools,
and in 1909 there were 25,000. The industrial education in the
public schools includes agricultural work, bamboo work, and
other manual training, sewing, knife work, singing, and drawing.
The daily average attendance of the pupils was 18,000 in 1909.
There were $368,000 spent for school purposes in 1900, and
$533,000 in 1909. In addition to their common schools and high
schools they have a college of agriculture and mechanic arts,
with 12 members in the faculty, all of whom are specialists in
their several lines of work, and 102 students in the prescribed
courses. Since annexation the Territory has expended from its own
revenues for public buildings, school buildings, waterworks, sew
ers, bridges, wharves, landings, and dredging $3,400,000.
The customs receipts for the year 1901 were $1,220,000; in
1909, $1,400,000.
The tonnage of the vessels entering and departing from the
islands in 1901 was 943,000; in 1909, 1,160,000.
The deposits in the banks for the first year after annexation,
1 90 1, were $4,000,000 in the commercial banks and $1,000,000
in the savings banks; in 1909 the deposits were $6,300,000 in
the commercial banks and $3,323,000 in the savings banks, or
in 1901, the first year of annexation, the deposits in all the banks
were $5,000,000; in 1909, $9,623,000.
There are 175,000 savings-bank depositors.
The taxes collected in 1901 for territorial purposes were
$1,216,000; in 1909, $2,080,000.
The assessed value of property in the islands was, in 1901,
$110,000,000; in 1909, $139,000,000.
The imports and exports have also largely increased. I think,
nearly doubled.
There are in the islands 7 dailies, 12 weeklies and semi-
weeklies, 5 monthlies, and 3 quarterlies.
The water problem is the most important one in Hawaii.
There is excessive rainfall in certain districts and very little in
others, and a greater portion of the land suited to population hes
in arid regions. The work of conserving the water and transfer
ring it to arid lands is now receiving a great deal of attention
from the territorial government. They have a commissioner for
this purpose who also looks after reforestation and propagation.

352 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Of the sugar lands, one-half were arid lands and have been re
claimed at a cost of $15,000,000, or about $140 an acre. This
reclamation has been done entirely by private enterprise.
Now, as to the government of the islands : There are a gov
ernor and a secretary appointed by the President, who hold office
four years, both of whom must be citizens of the Territory.
There are an attorney-general, a treasurer, commissioner of pub
lic lands, commissioner of agriculture and forestry, a superinten
dent of public works, a superintendent of public instruction, an
auditor, a deputy auditor, a surveyor and high sheriff, who are
appointed by the governor, by and with the advice and consent of
the territorial senate. The judiciary of the islands consists of
the United States district judge and a territorial judiciary, con
sisting of a supreme court with a chief-justice and two associate
justices, and the circuit courts with seven judges. The Legisla
ture of Hawaii consists of two houses, the senate and the house
of representatives, the members of which are elected by universal
suffrage. There are 15 members of the senate and 30 mem
bers of the house of representatives. The term of the members
of the senate is four years and that of the members of the house
of representatives two years.
It is a tribute, and a remarkable one, to the self-governing
powers of the Hawaiian people that they should have been
granted in the organic act conditions of self-government which
have not been given to any other of our possessions or territories,
and this is explained in the report of the commission, whose
chairman was Senator Cullom, advising the annexation, in
which he said :
The underlying theory of our Government is the right of self-govern
ment, and a people must be fitted for self-government before they can
be trusted with the responsibilities and duties attaching to free gov
ernment. These remarks are made to negative the idea that because the peo
ple of the Hawaiian Islands can, in the judgment of the commission,
be consistently given self-government to an extent almost equal to
that given to the people in the States, it can be safely inferred that
other insular possessions which the United States have, or may acquire
by treaty with Spain, can be granted equal freedom in government.
While the organic act provides for a continuance of execu
tive, legislative, judicial, and administrative duties almost the

HAWAII 353
same as existed under the republic, and the laws of Hawaii
relating to the public lands and other subjects were continued
in force, and a decade has elapsed since annexation, during which
these islands have exercised self-government, there has been no
call upon Congress to interfere with or to curb or to repeal any
action of the Hawaiian Legislature. On the contrary, in one of
the very few amendments of the organic act the powers of that
Legislature have been enlarged.
The purpose of the present bill is to so amend the laws under
which Hawaii has been governed for ten years as to meet present
conditions. These amendments provide for an increase of the
salary of the governor from $5,000 to $10,000 a year, of mem
bers of the Legislature from $600 to $1,000 a year, of the judges
of the supreme court from $5,500 to $6,500 for the chief-justice,
and from $5,000 to $6,000 for the associate-justices, and the cir
cuit judges from $3,000 to $4,000 a year.
The governor in his presentation and argument for the bill
said that the expense of living in Hawaii is from 25 per cent, to
50 per cent, greater than on the mainland; that if the salary of
the members of the Legislature was made $1,000 a higher class
of men could be secured to represent the people ; that the salaries
of the judges were insufficient, as was demonstrated by the fact
that two of them had resigned to return to the practice of the
law within the last year.
Another amendment relates to the creation of debts by the
Territory and its subdivisions and places restrictions other than
have heretofore existed. At the same time it permits five-thirty-
year bonds to be issued instead of five-fifteen, because with a thirty-
year bond the Government indebtedness which is about coming
due can be refunded under much better terms. The public debt
of the Territory is $3,959,000, of which $1,000,000 is due now
and another million becomes due next January, and this amount
must be refunded.
The governor and his advisers claim that under the conditions
in the islands it is necessary for power to be given for loans of
public moneys, or guaranties of private loans, on proper security,
to settlers on the public lands for necessary permanent improve
ments of their homesteads, and for loans, subsidies, or guaranties
to persons or corporations for the improvement and increase of
transportation facilities.
Vol. vn-23

354 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
The last power, I think, ought to be restricted by a provision
similar to that which is adopted for the Philippine Islands, which
should be as follows :
Provided, That the provisions of section four, except the last para
graph thereof, of an act approved February sixth, nineteen hunderd
and five, authorizing a guarantee of interest on railroad bonds in the
Philippine Islands, is hereby extended and made applicable to the Ter
ritory of Hawaii, with the following changes : "Hawaiian" shall be
substituted for "Philippine,'' "governor" for "governor-general," and
"two hundred thousand" for "one million two hundred thousand," in
said section as applied to Hawaii.
With this limitation I think that the provision is a wise one.
The conditions of settlement upon the public lands in Hawaii
differ entirely from those on the mainland or any of our insular
possessions. Most of it is arid land, but very productive under
irrigation. The cost of raw material is great and transportation
difficult, so that the land presents few attractions for the home
steaders unless they can be helped. It is the opinion of the gov
ernor that the land developed by the assistance of the Territory
will furnish ample security for the loans. The islands are so cut
up, because of their volcanic origin, into chasms, abysses, precipi
tous mountain sides, and fertile valleys that capital has not been
willing to invest in the building of railroads. It is the opinion
of the governor that if the credit of the Territory can be ex
tended for the construction of these lines that homesteading and
development will follow and the lines become self-sustaining and
profitable, but that capitahsts before making the adventure must
be encouraged by having the Government show its confidence in
the enterprises. While this privilege, under ordinary circum
stances, would be dangerous and against public policy, I think in
the case of Hawaii, as in that of the Philippines, it is wise, and
with a restriction to the limit of $200,000 no harm could result.
It is also provided that the loans of public moneys or guaranties
either to the settlers or corporations, before they can be made,
must receive the approval of the President of the United States.
We must remember that Hawaii supports its own government
and contributes $1,500,000 a year to the National Treasury.
The most important part of this amendment relates to the
disposal of the public lands. There remain of these lands about
1,700,000 acres, but only about 15 per cent, can be made agricul-

