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Title: Presidential addresses and State papers (Vol. 1)
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Release date: October 13, 2024 [eBook #74572]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Review of Reviews Company
Credits: A Marshall and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS (VOL. 1) ***
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
The original edition did not include a Table of Contents. For the
convenience of the reader one has been created:
Introduction i
The Presidency 1
Addresses and State Papers 14
Speech of President Roosevelt at the Reunion of the Department
Of the Potomac, G. A. R., at the New Willard Hotel,
Washington, D. C., Feb. 19, 1902 14
At the Charleston Exposition, Wednesday, April 9, 1902 18
At New York at the Banquet at Sherry’s in Honor of Dr. Nicholas
Murray Butler, President of Columbia University,
April 19, 1902 27
To the Graduating Class, Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.,
May 2, 1902 33
At the Banquet of the Society of the Sons of the American
Revolution, Washington, D. C., May 2, 1902 36
At the Laying of the Cornerstone of the McKinley Memorial Ohio
College of Government of the American University,
Washington, D. C., May 14, 1902 39
At the Exercises of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland,
Attending the Reburial of Major-general William Stark
Rosecrans, Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, D. C.,
May 17, 1902 40
At the Centennial Meeting of the Board of Home Missions of the
Presbyterian Church, Carnegie Hall, New York, N. Y., on the
Evening of May 20, 1902 44
At the Overflow Meeting of the Centennial of Presbyterian Home
Missions, Central Presbyterian Church, New York, N. Y.,
May 20, 1902 50
On the Occasion of the Unveiling of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’
Monument at Arlington, Under the Auspices of the National
Society of the Colonial Dames of America, May 21, 1902 53
At Arlington, Memorial Day, May 30, 1902 56
At the Opening Session of the Military Surgeons’ Association,
Washington, D. C., June 5, 1902 68
At the Centennial Celebration of the Establishment of the United
States Military Academy, West Point, June 11, 1902 70
At the Harvard Commencement Dinner, Cambridge, Mass.,
June 25, 1902 78
At the Coliseum, Hartford, Conn., August 22, 1902 85
At Providence, R. I., August 23, 1902 98
At Symphony Hall, Boston, August 25, 1902 108
At Haverhill, Mass., August 26, 1902 118
At Portland, Maine, August 26, 1902 122
At Augusta, Maine, August 26, 1902 124
At Bangor, Maine, August 27, 1902 126
At Northfield, Mass., September 1, 1902 134
At Fitchburg, Mass., September 2, 1902 137
At Dalton, Mass., September 3, 1902 144
At Wheeling, W. Va., September 6, 1902 146
To the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Chattanooga, Tenn.,
September 8, 1902 156
At Danville, Va., September 9, 1902 167
At Music Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio, on the Evening of
September 20, 1902 169
At the Banquet of the Spanish War Veterans, Detroit, Mich.,
September 22, 1902 185
At Logansport, Ind., September 23, 1902 187
At the Banquet of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of
New York, at New York, November 11, 1902 196
At the Banquet Tendered General Luke E. Wright, at
Memphis, Tenn., November 19, 1902 202
At the Reception to General Wright at Memphis, Tenn.,
November 19, 1902 208
At the Founders’ Day Banquet of the Union League,
Philadelphia, Pa., November 22, 1902 211
At the Banquet to Justice Harlan, the New Willard Hotel,
Washington, D. C., December 9, 1902 221
Reception of a Delegation from the National Board of Trade,
Washington, D. C., January 15, 1903 225
At the Banquet of the Young Men’s Christian Association, New
Willard Hotel, Washington, D. C., Jan. 19, 1903 226
At the Banquet at Canton, Ohio, January 27, 1903, in Honor of
the Birthday of the Late President McKinley 231
At Carnegie Hall, New York, N. Y., February 26, 1903, Upon the
Occasion of the Bi-centennial Celebration of the Birth of
John Wesley 242
At a Meeting of the Society of American Foresters, Held at the
Residence of Mr. Gifford Pinchot, Washington, D. C.,
March 26, 1903 249
At Chicago, Ill., April 2, 1903 257
At Waukesha, Wis., April 3, 1903 268
At Milwaukee, Wis., April 3, 1903 272
Before the Minnesota Legislature, St. Paul, Minn.,
April 4, 1903 286
In the Chapel of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis,
Minn., April 4, 1903 292
At Minneapolis, Minn., April 4, 1903 294
At Sioux Falls, S. D., April 6, 1903 302
At Fargo, North Dakota, April 7, 1903 310
At Medora, North Dakota, April 7, 1903 320
At Jamestown, N. D., April 7, 1903 321
At Laying of Cornerstone of Gateway to Yellowstone National
Park, Gardiner, Montana, April 24, 1903 324
At Omaha, Neb., April 27, 1903 329
From Address at Quincy, Ill., April 29, 1903 335
At Odeon Hall, St. Louis, Mo., Before the National and
International Good Roads Convention, April 29, 1903 336
At St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri, April 29, 1903 341
At the Dedication Ceremonies of the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition, St. Louis, April 30, 1903 341
At Topeka, Kansas, May 1, 1903 353
From Address at Denver, Col., May 4, 1903 361
At Santa Fe, New Mexico, May 5, 1903 364
At the Catholic School, Albuquerque, N. M., May 5, 1903 368
At the Indian School, Albuquerque, N. M., May 5, 1903 368
At Grand Canyon, Arizona, May 6, 1903 369
At Barstow, California, May 7, 1903 372
At San Bernardino, Cal., May 7, 1903 373
At the Big Tree Grove, Santa Cruz, Cal., May 11, 1903 375
At Leland Stanford Junior University, Palo Alto, Cal.,
May 12, 1903 377
At Mechanics’ Pavilion, San Francisco, Cal., May 13, 1903 390
At the Ceremonies Incident to the Breaking of Sod For the
Erection of a Monument in Memory of the Late President
McKinley, San Francisco, Cal., May 13, 1903 397
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT—UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD, N. Y.
_A CALIFORNIA SPEECH_
_Some of President Roosevelt’s addresses on public questions called
him across the continent. However, he always transacted an enormous
amount of public business en route_ ]
Homeward Bound Edition
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
AND STATE PAPERS
_February 19, 1902, to May 13, 1903_
BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
[Illustration: (colophon)]
PUBLISHED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE
AUTHOR THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
VOLUME I
NEW YORK
THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY
MCMX
The Publishers desire to make clear to the readers that Ex-president
Roosevelt retains no pecuniary interest in the sale of the volumes
containing these speeches. He feels that the material contained in
these addresses has been dedicated to the public, and that it is,
therefore, not to be handled as copyrighted material from which Mr.
Roosevelt should receive any pecuniary return.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
AND STATE PAPERS
FEBRUARY 19, 1902
TO
MAY 13, 1903
INTRODUCTION
BY ALBERT SHAW
The materials contained in the Addresses and State Papers of Theodore
Roosevelt, while President of the United States, possess far more than
a transitory interest and value. It is obvious indeed that for the
future student of American politics and history their preservation in
convenient and authentic form is not merely an important service, but
an indispensable one; for it would have been impossible to collate
them in any accurate or complete way from the scattered files of
newspapers, especially since many of the addresses were delivered
at points remote from news centers, and some of these were very
inadequately reported by the press. This observation, it is needless
to say, does not apply to the formal State Papers—chiefly messages
to Congress—for such official deliverances are duly preserved and
published by the Government itself. It is, however, suitable as well
as convenient to include these State Papers in a collection of the
recent utterances of President Roosevelt, for reasons so obvious as to
need little comment.
The palpable fact is that President Roosevelt’s messages to Congress
and a large number of his speeches, delivered in various parts of
the country in his capacity as President, pertain to the same topics
and serve a like public purpose. The messages must, of course, deal
with matters affecting the welfare of the nation, and with various
questions of public business or policy, in those aspects that bear
upon the work of Congress. It is the President’s Constitutional right
and duty to present information upon such topics, or to expound
them from the standpoint of the Administration. In the long series
of Presidential messages one may, indeed, read the history of this
country for more than a hundred years. To that official narrative
these messages by Mr. Roosevelt add some of the most fascinating
chapters.
The speeches here collected, on the other hand, have a much wider
range. Nevertheless, a great number of the addresses and speeches do
in fact deal with precisely the same topics as those presented in the
messages to Congress, and were intended not merely for a particular
audience but for the whole country through the medium of the press.
And for Mr. Roosevelt’s full disclosure of his views and policies
touching some questions of large public concern, it is necessary to
read his speeches in connection with his general or special messages
to Congress. Since a number of his speeches here printed, like his
general messages, deal with a variety of matters, the reader who
wishes to compare and collate his utterances upon a given subject—as,
for example, the regulation of the trusts, the reorganization of the
army, the relations of the United States to Cuba, or our methods and
policies of administration in the Philippines—will find it desirable
to consult the index, which is intended to make these volumes
available for ready reference.
Quite apart from their obvious value for reference purposes to the
student of our contemporary history and politics, or to the campaign
speaker of one party or another—who may wish to know authoritatively
what Mr. Roosevelt said about various public issues—this collection of
addresses has several distinct merits and advantages that must give it
a place among works relating to the national life and character. Mr.
Roosevelt, as an exponent of the aims and ideals of a great portion
of his own generation of men and women in the United States, stands
unquestionably first. In two volumes of his previously collected
essays and papers, one entitled _American Ideals_ and the other _The
Strenuous Life_, both of which are included in the present edition
of his works, Mr. Roosevelt has expressed with remarkable vigor,—as
well as with an unwavering conviction and a wholesome philosophy
of work and courage,—those views of politics, citizenship, and
organized social and economic life to which the best conscience and
intelligence of his fellow-countrymen have made sympathetic response.
These essays, it is true, set forth no abstract scheme of political or
social philosophy. Yet out of them there might be evolved a systematic
body of doctrine relating to the duties of citizenship in a democracy,
and to the ethics of administration and government. The explanation
is that the doctrines and principles have come to be embodied in the
character and convictions of the man himself; and thus the essays
and addresses have not been the mere intellectual products of a man
addicted to the use of the pen or to the phrasing of sentences, but
rather the direct and wellnigh spontaneous expression of Mr. Roosevelt
in relation to topics rendered timely by events and occasions.
In like manner and in an even higher sense, these later speeches,
made under the sobering sense of responsibility that must come with
the holding of so great an office as the Presidency, express Mr.
Roosevelt’s convictions respecting our American life and citizenship
in such manner as to form a sort of record for the study of the
psychology of the nation at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Furthermore, these addresses and public papers, while to some extent
homely, unstudied and unconventional in their phraseology, have the
quality of permanent literature in a much higher measure than the
utterances of almost any other American public man of our time.
The traditional American political oratory is highly stilted and
artificial—overloaded with rhetoric and figures of speech, lacking
vernacular force and directness. While the orotund and rhetorical
method of the past has largely disappeared, there has followed it
another method almost equally artificial, in which the stately periods
of the old-fashioned orator have been succeeded by the illustrative
amusing anecdote, the highly burnished witticism, and the pointed
phrase or apothegm.
Mr. Roosevelt’s method is wholly different from either of these.
Except for being at times a trifle more earnest and hortatory, it is
the method of some of the best contemporary English speakers. They do
not posture, and do not attempt to be either orators or mere platform
entertainers. Rather, they prefer to state in a direct, conversational
manner certain things that they wish to say. Their language is that
which naturally, and without conscious effort, clothes their thoughts
as men of culture and mature intellectual life. Mr. Roosevelt being a
man of trained mind, strong conviction, historical knowledge, and wide
public experience, combined with great practical energy and executive
force, and buoyant physical health, has both his own opinions and his
own ready and forcible way of expressing them.
Thus many of the speeches contained in this collection are as nearly
extemporaneous utterances as any which have ever been put into
similarly permanent form. Here are addresses made in almost every
State and Territory of the Union; and they were prepared and delivered
within a very short range of time, during which a far greater number
of briefer and more casual speeches have been made, thousands of
letters written, and innumerable statements upon matters of a public
character addressed to the Cabinet (collectively and individually), to
Senators and members of Congress, to various executive officials, to
public men and citizens from every part of every State of the Union,
to committees and deputations representing all classes and interests,
and to representatives and visitors from all countries—whether a royal
prince from Germany or a defeated Boer general from South Africa.
And when one considers all these demands upon a President’s time,
and knows something of the prodigious industry with which the Chief
Executive must devote himself to the almost innumerable duties that
present themselves daily in connection with his executive work, it
becomes plain that these speeches and addresses have been in the main
the spontaneous utterances of a richly stored mind inspired by firm
conviction and resolute will, and supported by extraordinary physical
strength and vigor.
Yet Mr. Roosevelt’s speeches have not been carelessly prepared. Nor
have they ever been left—as some speakers profess to leave theirs—to
the “inspiration of the moment.” Mr. Roosevelt has unusual powers
of concentration; and his achievement of so much work is due to his
ability to turn promptly from one thing to another and to give each
successive task his whole undivided attention. With an excellent
memory and a disciplined mind, he is able to summon to his aid at a
given moment all his past resources of reading, study, and thought
upon a given topic. Thus, before going on several of the long trips
in connection with which a great number of addresses in these volumes
were made, the more important of the speeches for which dates had been
fixed were dictated one after another to his stenographers late in
the evening when the day’s work was cleared away, social or official
guests had departed, and an hour or two of uninterrupted time was at
his disposal.
This, indeed, is the same method by which a number of the essays and
addresses which have become familiar in the collected volumes entitled
_American Ideals_, and _The Strenuous Life_, had been prepared at
former periods when Mr. Roosevelt was under stress of much occupation.
There has been no attempt to polish sentences or to make fine phrases,
yet there is the orderly and the deliberate expression that results
from orderly processes of thinking. And there is the assured and
confident tone that reveals a steadfast mind seldom tormented by
doubts or misgivings.
Again, it is to be noted that these addresses are patriotic rather
than partisan, and that where they deal with matters of controversy
they show a spirit as little contentious or polemic as possible. While
believing in the utility of the party system, Mr. Roosevelt spoke as
President of the whole country and not merely as the chief of a party.
His speeches, in short, are the utterances of a man who embodies the
national spirit more broadly and fully than almost any other man of
his day. He expresses himself upon a wide range of topics with a
larger fund of experience and direct knowledge than is possessed by
any other conspicuous public man of either party.
It is only through some understanding of the career that led up to
his assumption of the Presidency that the richness, the fulness, and
the authoritative quality of his observations on many varied themes
can be appreciated. Mr. Roosevelt’s life has, amid much variety,
possessed great unity. While still in college at Harvard, his mind
became centered upon the study of American life, American history, and
American government and policy. Whatever he undertook after leaving
college added steadily to his understanding of the people of his own
country and their institutions. Almost at once he threw himself into
the politics of the great State of New York, served several terms in
the Legislature, and made himself known throughout the country by the
vigor and courage with which he applied himself to current problems
of State and municipal reform. At a time when the so-called “spoils
system” was powerfully rooted in the practical government of nation,
State, and city, he became a civil service reformer.
Everything that was worth while was of interest to him and everything
that he undertook to do was done whole-heartedly and thus made its
contribution to his own development. He was an officer in the militia,
and learned lessons which became, years afterward, valuable to him as
a colonel in the Spanish-American war and later as commander-in-chief
of the army by virtue of the Presidential office.
Meanwhile his first literary undertaking was the history of the
naval war of 1812, which appeared in 1882, and which will always
remain a vital and standard account of our last war with Great
Britain, especially from the standpoint of naval strategy and actual
operations. Whether taking part himself in the current life of his
country and in the making of its history, or whether studying or
writing about the part that others have taken in the development of
the nation, there has been on Mr. Roosevelt’s part always a singleness
of purpose and a harmony of effort. Thus, when he wrote about the War
of 1812, as when in later years he wrote the graphic yet accurate
and well-poised studies of those Western movements, military and
civil, that created the Mississippi Valley (comprised in the series
of volumes entitled _The Winning of the West_), there was on his
part just as much a sense of dealing with realities as when in 1899
he wrote out the story of the part played by his regiment of Rough
Riders in the Spanish-American war of the year before. This single
work, on _The Winning of the West_, in the opinion of the authorities,
justified the honorary degree conferred upon Colonel Roosevelt by the
University of Norway on May 6, 1910.
The circumstances which took him to the West in 1884 to become for
some years a cattle ranchman, a resident of the great plains, and
an exponent of hunting and frontier life, involved in no manner an
interruption of the career upon which he had made so propitious an
entrance. On the contrary, this was the best possible step that could
have been taken for the rounding out and development of the career of
a man destined, either in letters or in action, to spend his life in
dealing with American affairs from a broad standpoint.
Many of the most marked traits of the American people have been
evolved through the process of pioneering. For three centuries our
people have been engaged in subduing a continent that they had found a
pathless wilderness. No man who has lacked contact with some concrete
phases of our pioneering life can ever wholly enter into the spirit
of the nation’s historical development, or perfectly understand the
inherited qualities of our present day citizenship. Mr. Roosevelt’s
Western life supplied that needful element of understanding, while it
gave him physical hardihood and a continental breadth of view. It gave
him, furthermore, that traditional American readiness with a horse and
a gun, and that adaptability to the free life of field and of woods
which is the heritage of the average young American, and which made
the greater part of the Northern and Southern armies in the Civil War
so unequaled, for effectiveness, in all military history.
Through these years of practical life in the West Mr. Roosevelt
never lost the studious and literary habit, nor did he lose any
of his zest for the public affairs of the country. In due time he
returned to the East, took an active part in New York politics again,
and was nominated for Mayor. Then he went to Washington, where
for a number of years he served as Chairman of the Board of Civil
Service Commissioners and became an expert in the field of national
administration. After that came his two years as President of the
Police Commissioners of New York City—a truly strenuous period that
tested every quality of his mind and character. The navy had been at
low ebb when Mr. Roosevelt in 1882 wrote his _Naval War of 1812_, and
that book fairly contributed toward the revival of interest which
soon set on foot the movement for the creation of our modern fleet.
The author of that book had ever afterward been regarded both at home
and abroad as an expert student of naval history and of sea power,
and he had retained an enthusiastic interest in the whole subject. He
was well fitted, therefore, for the post of Assistant Secretary of the
Navy, to which President McKinley appointed him at the very time when,
more clearly than most others, he foresaw the probability of a war
with Spain.
He threw his whole intense energy into the work of fitting our navy
for such a test, devoting himself especially to the questions of
readiness and efficiency in practical detail. And then came the
outbreak of war. With the feeling that he was no longer needed in the
naval department, and that it was his duty to respond to the call for
volunteer soldiers, he entered the army. The history of that service
he has himself told in a fascinating way in the volume entitled _The
Rough Riders_, included in this edition of his works.
The war being ended, he returned to his own State of New York at a
moment when his party was casting about for a candidate for Governor.
The outlook was not propitious; but Mr. Roosevelt’s recent career
had given him a great personal popularity, and he was accordingly
nominated and elected. Great questions of administration are always
pending in the State of New York, and there are few governmental
offices in any country better adapted to train the incumbent for the
tasks of practical statesmanship. Mr. Roosevelt took up the work
of the Governorship with characteristic industry, and with results
that were successful and valuable in many directions. So well had he
satisfied the expectations of his party and of the State that his
renomination as Governor was assured; and the whole country had its
attention fixed upon him as the probable nominee of his party for the
Presidency in the year 1904.
A variety of circumstances, however, most of them unexpected and some
of them dramatic, led to an overwhelming demand by the Republican
National Convention at Philadelphia in 1900 that he forego his
prospect of a second term as Governor of New York in order to take the
nomination for the Vice-Presidency on the ticket with Mr. McKinley.
He was put forward by his party in that summer of 1900 as its most
effective campaigner. But it has not been thought by him desirable
that any of the speeches made in a hotly contested Presidential
electoral campaign should be included in a collection of his public
addresses. The tragic death of President McKinley, in September, 1901,
occurred only six months after his entrance upon a second term, and
thus it happened that Mr. Roosevelt had only a short time to serve in
the office of Vice-President.
So remarkable and so rapid a succession of valuable public
experiences, all of a kind to give training for the duties of the
Presidency, is probably unparalleled in our history, unless in the
case of his successor, President Taft. Mr. Roosevelt had been the
chief Civil Service Commissioner of this great nation, the head of
the police administration of our metropolis, the active official of
the naval department, the most energetic volunteer officer in the
Spanish-American war, the Governor of New York, and the Vice-President
of the United States. The man who had succeeded brilliantly in all
these positions, and who had treated every one of them in turn as if
it furnished the one great opportunity for rendering public service,
could but bring to the Presidency an accumulated knowledge and
experience that must make itself felt in every part of the work of
that supreme office.
It is this wide range of experience and knowledge that has given Mr.
Roosevelt the easy mastery of many subjects exhibited in the addresses
and public papers that make up these volumes. Further, it is these
speeches and messages, far more than anything else contained in his
writings, that show him in his capacity as a practical statesman. They
afford the unconscious but inevitable expression of the man in his
relation to public affairs.
To sum up and to conclude: These addresses reveal the unity and
consistency of Mr. Roosevelt’s character and career. He is indeed
a many-sided and versatile man, but there is nothing mutually
contradictory about the different phases of his nature or of his past
undertakings. His vital Americanism is shown equally in his historical
studies of the pioneer movement that built up our great West and in
his accounts of ranching life and his studies of the big game of
America.
In his varied literary work, as in his other efforts and activities,
there is little or nothing of an incidental or _dilettante_ nature;
all of it is the frank expression of the man himself. The book on the
War of 1812 was written when he was still very young. It might well
have proved to be the merely boyish effort of a young man who had
said to himself, “Lo, I will go to work and write a book!” But, on
the contrary, it was in fact the outgrowth of vital interest and of
strong conviction regarding his subject; and so the book lives and
will continue to live. Thus all of his work, whether literary in its
character or active and official, has been done in the same direct,
straightforward way as simply pertaining to the task in hand; and the
task, whether great or small, has always been deemed worthy of the
whole vital energy of the man.
The great assemblage of public papers and addresses which we are
presenting in the eight volumes that follow, herewith, belong for
the most part to the period of Mr. Roosevelt’s Presidential service,
which ended March 4, 1909. Upon his reelection to the Presidency in
1904, Mr. Roosevelt had declared that he would not be a candidate in
1908 for another term. Although great pressure was brought to bear
upon him in 1907 and in the first half of 1908 to permit the party
to place his name again at the head of the Presidential ticket, he
remained firm in the view that no President should serve for more than
two consecutive terms. One of the last, as it is also one of the best,
addresses of his memorable Presidential period is the one delivered
at the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of
Abraham Lincoln, on February 12, 1909, and contained in the last of
these volumes. For a period of more than a year there is no speech or
paper of Mr. Roosevelt that finds record in this collection. Almost at
once after retiring from the White House, Mr. Roosevelt, in pursuance
of a long-cherished plan, accompanied by his son Kermit and several
scientific experts, departed for Africa. He had been commissioned
by the Smithsonian Institution to obtain a collection of African
fauna, particularly the larger animals, for the Government’s museum
at Washington. Mr. Roosevelt’s carrying out of this great project was
with all his familiar vitality and enthusiasm, and with results as
successful as could have been desired. His return by way of Egypt, and
his experiences as traveler and lecturer in Europe, preliminary to his
return to America in June, 1910, were matters of interest everywhere.
Mr. Roosevelt, throughout Europe as well as in his own country, had
been fully recognized for those qualities which these introductory
pages have tried to set forth. His European travels, as originally
planned, were to have been those of a private citizen seeking no
honors or publicity. But wherever he went governments and rulers, as
well as the masses of plain people, accorded him so great a welcome
that it can fairly be said that few men have ever received such
ovations at any time in history. The death of King Edward led to the
appointment of Mr. Roosevelt as special ambassador to represent the
American government in the formalities of the funeral. The diplomatic
character thus given to his presence in England added a final touch
to the varied experiences of this remarkable foreign journey. Our
concluding volume contains the chief addresses delivered by him in
Europe, notably those at the Sorbonne in Paris, the University of
Berlin, and the University of Oxford.
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS
THE PRESIDENCY
EDITOR’S NOTE.—Although this volume is devoted almost entirely to
addresses made after Mr. Roosevelt became President, it is believed
that this essay on the office of the President, which has not
elsewhere appeared in book form, has a fitting place as introductory
to the materials which follow herewith. The article was written
by Mr. Roosevelt in 1900, while he was Governor of New York, and
previous to the Republican National Convention, which nominated
him for Vice-President. The views expressed in the article are,
therefore, those of an outside observer, and are not to be regarded
as those of an incumbent of the office. It will be clear to all
readers that the writer of the article could not at the time of its
publication have foreseen the place he was destined to occupy.
This article was written expressly for “The Youth’s Companion,” and
is reprinted by courtesy of that publication. Copyright, 1902, by
Perry Mason Company.
The President of the United States occupies a position of peculiar
importance. In the whole world there is probably no other ruler,
certainly no other ruler under free institutions, whose power
compares with his. Of course a despotic king has even more, but no
constitutional monarch has as much.
In the republics of France and Switzerland the President is not a very
important officer, at least, compared with the President of the United
States. In England the sovereign has much less control in shaping
the policy of the nation, the Prime Minister occupying a position
more nearly analogous to that of our President. The Prime Minister,
however, can at any time be thrown out of office by an adverse vote,
while the President can only be removed before his term is out for
some extraordinary crime or misdemeanor against the nation.
Of course, in the case of each there is the enormous personal factor
of the incumbent himself to be considered, entirely apart from the
power of the office itself. The power wielded by Andrew Jackson was
out of all proportion to that wielded by Buchanan, although in theory
each was alike. So a strong President may exert infinitely more
influence than a weak Prime Minister, or _vice versâ_. But this is
merely another way of stating that in any office the personal equation
is always of vital consequence.
It is customary to speak of the framers of our Constitution as
having separated the judicial, the legislative and the executive
functions of the government. The separation, however, is not in
all respects sharply defined. The President has certainly most
important legislative functions, and the upper branch of the national
legislature shares with the President one of the most important of his
executive functions; that is, the President can either sign or veto
the bills passed by Congress, while, on the other hand, the Senate
confirms or rejects his nominations. Of course the President can
not initiate legislation, although he can recommend it. But unless
two-thirds of Congress in both branches are hostile to him, he can
stop any measure from becoming a law. This power is varyingly used
by different Presidents, but it always exists, and must always be
reckoned with by Congress.
While Congress is in session, if the President neither signs nor
vetoes the bill which is passed, the bill becomes a law without his
signature. The effect is precisely the same as if he had signed it.
Presidents who disapproved of details in a bill, but felt that on the
whole it was advisable it should become a law, have at times used this
method to emphasize the fact that they were not satisfied with the
measure which they were yet unwilling to veto. A notable instance was
afforded in President Cleveland’s second term, when he thus treated
the Wilson-Gorman tariff bill.
The immense federal service, including all the postal employees, all
the customs employees, all the Indian agents, marshals, district
attorneys, navy-yard employees, and so forth, is under the President.
It would of course be a physical impossibility for him to appoint all
the individuals in the service. His direct power lies over the heads
of the departments, bureaus and more important offices. But he does
not appoint these by himself. His is only the nominating power. It
rests with the Senate to confirm or reject the nominations.
The Senators are the constitutional advisers of the President, for
it must be remembered that his Cabinet is not in the least like
the Cabinet of which the Prime Minister is head in the English
Parliament. Under our government the Secretaries who form the Cabinet
are in the strictest sense the President’s own ministerial appointees;
the men, chosen out of all the nation, to whom he thinks he can best
depute the most important and laborious of his executive duties. Of
course they all advise him on matters of general policy when he so
desires it, and in practice each Cabinet officer has a very free
hand in managing his own department, and must have it if he is to do
good work. But all this advice and consultation is at the will of
the President. With the Senate, on the other hand, the advice and
consultation are obligatory under the Constitution.
The President and Congress are mutually necessary to one another in
matters of legislation, and the President and the Senate are mutually
necessary in matters of appointment. Every now and then men who
understand our Constitution but imperfectly raise an outcry against
the President for consulting the Senators in matters of appointment,
and even talk about the Senators “usurping” his functions. These men
labor under a misapprehension. The Senate has no right to dictate to
the President who shall be appointed, but they have an entire right to
say who shall not be appointed, for under the Constitution this has
been made their duty.
In practice, under our party system, it has come to be recognized
that each Senator has a special right to be consulted about the
appointments in his own State, if he is of the President’s political
party. Often the opponents of the Senator in his State do not agree
with him in the matter of appointments, and sometimes the President,
in the exercise of his judgment, finds it right and desirable to
disregard the Senator. But the President and the Senators must work
together, if they desire to secure the best results.
But although many men must share with the President the responsibility
for different individual actions, and although Congress must of course
also very largely condition his usefulness, yet the fact remains that
in his hands is infinitely more power than in the hands of any other
man in our country during the time that he holds the office; that
there is upon him always a heavy burden of responsibility; and that in
certain crises this burden may become so great as to bear down any but
the strongest and bravest man.
It is easy enough to give a bad administration; but to give a good
administration demands the most anxious thought, the most wearing
endeavor, no less than very unusual powers of mind. The chances for
error are limitless, and in minor matters, where from the nature
of the case it is absolutely inevitable that the President should
rely upon the judgment of others, it is certain that under the best
Presidents some errors will be committed. The severest critics of a
President’s policy are apt to be, not those who know most about what
is to be done and of the limitations under which it must be done, but
those who know least.
In the aggregate, quite as much wrong is committed by improper
denunciation of public servants who do well as by failure to attack
those who do ill. There is every reason why the President, whoever he
may be and to whatever party he may belong, should be held to a sharp
accountability alike for what he does and for what he leaves undone.
But we injure ourselves and the nation if we fail to treat with proper
respect the man, whether he is politically opposed to us or not, who
in the highest office in our land is striving to do his duty according
to the strength that is in him.
We have had Presidents who have acted very weakly or unwisely in
particular crises. We have had Presidents the sum of whose work has
not been to the advantage of the Republic. But we have never had one
concerning whose personal integrity there was so much as a shadow of
a suspicion, or who has not been animated by an earnest desire to
do the best possible work that he could for the people at large. Of
course infirmity of purpose or wrong-headedness may mar this integrity
and sincerity of intention; but the integrity and the good intentions
have always existed. We have never had in the Presidential chair any
man who did not sincerely desire to benefit the people and whose own
personal ambitions were not entirely honorable, although as much can
not be said for certain aspirants for the place, such as Aaron Burr.
Corruption, in the gross sense in which the word is used in ordinary
conversation, has been absolutely unknown among our Presidents, and it
has been exceedingly rare in our President’s Cabinets. Inefficiency,
whether due to lack of will-power, sheer deficiency in wisdom, or
improper yielding either to the pressure of politicians or to the
other kinds of pressure which must often be found even in a free
democracy, has been far less uncommon. Of deliberate moral obliquity
there has been but very little indeed.
In the easiest, quietest, most peaceful times the President is sure
to have great tasks before him. The simple question of revenue and
expenditure is as important to the nation as it is to the average
household, and the President is the man to whom the nation looks and
whom it holds accountable in the matter both of expenditure and of
revenue. It is an entirely mistaken belief that the expenditure of
money is simply due to a taste for recklessness and extravagance on
the part of the people’s representatives.
The representatives in the long run are sure to try to do what the
people effectively want. The trouble is that although each group
has, and all the groups taken together still more strongly have,
an interest in keeping the expenditures down, each group has also
a direct interest in keeping some particular expenditure up. This
expenditure is usually entirely proper and desirable, save only that
the aggregate of all such expenditures may be so great as to make it
impossible for the nation to go into them.
It is a good deal the same thing in the nation as it is in a State.
The demand may be for a consumptive hospital, or for pensions to
veterans, or for a public building, or for an armory, or for cleaning
out a harbor, or for starting irrigation. In each case the demand
may be in itself entirely proper, and those interested in it, from
whatever motives, may be both sincere and strenuous in their advocacy.
But the President has to do on a large scale what every Governor of a
State has to do on a small scale, that is, balance the demands on the
Treasury with the capacities of the Treasury.
Whichever way he decides, some people are sure to think that he has
tipped the scale the wrong way, and from their point of view they may
conscientiously think it; whereas from his point of view he may know
with equal conscientiousness that he has done his best to strike an
average which would on the one hand not be niggardly toward worthy
objects, and on the other would not lay too heavy a burden of taxation
upon the people.
Inasmuch as these particular questions have to be met every year
in connection with every session of Congress and with the work of
every department, it may readily be seen that even the President’s
every-day responsibilities are of no light order. So it is with his
appointments. Entirely apart from the fact that there is a great
pressure for place, it is also the fact that in all the higher and
more important appointments there are usually conflicting interests
which must somehow be reconciled to the best of the President’s
capacity.
Here again it must be remembered that the matter is not always by any
means one of merely what we call politics. Where there is a really
serious conflict in reference to an appointment, while it may be
merely a factional fight, it is more apt to be because two groups
of the President’s supporters differ radically and honestly on some
question of policy; so that whatever the President’s decision may be,
he can not help arousing dissatisfaction.
One thing to be remembered is that appointments and policies which are
normally routine and unimportant may suddenly become of absolutely
vital consequence. For instance, the War Department was utterly
neglected for over thirty years after the Civil War. This neglect
was due less to the successive Presidents than to Congress, and
in Congress it was due to the fact that the people themselves did
not take an interest in the army. Neither the regular officer nor
the regular soldier takes any part in politics as a rule, so that
the demagogue and the bread-and-butter politician have no fear of
his vote; and to both of them, and also to the cheap sensational
newspaper, the army offers a favorite subject for attack. So it
often happens that some amiable people really get a little afraid of
the army, and have some idea that it may be used some time or other
against our liberties.
The army never has been and, I am sure, it never will be or can be a
menace to anybody save America’s foes, or aught but a source of pride
to every good and far-sighted American. But it is only in time of
actual danger that such facts are brought home vividly to the minds
of our people, and so the army is apt to receive far less than its
proper share of attention. But when an emergency like that caused by
the Spanish War arises, then the Secretary of War becomes the most
important officer in the Cabinet, and the army steps into the place of
foremost interest in all the country.
It is only once in a generation that such a crisis as the Spanish
War or the Mexican War or the War of 1812 has to be confronted, but
in almost every administration lesser crises do arise. They may be
in connection with foreign affairs, as was the case with the Chilean
trouble under President Harrison’s administration, the Venezuelan
matter in President Cleveland’s second term, or the Boxer uprising in
China last year. Much more often they relate to domestic affairs, as
in the case of a disastrous panic, which produces terrible social and
industrial convulsions. Whatever the problem may be, the President has
got to meet it and to work out some kind of a solution. In midwinter
or midsummer, with Congress sitting or absent, the President has
always to be ready to devote every waking hour to some anxious,
worrying, harassing matter, most difficult to decide, and yet which it
is imperative immediately to decide.
An immense addition to the President’s burden is caused by the
entirely well-meaning people who ask him to do what he can not
possibly do. For the first few weeks after the inauguration a new
President may receive on an average fifteen hundred letters a day.
His mail is so enormous that often he can not read one letter in a
hundred, and rarely can he read one letter in ten. Even his private
secretary can read only a small fraction of the mail. Often there are
letters which the President would really be glad to see, but which are
swamped in the great mass of demands for office, demands for pensions,
notes of warning or advice, demands for charity, and requests of every
conceivable character, not to speak of the letters from “cranks,”
which are always numerous in the President’s mail.
One President, who was very anxious to help people whenever he could,
made the statement that the requests for pecuniary aid received in a
single fortnight would, if complied with, have eaten up considerably
more than his entire year’s salary. The requests themselves are
frequently such as the President would like to comply with if there
was any way of making a discrimination; but there is none.
One rather sad feature of the life of a President is the difficulty
of making friends, because almost inevitably after a while the friend
thinks there is some office he would like, applies for it, and when
the President is obliged to refuse, feels that he has been injured.
Those who were closest to Abraham Lincoln have said that this was
one of the things which concerned him most in connection with his
administration. It is hardly necessary to allude to the well-known
fact that no President can gratify a hundredth part of the requests
and demands made upon him for office, often by men who have rendered
him real services and who are fit to fill the position they seek, but
not so fit as somebody else. Of course the man does not realize that
his successful rival was appointed because he really was more fit, and
he goes away sour and embittered because of what he feels to be the
President’s ingratitude.
Perhaps the two most striking things in the Presidency are the immense
power of the President, in the first place; and in the second place,
the fact that as soon as he has ceased being President he goes right
back into the body of the people and becomes just like any other
American citizen. While he is in office he is one of the half-dozen
persons throughout the whole world who have most power to affect the
destinies of the world.
He can set fleets and armies in motion; he can do more than any save
one or two absolute sovereigns to affect the domestic welfare and
happiness of scores of millions of people. Then when he goes out of
office he takes up his regular round of duties like any other citizen,
or if he is of advanced age retires from active life to rest, like any
other man who has worked hard to earn his rest.
One President, John Quincy Adams, after leaving the Presidency,
again entered public life as a Congressman, and achieved conspicuous
successes in the Lower House. This, however, is a unique case. Many
Presidents have followed the examples of Jefferson and Jackson, and
retired, as these two men retired to Monticello and The Hermitage.
Others have gone into more or less active work, as practicing
lawyers or as lecturers on law, or in business, or in some form of
philanthropy.
During the President’s actual incumbency of his office the tendency
is perhaps to exaggerate not only his virtues but his faults. When he
goes out he is simply one of the ordinary citizens, and perhaps for a
time the importance of the rôle he has played is not recognized. True
perspective is rarely gained until years have gone by.
Altogether, there are few harder tasks than that of filling well
and ably the office of President of the United States. The labor
is immense, the ceaseless worry and harassing anxiety are beyond
description. But if the man at the close of his term is able to feel
that he has done his duty well; that he has solved after the best
fashion of which they were capable the great problems with which he
was confronted, and has kept clean and in good running order the
governmental machinery of the mighty Republic, he has the satisfaction
of feeling that he has performed one of the great world-tasks, and
that the mere performance is in itself the greatest of all possible
rewards.
ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS
SPEECH OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AT THE REUNION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF
THE POTOMAC, G. A. R., AT THE NEW WILLARD HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C.,
FEB. 19, 1902
_Mr. Chairman, Commander-in-Chief, and you, my Comrades_:
I can say that there is nothing else of which I am quite so proud
as having won, in a sense, the right to claim comradeship with you.
And, gentlemen, I recollect speaking with a friend at the time of the
Spanish War as to why we went, and it was agreed that it was simply
because we could not stay away. We had taken to heart the great
object-lesson that you gave. I am very glad to have the chance of
seeing you this evening and of being with you. I would be but a poor
American if I did not appreciate to the full the debt under which
America rests to you, not alone for the lesson in war that you have
given, but for what that lesson teaches as to peace. I meet you here
and I see the general and the man from the ranks honor one another by
the highest title either knows—comrade. I see you applying the great
lesson of brotherhood—the lesson that must be applied in civil life
no less than in military life if we are to work out, as we shall work
out, aright the problems that face the Republic. The war in which I
was engaged was a small affair; but it gave us an understanding of
what you had done and of what you had been through. I know pretty
well what kind of memories you have. I know what you did, what you
risked, what you sacrificed. I know what it meant to you, and I know
why you did it. There are two or three lessons that you taught that
I hope this country will not only never forget, but will never cease
applying. In the first place the motive—the tissue of motives that
spurred you on—the love for liberty, love for union, and the love for
the stable and ordered freedom of a great people. You braved nights
in the freezing mud of the trenches in winter, and the marches under
scorching midsummer suns; fever cots, wounds, insufficient food,
exhausting fatigue of a type that those that have not tried it can
not even understand. You did it without one thought of the trivial
monetary reward at the moment; you did it because your souls spurred
you on. And that is the reason why to this day, when any man speaks
to a body of veterans he speaks to a body of men who are instant to
respond to any call for adherence to a lofty ideal. In other words,
you practiced, and by practicing preached, in the strongest manner,
the ideal of doing your duty, of doing duty when duty calls, without
thought of what the reward might be. In the days when the sad, kindly,
patient Lincoln—mighty Lincoln—stood in the White House like a high
priest of the people, between the horns of the altar, and poured
out the blood of the bravest and best, it was because only by that
sacrifice could the flag that had been rent in sunder once again be
made without a seam. You taught the ideal of duty—duty, a word that
stands above glory, or any other word. Glory is a good word, too, but
duty is a better one.
You taught, in addition to that, brotherhood. In the ranks, as you
stood there shoulder to shoulder, little any one of you cared what the
man next to you was as regarded wealth, trade, or education, if he was
in very truth a man. And, friends, short would have been our shrift
if in our army as a whole there had been any failure to exercise just
that type of judgment—to exercise the judgment on the man as a man;
short would have been our shrift if we had failed to do justice to the
bricklayer on the one hand, or to the banker on the other; if we had
shown either contempt of the one, or the no less mean emotion of envy
for the other. If we are to go on, as we shall and must go on in our
national career, we must apply in the civic life of our nation exactly
the principles which obtained in the Grand Army of the Republic.
There are plenty of foes to fight and we can not afford to have
honest men betrayed into hostility toward one another; betrayed into
acting toward one another in a way that will permanently deteriorate
the standard of our national character. We can afford to disagree
on questions of proper political difference. There are plenty such.