HAWAII 355
tural and productive that is, about 250,000 acres. The land
laws are those which existed under the republic, and have not
been changed since the annexation. The principal object of the
present amendment is to correct the abuses which frequently oc
curred under the present laws and to place restrictions which will
prevent the acquisition and exploitation of public lands by capi
tahsts and corporations. Hawaii needs a permanent population
of homesteaders. At present public lands can be disposed of by
the land commissioner with the consent of the governor. It is
proposed now to have a commission appointed by the governor,
and their approval shall be necessary for the leasing, exchange,
and sale of lands other than for homesteads, and their action
shall be by a two-thirds vote and the governor's approval. There
has been a great deal of fake homesteading. A capitalist or a
corporation desiring to secure an extensive tract would have the
farms, which are restricted in some of the islands to 20 acres
and in others to 80 acres, taken up one after another and con
veyed to himself or to itself. In the proposed bill this is ren
dered impossible. The owner is prohibited from mortgaging or
leasing the land until after he secures his patent, and then not
to a corporation, or to an individual already holding more than
80 acres. If a person has already one plot of 80 acres he can
not secure another. It is hoped that with a board of commis
sioners, acting in conjunction with the governor and the land
commissioner, this invaluable possession of the territorial govern
ment may be so administered as to secure enterprising and ener
getic homesteaders who will become the" permanent citizens of the
islands and cultivators of their farms, and also to derive for the
Government treasury from these lands a large source of revenue.
Mr. President, in considering this bill we must remember how
important to us is the continued prosperity of the Hawaiian
Islands. We must take into consideration the development and
progress which they have made practically under their own gov
ernment since annexation to the United States. We must bear
in mind that to a remarkable degree, in fact, to a degree quite
equal to any of our States, the government of the islands has
been intelligent and progressive. We must bear in mind that,
without burdening their people, they have devised a system of
local taxation under which they have spent vast sums on public
works, buildings, and education, and that there is a consensus

356 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
of opinion among those who are best informed that the adminis
tration of these funds has been honest and judicious. Under all
the conditions, I think they are entitled to this legislation, whicli
has received the approval of the Secretary of the Interior and of
every organ of public opinion, official and unofficial, in the terri
tory. Now, Mr. President, I should like to offer an amendment, to
come in at the end of section 4.
The Vice-president. The amendment proposed by the Sen
ator from New York will be stated.
The Secretary. At the end of section 4 it is proposed to
insert the following proviso :
Provided, That the provisions of section 4, except the last paragraph
thereof, of an act approved February 6, 1905, authorizing a guarantee
of interest on railroad bonds in the Philippine Islands, is hereby ex
tended and made applicable to the Territory of Hawaii, with the fol
lowing changes : "Hawaiian" shall be substituted for "Philippine ;" "gov
ernor" for "governor-general ;" and "two hundred thousand" for "one
million, two hundred thousand," in said section as applied to Hawaii.
Mr. Clark of Wyoming. Mr. President, not having the law
in relation to the Philippines before us, I ask the Senator from
New York, in charge of the bill, if he will give us just the sig
nificance of the proposed amendment?
Mr. Depew. The significance of the proposed amendment
is simply to restrict the amount to be expended. Under the
Philippine act the amount which can be paid for the building of
railroads is restricted to $1,200,000. Under the act, as it is pro
posed to extend it to the Hawaiian Islands, it is limited to
$200,000. Mr. President, the consideration of the bill can not be con
cluded to-day, and I will make just a few observations in refer
ence to what has been said in criticism of it. Then I will ask
that the bill go over until to-morrow.
I will say in regard to the amendment offered by the Senator
from Florida [Mr. Fletcher] to the first section of the bill that
the object of that first section was simply to give to the Territory
of Hawaii the privileges that have been withheld from it by the
construction of the statute in the department. Hawaii was re
lieved from the general statutes relating to Territories because it

HAWAII 357
had an organic act of its own which covered all of the ground
embraced by the general statutes applying to the Territories
which had no special and specific statutes or organic acts. It
was thought by the authorities of Hawaii that they should be
entitled, notwithstanding that, to such privileges from the Na
tional Government as relate to the scientific branches, to the
hydrographic, the topographic, and the soil surveys, forestry, and
so forth; and the sole object of the first section is that Hawaii
may share in that part of the activities of the Government of
the United States.
In regard to the criticism of the Senator from Wyoming [Mr.
Clark], without discussing it now, I wish to call attention to
section 4 of the act for the government of the Philippine Islands
of February 6, 1905, the last one that was passed, which pro
vides —
That for the purpose of aiding in the construction, equipment, opera
tion, and maintenance of such railroads, using steam, electricity, or
other power, in the Philippine Islands as the Philippine Government
may hereafter specifically authorize, the said government is empowered
to enter into a contract of guaranty with any railroad company or
ganized pursuant to the laws of said government or of the United
States or any State thereof undertaking to construct, equip, operate,
and maintain any such railroad, whereby the said government shall
guarantee interest, at not exceeding 4 per cent, per annum upon first
lien bonds to be issued by such company, properly secured by mortgage
or deed of trust upon the said railroad, its equipment, franchises, and
other property, real, personal, and mixed, then owned and thereafter to
be acquired. ************
Provided, That in no event shall the total annual contingent liability
of said government under the guaranties authorized by this section at
• any time exceed the sum of $1,200,000, and no such guaranty shall
continue for a longer period than thirty years.
The statement has been made that there has been no law
ever enacted by the United States like that which his contem
plated in this Hawaiian bill. I call attention to this to show
that in preparing the Hawaiian biU the privileges which had been
granted to the Philippine Government were taken under consid
eration, and those privileges were put in this bill for Hawaii on
the ground that special conditions exist in Hawaii, the same as

358 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
in the Philippines. The only change made in this bill is that,
while under the Philippine law the Philippine Government can
loan its credit for $1,200,000, in this bill Hawaii can only loan
it for $200,000.
Mr. President, it is evident that it will be impossible to con
clude this bill to-day, and I will therefore ask that it may go over,
to be taken up immediately after the conclusion of the morning
business to-morrow.

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR HANNA

address on resolutions in memory of senator MARCUS A.
hanna, of OHIO, APRIL 7, I904.
Mr. President: A commanding figure and positive force
has passed out of our public life. It is difficult to estimate the
qualities of leadership, but the facts remain. Neither the prog
ress of civilization nor the development of the education and in
dependence of the individual has minimized the power of a com
manding intelligence. On the contrary, organization keeps pace
with progress. The individual is not submerged in the mass nor
left helpless as the slave of a tyrant, nor food for powder as in
ruder times, but he looks to and loves to follow a leader for the
accomplishment of purposes which will benefit both the mass and
its units. "All for one" was the motto of the past. "All for one
and one for all" is the maxim of the present. Napoleon brushed
aside the charge that he was the butcher of his age by saying, "I
only killed a million, mostly Germans." He did not reckon the
countless millions who died of starvation and disease as a result
of his wars and devastating marches. He did not reckon the suf
fering and ruin which required a centur}^ to repair.
The requisites for leadership are different in every age.
Neither Caesar nor Napoleon would have any place in our coun
try or under our conditions. The problems which produced
Washington, and afterwards the great trinity of Webster, Clay,
and Calhoun, and still later Lincoln and Grant, are not ours.
They led their forces into battles for the bases upon which gov
ernment should be constructed and institutions founded. Our
age is dominated by commercialism. Like all phrases which con
centrate in a word the description of conditions, this one has been
subject to abuse, misunderstanding, and misrepresentation. For
thirty years, or since the adjustments which followed the Civil
War, the United States has been a workshop. Its industries and
their development have been as dependent upon politics and the tri
umph of political policies as was the existence of the Government
of the United States as a great central power, or its division into
359

360 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
sovereign States before the Civil War. Each party promises
success to commercialism by pleading that its ideas crystallized
into legislation will bring larger and more remunerative employ
ment to labor and capital, form more new enterprises, lead to
larger development of resources, and produce more beneficent
results to the people.
These questions are not new, but they had always been sub
ordinated to others which related to the safety or the character of
our institutions. Now they are dominant and have produced a
new type of leadership. In the front rank stood our departed
friend. He was the product as well as the organizer and com
mander of the forces of commercialism. His origin and growth
were those of every boy whose alma mater is the public school. It
equipped him for a clerkship in a store, which is the lot of millions
who graduate every year. What happens afterwards, what ca
reer is found and followed to higher and better conditions, depend
entirely upon the character, ambition, and efforts of the boy.
The restless and resistless vigor of this farseeing youth could not
be kept behind the counter nor confined to the countingroom.
When to the culture of the common school had been added busi
ness training, he saw that to advance quickly he must open a new
avenue of trade. Like many another of our most successful
citizens, he found it in solving a local problem of transportation.
It was easy for him to persuade capital to trust him. It was one
of the few cases where capital, confiding in the promoter, escaped
loss and made large profits.
To bring the iron ore of the Northwest from the mines across
the Lakes cheaply to the furnaces in Ohio was simple enough,
but, like the great feat of Columbus, which has been repeated
down the ages, of making the egg stand on end, was his solution
of the greater problem. This next step was natural to such an
original and creative mind. Coal and iron must be brought to
gether at the furnaces by the elimination of the countless charges
of middlemen. He became an ironmaster, with his own lines on
Lake Superior, his own transportation across the Great Lakes, his
own coal fields connected with smelting works and mills. The
minerals in which he dealt underlie the whole American continent.
They can not be corralled or controlled as is possible with other
products of nature which are only to be found in limited territo
ries. He was therefore compelled to fight his way in the field of