But we can not afford, if we are to remain true to the ideals of the
past, to differ about those ideals. We can not afford to do less than
justice to any man. We can not afford to shrink from seeing that the
right obtains; nor, on the other hand, to rebuke any effort to stir up
those dark and evil forces which lurk in each man’s breast, and which
need to be kept down, not excited.
The Commander-in-Chief spoke of the great and good President—of
President McKinley—who died for the people exactly as Abraham Lincoln
died. You who wore the blue in the early sixties warred against that
spirit of disunion which, if successful, would have meant widespread
governmental anarchy throughout this land. You warred for orderly
liberty. So now it behooves each of us so to conduct his civil life,
so to do his duty as a citizen, that we shall in the most effective
way war against the spirit of anarchy in all its forms. You did mighty
deeds, and you leave us more than mighty deeds, for you leave us the
memory of how you did them. You leave us not only the victory, but
the spirit that lay behind it and shone through it. You leave us not
only the triumph, but the memory of the patient resolution, of the
suffering, of the dogged endurance and heroic daring through which
that triumph came to pass. You in your youth and early manhood took
up the greatest task which fell to the lot of any generation of our
people to perform. You did it well. We have lesser tasks, and yet
tasks of great and vital importance. Woe to us if we do not show
ourselves worthy to be your successors, by doing our lesser tasks with
the same firm determination for right that you displayed when you
fought to a finish the great Civil War, when you upheld the arms of
Abraham Lincoln, and followed to victory the flag of Ulysses S. Grant.
AT THE CHARLESTON EXPOSITION, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 1902
_Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, and you, the Men and Women of the
Palmetto State, Men and Women of the South; my Fellow-citizens of
the Union_:
It is indeed to me a peculiar pleasure to have the chance of coming
here to this Exposition held in your old, your beautiful, your
historic city.
My mother’s people were from Georgia; but before they came to Georgia,
before the Revolution, in the days of Colonial rule, they dwelt for
nearly a century in South Carolina; and therefore I can claim your
State as mine by inheritance no less than by the stronger and nobler
right which makes each foot of American soil in a sense the property
of all Americans.
Charleston is not only a typical Southern city; it is also a city
whose history teems with events which link themselves to American
history as a whole. In the early Colonial days Charleston was the
outpost of our people against the Spaniard in the South. In the days
of the Revolution there occurred here some of the events which vitally
affected the outcome of the struggle for Independence, and which
impressed themselves most deeply upon the popular mind. It was here
that the tremendous, terrible drama of the Civil War opened.
With delicate and thoughtful courtesy you originally asked me to come
to this Exposition on the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. The invitation
not only showed a fine generosity and manliness in you, my hosts,
but it also emphasized as hardly anything else could have emphasized
how completely we are now a united people. The wounds left by the
great Civil War, incomparably the greatest war of modern times, have
healed; and its memories are now priceless heritages of honor alike
to the North and to the South. The devotion, the self-sacrifice,
the steadfast resolution and lofty daring, the high devotion to the
right as each man saw it, whether Northerner or Southerner—all these
qualities of the men and women of the early sixties now shine luminous
and brilliant before our eyes, while the mists of anger and hatred
that once dimmed them have passed away forever.
All of us, North and South, can glory alike in the valor of the men
who wore the blue and of the men who wore the gray. Those were iron
times, and only iron men could fight to its terrible finish the giant
struggle between the hosts of Grant and Lee, the struggle that came to
an end thirty-seven years ago this very day. To us of the present day,
and to our children and children’s children, the valiant deeds, the
high endeavor, and abnegation of self shown in that struggle by those
who took part therein will remain for evermore to mark the level to
which we in our turn must rise whenever the hour of the Nation’s need
may come.
When four years ago this Nation was compelled to face a foreign foe,
the completeness of the reunion became instantly and strikingly
evident. The war was not one which called for the exercise of more
than an insignificant fraction of our strength, and the strain put
upon us was slight indeed compared with the results. But it was a
satisfactory thing to see the way in which the sons of the soldier of
the Union and the soldier of the Confederacy leaped eagerly forward,
emulous to show in brotherly rivalry the qualities which had won
renown for their fathers, the men of the great war. It was my good
fortune to serve under an ex-Confederate general, gallant old Joe
Wheeler, who commanded the cavalry division at Santiago.
In my regiment there were certainly as many men whose fathers had
served in the Southern, as there were men whose fathers had served
in the Northern, army. Among the captains there was opportunity to
promote but one to field rank. The man who was singled out for this
promotion because of conspicuous gallantry in the field was the son of
a Confederate general and was himself a citizen of this, the Palmetto
State; and no American officer could wish to march to battle beside a
more loyal, gallant, and absolutely fearless comrade than my former
captain and major, your fellow-citizen, Micah Jenkins.
A few months ago, owing to the enforced absence of the Governor of
the Philippines, it became necessary to nominate a Vice-Governor to
take his place—one of the most important places in our Government at
this time. I nominated as Vice-Governor an ex-Confederate, General
Luke Wright, of Tennessee. It is therefore an ex-Confederate who now
stands as the exponent of this Government and this people in that
great group of islands in the eastern seas over which the American
flag floats. General Wright has taken a leading part in the work of
steadily bringing order and peace out of the bloody chaos in which
we found the islands. He is now taking a leading part not merely in
upholding the honor of the flag by making it respected as the symbol
of our power, but still more in upholding its honor by unwearied labor
for the establishment of ordered liberty—of law-creating, law-abiding
civil government—under its folds.
The progress which has been made under General Wright and those like
him has been indeed marvelous. In fact, a letter of the General’s the
other day seemed to show that he considered there was far more warfare
about the Philippines in this country than there was warfare in the
Philippines themselves! It is an added proof of the completeness of
the reunion of our country that one of the foremost men who have been
instrumental in driving forward the great work for civilization and
humanity in the Philippines has been a man who in the Civil War fought
with distinction in a uniform of Confederate gray.
If ever the need comes in the future the past has made abundantly
evident the fact that from this time on Northerner and Southerner
will in war know only the generous desire to strive how each can do
the more effective service for the flag of our common country. The
same thing is true in the endless work of peace, the never-ending
work of building and keeping the marvelous fabric of our industrial
prosperity. The upbuilding of any part of our country is a benefit to
the whole, and every such effort as this to stimulate the resources
and industry of a particular section is entitled to the heartiest
support from every quarter of the Union. Thoroughly good national work
can be done only if each of us works hard for himself, and at the same
time keeps constantly in mind that he must work in conjunction with
others.
You have made a particular effort in your Exhibition to get into touch
with the West Indies. This is wise. The events of the last four years
have shown us that the West Indies and the Isthmus must in the future
occupy a far larger place in our national policy than in the past.
This is proved by the negotiations for the purchase of the Danish
Islands, the acquisition of Porto Rico, the preparation for building
an Isthmian canal, and, finally, by the changed relations which these
years have produced between us and Cuba. As a Nation we have especial
right to take honest pride in what we have done for Cuba. Our critics
abroad and at home have insisted that we never intended to leave the
island. But on the 20th of next month Cuba becomes a free republic,
and we turn over to the islanders the control of their own government.
It would be very difficult to find a parallel in the conduct of any
other great State that has occupied such a position as ours. We have
kept our word and done our duty, just as an honest individual in
private life keeps his word and does his duty.
Be it remembered, moreover, that after our four years’ occupation of
the island we turn it over to the Cubans in a better condition than it
ever has been in all the centuries of Spanish rule. This has a direct
bearing upon our own welfare. Cuba is so near to us that we can never
be indifferent to misgovernment and disaster within its limits. The
mere fact that our administration in the island has minimized the
danger from the dreadful scourge of yellow fever, alike to Cuba and
to ourselves, is sufficient to emphasize the community of interest
between us. But there are other interests which bind us together.
Cuba’s position makes it necessary that her political relations with
us should differ from her political relations with other powers. This
fact has been formulated by us and accepted by the Cubans in the Platt
amendments. It follows as a corollary that where the Cubans have thus
assumed a position of peculiar relationship to our political system
they must similarly stand in a peculiar relationship to our economic
system.
We have rightfully insisted upon Cuba adopting toward us an attitude
differing politically from that she adopts toward any other
power; and in return, as a matter of right, we must give to Cuba a
different—that is, a better—position economically in her relations
with us than we give to other powers. This is the course dictated by
sound policy, by a wise and far-sighted view of our own interest, and
by the position we have taken during the past four years. We are a
wealthy and powerful country, dealing with a much weaker one; and the
contrast in wealth and strength makes it all the more our duty to deal
with Cuba, as we have already dealt with her, in a spirit of large
generosity.
This Exposition is rendered possible because of the period of
industrial prosperity through which we are passing. While material
well-being is never all-sufficient to the life of a nation, yet it
is the merest truism to say that its absence means ruin. We need to
build a higher life upon it as a foundation; but we can build little
indeed unless this foundation of prosperity is deep and broad. The
well-being which we are now enjoying can be secured only through
general business prosperity, and such prosperity is conditioned upon
the energy and hard work, the sanity and the mutual respect, of all
classes of capitalists, large and small, of wage-workers of every
degree. As is inevitable in a time of business prosperity, some men
succeed more than others, and it is unfortunately also inevitable that
when this is the case some unwise people are sure to try to appeal to
the envy and jealousy of those who succeed least. It is a good thing
when these appeals are made to remember that while it is difficult
to increase prosperity by law, it is easy enough to ruin it, and that
there is small satisfaction to the less prosperous if they succeed in
overthrowing both the more prosperous and themselves in the crash of a
common disaster.
Every industrial exposition of this type necessarily calls up the
thought of the complex social and economic questions which are
involved in our present industrial system. Our astounding material
prosperity, the sweep and rush rather than the mere march of our
progressive material development, have brought grave troubles in
their train. We can not afford to blink these troubles, any more than
because of them we can afford to accept as true the gloomy forebodings
of the prophets of evil. There are great problems before us. They
are not insoluble, but they can be solved only if we approach them
in a spirit of resolute fearlessness, of common-sense, and of honest
intention to do fair and equal justice to all men alike. We are
certain to fail if we adopt the policy of the demagogue who raves
against the wealth which is simply the form of embodied thrift,
foresight, and intelligence; who would shut the door of opportunity
against those whose energy we should especially foster, by penalizing
the qualities which tell for success. Just as little can we afford to
follow those who fear to recognize injustice and to endeavor to cut it
out because the task is difficult or even—if performed by unskilful
hands—dangerous.
This is an era of great combinations both of labor and of capital. In
many ways these combinations have worked for good; but they must work
under the law, and the laws concerning them must be just and wise, or
they will inevitably do evil; and this applies as much to the richest
corporation as to the most powerful labor union. Our laws must be
wise, sane, healthy, conceived in the spirit of those who scorn the
mere agitator, the mere inciter of class or sectional hatred; who wish
justice for all men; who recognize the need of adhering so far as
possible to the old American doctrine of giving the widest possible
scope for the free exercise of individual initiative, and yet who
recognize also that after combinations have reached a certain stage
it is indispensable to the general welfare that the Nation should
exercise over them, cautiously and with self-restraint, but firmly,
the power of supervision and regulation.
Above all, the administration of the government, the enforcement of
the laws, must be fair and honest. The laws are not to be administered
either in the interest of the poor man or the interest of the rich
man. They are simply to be administered justly; in the interest of
justice to each man be he rich or be he poor—giving immunity to
no violator, whatever form the violation may assume. Such is the
obligation which every public servant takes, and to it he must be true
under penalty of forfeiting the respect both of himself and of his
fellows.
And now, my fellow-countrymen, in closing I am going to paraphrase
something said by Governor Aycock last night. I have dwelt to-day upon
the fact that we are indeed a reunited people; that we are indeed and
forever one people. The time was when one could not have made that
statement with truth; now it can be truthfully said. There was a time
when it was necessary to keep saying it, because it was already true,
and because the assertion made it more true; but the time is at hand,
I think the time has come, when it is not necessary to say it again.
Proud of the South? Of course we are proud of the South; not only
Southerners, but Northerners are proud of the South. Proud of your
great deeds? Of course I am proud of your great deeds, for you are
my people. I thank you from my heart for the welcome you have given
me, and I assure you that few experiences in my life have been more
pleasant than the experiences of these two days that I have spent
among you.
AT NEW YORK AT THE BANQUET AT SHERRY’S IN HONOR OF DR. NICHOLAS
MURRAY BUTLER, PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, APRIL 19, 1902
_Mr. Chairman, and you, my hosts, and my Fellow-Guests_:
What I am going to say to-night will be based upon the altogether
admirable address made this afternoon by my old and valued friend,
the new president of your great university, in the course of which
he spoke of what the university can contribute to the state as being
scholarship and service. There are only a limited number of men of any
university who can add to what has been so well called by Professor
Munsterberg “productive scholarship.” Of course each university should
bend its energies toward developing the few men who are thus able
to add to the sum of the nation’s work in scholarly achievement. To
those men the all-important doctrine to preach is that one piece of
first-rate work is worth a thousand pieces of second-rate work; and
that after a generation has passed each university will be remembered
by what its sons have produced, not in the line of a mass of pretty
good work, but in the way of the few masterpieces. I do not intend,
however, to dwell upon this side of the university’s work, the work of
scholarship, the work of the intellect trained to its highest point
of productiveness. I want to speak of the other side, the side that
produces service to the public, service to the nation. Not one in a
hundred of us is fit to be in the highest sense a productive scholar,
but all of us are entirely fit to do decent service if we care to take
the pains. If we think we can render it without taking the pains, if
we think we can render it by feeling how nice it would be to render
it—why, the value of that service will be but little.
Fortunately to-day those who addressed you had a right to appeal not
merely to what they had spoken, but to what they had done. When we
are inclined to be pessimistic over affairs, and especially public
affairs here in the United States, it is a pleasant thing to be able
to look back to the last twenty years of the life of Columbia’s late
President, Mayor Low. And now, for a moment, look at things in their
pure historic perspective. Think what it means in the way of an
object-lesson to have a man who, after serving two terms as Mayor of
what is now one of the great boroughs of this great city, then became
for twelve years the President of one of the foremost institutions
of learning in the entire land, and then again became the chief
officer of the city. That was not merely creditable to Mr. Low; it was
creditable to us. It spoke well for the city. It is a big mark on the
credit side. We have plenty of marks on the debit side; but we feel
that this goes a long way toward making the balance even.
As for the Dean—why, I sat at the feet of that Gamaliel when I first
went into politics. He and I took part in the affairs of the old
Twenty-first Assembly District in the days when I was just out of
college. My very first experiences in practical politics were gained
in connection with the Dean. And, gentlemen, as I gradually passed out
of the sphere of the Dean, I passed into the sphere of your present
President, and he has been my close friend, my valued adviser, ever
since.
When it comes to rendering service, that which counts chiefly with a
college graduate, as with any other American citizen, is not intellect
so much as what stands above mere power of body, or mere power of
mind, but must in a sense include them, and that is character. It
is a good thing to have a sound body, and a better thing to have a
sound mind; and better still to have that aggregate of virile and
decent qualities which we group together under the name of character.
I said both decent and virile qualities—it is not enough to have one
or the other alone. If a man is strong in mind and body and misuses
his strength then he becomes simply a foe to the body politic, to
be hunted down by all decent men; and if, on the other hand, he has
thoroughly decent impulses but lacks strength he is a nice man, but
does not count. You can do but little with him.
In the unending strife for civic betterment, small is the use of
these people who mean well, but who mean well feebly. The man who
counts is the man who is decent and who makes himself felt as a force
for decency, for cleanliness, for civic righteousness. He must have
several qualities; first and foremost, of course, he must be honest,
he must have the root of right thinking in him. That is not enough.
In the next place he must have courage; the timid good man counts
but little in the rough business of trying to do well the world’s
work. And finally, in addition to being honest and brave he must have
common-sense. If he does not have it, no matter what other qualities
he may have he will find himself at the mercy of those who, without
possessing his desire to do right, know only too well how to make the
wrong effective.
To you, the men of Columbia here, the men of this great city, and the
men who, when they graduate, go to other parts of the country, we have
the right to look in an especial degree for service to the public.
To you much has been given, and woe and shame to you if we can not
rightfully expect much from you in return.
We can pardon the man who has no chance in life if he does but little
for the State, and we can count it greatly to his credit if he does
much for the State. But upon you who have had so much rests a heavy
burden to show that you are worthy of what you have received. A double
responsibility is upon you to use aright, not merely the talents that
have been given to you, but the chances you have to make much of these
talents. We have a right to expect service to the State from you in
many different lines: In the line of what, for lack of a better word,
we will call philanthropy; in all lines of effort for public decency.
Remember always that the man who does a thing so that it is worth
doing is always a man who does his work for the work’s sake. Somewhere
in Ruskin there is a sentence to the effect that the man who does a
piece of work for the fee, normally does it in a second-rate way,
and that the only first-rate work is the work done by the man who
does it for the sake of doing it well, who counts the deed as itself
his reward. In no kind of work done for the public do you ever find
the really best, except where you find the man who takes hold of it
because he is irresistibly impelled to do it, because he wishes to do
it for the sake of doing it well, not for the sake of any reward that
comes afterward or in connection with it. Of course, gentlemen, that
is true of almost every other walk of life, just exactly as true as it
is in politics. A clergyman is not worth his salt if he finds himself
bound to be a clergyman for the material reward of that profession.
Every doctor who has ever succeeded has been a man incapable of
thinking of his fee when he did a noteworthy surgical operation. A
scientific man, a writer, a historian, an artist, can only be a good
man of science, a first-class artist, a first-class writer, if he does
his work for the sake of doing it well; and this is exactly as true
in political life, exactly as true in every form of social effort, in
every kind of work done for the public at large. The man who does work
worth doing is the man who does it because he can not refrain from
doing it, the man who feels it borne in on him to try that particular
job and see if he can not do it well. And so it is with a general in
the field. The man in the Civil War who thought of any material reward
for what he did was not among the men whose names you read now on the
honor roll of American history.
So the work that our colleges can do is to fit their graduates to do
service—to fit the bulk of them, the men who can not go in for the
highest type of scholarship, to do the ordinary citizen’s service for
the country; and they can fit them to do this service only by training
them in character. To train them in character means to train them not
only to possess, as they must possess, the softer and gentler virtues,
but also the virile powers of a race of vigorous men, the virtues of
courage, of honesty—not merely the honesty that refrains from doing
wrong, but the honesty that wars aggressively for the right—the
virtues of courage, honesty, and, finally, hard common-sense.
TO THE GRADUATING CLASS, NAVAL ACADEMY, ANNAPOLIS, MD., MAY 2, 1902
_Gentlemen of the Graduating Class_:
In receiving these diplomas you become men who above almost any
others of the entire Union are to carry henceforth ever-present with
you the sense of responsibility which must come if you are worthy of
wearing the uniform; which must come with the knowledge that on some
tremendous day it may depend upon your courage, your preparedness,
your skill in your profession, whether or not the nation is again to
write her name on the world’s roll of honor or is to know the black
shame of defeat. We all of us earnestly hope that the occasion for war
may not arise, but if it has to come then this nation must win; and
as Dr. Winston has pointed out, in winning the prime factor must of
necessity be the United States Navy. If the navy fails us then we are
doomed to defeat. It should therefore be an object of prime importance
for every patriotic American to see that the navy is built up; and
that it is kept to the highest point of efficiency both in personnel
and material. Above all, it can not be too often repeated to those
representatives of the nation in whose hands the practical application
of the principle lies, that in modern naval war the chief factor
in achieving triumph is what has been done in the way of thorough
preparation and training before the beginning of the war. It is what
has been done before the outbreak of war that counts most. After the
outbreak, all that can be done is to use to best advantage the great
war engines, and the seamanship, marksmanship, and general practical
efficiency which have already been provided by the forethought of
the national legislature and by the administrative ability, through
a course of years, of the Navy Department. A battleship can not be
improvised. It takes years to build. And we must learn that it is
exactly as true that the skill of the officers and men in handling
a battleship aright can likewise never be improvised; that it must
spring from use and actual sea service, and from the most careful,
zealous, and systematic training. You to whom I am about to give these
diplomas now join the ranks of the officers of the United States Navy.
You enter a glorious service, proud of its memories of renown. You
must keep ever in your minds the thought of the supreme hour which
may come when what you do will forever add to or detract from that
renown. Some of you will have to do your part in helping construct the
ships and the guns which you use. You need to bend every energy toward
making these ships and guns in all their details the most perfect
of their kind throughout the world. The ship must be seaworthy, the
armament fitted for best protection to the guns and men, the guns in
all their mechanism fit to do the greatest possible execution in the
shortest possible time. Every detail, whether of protection to the
gun-crews, of rapidity and sureness in handling the ammunition and
working the elevating and revolving gear, or of quickness and accuracy
in sighting, must be thought out far in advance, and the thought
carefully executed in the actual work. But after that has been done it
remains true that the best ships and guns, the most costly mechanism,
are utterly valueless if the men have not been trained to use them to
the best possible advantage. From now on throughout your lives there
can be no slackness in the performance of duty on your part. Much
has been given you, and much will be expected from you. Your duty
must be ever present with you, waking and sleeping. You must train
yourselves, and you must train those under you, in the actual work of
seamanship, in the actual work of gunnery. If the day for battle comes
you will need all that you possess of boldness, skill, determination,
ability to bear punishment, and instant readiness in an emergency.
Without these qualities you can do nothing, yet even with them you
can do but little if you have not had the forethought and set purpose
to train yourselves and the enlisted men under you aright. Officers
and men alike must have the sea habit; officers and men alike must
realize that in battle the only shots that count are the shots that
hit, and that normally the victory will lie with the side whose shots
hit oftenest. Of course you must have the ability to stand up to the
hammering; the courage, the daring, the resolution to endure; but I
take it for granted you will have those qualities. It is less to be
thought to your credit to have them than it would be eternally to
your discredit to lack them. I take it for granted you will have the
courage we have a right to expect to go with American seamanship; that
you will have the daring and the resolution. And I ask that you make
it from now on your object to see that if ever the day should arise,
your courage, your readiness, your eager desire to win fresh renown
for the flag be made good by the training you have given yourselves
and those under you in the practical work of your profession in
seamanship and gunnery.
AT THE BANQUET OF THE SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTION, WASHINGTON, D. C., MAY 2, 1902
_Mr. Toastmaster; Mr. President; Compatriots; and Fellow-Americans_:
It is a pleasure to take part in greeting you this evening. Societies
that cultivate patriotism in the present by keeping alive the memory
of what we owe to the patriotism of the past, fill an indispensable
function in this Republic. You come here to-night from every
quarter—from every State of the Republic and from the islands of the
Eastern Seas. The Republic has put up its flag in those islands, and
the flag will stay there.
I am glad to meet you here to-night—you, the descendants of the
statesmen and soldiers who fought to establish this country in 1776,
some of the older among whom, and the fathers of the others, fought
with no less valor wearing the blue or the gray in the Civil War. May
we now show our fealty to the great men who did the great deeds of the
past, not alone by word but by deed! May we prove ourselves true to
them, not merely by paying homage to their memory, but by so shaping
the policy of this great Republic as to make it evident that we are
not unworthy of our sires. They did justice, and we will do justice.
They did justice as strong men, not as weaklings; and we will show
ourselves strong men and not weaklings.
Before me I see men who lived in iron times, men who did great
deeds. I see here a delegate from Kentucky who served under Farragut
in the great days of the Civil War. I see a descendant of a man
from Connecticut who was called Brother Jonathan. All around these
tables are gathered men the names of whose ancestors stand not
only for righteousness but also for strength—for both qualities,
gentlemen. Righteousness finds weakness but a poor yoke-fellow. With
righteousness must go strength to make that righteousness of avail.
And in the names of the mighty men of the past I ask each man here to
do his part in seeing that this nation remains true in deed as well
as in word to the ideals of the past; to remember that we can no more
afford to show weakness than we can afford to do wrong. Where wrong
has been done by any one the wrongdoer shall be punished; but we shall
not halt in our great work because some man has happened to do wrong.
Honor to the statesmen of the past, and may the statesmen of the
present strive to live up to the example they set! Honor to the army
and navy of the past! And honor to those gallant Americans wearing the
uniform of the American Republic who in the army and the navy of the
present day uphold gloriously the most glorious traditions of the past!
Another thing, compatriots of the Society of the Sons of the American
Revolution: We are Americans, and that means that we treat Americanism
primarily as a matter of spirit and purpose, and in the broadest sense
we regard every man as a good American, whatever his creed, whatever
his birthplace, if he is true to the ideals of this Republic.
To-day I have been down to Annapolis to see the graduating class of
the Naval Academy; and it would have done your hearts good to have
seen those fine, manly, upstanding young fellows who looked every man
straight in the face without flinching. We may be sure that the honor
of the Republic is safe in their hands.
I was glad to meet those young fellows to-day. I am glad to meet
representatives of the navy like you, Admiral Watson, and of the army
like you, General Breckenridge. I am glad that we as Americans have
cause to be proud of the army and the navy of the United States—of the
men who in the past have upheld the honor of the flag, and of their
successors, the soldiers and sailors of the present day, who during
the last three years have done such splendid work in the inconceivably
dangerous and harassing warfare of the eastern tropics.
AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNERSTONE OF THE McKINLEY MEMORIAL OHIO
COLLEGE OF GOVERNMENT OF THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D. C.,
MAY 14, 1902
_Ladies and Gentlemen_:
I am to say but one word. Nothing more need be said than has been said
already by those who have addressed you this afternoon—the statesmen
who worked with McKinley and the pastor under whose ministrations he
sat.
It is indeed appropriate that the Methodists of America—the men
belonging to that religious organization which furnished the pioneers
in carving out of the West what is now the heart of the great
American Republic—should found this great university in the city of
Washington and should build the college that is to teach the science
of government in the name of the great exponent of good and strong
government who died last fall, who died as truly for this country as
Abraham Lincoln himself.
I thank you for having given me the opportunity this afternoon to come
before you and to lay the cornerstone of this building.
AT THE EXERCISES OF THE SOCIETY OF THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND,
ATTENDING THE REBURIAL OF MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM STARK ROSECRANS,
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, WASHINGTON, D. C., MAY 17, 1902
_Speaker Henderson; and you, the Comrades of the Great Chief whose
reburial in the National Cemetery here at Arlington we have met
together to commemorate_:
Speaker Henderson in his address has well said that the builder rather
than the destroyer is the man most entitled to honor among us; that
the man who builds up is greater than he who tears down; and that our
homage should be for the fighting man who not only fought worthily
but fought in a worthy cause. Therefore for all time, not merely the
people of this great reunited country but the nations of mankind
who see the hope for ordered liberty in what this country has done,
will hold you, the men of the great Civil War, and the leaders like
him whose mortal remains are to be put to-day in their final resting
place, in peculiar honor because you were soldiers who fought to
build; you were upbuilders; you were the men to whose lot it fell to
save, to perpetuate, to make stronger the great national fabric, the
foundations of which had been laid by the men who fought under him
whose home at Mount Vernon stands as an equally prized memorial of
the past with Arlington. It is no chance that has made Mount Vernon
and Arlington, here in the neighborhood of Washington, the two great
memorials of the nation’s past. One commemorates the founding and the
other the saving of the nation. If it were not for what Arlington
symbolizes, Mount Vernon would mean little or nothing. If it were not
for what was done by Rosecrans and his fellows, the work of Washington
would have crumbled into bloody chaos and the deeds of the founders
of this Republic be remembered only because they had begun another
of the many failures to make practical the spirit of liberty in this
world. Without the work that you did the work of the men who fought
the Revolution to a successful close would have meant nothing. To
you it was given to do the one great work which if left undone would
have meant that all else done by our people would have counted for
nothing. And you left us a reunited country, and therefore the right
of brotherhood with and of pride in the gallantry and self-devotion
of those who wore the gray, who were pitted against you in the great
struggle. The very fact that we appreciate more and more as the years
go on the all-importance to this country and to mankind of your
victory, makes it more and more possible for us to recognize in the
heartiest and frankest manner the sincerity, the self-devotion, the
fealty to the right as it was given to them to see the right, of our
fellow Americans against whom you fought—and now the reunion is so
complete that it is useless to allude to the fact that it is complete.
And you left us another lesson in brotherhood. To-day you come here,
comrades of the Army of the Cumberland—the man who had a commission
and the man who fought in the ranks—brothers, because each did what
there was in him to do for the right. Each did what he could and all
alike shared equally in the glory of the deed that was done. Officer
and enlisted man stand at the bar of history to be judged not by the
difference of rank, but by whether they did their duties in their
respective ranks. And oh, of how little count, looking back, the
difference of rank compared with the doing of the duty! What was true
then is true now. Doing the duty well is what counts. In any audience
of this kind one sees in the highest official and social position men
who fought as enlisted men in the armies of the Union or in the armies
of the Confederacy. All we ask is, did they do their duty? If they
did, honor to them! Little we care what particular position they held,
save insofar as the holding of exalted position gave the men a chance
to do great and peculiar service.
I shall not try to eulogize the dead General in the presence of his
comrades, in the presence of his countrymen who have come to honor
the memory of the man against whom they were pitted in the past—who
come here because they now, like us, are Americans and nothing else,
devoted to the Union and to one flag. I shall not try to speak of his
services in the presence of those who fought through the Civil War,
who risked the loss of life, who endured the loss of limb, who fought
as enlisted men or came out boys not yet ready to enter college but
able to bear commissions in the army of the United States, as the
result of three or four years of service with the colors. There are
those of each class of whom I have spoken who have addressed or will
address you to-day. They are entitled to speak as comrades of the
great dead. But the younger among us are only entitled to pay to the
great dead the homage of those to whom ordered liberty has been handed
down as a heritage because of the blood, and of the sweat, and of the
toil of the men who fought to a finish the great Civil War. Great were
the lessons you taught us in war. Great have been the lessons you have
taught us in peace since the war. Sincerely and humbly the men who
came after you hasten to acknowledge the debt that is owing to you.
You were the men of the mighty days who showed yourselves equal to
the days. We have to-day lesser tasks; and shame to us if we flinch
from doing or fail to do well these lesser tasks, when you carried to
triumphant victory a task as difficult as that which was set you! Here
in the presence of one of the illustrious dead whose names will remain
forever on the honor roll of the greatest Republic upon which the sun
has ever shone, it behooves all of us, young and old, solemnly and
reverently to pledge ourselves to continue undimmed the traditions you
have left us; to do the work, whatever that work may be, necessary
to make good the work that you did; to acknowledge the inspiration
of your careers in war and in peace; and to remind ourselves once
for all that lip loyalty is not the loyalty that counts. The loyalty
that counts is the loyalty which shows itself in deeds rather than in
words; and therefore we pledge ourselves to make good by our lives
what you risked your lives to gain and keep for the nation as a whole.
AT THE CENTENNIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF HOME MISSIONS OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK, N. Y., ON THE EVENING
OF MAY 20, 1902
_Mr. Chairman; and you, my friends—for if this meeting means
anything, it means a commemoration of the embodied spirit of
friendship and righteousness working through the Church through
generations—_
I am glad to have the chance of greeting you to-night. I belong to a
closely allied Church—the Dutch Reformed. I want to tell you a curious
incident which was mentioned to me by one of the two gentlemen who,
on your behalf, met me this evening and brought me up here. Mr. Ogden
mentioned to me that two hundred and sixty or seventy years ago, the
first church of my denomination here in this city was put up under
contract by his ancestors, who then dwelt in Connecticut. It is, I
think, in a sense symbolical of how much the Church has counted in
the life of our people that the descendants of those who worshiped
in that church and of those who under contract put it up, should be
meeting here this evening. I have another bond with you. There are not
very many Dutch Reformed churches in this city; not quite as many as
there should be; and during a considerable portion of my life I have
had to go to a Presbyterian church, because there was not a Reformed
church to attend. All of my early years I went to the Madison Square
Presbyterian Church, which then had as its pastor Dr. Adams. Those of
you who remember him will agree with me that he was one of the very
few men concerning whom it was not inappropriate to use the adjective
by which I shall describe him, for he was in very truth a saintly man.
It is a pleasure on behalf of the people of the United States to greet
you and bid you welcome on this hundredth anniversary of the beginning
of organized home missionary work by the Presbyterian Church. In one
sense of course all earnest and fervent church work is a part of home
missionary work. Every earnest and zealous believer, every man or
woman who is a doer of the word and not a hearer only, is a lifelong
missionary in his or her field of labor—a missionary by precept,
and, by what counts a thousandfold more than precept, by practice.
Every such believer exerts influence on those within reach, somewhat
by word and infinitely more through the ceaseless, wellnigh unfelt
pressure—all the stronger where its exercise is unconscious—the
pressure of example, broad charity, and neighborly kindness.
But to-night we celebrate one hundred years of missionary work done
not incidentally, but with set purpose; a hundred years of effort
to spread abroad the Gospel and lay the moral foundation upon which
all true national greatness must rest. The century that has closed
has seen the conquest of this continent by our people. To conquer a
continent is rough work. All really great work is rough in the doing,
though it seems smooth enough to those who look back upon it, or to
the contemporaries who overlook it from afar. We need display but
scant patience with those who, sitting at ease in their own homes,
delight to exercise a querulous and censorious spirit of judgment
upon their brethren who, whatever their shortcomings, are doing
strong men’s work as they bring the light of civilization into the
world’s dark places. The criticism of those who live softly, remote
from the strife, is of little value; but it would be difficult to
overestimate the value of the missionary work of those who go out to
share the hardship, and, while sharing it, not to talk, but to wage
war against the myriad forms of brutality. It is such missionary work
that prevents the pioneers from sinking perilously near the level of
the savage race against which they war. Without it the conquest of
this continent would have had little but an animal side. Without it
the pioneers’ fierce and rude virtues and sombre faults would have
remained unlit by the flame of pure and loving aspiration. Without it
the life of this country would have been a life of inconceivably hard
and barren materialism. Because of it, because of the spirit that lay
under those missionaries’ work, deep beneath and through the national
character runs that power of firm adherence to a lofty ideal upon
which the safety of the nation will ultimately depend.
Honor, thrice honor to those who for three generations, during the
period of this people’s great expansion, have seen that the force of
the living truth expanded as the nation expanded! They bore the burden
and heat of the day, they toiled obscurely and died unknown, that we
might come into a glorious heritage. Let us prove the sincerity of our
homage to their faith and their works by the way in which we manfully
carry toward completion the work they so well began.
Friends, I made up my mind coming up here that I would speak to you
of something that has taken place to-day and of something else that
has taken place within the last ten days. First of the action of
this nation which has culminated on this Tuesday, the twentieth of
May, nineteen hundred and two, in starting a free Republic on its
course. That represented four years’ work. There were blunders and
shortcomings in the work, of course; and there were men of little
faith who could only see the blunders and shortcomings. But it
represents work triumphantly done. And I think that we as citizens
of this Republic have a right to feel proud that we kept our pledge
to the letter, and that we have established a new international
precedent. I do not remember (and I have thought a good deal about
it, ladies and gentlemen) another case in modern times where, as a
result of such a war, the victorious nation has contented itself
with setting a new nation free and fitting it as well as could be
done to start well in the difficult path of self-government. Mere
anarchy and ruin would have fallen upon the island if we had contented
ourselves with simple victory in the war and then had turned the
island loose to shift for itself. For over three years the harder
work of peace has supplemented the hard work of war; for over three
years our representatives in the island (representatives largely of
the army, remember—I sometimes hear the army attacked; gentlemen, I
have even heard missionaries attacked. But it is well for us that when
there comes a great work in peace or in war we have the army as an
instrument for it), our representatives in Cuba have steadily worked
to build up a school system, to see to sanitation, to preserve order
and secure the chance for the starting of industries; to do everything
in our power so that the new government might begin with the chances
in its favor. And now as a nation we bid it Godspeed. We intend to see
that it has all the aid we can give it, and I trust and believe that
our people will, through their national legislature, see to it very
shortly that Cuba has the advantage of entering into peculiarly close
relations with us in our economic system.
That is the deed that was consummated to-day; now for the other.
Ten days or a fortnight ago an appalling calamity befell another
portion of the West Indies; befell islands not in any way under our
flag—islands owning allegiance to two European powers. But their
need was great and our people met that need as speedily as possible.
Congress at once appropriated a large sum of money and through private
gifts great additions were made to that appropriation; and I found, as
usual, the army and navy the instruments through which the work could
be done. I wanted to get men whom I could call on instantly to drop
whatever their work was and go down, with the certainty that neither
pestilence nor the danger from volcanoes or anything else would make
them swerve a half inch—men upon whose absolute integrity and capacity
I could count, as well as on their courage. When I wanted these men
and wanted them at once I turned to the army and the navy. I am sure
that we all feel proud that ships bearing the American flag should
have been the first to carry relief to those who had been stricken
down by so appalling a disaster.
It seems to me that while there is much evil against which we need to
war with all the strength there is in us, and while there are many
tendencies in the complex forces about us which are fraught with
peril to the future welfare of the Republic and of mankind, yet it
is a fine thing to see at the opening of this century such omens of
international brotherhood, of a future when the sense of duty to
one’s neighbor will extend beyond national lines. They are good omens
for the future, these actions: that action which culminated to-day in
establishing the free Republic of Cuba; that action which made our
country the first to reach out a generous and helping hand to those
upon whom calamity had fallen, without regard to what the flag was to
which they paid allegiance.
AT THE OVERFLOW MEETING OF THE CENTENNIAL OF PRESBYTERIAN HOME
MISSIONS, CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NEW YORK, N. Y., MAY 20, 1902
_Mr. Chairman; Ladies and Gentlemen_:
I am glad to have the chance of saying a word to you this evening,
and I know you will pardon me if it is but a word, for I did not
anticipate that there would be another meeting at which to speak.
Of course, the very first thing that any nation has to do is to keep
in order the affairs of its own household; to do that which is best
for its own life. And as has been so well and truthfully said, Dr.
Van Dyke, by you this evening, the vital thing to a nation is the
spiritual, not the material. Napoleon said that in war the moral was
to the material as ten to one; and it is just exactly as true in
civil and social life. I do not mean for one moment to undervalue the
material. We must have thrift, business energy, business enterprise
and all that spring from them, as the foundation upon which we are
to build the great national superstructure. But it is a pretty poor
building if you have nothing but the basement. It is an admirable
thing to have material development, great material riches, if we do
not misestimate the position that that material well-being should
occupy in the nation. It is an admirable thing to have wealth if we
use it aright and understand its relative value compared to the things
of the spirit. Now that sounds like preaching. But it is only an
expression of a political truism if you look at it in the right way.
We have spread during the last century over this whole continent. One
hundred years ago the home missionary work was begun. Do you realize
that at that time any one who went west of the Mississippi went into
a foreign land? He did; and as late as 1846 any one who went, in this
latitude, to the Pacific Coast, went into a foreign land. But as we
expanded nationally, so it was our good fortune that there should go
hand in hand with such expansion the expansion of the church work,
and of all that goes with church work. I do not think we can realize
the all-importance of the way in which the vital need was met by the
men who went out as missionaries, and pastors, and workers in the
little raw, struggling communities whose people were laying deep the
foundations of the great States that to-day fill the valley of the
Mississippi and stud the Pacific Coast. The men who went out have
by their efforts given to what would otherwise have been the merely
material development of our people the spiritual lift that was vital
to it—the spiritual lift that made in the end a great nation instead
of merely a nation of well-to-do people. We want well-to-do people,
but if they are _only_ well-to-do people, they have come far short
of what we have a right to demand. A giant work looms up before the
churches in this country, and it is work which the churches must
do. Our civilization has progressed in many ways for the right; in
some ways it has gone wrong. The tremendous sweep of our industrial
development has already brought us face to face on this continent with
many a problem which has puzzled for generations the wisest people of
the old world. With that growth in the complexity of our civilization,
of our industrialism, has grown an increase in the effective power
alike of the forces that tell for good and of the forces that tell
for evil. The forces for evil, as our great cities grow, become more
concentrated, more menacing to the community, and if the community is
to go forward and not back they must be met and overcome by forces for
good that have grown in corresponding degree. More and more in the
future our churches must realize that we have a right to expect that
they shall take the lead in shaping those forces for good.
I am not going to verge on the domain of theology, and still less
of dogma. I do not think that at the present time there will be any
dissent from the proposition that after all in this work-a-day world
we must largely judge men by their fruits; that we can not accept a
long succession of thistle crops as indicating fig trees; and that we
have a right to look to the churches for setting the highest possible
standard of conduct and of service, public and private, for the whole
land; that the church must make itself felt by finding its expression
through the life work of its members; not merely on Sunday, but on
week days; not merely within these walls, but at home and in business.
We have a right to expect that you will show your faith by your works;
that the people who have the inestimable advantages of the church-life
and the home-life should be made to remember that as much has been
given them, much will be expected of them; that they must lead upright
lives themselves and be living forces in the war for decency among
their surroundings; that we have a right to expect of you and those
like you that you shall not merely speak for righteousness, but do
righteousness in your own homes and in the world at large.