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR HANNA 361
hot competition against the ablest and most successful of business
men. The results of this struggle are preeminently the survival
of the fittest. Statisticians who have studied the question prove
that in New York City, where energy, talent, and capital come
from all parts of the country and have larger opportunities than
can be found at home, only one in 200 succeed. The other 199
fail and are submerged. In the open country the disasters are
not so dreadful, but the great successes are equally rare.
It was not long before Mr. Hanna was confronted with the
labor problem. Labor organizations were little known and had
no combined existence at that time. The aspirations of labor,
seeking a fair share of the production in which it was such an
essential part, led to sporadic revolts, which were almost invari
ably defeated. This born fighter, with undaunted courage and a
physical power controlling, in a measure, an aggressive mind, fol
lowed the methods in vogue in the early period of his career.
One of the characteristics which made the varied success of the
Senator was his open-mindedness. He saw earlier than any of
the other great employers that labor had rights, and that it was to
the interest of the capitalist both to grant justice to labor and to
win its confidence. He abandoned hostilities for the much more
difficult path of conciliation and arbitration. Ten thousand em
ployees of his, who when he died mourned the loss of one who
stood to them as a father and a friend, testified to the wisdom
and success of his pohcy.
A life of strenuous business struggling, of reaching out for
new fields to conquer, of education by absorption in the questions
affecting industrial safety and development, of contact with and
increasing knowledge of human nature in every walk and work
continued until Mr. Hanna was in his sixtieth year. This was
the education, preparation, and equipment which from the ob
scurity of business brought into the light of publicity and com
mand, almost in a day, Hanna the party organizer, the party
leader, the President maker, the Senator, and the statesman.
In his early business life, still very young to have climbed so
high, and while fighting labor, he had on trial a score or more of
his striking employees. A young enthusiast, whose heart con
trolled his mind, who. possessed an almost feminine emotional
and sentimental nature, was defending them. The argument of
McKinley evidently opened the mind of Hanna to new ideas upon

362 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
the relations of capital and labor. The advocate and worker im
mediately became fast friends.
Comparatively late in life came to him the belief that nothing
is so imperatively necessary to the business man as politics.
Costly experience had taught htm that the successful outcome of
his shops, furnaces, and mines was dependent upon the industrial
policies of the Government. He had the easy confidence of the
man triumphant in his ventures, that he could forecast and meet
trade conditions. But the factor of legislation was beyond his
power of calculation. He finally was convinced that the accumu
lations of a lifetime of hard work and the material future of him
self and family depended upon the economic and financial meas
ures of Presidents and Congresses. Without any thought of
obtaining or holding office for himself, he began to build the bul
warks which he thought necessary about the protected industries
of the country. With an audacity and confidence born of his
triumphs in trade he set about to capture the Presidency for his
faith. McKinley's illuminating speeches on the tariff convinced
Hanna that in the Major he had found the man for his purpose.
There were many men in the party of longer service, larger
following, and greater reputation. But Hanna brought to bear
to win the favor of the people the methods of his business. He
knew the virtue of publicity and promotion. He planned a speak
ing canvass for his candidate which covered every State, be
cause he believed in the magnetic personality and persuasive elo
quence of his friend. When, after many months, Mr. McKinley
returned, the Senator said to him, "I thought you would be dead" ;
and McKinley replied, "From the itinerary you gave me I thought
your purpose was to kill me." The tour and the literature which
went out unceasingly from Hanna's press bureau captured the
convention before it met and side-tracked every other candidate.
The unknown ironmaster of Cleveland had beaten the veteran
politicians and nominated his friend. Now came a new test of
his ability, because the successful candidate placed in his hands
the conduct of the campaign. To publicity and promotion he
added education. At hardly any period in our history had the
country suffered under such severe financial and industrial de
pression. At such times, as in periods of epidemic, public anxiety
and frenzy seize upon novel remedies.
The silver panacea, however, was not new. It had secured

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR HANNA 363
much favorable legislation from both parties and was undoubt
edly favored in the minds of a large majority of our people.
McKinley himself was not free from advocacy of and belief in
silver theories. Unexpectedly the currency question overshad
owed that of the tariff. No such campaign was ever conducted
before, and it would be difficult to repeat it. It required millions
of money for its successful prosecution. Colporteurs were on
the country roads in every county and State distributing the
campaign literature which Hanna was having printed by the ton.
The schoolhouses resounded with the eloquence of thousands of
orators, whose expenses must be met. The literary bureau fur
nished plate matter and contributions to the press, much of which
had to be paid for as advertisements. The commanding general
alone knew the magnitude of the machinery and the colossal
character of the forces he had called into being. With the same
talent for administration and attention to details which had made
his success in business, he knew the conditions in every State,
county, and township, in every division, regiment, company, and
corporal's guard of hs army better than the local commanders
themselves. The results of the election demonstrated the necessity for this
tremendous effort, for McKinley's popular majority in the total
of 13,923,102 was only 601,854. The business man, known as
such only in the branch of the trade with which he was identified
and unknown to the people in June, 1895, was in November of the
same year the Warwick of American politics and the most
powerful man in the United States.
The President wanted him to be a member of his Cabinet, be
cause of the intimacy of their relation; but Hanna, the business
man, the representative of commercialism in public affairs, knew
that his power would be subordinate to that of the President as
one of his Secretaries, while in Congress his hand would be in the
formulation or defeat of those measures which he conceived es
sential to the welfare, employment, income, and happiness of the
American people.
Quite as suddenly as he grew to be supreme in political man
agement the Senator became an orator. He had been accustomed
in the boards of directors of many corporations, where the con
ferences were more in the nature of consultations than arguments,
to influence his associates by the lucidity with which from a full

364 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
mind he could explain situations-and suggest .policies or remedies.
He did not dare, however, except on rare occasions, to trust him
self upon his feet. We, his associates, can never forget the day
when a mighty passion loosed his tongue and introduced into the
debates of this body an original and powerful speaker. It was
June, 1900. The presidential campaign for the second nomina
tion and canvass of President McKinley was about to open.
Senator Pettigrew, an active and persistent laborer in the ranks
of the opposition, was seeking material in every direction which
would benefit his side. Without notice he suddenly assailed
Senator Hanna in his tenderest point. He attacked his honesty,
truthfulness, and general character. He accused him of bribery,
perjury, and false dealing. Hanna's reply was not a speech, but
an explosion. It was a gigantic effort, in his. almost uncontrol
lable rage to keep expression within the limits of Senatorial pro
priety. He shouted in passionate protest:
Mr. President, the gentleman will find that he is mistaken in the
people of the United States when he attempts, through mud slinging
and accusations, to influence their decision when they are called upon at
the polls next November to decide upon the principles that are at issue
and not the men. When it comes to personality, I will stand up against
him and compare my character to his. I will let him tell what he knows;
then I will tell what I know about him.
The newborn orator carried his threat into execution by a
dramatic and picturesque speaking tour through South Dakota, in
which, without mentioning Mr. Pettigrew or referring to him in
any way, he took away his constituents by convincing them that
the doctrines of their Senator were inimical to their interests and
prosperity. The Titanic power the Dakota Senator had evoked
was his political ruin.
From that time Senator Hanna participated influentially in
debates upon those industrial questions which he so thoroughly
understood and which were near his heart. The United States
had been committed for thirty years to an isthmian canal by the
Nicaragua route. It came to be considered as "the American
line." The resolution in its favor had passed the House unani
mously. Senator Hanna gave to the study of the question, which
was purely a business one, a mind long trained in construction
and contracts. He came to the conclusion that we should build