ON THE OCCASION OF THE UNVEILING OF THE SOLDIERS’ AND SAILORS’
MONUMENT AT ARLINGTON, UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF
THE COLONIAL DAMES OF AMERICA, MAY 21, 1902
_Mrs. President, and members of the Society, and you, my comrades,
and, finally, officers and men of the Regular Army, whom we took as
our models in the war four years ago_:
It is a pleasure to be here this afternoon to accept in the name of
the nation the monument put up by your society to the memory of those
who fell in the war with Spain; a short war; a war that called for
the exertion of only the merest fraction of the giant strength of
this nation; but a war, the effects of which will be felt through the
centuries to come, because of the changes it wrought. It is eminently
appropriate that the monument should be unveiled to-day, the day
succeeding that on which the free republic of Cuba took its place
among the nations of the world as a sequel to what was done by those
men who fell and by their comrades in ’98.
And here, where we meet to honor the memory of those who drew the
great prize of death in battle, a word in reference to the survivors:
I think that one lesson every one who was capable of learning anything
learned from his experience in that war was the old, old lesson that
we need to apply in peace quite as much—the lesson that the man
who does not care to do any act until the time for heroic action
comes, does not do the heroic act when the time does come. You all
of you remember, comrades, some man—it is barely possible some of
you remember being the man—who, when you enlisted, had a theory that
there was nothing but splendor and fighting and bloodshed in the war,
and then had the experience of learning that the first thing you had
to do was to perform commonplace duties, and perform them well. The
work of any man in the campaign depended upon the resolution and
effective intelligence with which he started about doing each duty as
it arose; not waiting until he could choose the duty that he thought
sufficiently spectacular to do, but doing the duty that came to hand.
That is exactly the lesson that all of us need to learn in times of
peace. It is not merely a great thing, but an indispensable thing that
the nation’s citizens should be ready and willing to die for it in
time of need; and the presence of no other quality could atone for the
lack of such readiness to lay down life if the nation calls. But in
addition to dying for the nation you must be willing and anxious to
live for the nation, or the nation will be badly off. If you want to
do your duty only when the time comes for you to die, the nation will
be deprived of valuable services during your lives.
I never see a gathering of this kind; I never see a gathering
under the auspices of any of the societies which are organized to
commemorate the valor and patriotism of the founders of this nation;
I never see a gathering composed of the men who fought in the great
Civil War or in any of the lesser contests in which this country has
been engaged, without feeling the anxiety to make such a gathering
feel, each in his or her heart, the all-importance of doing the
ordinary, humdrum, commonplace duties of each day as those duties
arise. A large part of the success on the day of battle is always due
to the aggregate of the individual performance of duty during the
long months that have preceded the day of battle. The way in which
a nation arises to a great crisis is largely conditioned upon the
way in which its citizens have habituated themselves to act in the
ordinary affairs of the national life. You can not expect that much
will be done in the supreme hour of peril by soldiers who have not
fitted themselves to meet the need when the need comes, and you can
not expect the highest type of citizenship in the periods when it
is needed if that citizenship has not been trained by the faithful
performance of ordinary duty. What we need most in this Republic
is not special genius, not unusual brilliancy, but the honest and
upright adherence on the part of the mass of the citizens and of
their representatives to the fundamental laws of private and public
morality—which are now what they have been during recorded history. We
shall succeed or fail in making this Republic what it should be made—I
will go a little further than that—what it shall and must be made,
accordingly as we do or do not seriously and resolutely set ourselves
to do the tasks of citizenship—and good citizenship consists in doing
the many small duties, private and public, which in the aggregate make
it up.
AT ARLINGTON, MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 30, 1902
_Mr. Commander; Comrades; and you, the men and women of the United
States who owe your being here to what was done by the men of the
great Civil War_:
I greet you, and thank you for the honor done me in asking me to
be present this day. It is a good custom for our country to have
certain solemn holidays in commemoration of our greatest men and
of the greatest crises in our history. There should be but few such
holidays. To increase their number is to cheapen them. Washington
and Lincoln—the man who did most to found the Union, and the man
who did most to preserve it—stand head and shoulders above all our
other public men, and have by common consent won the right to this
preëminence. Among the holidays which commemorate the turning points
in American history, Thanksgiving has a significance peculiarly its
own. On July 4 we celebrate the birth of the nation; on this day,
the 30th of May, we call to mind the deaths of those who died that
the nation might live, who wagered all that life holds dear for the
great prize of death in battle, who poured out their blood like water
in order that the mighty national structure raised by the far-seeing
genius of Washington, Franklin, Marshall, Hamilton, and the other
great leaders of the Revolution, great framers of the Constitution,
should not crumble into meaningless ruins.
You whom I address to-day and your comrades who wore the blue beside
you in the perilous years during which strong, sad, patient Lincoln
bore the crushing load of national leadership, performed the one
feat the failure to perform which would have meant destruction to
everything which makes the name America a symbol of hope among the
nations of mankind. You did the greatest and most necessary task which
has ever fallen to the lot of any men on this Western Hemisphere.
Nearly three centuries have passed since the waters of our coasts were
first furrowed by the keels of those whose children’s children were to
inherit this fair land. Over a century and a half of colonial growth
followed the settlement; and now for over a century and a quarter we
have been a nation.
During our four generations of national life we have had to do many
tasks, and some of them of far-reaching importance; but the only
really vital task was the one you did, the task of saving the Union.
There were other crises in which to have gone wrong would have meant
disaster; but this was the one crisis in which to have gone wrong
would have meant not merely disaster but annihilation. For failure at
any other point atonement could have been made; but had you failed
in the iron days the loss would have been irreparable, the defeat
irretrievable. Upon your success depended all the future of the people
on this continent, and much of the future of mankind as a whole.
You left us a reunited country. You left us the right of brotherhood
with the men in gray, who with such courage, and such devotion for
what they deemed the right, fought against you. But you left us much
more even than your achievement, for you left us the memory of how
it was achieved. You, who made good by your valor and patriotism the
statesmanship of Lincoln and the soldiership of Grant, have set as
the standards for our efforts in the future both the way you did your
work in war and the way in which, when the war was over, you turned
again to the work of peace. In war and in peace alike your example
will stand as the wisest of lessons to us and our children and our
children’s children.
Just at this moment the Army of the United States, led by men who
served among you in the great war, is carrying to completion a small
but peculiarly trying and difficult war in which is involved not only
the honor of the flag but the triumph of civilization over forces
which stand for the black chaos of savagery and barbarism. The task
has not been as difficult or as important as yours, but, oh, my
comrades, the men in the uniform of the United States, who have for
the last three years patiently and uncomplainingly championed the
American cause in the Philippine Islands, are your younger brothers,
your sons. They have shown themselves not unworthy of you, and they
are entitled to the support of all men who are proud of what you did.
These younger comrades of yours have fought under terrible
difficulties and have received terrible provocation from a very cruel
and very treacherous enemy. Under the strain of these provocations
I deeply deplore to say that some among them have so far forgotten
themselves as to counsel and commit, in retaliation, acts of
cruelty. The fact that for every guilty act committed by one of our
troops a hundred acts of far greater atrocity have been committed
by the hostile natives upon our troops, or upon the peaceable and
law-abiding natives who are friendly to us, can not be held to excuse
any wrongdoers on our side. Determined and unswerving effort must be
made, and has been and is being made, to find out every instance of
barbarity on the part of our troops, to punish those guilty of it, and
to take, if possible, even stronger measures than have already been
taken to minimize or prevent the occurrence of all such acts in the
future.
Is it only in the army in the Philippines that Americans sometimes
commit deeds that cause all other Americans to regret? No! From time
to time there occur in our country, to the deep and lasting shame
of our people, lynchings carried on under circumstances of inhuman
cruelty and barbarity—cruelty infinitely worse than any that has ever
been committed by our troops in the Philippines; worse to the victims,
and far more brutalizing to those guilty of it. The men who fail to
condemn these lynchings, and yet clamor about what has been done in
the Philippines, are indeed guilty of neglecting the beam in their own
eye while taunting their brother about the mote in his. Understand me.
These lynchings afford us no excuse for failure to stop cruelty in the
Philippines. But keep in mind that these cruelties in the Philippines
have been wholly exceptional, and have been shamelessly exaggerated.
We deeply and bitterly regret that they should have been committed,
no matter how rarely, no matter under what provocation, by American
troops. But they afford far less ground for a general condemnation
of our army than these lynchings afford for the condemnation of the
communities in which they occur. In each case it is well to condemn
the deed, and it is well also to refrain from including both guilty
and innocent in the same sweeping condemnation.
In every community there are people who commit acts of wellnigh
inconceivable horror and baseness. If we fix our eyes only upon
these individuals and upon their acts, and if we forget the far more
numerous citizens of upright and honest life and blind ourselves to
their countless deeds of wisdom and justice and philanthropy, it is
easy enough to condemn the community. There is not a city in this
land which we could not thus condemn if we fixed our eyes solely upon
its police record and refused to look at what it had accomplished for
decency and justice and charity. Yet this is exactly the attitude
which has been taken by too many men with reference to our army in the
Philippines; and it is an attitude iniquitous in its absurdity and its
injustice.
The rules of warfare which have been promulgated by the War Department
and accepted as the basis of conduct by our troops in the field are
the rules laid down by Abraham Lincoln when you, my hearers, were
fighting for the Union. These rules provide, of course, for the
just severity necessary in war. The most destructive of all forms
of cruelty would be to show weakness where sternness is demanded by
iron need. But all cruelty is forbidden, and all harshness beyond
what is called for by need. Our enemies in the Philippines have not
merely violated every rule of war, but have made of these violations
their only method of carrying on the war. Think over that! It is not a
rhetorical statement—it is a bald statement of contemporary history.
They have been able to prolong the war at all only by recourse to
acts each one of which put them beyond the pale of civilized warfare.
We would have been justified by Abraham Lincoln’s rules of war in
infinitely greater severity than has been shown.
The fact really is that our warfare in the Philippines has been
carried on with singular humanity. For every act of cruelty by our
men there have been innumerable acts of forbearance, magnanimity, and
generous kindness. These are the qualities which have characterized
the war as a whole. The cruelties on our part have been wholly
exceptional.
The guilty are to be punished; but in punishing them, let those who
sit at ease at home, who walk delicately and live in the soft places
of the earth, remember also to do them common justice. Let not the
effortless and the untempted rail overmuch at strong men who with
blood and sweat face years of toil and days of agony, and at need
lay down their lives in remote tropic jungles to bring the light
of civilization into the world’s dark places. The warfare that has
extended the boundaries of civilization at the expense of barbarism
and savagery has been for centuries one of the most potent factors in
the progress of humanity. Yet from its very nature it has always and
everywhere been liable to dark abuses.
It behooves us to keep a vigilant watch to prevent these abuses and to
punish those who commit them; but if because of them we flinch from
finishing the task on which we have entered, we show ourselves cravens
and weaklings, unworthy of the sires from whose loins we sprang. Oh,
my comrades, how the men of the present tend to forget not merely
what was done but what was spoken in the past! There were abuses and
to spare in the Civil War; and slander enough, too, by each side
against the other. Your false friends then called Grant a “butcher”
and spoke of you who are listening to me as mercenaries, as “Lincoln’s
hirelings.” Your open foes—as in the resolution passed by the
Confederate Congress in October, 1862—accused you, at great length,
and with much particularity, of “contemptuous disregard of the usages
of civilized war;” of subjecting women and children to “banishment,
imprisonment, and death;” of “murder,” of “rapine,” of “outrages on
women,” of “lawless cruelty,” of “perpetrating atrocities which would
be disgraceful in savages;” and Abraham Lincoln was singled out for
especial attack because of his “spirit of barbarous ferocity.” Verily,
these men who thus foully slandered you have their heirs to-day in
those who traduce our armies in the Philippines, who fix their eyes on
individual deeds of wrong so keenly that at last they become blind to
the great work of peace and freedom that has already been accomplished.
Peace and freedom—are there two better objects for which a soldier can
fight? Well, these are precisely the objects for which our soldiers
are fighting in the Philippines. When there is talk of the cruelties
committed in the Philippines, remember always that by far the greater
proportion of these cruelties have been committed by the insurgents
against their own people—as well as against our soldiers—and that not
only the surest but the only effectual way of stopping them is by the
progress of the American arms. The victories of the American Army have
been the really effective means of putting a stop to cruelty in the
Philippines. Wherever these victories have been complete—and such is
now the case throughout the greater part of the islands—all cruelties
have ceased, and the native is secure in his life, his liberty, and
his pursuit of happiness. Where the insurrection still smoulders there
is always a chance for cruelty to show itself.
Our soldiers conquer; and what is the object for which they
conquer? To establish a military government? No. The laws we are
now endeavoring to enact for the government of the Philippines are
to increase the power and domain of the civil at the expense of the
military authorities, and to render even more difficult than in the
past the chance of oppression. The military power is used to secure
peace, in order that it may itself be supplanted by the civil power.
The progress of the American arms means the abolition of cruelty,
the bringing of peace, and the rule of law and order under the civil
government. Other nations have conquered to create irresponsible
military rule. We conquer to bring just and responsible civil
government to the conquered.
But our armies do more than bring peace, do more than bring order.
They bring freedom. Remember always that the independence of a tribe
or a community may, and often does, have nothing whatever to do with
the freedom of the individual in that tribe or community. There are
now in Asia and Africa scores of despotic monarchies, each of which is
independent, and in no one of which is there the slightest vestige of
freedom for the individual man. Scant indeed is the gain to mankind
from the “independence” of a blood-stained tyrant who rules over
abject and brutalized slaves. But great is the gain to humanity which
follows the steady though slow introduction of the orderly liberty,
the law-abiding freedom of the individual, which is the only sure
foundation upon which national independence can be built. Wherever in
the Philippines the insurrection has been definitely and finally put
down, there the individual Filipino already enjoys such freedom, such
personal liberty under our rule, as he could never even have dreamed
of under the rule of an “independent” Aguinaldian oligarchy.
The slowly-learned and difficult art of self-government, an art
which our people have taught themselves by the labor of a thousand
years, can not be grasped in a day by a people only just emerging
from conditions of life which our ancestors left behind them in the
dim years before history dawned. We believe that we can rapidly teach
the people of the Philippine Islands not only how to enjoy but how
to make good use of their freedom; and with their growing knowledge
their growth in self-government shall keep steady pace. When they
have thus shown their capacity for real freedom by their power of
self-government, then, and not till then, will it be possible to
decide whether they are to exist independently of us or be knit to us
by ties of common friendship and interest. When that day will come
it is not in human wisdom now to foretell. All that we can say with
certainty is that it would be put back an immeasurable distance if we
should yield to the counsels of unmanly weakness and turn loose the
islands, to see our victorious foes butcher with revolting cruelty
our betrayed friends, and shed the blood of the most humane, the most
enlightened, the most peaceful, the wisest and the best of their own
number—for these are the classes who have already learned to welcome
our rule.
Nor, while fully acknowledging our duties to others, need we wholly
forget our duty to ourselves. The Pacific seaboard is as much to us as
the Atlantic; as we grow in power and prosperity so our interests will
grow in that furthest west which is the immemorial east. The shadow
of our destiny has already reached to the shores of Asia. The might
of our people already looms large against the world-horizon; and it
will loom ever larger as the years go by. No statesman has a right to
neglect the interests of our people in the Pacific; interests which
are important to all our people, but of most importance to those of
our people who have built populous and thriving States to the west of
the great watershed of this continent.
This should no more be a party question than the war for the Union
should have been a party question. At this moment the man in highest
office in the Philippine Islands is the Vice-Governor, General Luke
Wright, of Tennessee, who gallantly wore the gray in the Civil War
and who is now working hand in hand with the head of our army in
the Philippines, Adna Chaffee, who in the Civil War gallantly wore
the blue. Those two, and the men under them, from the North and
from the South, in civil life and in military life, as teachers, as
administrators, as soldiers, are laboring mightily for us who live at
home. Here and there black sheep are to be found among them; but taken
as a whole they represent as high a standard of public service as this
country has ever seen. They are doing a great work for civilization,
a great work for the honor and the interest of this nation, and above
all for the welfare of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. All
honor to them; and shame, thrice shame, to us if we fail to uphold
their hands!
AT THE OPENING SESSION OF THE MILITARY SURGEONS’ ASSOCIATION,
WASHINGTON, D. C., JUNE 5, 1902
_Mr. President; Ladies and Gentlemen_:
I am glad to have the opportunity to bid welcome to the members of
this Association and their friends to-day. The men of your Association
combine two professions each of which is rightfully held in high honor
by all capable of appreciating the real work of men—the profession of
the soldier and the profession of the doctor. Conditions in modern
civilization tend more and more to make the average life of the
community one of great ease, compared to what has been the case in
the past. Together with what advantages have come from this softening
of life and rendering it more easy there are certain attendant
disadvantages. It is a very necessary thing that there should be some
professions, some trades, where the same demands are made now as ever
in the past upon the heroic qualities. Those demands are made alike
upon the soldier and upon the doctor; and more upon those who are
both soldiers and doctors, upon the men who have continually to face
all the responsibility, all the risk, faced by their brothers in the
civilian branch of the profession, and who also, in time of war, must
face much the same risks, often exactly the same risks, that are faced
by their brothers in arms whose trade is to kill and not to cure! It
has been my good fortune, gentlemen, to see some of your body at work
in the field, to see them carrying the wounded and the dying from the
firing-line, themselves as much exposed to danger as those they were
rescuing, and to see them working day and night in the field hospital
afterward when even the intensity of the strain could hardly keep them
awake, so fagged out were they by having each to do the work of ten.
I welcome you here, and I am glad to have the chance of seeing
you, and I wish to say a word of congratulation to you upon this
Association. In all our modern life we have found it absolutely
indispensable to supplement the work of the individual by the work of
the individuals gathered into an association. Without this work of
the association you can not give the highest expression to individual
endeavor, and it would be a great misfortune if the military members
of the surgical and medical profession did not take every advantage
of their opportunities in the same way that is taken by the members
of the medical and the surgical professions who are not in the army
or the navy or the marine hospital service—who are in civilian life
outside. I am glad to see you gathered in this association. Just
one word of warning: Pay all possible heed to the scientific side
of your work; perfect yourselves as scientific men able to work
with the best and most delicate apparatus; and never for one moment
forget—especially the higher officers among you—that in time of need
you will have to do your work with the scantiest possible apparatus!
and that then your usefulness will be conditioned not upon the
adequacy of the complaint that you did not have apparatus enough,
but upon what you have done with the insufficient apparatus you had.
Remember that and remember also—and this especially applies to the
higher officers—that you must supplement in your calling the work of
the surgeon with the work of the administrator. You must be doctors
and military men and able administrators.
AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNITED
STATES MILITARY ACADEMY, WEST POINT, JUNE 11, 1902
_Colonel Mills, graduates of West Point, and you, the Men and Women
who are drawn to them by ties of kinship, or by the simple fact that
you are Americans, and therefore of necessity drawn to them_:
I am glad to have the chance of saying a word to you to-day. There
is little need for me to say how well your performance has squared
with the prophetic promise made on your behalf by the greatest of
Americans, Washington. This institution has completed its first
hundred years of life. During that century no other educational
institution in the land has contributed as many names as West Point to
the honor roll of the nation’s greatest citizens.
Colonel Mills, I claim to be a historian, and I speak simply in the
spirit of one, simply as a reciter of facts, when I say what I have
said. And more than that; not merely has West Point contributed a
greater number of the men who stand highest on the nation’s honor
roll, but I think beyond question that, taken as a whole, the average
graduate of West Point, during this hundred years, has given a greater
sum of service to the country through his life than has the average
graduate of any other institution in this broad land. Now, gentlemen,
that is not surprising. It is what we had a right to expect from this
Military University, founded by the nation. It is what we had a right
to expect, but I am glad that the expectation has been made good.
And of all the institutions in this country, none is more absolutely
American, none, in the proper sense of the word, more absolutely
democratic than this.
Here we care nothing for the boy’s birthplace, nor his creed, nor his
social standing; here we care nothing save for his worth as he is able
to show it. Here you represent with almost mathematical exactness all
the country geographically. You are drawn from every walk of life by
a method of choice made to ensure, and which in the great majority
of cases does ensure, that heed shall be paid to nothing save the
boy’s aptitude for the profession into which he seeks entrance. Here
you come together as representatives of America in a higher and more
peculiar sense than can possibly be true of any other institution in
the land, save your sister college that makes similar preparation for
the service of the country on the seas.
This morning I have shaken hands with many of you; and I have met the
men who stand as representatives of every great struggle, every great
forward movement this nation has made for the last fifty-five or sixty
years. There are some still left who took part in the Mexican War,
a struggle which added to this country a territory vaster than has
changed hands in Europe as the result of all the wars of the last two
centuries. I meet, when I see any of the older men among you, men who
took part in the great Civil War, when this nation was tried as in a
furnace; the men who were called upon to do the one deed which had to
be done under penalty of making the memory of Washington himself of
little account, because if you had failed, then failure would also
have been written across the record of his work. Finally, I see the
younger men as well as the older ones, the men whom I myself have
seen taking part in a little war—a war that was the merest skirmish
compared with the struggle in which you fought from ’61 to ’65, and
yet a war that has had most far-reaching effects, not merely upon
the destiny of this nation, but, therefore, upon the destiny of the
world—the war with Spain.
It was my good fortune to see in the campaign in Cuba how the
graduates of West Point handled themselves; to see and to endeavor
to profit by their example. It is a peculiar pleasure to come here
to-day, because I was at that time intimately associated with many of
these, your graduates, who are here. On the day before the San Juan
fight, when we were marched up into position, the officers with whom
I was, lost connection with the baggage and food, and I, for supper
that night, had what Colonel Mills gave me. And the next morning
Colonel Mills was with another West Pointer, gallant Shipp, of North
Carolina. The next morning we breakfasted together. I remember well
congratulating myself that my regiment, a raw volunteer regiment,
could have, to set it an example, men like Mills and Shipp, whose very
presence made the men cool, made them feel collected and at ease.
Mills and Shipp went with our regiment into action. Shortly after it
began Shipp was killed and Colonel Mills received a wound from which
no one of us at the time dreamed that he would recover. I had at that
time in my regiment, as acting second lieutenant, a cadet from West
Point. He was having his holiday; he took his holiday coming down
with us, and just before the assault he was shot, the bullet going, I
think, into the stomach, and coming out the other side. He fell, and
as we came up I leaned over him, and he said, “All right, Colonel, I
am going to get well.” I did not think he was, but I said, “All right,
I am sure you will,” and he did; he is all right now. There was never
a moment during that time, by day or by night, that I was not an
eyewitness to some performance of duty, some bit of duty well done, by
a West Pointer, and I never saw a West Pointer failing in his duty.
I want to be perfectly frank, gentlemen; I _heard_ of two or three
instances; you can not get in any body of men absolute uniformity of
good conduct; but I am happy to say that I never was an eyewitness to
such misconduct. It was my good fortune to see what is the rule, what
is the rule with only the rarest exception; the rule of duty done in
a way that makes a man proud to be an American, the fellow-citizen of
such Americans.
Your duty here at West Point has been to fit men to do well in war.
But it is a noteworthy fact that you also have fitted them to do
singularly well in peace. The highest positions in the land have been
held, not exceptionally, but again and again by West Pointers. West
Pointers have risen to the first rank in all the occupations of civil
life. Colonel Mills, I make the answer that a man who answers the
question must make when I say that, while we had a right to expect
that West Point would do well, we could not have expected that she
would do so well as she has done.
I want to say one word to those who are graduating here, and to the
undergraduates as well. I was greatly impressed the other day by an
article of one of your instructors, himself a West Pointer, in which
he dwelt upon the changed conditions of warfare, and the absolute need
that the man who was to be a good officer should meet those changed
conditions. I think it is going to be a great deal harder to be a
first-class officer in the future than it has been in the past. In
addition to the courage and steadfastness that have always been the
prime requirements in a soldier, you have got to show far greater
fertility of resource and far greater power of individual initiative
than has ever been necessary before if you are to come up to the
highest level of officer-like performance of duty.
As has been well said, the developments of warfare during the last
few years have shown that in the future the unit will not be the
regiment nor the company nor troop; the unit will be the individual
man. The army is to a very great extent going to do well or ill
according to the average of that individual man. If he does not know
how to shoot, how to shift for himself, how both to obey orders and to
accept responsibility when the emergency comes where he will not have
any orders to obey, if he is not able to do all of that, and if in
addition he has not got the fighting edge, you had better have him out
of the army; he will be a damage in it.
In a battle hereafter each man is going to be to a considerable extent
alone. The formation will be so open that the youngest officer will
have to take much of the responsibility that in former wars fell
on his seniors; and many of the enlisted men will have to do most
of their work without supervision from any officer whatsoever. The
man will have to act largely alone, and if he shows a tendency to
huddle up to somebody else his usefulness will be pretty near at an
end. He must draw on his own courage and resourcefulness to meet the
emergencies as they come up. It will be more difficult in the future
than ever before to know your profession, and more essential also; and
you officers, and you who are about to become officers, if you are
going to do well, have got to learn how to perform the duty which,
while become more essential, has become harder to perform.
You want to face the fact and realize more than ever before that the
honor or the shame of the country may depend upon the high average
of character and capacity of the officers and enlisted men, and that
a high average of character and capacity in the enlisted men can to
a large degree be obtained only through you, the officers; that you
must devote your time in peace to bringing up the standard of fighting
efficiency of the men under you, not merely in doing your duty so that
you can not be called to account for failure to perform it, but doing
it in a way that will make any man under you abler to perform his.
I noticed throughout the time that we were in Cuba that the orders
given and executed were of the simplest kind, and that there was
very little manœuvring, practically none of the manœuvring of the
parade-ground. Now, I want you to weigh what I say, for if you take
only half of it, you will invert it. I found out very soon in my
regiment that the best man was the man who had been in the Regular
Army in actual service, out in the West, campaigning on the plains; if
he had been a good man in the Regular Army in actual service on the
plains he was the best man that I could get hold of. On the other
hand, if he had merely served in time of peace a couple of years in
an Eastern garrison, where he did practically nothing outside of
parade grounds and barracks, or if he had been in an ordinary National
Guard regiment, then one of two things was true; if he understood
that he had only learned five per cent of war, he was five per cent
better than any one who had learned none of it, and that was a big
advance; but if he thought he had also learned the other ninety-five
per cent he was worse than any one else. I recollect perfectly one
man who had been a corporal in the Regular Army; this young fellow
joined us sure that he knew everything, confident that war consisted
in nice parade-ground manœuvres. It was almost impossible to turn his
attention from trying the very difficult task of making my cowpunchers
keep in a straight line, to the easier task of training them so that
they could do the most efficient fighting when the occasion arose. He
confused the essentials and the non-essentials. The non-essentials
are so pretty and so easy that it is a great temptation to think that
your duty lies in perfecting yourself and the men under you in them.
You have got to do that, too; but if you only do that you will not be
worth your salt when the day of trial comes.
Gentlemen, I do not intend to try here to preach to you upon the
performance of your duties. It has been your special business to
learn to do that. I do ask you to remember the difference there is
in the military profession now from what it has been in past time;
to remember that the final test of soldiership is not excellence in
parade-ground formation, but efficiency in actual service in the
field, and that the usefulness, the real and great usefulness in the
parade-ground and barracks work comes from its being used not as an
end, but as one of the means to an end. I ask you to remember that.
I do not have to ask you to remember what you can not forget—the
lessons of loyalty, of courage, of steadfast adherence to the highest
standards of honor and uprightness which all men draw in when they
breathe the atmosphere of this great institution.
AT THE HARVARD COMMENCEMENT DINNER, CAMBRIDGE, MASS., JUNE 25, 1902
_Mr. President; President Eliot; and you, my Fellow Harvard Men_:
I am speaking for all of you I am sure—I speak for all Americans
to-day, when I say that we watch with the deepest concern the sick-bed
of the English king, and that all Americans in tendering their hearty
sympathy to the people of Great Britain remember keenly the outburst
of genuine grief with which England last fall greeted the calamity
that befell us in the death of President McKinley.
President Eliot spoke of the service due and performed by the college
graduate to the State. It was my great good fortune five years ago
to serve under your President, the then Secretary of the Navy,
ex-Governor Long, and by a strange turn of the wheel of fate he served
in my Cabinet as long as he would consent to serve, and then I had to
replace him by another Harvard man!
I have been fortunate in being associated with Senator Hoar, and I
should indeed think ill of myself if I had not learned something from
association with a man who possesses that fine and noble belief in
mankind, the lack of which forbids healthy effort to do good in a
democracy like ours. I shall not speak of his associate, the junior
senator, another Harvard man—Cabot Lodge—because it would be difficult
for me to discuss in public one who is my closest, stanchest, and most
loyal personal friend. I have another fellow Harvard man to speak
of to-day, and it is necessary to paraphrase an old saying in order
to state the bald truth, that it is indeed a liberal education in
high-minded statesmanship to sit at the same council table with John
Hay.
In addressing you this afternoon, I want to speak of three other
college graduates, because of the service they have done the public.
If a college education means anything, it means fitting a man to do
better service than he could do without it; if it does not mean that
it means nothing, and if a man does not get that out of it, he gets
less than nothing out of it. No man has a right to arrogate to himself
one particle of superiority or consideration because he has had a
college education, but he is bound, if he is in truth a man, to feel
that the fact of his having had a college education imposes upon him
a heavier burden of responsibility, that it makes it doubly incumbent
upon him to do well and nobly in his life, private and public. I wish
to speak of three men, who, during the past three or four years have
met these requirements—of a graduate of Hamilton College, Elihu Root,
of a graduate of Yale, Governor Taft, and of a fellow Harvard man,
Leonard Wood—men who did things; did not merely say how they ought
to be done, but did them themselves; men who have met that greatest
of our national needs, the need for service that can not be bought,
the need for service that can only be rendered by the man willing to
forego material advantages because it has to be given at the man’s own
material cost.
When in England they get a man to do what Lord Cromer did in Egypt,
when a man returns as Lord Kitchener will return from South Africa,
they give him a peerage, and he receives large and tangible reward.
But our Cromers, our men of that stamp, come back to this country, and
if they are fortunate, they go back to private life with the privilege
of taking up as best they can the strings left loose when they severed
their old connections; and if fortune does not favor them they are
accused of maladversion in office—not an accusation that hurts them,
but an accusation that brands with infamy every man who makes it, and
that reflects but ill on the country in which it is made.
Leonard Wood four years ago went down to Cuba, has served there ever
since, has rendered her literally invaluable service; a man who
through those four years thought of nothing else, did nothing else,
save to try to bring up the standard of political and social life in
that island, to clean it physically and morally, to make justice even
and fair in it, to found a school system which should be akin to our
own, to teach the people after four centuries of misrule that there
were such things as governmental righteousness and honesty and fair
play for all men on their merits as men. He did all this. He is a
man of slender means. He did this on his pay as an army officer. As
Governor of the island sixty millions of dollars passed through his
hands, and he came out having been obliged to draw on his slender
capital in order that he might come out even when he left the island.
Credit to him? Yes, in a way. In another, no particular credit,
because he was built so that he could do nothing else. He devoted
himself as disinterestedly to the good of the Cuban people in all
their relations as man could. He has come back here, and has been
attacked, forsooth, by people who are not merely unworthy of having
their names coupled with his but who are incapable of understanding
the motives that have spurred him on to bring honor to this republic.
And Taft, Judge Taft, Governor Taft, who has been the head of the
Philippine Commission, and who has gone back there—Taft, the most
brilliant graduate of his year at Yale, the youngest Yale man upon
whom Yale ever conferred a degree of LL.D., a man who, having won
high position at the bar, and then served as Solicitor-General at
Washington, was appointed to the United States bench. He was then
asked to sacrifice himself, to give up his position in order to go
to the other side of the world to take up an infinitely difficult,
an infinitely dangerous problem, and do his best to solve it. He has
done his best. He came back here the other day. The man has always
had the honorable ambition to get upon the Supreme Court, and he knew
that I had always hoped that he would be put on the Supreme Court,
and when he was back here a few months ago, and there was a question
of a vacancy arising, I said to him: “Governor, I think I ought to
tell you that if a vacancy comes in the Supreme Court” (which I knew
would put him for life in a position which he would especially like
to have), “I do not see how I could possibly give it to you, for I
need you where you are.” He said to me: “Mr. President, it has always
been my ambition to be on the Supreme Court, but if you should offer
me a justiceship now, and at the same time Congress should take away
entirely my salary as Governor, I should go straight back to the
Philippines, nevertheless, for those people need me, and expect me
back, and believe I will not desert them.” He has gone back, gone back
as a strong friend among weaker friends to help that people upward
along the difficult path of self-government. He has gone to do his
part—and a great part—in making the American name a symbol of honor
and good faith in the Philippine Islands; to govern with justice, and
with that firmness, that absence of weakness, which is only another
side of justice. He has gone back to do all of that because it is his
duty as he sees it. We are to be congratulated, we Americans, that we
have a fellow-American like Taft.
And now Elihu Root, who, unlike myself, Mr. President Eliot, but
like most of you present, comes of the old New England stock, whose
great-grandfather stood beside Leonard Wood’s great-grandfather
among the “embattled farmers” at Concord Bridge; Elihu Root, who had
worked his way up from being a poor and unknown country boy in New
York, to the leadership of the bar of the great city—he gave it up,
made the very great pecuniary sacrifice implied in giving it up, and
accepted the position of Secretary of War, a position which, for
the last three years and at present amounts to being not only the
Secretary of War, but the Secretary for the islands, the Secretary
for the colonies at the same time. He has done the most exhausting
and the most responsible work of any man in the administration, more
exhausting and more responsible work than the work of the President,
because circumstances have been such that with a man of Root’s
wonderful ability, wonderful industry and wonderful conscientiousness,
the President could not help but devolve upon him work that made
his task one under which almost any other man would have staggered.
He has done all this absolutely, disinterestedly. Nothing can come
to Root in the way of reward save the reward that is implied in the
knowledge that he has done something of incalculable importance which
hardly another man in the Union—no other man that I know of—could
have done as well as he has done it. He has before him continually
questions of the utmost intricacy to decide, questions upon which
life and death hang, questions the decision of which will affect our
whole future world policy, questions which affect the welfare of the
millions of people with whom we have been brought into such intimate
contact by the events of the Spanish War, whose welfare must be a
prime consideration from now on with every American public man worthy
to serve his country. Root has done this work with the certainty of
attack, with the certainty of misunderstanding, with the certainty of
being hampered by ignorance (and worse than ignorance). And yet he has
created, not for himself but for the nation also, a wonderful triumph
from all these adverse forces.
Those three men have rendered inestimable service to the American
people. I can do nothing for them. I can show my appreciation of them
in no way save the wholly insufficient one of standing up for them,
and for their work; and that I will do as long as I have tongue to
speak!
AT THE COLISEUM, HARTFORD, CONN., AUGUST 22, 1902
_Mr. Chairman, and you, my Fellow-Americans, men and women of
Hartford_:
I thank you, Senator Platt; through you I thank the State of
Connecticut; Mayor Sullivan, through you I thank the city of Hartford
for the greeting extended to me.
Before beginning the speech that I had intended, and still intend,
to make to you to-night, I wish to allude to an incident that
happened this afternoon. In being driven around your beautiful city,
I was taken through Pope Park, and stopped at a platform where I
was presented with a great horseshoe of flowers, the gift of the
workingmen of Hartford to the President of the United States. In
Father Sullivan’s speech he laid primary stress upon the fact that it
was a gift of welcome from the wage-workers, upon whom ultimately this
government depends. And he coupled the words of giving with certain
sentences in which he expressed his belief that I would do all that
I could to show myself a good representative of the wage-workers. I
should be utterly unfit for the position that I occupy if I failed
to do all that in me lies to act, as light is given me to act, so as
to represent the best thought and purpose of the wage-worker of the
United States. At the outset of the twentieth century we are facing
difficult and complex problems—problems social and economic—which
will tax the best energies of all of us to solve aright, and which
we can only solve at all if we approach them in a spirit not merely
of common-sense, but of generous desire to act each for all and all
for each. While there are occasions when through legislative or
administrative action the governmental representatives of the people
can do especial service to one set of our citizens, yet I think you
will agree with me that in the long run the best way in which to
serve any one set of our citizens is to try to serve all alike well,
to try to act in a spirit of fairness and justice to all—to give to
each man his rights—to safeguard each man in his rights; and so far as
in me lies, while I hold my present position I will be true to that
conception of my duty.
I want to speak to you to-night, not on our internal problems as a
nation, but on some of the external problems which we have had to
face during the last four years. The internal problems are the most
important. Keeping our own household straight is our first duty; but
we have other duties. Just exactly as each man who is worth his salt
must first of all be a good husband, a good father, a good bread
winner, a good man of business, and yet must in addition to that be
a good citizen for the State at large—so a nation must first take
care to do well its duties within its own borders, but must not make
of that fact an excuse for failing to do those of its duties the
performance of which lies without its own borders.
The events of the last few years have forced the American Republic to
take a larger position in the world than ever before, and therefore
more than ever to concern itself with questions of policy coming
without its own borders. As a people we have new duties and new
opportunities both in the tropical seas and islands south of us and in
the furthest Orient. Much depends upon the way in which we meet those
duties, the way in which we take advantage of those opportunities. And
remember this, you never can meet any duty, and after you have met it
say that your action only affected that duty. If you meet it well you
face the next duty a stronger man, and if you meet it ill you face
your next duty a weaker man.
From the days of Monroe, Clay and the younger Adams, we as a people
have always looked with peculiar interest upon the West Indies and
the isthmus connecting North and South America, feeling that whatever
happened there was of particular moment to this nation; and there
is better reason for that feeling now than ever before. The outcome
of the Spanish War put us in possession of Porto Rico, and brought
us into peculiarly close touch with Cuba; while the successful
negotiation of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, and the legislation
following it, at last cleared the way for the construction of the
Isthmian Canal. Porto Rico, it is a pleasure to say, may now serve
as an example of the best methods of administering our insular
possessions. Sometimes we have to learn by experience what to avoid.
It is much pleasanter when one can turn to an experience for the
purpose of learning what to follow; and the last is true of our
experience in Porto Rico. So excellent has been the administration
of the island, so excellent the effect of the legislation concerning
it, that their very excellence has caused most of us to forget all
about it. There is no opportunity for headlines about Porto Rico.
You don’t need to use large letters in order to say that Porto Rico
continues quiet and prosperous. There is hardly a ripple of failure
upon the stream of our success there; and as we don’t have to think of
remedies, we follow our usual custom in these matters, and don’t think
of it at all.
How have we brought that about? First and foremost, in Porto Rico
we have consistently striven to get the very best men to administer
the affairs of the island. It is desirable throughout our public
service to secure a high standard of efficiency and integrity. But
after all, here at home we ourselves always have in our own hands
the remedy whereby to supply any deficiency in integrity or capacity
among those that govern us. That is a fact that seems to have been
forgotten, but it is a fact. In a far-off island things are different.
There wrongdoing is more easy and those that suffer from it are more
helpless; while there is less efficient check in the way of that
public opinion to which public men are sensitive. In consequence,
the administration of those islands is beyond all other kinds of
administration under our government the one in which the highest
standard must be demanded. In making appointments to the insular
service, the appointing power must feel all the time that he is
acting for the country as a whole, in the interest of the good name
of our people as a whole, and any question of mere party expediency
must be wholly swept aside, and the matter looked at solely from the
standpoint of the honor of our own nation and the welfare of the
islands. We have gotten along so well in Porto Rico because we have
acted up to that theory in choosing our men down there—governor,
treasurer, attorney-general, judges, superintendent of education—every
one. You will find among those men all the shades of different
political opinion that we have here at home; but you will find them
knit together by the purpose of administering the affairs of that
island on the highest plane of decency and efficiency.
Besides acting in good faith, we have acted with good sense, and that
is also important. We have not been frightened or misled into giving
to the people of the island a form of government unsuitable to them.
While providing that the people should govern themselves as far as
possible, we have not hesitated in their own interests to keep the
power of shaping their destiny.
In Cuba the problem was larger, more complicated, more difficult.
Here again we kept our promise absolutely. After having delivered the
island from its oppressors, we refused to turn it loose offhand, with
the certainty that it would sink back into chaos and savagery. For
over three years we administered it on a plane higher than it had
ever reached before during the four hundred years that had elapsed
since the Spaniards first landed upon its shores. We brought moral
and physical cleanliness into the government. We cleaned the cities
for the first time in their existence. We stamped out yellow fever—an
inestimable boon not merely to Cuba, but to the people of the Southern
States as well. We established a school system. We made life and
property secure, so that industry could again begin to thrive. Then
when we had laid deep and broad the foundations upon which civil
liberty and national independence must rest, we turned the island
over to the hands of those whom its people had chosen as the founders
of the new republic. It is a republic with which our own great
Republic must ever be closely knit by the ties of common interests
and common inspirations. Cuba must always be peculiarly related to
us in international politics. She must in international affairs be
to a degree a part of our political system. In return she must have
peculiar relations with us economically. She must be in a sense part
of our economic system. We expect her to accept a political attitude
toward us which we think wisest both for her and for us. In return we
must be prepared to put her in an economic position as regards our
tariff system which will give her some measure of the prosperity which
we enjoy. We can not, in my judgment, avoid taking this attitude if we
are to persevere in the course which we have outlined for ourselves
as a nation during the past four years; and therefore I believe that
it is only a matter of time—and I trust only a matter of a very short
time—before we enter into reciprocal trade relations with Cuba.
The Isthmian Canal is to be one of the greatest, probably the
greatest, engineering feat of the 20th century; and I am glad it
is to be done by America. We must take care that it is done under
the best conditions and by the best Americans. There are certain
preliminary matters to settle. When this has been done, the first
question will come upon choosing the commission which is to supervise
the building of the canal. And but one thought here is permissible—how
to get the very best men of the highest engineering and business
and administrative skill, who will consent to undertake the work.
If possible, I wish to see those men represent different sections
and different political parties. But those questions are secondary.
The primary aim must be to get men who, though able to control much
greater salaries than the nation is able to pay, nevertheless possess
the patriotism and the healthy ambition which will make them put their
talents at the government’s service.
So much for what has been done in the Occident. In the Orient the
labor was more difficult.
It is rare indeed that a great work, a work supremely worth doing,
can be done save at the cost not only of labor and toil, but of much
puzzling worry during the time of the performance. Normally, the
nation that achieves greatness, like the individual who achieves
greatness, can do so only at the cost of anxiety and bewilderment and
heart-wearing effort. Timid people, people scant of faith and hope,
and good people who are not accustomed to the roughness of the life
of effort—are almost sure to be disheartened and dismayed by the work
and the worry, and overmuch cast down by the shortcomings, actual or
seeming, which in real life always accompany the first stages even of
what eventually turn out to be the most brilliant victories.
All this is true of what has happened during the last four years in
the Philippine Islands. The Spanish War itself was an easy task, but
it left us certain other tasks which were much more difficult. One of
these tasks was that of dealing with the Philippines. The easy thing
to do—the thing which appealed not only to lazy and selfish men, but
to very many good men whose thought did not drive down to the root of
things—was to leave the islands. Had we done this, a period of wild
chaos would have supervened, and then some stronger power would have
stepped in and seized the islands and have taken up the task which we
in such a case would have flinched from performing. A less easy, but
infinitely more absurd course, would have been to leave the islands
ourselves, and at the same time to assert that we would not permit any
one else to interfere with them. This particular course would have
combined all the possible disadvantages of every other course which
was advocated. It would have placed us in a humiliating position,
because when the actual test came it would have been quite out of the
question for us, after some striking deed of savagery had occurred in
the islands, to stand by and prevent the re-entry of civilization into
them. While the mere fact of our having threatened thus to guarantee
the local tyrants and wrongdoers against outside interference by
ourselves or others, would have put a premium upon every species of
tyranny and anarchy within the islands.
Finally, there was the course which we adopted—not an easy course,
and one fraught with danger and difficulty, as is generally the
case in this world when some great feat is to be accomplished as
an incident to working out national destiny. We made up our minds
to stay in the islands—to put down violence—to establish peace and
order—and then to introduce a just and wise civil rule accompanied
by a measure of self-government which should increase as rapidly
as the islanders showed themselves fit for it. It was certainly a
formidable task; but think of the marvelously successful way in which
it has been accomplished! The first and vitally important feat was
the establishment of the supremacy of the American flag; and this
had to be done by the effort of these gallant fellow-Americans of
ours to whom so great a debt is due—the officers and enlisted men of
the United States regular and volunteer forces. In a succession of
campaigns, carried on in unknown tropic jungles against an elusive
and treacherous foe vastly outnumbering them, under the most adverse
conditions of climate, weather, and country, our troops completely
broke the power of the insurgents, smashed their armies, and harried
the broken robber bands into submission. In its last stages, the war
against our rule sank into mere brigandage; and what our troops had
to do was to hunt down the parties of ladrones. It was not an easy
task which it was humanly possible to accomplish in a month or a year;
and therefore after the first month and the first year had elapsed,
some excellent people said that it couldn’t be done; but it was done.
Month by month, year by year, with unwearied and patient resolution,
our army in the Philippines did the task which it found ready at hand
until the last vestige of organized insurrection was stamped out. I
do not refer to the Moros, with whom we have exercised the utmost
forbearance, but who may force us to chastise them if they persist in
attacking our troops. We will do everything possible to avoid having
trouble with them, but if they insist upon it it will come. Among the
Filipinos proper, however, peace has come. Doubtless here and there
sporadic outbreaks of brigandage will occur from time to time, but
organized warfare against the American flag has ceased, and there is
no reason to apprehend its recurrence. Our army in the islands has
been reduced until it is not a fourth of what it was at the time the
outbreak was at its height.
Step by step as the army conquered, the rule of the military was
supplanted by the rule of the civil authorities—the soldier was
succeeded by the civilian magistrate. The utmost care has been
exercised in choosing the best type of Americans for the high civil
positions, and the actual work of administration has been done, so
far as possible, by native Filipino officials serving under these
Americans. The success of the effort has been wonderful. Never
has this country had a more upright or an abler body of public
representatives than Governor Taft, Vice-Governor Wright, and their
associates and subordinates in the Philippine Islands. It is a very
difficult matter, practically, to apply the principles of an orderly
free government to an Oriental people struggling upward out of
barbarism and subjection. It is a task requiring infinite firmness,
patience, tact, broadmindedness. All these qualities, and the
countless others necessary, have been found in the civil and military
officials who have been sent over to administer the islands. It was,
of course, inevitable that there should be occasional failures;
but it is astonishing how few these have been. Here and there the
civil government which had been established in a given district had
to be temporarily withdrawn because of some outbreak. Let me give
you an idea of some of the difficulties. We have been trying to put
into effect the principle of a popular choice of representative. In
one district it proved to be wholly impossible to make the people
understand how to vote. Finally they took a little hill, and put two
candidates, one on one side and one on the other, and made the people
walk up and stand by the candidate they wanted.
But at last, on the July 4th that has just passed—on the 126th
anniversary of our independence—it was possible at the same time to
declare amnesty throughout the islands and definitely to establish
civil rule over all of them, excepting the country of the Mohammedan
Moros, where the conditions were wholly different. Each inhabitant
of the Philippines is now guaranteed his civil and religious rights,
his rights to life, personal liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
subject only to not infringing the rights of others. It is worth
noting that during these three or four years under us the Philippine
people have attained to a greater degree of self-government, that they
now have more to say as to how they shall be governed, than is the
case with any people in the Orient which is under European rule. Nor
is this all. Congress has, with far-seeing wisdom, heartily supported
all that has been done by the Executive. Wise laws for the government
of the Philippine Islands have been placed upon the statute books,
and under those laws provision is made for the introduction into
the Philippines of representative government, with only the delay
absolutely necessary to allow for the establishment of definite peace,
for the taking of a census, and the settling down of the country. In
short, we are governing the Filipinos primarily in their interest,
and for their very great benefit. And we have acted in practical
fashion—not trying to lay down rules as to what should be done in the
remote and uncertain future, but turning our attention to the instant
need of things and meeting that need in the fullest and amplest way.
It would be hard to say whether we owe most to our military or our
civil representatives in the Philippines. The soldiers have shown
splendid gallantry in the field; and they have done no less admirable
work in preparing the provinces for civil government. The civil
authorities have shown the utmost wisdom in doing a very difficult and
important work, of vast extent. It would be hard to find in modern
times a better example of successful constructive statesmanship than
the American representatives have given to the Philippine Islands.
In the Philippines, as in Cuba, the instances of wrongdoing among
either our civil or military representatives have been astonishingly
few; and punishment has been meted with even-handed justice to all
offenders.
Nor should it be forgotten that while we have thus acted in the
interest of the islanders themselves, we have also helped our own
people. Our interests are as great in the Pacific as in the Atlantic.
The welfare of California, Oregon, and Washington is as vital to
the nation as the welfare of New England, New York, and the South
Atlantic States. The awakening of the Orient means very much to all
the nations of Christendom, commercially no less than politically;
and it would be short-sighted statesmanship on our part to refuse to
take the necessary steps for securing a proper share to our people of
this commercial future. The possession of the Philippines has helped
us, as the securing of the open door in China has helped us. Already
the government has taken the necessary steps to provide for the
laying of a Pacific cable under conditions which safeguard absolutely
the interests of the American public. Our commerce with the East is
growing rapidly. Events have abundantly justified, alike from the
moral and material standpoint, all that we have done in the Far East
as a sequel to our war with Spain.
AT PROVIDENCE, R. I., AUGUST 23, 1902
_Mr. Governor, and you, my Fellow-citizens_:
We are passing through a period of great commercial prosperity, and
such a period is as sure as adversity itself to bring mutterings of
discontent. At a time when most men prosper somewhat some men always
prosper greatly; and it is as true now as when the tower of Siloam
fell upon all alike, that good fortune does not come solely to the
just, nor bad fortune solely to the unjust. When the weather is good
for crops it is good for weeds. Moreover, not only do the wicked
flourish when the times are such that most men flourish, but, what is
worse, the spirit of envy and jealousy springs up in the breasts of
those who, though they may be doing fairly well themselves, see others
no more deserving who do better.
Wise laws and fearless and upright administration of the laws can
give the opportunity for such prosperity as we see about us. But that
is all that they can do. When the conditions have been created which
make prosperity possible, then each individual man must achieve it for
himself by his own energy and thrift and business intelligence. If
when people wax fat they kick, as they have kicked since the days of
Jeshurun, they will speedily destroy their own prosperity. If they go
into wild speculation and lose their heads they have lost that which
no laws can supply. If in a spirit of sullen envy they insist upon
pulling down those who have profited most in the years of fatness,
they will bury themselves in the crash of the common disaster. It is
difficult to make our material condition better by the best laws, but
it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.
The upshot of all this is that it is peculiarly incumbent upon us in
a time of such material well-being, both collectively as a nation and
individually as citizens, to show, each on his own account, that we
possess the qualities of prudence, self-knowledge, and self-restraint.
In our government we need above all things stability, fixity of
economic policy; while remembering that this fixity must not be
fossilization, that there must not be inability to shift our laws so
as to meet our shifting national needs. There are real and great evils
in our social and economic life, and these evils stand out in all
their ugly baldness in time of prosperity; for the wicked who prosper
are never a pleasant sight. There is every need of striving in all
possible ways, individually and collectively, by combinations among
ourselves and through the recognized governmental agencies, to cut out
those evils. All I ask is to be sure that we do not use the knife with
an ignorant zeal which would make it more dangerous to the patient
than to the disease.
One of the features of the tremendous industrial development of the
last generation has been the very great increase in private, and
especially in corporate, fortunes. We may like this or not, just as
we choose, but it is a fact nevertheless; and as far as we can see
it is an inevitable result of the working of the various causes,
prominent among them steam and electricity. Urban population has grown
in this country, as in all civilized countries, much faster than the
population as a whole during the last century. If it were not for
that Rhode Island could not to-day be the State she is. Rhode Island
has flourished as she has flourished because of the conditions which
have brought about the great increase in urban life. There is evil
in these conditions, but you can’t destroy it unless you destroy the
civilization they have brought about. Where men are gathered together
in great masses it inevitably results that they must work far more
largely through combinations than where they live scattered and remote
from one another. Many of us prefer the old conditions of life, under
which the average man lived more to himself and by himself, where the
average community was more self-dependent, and where even though the
standard of comfort was lower on the average, yet there was less of
the glaring inequality in worldly conditions which we now see about us
in our great cities. It is not true that the poor have grown poorer;
but some of the rich have grown so very much richer that, where
multitudes of men are herded together in a limited space, the contrast
strikes the onlooker as more violent than formerly. On the whole, our
people earn more and live better than ever before, and the progress
of which we are so proud could not have taken place had it not been
for the upbuilding of industrial centres, such as this in which I am
speaking.
But together with the good there has come a measure of evil. Life is
not so simple as it was; and surely, both for the individual and the
community, the simple life is normally the healthy life. There is not
in the great cities the feeling of brotherhood which there is still
in country localities; and the lines of social cleavage are far more
deeply marked.
For some of the evils which have attended upon the good of the
changed conditions we can at present see no complete remedy. For
others the remedy must come by the action of men themselves in their
private capacity, whether merely as individuals or by combination.
For yet others some remedy can be found in legislative and executive
action—national, State, or municipal. Much of the complaint against
combinations is entirely unwarranted. Under present day conditions it
is as necessary to have corporations in the business world as it is
to have organizations, unions, among wage-workers. We have a right to
ask in each case only this: that good, and not harm, shall follow.
Exactly as labor organizations, when managed intelligently and in a
spirit of justice and fair play, are of very great service not only
to the wage-workers, but to the whole community, as has been shown
again and again in the history of many such organizations; so wealth,
not merely individual, but corporate, when used aright is not merely
beneficial to the community as a whole, but is absolutely essential to
the upbuilding of such a series of communities as those whose citizens
I am now addressing. This is so obvious that it ought to be too trite
to mention, and yet it is necessary to mention it when we see some of
the attacks made upon wealth, as such.
Of course a great fortune if used wrongly is a menace to the
community. A man of great wealth who does not use that wealth decently
is, in a peculiar sense, a menace to the community, and so is the man
who does not use his intellect aright. Each talent—the talent for
making money, the talent for showing intellect at the bar, or in any
other way—if unaccompanied by character, makes the possessor a menace
to the community. But such a fact no more warrants us in attacking
wealth than it does in attacking intellect. Every man of power, by the
very fact of that power, is capable of doing damage to his neighbors;
but we can not afford to discourage the development of such men merely
because it is possible they may use their power for wrong ends. If
we did so we should leave our history a blank, for we should have
no great statesmen, soldiers, merchants, no great men of arts, of
letters, of science. Doubtless on the average the most useful citizen
to the community as a whole is the man to whom has been granted what
the Psalmist asked for—neither poverty nor riches. But the great
captain of industry, the man of wealth, who, alone or in combination
with his fellows, drives through our great business enterprises, is a
factor without whom the civilization that we see round about us here
could not have been built up. Good, not harm, normally comes from the
upbuilding of such wealth. Probably the greatest harm done by vast
wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let
the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.
But there is other harm; and it is evident that we should try to do
away with that. The great corporations which we have grown to speak
of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the
State not only has the right to control them, but it is in duty bound
to control them wherever the need of such control is shown. There is
clearly need of supervision—need to possess the power of regulation
of these great corporations through the representatives of the
public—wherever, as in our own country at the present time, business
corporations become so very powerful alike for beneficent work and for
work that is not always beneficent. It is idle to say that there is no
need for such supervision. There is, and a sufficient warrant for it
is to be found in any one of the admitted evils appertaining to them.
We meet a peculiar difficulty under our system of government, because
of the division of governmental power between the Nation and the
States. When the industrial conditions were simple, very little
control was needed, and the difficulties of exercising such control
under our Constitution were not evident. Now the conditions are
complicated and we find it hard to frame national legislation which
shall be adequate; while as a matter of practical experience it has
been shown that the States either can not or will not exercise a
sufficient control to meet the needs of the case. Some of our States
have excellent laws—laws which it would be well indeed to have enacted
by the National Legislature. But the widespread differences in these
laws, even between adjacent States, and the uncertainty of the power
of enforcement, result practically in altogether insufficient control.
I believe that the nation must assume this power of control by
legislation; if necessary by constitutional amendment. The immediate
necessity in dealing with trusts is to place them under the real, not
the nominal, control of some sovereign to which, as its creatures,
the trusts shall owe allegiance, and in whose courts the sovereign’s
orders may be enforced.
This is not the case with the ordinary so-called “trust” to-day; for
the trust nowadays is a large State corporation, which generally does
business in other States, often with a tendency toward monopoly.
Such a trust is an artificial creature not wholly responsible to
or controllable by any legislation, either by State or nation, and
not subject to the jurisdiction of any one court. Some governmental
sovereign must be given full power over these artificial, and very
powerful, corporate beings. In my judgment this sovereign must be the
national government. When it has been given full power, then this
full power can be used to control any evil influence, exactly as the
government is now using the power conferred upon it by the Sherman
anti-trust law.
Even when the power has been granted it would be most unwise to
exercise it too much, to begin by too stringent legislation. The
mechanism of modern business is as delicate and complicated as it
is vast, and nothing would be more productive of evil to all of us,
and especially to those least well off in this world’s goods, than
ignorant meddling with this mechanism—above all, meddling in a spirit
of class legislation or hatred or rancor. It is eminently necessary
that the power should be had, but it is just as necessary that it
should be exercised with wisdom and self-restraint. The first exercise
of that power should be the securing of publicity among all great
corporations doing an interstate business. The publicity, though
non-inquisitorial, should be real and thorough as to all important
facts with which the public has concern. Daylight is a powerful
discourager of evil. Such publicity would by itself tend to cure the
evils of which there is just complaint; it would show us if evils
existed, and where the evils are imaginary, and it would show us what
next ought to be done.
Above all, let us remember that our success in accomplishing anything
depends very much upon our not trying to accomplish everything.
Distrust whoever pretends to offer you a patent cure-all for every ill
of the body politic, just as you would a man who offers a medicine
which would cure every evil of your individual body. A medicine that
is recommended to cure both asthma and a broken leg is not good for
either. Mankind has moved slowly upward through the ages, sometimes a
little faster, sometimes a little slower, but rarely indeed by leaps
and bounds. At times a great crisis comes in which a great people,
perchance led by a great man, can at white heat strike some mighty
blow for the right—make a long stride in advance along the path of
justice and of orderly liberty. But normally we must be content if
each of us can do something—not all that we wish, but something—for
the advancement of those principles of righteousness which underlie
all real national greatness, all true civilization and freedom. I see
no promise of any immediate and complete solution of all the problems
we group together when we speak of the trust question. But we can
make a beginning in solving these problems, and a good beginning,
if only we approach the subject with a sufficiency of resolution,
of honesty, and of that hard common-sense which is one of the most
valuable, and not always one of the most common, assets in any
nation’s greatness. The existing laws will be fully enforced as they
stand on the statute books without regard to persons, and I think good
has already come from their enforcement. I think, furthermore, that
additional legislation should be had and can be had, which will enable
us to accomplish much more along the same lines. No man can promise a
perfect solution, at least in the immediate future. But something has
already been done, and much more can be done if our people temperately
and determinedly will that it shall be done.
In conclusion let me add one word. While we are not to be excused if
we fail to do whatever is possible through the agency of government,
we must keep ever in mind that no action of the government, no action
by combination among ourselves, can take the place of the individual
qualities to which in the long run every man must owe the success he
can make of life. There never has been devised, and there never will
be devised, any law which will enable a man to succeed save by the
exercise of those qualities which have always been the prerequisites
of success—the qualities of hard work, of keen intelligence, of
unflinching will. Such action can supplement those qualities but it
can not take their place. No action by the State can do more than
supplement the initiative of the individual; and ordinarily the action
of the State can do no more than to secure to each individual the
chance to show under as favorable conditions as possible the stuff
that there is in him.
AT SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON, AUGUST 25, 1902
_Governor Crane, Mayor Collins, men and women of Boston_:
I want to take up this evening the general question of our economic
and social relations, with specific reference to that problem with
which I think our people are now greatly concerning themselves—the
problem of our complex social condition as intensified by the
existence of the great corporations which we rather loosely designate
as trusts. I have not come here to say that I have discovered a patent
cure-all for any evils. When people’s minds are greatly agitated on
any subject, and especially when they feel deeply but rather vaguely
that conditions are not right, it is far pleasanter in addressing them
to be indifferent as to what you promise; but it is much less pleasant
afterward when you come to try to carry out what has been promised. Of
course the worth of a promise consists purely in the way in which the
performance squares with it. That has two sides. In the first place,
if a man is an honest man he will try just as hard to keep a promise
made on the stump as one made off the stump. In the second place, if
the people keep their heads they won’t wish promises to be made which
are impossible of performance. You see, one side of that question
represents my duty, and the other side yours.
Mankind goes ahead but slowly, and it goes ahead mainly through each
of us trying to do the best that is in him and to do it in the sanest
way. We have founded our Republic upon the theory that the average
man will as a rule do the right thing, that in the long run the
majority will decide for what is sane and wholesome. If our fathers
were mistaken in that theory, if ever the times become such—not
occasionally but persistently—that the mass of the people do what
is unwholesome, what is wrong, then the Republic can not stand, I
care not how good its laws, I care not what marvelous mechanism its
Constitution may embody. Back of the laws, back of the administration,
back of the system of government lies the man, lies the average
manhood of our people, and in the long run we are going to go up or go
down accordingly as the average standard of our citizenship does or
does not wax in growth and grace.
The first requisite of good citizenship is that the man shall do the
homely, every-day, humdrum duties well. A man is not a good citizen,
I do not care how lofty his thoughts are about citizenship in the
abstract, if in the concrete his actions do not bear them out; and it
does not make much difference how high his aspirations for mankind
at large may be, if he does not behave well in his own family those
aspirations do not bear visible fruit. He must be a good bread-winner,
he must take care of his wife and his children, he must be a neighbor
whom his neighbors can trust, he must act squarely in his business
relations,—he must do all those every-day ordinary duties first,
or he is not a good citizen. But he must do more. In this country
of ours the average citizen must devote a good deal of thought and
time to the affairs of the State as a whole or those affairs will go
backward; and he must devote that thought and that time steadily and
intelligently. If there is any one quality that is not admirable,
whether in a nation or in an individual, it is hysterics, either in
religion or in anything else. The man or woman who makes up for ten
days’ indifference to duty by an eleventh-day morbid repentance about
that duty is of scant use in the world. Now in the same way it is of
no possible use to decline to go through all the ordinary duties of
citizenship for a long space of time and then suddenly to get up and
feel very angry about something or somebody, not clearly defined, and
demand reform, as if it were a concrete substance to be handed out
forthwith.
This is preliminary to what I want to say to you about the whole
question of great corporations as affecting the public. There are
very many and very difficult problems with which we are faced as
the results of the forces which have been in play for more than the
lifetime of a generation. It is worse than useless for any of us to
rail at or regret the great growth of our industrial civilization
during the last half century. Speaking academically, we can,
according to our several temperaments, regret that the old days with
the old life have vanished, or not, just as we choose; but we are here
to-night only because of the play of those great forces. There is but
little use in regretting that things have been shaping themselves
differently from what we might have preferred. The practical thing to
do is to face the conditions as they are and see if we can not get the
best there is in them out of them. Now we shall not get a complete or
perfect solution for all of the evils attendant upon the development
of the trusts by any single action on our part. A good many actions
in a good many different ways will be required before we get many
of those evils even partially remedied. We must first of all think
clearly; we must probably experiment somewhat; we must above all show
by our actions that our interest is permanent and not spasmodic; and
we must see that all proper steps are taken toward the solution. Now
of course all this is perfectly trite. Every one who thinks knows
that the only way in which any problem of great importance was ever
successfully solved was by consistent and persistent effort toward a
given end—effort that did not cease with any one election or with any
one year, but was continued steadily, temperately, but resolutely,
toward a given end. It is a little difficult to set clearly before
us all of the evils attendant upon the working of some of our great
corporations, but I think that those gentlemen, and especially those
gentlemen of large means, who deny that the evils exist are acting
with great folly. So far from being against property when I ask
that the question of the trusts be taken up, I am acting in the most
conservative sense in property’s interest. When a great corporation
is sued for violating the anti-trust law, it is not a move against
property, it is a move in favor of property, because when we make it
evident that all men, great and small alike, have to obey the law, we
put the safeguard of the law around all men. When we make it evident
that no man shall be excused for violating the law, we make it evident
that every man will be protected from violations of the law.
Now one of the great troubles—I am inclined to think much the greatest
trouble—in any immediate handling of the question of the trusts comes
from our system of government. Under this system it is difficult to
say where the power is lodged to deal with these evils. Remember that
I am not saying that even if we had all the power we could completely
solve the trust question. If what we read in the papers is true,
international trusts are now being planned. It is going to be very
difficult for any set of laws on our part to deal completely with a
problem which becomes international in its bearings. But a great deal
can be done in various ways even now—a great deal is being done—and
a great deal more can be done, if we see that the power is lodged
somewhere to do it. On the whole, our system of government has worked
marvelously well—the system of divided functions of government, of
a scheme under which Maine, Louisiana, Oregon, Idaho, New York,
Illinois, South Carolina, can all come together for certain purposes,
and yet each be allowed to work out its salvation as it desires along
certain other lines. On the whole, this has worked well; but in some
respects it has worked ill. While I most firmly believe in fixity
of policy, I do not believe that that policy should be fossilized,
and when conditions change we must change our governmental methods
to meet them. I believe with all my heart in the New England town
meeting, but you can’t work the New England town meeting in Boston—it
is too big. You must devise something else. If you look back in the
history of Boston you will find that Boston was very reluctant to
admit this particular truth for some time in the first decades of
the nineteenth century. When this government was founded there were
no great individual or corporate fortunes, and commerce and industry
were being carried on very much as they had been carried on in the
days when Nineveh and Babylon stood in the Mesopotamian Valley.
Sails, oars, wheels—these were the instruments of commerce. The pack
train, the wagon train, the rowboat, the sailing craft—these were
the methods of commerce. Everything has been revolutionized in the
business world since then, and the progress of civilization from
being a dribble has become a torrent. There was no particular need
at that time of bothering as to whether the nation or the State had
control of corporations. They were easy to control. Now, however, the
exact reverse is the case. And remember when I say corporations I
do not mean merely trusts technically so-called, merely combinations
of corporations, or corporations under certain peculiar conditions.
For instance, some time ago the Attorney-General took action against
a certain trust. There was considerable discussion as to whether
the trust aimed at would not seek to get out from under the law by
becoming a single corporation. Now, I want laws that will enable us to
deal with any evil no matter what shape it takes. I want to see the
government able to get at it definitely, so that the action of the
government can not be evaded by any turning within or without Federal
or State statutes. At present we have really no efficient control
over a big corporation which does business in more than one State.
Frequently the corporation has nothing whatever to do with the State
in which it is incorporated except to get incorporated; and all its
business may be done in entirely different communities—communities
which may object very much to the methods of incorporation in the
State named. I do not believe that you can get any action by any
State, I do not believe it practicable to get action by all the
States that will give us satisfactory control of the trusts, of big
corporations; and the result is at present that we have a great,
powerful, artificial creation which has no creator to which it is
responsible. The creator creates it and then it goes and operates
somewhere else; and there is no interest on the part of the creator to
deal with it. It does not do anything where the creator has power; it
operates entirely outside of the creator’s jurisdiction.
It is of course a mere truism to say that the corporation is the
creature of the State, that the State is sovereign. There should be
a real and not a nominal sovereign, some one sovereign to which the
corporation shall be really and not nominally responsible. At present
if we pass laws nobody can tell whether they will amount to anything.
That has two bad effects. In the first place, the corporation becomes
indifferent to the law-making body; and in the next place, the
law-making body gets into that most pernicious custom of passing a law
not with reference to what will be done under it, but with reference
to its effects upon the opinions of the voters. That is a bad thing.
When any body of law-makers passes a law, not simply with reference
to whether that law will do good or ill, but with the knowledge that
not much will come of it, and yet that perhaps the people as a whole
will like to see it on the statute books—it does not speak well for
the law-makers, and it does not speak well for the people, either.
What I hope to see is power given to the National Legislature which
shall make the control real. It would be an excellent thing if you
could have all the States act on somewhat similar lines so that
you would make it unnecessary for the national government to act;
but all of you know perfectly well that the States will not act on
similar lines. No advance whatever has been made in the direction of
intelligent dealing by the States as a collective body with these
great corporations. Here in Massachusetts you have what I regard as,
on the whole, excellent corporation laws. Most of our difficulties
would be in a fair way of solution if we had the power to put upon the
national statute books, and did put upon them, laws for the nation
much like those you have here on the subject of corporations in
Massachusetts. So you can see, gentlemen, I am not advocating anything
very revolutionary. I am advocating action to prevent anything
revolutionary. Now, if we can get adequate control by the nation of
these great corporations, then we can pass legislation which will
give us the power of regulation and supervision over them. If the
nation had that power, mind you, I should advocate as strenuously as
I know how that the power should be exercised with extreme caution
and self-restraint. No good will come from plunging in without having
looked carefully ahead. The first thing we want is publicity; and I
do not mean publicity as a favor by some corporations—I mean it as a
right from all corporations affected by the law. I want publicity as
to the essential facts in which the public has an interest. I want the
knowledge given to the accredited representatives of the people of
facts upon which those representatives can if they see fit base their
actions later. The publicity itself would cure many evils. The light
of day is a great deterrer of wrongdoing. The mere fact of being able
to put out nakedly, and with the certainty that the statements were
true, a given condition of things that was wrong, would go a long
distance toward curing that wrong; and, even where it did not cure
it, would make the path evident by which to cure it. We would not be
leaping in the dark; we would not be striving blindly to see what was
good and what bad. We would know what the facts were and be able to
shape our course accordingly.
A good deal can be done now, a good deal is being done now. As far
as the anti-trust laws go they will be enforced. No suit will be
undertaken for the sake of seeming to undertake it. Every suit that
is undertaken will be begun because the great lawyer and upright man
whom we are fortunate enough to have as Attorney-General, Mr. Knox,
believes that there is a violation of the law which we can get at; and
when the suit is undertaken it will not be compromised except upon the
basis that the government wins. Of course, gentleman, no laws amount
to anything unless they are administered honestly and fearlessly. We
must have such administration or the law will amount to nothing. I
believe that it is possible to frame national legislation which shall
give us far more power than we now have, at any rate over corporations
doing an interstate business. I can not guarantee that, because in
the past it has more than once happened that we have put laws on the
statute books which those who made them intended to mean one thing,
and when they came up for decision by the courts, it was found that
the intention had not been successfully put into effect. But I
believe that additional legislation can be had. If my belief is wrong,
if it proves evident that we can not, under the Constitution as it is,
give the national administration sufficient power to deal with these
great corporations, then no matter what our reverence for the past,
our duty to the present and the future will force us to see that some
power is conferred upon the national government. And when that power
has been conferred, then it will rest with the national government to
exercise it.
AT HAVERHILL, MASS., AUGUST 26, 1902
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
Naturally at the home of Secretary Moody I should like to say a word
or two about the navy. I think that whenever we touch on the navy we
are sure of a hearty response from any American audience; we are just
as sure of such a response in the mountains and great plains of the
West as upon the Atlantic or Pacific seaboards. The entire country is
vitally interested in the navy, because an efficient navy of adequate
size is not only the best guarantee of peace, but is also the surest
means for seeing that if war does come the result shall be honorable
to our good name and favorable to our national interests.
Any really great nation must be peculiarly sensitive to two things:
Stain on the national honor at home, and disgrace to the national
arms abroad. Our honor at home, our honor in domestic and internal
affairs, is at all times in our own keeping, and depends simply upon
the possession of an awakened public conscience. But the only way to
make safe our honor, as affected not by our own deeds but by the deeds
of others, is by readiness in advance. In three great crises in our
history during the nineteenth century—in the War of 1812, in the Civil
War, and again in the Spanish War—the navy rendered to the nation
services of literally incalculable worth. In the Civil War we had to
meet antagonists even more unprepared at sea than we were. On both the
other occasions we encountered foreign foes, and the fighting was done
entirely by ships built long in advance, and by officers and crews
who had been trained during years of sea service for the supreme day
when their qualities were put to the final test. The ships which won
at Manila and Santiago under the Administration of President McKinley
had been built years before under Presidents Arthur, Cleveland, and
Harrison. The officers in those ships had been trained from their
earliest youth to their profession, and the enlisted men, in addition
to their natural aptitude, their intelligence, and their courage, had
been drilled as marksmen with the great guns and as machinists in the
engine rooms, and perfected in all the details of their work during
years of cruising on the high seas and of incessant target practice.
It was this preparedness which was the true secret of the enormous
difference in efficiency between our navy and the Spanish navy. There
was no lack of courage and self-devotion among the Spaniards, but
on our side, in addition to the courage and devotion, for the lack
of which no training could atone, there was also that training—the
training which comes only as the result of years of thorough and
painstaking practice.
Annapolis is, with the sole exception of its sister academy at West
Point, the most typically democratic and American school of learning
and preparation that there is in the entire country. Men go there
from every State, from every walk of life, professing every creed—the
chance of entry being open to all who perfect themselves in the
necessary studies and who possess the necessary moral and physical
qualities. There each man enters on his merits, stands on his merits,
and graduates into a service where only his merit will enable him to
be of value.
The enlisted men are of fine type, as they needs must be to do their
work well, whether in the gun turret or in the engine room; and out
of the fine material thus provided the finished man-of-war’s man is
evolved by years of sea service.
It is impossible after the outbreak of war to improvise either the
ships or the men of a navy. A war vessel is a bit of mechanism as
delicate and complicated as it is formidable. You might just as well
expect to turn an unskilled laborer offhand into a skilled machinist
or into the engineer of a flyer on one of our big railroad systems as
to put men aboard a battleship with the expectation that they will
do anything but discredit themselves until they have had months and
years in which thoroughly to learn their duties. Our shipbuilders
and gunmakers must keep ever on the alert so that no rivals pass
them by; and the officers and enlisted men on board the ships must
in their turn, by the exercise of unflagging and intelligent zeal,
keep themselves fit to get the best use out of the weapons of war
intrusted to their care. The instrument is always important, but the
man who uses it is more important still. We must constantly endeavor
to perfect our navy in all its duties in time of peace, and above all
in manœuvring in a seaway and in marksmanship with the great guns. In
battle the only shots that count are those that hit, and marksmanship
is a matter of long practice and of intelligent reasoning. A navy’s
efficiency in a war depends mainly upon its preparedness at the
outset of that war. We are not to be excused as a nation if there is
not such preparedness of our navy. This is especially so in view of
what we have done during the last four years. No nation has a right
to undertake a big task unless it is prepared to do it in masterful
and effective style. It would be an intolerable humiliation for us to
embark on such a course of action as followed from our declaration
of war with Spain, and not make good our words by deeds—not be ready
to prove our truth by our endeavor whenever the need calls. The
good work of building up the navy must go on without ceasing. The
modern warship can not with advantage be allowed to rust in disuse.
It must be used up in active service even in time of peace. This
means that there must be a constant replacement of the ineffective
by the effective. The work of building up and keeping up our navy is
therefore one which needs our constant and unflagging vigilance. Our
navy is now efficient; but we must be content with no ordinary degree
of efficiency. Every effort must be made to bring it ever nearer to
perfection. In making such effort the prime factor is to have at the
head of the navy such an official as your fellow-townsman, Mr. Moody;
and the next is to bring home to our people as a whole the need of
thorough and ample preparation in advance; this preparation to take
the form not only of continually building ships, but of keeping these
ships in commission under conditions which will develop the highest
degree of efficiency in the officers and enlisted men aboard them.
AT PORTLAND, MAINE, AUGUST 26, 1902
_Mr. Mayor, and you, my fellow-citizens, men and women of Maine_:
I wish to say a word to you in recognition of great service rendered
not only to all our country but to the entire principle of democratic
government throughout the world, by one of your citizens. The best
institutions are of no good if they won’t work. I do not care how
beautiful a theory is, if it won’t fit in with the facts it is of no
good. If you built the handsomest engine that ever had been built and
it did not go, its usefulness would be limited. Well, that was just
about the condition that Congress had reached at the time when Thomas
B. Reed was elected Speaker. We had all the machinery, but it didn’t
work,—that was the trouble,—and you had to find some one powerful man
who would disregard the storm of obloquy sure to be raised by what
he did in order to get it to work. Such a man was found when Reed
was made Speaker. We may differ among ourselves as to policy. We may
differ among ourselves as to what course government should follow;
but if we possess any intelligence we must be a unit that it shall
be able to follow some course. If government can not go on it is not
government. If the legislative body can not enact laws, then there is
no use of misnaming it a legislative body; and if the majority is to
rule some method by which it can rule must be provided. Government by
the majority in Congress had practically come to a stop when Mr. Reed
became Speaker. Mr. Reed, at the cost of infinite labor, at the cost
of the fiercest attacks, succeeded in restoring that old principle;
and now through Congress we can do well or ill, accordingly as the
people demand, but at any rate, we can do something—and we owe it more
than to any other one man to your fellow-citizen, Mr. Reed. It is a
great thing for any man to be able to feel that in some one crisis he
left his mark deeply scored for good in the history of his country,
and Tom Reed has the right to that feeling.
AT AUGUSTA, MAINE, AUGUST 26, 1902
_Governor Burleigh, my fellow-citizens, men and women of Maine_:
It would be difficult for any man speaking to this audience and from
in front of the house in which Blaine once lived to fail to feel
whatever of Americanism there was in him stirred to the depths. For
my good fortune I knew Mr. Blaine quite well when he was Secretary of
State, and I have thought again and again during the past few years
how pleased he would have been to see so many of the principles for
which he had stood approach fruition.
One secret, perhaps I might say the chief secret, of Mr. Blaine’s
extraordinary hold upon the affections of his countrymen was his
entirely genuine and unaffected Americanism. When I speak of
Americanism I do not for a minute mean to say, gentlemen, that
all the things we do are all right. I think there are plenty of
evils to correct and that often a man shows himself all the more
a good American because he wants to cut out any evil of the body
politic which may interfere with our approaching the ideal of true
Americanism. But not only admitting but also emphasizing this, it
yet remains true that throughout our history no one has been able to
render really great service to the country if he did not believe in
the country. Mr. Blaine possessed to an eminent degree the confident
hope in the nation’s future which made him feel that she must ever
strive to fit herself for a great destiny. He felt that this Republic
must in every way take the lead in the Western Hemisphere. He felt
that this Republic must play a great part among the nations of the
earth. The last four years have shown how true that feeling of his was.
He had always hoped that we would have a peculiarly intimate relation
with the countries south of us. He could hardly have anticipated—no
one could have—the Spanish War and its effects. In consequence of that
war America’s interest in the tropic islands to our south and the
seas and coasts surrounding those islands is far greater than ever
before. Our interest in the Monroe Doctrine is more complicated than
ever before. The Monroe Doctrine is simply a statement of our very
firm belief that on this continent the nations now existing here must
be left to work out their own destinies among themselves and that the
continent is not longer to be regarded as colonizing ground for any
European power. The one power on the continent that can make that
doctrine effective is, of course, ourselves; for in the world as it
is, gentlemen, the nation which advances a given doctrine likely to
interfere in any way with other nations must possess power to back it
up if she wishes the doctrine to be respected. We stand firmly on the
Monroe Doctrine.
The events of the last nine months have rendered it evident that we
shall soon embark on the work of excavating the Isthmian Canal to
connect the two great oceans—a work destined to be, probably, the
greatest engineering feat of the twentieth century, certainly a
greater engineering feat than has ever yet been successfully attempted
among the nations of mankind; and as it is the biggest thing of its
kind to be done I am glad it is the United States that is to do it.
Whenever a nation undertakes to carry out a great destiny it must make
up its mind that there will be work and worry, labor and risk, in
doing the work. It is with a nation as it is with an individual; if
you are content to attempt but little in private life you may be able
to escape a good deal of worry, but you won’t achieve very much. The
man who attempts much must make up his mind that there will now and
then come days and nights of worry; there will come even moments of
seeming defeat. But out of the difficulties we wrest success. So it is
with the nation. It is not the easy task that is necessarily the best.
AT BANGOR, MAINE, AUGUST 27, 1902
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
I am glad to greet the farmers of Maine. During the century that has
closed, the growth of industrialism has necessarily meant that cities
and towns have increased in population more rapidly than the country
districts. And yet, it remains true now as it always has been, that in
the last resort the country districts are those in which we are surest
to find the old American spirit, the old American habits of thought
and ways of living. Conditions have changed in the country far less
than they have changed in the cities, and in consequence there has
been little breaking away from the methods of life which have produced
the great majority of the leaders of the Republic in the past. Almost
all of our great Presidents have been brought up in the country, and
most of them worked hard on the farms in their youth and got their
early mental training in the healthy democracy of farm life.
The forces which made these farm-bred boys leaders of men when they
had come to their full manhood are still at work in our country
districts. Self-help and individual initiative remain to a peculiar
degree typical of life in the country, life on a farm, in the
lumbering camp, on a ranch. Neither the farmers nor their hired
hands can work through combinations as readily as the capitalists or
wage-workers of cities can work.
It must not be understood from this that there has been no change in
farming and farm life. The contrary is the case. There has been much
change, much progress. The granges and similar organizations, the
farmers’ institutes, and all the agencies which promote intelligent
co-operation and give opportunity for social and intellectual
intercourse among the farmers, have played a large part in raising
the level of life and work in the country districts. In the domain of
government, the Department of Agriculture since its foundation has
accomplished results as striking as those obtained under any other
branch of the national administration. By scientific study of all
matters connected with the advancement of farm life; by experimental
stations; by the use of trained agents, sent to the uttermost
countries of the globe; by the practical application of anything which
in theory has been demonstrated to be efficient; in these ways, and in
many others, great good has been accomplished in raising the standard
of productiveness in farm work throughout the country. We live in
an era when the best results can only be achieved, if to individual
self-help we add the mutual self-help which comes by combination,
both of citizens in their individual capacity and of citizens working
through the State as an instrument. The farmers of the country have
grown more and more to realize this, and farming has tended more
and more to take its place as an applied science—though, as with
everything else, the theory must be tested in practical work, and can
avail only when applied in practical fashion.