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR HANNA 365
on the Panama route. There have been many speeches in this
Senate more eloquent, more scholarly, more profound, and more
erudite than the one dehvered by Senator Hanna in favor of the
selection of the Panama route ; but when this man of business and
affairs, of supreme intelligence in the creation and prosecution of
business and enterprises, this constructive organizer in trade, who
had found his talent for explanation, instruction, and argument,
sat down, he had accomplished that rarest of triumphs, the com
mand of a hstening Senate.
Perhaps in the final reckoning of his place and achievements,
his work in the Civic Federation will stand foremost. At first
capital and labor both distrusted him. They thought there was
a hidden political motive or personal ambition at the base of the
movement. Capitalists who were unfriendly to labor and labor
agitators whose profits depend upon trouble united in fighting
Hanna as they often had done in fighting peace, but the genuine,
patriotic, and broad-minded labor leaders soon became his ardent
friends, while the distrust of capital was slowly disappearing.
When he died the people recognized that his unselfish object and
aim was to close his career by creating such relations between
these tremendous forces that both would be benefited and the in
dustrial interests of the country placed upon a safe and peaceful
basis. One of the most interesting phases of the life of Senator
Hanna was his friendship with President McKinley. The men
were wholly unlike ; they had nothing in common. Hanna was a
fighter, and he loved and lived in the storms of battle. McKinley
was a diplomat, whose tact amounted to genius for the peaceful
settlement of controversies and conversion of enemies. Hanna
had the rare faculty of forecasting events and taking advantage
of them which easily accumulates millions and the rarer common
sense which keeps the fortune. McKinley in a large and com
prehensive way could formulate and popularize policies which
promoted prosperity and increased national and individual wealth,
but the art of making money was for him an insoluble mystery,
and he could not master the intricacies and details of business.
There is only one parahel instance in our history, and that is
the relation between Wihiam H. Seward and Thurlow Weed.
As Hanna believed that his economic and financial views were
essential to the present and future happiness of the country, so

366 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
Weed thought that the destruction of slavery was necessary to
the preservation of the Union. As Hanna felt that he must have
in the Presidency the ablest advocate of his theories, so did Weed
believe that the most brilliant and profound orator against slavery
should be kept in public life, and ultimately promoted to the Chief
Magistracy. Thurlow Weed was one of the ablest and most
expert of political managers. For thirty years he ruled his party
in the State of New York, and subordinated all his power, skill,
craft, and diplomacy to advance the political fortunes and keep in
the Senate and at the front Governor Seward. Mr. Seward was
devoid of the talent which controls caucuses and manages con
ventions, and so was McKinley. Weed, after twenty years, had
the Presidency almost within the grasp of his candidate, and lost
it by an accident. In less than a year Hanna had succeeded.
Mr. Seward possessed an intelligence of wonderful insight and
philosophical grasp of moral issues with the faculty of inspiring
beliefs and inducing efforts to bring about the events he fore
casted. McKinley's talent was upon the practical plane of the ques
tions of our day which affect more nearly employment, wages,
and homes. Between the practical politician of New York and
her greatest statesman there never existed much personal inti
macy and confidences. The politician looked upon the statesman
with awe and admiration, and the statesman wondered at the
talent, and the results it accomplished, of the politician. But late
one night during the Spanish War, when all was anxiety, I went
to the White House with Mr. Hanna. The optimistic radiance
which always characterized the President had given place to
worry and gloom ; but when he turned to his visitor and caress
ingly placed his hands upon Mr. Hanna's shoulder his counte
nance assumed all its old-time happiness and confidence, and he
uttered with a depth of feeling and affection which no words can
describe the word "Mark." Everyone was impressed with the
fact that two souls with kindred thoughts were linked in a love
which "passeth all understanding."
The career of a leader who does not at all hazards and at any
risk of loss stand by his friends is a short one. The same is true
of a leader who having defeated his enemies seeks to crush them.
The accumulated forces of many vendettas will ultimately destroy
him. Hanna would go to the death for his friend, and he in-

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR HANNA 367
spired such loyalty and love that his followers would die for him.
He often attached to himself a defeated enepiy by a grateful and
unexpected favor.
A schoolmate of Mr. Hanna, himself now a creator and man
ager of great enterprises and known everywhere, told me that the
boys of the public school got in trouble with a street peddler and
were in danger of being seriously injured when Mark Hanna
came in sight. It was not his quarrel, but it was enough for him
that his friends were in peril, and he rushed into the fight with
such savage fury that the lads were encouraged, the tide of battle
turned, and the burly bully put to flight. The act of the boy was
the lifelong conduct of the man.
"How soon we are forgotten" was the pathetic utterance of
the returning Rip Van Winkle after twenty years of absence from
his village. Time soon obliterates the footprints of public as
well as of private characters ; but occasionally a rare personality be
comes immortal by capturing the public imagination and winning
the people's heart, but such a man must have been long before
them and with them fighting their battles. Hanna is the excep
tion. Eight years from the time of his entrance upon the public
stage he died. Millions waited anxiously upon the hourly bulle
tins of his health. MiUions mourned silently when he was no
more. The President and Cabinet, ambassadors, judges of the
Supreme Court, Senators, Congressmen, and captains of industry
were at his funeral, but the sincerest tributes to his worth, his
patriotism, and the beneficent work of his life were the thousands
of working men and women who stood for hours in the deep
snow and wintry blasts with bared heads and tear-stained cheeks
while their best friend was carried to his last resting place.

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR HOAR

address on resolutions in memory of senator GEORGE FRIS
BIE HOAR, OF MASSACHUSETTS, JANUARY 28, I9O5.
Mr. President: It is asserted by many writers that the
Senate has seen its best days. They claim that the statesmen who
made this body famous in the earlier periods of our history have
not had any successors of equal merit or genius. The Senate
does not change, but the questions which it must discuss and de
cide are new with each generation. There is a broad distinction
between the elucidation and solving of problems which relate to
the foundations and upbuilding of institutions, which are vital
to their preservation and perpetuity, and the materialistic issues
of finance, commercialism, and industrialism. The one arouses
in the orator every faculty of his mind, every possibility of his
imagination, every aspiration of his soul, and every emotion of
his heart, while the others demand mainly the aptitude and ex
perience of the college professor or the expert or student on sub
jects which affect the fortunes of the factory, the mill, the fur
nace, and the farm.
Webster could command the attention of listening Senates
and of an anxious and expectant country with orations which
have become part of our best literature and educate the youth of
our schools on interpretations of the Constitution of the United
States upon which depend the life or death of liberty. But Web
ster could hold only temporary interest and a narrow audience
on tariff schedules upon wool or lumber, upon iron or cotton fab
rics, or upon bimetallism or the single standard. Hamilton and
Jefferson and their antagonistic schools were creating with little
precedent to guide them a form of government in which liberty
and law would give the largest protection to the individual citizen
and maintain order and promote the greatest happiness of the
mass. The one believed these results could best be obtained by
centralized power, the other by its distribution among the States.
There was then brought into play the loftiest creative and con
structive genius which the world has known.
368

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR HOAR 369
Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, the Senatorial triumvirate, who
attained the zenith of Senatorial fame, made their reputations
and that of this body upon the discussion of implied powers in
the Constitution, affecting not only the nation's life but the
destruction of perpetuity of human slavery. Webster, in that
immortal speech, which educated millions of our youth to rush
to arms when the Republic was in danger, preached from the
text of "Liberty and union, now and forever, one and insep
arable." Calhoun saw clearly the extinction of slavery with the
growth of the country and brought to the defense of the system
resources, intellectual and logical, never equaled ; while Clay post
poned the inevitable through compromises which were adopted
because of his passionate pleas of marvelous eloquence for peace
and unity. So in the acute stage of the controversy, which re
sulted in the Civil War and ended in the enfranchisement of the
slaves, Seward here and Lincoln on the platform, were appeal
ing to that higher law of conscience, which uplifts the orator and
audience to a spiritual contemplation of things material.
Happily the work of the founders in one age and the saviors
in another has left to us mainly the development, upon indus
trial lines, of our country's resources and capabilities. We pro
duced no heroes in over half a century, and yet when the war
drums called the nation to arms. Grant, from the tannery, and
Lee, from a humble position in the Army, rose to rank among
the great captains of all the ages. Had the Civil War never
occurred. Grant would have lived a peaceful and modest mer
cantile life in a country town of Illinois, and Lee would have
passed the evening of his days in equal obscurity upon the re
tired list of the United States Army. Better, if the contest
can be honorably averted, that a hero should never be known
than that his discovery should be brought about by the calami
ties of war, the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives, and
the distress, demoralization, and devastation of civil strife.
We pay our tribute to-day to one who in any of these great
periods would have stood beside the most famous, to one who,
having the experience of a longer continuous term in Congress
than any other citizen ever enjoyed, testified on all occasions to
the increasing power, growth, and beneficent influence of this
body, and to the ever advancing purity of American public life.
His education and opportunities, his singularly intimate con-
Vol. VII— 24

370 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
nection with the glorious past and the activities of the present,
made him a unique and in a measure an isolated figure. He
was educated under conditions and in surroundings which de
veloped for the public service conscience, heart, and imagina
tion. A lawyer of the first rank by heredity, study, and practice,
he nevertheless approached public questions, not from the stand
point of the pleader but the orator; not as an advocate with a
brief, but as a patriot with a mission. He cast his first vote in
1847, when all the fire of his youth had been aroused by the
slavery agitation. He came actively into politics the year after,
when the Democratic Party had divided into the Free Soil and
slavery men, and the Whig Party was split between the adher
ents of conscience or cotton. He began his career upon the
platform and his preparation for the public service as a con
science Whig.
He saw the preparation, through the American or Know-
Nothing Party, in which Whigs and Democrats were acting
together, of an organization upon broader lines. No one worked
harder or more intelligently for the fusion of men of opposite
creeds on industrial questions, but of one mind in opposition to
slavery, into a National Constitutional Antislavery Party. When
that party came into existence in 1856 with a presidential candi
date and platform it had no more ardent sponsor for its faith
and its future than Senator Hoar. A party whose fundamental
creed was liberty for all men of every race and color appealed
to the poetic and sentimental side of our friend and to the
Revolutionary ideas with which he was saturated. He came to
believe that the worst which the Republican Party might do
would be more beneficial to the country than the best which its
opponent was capable of. Though often differing from his party
associates, his combat was to accomplish his purposes within the
lines. He bowed to the will of the majority in his action, without
surrendering his individual convictions as to the wisdom of the
policy. He claimed, and with much reason, that the party had
come after repeated trials, in many instances, to his way of think
ing, and if those who went outside of the breastworks and lost all
influence had remained with him his ideas would sooner have
been adopted. We have here the explanation of the only criti
cism which has ever been passed upon his public acts. As in
the Hawaiian and Panama questions, where his eloquence gave

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR HOAR 371
comfort to the opposition and grieved his friends, his votes sup
ported the position of the majority and the policies of the Ad
ministration. It was a high privilege to be a member of the Judiciary Com
mittee of the Senate under his chairmanship. It was a court
presided over by a great lawyer. With courteous deference
to the members, bills were sent to subcommittees, but when the
subcommittee made its report, they found that the questions
had been exhaustively examined before by the chairman. The
subcommittee which had perfunctorily done its work received
in the form of a polite statement and exposition of the case the
report which, if they had attended to their duties, they ought
to have made. This work required not only vast legal knowl
edge and accurate judgment but prodigious industry. It was
that rare condition of mind where work becomes a habit, and
with Senator Hoar when the committee or the Senate or law
or literature failed to give him occupation, he would pass the
idle hours in translating Thucydides or some other Greek author
into English.
In the examination at the close of the last session, before the
Committee on Privileges and Elections, of the president and
apostles of the Mormon Church, himself a close student of all
theologies and an eminent Unitarian, he was aroused by the
claim of divine inspiration for the words and acts of the Mor
mon apostles. He drew from President Smith the statement
that the action of his predecessor. President Woodruff, in re
versing the doctrine of polygamy, heretofore held by the church,
was directly inspired by God, and then made him testify that
though hving under the inspiration of the presidency of the church
he was also living in direct violation of that revelation by re
maining a polygamist. In the course of a long cross-examina
tion he drew from Apostle Lyman statements of doctrine and
beliefs, and subsequently contradictions of these positions, and
then forced the apostle to swear that both the assertion and the
contradiction were inspired by God.
At the age of forty-three he was at the cross-roads of his
career. He had reached a position at the Bar which placed
within his grasp the highest rewards of the profession of the
law. The country was entering upon an era of speculation, of
railroad building, the bankruptcy and reorganization of combina-

372 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
tions of capital in the creation and consolidation of corpora
tions, which called for the highest talents and the best equipment
of lawyers. Questions as to the power of the General Govern
ment over corporations created by States and the powers of the
States as to limitations and confiscations of corporations engaged
in interstate commerce interested capital and labor, shippers, and
investors. The largest fees and fortunes ever known in the
history of the practice of the law came to those who demonstrated
their ability during these wonderful years. On the threshold of
this temple of fortune and fame at the Bar Mr. Hoar was elected
to the United States Senate. He knew that he lived in a State
whose traditions were to keep its public men who merited its con
fidence continuously in Congress. He felt that in the great ques
tions still unsolved which had grown out of the Civil War and
the marvelous development of the country he could perform
signal public service. His decision was made. The courts lost
a great lawyer, the Senate gained a great statesman, and he lived
and died a poor man.
I spent a memorable night with Mr. Gladstone when in a rem
iniscent mood, and with a masterful discrimination and eloquence
he conversed upon the traditions of the House of Commons dur
ing the sixty years of his membership. As the stately proces
sion of historic men and measures came into view, they were
inspired by the speaker with all the characteristics and methods
of their period. The changes which had occurred were detailed
by a master who loved and revered the Commons. Senator
Hoar would do this for the thirty-seven years of his activities in
Congress, but with a wit and humor which Gladstone lacked.
He remembered the sarcasm, or the ridicule, or the epigram, or
the witticism, or the illustration which had not only illumed but
ended the debate, and the opposing debater.
We read with wonder of the nights when Samuel Johnson
gathered about him Goldsmith and Burke and Reynolds and
Garrick; and Boswell could make immortal volumes of their
conversations, especially at this time when conversation is be
coming a lost art, because the shop has invaded the drawing-
room and the dinner table, and cards have captured society.
But Senator Hoar knew his favorites among the Greek and
Roman classics, and the Bible and Shakespeare by heart. He
could quote with a familiarity of frequent reading and retentive

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR HOAR 373
memory from the hterature of the period of Queen Elizabeth
and of Queen Anne, as well as the best of modern authors, and
he was a member of that coterie which met weekly at Parker's,
in Boston, where Longfellow, Hawthorne, Whittier, and others
reproduced for our day, and in better form, the traditions of the
Johnsonian Parhament, and where the Senator and his brother
were the quickest and the wittiest of the crowd.
Whether in conversation or debate there never has been in the
American Congress a man so richly cultured and with all his
culture so completely at command.
The statesmen of the Revolution were with Senator Hoar
Hving realities. The men of the present were passing figures,
fading into obscurity, compared with these immortals. In a
remarkable speech he said of the signers of the Declaration ;
"We, not they, are the shadows." On his father's side, his grand
father, two great grandfathers, and three uncles were in Lin
coln's company at Concord Bridge, and his mother was a daugh
ter of Roger Sherman, whom he thought the wisest and ablest
of the members of the Continental Congress. He was the only
person who signed all four of the great State papers to which
the signatures of the Delegates of the different Colonies were
attached : The Association of 1774, the Articles of Confederation,
the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the
United States.
His mother remembered, as a little girl, sitting on Wash
ington's knee and hearing him talk, and her sister, the mother
of William M. Evarts, when a child of 11, opened the door for
General Washington as he was leaving the house after his visit
to her father, Roger Sherman. The General, with his stately
courtesy, "put his hand on her head and said, 'My little lady,
I wish you a better office.' She dropped a courtesy and answered,
quick as lightning, 'Yes, sir; to let you in.' " He lived all his
life in this atmosphere of his youth. The marvelous results
of the working of the principles of the charter framed in the
cabin of the Mayflower for "just and equal laws," and of the
Declaration of Independence in the development of orderly lib
erty for his countrymen, convinced him that the same rights
and privileges would end as happily, after trial, with the negroes
of the South and the people of the Philippine Islands and of the
Russian Empire. It was a matter with him not of pride or