But after all this has been said, it remains true that the
countryman—the man on the farm, more than any other of our citizens
to-day, is called upon continually to exercise the qualities which
we like to think of as typical of the United States throughout its
history—the qualities of rugged independence, masterful resolution,
and individual energy and resourcefulness. He works hard (for
which no man is to be pitied), and often he lives hard (which may
not be pleasant); but his life is passed in healthy surroundings,
surroundings which tend to develop a fine type of citizenship. In the
country, moreover, the conditions are fortunately such as to allow
a closer touch between man and man, than, too often, we find to be
the case in the city. Men feel more vividly the underlying sense of
brotherhood, of community of interest. I do not mean by this that
there are not plenty of problems connected with life in our rural
districts. There are many problems; and great wisdom and earnest
disinterestedness in effort are needed for their solution.
After all, we are one people, with the same fundamental
characteristics, whether we live in the city or in the country, in the
East or in the West, in the North or the South. Each of us, unless
he is contented to be a cumberer of the earth’s surface, must strive
to do his life-work with his whole heart. Each must remember that,
while he will be noxious to every one unless he first do his duty by
himself, he must also strive ever to do his duty by his fellow. The
problem of how to do these duties is acute everywhere. It is most
acute in great cities, but it exists in the country, too. A man, to
be a good citizen, must first be a good bread-winner, a good husband,
a good father—I hope the father of many healthy children; just as a
woman’s first duty is to be a good housewife and mother. The business
duties, the home duties, the duties to one’s family, come first. The
couple who bring up plenty of healthy children, who leave behind them
many sons and daughters fitted in their turn to be good citizens,
emphatically deserve well of the State.
But duty to one’s self and one’s family does not exclude duty to
one’s neighbor. Each of us, rich or poor, can help his neighbor at
times; and to do this he must be brought into touch with him, into
sympathy with him. Any effort is to be welcomed that brings people
closer together, so as to secure a better understanding among those
whose walks of life are in ordinary circumstances far apart. Probably
the good done is almost equally great on both sides, no matter which
one may seem to be helping the other. But it must be kept in mind
that no good will be accomplished at all by any philanthropic or
charitable work, unless it is done along certain definite lines. In
the first place, if the work is done in a spirit of condescension, it
would be better never to attempt it. It is almost as irritating to be
patronized as to be wronged. The only safe way of working is to try to
find out some scheme by which it is possible to make a common effort
for the common good. Each of us needs at times to have a helping hand
stretched out to him or her. Every one of us slips on some occasion,
and shame to his fellow who then refuses to stretch out the hand that
should always be ready to help the man who stumbles. It is our duty
to lift him up; but it is also our duty to remember that there is no
earthly use in trying to carry him. If a man will submit to being
carried, that is sufficient to show that he is not worth carrying. In
the long run, the only kind of help that really avails is the help
which teaches a man to help himself. Such help every man who has been
blessed in life should try to give to those who are less fortunate,
and such help can be accepted with entire self-respect.
The aim to set before ourselves in trying to aid one another is to
give that aid under conditions which will harm no man’s self-respect,
and which will teach the less fortunate how to help themselves as
their stronger brothers do. To give such aid it is necessary not only
to possess the right kind of heart, but also the right kind of head.
Hardness of heart is a dreadful quality, but it is doubtful whether,
in the long run, it works more damage than softness of head. At any
rate, both are undesirable. The prerequisite to doing good work in the
field of philanthropy—in the field of social effort, undertaken with
one’s fellows for the common good—is that it shall be undertaken in a
spirit of broad sanity no less than of broad and loving charity.
The other day I picked up a little book called “The Simple Life,”
written by an Alsatian, Charles Wagner, and he preaches such
wholesome, sound doctrine that I wish it could be used as a tract
throughout our country. To him the whole problem of our complex,
somewhat feverish modern life can be solved only by getting men and
women to lead better lives. He sees that the permanence of liberty and
democracy depends upon a majority of the people being steadfast in
morality and in that good plain sense which, as a national attribute,
comes only as the result of the slow and painful labor of centuries,
and which can be squandered in a generation by the thoughtless and
vicious. He preaches the doctrine of the superiority of the moral to
the material. He does not undervalue the material, but he insists, as
we of this nation should always insist, upon the infinite superiority
of the moral, and the sordid destruction which comes upon either the
nation or the individual if it or he becomes absorbed only in the
desire to get wealth. The true line of cleavage lies between good
citizen and bad citizen; and the line of cleavage may, and often
does, run at right angles to that which divides the rich and the
poor. The sinews of virtue lie in man’s capacity to care for what
is outside himself. The man who gives himself up to the service of
his appetites, the man who the more goods he has the more wants, has
surrendered himself to destruction. It makes little difference whether
he achieves his purpose or not. If his point of view is all wrong,
he is a bad citizen whether he be rich or poor. It is a small matter
to the community whether in arrogance and insolence he has misused
great wealth, or whether, though poor, he is possessed by the mean
and fierce desire to seize a morsel, the biggest possible, of that
prey which the fortunate of earth consume. The man who lives simply,
and justly, and honorably, whether rich or poor, is a good citizen.
Those who dream only of idleness and pleasure, who hate others, and
fail to recognize the duty of each man to his brother, these, be they
rich or poor, are the enemies of the State. The misuse of property
is one manifestation of the same evil spirit which, under changed
circumstances, denies the right of property because this right is in
the hands of others. In a purely material civilization the bitterness
of attack on another’s possession is only additional proof of the
extraordinary importance attached to possession itself. When outward
well-being, instead of being regarded as a valuable foundation on
which happiness may with wisdom be built, is mistaken for happiness
itself, so that material prosperity becomes the one standard, then,
alike by those who enjoy such prosperity in slothful or criminal ease,
and by those who in no less evil manner rail at, envy, and long for
it, poverty is held to be shameful, and money, whether well or ill
gotten, to stand for merit.
All this does not mean condemnation of progress. It is mere folly to
try to dig up the dead past, and scant is the good that comes from
asceticism and retirement from the world. But let us make sure that
our progress is in the essentials as well as in the incidentals.
Material prosperity without the moral lift toward righteousness means
a diminished capacity for happiness and a debased character. The worth
of a civilization is the worth of the man at its centre. When this man
lacks moral rectitude, material progress only makes bad worse, and
social problems still darker and more complex.
AT NORTHFIELD, MASS., SEPTEMBER 1, 1902
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
Here near the seat of the summer school for young men founded by
Dwight L. Moody, I naturally speak on a subject suggested to me by the
life of Mr. Moody and by the aims sought for through the establishment
of the summer school.
In such a school—a school which is to equip young men to do good in
the world—to show both the desire for the rule of righteousness and
the practical power to give actual effect to that desire—it seems
to me there are two texts specially worthy of emphasis: One is, “Be
ye doers of the word and not hearers only”; and the other is, “Not
slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” A republic
of freemen is pre-eminently a community in which there is need for
the actual exercise and practical application of both the milder
and the stronger virtues. Every good quality—every virtue and every
grace—has its place and is of use in the great scheme of creation;
but it is of course a mere truism to say that at certain times and in
certain places there is pre-eminent need for a given set of virtues.
In our own country, with its many-sided, hurrying, practical life, the
place for cloistered virtue is far smaller than is the place for that
essential manliness which, without losing its fine and lofty side, can
yet hold its own in the rough struggle with the forces of the world
round about us. It would be a very bad thing for this country if it
happened that the men of righteous living tended to lose the robust,
virile qualities of heart, mind and body, and if, on the other hand,
the men best fitted practically to achieve results lost the guidance
of the moral law. No one-sided development can produce really good
citizenship—as good citizenship is needed in the America of to-day. If
a man has not in him the root of righteousness—if he does not believe
in, and practice, honesty—if he is not truthful and upright, clean and
high-minded, fair in his dealings both at home and abroad—then the
stronger he is, the abler and more energetic he is, the more dangerous
he is to the body politic. Wisdom untempered by devotion to an ideal
usually means only that dangerous cunning which is far more fatal in
its ultimate effects to the community than open violence itself. It is
inexcusable in an honest people to deify mere success without regard
to the qualities by which that success is achieved. Indeed there is a
revolting injustice, intolerable to just minds, in punishing the weak
scoundrel who fails, and bowing down to and making life easy for the
far more dangerous scoundrel who succeeds. A wicked man who is wicked
on a large scale, whether in business or in politics, of course does
many times more evil to the community than the man who only ventures
to be wicked furtively and in lesser ways. If possible, the success
of such a man should be prevented by law, and in any event he ought
to be made to feel that there is no condonation of his offences by
the public. There is no more unpleasant manifestation of public
feeling than the deification of mere “smartness,” as it is termed—of
mere successful cunning unhampered by scruple or generosity or right
feeling. If a man is not decent, is not square and honest, then the
possession of ability only serves to render him more dangerous to
the community; as a wild beast grows more dangerous the stronger and
fiercer he is.
But virtue by itself is not enough, or anything like enough. Strength
must be added to it, and the determination to use that strength. The
good man who is ineffective is not able to make his goodness of much
account to the people as a whole. No matter how much a man hears
the word, small is the credit attached to him if he fails to be a
doer also; and in serving the Lord he must remember that he needs
to avoid sloth in his business as well as to cultivate fervency of
spirit. All around us there are great evils to combat, and they are
not to be combated with success by men who pride themselves on their
superiority in taste and in virtue, and draw aside from the world’s
life. It matters not whether they thus draw aside because they fear
their fellows or because they despise them. Each feeling—the fear no
less than the contempt—is shameful and unworthy. A man to be a good
American must be straight, and he must also be strong. He must have
in him the conscience which will teach him to see the right, and he
must also have the vigor, the courage, and the practical, hard-headed
common-sense which will enable him to make his seeing right result in
some benefit to his fellows.
AT FITCHBURG, MASS., SEPTEMBER 2, 1902
_Mr. Mayor, and you, my Fellow-Citizens_:
There are two or three things that I should like to say to this
audience, but before beginning what I have to say on some of the
problems of the day, I wish to thank for their greeting, not only all
of you, my fellow-citizens here, but particularly the men of the great
war, and second only to them my comrades of a lesser war, where, I
hope, we showed that we were anxious to do our duty, as you had done
yours, only the need did not come to us.
We have great problems before us as a nation. I will not try to
discuss them at length with you to-day, but I can speak a word
as to the manner in which they must be met if they are to be met
successfully. All great works, though they differ in the method of
doing them, must be solved by substantially the same qualities. You
who upheld the arms of Lincoln, who followed the sword of Grant, were
able to do your duty not because you found some patent device for
doing it, but by going down to the bedrock principles which had made
good soldiers since the world began.
There was no method possible to devise which would have spared you
from heart-breaking fatigue on the marches, from hardships at night,
from danger in battle. The only way to overcome those difficulties and
dangers was by drawing on every ounce of hardihood, of courage, of
loyalty, and of iron resolution. That is how you had to win out. You
had to win as the soldiers of Washington had won before you, as we of
the younger generation must win if ever the call should be made upon
us to face a serious foe. Arms change, tactics change, but the spirit
that makes the real soldier does not change. The spirit that makes for
victory does not change.
It is just so in civic life. The problems change, but fundamentally
the qualities needed to face them in the average citizen are the same.
Our new and highly complex industrial civilization has produced a new
and complicated series of problems. We need to face those problems and
not to run away from them. We need to exercise all our ingenuity in
trying to devise some effective solution, but the only way in which
that solution can be applied is the old way of bringing honesty,
courage, and common-sense to bear upon it. One feature of honesty and
common-sense combined is never to promise what you do not think you
can perform, and then never fail to perform what you have promised.
And that applies in public life just as much as in private life.
If some of those who have seen cause for wonder in what I have said
this summer on the subject of the great corporations, which are
popularly, although with technical inaccuracy, known as trusts, would
take the trouble to read my messages when I was Governor, what I said
on the stump two years ago, and what I put into my first message
to Congress, I think they would have been less astonished. I said
nothing on the stump that I did not think I could make good, and I
shall not hesitate now to take the position which I then advocated.
I am even more anxious that you who hear what I say should think of it
than that you should applaud it. I am not going to try to define with
technical accuracy what ought to be meant when we speak of a trust.
But if by trust we mean merely a big corporation, then I ask you to
ponder the utter folly of the man who either in a spirit of rancor or
in a spirit of folly says “destroy the trusts,” without giving you
an idea of what he means really to do. I will go with him if he says
destroy the evil in the trusts, gladly. I will try to find out that
evil, I will seek to apply remedies, which I have already outlined
in other speeches; but if his policy, from whatever motive, whether
hatred, fear, panic or just sheer ignorance, is to destroy the trusts
in a way that will destroy all our property—no. Those men who advocate
wild and foolish remedies which would be worse than the disease are
doing all in their power to perpetuate the evils against which they
nominally war, because, if we are brought face to face with the naked
issue of either keeping or totally destroying a prosperity in which
the majority share, but in which some share improperly, why, as
sensible men, we must decide that it is a great deal better that some
people should prosper too much than that no one should prosper enough.
So that the man who advocates destroying the trusts by measures which
would paralyze the industries of the country is at least a quack, and
at worst an enemy to the Republic.
In 1893 there was no trouble about anybody making too much money. The
trusts were down, but the trouble was that we were all of us down.
Nothing but harm to the whole body politic can come from ignorant
agitation, carried on partially against real evils, partially against
imaginary evils, but in a spirit which would substitute for the real
evils evils just as real and infinitely greater. Those men, if they
should succeed, could do nothing to bring about a solution of the
great problems with which we are concerned. If they could destroy
certain of the evils at the cost of overthrowing the well-being of the
entire country, it would mean merely that there would come a reaction
in which they and their remedies would be hopelessly discredited.
Now, it does not do anybody any good, and it will do most of us a
great deal of harm, to take steps which will check any proper growth
in a corporation. We wish not to penalize but to reward a great
captain of industry or the men banded together in a corporation who
have the business forethought and energy necessary to build up a great
industrial enterprise. Keep that in mind. A big corporation may be
doing excellent work for the whole country, and you want, above all
things, when striving to get a plan which will prevent wrongdoing
by a corporation which desires to do wrong, not at the same time to
have a scheme which will interfere with a corporation doing well, if
that corporation is handling itself honestly and squarely. What I
am saying ought to be treated as simple, elementary truths. The only
reason it is necessary to say them at all is that apparently some
people forget them.
I believe something can be done by national legislation. When I state
that I ask you to note my words. I say I believe. It is not in my
power to say I know. When I talk to you of my own executive duties I
can tell you definitely what will and what will not be done. When I
speak of the actions of any one else I can only say that I believe
something more can be done by national legislation. I believe it
will be done. I think we can get laws which will increase the power
of the Federal Government over corporations; if we can not, then
there will have to be an amendment to the Constitution of the nation
conferring additional power upon the Federal Government to deal with
corporations. To get that will be a matter of difficulty, and a matter
of time.
Let me interrupt here by way of illustration. You of the great war
recollect that about six weeks after Sumter had been fired on there
began to be loud clamor in the North among people who were not at the
front that you should go to Richmond; and there were any number of
people who told you how to go there. Then came Bull Run, and a lot
of those same people who a fortnight before had been yelling “On to
Richmond at once,” turned around and said the war was over. All the
hysteric brotherhood said so. But you didn’t think so. The war was
not over. It was not over for three years and nine months, and then
it was over the other way. And you got it over by setting your faces
steadily toward the goal, by not relying upon anything impossible,
but by each doing everything possible that came in his line to do, by
each man doing his duty. You did not win by any patent device; you won
by the generalship of Grant and Sherman and Thomas and Sheridan, and,
above all, by the soldiership of the men who carried the muskets and
the sabres. It did not come as soon as you wanted, and the men who
said it would come at once did not help you much either.
In dealing with any great problem in civil life, be it the trusts
or anything else, you are going to get along in just about the same
fashion. There is not any patent remedy for all the ills. All we can
do is to make up our minds definitely that we intend to find some
method by which we shall be able to tell, in the first place, what
are the real evils and what of the alleged evils are imaginary; in
the next place, what of those real evils it is possible to cure by
legislation; and then to cure them by legislation and by an honest
administration of the laws after they have been enacted. That
statement of the problem will never be attractive to the man who
thinks that somehow, by turning your hand, you are going to get a
complete solution at once.
Grant’s plan of fighting it out on that line, if it took all summer,
was not attractive to the men who wanted it done in a week. But it
was the only plan that won. The only way we can ever work out even
an approximately satisfactory solution of these great industrial
problems, of which this so-called problem of the trusts is but one, is
by approaching them in a spirit which shall combine equally sanity and
self-restraint on the one hand and resolute purpose on the other.
It is not given to me or to any one else to promise a perfect
solution. It is not given to me or to any one else to promise you even
an approximately perfect solution in a short time. But I think that
we can work out a very great improvement over the present conditions,
and the steps taken must, I am sure, be along these lines—along the
lines, in the first place, of getting power somewhere so that we shall
be able to say, the nation has power, let it use that power—and not as
it is at present, where it is out of the question to say exactly where
the power is.
We must get power first, then use that power fearlessly, but with
moderation. Let me say that again—with moderation, with sanity, with
self-restraint. The mechanism of modern business is altogether too
delicate and too complicated for us to sanction for one moment any
intermeddling with it in a spirit of ignorance, above all in a spirit
of rancor. Something can be done, something is being done now. Much
more can be done if our people resolutely but temperately will that
it shall be done. But the certain way of bringing great harm upon
ourselves, without in any way furthering the solution of the problem,
but, on the contrary, deferring indefinitely its proper solution,
would be to act in a spirit of ignorance, of violence, of rancor, in a
spirit which would make us tear down the temple of industry in which
we live because we are not satisfied with some of the details of its
management.
I want you to think of what I have said, because it represents all of
the sincerity and earnestness that I have, and I say to you here, from
this platform, nothing that I have not already stated in effect, and
nothing I would not say at a private table with any of the biggest
corporation managers in the land.
AT DALTON, MASS., SEPTEMBER 3, 1902
_Governor Crane, and you, my Friends and Fellow-Citizens_:
It seems to me that in a town like this we not only have but ought
to have a better standard of citizenship and a more thorough
appreciation of the rights and duties of the individual citizen and of
the possibilities of government than in almost any other community.
Here is a town where you have both farming and manufacturing,
where you have on a small scale all the elements that go to make
up the industrial life of the nation as a whole—the capitalist
and wage-earner, the farmer and hired man, merchant, men of the
professions, you have them all; you see the forces that have built up
the nation and that are at work in the nation, in play round about
you in the farms, in the factories, in the houses, right among
your neighbors and friends. When men live in a big city they lose
touch with one another; they tend to lose intimate touch with the
government, and they get to speak of the state, of the government, as
something entirely apart from them. Now the government is us, here,
you and me, and that ought to make us understand on the one hand what
we have a right to expect from the government, and on the other hand
what it is foolish to expect from the government. We have a right to
expect from it that it will secure us against injustice; that so far
as is humanly possible it will secure for each man a fair chance;
that it will do justice as between man and man, and that it will not
respect persons; that in that division of the government dealing with
justice each man shall stand absolutely on his merits, not being
discriminated for or against because of his wealth or his poverty,
because of anything but his own conduct.
The government can take hold of certain functions which are in the
interest of the people as a whole. More than this the government can
not do or else does at the risk of doing it badly. The government
can not supply the lack in any man of the qualities which must
determine in the last resort the man’s success or failure. Instead
of “government” say “the town.” Now what can the town do for you? A
good deal; but not nearly as much as you can do for it, not nearly as
much as you must do for yourself. The government can not make a man
a success in life. If we would remember that and remember that when
we use the large terms of the government and nation, we only mean
the town on a large scale, there would be much less danger in our
thinking that perhaps by some queer patent device or some scheme, the
state, the government, the town, can supply the lack of individual
thrift, energy, enterprise, resolution. It can not supply such lack.
Something can be done by government, that is, by all of us acting
together to protect the rights of all, to accomplish certain things
for all. Something can be accomplished by helping one another. He is
a poor creature who does not give help generously when the chance
comes. But finally in the last resort the man who wins now will be the
man of the type who has won always, the man who can win for himself.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that it is possible ever to call
in any outside force to take the place of the man’s own individual
initiative, the man’s individual capacity to do work worth doing.
AT WHEELING, W. VA., SEPTEMBER 6, 1902
_My Friends and Fellow-Citizens_:
It is a pleasure to come here to your city. I wish to thank the Mayor,
and through the Mayor all of your citizens, for the way in which,
upon your behalf, he has greeted me; and I wish to state that it is a
special pleasure to be introduced by my friend, Senator Scott. I have
known the Senator for some time, and I like him, because when he gives
you his word you don’t have to think about it again.
I am glad to have the chance of saying a few words here in this great
industrial centre in one of those regions which have felt to a notable
degree the effects of the period of prosperity through which we are
now passing. Probably never before in our history has the country been
more prosperous than it is at this moment; and it is a prosperity
which has come alike to the tillers of the soil and to those connected
with our great industrial enterprises.
Every period has its own troubles and difficulties. A period of
adversity, of course, troubles us all; but there are troubles in
connection with a period of prosperity also. When all things flourish
it means that there is a good chance for things that we don’t like to
flourish also, just exactly as things that we do like. A period of
great national material well-being is inevitably one in which men’s
minds are turned to the way in which those flourish who are interested
in the management of the gigantic capitalistic corporations, whose
growth has been so noted a feature of the last half century—the
corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as
trusts—accepting the word in its usual and common significance as a
big corporation usually doing business in several States at least,
besides the State in which it is incorporated, and often, though not
always, with some element of monopoly in it.
It seems to me that in dealing with this problem of the trusts—perhaps
it would be more accurate to say the group of problems which come
into our minds when we think of the trusts—we have two classes of our
fellow-citizens whom we have to convert or override. One is composed
of those men who refuse to admit that there is any action necessary at
all. The other is composed of those men who advocate some action so
extreme, so foolish, that it would either be entirely non-effective,
or, if effective, would be so only by destroying everything, good and
bad, connected with our industrial development.
In every governmental process the aim that a people capable of
self-government should steadfastly keep in mind is to proceed by
evolution rather than revolution. On the other hand, every people
fit for self-government must beware of that fossilization of mind
which refuses to allow of any change as conditions change. Now, in
dealing with the whole problem of the change in our great industrial
civilization—in dealing with the tendencies which have been
accentuated in so extraordinary a degree by steam and electricity,
and by the tremendous upbuilding of industrial centres which steam
and electricity have been the main factors in bringing about—I think
we must set before ourselves the desire not to accept less than the
possible, and at the same time not to bring ourselves to a complete
standstill by attempting the impossible. It is a good deal as it is in
taking care, through the engineers, of the lower Mississippi River.
No one can dam the Mississippi. If the nation started to dam it, the
nation would waste its time. It would not hurt the Mississippi, but
it would not only throw away its own means, but would incidentally
damage the population along the banks. You can’t dam the current.
You can build levees to keep the current within bounds and to shape
its direction. I think that is exactly what we can do in connection
with these great corporations known as trusts. We can not reverse the
industrial tendency of the age. If you succeed in doing it, then all
cities like Wheeling will have to go out of business. Remember that.
You can not put a stop to or reverse the industrial tendencies of the
age, but you can control and regulate them and see that they do no
harm.
A flood comes down the Mississippi—you can’t stop it. If you tried
to build a dam across it, it would not hurt the flood, and it would
not benefit you. You can guide it between levees so as to prevent its
doing injury, and so as to ensure its doing good. Another thing: you
don’t build those levees in a day or in a month. A man who told you
that he had a patent device by which in sixty days he would solve the
whole question of the floods along the lower Mississippi would not be
a wise man; but he would be a perfect miracle of wisdom compared to
the man who tells you that by any one patent remedy he can bring the
millennium in our industrial and social affairs.
We can do something; I believe we can do a good deal, but our
accomplishing what I expect to see accomplished is conditioned upon
our setting to work in a spirit as far removed as possible from
hysteria—a spirit of sober, steadfast, kindly—I want to emphasize
that—kindly determination not to submit to wrong ourselves and not to
wrong others, not to interfere with the great business development
of the country, and at the same time so to shape our legislation and
administration as to minimize, if we can not eradicate, the unpleasant
and vicious features connected with that industrial development. I
have said that there can be no patent remedy. There is not any one
thing which can be done to remove all of the existing evils. There are
a good many things which, if we do them all, will, I believe, make a
very appreciable betterment in the existing conditions. To do that is
not to make a promise that will evoke wild enthusiasm, but a promise
that can be kept; and in the long run it is much more comfortable only
to make promises that can be kept than to make promises which are
sure of an immense reception when made, but which entail intolerable
humiliation when it is attempted to carry them out.
I am sufficiently fortunate to be advocating now, as President,
precisely the remedies that I advocated two years ago—advocating them
not in any partisan spirit, because, gentlemen, this problem is one
which affects the life of the nation as a whole—but advocating them
simply as the American citizen who, for the time being, stands as the
Chief Executive and, therefore, the special representative of his
fellow-American citizens of all parties.
A century and a quarter ago there had been no development of industry
such as to make it a matter of the least importance whether the nation
or the State had charge of the great corporations or supervised the
great business and industrial organizations. A century and a quarter
ago, here at Wheeling, commerce was carried on by pack train, by wagon
train, by boat. That was the way it was carried on throughout the
whole civilized world—oars and sails, wheeled vehicles and beasts of
burden—those were the means of carrying on commerce at the end of the
eighteenth century, when this country became a nation.
There had been no radical change, no essential change, in the means
of carrying on commerce from the days when the Phœnician galleys
plowed the waters of the Mediterranean. For four or five thousand
years, perhaps longer, from the immemorial past when Babylon and
Nineveh stood in Mesopotamia, when Thebes and Memphis were mighty
in the valley of the Nile—from that time on through the supremacy
of Greece and of Rome, through the upbuilding of the great trading
cities like Venice and Genoa in Italy; like the cities of the Rhine
and the Netherlands in Northern Europe—on through the period of the
great expansion of European civilization which followed the voyages of
Columbus and Vasco da Gama, down to the time when this country became
a nation—the means of commercial intercourse remained substantially
unchanged. Those means, therefore, limited narrowly what could be
done by any corporation, the growth that could take place in any
community.
Suddenly, during our own lifetime as a nation—a lifetime trivial
in duration compared to the period of recorded history—there came
a revolution in the means of intercourse which made a change in
commerce, and in all that springs from commerce, in industrial
development, greater than all the changes of the preceding thousands
of years. A greater change in the means of commerce of mankind has
taken place since Wheeling was founded, since the first settlers built
their log huts in the great forests on the banks of this river, than
in all the previous period during which man had led an existence that
can be called civilized.
Through the railway, the electric telegraph, and other developments,
steam and electricity worked a complete revolution. This has meant,
of course, that entirely new problems have sprung up. You have right
in this immediate neighborhood a very much larger population than any
similar region in all the United States held when the Continental
Congress began its sessions; and the change in industrial conditions
has been literally immeasurable. Those changed conditions need a
corresponding change in the governmental agencies necessary for their
regulation and supervision.
Such agencies were not provided, and could not have been provided,
in default of a knowledge of prophecy by the men who founded the
Republic. In those days each State could take care perfectly well
of any corporations within its limits, and all it had to do was to
try to encourage their upbuilding. Now the big corporations, although
nominally the creatures of one State, usually do business in other
States, and in a very large number of cases the wide variety of State
laws on the subject of corporations has brought about the fact that
the corporation is made in one State, but does almost all its work in
entirely different States.
It has proved utterly impossible to get anything like uniformity of
legislation among the States. Some States have passed laws about
corporations which, if they had not been ineffective, would have
totally prevented any important corporate work being done within their
limits. Other States have such lax laws that there is no effective
effort made to control any of the abuses. As a result we have a system
of divided control—where the nation has something to say, but it is
a little difficult to know exactly how much, and where the different
States have each something to say, but where there is no supreme power
that can speak with authority. It is, of course, a mere truism to say
that every corporation, the smallest as well as the largest, is the
creature of the State. Where the corporation is small there is very
little need of exercising much supervision over it, but the stupendous
corporations of the present day certainly should be under governmental
supervision and regulation. The first effort to make is to give
somebody the power to exercise that supervision, that regulation.
We have already laws on the statute books. Those laws will be
enforced, and are being enforced, with all the power of the National
Government, and wholly without regard to persons. But the power is
very limited. Now I want you to take my words at their exact value. I
think—I can not say I am sure, because it has often happened in the
past that Congress has passed a law with a given purpose in view, and
when that law has been judicially interpreted it has proved that the
purpose was not achieved—but I think that by legislation additional
power in the way of regulation of at least a number of these great
corporations can be conferred. But, gentlemen, I firmly believe that
in the end power must be given to the National Government to exercise
in full supervision and regulation of these great enterprises, and,
if necessary, a Constitutional amendment must be resorted to for this
purpose.
That is not new doctrine for me. That is the doctrine that I advocated
on the stump two years ago. Some of my ultra-conservative friends
have professed to be greatly shocked at my advocating it now. I would
explain to those gentlemen, once for all, that they err whenever they
think that I advocate on the stump anything that I will not try to
put into effect after election. The objection is made that working
along these lines will take time. So it will. Let me go back to my
illustration of the Mississippi River. It took time to build the
levees, but we built them. And if we have the proper intelligence, the
proper resolution, and the proper self-restraint, we can work out the
solution along the lines that I have indicated. Thus, the first thing
is to give the National Government the power. All the power that is
given, I can assure you, will be used in a spirit as free as possible
from rancor of any kind, but with the firmest determination to make
big man and little man alike obey the law.
What we need first is power. Having gotten the power, remember the
work won’t be ended—it will be only fairly begun. And let me say
again and again and again that you will not get the millennium—the
millennium is some way off yet. But you will be in a position to make
long strides in advance in the direction of securing a juster, fairer,
wiser management of many of these corporations, both as regards the
general public and as regards their relationship among themselves and
to the investing public. When we have the power I most earnestly hope,
and should most earnestly advocate, that it be used with the greatest
wisdom and self-restraint.
The first thing to do would be to find out the facts. For that
purpose I am absolutely clear that we need publicity—that we need it
not as a matter of favor from any one corporation, but as a matter
of right, secured through the agents of the Government, from all
the corporations concerned. The mere fact of the publicity itself
will tend to stop many of the evils, and it will show that some
other alleged evils are imaginary, and finally in making evident the
remaining evils—those that are not imaginary and that are not cured
by the simple light of day—it will give us an intelligent appreciation
of the methods to take in getting at them. We should have, under such
circumstances, one sovereign to whom the big corporations should be
responsible—a sovereign in whose courts a corporation could be held
accountable for any failure to comply with the laws of the legislature
of that sovereign. I do not think you can accomplish that among the
forty-six sovereigns of the States. I think that it will have to be
through the National Government.
TO THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN, CHATTANOOGA, TENN.,
SEPTEMBER 8, 1902
_Mr. Grand Master, Governor McMillan, Mr. Mayor, my Brothers, my
Fellow-Citizens_:
I am glad to be here to-day. I am glad to come as the guest of the
Brotherhood. Let me join with you, the members of the Brotherhood
of this country, in extending a most cordial welcome to our fellows
from Canada and Mexico. The fact that we are good Americans only
makes us all the better men, all the more desirous of seeing good
fortune to all mankind. I needed no pressing to accept the invitation
tendered through you, Mr. Hannahan, and through Mr. Arnold, to come to
this meeting. I have always admired greatly the railroad men of the
country, and I do not see how any one who believes in what I regard
as the fundamental virtues of citizenship can fail to do so. I want
to see the average American a good man, an honest man, and a man who
can handle himself, and does handle himself, well under difficulties.
The last time I ever saw General Sherman, I dined at his house, and
we got to talking over the capacity of different types of soldiers,
and the General happened to say that if ever there were another war,
and he were to have a command, he should endeavor to get as many
railway men as possible under him. I asked him why, and he said,
“Because on account of their profession they have developed certain
qualities which are essential in a soldier.” In the first place, they
are accustomed to taking risks. There are a great many men who are
naturally brave, but who, being entirely unaccustomed to risks, are
at first appalled by them. Railroad men are accustomed to enduring
hardship; they are accustomed to irregular hours; they are accustomed
to act on their own responsibility, on their own initiative, and yet
they are accustomed to obeying orders quickly. There is not anything
more soul-harrowing for a man in time of war, or for a man engaged in
a difficult job in time of peace, than to give an order and have the
gentleman addressed say “What?” The railroad man has to learn that
when an order is issued there may be but a fraction of a second in
which to obey it. He has to learn that orders are to be obeyed, and,
on the other hand, that there will come plenty of crises in which
there will be no orders to be obeyed, and he will have to act for
himself.
Those are all qualities that go to the very essence of good
soldiership, and I am not surprised at what General Sherman said. In
raising my own regiment, which was raised mainly in the Southwest,
partly in the Territory in which Mr. Sargent himself served as a
soldier at one time—in Arizona—I got a number of railroad men. Of
course, the first requisite was that a man should know how to shoot
and how to ride. We were raising the regiment in a hurry, and we
did not have time to teach him either. He had to know how to handle
a horse and how to handle a rifle, to start with. But given the
possession of those two qualities, I found that there was no group of
our citizens from whom better men could be drawn to do a soldier’s
work in a tight place and at all times than the railroad men.
But, gentlemen, the period of war is but a fractional part of the life
of our Republic, and I earnestly hope and believe that it will be an
even smaller part in the future than it has been in the past. It was
the work that you have done in time of peace that especially attracted
me to you, that made me anxious to come down here and see you, and
that made me glad to speak to you, not for what I can tell you, but
for the lesson it seems to me can be gained by all of our people from
what you have done.
At the opening of the twentieth century we face conditions vastly
changed from what they were in this country and throughout the world a
century ago. Our complex industrial civilization under which progress
has been so rapid, and in which the changes for good have been so
great, has also inevitably seen the growth of certain tendencies that
are not for good, or at least that are not wholly for good; and we in
consequence, as a people, like the rest of civilized mankind, find
set before us for solution during the coming century problems which
need the best thought of all of us, and the most earnest desire of all
to solve them well if we expect to work out a solution satisfactory
to our people, a solution for the advantage of the nation. In facing
these problems, it must be a comfort to every well-wisher of the
nation to see what has been done by your organization. I believe
emphatically in organized labor. I believe in organizations of
wage-workers. Organization is one of the laws of our social and
economic development at this time. But I feel that we must always keep
before our minds the fact that there is nothing sacred in the name
itself. To call an organization an organization does not make it a
good one. The worth of an organization depends upon its being handled
with the courage, the skill, the wisdom, the spirit of fair dealing as
between man and man, and the wise self-restraint which, I am glad to
be able to say, your Brotherhood has shown. You now number close upon
44,000 members. During the two years ending June 30 last you paid in
to the general and beneficiary funds close upon a million and a half
dollars. More than six and one-half millions have been paid in since
the starting of the insurance clause in the constitution—have been
paid to disabled members and their beneficiaries. Over fifty per cent
of the amount paid was paid on account of accidents. Gentlemen, that
is a sufficient commentary upon the kind of profession which is yours.
You face death and danger in time of peace, as in time of war the men
wearing Uncle Sam’s uniform must face them.
Your work is hard. Do you suppose I mention that because I pity you?
No; not a bit. I don’t pity any man who does hard work worth doing.
I admire him. I pity the creature who doesn’t work, at whichever end
of the social scale he may regard himself as being. The law of worthy
work well done is the law of successful American life. I believe in
play, too—play, and play hard while you play; but don’t make the
mistake of thinking that that is the main thing. The work is what
counts, and if a man does his work well and it is worth doing, then it
matters but little in which line that work is done; the man is a good
American citizen. If he does his work in slip-shod fashion, then no
matter what kind of work it is, he is a poor American citizen.
I speak to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, but what I say
applies to all railroad men—not only to the engineers who have served
an apprenticeship as firemen, to the conductors, who, as a rule,
have served an apprenticeship as brakemen, but to all the men of all
the organizations connected with railroad work. I know you do not
grudge my saying that, through you, I am talking to all the railroad
men of the country. You, in your organization as railroad men, have
taught two lessons: the lesson of how much can be accomplished by
organization, by mutual self-help of the type that helps another in
the only way by which, in the long run,—that is, by teaching him to
help himself. You teach the benefits of organization, and you also
teach the indispensable need of keeping absolutely unimpaired the
faculty of individual initiative, the faculty by which each man brings
himself to the highest point of perfection by exercising the special
qualities with which he is himself endowed. The Brotherhood has
developed to this enormous extent since the days, now many years ago,
when the first little band came together; and it has developed, not by
crushing out individual initiative, but by developing it, by combining
many individual initiatives.
The Brotherhood of Firemen does much for all firemen, but I firmly
believe that the individual fireman since the growth of the
Brotherhood has been more, not less, efficient than he was twenty
years ago. Membership in the Brotherhood comes, as I understand it,
after a nine months’ probationary period; after a man has shown his
worth, he is then admitted and stands on his footing as a brother.
Now, any man who enters with the purpose of letting the Brotherhood
carry him is not worth much. The man who counts in the Brotherhood
is the man who pulls his own weight and a little more. Much can be
done by the Brotherhood. I have just hinted in the general figures I
gave you, at how much has been done, but it still remains true in the
Brotherhood, and everywhere else throughout American life, that in the
last resort nothing can supply the place of the man’s own individual
qualities. We need those, no matter how perfect the organization is
outside. There is just as much need of nerve, hardihood, power to face
risks and accept responsibilities, in the engineer and the fireman,
whether on a flyer or a freight train, now as there ever was. Much
can be done by the Association. A great deal can be accomplished by
working each for all and all for each; but we must not forget that the
first requisite in accomplishing that is that each man should work for
others by working for himself, by developing his own capacity.
The steady way in which a man can rise is illustrated by a little
thing that happened yesterday. I came down here over the Queen and
Crescent Railroad, and the General Manager, who handled my train and
who handled yours, was Mr. Maguire. I used to know him in the old days
when he was on his way up, and he began right at the bottom. He was
a fireman at one time. He worked his way straight up, and now he is
General Manager.
I believe so emphatically in your organization because, while it
teaches the need of working in union, of working in association, of
working with deep in our hearts, not merely on our lips, the sense of
Brotherhood, yet of necessity it still keeps, as your organization
always must keep, to the forefront the worth of the individual
qualities of a man. I said to you that I came here in a sense not to
speak to you, but to use your experience as an object-lesson for all
of us, an object-lesson in good American citizenship. All professions,
of course, do not call for the exercise to the same degree of the
qualities of which I have spoken. Your profession is one of those
which I am inclined to feel play in modern life a greater part from
the standpoint of character than we entirely realize. There is in
modern life, with the growth of civilization and luxury, a certain
tendency to softening of the national fibre. There is a certain
tendency to forget, in consequence of their disuse, the rugged virtues
which lie at the back of manhood; and I feel that professions like
yours, like the profession of the railroad men of the country, have a
tonic effect upon the whole body politic.
It is a good thing that there should be a large body of our
fellow-citizens—that there should be a profession—whose members must,
year in and year out, display those old, old qualities of courage,
daring, resolution, unflinching willingness to meet danger at need. I
hope to see all our people develop the softer, gentler virtues to an
ever increasing degree, but I hope never to see them lose the sterner
virtues that make men men.
A man is not going to be a fireman or an engineer, or serve well in
any other capacity on a railroad long if he has a “streak of yellow”
in him. You are going to find it out, and he is going to be painfully
conscious of it, very soon. It is a fine thing for our people that we
should have those qualities in evidence before us in the life-work of
a big group of our citizens.
In American citizenship, we can succeed permanently only upon the
basis of standing shoulder to shoulder, working in association, by
organization, each working for all, and yet remembering that we need
each so to shape things that each man can develop to best advantage
all the forces and powers at his command. In your organization you
accomplish much by means of the Brotherhood, but you accomplish it
because of the men who go to make up that brotherhood.
If you had exactly the organization, exactly the laws, exactly the
system, and yet were yourselves a poor set of men, the system would
not save you. I will guarantee that, from time to time, you have men
go in to try to serve for the nine months who prove that they do not
have the stuff in them out of which you can make good men. You have to
have the stuff in you, and, if you have the stuff, you can make out of
it a much finer man by means of the association—but you must have the
material out of which to make it. So it is in citizenship.
And now let me say a word, speaking not merely especially to the
Brotherhood, but to all our citizens. Governor McMillan, Mr. Mayor: I
fail to see how any American can come to Chattanooga and go over the
great battle-fields in the neighborhood—the battle-fields here in this
State and just across the border in my mother’s State of Georgia—how
any American can come here and see evidences of the mighty deeds done
by the men who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray, and not
go away a better American, prouder of the country, prouder because
of the valor displayed on both sides in the contest—the valor, the
self-devotion, the loyalty to the right as each side saw the right.
Yesterday I was presented with a cane cut from the Chickamauga
battle-field by some young men of Northern Georgia. On the cane were
engraved the names of three Union generals and three Confederate
generals. One of those Union generals was at that time showing me
over the battle-field—General Boynton. Under one of the Confederate
generals—General Wheeler—I myself served. In my regiment there served
under me in the ranks a son of General Hood, who commanded at one time
the Confederate army against General Sherman. The only captain whom
I had the opportunity of promoting to field rank, and to whom the
promotion was given for gallantry on the field, was Micah Jenkins, of
South Carolina, the son of a Confederate general, whose name you will
find recorded among those who fought at Chickamauga.
Two of my best captains were killed at Santiago—one was Allyn Capron,
the fifth in line who, from father to son, had served in the regular
army of the United States, who had served in every war in which our
country had been engaged; the other, Bucky O’Neill. His father had
fought under Meagher when, on the day at Fredericksburg, his brigade
left more men under the stone wall than did any other brigade. I had
in my regiment men from the North and the South; men from the East
and the West; men whose fathers had fought under Grant, and whose
fathers had fought under Lee; college graduates, capitalists’ sons,
wage-workers, the man of means and the man who all his life had owed
each day’s bread to the day’s toil. I had Catholic, Protestant, Jew,
and Gentile under me. Among my captains were men whose forefathers
had been among the first white men to settle on Massachusetts Bay
and on the banks of the James, and others whose parents had come
from Germany, from Ireland, from England, from France. They were all
Americans, and nothing else, and each man stood on his worth as a man,
to be judged by it, and to succeed or fail accordingly as he did well
or ill. Compared to the giant death-wrestles that reeled over the
mountains round about this city the fight at Santiago was the merest
skirmish; but the spirit in which we handled ourselves there, I hope
was the spirit in which we have to face our duties as citizens if we
are to make this Republic what it must be made.
Yesterday, in passing over the Chickamauga battle-field, I was
immensely struck by the monument raised by Kentucky to the Union and
Confederate soldiers from Kentucky who fell on that battle-field.
The inscription reads as follows: “As we are united in life, and
they united in death, let one monument perpetuate their deeds, and
one people, forgetful of all asperities, forever hold in grateful
remembrance all the glories of that terrible conflict which made all
men free and retained every star on the nation’s flag.” That is a good
sentiment. That is a sentiment by which we can all stand. And oh, my
friends! what does that sentiment have as its underlying spirit? The
spirit of brotherhood!
I firmly believe in my countrymen, and therefore I believe that the
chief thing necessary in order that they shall work together is
that they shall know one another—that the Northerner shall know the
Southerner, and the man of one occupation know the man of another
occupation; the man who works in one walk of life know the man who
works in another walk of life, so that we may realize that the things
which divide us are superficial, are unimportant, and that we are, and
must ever be, knit together into one indissoluble mass by our common
American brotherhood.
AT DANVILLE, VA., SEPTEMBER 9, 1902
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
I did not expect to have the chance of speaking to any of you of
Virginia on this trip. I only wish it had been my good fortune to
be able to go through your grand and beautiful historic State by
daylight. But you have not escaped me, gentlemen; I am going to come
again.
Yesterday and to-day I spent in Tennessee and North Carolina. I have
enjoyed much those two days. It is a good thing for any American,
and it is an especially good thing for the American who happens to
be President at any time, to go around in the country and meet his
fellow-Americans of different sections and different States. The more
he sees of his fellow-Americans the more he will realize that the
differences which divide them are trivial and that the likenesses
which unite them are fundamental. A good American is a good American
wherever he is, and a bad American is a poor one wherever he is. If
a man is a decent citizen, if he does his duty to his family, to his
neighbors, to the State and the nation, as a decent man ought to, then
he is a man who has a right to claim kinship and comradeship with
every other decent American from one end of this country to the other.
If he is a straight man he is a credit to all of us, and if he is a
crooked man he is a disgrace to all of us. Fundamentally, for weal or
for woe, we are knit together; we shall go up or go down together. If
hard times come they come without much regard to State lines. If good
times come they come without regard to State lines. Wherever a deed is
done by an American which reflects credit upon our country, each of us
can walk with his head a little higher in consequence; and wherever
anything happens through the fault of any of us that is discreditable
it discredits all of us more or less.
Gentlemen and ladies, I thank you greatly for having come down here to
greet me. It is a genuine pleasure to see you. No man of the United
States, proud of the history of the United States, can fail to feel
certain associations of reverence and regard awakened when he treads
the soil of Virginia, which has taken so leading a part in peace and
in war throughout our history.
AT MUSIC HALL, CINCINNATI, OHIO, ON THE EVENING OF SEPTEMBER 20, 1902
_Mr. Mayor, and you, my Fellow-Americans_:
I shall ask your attention to what I say to-night, because I intend
to make a perfectly serious argument to you, and I shall be obliged
if you will remain as still as possible; and I ask that those at
the very back will remember that if they talk or make a noise it
interferes with the hearing of the rest. I intend to speak to you
on a serious subject and to make an argument as the Chief Executive
of a nation, who is the President of all the people, without regard
to party, without regard to section. I intend to make to you an
argument from the standpoint simply of one American talking to his
fellow-Americans upon one of the great subjects of interest to all
alike; and that subject is what are commonly known as trusts. The word
is used very loosely and almost always with technical inaccuracy.
The average man, however, when he speaks of the trusts means rather
vaguely all of the very big corporations, the growth of which has been
so signal a feature of our modern civilization, and especially those
big corporations which, though organized in one State, do business in
several States, and often have a tendency to monopoly.
The whole subject of the trusts is of vital concern to us, because it
presents one, and perhaps the most conspicuous, of the many problems
forced upon our attention by the tremendous industrial development
which has taken place during the last century, a development which
is occurring in all civilized countries, notably in our own. There
have been many factors responsible for bringing about these changed
conditions. Of these, steam and electricity are the chief. The
extraordinary changes in the methods of transportation of merchandise
and of transmission of news have rendered not only possible, but
inevitable, the immense increase in the rate of growth of our great
industrial centres—that is, of our great cities. I want you to bring
home to yourselves that fact. When Cincinnati was founded news could
be transmitted and merchandise carried exactly as has been the
case in the days of the Roman Empire. You had here on your river
the flat-boat, you had on the ocean the sailing-ship, you had the
pack-train, you had the wagon, and every one of the four was known
when Babylon fell. The change in the last hundred years has been
greater by far than the changes in all the preceding three thousand.
Those are the facts. Because of them have resulted the specialization
of industries, and the unexampled opportunities offered for the
employment of huge amounts of capital, and therefore for the rise
in the business world of those master-minds through whom alone it
is possible for such vast amounts of capital to be employed with
profit. It matters very little whether we like these new conditions
or whether we dislike them; whether we like the creation of these new
opportunities or not. Many admirable qualities which were developed
in the older, simpler, less progressive life have tended to atrophy
under our rather feverish, high-pressure, complex life of to-day.
But our likes and dislikes have nothing to do with the matter. The
new conditions are here. You can’t bring back the old days of the
canalboat and stagecoach if you wish. The steamboat and the railroad
are here. The new forces have produced both good and evil. We can not
get rid of them—even if it were not undesirable to get rid of them;
and our instant duty is to try to accommodate our social, economic and
legislative life to them, and to frame a system of law and conduct
under which we shall get out of them the utmost possible benefit and
the least possible amount of harm. It is foolish to pride ourselves
upon our progress and prosperity, upon our commanding position in the
international industrial world, and at the same time have nothing but
denunciation for the men to whose commanding position we in part owe
this very progress and prosperity, this commanding position.
Whenever great social or industrial changes take place, no matter
how much good there may be to them, there is sure to be some evil;
and it usually takes mankind a number of years and a good deal of
experimenting before they find the right ways in which so far as
possible to control the new evil, without at the same time nullifying
the new good. I am stating facts so obvious that if each one of
you will think them over you will think them trite, but if you read
or listen to some of the arguments advanced, you will come to the
conclusion that there is need of learning these trite truths. In these
circumstances the effort to bring the new tendencies to a standstill
is always futile and generally mischievous; but it is possible
somewhat to develop them aright. Law can to a degree guide, protect
and control industrial development, but it can never cause it, or play
more than a subordinate part in its healthy development—unfortunately
it is easy enough by bad laws to bring it to an almost complete stop.
In dealing with the big corporations which we call trusts, we must
resolutely purpose to proceed by evolution and not revolution. We
wish to face the facts, declining to have our vision blinded either
by the folly of those who say there are no evils, or by the more
dangerous folly of those who either see, or make believe that they
see, nothing but evil in all the existing system, and who if given
their way would destroy the evil by the simple process of bringing
ruin and disaster to the entire country. The evils attendant upon
over-capitalization alone are, in my judgment, sufficient to warrant
a far closer supervision and control than now exists over the great
corporations. Wherever a substantial monopoly can be shown to exist
we should certainly try our utmost to devise an expedient by which it
can be controlled. Doubtless some of the evils existing in or because
of the great corporations can not be cured by any legislation which
has yet been proposed, and doubtless others, which have really been
incident to the sudden development in the formation of corporations
of all kinds, will in the end cure themselves. But there will remain
a certain number which can be cured if we decide that by the power of
the Government they are to be cured. The surest way to prevent the
possibility of curing any of them is to approach the subject in a
spirit of violent rancor, complicated with total ignorance of business
interests and fundamental incapacity or unwillingness to understand
the limitations upon all law-making bodies. No problem, and least of
all so difficult a problem as this, can be solved if the qualities
brought to its solution are panic, fear, envy, hatred, and ignorance.
There can exist in a free republic no man more wicked, no man more
dangerous to the people, than he who would arouse these feelings in
the hope that they would redound to his own political advantage.
Corporations that are handled honestly and fairly, so far from being
an evil, are a natural business evolution and make for the general
prosperity of our land. We do not wish to destroy corporations, but we
do wish to make them subserve the public good. All individuals, rich
or poor, private or corporate, must be subject to the law of the land;
and the government will hold them to a rigid obedience thereof. The
biggest corporation, like the humblest private citizen, must be held
to strict compliance with the will of the people as expressed in the
fundamental law. The rich man who does not see that this is in his
interest is indeed short-sighted. When we make him obey the law we
ensure for him the absolute protection of the law.
The savings banks show what can be done in the way of genuinely
beneficent work by large corporations when intelligently administered
and supervised. They now hold over twenty-six hundred millions of the
people’s money and pay annually about one hundred millions of interest
or profit to their depositors. There is no talk of danger from these
corporations; yet they possess great power, holding over three times
the amount of our present national debt, more than all the currency,
gold, silver, greenbacks, etc., in circulation in the United States.
The chief reason for there being no talk of danger from them is that
they are on the whole faithfully administered for the benefit of all,
under wise laws which require frequent and full publication of their
condition, and which prescribe certain needful regulations with which
they have to comply, while at the same time giving full scope for the
business enterprise of their managers within these limits.
Now of course savings banks are as highly specialized a class of
corporations as railroads, and we can not force too far the analogy
with other corporations; but there are certain conditions which I
think we can lay down as indispensable to the proper treatment of all
corporations which from their size have become important factors in
the social development of the community.
Before speaking, however, of what can be done by way of remedy let
me say a word or two as to certain proposed remedies which, in my
judgment, would be ineffective or mischievous. The first thing to
remember is that if we are to accomplish any good at all it must be
by resolutely keeping in mind the intention to do away with any evils
in the conduct of big corporations, while steadfastly refusing to
assent to indiscriminate assault upon all forms of corporate capital
as such. The line of demarcation we draw must always be on conduct,
not upon wealth; our objection to any given corporation must be, not
that it is big, but that it behaves badly. Perfectly simple again, my
friends, but not always heeded by some of those who would strive to
teach us how to act toward big corporations. Treat the head of the
corporation as you would treat all other men. If he does well stand
by him. You will occasionally find the head of a big corporation who
objects to that treatment; very good, apply it all the more carefully.
Remember, after all, that he who objects because he is the head of a
big corporation to being treated like any one else is only guilty of
the same sin as the man who wishes him treated worse than any one else
because he is the head of a big corporation. Demagogic denunciation of
wealth is never wholesome and is generally dangerous; and not a few
of the proposed methods of curbing the trusts are dangerous chiefly
because all insincere advocacy of the impossible is dangerous. It is
an unhealthy thing for a community when the appeal is made to follow
a course which those who make the appeal either do know, or ought to
know, can not be followed; and which, if followed, would result in
disaster to everybody. Loose talk about destroying monopoly out of
hand without a hint as to how the monopoly should even be defined
offers a case in point.
Nor can we afford to tolerate any proposal which will strike at the
so-called trusts only by striking at the general well-being. We are
now enjoying a period of great prosperity. The prosperity is generally
diffused through all sections and through all classes. Doubtless there
are some individuals who do not get enough of it, and there are others
who get too much. That is simply another way of saying that the wisdom
of mankind is finite; and that even the best human system does not
work perfectly. You don’t have to take my word for that. Look back
just nine years. In 1893 nobody was concerned in downing the trusts.
Everybody was concerned in trying to get up himself. The men who
propose to get rid of the evils of the trusts by measures which would
do away with the general well-being, advocate a policy which would
not only be a damage to the community as a whole, but which would
defeat its own professed object. If we are forced to the alternative
of choosing either a system under which most of us prosper somewhat,
though a few of us prosper too much, or else a system under which
no one prospers enough, of course we will choose the former. If the
policy advocated is so revolutionary and destructive as to involve
the whole community in the crash of common disaster, it is as certain
as anything can be that when the disaster has occurred all efforts
to regulate the trusts will cease, and that the one aim will be to
restore prosperity.
A remedy much advocated at the moment is to take off the tariff
from all articles which are made by trusts. To do this it will be
necessary first to define trusts. The language commonly used by the
advocates of the method implies that they mean all articles made by
large corporations, and that the changes in tariff are to be made
with punitive intent toward these large corporations. Of course if
the tariff is to be changed in order to punish them, it should be
changed so as to punish those that do ill, not merely those that are
prosperous. It would be neither just nor expedient to punish the big
corporations as big corporations; what we wish to do is to protect
the people from any evil that may grow out of their existence or
maladministration. Some of those corporations do well and others do
ill. If in any case the tariff is found to foster a monopoly which
does ill, of course no protectionist would object to a modification
of the tariff sufficient to remedy the evil. But in very few cases
does the so-called trust really monopolize the market. Take any very
big corporation—I could mention them by the score—which controls,
say, something in the neighborhood of half of the products of a given
industry. It is the kind of corporation that is always spoken of
as a trust. Surely in rearranging the schedules affecting such a
corporation it would be necessary to consider the interests of its
smaller competitors which control the remaining part, and which,
being weaker, would suffer most from any tariff designed to punish
all the producers; for, of course, the tariff must be made light or
heavy for big and little producers alike. Moreover, such a corporation
necessarily employs very many thousands, often very many tens of
thousands of workmen, and the minute we proceeded from denunciation
to action it would be necessary to consider the interests of these
workmen. Furthermore, the products of many trusts are unprotected, and
would be entirely unaffected by any change in the tariff, or at most
very slightly so. The Standard Oil Company offers a case in point;
and the corporations which control the anthracite coal output offer
another—for there is no duty whatever on anthracite coal.
I am not now discussing the question of the tariff as such; whether
from the standpoint of the fundamental difference between those who
believe in a protective tariff and those who believe in free trade; or
from the standpoint of those who, while they believe in a protective
tariff, feel that there could be a rearrangement of our schedules,
either by direct legislation or by reciprocity treaties, which would
result in enlarging our markets; nor yet from the standpoint of those
who feel that stability of economic policy is at the moment our prime
economic need, and that the benefits to be derived from any change
in schedules would not compensate for the damage to business caused
by the widespread agitation which would follow any attempted general
revision of the tariff at this moment. Without regard to the wisdom
of any one of those three positions it remains true that the real
evils connected with the trusts can not be remedied by any change
in the tariff laws. The trusts can be damaged by depriving them of
the benefits of a protective tariff, only on condition of damaging
all their smaller competitors, and all the wage-workers employed in
the industry. This point is very important, and it is desirable to
avoid any misunderstanding concerning it. I am not now considering
whether or not, on grounds totally unconnected with the trusts, it
would be well to lower the duties on various schedules, either by
direct legislation or by legislation or treaties designed to secure
as an offset reciprocal advantages from the nations with which we
trade. My point is that changes in the tariff would have little
appreciable effect on the trusts save as they shared in the general
harm or good proceeding from such changes. No tariff change would help
one of our smaller corporations, or one of our private individuals
in business, still less one of our wage-workers, as against a large
corporation in the same business; on the contrary, if it bore heavily
on the large corporation it would inevitably be felt still more by
that corporation’s weaker rivals, while any injurious result would
of necessity be shared by both the employer and the employed in the
business concerned. The immediate introduction of substantial free
trade in all articles manufactured by trusts, that is, by the largest
and most successful corporations, would not affect some of the most
powerful of our business combinations in the least, save by the damage
done to the general business welfare of the country; others would
undoubtedly be seriously affected, but much less so than their weaker
rivals, while the loss would be divided between the capitalists and
the laborers; and after the years of panic and distress had been
lived through, and some return to prosperity had occurred, even
though all were on a lower plane of prosperity than before, the
relative difference between the trusts and their rivals would remain
as marked as ever. In other words, the trust, or big corporation,
would have suffered relatively to, and in the interest of, its foreign
competitor; but its relative position toward its American competitors
would probably be improved; little would have been done toward cutting
out or minimizing the evils in the trusts; nothing toward securing
adequate control and regulation of the large modern corporations. In
other words, the question of regulating the trusts with a view to
minimizing or abolishing the evils existent in them is separate and
apart from the question of tariff revision.
You must face the fact that only harm will come from a proposition
to attack the so-called trusts in a vindictive spirit by measures
conceived solely with a desire of hurting them, without regard as to
whether or not discrimination should be made between the good and
evil in them, and without even any regard as to whether a necessary
sequence of the action would be the hurting of other interests.
The adoption of such a policy would mean temporary damage to the
trusts, because it would mean temporary damage to all of our business
interests; but the effect would be only temporary, for exactly as the
damage affected all alike, good and bad, so the reaction would affect
all alike, good and bad. The necessary supervision and control, in
which I firmly believe as the only method of eliminating the real
evils of the trusts, must come through wisely and cautiously framed
legislation, which shall aim in the first place to give definite
control to some sovereign over the great corporations, and which shall
be followed, when once this power has been conferred, by a system
giving to the Government the full knowledge which is the essential for
satisfactory action. Then when this knowledge—one of the essential
features of which is proper publicity—has been gained, what further
steps of any kind are necessary can be taken with the confidence born
of the possession of power to deal with the subject, and of a thorough
knowledge of what should and can be done in the matter.
We need additional power; and we need knowledge. Our Constitution was
framed when the economic conditions were so different that each State
could wisely be left to handle the corporations within its limits
as it saw fit. Nowadays all the corporations which I am considering
do what is really an interstate business, and as the States have
proceeded on very different lines in regulating them, at present a
corporation will be organized in one State, not because it intends to
do business in that State, but because it does not, and therefore that
State can give it better privileges, and then it will do business in
some other States, and will claim not to be under the control of the
States in which it does business; and of course it is not the object
of the State creating it to exercise any control over it, as it does
not do any business in that State. Such a system can not obtain. There
must be some sovereign. It might be better if all the States could
agree along the same lines in dealing with these corporations, but
I see not the slightest prospect of such an agreement. Therefore, I
personally feel that ultimately the nation will have to assume the
responsibility of regulating these very large corporations which do an
interstate business. The States must combine to meet the way in which
capital has combined; and the way in which the States can combine is
through the National Government. But I firmly believe that all these
obstacles can be met if only we face them, both with the determination
to overcome them, and with the further determination to overcome them
in ways which shall not do damage to the country as a whole; which on
the contrary shall further our industrial development, and shall help
instead of hindering all corporations which work out their success by
means that are just and fair toward all men.
Without the adoption of a constitutional amendment, my belief is that
a good deal can be done by law. It is difficult to say exactly how
much, because experience has taught us that in dealing with these
subjects, where the lines dividing the rights and duties of the States
and of the Nation are in doubt, it has sometimes been difficult for
Congress to forecast the action of the courts upon its legislation.
Such legislation (whether obtainable now, or obtainable only after a
constitutional amendment) should provide for a reasonable supervision,
the most prominent feature of which at first should be publicity; that
is, the making public, both to the governmental authorities and to the
people at large, the essential facts in which the public is concerned.
This would give us exact knowledge of many points which are now not
only in doubt, but the subject of fierce controversy. Moreover, the
mere fact of the publication would cure some very grave evils, for the
light of day is a deterrent to wrongdoing. It would doubtless disclose
other evils with which, for the time being, we could devise no way to
grapple. Finally, it would disclose others which could be grappled
with and cured by further legislative action.
Remember, I advocate the action which the President can only advise,
and which he has no power himself to take. Under our present
legislative and constitutional limitations the national executive
can work only between narrow lines in the field of action concerning
great corporations. Between those lines, I assure you that exact and
even-handed justice will be dealt, and is being dealt, to all men,
without regard to persons.
I wish to repeat with all emphasis that desirable though it is that
the nation should have the power I suggest, it is equally desirable
that it should be used with wisdom and self-restraint. The mechanism
of modern business is tremendous in its size and complexity, and
ignorant intermeddling with it would be disastrous. We should not be
made timid or daunted by the size of the problem; we should not fear
to undertake it; but we should undertake it with ever-present in our
minds dread of the sinister spirits of rancor, ignorance, and vanity.
We need to keep steadily in mind the fact that besides the tangible
property in each corporation there lies behind the spirit which brings
it success, and in the case of each very successful corporation this
is usually the spirit of some one man or set of men. Under exactly
similar conditions one corporation will make a stupendous success
where another makes a stupendous failure, simply because one is well
managed and the other is not. While making it clear that we do not
intend to allow wrongdoing by one of the captains of industry any more
than by the humblest private in the industrial ranks, we must also
in the interests of all of us avoid cramping a strength which, if
beneficently used, will be for the good of all of us. The marvelous
prosperity we have been enjoying for the past few years has been
due primarily to the high average of honesty, thrift, and business
capacity among our people as a whole; but some of it has also been
due to the ability of the men who are the industrial leaders of the
nation. In securing just and fair dealing by these men let us remember
to do them justice in return, and this not only because it is our
duty, but because it is our interest; not only for their sakes, but
for ours. We are neither the friend of the rich man as such, nor the
friend of the poor man as such; we are the friend of the honest man,
rich or poor; and we intend that all men, rich and poor alike, shall
obey the law alike and receive its protection alike.
AT THE BANQUET OF THE SPANISH WAR VETERANS, DETROIT, MICH., SEPTEMBER
22, 1902
_Mr. Mayor, and you, my Comrades, and all of you, my
Fellow-Americans, Men and Women of Detroit_:
While the war with Spain was easy enough, the tasks left behind,
though glorious, have been hard. You, the men of the Spanish War, and
your comrades in arms who fought in Cuba and Porto Rico and in the
Philippines, won renown for the country, added to its moral grandeur
and to its material prosperity; but you also left duties to be done
by those who came after you. In Porto Rico the duty has been merely
administrative, and it has been so well done that very little need be
said about it.
I speak in the presence not only of the men who fought in the Spanish
War and in the Philippine War, which was its aftermath, but in the
presence of those who fought in the great Civil War; and more than
that, I speak here in a typical city of the old Northwest, what is now
the Middle West, in a typical State of our Union. You men of Michigan
have been mighty in war and mighty in peace. You belong to a country
mighty in war and mighty in peace—a country of a great past, whose
great present is but an earnest of an even greater future. The world
has never seen more marvelous prosperity than that which we now enjoy,
and this prosperity is not ephemeral. We shall have our ups and downs.
The waves at times will recede, but the tide will go steadily higher.
This country has never yet been called upon to meet a crisis in war
or a crisis in peace to which it did not eventually prove equal. I
preach the gospel of hope to you men of the West who in thought and
life embody this gospel of hope, this gospel of resolute and confident
belief in your own powers and in the destiny of this mighty Republic.
I believe in the future—not in a spirit which will sit down and look
for the future to work itself out—but with a determination to do
its part in making the future what it can and shall be made. We are
optimists. We spurn the teachings of despair and distrust. We have
an abiding faith in the growing strength, the growing future of the
mighty young nation, still in the flush of its youth, and yet with the
might of a giant, which stands on a continent and grasps an ocean with
either hand.
Succeed? Of course we shall succeed! How can success fail to come to
a race of masterful energy and resoluteness, which has a continent
for the base of its domain, and which feels within its veins the
thrill that comes to generous souls when their strength stirs in
them, and they know that the future is theirs? No great destiny
ever yet came to a people walking with their eyes on the ground and
their faces shrouded in gloom. No great destiny ever yet came to a
people who feared the future, who feared failure more than they hoped
for success. With such as these we have no part. We know there are
dangers ahead, as we know there are evils to fight and overcome,
but we feel to the full the pulse of the prosperity which we enjoy.
Stout of heart, we see across the dangers the great future that lies
beyond, and we rejoice as a giant refreshed, as a strong man girt
for the race; and we go down into the arena where the nations strive
for mastery, our hearts lifted with the faith that to us and to our
children and our children’s children it shall be given to make this
Republic the mightiest among the peoples of mankind.
AT LOGANSPORT, IND., SEPTEMBER 23, 1902
_Fellow-Citizens_:
I am going to ask you to take what I say at its exact face value, as
I like whatever I say to be taken. It is suggested by coming to this
great Western State and speaking to one of its thriving cities. We
believe that the American business man is of a peculiar type; and
probably the qualities of energy, daring, and resourcefulness which
have given him his prominence in the international industrial world
find their highest development here in the West. It is the merest
truism to say that in the modern world industrialism is the great
factor in the growth of nations. Material prosperity is the foundation
upon which every mighty national structure must be built. Of course
there must be more than this. There must be a high moral purpose,
a life of the spirit which finds its expression in many different
ways; but unless material prosperity exists also there is scant room
in which to develop the higher life. The productive activity of our
vast army of workers, of those who work with head or hands, is the
prime cause of the giant growth of this nation. We have great natural
resources, but such resources are never more than opportunities, and
they count for nothing if the men in possession have not the power to
take advantage of them. You have built up in the West these cities of
the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes; as all the region round
about them has been built up—that is, because you had the qualities
of heart and brain, the qualities of moral and physical fibre, which
enabled you to use to the utmost advantage whatever you found ready to
your hands. You win, not by shirking difficulties, but by facing and
overcoming them.
In such development laws play a certain part, but individual
characteristics a still greater part. A great and successful
commonwealth like ours in the long run works under good laws, because
a people endowed with honest and practical common-sense ultimately
demands good laws. But no law can create industrial well-being,
although it may foster and safeguard it, and although a bad law may
destroy it. The prime factor in securing industrial well-being is the
high average of citizenship found in the community. The best laws that
the wit of man can devise would not make a community of thriftless and
idle men prosperous. No scheme of legislation or of social reform will
ever work good to the community unless it recognizes as fundamental
the fact that each man’s own individual qualities must be the prime
factors in his success. Work in combination may help and the State
can do a good deal in its own sphere, but in the long run each man
must rise or fall on his own merits; each man must owe his success in
life to whatever of hardihood, of resolution, of common-sense and of
capacity for lofty endeavor he has within his own soul. It is a good
thing to act in combination for the common good, but it is a very
unhealthy thing to let ourselves think for one moment that anything
can ever supply the want of our own individual watchfulness and
exertion.
Yet given this high average of individual ability and invention, we
must ever keep in mind that it may be nullified by bad legislation,
and that it can be given a chance to develop under the most favorable
conditions by good legislation. Probably the most important aid
which can be contributed by the National Government to the material
well-being of the country is to ensure its financial stability. An
honest currency is the strongest symbol and expression of honest
business life. The business world must exist largely on credit, and
to credit confidence is essential. Any tampering with the currency,
no matter with what purpose, if fraught with the suspicion of
dishonesty, in result is fatal in its effects on business prosperity.
Very ignorant and primitive communities are continually obliged to
learn the elementary truth that the repudiation of debts is in the end
ruinous to the debtors as a class; and when communities have moved
somewhat higher in the scale of civilization they also learn that
anything in the nature of a debased currency works similar damage. A
financial system of assured honesty is the first essential.
Another essential for any community is perseverance in the economic
policy which for a course of years is found best fitted to its
peculiar needs. The question of combining such fixedness of economic
policy as regards the tariff, while at the same time allowing for a
necessary and proper readjustment of duties in particular schedules,
as such readjustment becomes a matter of pressing importance, is not
an easy one. It is perhaps too much to expect that from the discussion
of such a question it would be possible wholly to eliminate political
partisanship. Yet those who believe, as we all must when we think
seriously of the subject, that the proper aim of the party system
is after all simply to subserve the public good, can not but hope
that where such partisanship on a matter of this kind conflicts with
the public good it shall at least be minimized. It is all right and
inevitable that we should divide on party lines, but woe to us if we
are not Americans first, and party men second. What we really need
in this country is to treat the tariff as a business proposition
from the standpoint of the interests of the country as a whole, and
not from the standpoint of the temporary needs of any political
party. It surely ought not to be necessary to dwell upon the extreme
unwisdom, from a business standpoint, from the standpoint of national
prosperity, of violent and radical changes amounting to the direct
upsetting of tariff policies at intervals of every few years. A nation
like ours can adjust its business after a fashion to any kind of
tariff. But neither our nation nor any other can stand the ruinous
policy of readjusting its business to radical changes in the tariff at
short intervals. This is more true now than ever it was before, for
owing to the immense extent and variety of our products, the tariff
schedules of to-day carry rates of duty on more than four thousand
articles. Continual sweeping changes in such a tariff, touching so
intimately the commercial interests of the nation which stands as one
of the two or three greatest in the whole industrial world, can not
but be disastrous. Yet on the other hand where the industrial needs
of the nation shift as rapidly as they do with us, it is a matter
of prime importance that we should be able to readjust our economic
policy as rapidly as possible and with as little friction as possible
to these needs.
We need a scheme which will enable us to provide a reapplication of
the principle to the changed conditions. The problem therefore is to
devise some method by which these shifting needs can be recognized
and the necessary readjustments of duties provided without forcing
the entire business community, and therefore the entire nation, to
submit to a violent surgical operation, the mere threat of which, and
still more the accomplished fact of which, would probably paralyze
for a considerable time all the industries of the country. Such a
radical action might very readily reproduce the conditions from
which we suffered nine years ago, in 1893. It is on every account
most earnestly to be hoped that this problem can be solved in some
manner into which partisanship shall enter as a purely secondary
consideration, if at all; that is, in some manner which shall provide
for an earnest effort by non-partisan inquiry and action to secure any
changes the need of which is indicated by the effect found to proceed
from a given rate of duty on a given article; its effect, if any,
as regards the creation of a substantial monopoly; its effect upon
domestic prices, upon the revenue of the government, upon importations
from abroad, upon home productions, and upon consumption. In other
words, we need to devise some machinery by which, while persevering
in the policy of a protective tariff, in which I think the nation
as a whole has now generally acquiesced, we would be able to correct
the irregularities and remove the incongruities produced by changing
conditions, without destroying the whole structure. Such machinery
would permit us to continue our definitely settled tariff policy,
while providing for the changes in duties upon particular schedules
which must inevitably and necessarily take place from time to time as
matters of legislative and administrative detail. This would secure
the needed stability of economic policy which is a prime factor
in our industrial success, while doing away with any tendency to
fossilization. It would recognize the fact that, as our needs shift,
it may be found advisable to alter rates and schedules, adapting them
to the changed conditions and necessities of the whole people; and
this would be in no wise incompatible with preserving the principle of
protection, for belief in the wisdom of a protective tariff is in no
way inconsistent with frankly admitting the desirability of changing a
set of schedules, when from any cause such change is in the interests
of the nation as a whole—and our tariff policy is designed to favor
the interests of the nation as a whole and not those of any particular
set of individuals save as an incident to this building up of national
well-being. There are two or three different methods by which it
will be possible to provide such readjustment without any shock
to the business world. My personal preference would be for action
which should be taken only after preliminary inquiry by and upon
the findings of a body of experts of such high character and ability
that they could be trusted to deal with the subject purely from the
standpoint of our business and industrial needs; but, of course,
Congress would have to determine for itself the exact method to be
followed. The Executive has at its command the means for gathering
most of the necessary data, and can act whenever it is the desire
of Congress that it should act. That the machinery for carrying out
the policy above outlined can be provided I am very certain, if only
our people will make up their minds that the health of the community
will be subserved by treating the whole question primarily from the
standpoint of the business interests of the entire country, rather
than from the standpoint of the fancied interests of any group of
politicians.
Of course in making any changes we should have to proceed in
accordance with certain fixed and definite principles, and the most
important of these is an avowed determination to protect the interests
of the American producer, be he business man, wage-worker, or farmer.
The one consideration which must never be omitted in a tariff change
is the imperative need of preserving the American standard of living
for the American workingman. The tariff rate must never fall below
that which will protect the American workingman by allowing for the
difference between the general labor cost here and abroad, so as at
least to equalize the conditions arising from the difference in the
standard of labor here and abroad—a difference which it should be our
aim to foster in so far as it represents the needs of better educated,
better paid, better fed, and better clothed workingmen of a higher
type than any to be found in a foreign country. At all hazards, and
no matter what else is sought for or accomplished by changes of the
tariff, the American workingman must be protected in his standard of
wages, that is, in his standard of living, and must be secured the
fullest opportunity of employment. Our laws should in no event afford
advantage to foreign industries over American industries. They should
in no event do less than equalize the difference in conditions at home
and abroad. The general tariff policy to which, without regard to
changes in detail, I believe this country to be irrevocably committed,
is fundamentally based upon ample recognition of the difference in
labor cost here and abroad; in other words, the recognition of the
need for full development of the intelligence, the comfort, the high
standard of civilized living and the inventive genius of the American
workingman as compared to the workingman of any other country in the
world.
AT THE BANQUET OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, AT
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 11, 1902
_Mr. President, Gentlemen, and you, the Guests, whom we welcome here
this evening_:
I do not wish to speak to you in the language of idle compliment,
and yet it is but a bare statement of fact to say that nowhere in
our country could there be gathered an audience which would stand as
more typically characteristic than this of all those qualities and
attributes which have given us of the United States our commanding
position in the industrial world. There is no need of my preaching to
this gathering the need of combining efficiency with upright dealing,
for as an American and as a citizen of New York I am proud to feel
that the name of your organization carries with it a guarantee of
both; and your practice counts for more than any preaching could
possibly count. New York is a city of national importance, because its
position toward the Nation is unique, and the Chamber of Commerce of
New York must of necessity be an element of weight in the commercial
and industrial welfare of the entire people. New York is the great
port of entry for our country—the port in which centres the bulk of
the foreign commerce of the country—and her welfare is therefore no
matter of mere local or municipal, but of national, concern. The
conduct of the Government in dealing with all matters affecting the
financial and commercial relations of New York must continually
take into account this fact; and it must be taken into account in
appreciating the importance of the part played by the New York Chamber
of Commerce.
This body stands for the triumphs of peace both abroad and at home.
We have passed that stage of national development when depreciation
of other peoples is felt as a tribute to our own. We watch the growth
and prosperity of other nations, not with hatred or jealousy, but
with sincere and friendly good-will. I think I can say safely that we
have shown by our attitude toward Cuba, by our attitude toward China,
that as regards weaker powers our desire is that they may be able to
stand alone, and that if they will only show themselves willing to
deal honestly and fairly with the rest of mankind we on our side will
do all we can to help, not to hinder, them. With the great powers of
the world we desire no rivalry that is not honorable to both parties.
We wish them well. We believe that the trend of the modern spirit is
ever stronger toward peace, not war; toward friendship, not hostility,
as the normal international attitude. We are glad indeed that we are
on good terms with all the other peoples of mankind, and no effort on
our part shall be spared to secure a continuance of these relations.
And remember, gentlemen, that we shall be a potent factor for peace
largely in proportion to the way in which we make it evident that
our attitude is due, not to weakness, not to inability to defend
ourselves, but to a genuine repugnance to wrongdoing, a genuine
desire for self-respecting friendship with our neighbors. The voice
of the weakling or the craven counts for nothing when he clamors for
peace; but the voice of the just man armed is potent. We need to keep
in a condition of preparedness, especially as regards our navy, not
because we want war, but because we desire to stand with those whose
plea for peace is listened to with respectful attention.
Important though it is that we should have peace abroad, it is even
more important that we should have peace at home. You, men of the
Chamber of Commerce, to whose efforts we owe so much of our industrial
well-being, can, and I believe surely will, be influential in helping
toward that industrial peace which can obtain in society only when in
their various relations employer and employed alike show not merely
insistence each upon his own rights, but also regard for the rights
of others, and a full acknowledgment of the interests of the third
party—the public. It is no easy matter to work out a system or rule of
conduct, whether with or without the help of the lawgiver, which shall
minimize that jarring and clashing of interests in the industrial
world which causes so much individual irritation and suffering at the
present day, and which at times threatens baleful consequences to
large portions of the body politic. But the importance of the problem
can not be overestimated, and it deserves to receive the careful
thought of all men such as those whom I am addressing to-night. There
should be no yielding to wrong; but there should most certainly
be not only desire to do right but a willingness each to try to
understand the viewpoint of his fellow, with whom, for weal or for
woe, his own fortunes are indissolubly bound.
No patent remedy can be devised for the solution of these grave
problems in the industrial world; but we may rest assured that they
can be solved at all only if we bring to the solution certain old-time
virtues, and if we strive to keep out of the solution some of the
most familiar and most undesirable of the traits to which mankind has
owed untold degradation and suffering throughout the ages. Arrogance,
suspicion, brutal envy of the well-to-do, brutal indifference toward
those who are not well-to-do, the hard refusal to consider the rights
of others, the foolish refusal to consider the limits of beneficent
action, the base appeal to the spirit of selfish greed, whether it
take the form of plunder of the fortunate or of oppression of the
unfortunate—from these and from all kindred vices this Nation must be
kept free if it is to remain in its present position in the forefront
of the peoples of mankind. On the other hand, good will come, even
out of the present evils, if we face them armed with the old homely
virtues; if we show that we are fearless of soul, cool of head, and
kindly of heart; if, without betraying the weakness that cringes
before wrongdoing, we yet show by deeds and words our knowledge that
in such a government as ours each of us must be in very truth his
brother’s keeper.
At a time when the growing complexity of our social and industrial
life has rendered inevitable the intrusion of the State into spheres
of work wherein it formerly took no part, and when there is also a
growing tendency to demand the illegitimate and unwise transfer to
the government of much of the work that should be done by private
persons, singly or associated together, it is a pleasure to address
a body whose members possess to an eminent degree the traditional
American self-reliance of spirit which makes them scorn to ask from
the government, whether of State or of Nation, anything but a fair
field and no favor; who confide not in being helped by others, but in
their own skill, energy, and business capacity to achieve success.
The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is
that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight—that he shall
not be a mere passenger, but shall do his share in the work that each
generation of us finds ready to hand; and, furthermore, that in doing
his work he shall show not only the capacity for sturdy self-help but
also self-respecting regard for the rights of others.
The Chamber of Commerce, it is no idle boast to say, stands in a
preëminent degree for those qualities which make the successful
merchant, the successful business man, whose success is won in ways
honorable to himself and beneficial to his fellows. There are very
different kinds of success. There is the success that brings with
it the seared soul—the success which is achieved by wolfish greed
and vulpine cunning—the success which makes honest men uneasy or
indignant in its presence. Then there is the other kind of success—the
success which comes as the reward of keen insight, of sagacity,
of resolution, of address, combined with unflinching rectitude of
behavior, public and private. The first kind of success may, in a
sense—and a poor sense at that—benefit the individual, but it is
always and necessarily a curse to the community; whereas the man
who wins the second kind, as an incident of its winning becomes a
beneficiary to the whole commonwealth. Throughout its history the
Chamber of Commerce has stood for this second and higher kind of
success. It is therefore fitting that I should come on here as the
Chief Executive of the Nation to wish you well in your new home; for
you belong not merely to the city, not merely to the State, but to all
the country, and you stand high among the great factors in building
up that marvelous prosperity which the entire country now enjoys. The
continuance of this prosperity depends in no small measure upon your
sanity and common-sense, upon the way in which you combine energy in
action with conservative refusal to take part in the reckless gambling
which is so often bred by, and which so inevitably puts an end to,
prosperity. You are men of might in the world of American effort;
you are men whose names stand high in the esteem of our people; you
are spoken of in terms like those used in the long-gone ages when it
was said of the Phœnician cities that their merchants were princes.
Great is your power and great, therefore, your responsibility. Well
and faithfully have you met this responsibility in the past. We look
forward with confident hope to what you will do in the future, and it
is therefore with sincerity that I bid you Godspeed this evening and
wish for you, in the name of the Nation, a career of ever increasing
honor and usefulness.
AT THE BANQUET TENDERED GENERAL LUKE E. WRIGHT, AT MEMPHIS, TENN.,
NOVEMBER 19, 1902
_Mr. Toastmaster, General Wright, and you, my friends, whose
greeting to-night I shall ever remember_:
It is a real and great pleasure to come to this typical city of the
southern Mississippi Valley in order to greet a typical American, a
citizen of Tennessee, who deserves honor not only from his State, but
from the entire country—General Luke E. Wright. We have a right to
expect a high standard of manhood from Tennessee. It was one of the
first two States created west of the Alleghany Mountains, and it was
in this State that the first self-governing community of American
freemen was established upon waters flowing into the Gulf. The
pioneers of Tennessee were among the earliest in that great westward
march which thrust the nation’s border across the continent to the
Pacific, and it is eminently fitting that a son of Tennessee should
now play so prominent a part in the further movement of expansion
beyond the Pacific. There have been Presidents of the United States
for but one hundred and thirteen years, and during sixteen of those
years Tennesseeans sat in the White House. Hardihood, and daring, and
iron resolution are of right to be expected among the sons of a State
which nurtured Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston; which sent into the
American Navy one of the most famous fighting admirals of all time,
Farragut.