374 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
boastfulness, but of sustaining power under responsibilities that
in every Congress from the beginning had been a representative
of the Sherman clan. I was distantly related to him by the same
tie, and he exhibited an elder brotherly and almost fatherly
watchfulness and care for me when I entered the Senate.
His cousins, William M. Evarts and Roger Minot Sherman,
were the foremost advocates of their periods, his father emi
nent at the Bar, and his brother Attorney-general of the United
States, and yet he would have been the equal of either as a law
yer if he had climbed for its leadership. It has been the high privi
lege of his colleagues here to meet, converse, work, and debate
with a Mayflower Puritan, one possessed of all the culture and
learning of the twentieth century, but with the virtues, the preju
dices, the likes and dislikes, the vigor and courage of the Pil
grim Fathers, neither softened nor weakened by the looseness
of creeds nor the luxury of living of to-day. As our friend the
Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Lodge] said in his most dis
criminating and eloquent eulogy — the best, I think, I have ever
heard as a tribute of an associate and friend — Senator Hoar
would have died like a martyr for his principles. In 1850 he de
livered a speech in Mechanic's Hall, at Worcester, upon the evils
of slavery and the crime of its extension into the Territories,
which attracted general attention and was widely ptibhshed.
Fifty-four years afterwards he was again before an audience in
Mechanics' Hall, composed of the children and grandchildren of
the first.
The dread summons had then come to him, and he had but
few days to live. The old warrior spoke with the fire of his early
manhood, but his message to his neighbors and countrymen after
a half century was not of war, as before, but of peace, love, and
triumph. The progress and development of the Republic during
these fifty years of liberty was his theme. He looked joyously
upon the past and present and was full of hope and confidence
for the future. He had finished his work and performed a
great part in great events of great moment for his country and
humanity, and he left to his contemporaries and posterity the
brilliant example of a life nobly lived.

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR PETTUS

ADDRESS ON RESOLUTIONS IN MEMORY OF SENATOR EDMUND W.
PETTUS, OF ALABAMA, APRIL l8, I908.
Mr. President : When a man dies in youth or in his prime
with years of usefulness before him, the sentiment is grief or
despair. Every year which one enjoys in health and the full
possession of all his faculties beyond the Psalmist's limit of life
is a source of gratitude. If he is stiU at fourscore in the fore
front of the battle when the summons comes, the event elicits
reminiscence, record and applause.
Alabama, through her two venerable and great Senators,
Morgan and Pettus, had in this body a unique distinction. These
two representatives, or as they might be called, ambassadors of
a sovereign State, one 83 and the other 86, and by reason of
their ability and power destined to reelection which would carry
them both toward their century, present a picture which has no
parallel in our history. Senator Morgan was in the front rank
of the statesmen of the Republic. His great ability, vast acquire
ments, profound erudition, indomitable industry, self-sacrificing
devotion to the public welfare and rare eloquence have placed him
in a niche of the temple of American fame. He possessed an
almost unequaled command of English pure and undefiled, and
in giving utterance to his thought it was done with such correct
expression that after running a debate in which he took a princi
pal part and which would last a day, his sentences were so per
fect that his speech required neither review nor correction. More
than any other of our statesmen he resembled the great English
writer and orator, Edmund Burke. His coheague. Senator Pet
tus, was a good lawyer and an able judge, but preeminently, in all
his characteristics, the soldier. The friendship and interdepend
ence of these associate representatives of Alabama upon each
other and their daily intercourse was one of the most interesting
and attractive pictures in the Senate. The General followed with
awe and admiration the lead of the veteran and distinguished
Senator, and the slender and fragile Senator seemed to lean with
375

376 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
reverential regard upon the vigorous, aggressive and gigantic
General, but at the moment when their State seemed unanimously
resolved to keep them here without limit as to time the summons
came to both, and they died as they had lived, neighbors and
friends, possessing to the last the full vigor of their physical and
mental powers.
Such an event inspires many reflections upon youth and age.
The tribute of the world is given wholly to youth. Its admira
tion is for early achievement. It is apt to dismiss age or be
impatient that it lingers upon the stage. I remember a distin
guished English statesman remarking to me with disappontment
and disgust after Mr. Gladstone's Midlothian campaign had elec
trified the country, "There is no use waiting for old men to die.
After seventy they go on forever." The brightest pages of his
tory, the most brilliant passages in oratory and the highest flights
of rhetorical expression are devoted to the achievements of pre
cocious genius. In our day everything is subjected to the merci
less analysis of science and research. The most valued traditions
of childhood are shattered by the cold processes of historical delv
ing. William Tell becomes a myth and Arnold Winkelreid an
exaggerated tradition. By the same bloodless dissection alienists
and physiologists are now endeavoring to prove that in the for-
maton and growth of the brain an unnatural and unhealthy early
development tends either to degeneracy or, in rare instances,
where there is great natural power, to extraordinary and morbid
maturity in infancy and youth. It is the inspiration and despair
of the schools that Alexander the Great was a wise ruler at
i8 and conquered all Greece at 20. At 26 he wept because
there were no more worlds to conquer and died at 30. His
achievements and his tragic death were alike due to an abnormal
brain which made him meet the characterization fo Pope, "The
youth who all things but himself subdued." In this he stands in
marked contrast with Caesar, who matured more slowly and natu
rally, and was at the zenith of his powers when assassinated at
56, and of whom Pope also said, "Caesar was the world's great
master and his own." Hannibal was in sight of the fulfillment
of the vow to his father of the destruction of Rome when he
was 31, but then his genius seemed to decay. Napoleon had
reached the zenith of his powers at 35 and at Waterloo was the
victim of premature senility. Byron's genius began to fade in

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR PETTUS 377
his early thirties, and he died before he was 40. Pitt was
prime minister at 25, and the maturity of his gifts was under
40. Goethe, the great German genius, and one of the greatest
the world ever saw, on the other hand, grew normally to maturity
and was no exception to nature's laws. The work which gave
him universal recognition, "Iphigenia," was written when he
was 37, but his immortality is largely based upon "Faust," which
was published when he was 55. He lived without any abate
ment of mind until he was 83. Thiers, having accomplished a
world of literary work and done much political service, saved
France from total dismemberment at 71 and remained three years
after in the presidency to consolidate his work. Von Moltke
at 71 had become one of the most famous generals of the centu
ries, while Bismarck late in life consoldated the German people
nto one Empire under the great sovereign who wielded the scep
ter vigorously until past 90. Gladstone's most triumphant
campaign, and one of the most remarkable in English history,
was won by a stumping tour of unequaled vigor and versatility
when he was 84. The dead line of 50, which had been the rule
of the past, no longer exists in our day. Shakespeare divided
life into seven ages. "At first, the Infant
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms:
Then the whining School-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school : And then the Lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a Soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard;
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel.
Seeking the bubble Reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the Justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd ;
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut.
Full of wise saws and modern instances, —
And so he plays his part : The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd Pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side ;
His youthful hose well sav'd a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice.
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

378 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
And whistles in his sound : Last scene of all.
That ends this strange eventful history.
Is second childishness and mere oblivion ;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans — everything."
But Shakespeare died at 50.
Mr. President, we have only to look about this Senate to note
the marvelous difference between Shakespeare's period and our
own. It was then the survival of the fittest who possessed the
vigor of constitution and strength which could resist the pesti
lence, plague, and disease common to the unsanitary conditions
of the home, uncleanliness of the person, and wild excesses and
intemperance of the times. According to Shakespeare's view,
"the lean and slipper'd pantaloon" came between 50 and 60^ and
second childhood, "Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every
thing," between 60 and 70. But in our day the leaders in the
professions, the captains of industry, and the controlling minds
in public life are largely those who look with equanimity upon
three score and ten.
The life of Senator Pettus is one of those American careers
which are the perennial inspirations of our youth. Equipped
with a vigorous constitution and a good education as his only
capital, he began the battle of life with an optimistic cheerfulness
and indomitable perseverance which were his characteristics for
the succeeding sixty-five years. He was admitted to the Bar in
1842, and was in the active practice of his profession, except
when on the Bench or in wars, for sixty-four years. He early
won the favor of a large constituency, and two years after his
admission to the Bar, at the age of 23, was elected solicitor
for the seventh circuit of Alabama. Heredity is either the curse
or the blessing of us all. The dominant characteristic in the
blood may skip several generations to ultimately assert itself with
double force. It was the grandfather, who was a soldier of the
Revolution, whose militant and virile spirit was reincarnated in
his grandson. The call to arms in the Mexican War drew him
instantly from the brilliant career upon which he had entered in
legal and political life and he marched to Mexico as a lieutenant
of an Alabama company. The stirring experiences of that cam
paign, with its battles and marches, its assaults and victories,
were exquisite happiness to the young and enthusiastic soldier.
He returned from the war at the time when the country was