There is another reason why our country should be glad that it was
General Wright who rendered this service. General Wright fought with
distinguished gallantry among the gallant men who served in the armies
of the Confederacy during the Civil War. We need no proof of the
completeness of our reunion as a people. When the war with Spain came
the sons of the men who wore the blue and the sons of the men who wore
the gray vied with one another in the effort to get into the ranks
and face a foreign foe under the old flag that had been carried in
triumph under Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor and Andrew Jackson.
It was my own good fortune to serve under that fearless fighter, old
Joe Wheeler, a memory of which I shall always be proud. But if we
needed any proof of the unity of our interests it would have been
afforded this very year by General Wright, the ex-Confederate, in his
administration as Acting Governor of the Philippine Islands. Upon him
during the months of summer rested a heavier burden of responsibility
than upon any other public servant at that particular time; and not
the least of his titles to our regard is the way in which he was able
to work on terms of cordial good-will with the head of the army,
himself a man who had honored the blue uniform as Wright had honored
the gray.
General Wright’s work has been as difficult as it was important. The
events of the last four years have definitely decided that whether we
wish to or not we must hereafter play a great part in the world. We
can not escape facing the duties. We may shirk them if we are built
of poor stuff, or we may take hold and do them if we are fit sons of
our sires—but face them we must, whether we will or not. Our duty in
the Philippine Islands has simply been one of the duties that thus
have come upon us. We are there, and we can no more haul down our flag
and abandon the islands than we could now abandon Alaska. Whether we
are glad or sorry that events forced us to go there is aside from the
question; the point is that, as the inevitable result of the war with
Spain, we found ourselves in the Philippines and that we could not
leave the islands without discredit. The islanders were wholly unfit
to govern themselves, and if we had left there would have been a brief
period of bloody chaos, and then some other nation would have stepped
in to do the work which we had shirked. It can not be too often
repeated that there was no question that the work had to be done. All
the question was, whether we would do it well or ill; and, thanks to
the choice of men like Governor Wright, it has been done well. The
first and absolutely indispensable requisite was order—peace. The
reign of lawless violence, of resistance to legitimate authority, the
reign of anarchy, could no more be tolerated abroad than it could be
tolerated here in our own land.
The American flag stands for orderly liberty, and it stands for it
abroad as it stands for it at home. The task of our soldiers was to
restore and maintain order in the islands. The army had the task to
do, and it did it well and thoroughly. The fullest and heartiest
praise belongs to our soldiers who in the Philippines brought to a
triumphant conclusion a war, small indeed compared to the gigantic
struggle in which the older men whom I am addressing took part in the
early sixties, but inconceivably harassing and difficult, because
it was waged amid the pathless jungles of great tropic islands and
against a foe very elusive, very treacherous, and often inconceivably
cruel both toward our men and toward the great numbers of peace-loving
Filipinos who gladly welcomed our advent. The soldiers included both
regulars and volunteers, men from the North, the South, the East,
and the West, men from Pennsylvania and from Tennessee, no less than
men from the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Slope—and to all alike
we give honor, for they acted as American soldiers should. Cruelties
were committed here and there. The fact that they were committed under
wellnigh intolerable provocation affords no excuse for such cruelties,
nor can we admit as justification that they were retaliatory in kind.
Every effort has been made to detect and punish the wrongdoers and
the wrongdoing itself has been completely stopped. But these misdeeds
were exceptional, and their occurrence in no wise alters the fact
that the American army in the Philippines showed as a whole not
only splendid soldierly qualities but a high order of humanity in
dealing with their foes. A hundred thousand of our troops went to the
Philippines. Among them were some who offended against the right.
Well, are we altogether immaculate at home? I think not. I ask for no
special consideration to be shown our friends and kinsmen, our sons
and brothers, who during three years so well upheld the national honor
in the Philippines. I ask merely that we do the same equal justice to
the soldier who went abroad and faced death and lived hard as we show
to his fellow who stayed at home and lived easily and in comfort; and
if we show that equal justice we will doff our hats to the man who has
put the whole country under obligations by the victory he helped to
win in the Philippines.
But the soldier’s work as a soldier was not the larger part of what
he did. When once the outbreak was over in any place, then began the
work of establishing civil administration. Here, too, the soldier
did his part, for the work of preparing for the civil authority was
often done by the officers and men of the regular army, and well done,
too. Then the real work of building up a system of self-government
for the people who had become our wards was begun, under the auspices
of the Philippine Commission, Judge Taft being made Governor,
and I having had the honor myself to appoint General Wright as
Vice-Governor. During the critical period when the insurrection was
ending and the time was one of transition between a state of war and
a state of peace, at the time that I issued a proclamation declaring
that the state of war was over and that the civil government was
now in complete command, General Wright served as Governor of the
archipelago. The progress of the islands both in material well-being
and as regards order and justice under the administration of Governor
Wright and his colleagues has been astounding.
There is no question as to our not having gone far enough and fast
enough in granting self-government to the Filipinos; the only possible
danger has been lest we should go faster and further than was in the
interest of the Filipinos themselves. Each Filipino at the present
day is guaranteed his life, his liberty, and the chance to pursue
happiness as he wishes, so long as he does not harm his fellows, in
a way which the islands have never known before during all their
recorded history. There are bands of ladrones, of brigands, still in
existence. Now and then they may show sporadic increase. This will
be due occasionally to disaffection with some of the things that our
government does which are best—for example, the effort to quarantine
against the plague and to enforce necessary sanitary precautions,
gently and tactfully though it was made, produced violent hostility
among some of the more ignorant natives. Again, a disease like the
cattle plague may cause in some given province such want that a part
of the inhabitants revert to their ancient habit of brigandage. But
the islands have never been as orderly, as peaceful, or as prosperous
as now; and in no other Oriental country, whether ruled by Asiatics or
Europeans, is there anything approaching to the amount of individual
liberty and of self-government which our rule has brought to the
Filipinos. The Nation owes a great debt to the people through whom
this splendid work for civilization has been achieved, and therefore
on behalf of the Nation I have come here to-night to thank in your
presence your fellow-townsman, because he has helped us materially to
add a new page to the honor roll of American history. General Wright,
I greet you, I thank you, and I wish you well.
AT THE RECEPTION TO GENERAL WRIGHT AT MEMPHIS, TENN., NOVEMBER 19, 1902
_Mr. Chairman, and you, my Fellow-Americans_:
I am glad indeed to have the honor of coming to-day to your beautiful
city in your beautiful State to greet, on behalf of the whole country,
a Tennesseean who has rendered high and honorable service to the whole
country—a Tennesseean of whom it can be said, as it has been said of
the Greek hero:
“Much has he seen and known, cities of men,
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Himself not least, but honored of them all;
Has drunk delight of battle with his peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.”
We are one people absolutely. The memories of the Civil War are now
heritages of honor alike for those whose fathers wore the blue and
for those whose fathers wore the gray. There is one curious and not
inappropriate coincidence to-day—my mother’s brother served under Mrs.
Wright’s father in the Confederate Navy. I am proud of his valor; and
I can say this freely, for if I had been old enough I would myself
have surely worn the blue uniform.
I come here to-day to greet General Wright because it has been given
to him to render a peculiar service to the whole country. A man can
render service of the very highest character at home, but owing to
the very nature of our system of government, he must, in his election
at least, represent particularly a given party. I say in his election
at least, for after election, if he is worth anything, he must be a
representative of the whole country. But there are certain branches
of the public service in which if we are wise and far-seeing we will
never allow partisan politics to enter. There must be no partisan
politics in the army or the navy of the United States. All that
concerns us to know about any general or admiral, about a mighty
captain by sea or by land, is whether he is a thoroughly fit commander
of men and loyal to the country as a whole. In the same way if we are
wise, if we care for our reputation abroad, if we are sensitive of our
honor at home, we will allow no question of partisan politics ever to
enter into the administration of the great islands which came under
our flag as a result of the war with Spain.
Hence I say that General Wright, like Governor Taft and his
associates, has rendered a peculiar service to every man jealous of
the honor of the American name in what he has done in administering
the Philippine Islands. For fourteen months it has been part of
my business to see how the work there was done. I am not speaking
exaggeratedly, I am speaking literally, telling the naked truth, when
I say that never during that time has a question of party politics
entered into even the smallest action of those in control of the
Philippine Islands.
My fellow-Americans, we can not afford to have the honor of the Nation
in any way smirched in connection with our dependencies. We can not
afford to have it smirched anywhere; but if we wrong ourselves here at
home we are to blame and we pay the penalty, while if we allow wrong
in connection with the islands not only the islands suffer, but an
indelible stigma of shame comes to the American name. I am earnestly
desirous that the administration of the Philippine Islands shall be
put and kept upon such a plane of patriotic efficiency that no change
will be made in it owing to any change of party here at home. Party
feeling should of course stop at the water-line. The inestimable
service rendered by Governor Wright in the Philippine Islands has been
because he has so conducted the government of those islands as to make
it not only of signal benefit to them, but of signal honor to every
citizen of our country; that he has so handled the administration of
affairs as to make us feel a justifiable confidence that hereafter
the storms of party politics in the United States shall never touch
the government of the Philippine Islands, and that whatever changes
of administration there are here in the Union, there shall not be a
ripple of change in the course of conduct in the Philippines marked
out by Governor Wright and his associates. The man of whom that can be
truthfully said is a man entitled to honor from his fellow-countrymen;
and of Governor Wright it can be truthfully said.
AT THE FOUNDERS’ DAY BANQUET OF THE UNION LEAGUE, PHILADELPHIA, PA.,
NOVEMBER 22, 1902
_Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Union League_:
Forty years ago this club was founded, in the dark days of the Civil
War, to uphold the hands of Abraham Lincoln and give aid to those
who battled for the Union and for human liberty. Two years ago
President McKinley came here as your guest to thank you, and through
you all those far-sighted and loyal men who had supported him in his
successful effort to keep untarnished the national good faith at home
and the national honor abroad, and to bring back to this country
the material well-being which we now so abundantly enjoy. It was no
accident which made the men of this club who stood as in a peculiar
sense the champions and upholders of the principles of Lincoln in the
early sixties stand no less stoutly for those typified in the person
of McKinley during the closing years of the century. The qualities
apt to make men respond to the call of duty in one crisis are also
apt to make them respond to a similar call in a crisis of a different
character. The traits which enabled our people to pass unscathed
through the fiery ordeal of the Civil War were the traits upon which
we had to rely in the less serious, but yet serious, dangers by which
we were menaced in 1896, 1898, and 1900.
From the very beginning our people have markedly combined practical
capacity for affairs with power of devotion to an ideal. The lack of
either quality would have rendered the possession of the other of
small value. Mere ability to achieve success in things concerning
the body would not have atoned for the failure to live the life of
high endeavor; and, on the other hand, without a foundation of those
qualities which bring material prosperity there would be nothing on
which the higher life could be built. The men of the Revolution would
have failed if they had not possessed alike devotion to liberty and
ability (once liberty had been achieved) to show common-sense and
self-restraint in its use. The men of the great Civil War would have
failed had they not possessed the business capacity which developed
and organized their resources in addition to the stern resolution
to expend these resources as freely as they expended their blood in
furtherance of the great cause for which their hearts leaped. It
is this combination of qualities that has made our people succeed.
Other peoples have been as devoted to liberty, and yet, because of
lack of hard-headed common-sense and of ability to show restraint and
subordinate individual passions for the general good, have failed
so signally in the struggle of life as to become a byword among
the nations. Yet other peoples, again, have possessed all possible
thrift and business capacity, but have been trampled under foot, or
have played a sordid and ignoble part in the world, because their
business capacity was unaccompanied by any of the lift toward nobler
things which marks a great and generous nation. The stern but just
rule of judgment for humanity is that each nation shall be known by
its fruits; and if there are no fruits, if the nation has failed, it
matters but little whether it has failed through meanness of soul or
through lack of robustness of character. We must judge a nation by the
net result of its life and activity. And so we must judge the policies
of those who at any time control the destinies of a nation.
Therefore I ask you to-night to look at the results of the policies
championed by President McKinley on both the occasions when he
appealed to the people for their suffrages, and to see how well that
appeal has been justified by the event. Most certainly I do not
claim all the good that has befallen us during the past six years
as due solely to any human policy. No legislation, however wise, no
Administration, however efficient, can secure prosperity to a people
or greatness to a nation. All that can be done by the law-maker and
the administrator is to give the best chance possible for the people
of the country themselves to show the stuff that is in them. President
McKinley was elected in 1896 on the specific pledge that he would
keep the financial honor of the Nation untarnished and would put our
economic system on a stable basis, so that our people might be given
a chance to secure the return of prosperity. Both pledges have been
so well kept that, as is but too often the case, men are beginning
to forget how much the keeping of them has meant. When people have
become very prosperous they tend to become sluggishly indifferent to
the continuation of the policies that brought about their prosperity.
At such times as these it is of course a mere law of nature that some
men prosper more than others, and too often those who prosper less, in
their jealousy of their more fortunate brethren, forget that all have
prospered somewhat. I ask you soberly to remember that the complaint
made at the present day of our industrial or economic conditions never
takes the form of stating that any of our people are less well off
than they were seven or eight years back, before President McKinley
came in and his policies had a chance to be applied; but that the
complaint is that some people have received more than their share
of the good things of the world. There was no such complaint eight
years ago, in the summer of 1894. Complaint was not then that any one
had prospered too much; it was that no one had prospered enough. Let
each one of us think of the affairs of his own household and his own
business, let each of us compare his standing now with his standing
eight years back, and then let him answer for himself whether it is
not true that the policies for which William McKinley stood in 1896
have justified themselves thrice over by the results they have brought
about.
In 1900 the issues were in part the same, but new ones had been added.
Prosperity had returned; the gold standard was assured; our tariff
was remodeled on the lines that have marked it at all periods when
our well-being was greatest. But as must often happen, the President
elected on certain issues was obliged to face others entirely
unforeseen. Rarely indeed have our greatest men made issues—they
have shown their greatness by meeting them as they arose. President
McKinley faced the problems of the Spanish War and those that followed
it exactly as he had faced the problems of our economic and financial
needs. As a sequel to the war with Spain we found ourselves in
possession of the Philippines under circumstances which rendered it
necessary to subdue a formidable insurrection which made it impossible
for us with honor or with regard to the welfare of the island to
withdraw therefrom. The occasion was seized by the opponents of the
President for trying to raise a new issue, on which they hoped they
might be more successful than on the old. The clamor raised against
him was joined in not only by many honest men who were led astray
by a mistaken view or imperfect knowledge of the facts, but by all
who feared effort, who shrank from the rough work of endeavor. The
campaign of 1900 had to be fought largely upon the new issue thus
raised. President McKinley met it squarely. Two years and eight months
ago, before his second nomination, he spoke as follows:
“We believe that the century of free government which the American
people have enjoyed has not rendered them irresolute and faithless,
but has fitted them for the great task of lifting up and assisting
to better conditions and larger liberty those distant peoples who
through the issue of battle have become our wards. Let us fear not.
There is no occasion for faint hearts, no excuse for regrets. Nations
do not grow in strength, the cause of liberty and law is not advanced
by the doing of easy things. The harder the task the greater will
be the result, the benefit, and the honor. To doubt our power to
accomplish it is to lose faith in the soundness and strength of our
popular institutions.... We have the new care and can not shift it.
And, breaking up the camp of ease and isolation, let us bravely and
hopefully and soberly continue the march of faithful service, and
falter not until the work is done.... The burden is our opportunity.
The opportunity is greater than the burden.”
There spoke the man who preached the gospel of hope as well as the
gospel of duty, and on the issue thus fairly drawn between those who
said we would do our new work well and triumphantly and those who
said we would fail lamentably in the effort, the contest was joined.
We won. And now I ask you, two years after the victory, to look across
the seas and judge for yourselves whether or not the promise has
been kept. The prophets of disaster have seen their predictions so
completely falsified by the event that it is actually difficult to
arouse even a passing interest in their failure. To answer them now,
to review their attack on our army, is of merely academic interest.
They played their brief part of obstruction and clamor; they said
their say; and the current of our life went over them and they sank
under it as did their predecessors who, thirty-six years before, had
declared that another and greater war was a failure, that another and
greater struggle for true liberty was only a contest for subjugation
in which the United States could never succeed. The insurrection among
the Filipinos has been absolutely quelled. The war has been brought
to an end sooner than even the most sanguine of us dared to hope. The
world has not in recent years seen any military task done with more
soldierly energy and ability; and done, moreover, in a spirit of great
humanity. The strain on the army was terrible, for the conditions of
climate and soil made their work harassing to an extraordinary degree,
and the foes in the field were treacherous and cruel, not merely
toward our men, but toward the great multitude of peaceful islanders
who welcomed our rule. Under the strain of wellnigh intolerable
provocation there were shameful instances, as must happen in all
wars, where the soldiers forgot themselves, and retaliated evil for
evil. There were one hundred thousand of our men in the Philippines,
a hundred thousand hired for a small sum a month apiece, put there
under conditions that strained their nerves to the breaking point, and
some of the hundred thousand did what they ought not to have done.
But out of a hundred thousand men at home, have all been faultless?
Every effort has been made to detect such cases, to punish the
offenders, and to prevent any recurrence of the deed. It is a cruel
injustice to the gallant men who fought so well in the Philippines
not to recognize that these instances were exceptional, and that the
American troops who served in the far-off tropic islands deserve
praise the same in kind that has always been given to those who have
well and valiantly fought for the honor of our common flag and common
country. The work of civil administration has kept pace with the work
of military administration, and when on July 4 last amnesty and peace
were declared throughout the islands the civil government assumed the
complete control. Peace and order now prevail and a greater measure
of prosperity and of happiness than the Filipinos have ever hitherto
known in all their dark and checkered history; and each one of them
has a greater measure of liberty, a greater chance of happiness, and
greater safety for his life and property than he or his forefathers
have ever before known.
Thus we have met each task that has confronted us during the past
six years. Thus we have kept every promise made in 1896 and 1900. We
have a right to be proud of the memories of the last six years. But
we must remember that each victory only opens the chance for a new
struggle; that the remembrance of triumphs achieved in the past is of
use chiefly if it spurs us to fresh effort in the present. No nation
has ever prospered as we are prospering now, and we must see to it
that by our own folly we do not mar this prosperity. Yet we must see
to it also that wherever wrong flourishes it be repressed. It is not
the habit of our people to shirk issues, but squarely to face them.
It is not the habit of our people to treat a good record in the past
as anything but a reason for expecting an even better record in the
present; and no Administration, gentlemen, should ask to be judged
save on those lines. The tremendous growth of our industrialism has
brought to the front many problems with which we must deal; and I
trust that we shall deal with them along the lines indicated in speech
and in action by that profound jurist and upright and fearless public
servant who represents Pennsylvania in the Cabinet—Attorney-General
Knox. The question of the so-called trusts is but one of the questions
we must meet in connection with our industrial system. There are many
of them and they are serious; but they can and will be met. Time may
be needed for making the solution perfect; but it is idle to tell
this people that we have not the power to solve such a problem as
that of exercising adequate supervision over the great industrial
combinations of to-day. We have the power and we shall find out the
way. We shall not act hastily or recklessly; but we have firmly made
up our minds that a solution, and a right solution, shall be found,
and found it will be.
No nation as great as ours can expect to escape the penalty of
greatness, for greatness does not come without trouble and labor.
There are problems ahead of us at home and problems abroad, because
such problems are incident to the working out of a great national
career. We do not shrink from them. Scant is our patience with those
who preach the gospel of craven weakness. No nation under the sun ever
yet played a part worth playing if it feared its fate overmuch—if it
did not have the courage to be great. We of America, we, the sons of
a nation yet in the pride of its lusty youth, spurn the teachings of
distrust, spurn the creed of failure and despair. We know that the
future is ours if we have in us the manhood to grasp it, and we enter
the new century girding our loins for the contest before us, rejoicing
in the struggle, and resolute so to bear ourselves that the Nation’s
future shall even surpass her glorious past.
AT THE BANQUET TO JUSTICE HARLAN, THE NEW WILLARD HOTEL, WASHINGTON,
D. C., DECEMBER 9, 1902
_Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen_:
It is a peculiar privilege to be here to-night as one of those
gathered to do homage to a career which has honored America. It is
difficult to say certain of the truths which must need be said without
being guilty of truisms in saying them. It is not an idle boast of
this country when we speak of the court upon which Mr. Justice Harlan
sits as the most illustrious and important court in all the civilized
world. It is not merely our own people who say that—it is the verdict
of other nations as well.
Mr. Justice Harlan has served for a quarter of a century on that
court. During that time he has exercised an influence over the
judicial statesmanship of the country of a kind such as is possible
only under our own form of government. For the judges of the Supreme
Court of the land must be not only great jurists, but they must
be great constructive statesmen. And the truth of what I say is
illustrated by every study of American statesmanship, for in not one
serious study of American political life will it be possible to omit
the immense part played by the Supreme Court in the creation, not
merely the modification, of the great policies through and by means of
which the country has moved on to its present position.
Thrice fortunate is the court when it has as one of its members a man
who has played a great part in other spheres of our composite national
life. Mr. Justice Harlan came from Kentucky, a State in which the
patriotism of the people was put to so peculiarly a severe test in
the Civil War. In the States of the further North it was easy for the
man to make up his mind on which side he would unsheathe his sword.
In the States of the further South it was equally easy. In Kentucky
the task was a difficult one. I remember, Mr. Justice, being told by a
Kentuckian, who was a stanch friend of yours and one of the greatest
lawyers and most patriotic citizens whom this country had—John Mason
Brown—that he came back from a trip from the West as a young man of
twenty-one, just at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, just
after Sumter had been fired upon, and his mother brought down to him
the sword that his father had carried in the Mexican War, and said to
him:
“My son, this is the sword your father carried. I hope you will draw
it on the side that defends the flag for which your father fought,
but, for one side or the other, draw it you must.”
In any audience in any State of the Union, take it as far north as
you wish, I can appeal with confidence to the people I address when I
say that next to the homage we pay to the men who proved the truth of
their endeavor as they battled in the blue uniform is the homage we
pay to the men who, with equal sincerity, with equal devotion to the
right as it was given them to see the right, wore the gray. And none
pay that tribute of regard so frankly as those who themselves wore the
blue in battle.
And having said that, I am sure that none of my friends who fought in
the Confederate service will misunderstand me or will grudge what I am
about to say when I say that the greatest debt owed by this country
to any set of men is owed by it to those men of the so-called border
States—the men who in statesmanship followed Clay and the Crittendens
and the Blairs; the men who as soldiers fought on the same side with
Thomas and Farragut, the men who were for the Union, without regard
to whether their immediate associates were for it or not. In New
York, in Massachusetts, in Illinois, in Iowa, the men who stood for
the Union went with the stream. In parts of Kentucky, of Virginia,
of Missouri, they stemmed the torrent. And, gentlemen, I am half a
Southerner myself. Two of my uncles fought in the Confederate Navy.
One of them served under the father-in-law of Vice-Governor Luke
Wright, of the Philippine Islands. And so I think I have the right
to say that, knowing the Southern people as I do, I would heartily
advocate fighting twice as hard as you fought from 1861 to 1865 for
the privilege of staying in the same Union with them.
The man to be a great statesman on the bench of the Supreme Court
must have many qualities, and fortunate are we that this evening we
can point to Justice Harlan as embodying them. A good citizen must
be a good citizen in peace and in war. He must have the decent and
orderly virtues, and he must have the essential manliness for the lack
of which no good intention can atone. It will be a bad thing for the
nation if ever we grow as a nation to submit to the suppression of
efficiency and morality, if we ever grow to accept the belief that we
are to have two camps, in one of which will be grouped the men who
mean well, but who don’t do things, and in the other the men who do
things, but who do not mean well.
The art of successful self-government is not an easy art for people
or for individuals. It comes to our people here as the inheritance
of ages of effort. It can be thrown away; it can be unlearned very
easily, and it surely will be unlearned if we forget the vital need
not merely of preaching, but of practicing both sets of virtues—if we
forget the vital need of having the average citizen not only a good
man, but a man.
It is a fine thing to have on the Supreme Court a man who dared
venture all for the great prize of death in battle when the country
called for him, and a man who, after the war was closed, did not
content himself with living an ignoble life on the plea that he had
done so well it was not necessary to do more, but who continued to
do his duty as a citizen all the better because he had done it as a
soldier; the man who remembered that duty done, to be of practical
use, must serve not as an excuse for not doing further duty, but as an
incentive, as a spur, to make him feel ashamed that his present or
his future should fall short of his past.
So, Judge Harlan, I greet you personally, sir. I wish to express my
own personal debt to you for your influence, for your example, but I
wish far more, speaking as the representative of all our people, to
express the infinite sense of obligation we have to you for having
shown by your life what the type of fearless American citizenship
should be.
RECEPTION OF A DELEGATION FROM THE NATIONAL BOARD OF TRADE,
WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY 15, 1903
Mr. Randall, speaking for the delegation, said: Mr. President, we have
come here merely to present ourselves and to make our annual call on
the President of the United States. We thank you for meeting us.
The President responded: I shall not try to make you any speech.
I wish simply to say what a very real pleasure it is to see you,
and also to say this—that I am glad to see the meetings of the big
business interests take place sometimes in Washington. Nothing can be
better both for the business interests and for legislation than to
have as close a touch as possible between the elective representatives
here and the men whose welfare is so interwoven with what is done in
the halls of Congress. It is a very great help to all of us to have
you come here. I thank you for coming.
AT THE BANQUET OF THE YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, NEW WILLARD
HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C., JAN. 19, 1903
_Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen_:
It is no accident that we should meet here to celebrate a record
of fifty years—that period which covers the half century which has
seen the gigantic industrial change of the world, which has seen the
fruition of the forces that have brought about a revolution, socially
and industrially, within the fifty years such as was hardly seen
within any preceding five centuries. Life has been very intense, has
been carried on at a very high pressure, during that half century;
more intense, carried on at a higher pressure, than ever before. That
means of course that all the forces have been raised to a higher
degree of power—the forces of evil, and, thank heaven, also the
forces of good. If it had not been for the work of such organizations
as this, for such organized effort as that represented by you here
to-night, the immense material progress of the world during the past
half century would have been a progress that would have told for ill
for the nations, not for good. We can say with truth that we are
better off than we were. We can say that the creed of those who have
faith is the right creed as justified in present history, because
side by side with this great material development, and with an even
stronger rate of growth than the forces of evil, have grown the forces
of good. If it had not been for the work done by those who founded
this movement, and of course by all those who have taken part in
similar movements, in all movements for good, in every movement for
social betterment, for civic betterment, in every movement to make men
decent and manly and strong—if it had not been for the work done by
them, if they had sat supine and thought things would make themselves
better, things would have become steadily worse. We see all around us
people who say, “Oh, well, things will come out all right.” So they
will; but not because there are men who are content to _say_ that they
will come out all right; but because there is a sufficient number of
earnest men with the root of righteousness in them who are bound to
_do_ what will make them come out right.
The remarkable concentration of our lives during the last half century
has rendered it possible for anything that is evil to manifest itself
more strongly than ever before, and therefore made it necessary for us
to see that the good has a corresponding development. A hundred years
ago there was no such need for the Young Men’s Christian Associations,
for the invaluable Young Women’s Christian Associations. Life was
simpler. The temptation would come surely to every man, but it would
not come so frequently and in so intense a form. As the forces of
evil manifested themselves in stronger and stronger form they had to
be met, if they were to be successfully grappled with, by organized
effort, by the effort of the many, which must always be stronger than
the effort of one; and the successful effort to combat the forces
of evil had to take just such shape as has been given to the growth
of the Young Men’s Christian Associations. It had to take the shape
of combining decency and efficiency. There are many things that are
so true that it seems almost trite to speak of them, and yet it is
continually necessary to speak of them. There have been philanthropic
movements led and supported by most excellent people, which,
nevertheless, have produced results altogether incommensurable with
the efforts spent, because they failed to combine as this movement has
combined a recognition of the needs of human nature with a resolute
effort to make that human nature better.
I have been acquainted especially with three types of your work:
the work in the army and navy, the work among railroad men, and the
work among college students. These three classes are not going to
be effectively reached as classes by any effort which fails to take
account of the fact that they demand manliness as well as virtue;
and you can make them straight only on condition that in making them
straight you also keep in mind that it is necessary for them to be
strong. Remember Wesley’s remark when some one criticised him because
his hymn tunes were so good. He answered that he was not going to
leave all the good tunes to the devil. We want to be exceedingly
careful that the impression shall not get about that good men intend
to leave strength to those who serve the devil. I was very much
interested in what was said by Mr. Mott as to the meeting at Yale a
few nights ago, where the captain of the football team and the captain
of the crew of next season both were present. I think that is typical
of the whole movement. I am certain that those who have had experience
in the army and navy have seen that in the long run the man who is
a decent man is apt to be the man who is the best soldier. The work
among the railroad men always particularly appealed to me because the
railroad men are those who follow that modern industry which more than
any other modern industry makes demand upon its followers for the
heroic virtues, for the willingness to take risks, the willingness to
accept responsibilities, the readiness to adopt a standard of duty
which will require at need the sacrifice of life; those who follow it
must possess both the power to obey and the power to act on individual
initiative—the power to take responsibility. You can make men like
that accept morality if you can make them understand that it is not
only compatible with but is demanded by essential manliness. The work
of the Y. M. C. A. has grown so among college students, for instance,
because (I think I am right in saying) it has tried, not to dwarf any
of the impulses of the young, vigorous men but to guide them aright.
It has sought not to make a man’s development one-sided, not to
prevent his being a man, but to see that he is in the fullest sense
a man, and a good man. We greet to-night with peculiar pleasure the
men who served in the great war. Those men won in the day of trial
because they and their fellows had in them, in the first place, the
power of devotion to an ideal, and, in the next place, the strength
to realize that power in effective fashion. If the men of ’61 had
not been driven forward by a spirit which made them anxious to lay
down their lives if need should be rather than to see the flag of
the Union torn in twain, if they had not had in them the lift toward
loftier things which comes to those who value life as of small account
compared to devotion to country and to the flag, if they had not in
the truest and greatest and deepest sense of the word been patriotic,
then no amount of fighting capacity would have saved them. I don’t
care how good natural soldiers or sailors they had been, if their
ambitions had been personal, if they had been fundamentally disloyal,
if each had been striving to build up himself and had viewed his
fellows as rivals to be trampled down for his own advantage, then
failure would have come upon them. If Grant and Sherman and Thomas
and Farragut had not all felt that they were fighting for one end,
that they were holding up the arms of mighty Lincoln as he toiled
and wrought and suffered for the people, then their prowess would
have availed naught, and this Nation would have gone down into bloody
anarchy, would have crumbled into dust as so many republics had
crumbled of old. They needed fervent devotion to country, devotion to
the right, and power to fight.
In addition to the lofty ideal—in no way as a substitute for it,
but in addition to this power of devotion to an ideal—the man must
have the fibre of heart, the fibre of body, to make his devotion take
effective shape for the Nation’s welfare. And nowadays we shall win
out, in the fight for a loftier life—we shall make this twentieth
century better and not worse than any century that has gone before
it—in proportion as we approach the problems that face us as this
society has approached those problems, with a firm resolution to
neglect neither side of the development of our people, to strive to
make the young men decent, God-fearing, law-abiding, honor-loving,
justice-doing; and also fearless and strong, able to hold their own in
the hurly-burly of the world’s work, able to strive mightily that the
forces of right may be in the end triumphant.
AT THE BANQUET AT CANTON, OHIO, JANUARY 27, 1903, IN HONOR OF THE
BIRTHDAY OF THE LATE PRESIDENT McKINLEY
_Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies, and Gentlemen_:
Throughout our history, and indeed throughout history generally,
it has been given to only a very few thrice-favored men to take so
marked a lead in the crises faced by their several generations that
thereafter each stands as the embodiment of the triumphant effort of
his generation. President McKinley was one of these men.
If during the lifetime of a generation no crisis occurs sufficient
to call out in marked manner the energies of the strongest leader,
then of course the world does not and can not know of the existence
of such a leader; and in consequence there are long periods in the
history of every nation during which no man appears who leaves an
indelible mark in history. If, on the other hand, the crisis is one
so many-sided as to call for the development and exercise of many
distinct attributes, it may be that more than one man will appear in
order that the requirements shall be fully met. In the Revolution and
in the period of constructive statesmanship immediately following it,
for our good fortune it befell us that the highest military and the
highest civic attributes were embodied in Washington, and so in him we
have one of the undying men of history—a great soldier, if possible
an even greater statesman, and above all a public servant whose lofty
and disinterested patriotism rendered his power and ability—alike on
fought fields and in council chambers—of the most far-reaching service
to the Republic. In the Civil War the two functions were divided, and
Lincoln and Grant will stand for evermore with their names inscribed
on the honor roll of those who have deserved well of mankind by saving
to humanity a precious heritage. In similar fashion Thomas Jefferson
and Andrew Jackson stand each as the foremost representative of the
great movement of his generation, and their names symbolize to us
their times and the hopes and aspirations of their times.
It was given to President McKinley to take the foremost place in our
political life at a time when our country was brought face to face
with problems more momentous than any whose solution we have ever
attempted, save only in the Revolution and in the Civil War; and it
was under his leadership that the Nation solved these mighty problems
aright. Therefore he shall stand in the eyes of history not merely as
the first man of his generation, but as among the greatest figures
in our national life, coming second only to the men of the two great
crises in which the Union was founded and preserved.
No man could carry through successfully such a task as President
McKinley undertook, unless trained by long years of effort for its
performance. Knowledge of his fellow-citizens, ability to understand
them, keen sympathy with even their innermost feelings, and yet power
to lead them, together with far-sighted sagacity and resolute belief
both in the people and in their future—all these were needed in the
man who headed the march of our people during the eventful years from
1896 to 1901. These were the qualities possessed by McKinley and
developed by him throughout his whole history previous to assuming
the Presidency. As a lad he had the inestimable privilege of serving,
first in the ranks, and then as a commissioned officer, in the great
war for national union, righteousness, and grandeur; he was one of
those whom a kindly Providence permitted to take part in a struggle
which ennobled every man who fought therein. He who when little more
than a boy had seen the grim steadfastness which after four years
of giant struggle restored the Union and freed the slaves was not
thereafter to be daunted by danger or frightened out of his belief in
the great destiny of our people.
Some years after the war closed McKinley came to Congress, and rose,
during a succession of terms, to leadership in his party in the lower
House. He also became Governor of his native State, Ohio. During
this varied service he received practical training of the kind most
valuable to him when he became Chief Executive of the Nation. To the
high faith of his early years was added the capacity to realize his
ideals, to work with his fellow-men at the same time that he led them.
President McKinley’s rise to greatness had in it nothing of the
sudden, nothing of the unexpected or seemingly accidental. Throughout
his long term of service in Congress there was a steady increase
alike in his power of leadership and in the recognition of that power
both by his associates in public life and by the public itself.
Session after session his influence in the House grew greater; his
party antagonists grew to look upon him with constantly increasing
respect, his party friends with constantly increasing faith and
admiration. Eight years before he was nominated for President he was
already considered a Presidential possibility. Four years before he
was nominated only his own high sense of honor prevented his being
made a formidable competitor of the chief upon whom the choice of
the convention then actually fell. In 1896, he was chosen because the
great mass of his party knew him and believed in him and regarded him
as symbolizing their ideals, as representing their aspirations. In
estimating the forces which brought about this nomination and election
I do not undervalue that devoted personal friendship which he had the
faculty to inspire in so marked a degree among the ablest and most
influential leaders; this leadership was of immense consequence in
bringing about the result; but, after all, the prime factor was the
trust in and devotion to him felt by the great mass of men who had
come to accept him as their recognized spokesman. In his nomination
the national convention of a great party carried into effect in good
faith the deliberate judgment of that party as to whom its candidate
should be.
But even as a candidate President McKinley was far more than the
candidate of a party, and as President he was in the broadest and
fullest sense the President of all the people of all sections of the
country.
His first nomination came to him because of the qualities he had shown
in healthy and open political leadership, the leadership which by
word and deed impresses itself as a virile force for good upon the
people at large and which has nothing in common with mere intrigue
or manipulation. But, in 1896, the issue was fairly joined, chiefly
upon a question which as a party question was entirely new, so that
the old lines of political cleavage were, in large part, abandoned.
All other issues sank in importance when compared with the vital
need of keeping our financial system on the high and honorable plane
imperatively demanded by our position as a great civilized power.
As the champion of such a principle President McKinley received the
support not only of his own party, but of hundreds of thousands of
those to whom he had been politically opposed. He triumphed, and
he made good with scrupulous fidelity the promises upon which the
campaign was won. We were at the time in a period of great industrial
depression, and it was promised for and on behalf of McKinley that
if he were elected our financial system should not only be preserved
unharmed but improved and our economic system shaped in accordance
with those theories which have always marked our periods of greatest
prosperity. The promises were kept and following their keeping came
the prosperity which we now enjoy. All that was foretold concerning
the well-being which would follow the election of McKinley has been
justified by the event. But as so often happens in our history, the
President was forced to face questions other than those at issue at
the time of his election. Within a year the situation in Cuba had
become literally intolerable. President McKinley had fought too well
in his youth, he knew too well at first hand what war really was,
lightly to enter into a struggle. He sought by every honorable means
to preserve peace, to avert war. He made every effort consistent
with the national honor to bring about an amicable settlement of the
Cuban difficulty. Then, when it became evident that these efforts were
useless, that peace could not be honorably entertained, he devoted his
strength to making the war as short and as decisive as possible. It is
needless to tell the result in detail. Suffice it to say that rarely
indeed in history has a contest so far-reaching in the importance of
its outcome been achieved with such ease. There followed a harder
task. As a result of the war we came into possession of Cuba, Porto
Rico, and the Philippines. In each island the conditions were such
that we had to face problems entirely new to our national experience,
and, moreover, in each island or group of islands the problems
differed radically from those presented in the others. In Porto Rico
the task was simple. The island could not be independent. It became in
all essentials a part of the Union. It has been given all the benefits
of our economic and financial system. Its inhabitants have been given
the highest individual liberty, while yet their government has been
kept under the supervision of officials so well chosen that the island
can be appealed to as affording a model for all such experiments in
the future; and this result was mainly owing to the admirable choice
of instruments by President McKinley when he selected the governing
officials.
In Cuba, where we were pledged to give the island independence, the
pledge was kept not merely in letter but in spirit. It would have
been a betrayal of our duty to have given Cuba independence out of
hand. President McKinley, with his usual singular sagacity in the
choice of agents, selected in General Leonard Wood the man of all
others best fit to bring the island through its uncertain period
of preparation for independence, and the result of his wisdom was
shown when last May the island became in name and in fact a free
Republic, for it started with a better equipment and under more
favorable conditions than had ever previously been the case with any
Spanish-American commonwealth.
Finally, in the Philippines, the problem was one of great complexity.
There was an insurrectionary party claiming to represent the
people of the islands and putting forth their claim with a certain
speciousness which deceived no small number of excellent men here
at home, and which afforded to yet others a chance to arouse a
factious party spirit against the President. Of course, looking
back, it is now easy to see that it would have been both absurd and
wicked to abandon the Philippine Archipelago and let the scores of
different tribes—Christian, Mohammedan, and pagan, in every stage of
semi-civilization and Asiatic barbarism—turn the islands into a welter
of bloody savagery, with the absolute certainty that some strong
power would have to step in and take possession. But though now it
is easy enough to see that our duty was to stay in the islands, to
put down the insurrection by force of arms, and then to establish
freedom-giving civil government, it needed genuine statesmanship to
see this and to act accordingly at the time of the first revolt. A
weaker and less far-sighted man than President McKinley would have
shrunk from a task very difficult in itself, and certain to furnish
occasion for attack and misrepresentation no less than for honest
misunderstanding. But President McKinley never flinched. He refused to
consider the thought of abandoning our duty in our new possessions.
While sedulously endeavoring to act with the utmost humanity toward
the insurrectionists, he never faltered in the determination to put
them down by force of arms, alike for the sake of our own interest
and honor, and for the sake of the interest of the islanders, and
particularly of the great numbers of friendly natives, including those
most highly civilized, for whom abandonment by us would have meant
ruin and death. Again his policy was most amply vindicated. Peace has
come to the islands, together with a greater measure of individual
liberty and self-government than they have ever before known. All the
tasks set us as a result of the war with Spain have so far been well
and honorably accomplished, and as a result this Nation stands higher
than ever before among the nations of mankind.
President McKinley’s second campaign was fought mainly on the issue
of approving what he had done in his first administration, and
specifically what he had done as regards these problems springing out
of the war with Spain. The result was that the popular verdict in his
favor was more overwhelming than it had been before.