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR PETTUS 379
excited, as it had never been before, by the gold discoveries in
California. The romance and perils of the West appealed over
whelmingly to this adventurous spirit. That he did not have the
money for this expensive trip was no obstacle to a man to whom
obstacles were invitations. He started on horseback and found
his way across the Great Plains of the West when its trails were
infested by bands of hostile Indians. When he arrived the situa
tion did not interest him. His was not the nature to endure
hardships and the wild life of a mining camp of that period sim
ply for gold. Glory was his ambition, gold only of value so far
as it might help him to attain that end. The voyages and
marches of the Forty-niners are a picturesque chapter in the story
of the settlement and development of our Territories. They
were practical Argonauts, whose search had its reward for some
in fortunes greater than were possible to the seekers of the
Golden Fleece, but for most of them bitter disappointment and
unmarked graves. The sordid side of these early struggles on
the golden coast repelled this chivalric knight and we find him
soon returned to renewed activities at the Bar and in the public
life of his State. He had been brought up in the strictest school
of State rights. The resolutions of 1789 were his political gospel
and John C. Calhoun his political guide. One of his last acts in
the Senate was to vote against the railroad rate bill, notwith
standing the public sentiment in its favor, because he believed
that it violated in principle his fundamental beliefs in the rights
and sovereignty of the States. He was among the earliest to
enhst for the war in the Confederate Army, and believed as
thoroughly in the righteousness of his cause as did his patriot
grandfather in that of the Revolution.
His commanding figure made him an ideal soldier. He was
elected a major of his regiment, but his gallantry upon many
bloody battlefields soon won him the stars of a brigadier-general.
His impetuosity and daring made him a prisoner of war, but he
received the consideration of his captors which gallant soldiers
<always pay to heroic enemies against whom have gone the for
tunes of the fight. The Civil War ended, he again resumed the
activities of peace. Having vigorously and conscientiously done
the work of his laborious profession and accepted many honors
from his fellow-citizens, he thought that at 75 he would like to
retire to the dignity and congenial duties of a Federal judge, with

380 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
its permanency of office, securing the pleasures of comfortable
and serene old age, but he was told he was too old. This stirred
the soldier to conflict, and with the answer, "If I am too old to
be a judge, I am young enough to be a United States Senator,"
he entered a contest before the people for the place. He broke
down all opposition and captured the imagination and support of
the people, and at 76 was triumphantly elected Senator of the
United States from the State of Alabama. When the time for
his reelection came, he was 83 years of age, but there was no
opposition, and his triumph was complete. It was one of his
most gratifying recollections that his second election cost only $1,
the legal fee for his certificate. He was reelected at the end of
his second for a third term, which, if he had lived, would have
carried him to the age of 95. There is no such record in the
whole history of the Senate.
I served with him on the Committee on the Judiciary. He
never missed a meeting, and his reports upon the questions re
ferred to him as a subcommittee were not only able and judicial,
but possessed a picturesque originality and humor which gave
them the flavor of that Elizabethan hterature of which he had
been all his life an ardent student. His humor was resistless,
and we all remember the occasions when the driest debate was
suddenly lifted into life and his side enormously helped by the
ripple of laughter which disturbed this august assemblage at one
of his sallies. As impregnable were his opinions, so unshakable
were his friendships, and he would make any sacrifice to aid or
defend those whom he loved.
Side by side in the old churchyard in the vihage of Selma
lie these great statesmen of Alabama, not of Alabama alone, but
of the United States. As the years go by that wiU become sacred
ground and a Mecca for the youth of the South, who would get
inspiration for great careers in the civil or military life of their
country. The Senators who were privileged to serve wth Mor
gan and Pettus unite in paying to their memories the deepest and
tenderest tributes of respect and admiration. Long after we are
gone, among the cherished traditions of this body will be the
recoUection of the lives, the genius, the work, and the picturesque
personality and originality of these historical figures fighting back
death and serving their country when past four-score years, and
dying, as they had lived, together.

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR ALLISON

ADDRESS ON RESOLUTIONS IN MEMORY OF SENATOR WILLIAM B.
ALLISON, OF IOWA, FEBRUARY 6, I9O9.
Mr. President : We raise the curtain to-day upon the most
momentous events in the history of the Republic. The life of
our nation can be broadly divided into three eras — its creation, its
preservation, and its development. The two last are vividly re
called by the career of Senator William B. Allison. He entered
Congress in 1862 and died a Senator in 1908. Never during
recorded time has so much been done for liberty, humanity, and
progress as is crowded into this period. The whole world is its
debtor, but the United States is our retrospect at this hour.
We are here in the assembly honored by his membership and
the hall which witnessed his activities to pay tribute to the mem
ory of one of the most influential statesmen of these wonderful
years. He took his seat in the House of Representatives when
the future seemed darkest. A sohd South and divided North,
disaster to the Union cause in the field and threatened interven
tion by Europe, our credit seriously impaired, and widespread
discontent created a situation full of peril for the preservation
of the Union. The continent trembled under the tread of armies
greater in number than any before marshaled in modern times,
and the shock of battles between brothers, each willing to die for
his idea, had desolated every home in the land. Lincoln voiced
the first and greatest necessity to save the Union in these memo
rable words :
"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way
under the Constitution. If there be those who would not save
the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do
not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the
Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do
not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is
to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.
If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would
do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do
381

382 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone,
I would also do that."
He stood like a rock against abolitionists and radicals who
would have him try to free the slaves at a time when public senti
ment would not have sustained him and the loss of Union sup
porters would have been fatal, but when all saw it was necessary
to save the Union he issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
The success of the national cause in the Civil War placed the
Union upon firmer foundation, to be made secure for all time by
the reconstruction of the States and the acceptance by those in
rebellion of their equal enjoyment of American citizenship and
unity in loyalty for the old flag. Our Government was then the
least in power and consideration among nations. But it advanced
by leaps and bounds until at the peace of Portsmouth between
Russia and Japan, brought about by President Roosevelt, we took
front rank and won the right and recognition of voice and vote
in all matters affecting the welfare of the world.
People prosper and nations advance according to the wisdom
of the policies and measures which govern them. The waste of
war must be supplied by credit and money. The country required
revenue bills to enlarge its income ; the development of its re
sources to furnish the basis for increased taxation, and a currency
system in harmony with great industrial nations. It was in these
fields that Senator Allison did most wise, beneficent and far-reach
ing work. Happily his State of Iowa, appreciating his value
to the country, kept him continuously in the Senate. The record
and rewards of his career were due to neither luck nor chance.
He won and held place and increasing power by ceaseless indus
try, rare judgment, tact which amounted to genius, and the graces
which command loyalty and love. In the House he was on the
Committee on Ways and Means, and in the Senate for twenty-six
years a member of the Committee on Finance, and for twenty-
five years on the Committee on Appropriations, and for twenty
years its chairman. In these positions he had always before him
problems of revenue and expenditures of the Government upon
which rest its stability, credit, and prosperity. They appealed to
him because of natural gifts for these questions, and by study and
experience he acquired such mastery over them that he became an
acknowldged authority and accepted leader.
He believed that industrial independence and internal develop-

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR ALLISON 383
ment, increase in national wealth, and a higher standard of hving
for labor than ever known, could be had only by a protective
tariff. He was the clearest and soundest of the many able men
who have contributed to the legislation or literature of this ques
tion. The Morrill bill, enacted in 1861, had performed invalu
able service in replenishing the Treasury during the war and
stimulating production and manufactures after. But the mar
velous growth of our industries in both volume and variety called
for a new adaptation to present needs. While McKinley was the
unrivaled expounder and advocate of the merits of the measure
which bore his name, it was the ripe learning and constructive
genius of Allison which framed and perfected the law. He
pointed out the weakness which was afterwards developed in the
Wilson bill, and his report warned Congress and the country of
the disastrous results which followed its enactment. The uni
versal recognition of his talents for initiative and upbuilding
made him a member of the subcommittee which perfected the
Dingley bill, which has been in force since 1897, and to him was
assigned the charge of its passage in the Senate. In this brief
review is seen the master mind and skilled hand in legislation for
the tariff during the thirty-five years it was on trial. He saw his
policy at times crippled, and once nearly destroyed ; but with faith
which never wavered and courage which never faltered he plead
with the people and labored with their representatives until the
fruition of his opinions and experience had ripened into law.
He lived to witness for ten years the most extraordinary progress
and prosperity ever known in any land — the result, as he believed,
of the triumph of his principles.
But the Senator's activities were in every branch of revenue
legislation. He prepared in 1868 the internal-revenue law which,
with few modifications, is still in force, and with the least possi
ble burden upon the people yields large returns to the Treasury.
Alexander Hamilton was the greatest of constructive states
men. With little of precedent for guidance he formed out of
chaos a model system of constitutional government and devised
the details for its administration. He was the father of protec
tive principles, and his report on that subject has been the inspira
tion of all subsequent discussion and legislation. His methods
and rules for the management of our customs remained un
changed for a century. Primitive conditions in the importation

384 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
of foreign goods had grown and expanded until our commerce
had so far outgrown the regulations which had controlled it for
a hundred years that modifications adapted to modern situations
were necessary. The work had been undertaken many times and
failed, and was finally placed in the hands of Senator Allison.
After two years of patient effort he succeeded in enacting a law
wholly prepared by himself which, without change, has been the
guide of our customs-revenue service from 1890 until to-day.
Senator Allison was a disciple of Hamilton. He revered his
memory and was a profound student of his works. At a time
when the people were wildly following the ignis fatuus of vision
ary finance, Allison kept his faith in sound economic principles
He early saw that material development and progress were tem
porary and delusive unless based upon a stable and unfluctuating
standard of value. We came out of the Civil War with our cur
rency upon foundations as insecure as the earthquake soil of
Messina, and feverish speculation followed by disastrous panics
was our perpetual peril. A loyal sentiment that the irredeemable
greenback had saved the Union nurtured faith in fiat money and
the virtues of the paper mill in maintaining values. This and
the silver heresy threatened political oblivion to all who opposed
them. The Senator's fight for sound money illustrated the prac
tical ability of his statesmanship. He could bow to the storm
and not be bent. He saw no merit in so attempting to stem the
tide as to be swept into outer darkness and lost to sight and
memory. He preferred to go with and guide it — the most diffi
cult tasks. It required from from 1865 to 1875 before the people
could be educated to belief in a specie basis. That decade was
as full of peril to our industries as the Civil War had been to our
nationality. The resumption act was the work of John Sherman,
but his ablest and most efficient associate was Senator Allison.
That law made our depreciated currency as good as gold in
theory, but not in fact. The enormous output of silver alarmed
the mining industry because the supply was exceeding the demand.
Besides the selfish interests of the mine owners, some of the best
minds in the country became advocates of the free and unlimited
coinage of silver. The farmer was persuaded it would double
the price of his products and pay off his mortgages; the debtor
that it would reduce the amount of his loans; the workman that
it would double his wages, and by the mysterious alchemy of a

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR ALLISON 385
Government stamp, its purchasing power would not diminish
with its falling price. Both Houses of Congress were captured
by its fallacies and popularity. Popular passions had not run
so high since the Civil War. Wise and prudent men saw that
the success of the scheme would drive out gold, put the country
on a silver basis, and after a wild carnival end in bankruptcy.
Senator Allison saved the situation by securing the assent of a
majority for a limited coinage of silver, bought by and belonging
to the Government. The working of this compromise demon
strated the folly of a double standard and brought the people to
see that except the opinion of the world could be changed we must
come to gold. In hastening that event our friend performed in
valuable and lasting service. The successful legislator must ad
just the bill he proposes or has in charge to the diverse views of
his colleagues without impairing its essential object. He yields,
harmonizes, and conciliates, but gets in the main what he wants
at the time or gains a step for further advance when the majority
are brought to his view.
Senator Allison was past master of that art. He knew the
Senate. Its capricious moods were his opportunity. His pa
tience was never exhausted, the serenity of his temper never
ruffled. He could grant to an adversary an amendment with
such grace and deference to superior judgment that the flattered
enemy accepted a few suggestions from the master as a tribute
to his talents. The post-mortem revealed his mistake.
As in the gold standard, so whenever a principle was involved,
the Senator's mind was clear from the beginning; but it required,
step by step, twenty years before the idea captured the country.
The strongest criticism of his career was his willingness to com
promise ; but the Constitution of the United States was a compro
mise between the large and smaller States. The Missouri Com
promise of Henry Clay in 1820 was the salvation of the Union —
secession then would have succeeded ; but forty years devoted to
instilling into youth love for the Nation and the flag, and the
growth in population and resources of the free States welded
the Union beyond the possibility of disruption.
The country reunited in faith and loyalty, the industrial and
financial systems which had commanded his unequaled talents for
a third of a century triumphantly established and working out the
beneficent results of prosperity, production, and happiness upon
Vol. VIl— 25

386 SPEECHES IN UNITED STATES SENATE
which he had based faith and prophecy, the old statesman might
have been content.
Nations, like individuals, "pass this way but once." Golden
opportunities at the milestones are lost or won. The triumphs
of one generation make trouble for the next. Progress and
development create new issues and statesmen confront fresh prob
lems with every advance. Railroad mileage had increased with
the growth of population and extension of settlements. These
lines are the arteries of commerce and had been consolidated into
great systems. Evils existed in some of them which angered the
people against them all. Government ownership or Government
control were leading issues. The President and his advisers pre
pared a large scheme of Government control. It was threatened,
on the one hand, by conservative forces which fight all change in
existing conditions, and radical reformers who would put on the
measure drastic amendments so far-reaching and confiscatory as
to involve years of litigation and invite an adverse decision from
the Supreme Court. The veteran victor of a hundred legislative
battlefields was called into council. The suggestions of Senator
Allison perfected and passed the rate bill. It has stood the test
of the courts. It has largely eliminated the evils of railway man
agement, and the people and investors recognize its wisdom.
Senator Allison was never spectacular. He was modest and
retiring to a degree. Many of his colleagues filled large space
with their speeches in the Congressional Record, while his monu
ment was in the statute books. Because of the radicalism of
their proposals, or their eloquence in debate, or their manufacture
of epigrams, others had headlines and columns in the press, while
this tireless and unheralded architect of the public welfare was
standing guard over the Treasury or making laws which marked
epochs in our history.
He rarely missed a vote. When the bell rang for a roll call,
coming from his constant labor in the room of the Committee
on Appropriations, he was among the first to enter the Senate.
His name was at the top of the list. He never waited to find out
how the question was going, but answered promptly, and that
answer often decided the fate of the measure. He had the
courage of his convictions and not of a majority behind him.
He represented an agricultural State whose people often dif
fered with him on economic and financial questions. But a sin-

MEMORIAL OF SENATOR ALLISON 387
gularly broad-minded and intelligent constituency recognized his
honesty, character, and greatness, and loyally returned him again
and again to the seat in which he shed such luster upon Iowa.
His closing hours were passed in the supreme happiness that after
thirty-five years of continuous service in the Senate and after
passing the limit of fourscore the people had commissioned him
for another term.
If, as I believe, those who meet in the activities of this life are
reunited hereafter, it was a wonderful band of immortals who
greeted Allison. President Lincoln had consulted him on meas
ures for raising money to carry on the war ; Johnson on constitu
tional amendments, civil rights, and general amnesty; Grant on
the reconstruction of the States, finance, and a government for the
District of Columbia, still working satisfactorily and wholly de
vised by Allison ; Hayes on the resumption of specie payments ;
Arthur on the policy of a tariff commission ; Harrison on the
McKinley tariff legislation and closer relations between the re
publics of the Western Hemisphere by a Pan-American Con
gress; Cleveland on the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sher
man silver law ; and McKinley on tariff, currency, the gold stand
ard, and grave questions arising out of the acquisition and gov
ernment of Porto Rico and the Philippines — all of them era-
making measures. Three of these Presidents had urgently in
vited him to join their cabinets, and twice the Presidency had
been almost within his grasp. When he first obtained the floor
in Congress he addressed Speaker Schuyler Colfax, and when he
spoke last, forty-five years afterwards. Vice-president Fairbanks
in the chair recognized the Senator from Iowa. Seward, Chase,
and Stanton, John Sherman, James G. Blaine, and Thaddeus
Stevens were his associates and intimates. When the future his
torian writes the story of this remarkable period and portrays
the actors in that great national drama who contributed to its dis
tinction, he will place among the few in the front rank the name of
William B. AlHson.

-^•m

'! J<>\'T

•.:^:^
"'N. L*"-
j> •"
w
r
,' I
fH
,,^m. «i^*.. h
f-J'