No other President in our history has seen high and honorable effort
crowned with more conspicuous personal success. No other President
entered upon his second term feeling such right to a profound and
peaceful satisfaction. Then by a stroke of horror, so strange in its
fantastic iniquity as to stand unique in the black annals of crime,
he was struck down. The brave, strong, gentle heart was stilled
forever, and word was brought to the woman who wept that she was to
walk thenceforth alone in the shadow. The hideous infamy of the deed
shocked the Nation to its depths, for the man thus struck at was in a
peculiar sense the champion of the plain people, in a peculiar sense
the representative and the exponent of those ideals which, if we
live up to them, will make, as they have largely made, our country a
blessed refuge for all who strive to do right and to live their lives
simply and well as light is given them. The Nation was stunned, and
the people mourned with a sense of bitter bereavement because they
had lost a man whose heart beat for them as the heart of Lincoln once
had beaten. We did right to mourn; for the loss was ours, not his. He
died in the golden fulness of his triumph. He died victorious in that
highest of all kinds of strife—the strife for an ampler, juster, and
more generous national life. For him the laurel; but woe for those
whom he left behind; woe to the Nation that lost him; and woe to
mankind that there should exist creatures so foul that one among them
should strike at so noble a life.
We are gathered together to-night to recall his memory, to pay our
tribute of respect to the great chief and leader who fell in the
harness, who was stricken down while his eyes were bright with “the
light that tells of triumph tasted.” We can honor him best by the
way we show in actual deed that we have taken to heart the lessons
of his life. We must strive to achieve, each in the measure that
he can, something of the qualities which made President McKinley a
leader of men, a mighty power for good—his strength, his courage,
his courtesy and dignity, his sense of justice, his ever-present
kindliness and regard for the rights of others. He won greatness
by meeting and solving the issues as they arose—not by shirking
them—meeting them with wisdom, with the exercise of the most skilful
and cautious judgment, but with fearless resolution when the time of
crisis came. He met each crisis on its own merits; he never sought
excuse for shirking a task in the fact that it was different from the
one he had expected to face. The long public career, which opened
when as a boy he carried a musket in the ranks and closed when as
a man in the prime of his intellectual strength he stood among the
world’s chief statesmen, came to what it was because he treated
each triumph as opening the road to fresh effort, not as an excuse
for ceasing from effort. He undertook mighty tasks. Some of them
he finished completely; others we must finish; and there remain yet
others which he did not have to face, but which, if we are worthy to
be the inheritors of his principles, we will in our turn face with the
same resolution, the same sanity, the same unfaltering belief in the
greatness of this country, and unfaltering championship of the rights
of each and all of our people, which marked his high and splendid
career.
AT CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK, N. Y., FEBRUARY 26, 1903, UPON THE
OCCASION OF THE BI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE BIRTH OF JOHN WESLEY
_Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen_:
I am glad to have the chance of addressing this representative body
of the great Church which Wesley founded, on the occasion of the
commemoration of the two hundredth anniversary of his birth. America,
moreover, has a peculiar proprietary claim on Wesley’s memory, for
it is on our continent that the Methodist Church has received its
greatest development. In the days of our Colonial life Methodism was
not on the whole a great factor in the religious and social life of
the people. The Congregationalists were supreme throughout most of New
England; the Episcopalians on the seaboard from New York southward;
while the Presbyterian congregations were most numerous along what was
then the entire Western frontier; and the Quaker, Catholic, and Dutch
Reformed Churches each had developments in special places. The great
growth of the Methodist Church, like the great growth of the Baptist
Church, began at about the time of the Revolutionary War. To-day my
theme is purely Methodism.
Since the days of the Revolution not only has the Methodist Church
increased greatly in the old communities of the thirteen original
States, but it has played a peculiar and prominent part in the pioneer
growth of our country, and has in consequence assumed a position of
immense importance throughout the vast region west of the Alleghanies
which has been added to our Nation since the days when the Continental
Congress first met.
For a century after the Declaration of Independence the greatest
work of our people, with the exception only of the work of
self-preservation under Lincoln, was the work of the pioneers as they
took possession of this continent. During that century we pushed
westward from the Alleghanies to the Pacific, southward to the Gulf
and the Rio Grande, and also took possession of Alaska. The work
of advancing our boundary, of pushing the frontier across forest
and desert and mountain chain, was the great typical work of our
Nation; and the men who did it—the frontiersmen, the pioneers, the
backwoodsmen, plainsmen, mountain men—formed a class by themselves.
It was an iron task, which none but men of iron soul and iron body
could do. The men who carried it to a successful conclusion had
characters strong alike for good and for evil. Their rugged natures
made them powers who served light or darkness with fierce intensity;
and together with heroic traits they had those evil and dreadful
tendencies which are but too apt to be found in characters of heroic
possibilities. Such men make the most efficient servants of the Lord
if their abounding vitality and energy are directed aright; and if
misdirected their influence is equally potent against the cause of
Christianity and true civilization. In the hard and cruel life of
the border, with its grim struggle against the forbidding forces of
wild nature and wilder men, there was much to pull the frontiersman
down. If left to himself, without moral teaching and moral guidance,
without any of the influences that tend toward the uplifting of man
and the subduing of the brute within him, sad would have been his, and
therefore our, fate. From this fate we have been largely rescued by
the fact that together with the rest of the pioneers went the pioneer
preachers; and all honor be given to the Methodists for the great
proportion of these pioneer preachers whom they furnished.
These preachers were of the stamp of old Peter Cartwright—men who
suffered and overcame every hardship in common with their flock,
and who in addition tamed the wild and fierce spirits of their
fellow-pioneers. It was not a task that could have been accomplished
by men desirous to live in the soft places of the earth and to walk
easily on life’s journey. They had to possess the spirit of the
martyrs; but not of martyrs who could merely suffer, not of martyrs
who could oppose only passive endurance to wrong. The pioneer
preachers warred against the forces of spiritual evil with the same
fiery zeal and energy that they and their fellows showed in the
conquest of the rugged continent. They had in them the heroic spirit,
the spirit that scorns ease if it must be purchased by failure to
do duty, the spirit that courts risk and a life of hard endeavor
if the goal to be reached is really worth attaining. Great is our
debt to these men and scant the patience we need show toward their
critics. At times they seemed hard and narrow to those whose training
and surroundings had saved them from similar temptations; and they
have been criticised, as all men, whether missionaries, soldiers,
explorers, or frontier settlers, are criticised when they go forth
to do the rough work that must inevitably be done by those who act
as the first harbingers, the first heralds, of civilization in the
world’s dark places. It is easy for those who stay at home in comfort,
who never have to see humanity in the raw, or to strive against the
dreadful naked forces which appear clothed, hidden, and subdued in
civilized life—it is easy for such to criticise the men who, in rough
fashion, and amid grim surroundings, make ready the way for the higher
life that is to come afterward; but let us all remember that the
untempted and the effortless should be cautious in passing too heavy
judgment upon their brethren who may show hardness, who may be guilty
of shortcomings, but who nevertheless do the great deeds by which
mankind advances. These pioneers of Methodism had the strong, militant
virtues which go to the accomplishment of such great deeds. Now and
then they betrayed the shortcomings natural to men of their type; but
their shortcomings seem small indeed when we place beside them the
magnitude of the work they achieved.
And now, friends, in celebrating the wonderful growth of Methodism,
in rejoicing at the good it has done to the country and to mankind,
I need hardly ask a body like this to remember that the greatness of
the fathers becomes to the children a shameful thing if they use it
only as an excuse for inaction instead of as a spur to effort for
noble aims. I speak to you not only as Methodists—I speak to you as
American citizens. The pioneer days are over. We now all of us form
parts of a great civilized nation, with a complex industrial and
social life and infinite possibilities both for good and for evil.
The instruments with which, and the surroundings in which, we work,
have changed immeasurably from what they were in the days when the
rough backwoods preachers ministered to the moral and spiritual needs
of their rough backwoods congregations. But if we are to succeed, the
spirit in which we do our work must be the same as the spirit in which
they did theirs. These men drove forward, and fought their way upward,
to success, because their sense of duty was in their hearts, in the
very marrow of their bones. It was not with them something to be
considered as a mere adjunct to their theology, standing separate and
apart from their daily life. They had it with them week days as well
as Sundays. They did not divorce the spiritual from the secular. They
did not have one kind of conscience for one side of their lives and
another for another.
If we are to succeed as a nation we must have the same spirit in us.
We must be absolutely practical, of course, and must face facts as
they are. The pioneer preachers of Methodism could not have held their
own for a fortnight if they had not shown an intense practicability of
spirit, if they had not possessed the broadest and deepest sympathy
for, and understanding of, their fellowmen. But in addition to the
hard, practical common-sense needed by each of us in life, we must
have a lift toward lofty things or we shall be lost, individually
and collectively, as a nation. Life is not easy, and least of all is
it easy for either the man or the nation that aspires to do great
deeds. In the century opening, the play of the infinitely far-reaching
forces and tendencies which go to make up our social system bids fair
to be even fiercer in its activity than in the century which has
just closed. If during this century the men of high and fine moral
sense show themselves weaklings; if they possess only that cloistered
virtue which shrinks shuddering from contact with the raw facts of
actual life; if they dare not go down into the hurly-burly where the
men of might contend for the mastery; if they stand aside from the
pressure and conflict; then as surely as the sun rises and sets all
of our great material progress, all the multiplication of the physical
agencies which tend for our comfort and enjoyment, will go for naught
and our civilization will become a brutal sham and mockery. If we are
to do as I believe we shall and will do, if we are to advance in broad
humanity, in kindliness, in the spirit of brotherhood, exactly as we
advance in our conquest over the hidden forces of nature, it must be
by developing strength in virtue and virtue in strength, by breeding
and training men who shall be both good and strong, both gentle and
valiant—men who scorn wrongdoing, and who at the same time have both
the courage and the strength to strive mightily for the right. Wesley
accomplished so much for mankind because he refused to leave the
stronger, manlier qualities to be availed of only in the interest
of evil. The Church he founded has through its career been a Church
for the poor as well as for the rich and has known no distinction of
persons. It has been a Church whose members, if true to the teachings
of its founder, have sought for no greater privilege than to spend
and be spent in the interest of the higher life, who have prided
themselves, not on shirking rough duty, but on undertaking it and
carrying it to a successful conclusion.
I come here to-night to greet you and to pay my tribute to your past
because you have deserved well of mankind, because you have striven
with strength and courage to bring nearer the day when peace and
justice shall obtain among the peoples of the earth.
AT A MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS, HELD AT THE
RESIDENCE OF MR. GIFFORD PINCHOT, WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 26, 1903
_Mr. Pinchot, Mr. Secretary, and Gentlemen_:
I have felt that this evening the meeting was of such a character
as not merely to warrant but in a sense require that I should break
through my custom of not coming out to make speeches of this sort. For
I believe there are few bodies of men who have it in their power to do
a greater service to the country than those engaged in the scientific
study and practical application of improved methods of forestry for
the preservation of our woods in the United States. I am glad to see
here this evening not only the officials, including the head, of the
Department of Agriculture, but those, like Governor Richards, most
concerned in carrying out the policy of the Department of the Interior.
First and foremost, you can never afford to forget for one moment what
is the object of the forest policy. Primarily that object is not to
preserve forests because they are beautiful—though that is good in
itself;—not to preserve them because they are refuges for the wild
creatures of the wilderness—though that too is good in itself—but
the primary object of the forest policy as of the land policy of
the United States, is the making of prosperous homes, is part of
the traditional policy of home-making of our country. Every other
consideration comes as secondary. The whole effort of the government
in dealing with the forests must be directed to this end, keeping in
view the fact that it is not only necessary to start the homes as
prosperous, but to keep them so. That is the way the forests have
need to be kept. You can start a prosperous home by destroying the
forest, but you do not keep it. You will be able to make that policy
permanently the policy of the country only in so far as you are able
to make the people at large, and then all the people concretely,
interested in the results in the different localities, appreciative
of what it means; give them a full recognition of its value, and make
them earnest and zealous adherents of it. Keep that in mind too. In a
government such as ours it is out of the question to impose a policy
like this upon the people from without. A permanent policy can come
only from the intelligent conviction of the people themselves that it
is wise, and useful; nay, indispensable. We shall decide in the long
run whether we will or will not preserve the forests of the Rocky
Mountains accordingly as we are or are not able to make the people
of the States around the mountains, in their neighborhood, hearty
believers in the policy of forest preservation. This is the only way
in which this policy can be made a permanent success. In other words,
you must convince the people of the truth—and it is the truth—that
the success of home-makers depends in the long run upon the wisdom
with which the Nation takes care of its forests. That seems a strong
statement. It is none too strong. There are small sections of this
country where what is done with the woodlands makes no difference;
but over the great extent of the country the ultimate well-being of
the home-maker will depend in very large part upon the intelligent
use made of the forests. In other words, you, yourselves, must keep
this practical object before your mind. You must remember that the
forest which contributes nothing to the wealth, progress, or safety
of the country is of no interest to the government, and it should be
of little to the forester. Your attention should be directed not to
the preservation of the forests as an end in itself, but as the means
for preserving and increasing the prosperity of the Nation. Forestry
is the preservation of forests by wise use. We shall succeed, not by
preventing the use, but by making the forests of use to the settler,
the rancher, the miner, the man who lives in the neighborhood, and
indirectly the man who may live hundreds of miles off, down the course
of some great river which has its rise among the forests.
The forest problem is in many ways the most vital internal problem
of the United States. The more closely this statement is examined
the more evident its truth becomes. In the arid regions of the West
agricultural prosperity depends first of all upon the available
water supply. Forest protection alone can maintain the streamflow
necessary for irrigation in the West and prevent floods destructive
to agriculture and manufactures in the East. The relation between
forests and the whole mineral industry is an extremely intimate one,
for mines can not be developed without timber, and usually not without
timber close at hand. In many regions of the West ore is more abundant
than wood, and where the ore is of low grade, transportation of the
necessary mine timbers from a distance is out of the question. The use
of the mine is strictly limited to the man who has timber available
close at hand. The very existence of lumbering, the fourth great
industry of the United States, depends upon the success of your work
and our work as a Nation in putting practical forestry into effective
operation.
As it is with mining and lumbering, so it is in only less degree with
transportation, manufacture, and commerce in general. The relation
of all these industries to the forests is of the most intimate and
dependent kind. It is a matter for congratulation that so many of
these great interests are waking up to this fact. The railroads,
especially, managed as they are by men who are obliged by the very
nature of their profession to possess insight into the future, have
awakened to a clearer realization of the vast importance of economical
use both of timber and of forests. Even the grazing industry, as it
is carried out in the great West, which might at first sight appear
to have little relation to forestry, is nevertheless closely related
to it, because great areas of winter range would be entirely useless
without the summer range in the mountains, where the forest reserves
lie.
The forest resources of our country are already seriously depleted.
They can be renewed and maintained only by the co-operation of the
forester and the lumberman. The most striking and encouraging fact in
the forest situation is that lumbermen are realizing that practical
lumbering and practical forestry are allies and not enemies, and that
the future of each depends upon the other. The resolutions passed
at the last great meeting of the representative lumber interests
held here in Washington are strong proof of this fact and the most
encouraging feature of the present situation. As long as we could not
make the men concerned in the great lumbering industry realize that
the foresters were endeavoring to work in their interests and not
against them, the headway that could be made was but small. And we
will be able to work effectively to bring about immediate results of
permanent importance largely in proportion as we are able to convince
the men at the head of that great business of the practical wisdom of
what the foresters of the United States are seeking to accomplish. In
the last analysis, the attitude of the lumbermen toward your work will
be the chief factor of the success or failure of that work. In other
words, gentlemen, I can not too often say to you, as indeed it can not
be too often said to any body of men of high ideals and of scientific
training who are endeavoring to accomplish work of real worth for the
country, you must keep your ideals, and yet seek to realize them in
practical ways.
The United States is exhausting its forest supplies far more
rapidly than they are being produced. The situation is a grave one,
and there is but one remedy. That remedy is the introduction of
practical forestry on a large scale, and of course that is impossible
without trained men; men trained in the closet and trained by actual
field work, under practical conditions. You will have created a new
profession; a profession of the highest importance; a profession of
the highest usefulness toward the State; and you are in honor bound
to yourselves and to the people to make your profession stand as
high as the profession of law, as the profession of medicine, as
any other profession most intimately connected with our highest and
finest development as a nation. You are engaged in pioneer work in a
calling whose opportunities for public service are very great. Treat
the calling seriously; remember how much it means for the country as a
whole; remember that if you do your work in crude fashion, if you only
half learn your profession, you discredit it as well as yourselves.
Give yourselves every chance by thorough and generous preparation and
by acquiring not only a thorough knowledge, but a wide outlook over
all the questions on which you have to touch. The profession which you
have adopted is one which touches the Republic on almost every side,
political, social, industrial, commercial; and to rise to its level
you will need a wide acquaintance with the general life of the Nation,
and a viewpoint both broad and high. Any profession which makes you
deal with your fellowmen at large makes it necessary that, if you
are to succeed, you should understand what these fellowmen are, and
not merely what they are thought to be by people who live in the
closet and the parlor. You must know who the men are with whom you are
acting; how they feel; how far you can go; when you have to stop; when
it is necessary to push on; you must know all of these things if you
are going to do work of the highest value.
I believe that the foresters of the United States will create and
apply a more effective system of forestry than we have yet seen. If
you don’t, gentlemen, I will feel that you have fallen behind your
brethren of other callings; and I don’t believe you will fall behind
them. Nowhere else is the development of a country more closely bound
up with the creation and execution of a judicious forest policy. This
is of course especially true of the West; but it is true of the East
also. Fortunately in the West we have been able relatively to the
growth of the country to begin at an earlier day; so that we have been
able to provide great forest reserves in the Rocky Mountains, instead
of waiting and attempting to get Congress to pay a very large sum
for their creation, as we are now endeavoring to do in the Southern
Appalachians. In the administration of the national forest reserves,
the introduction of conservative lumbering on the timber tract of the
lumberman and the woodlot of the farmer, in the practical solution of
forest problems which affect every industry and every activity of the
nation, the members of this society have an unexampled field before
them. You have heavy responsibilities—every man that does any work
that is worth doing has a heavy responsibility—for upon the quality
of your work the development of forestry in the United States and
the protection of the industries which depend upon it will largely
rest. You have made a good beginning, and I congratulate you upon
it. Not only is a sound national forest policy coming rapidly into
being, but the lumbermen of the country are proving their interest
in forestry by practicing it. Twenty years ago a meeting such as
this to-night would have been impossible, and the desires we hear
expressed would have been treated as having no possible relation to
practical life. I think, Mr. Secretary, that since you first came into
Congress here there has been a complete revolution in the attitude
of public men toward this question. We have reached a point where
American foresters, trained in American forest schools, are attacking
American forest problems with success. That is the way to meet the
larger work you have before you. It is a work of peculiar difficulty,
because precedents are lacking. It will demand training, steadiness,
devotion, and above all _esprit de corps_, fealty to the body of which
you are members, zeal to keep the practice as well as the ideals of
that body high. The more harmoniously you work with each other, the
better your work will be. And above all a condition precedent upon
your usefulness to the body politic as a whole is the way in which
you are able both to instil your own ideals into the mass of your
fellowmen with whom you come in contact, and at the same time to show
your ability to work in practical fashion with them; to convince them
that as a business matter it will pay for them to co-operate with
you; to convince the public of that, and then also so to convince the
people of the localities, of the neighborhoods in which you work, and
especially the lumbermen and all others who make their life trades
dealing with the forests.
AT CHICAGO, ILL., APRIL 2, 1903
_Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen_:
To-day I wish to speak to you, not merely about the Monroe Doctrine,
but about our entire position in the Western Hemisphere—a position
so peculiar and predominant that out of it has grown the acceptance
of the Monroe Doctrine as a cardinal feature of our foreign policy;
and in particular I wish to point out what has been done during the
lifetime of the last Congress to make good our position in accordance
with this historic policy.
Ever since the time when we definitely extended our boundaries
westward to the Pacific and southward to the Gulf, since the time
when the old Spanish and Portuguese colonies to the south of us
asserted their independence, our Nation has insisted that because of
its primacy in strength among the nations of the Western Hemisphere
it has certain duties and responsibilities which oblige it to take a
leading part thereon. We hold that our interests in this hemisphere
are greater than those of any European power possibly can be, and
that our duty to ourselves and to the weaker republics who are our
neighbors requires us to see that none of the great military powers
from across the seas shall encroach upon the territory of the American
republics or acquire control thereover.
This policy, therefore, not only forbids us to acquiesce in such
territorial acquisition, but also causes us to object to the
acquirement of a control which would in its effect be equal to
territorial aggrandizement. This is why the United States has steadily
believed that the construction of the great Isthmian Canal, the
building of which is to stand as the greatest material feat of the
twentieth century—greater than any similar feat in any preceding
century—should be done by no foreign nation but by ourselves. The
canal must of necessity go through the territory of one of our smaller
sister republics. We have been scrupulously careful to abstain from
perpetrating any wrong upon any of these republics in this matter.
We do not wish to interfere with their rights in the least, but,
while carefully safeguarding them, to build the canal ourselves under
provisions which will enable us, if necessary, to police and protect
it, and to guarantee its neutrality, we being the sole guarantor. Our
intention was steadfast; we desired action taken so that the canal
could always be used by us in time of peace and war alike, and in
time of war could never be used to our detriment by any nation which
was hostile to us. Such action, by the circumstances surrounding it,
was necessarily for the benefit and not the detriment of the adjacent
American republics.
After considerably more than half of a century these objects have
been exactly fulfilled by the legislation and treaties of the last
two years. Two years ago we were no further advanced toward the
construction of the Isthmian Canal on our terms than we had been
during the preceding eighty years. By the Hay-Pauncefote treaty,
ratified in December, 1901, an old treaty with Great Britain, which
had been held to stand in the way, was abrogated and it was agreed
that the canal should be constructed under the auspices of the
Government of the United States, and that this Government should have
the exclusive right to regulate and manage it, becoming the sole
guarantor of its neutrality.
It was expressly stipulated, furthermore, that this guaranty of
neutrality should not prevent the United States from taking any
measures which it found necessary in order to secure by its own
forces the defence of the United States and the maintenance of
public order. Immediately following this treaty Congress passed a
law under which the President was authorized to endeavor to secure
a treaty for acquiring the right to finish the construction of, and
to operate, the Panama Canal, which had already been begun in the
territory of Colombia by a French company. The rights of this company
were accordingly obtained and a treaty negotiated with the Republic
of Colombia. This treaty has just been ratified by the Senate. It
reserves all of Colombia’s rights, while guaranteeing all of our
own and those of neutral nations, and specifically permits us to
take any and all measures for the defence of the canal, and for the
preservation of our interests, whenever in our judgment an exigency
may arise which calls for action on our part. In other words, these
two treaties, and the legislation to carry them out, have resulted
in our obtaining on exactly the terms we desired the rights and
privileges which we had so long sought in vain. These treaties are
among the most important that we have ever negotiated in their effects
upon the future welfare of this country, and mark a memorable triumph
of American diplomacy—one of those fortunate triumphs, moreover, which
redound to the benefit of the entire world.
About the same time trouble arose in connection with the Republic of
Venezuela because of certain wrongs alleged to have been committed,
and debts overdue, by this Republic to citizens of various foreign
powers, notably England, Germany, and Italy. After failure to reach an
agreement these powers began a blockade of the Venezuelan coast and a
condition of quasi-war ensued. The concern of our Government was of
course not to interfere needlessly in any quarrel so far as it did
not touch our interests or our honor, and not to take the attitude
of protecting from coercion any power unless we were willing to
espouse the quarrel of that power, but to keep an attitude of watchful
vigilance and see that there was no infringement of the Monroe
Doctrine—no acquirement of territorial rights by a European power at
the expense of a weak sister republic—whether this acquisition might
take the shape of an outright and avowed seizure of territory or of
the exercise of control which would in effect be equivalent to such
seizure. This attitude was expressed in the two following published
memoranda, the first being the letter addressed by the Secretary of
State to the German Ambassador, the second the conversation with the
Secretary of State reported by the British Ambassador:
“DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
“WASHINGTON, _December 16, 1901_.
“HIS EXCELLENCY DR. VON HOLLEBEN, etc.:
“_Dear Excellency_: I inclose a memorandum by way of reply to that
which you did me the honor to leave with me on Saturday, and am, as
ever,
“Faithfully yours,
“JOHN HAY.
“_Memorandum._
“The President in his message of the 3d of December, 1901, used the
following language:
“The Monroe Doctrine is a declaration that there must be no
territorial aggrandizement by any non-American power at the expense
of any American power on American soil. It is in no wise intended as
hostile to any nation in the Old World.’”
“The President further said:
“‘This doctrine has nothing to do with the commercial relations of
any American power, save that it in truth allows each of them to
form such as it desires.... We do not guarantee any State against
punishment if it misconducts itself, provided that punishment
does not take the form of the acquisition of territory by any
non-American power.’
“His Excellency the German Ambassador, on his recent return from
Berlin, conveyed personally to the President the assurance of the
German Emperor that His Majesty’s Government had no purpose or
intention to make even the smallest acquisition of territory on the
South American continent or the islands adjacent. This voluntary
and friendly declaration was afterward repeated to the Secretary
of State, and was received by the President and the people of the
United States in the frank and cordial spirit in which it was
offered. In the memorandum of the 11th of December, His Excellency
the German Ambassador repeats these assurances as follows: ‘We
declare especially that under no circumstances do we consider in
our proceedings the acquisition or the permanent occupation of
Venezuelan territory.’
“In the said memorandum of the 11th of December, the German
Government informs that of the United States that it has certain
just claims for money and for damages wrongfully withheld from
German subjects by the Government of Venezuela, and that it proposes
to take certain coercive measures described in the memorandum to
enforce the payment of these just claims.
“The President of the United States, appreciating the courtesy of
the German Government in making him acquainted with the state of
affairs referred to, and not regarding himself as called upon to
enter into the consideration of the claims in question, believes
that no measures will be taken in this matter by the agents of the
German Government which are not in accordance with the well-known
purpose, above set forth, of His Majesty the German Emperor.”
SIR MICHAEL HERBERT TO THE MARQUIS OF
LANSDOWNE.
“WASHINGTON, _November 13, 1902_.
“I communicated to Mr. Hay this morning the substance of Your
Lordship’s telegram of the 11th instant.
“His Excellency stated in reply, that the United States Government,
although they regretted that European powers should use force
against Central and South American countries, could not object
to their taking steps to obtain redress for injuries suffered by
their subjects, provided that no acquisition of territory was
contemplated.”
Both powers assured us in explicit terms that there was not the
slightest intention on their part to violate the principles of the
Monroe Doctrine, and this assurance was kept with an honorable good
faith which merits full acknowledgment on our part. At the same time,
the existence of hostilities in a region so near our own borders was
fraught with such possibilities of danger in the future that it was
obviously no less our duty to ourselves than our duty to humanity
to endeavor to put an end to that. Accordingly, by an offer of our
good services in a spirit of frank friendliness to all the parties
concerned, a spirit in which they quickly and cordially responded, we
secured a resumption of peace—the contending parties agreeing that
the matters which they could not settle among themselves should be
referred to The Hague Tribunal for settlement. The United States had
most fortunately already been able to set an example to other nations
by utilizing the great possibilities for good contained in The Hague
Tribunal, a question at issue between ourselves and the Republic
of Mexico being the first submitted to this international court of
arbitration.
The terms which we have secured as those under which the Isthmian
Canal is to be built, and the course of events in the Venezuela
matter, have shown not merely the ever growing influence of the United
States in the Western Hemisphere, but also, I think I may safely say,
have exemplified the firm purpose of the United States that its growth
and influence and power shall redound not to the harm but to the
benefit of our sister republics whose strength is less. Our growth,
therefore, is beneficial to humankind in general. We do not intend
to assume any position which can give just offence to our neighbors.
Our adherence to the rule of human right is not merely profession.
The history of our dealings with Cuba shows that we reduce it to
performance.
The Monroe Doctrine is not international law, and though I think one
day it may become such, this is not necessary as long as it remains a
cardinal feature of our foreign policy and as long as we possess both
the will and the strength to make it effective. This last point, my
fellow-citizens, is all important, and is one which as a people we
can never afford to forget. I believe in the Monroe Doctrine with all
my heart and soul; I am convinced that the immense majority of our
fellow-countrymen so believe in it; but I would infinitely prefer to
see us abandon it than to see us put it forward and bluster about it,
and yet fail to build up the efficient fighting strength which in the
last resort can alone make it respected by any strong foreign power
whose interest it may ever happen to be to violate it.
Boasting and blustering are as objectionable among nations as among
individuals, and the public men of a great nation owe it to their
sense of national self-respect to speak courteously of foreign
powers, just as a brave and self-respecting man treats all around him
courteously. But though to boast is bad, and causelessly to insult
another, worse, yet worse than all is it to be guilty of boasting,
even without insult, and when called to the proof to be unable to
make such boasting good. There is a homely old adage which runs:
“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” If the American
Nation will speak softly, and yet build, and keep at a pitch of the
highest training, a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine
will go far. I ask you to think over this. If you do, you will come to
the conclusion that it is mere plain common-sense, so obviously sound
that only the blind can fail to see its truth and only the weakest and
most irresolute can fail to desire to put it into force.
In the last two years I am happy to say we have taken long strides
in advance as regards our navy. The last Congress, in addition to
smaller vessels, provided nine of those formidable fighting ships
upon which the real efficiency of any navy in war ultimately depends.
It provided, moreover, for the necessary addition of officers and
enlisted men to make the ships worth having. Meanwhile the Navy
Department has seen to it that our ships have been constantly
exercised at sea, with the great guns, and in manœuvres, so that
their efficiency as fighting units, both individually and when acting
together, has been steadily improved. Remember that all of this is
necessary. A warship is a huge bit of mechanism, wellnigh as delicate
and complicated as it is formidable. It takes years to build it. It
takes years to teach the officers and men how to handle it to good
advantage. It is an absolute impossibility to improvise a navy at the
outset of war. No recent war between any two nations has lasted as
long as it takes to build a battleship; and it is just as impossible
to improvise the officers or the crews as to improvise the navy.
To lay up a battleship and only send it afloat at the outset of a war,
with a raw crew and untried officers, would be not merely a folly but
a crime, for it would invite both disaster and disgrace. The navy
which so quickly decided in our favor in the war in 1898 had been
built and made efficient during the preceding fifteen years. The ships
that triumphed off Manila and Santiago had been built under previous
Administrations with money appropriated by previous Congresses. The
officers and the men did their duty so well because they had already
been trained to it by long sea service. All honor to the gallant
officers and gallant men who actually did the fighting; but remember,
too, to honor the public men, the shipwrights and steel workers, the
owners of the shipyards and armor plants, to whose united foresight
and exertion we owe it that in 1898 we had craft so good, guns so
excellent, and American seamen of so high a type in the conning
towers, in the gun-turrets, and in the engine rooms. It is too late to
prepare for war when war has come; and if we only prepare sufficiently
no war will ever come. We wish a powerful and efficient navy, not for
purposes of war, but as the surest guarantee of peace. If we have such
a navy—if we keep on building it up—we may rest assured that there is
but the smallest chance that trouble will ever come to this Nation;
and we may likewise rest assured that no foreign power will ever
quarrel with us about the Monroe Doctrine.
AT WAUKESHA, WIS., APRIL 3, 1903
_Gentlemen and Ladies; my Fellow-Citizens of Wisconsin_:
You are men and women of Wisconsin, but you are men and women of
America first. I am glad of having the chance of saying a few words
to you to-day. I believe with all my heart in this Nation playing its
part manfully and well. I believe that we are now, at the outset of
the twentieth century, face to face with great world problems; that
we can not help playing the part of a great world power; that all
we can decide is whether we will play it well or ill. I do not want
to see us shrink from any least bit of duty. We have not only taken
during the past five years a position of even greater importance
in this Western Hemisphere than ever before, but we have taken a
position of great importance even in the furthest Orient, in that
furthest West, which is the immemorial East. We must hold our own.
If we show ourselves weaklings we will earn the contempt of mankind,
and—what is of far more consequence—our own contempt; but I would like
to impress upon every public man, upon every writer in the press,
the fact that strength should go hand in hand with courtesy, with
scrupulous regard in word and deed, not only for the rights, but for
the feelings, of other nations. I want to see a man able to hold his
own. I have no respect for the man who will put up with injustice.
If a man will not take his part, the part is not worth taking. That
is true. On the other hand, I have a hearty contempt for the man who
is always walking about wanting to pick a quarrel, and above all,
wanting to say something unpleasant about some one else. He is not an
agreeable character anywhere; and the fact that he talks loud does
not necessarily mean that he fights hard either. Sometimes you will
see a man who will talk loud and fight hard; but he does not fight
hard because he talks loud, but in spite of it. I want the same thing
to be true of us as a nation. I am always sorry whenever I see any
reflection that seems to come from America upon any friendly nation.
To write or say anything unkind, unjust, or inconsiderate about any
foreign nation does not do us any good, and does not help us toward
holding our own if ever the need should arise to hold our own. I am
sure you will not misunderstand me; I am sure that it is needless
for me to say that I do not believe the United States should ever
suffer a wrong. I should be the first to ask that we resent a wrong
from the strong, just as I should be the first to insist that we do
not wrong the weak. As a nation, if we are to be true to our past,
we must steadfastly keep these two positions—to submit to no injury
by the strong and to inflict no injury on the weak. It is not at all
necessary to say disagreeable things about the strong in order to
impress them with the fact that we do not intend to submit to injury.
Keep our navy up to the highest point of efficiency; have good ships,
and enough of them; have the officers and the enlisted men on them
trained to handle them, so that in the future the American navy shall
rise level, whenever the need comes, to the standard it has set in
the past. Keep in our own hearts the rugged, manly virtues, which
have made our people formidable as foes, and valuable as friends
throughout the century and a quarter of our national life. Do all
that; and having done it, remember that it is a sensible thing to
speak courteously of others.
I believe in the Monroe Doctrine. I shall try to see that this Nation
lives up to it; and as long as I am President it will be lived up to.
But I do not intend to make the doctrine an excuse or a justification
for being unpleasant to other powers, for speaking ill of other
powers. We want the friendship of mankind. We want to get on well
with the other nations of mankind, with the small nations and with
the big nations. We want so to carry ourselves that if (which I think
most unlikely) any quarrel should arise, it would be evident that it
was not a quarrel of our own seeking, but one that was forced on us.
If it is forced on us, I know you too well not to know that you will
stand up to it if the need comes; but you will stand up to it all
the better if you have not blustered or spoken ill of other nations
in advance. We want friendship; we want peace. We wish well to the
nations of mankind. We look with joy at any prosperity of theirs; we
wish them success, not failure. We rejoice as mankind moves forward
over the whole earth. Each nation has its own difficulties. We have
difficulties enough at home. Let us improve ourselves, lifting what
needs to be lifted here, and let others do their own work; let us
attend to our own business; keep our own hearthstone swept and in
order. Do not shirk any duty; do not shirk any difficulty that is
forced upon us, but do not invite it by foolish language. Do not
assume a quarrelsome and unpleasant attitude toward other people. Let
the friendly expressions of foreign powers be accepted as tokens of
their sincere good will, and reflecting their real sentiments; and
let us avoid any language on our part which might tend to turn their
good will into ill will. All that is mere common-sense; the kind of
common-sense that we apply in our own lives, man to man, neighbor to
neighbor; and remember that substantially what is true among nations
is true on a small scale among ourselves. The man who is a weakling,
who is a coward, we all despise, and we ought to despise him. If a man
can not do his own work and take his own part, he does not count; and
I have no patience with those who would have the United States unable
to take its own part, to do its work in the world. But remember that a
loose tongue is just as unfortunate an accompaniment for a nation as
for an individual. The man who talks ill of his neighbors, the man
who invites trouble for himself and them, is a nuisance. The stronger,
the more self-confident the nation is, the more carefully it should
guard its speech as well as its action, and should make it a point, in
the interest of its own self-respect, to see that it does not say what
it can not make good, that it avoids giving needless offence, that it
shows genuinely and sincerely its desire for friendship with the rest
of mankind, but that it keeps itself in shape to make its weight felt
should the need arise.
That is in substance my theory of what our foreign policy should be.
Let us not boast, not insult any one, but make up our minds coolly
what is necessary to say, say it, and then stand to it, whatever the
consequences may be.
AT MILWAUKEE, WIS., APRIL 3, 1903
_Mr. Toastmaster, Gentlemen_:
To-day I wish to speak to you on the question of the control and
regulation of those great corporations which are popularly, although
rather vaguely, known as trusts; dealing mostly with what has actually
been accomplished in the way of legislation and in the way of
enforcement of legislation during the past eighteen months, the period
covering the two sessions of the Fifty-seventh Congress. At the outset
I shall ask you to remember that I do not approach the subject either
from the standpoint of those who speak of themselves as anti-trust
or anti-corporation people, nor yet from the standpoint of those
who are fond of denying the existence of evils in the trusts, or who
apparently proceed upon the assumption that if a corporation is large
enough it can do no wrong.
I think I speak for the great majority of the American people when
I say that we are not in the least against wealth as such, whether
individual or corporate; that we merely desire to see any abuse of
corporate or combined wealth corrected and remedied; that we do not
desire the abolition or destruction of big corporations, but, on the
contrary, recognize them as being in many cases efficient economic
instruments, the results of an inevitable process of economic
evolution, and only desire to see them regulated and controlled so far
as may be necessary to subserve the public good. We should be false
to the historic principles of our government if we discriminated,
either by legislation or administration, either for or against a man
because of either his wealth or his poverty. There is no proper place
in our society either for the rich man who uses the power conferred
by his riches to enable him to oppress and wrong his neighbors, nor
yet for the demagogic agitator who, instead of attacking abuses as all
abuses should be attacked wherever found, attacks property, attacks
prosperity, attacks men of wealth, as such, whether they be good or
bad, attacks corporations whether they do well or ill, and seeks, in
a spirit of ignorant rancor, to overthrow the very foundations upon
which rests our national well-being.
In consequence of the extraordinary industrial changes of the last
half century, and notably of the last two or three decades, changes
due mainly to the rapidity and complexity of our industrial growth, we
are confronted with problems which in their present shape were unknown
to our forefathers. Our great prosperity, with its accompanying
concentration of population and of wealth, its extreme specialization
of faculties, and its development of giant industrial leaders, has
brought much good and some evil, and it is as foolish to ignore the
good as wilfully to blind ourselves to the evil.
The evil has been partly the inevitable accompaniment of the social
changes, and where this is the case it can be cured neither by law nor
by the administration of the law, the only remedy lying in the slow
change of character and of economic environment. But for a portion
of the evil, at least, we think that remedies can be found. We know
well the danger of false remedies, and we are against all violent,
radical, and unwise change. But we believe that by proceeding slowly,
yet resolutely, with good sense and moderation, and also with a firm
determination not to be swerved from our course either by foolish
clamor or by any base or sinister influence, we can accomplish much
for the betterment of conditions.
Nearly two years ago, speaking at the State Fair in Minnesota, I said:
“It is probably true that the large majority of the fortunes that
now exist in this country have been amassed, not by injuring our
people, but as an incident to the conferring of great benefits
upon the community, and this no matter what may have been the
conscious purpose of those amassing them. There is but the scantiest
justification for most of the outcry against the men of wealth _as
such_; and it ought to be unnecessary to state that any appeal which
directly or indirectly leads to suspicion and hatred among ourselves,
which tends to limit opportunity, and therefore to shut the door
of success against poor men of talent, and, finally, which entails
the possibility of lawlessness and violence, is an attack upon the
fundamental properties of American citizenship. Our interests are at
bottom common; in the long run we go up or go down together. Yet more
and more it is evident that the State, and if necessary the Nation,
has got to possess the right of supervision and control as regards the
great corporations which are its creatures; particularly as regards
the great business combinations which derive a portion of their
importance from the existence of some monopolistic tendency. The right
should be exercised with caution and self-restraint; but it should
exist, so that it may be invoked if the need arises.”
Last fall in speaking at Cincinnati I said:
“The necessary supervision and control, in which I firmly believe as
the only method of eliminating the real evils of the trusts, must
come through wisely and cautiously framed legislation, which shall
aim in the first place to give definite control to some sovereign
over the great corporations, and which shall be followed, when once
this power has been conferred, by a system giving to the government
the full knowledge which is the essential for satisfactory action.
Then, when this knowledge—one of the essential features of which is
proper publicity—has been gained, what further steps of any kind are
necessary can be taken with the confidence born of the possession
of power to deal with the subject, and of a thorough knowledge of
what should and can be done in the matter. We need additional power,
and we need knowledge.... Such legislation—whether obtainable now
or obtainable only after a Constitutional amendment—should provide
for a reasonable supervision, the most prominent feature of which at
first should be publicity; that is, the making public, both to the
government authorities and to the people at large, the essential facts
in which the public is concerned. This would give us exact knowledge
of many points which are now not only in doubt but the subject of
fierce controversy. Moreover, the mere fact of the publication would
cure some very grave evils, for the light of day is a deterrent to
wrongdoing. It would doubtless disclose other evils with which, for
the time being, we could devise no way to grapple. Finally, it would
disclose others which could be grappled with and cured by further
legislative action.”
In my Message to Congress for 1901 I said:
“In the interest of the whole people the Nation should, without
interfering with the power of the States in the matter, itself also
assume power of supervision and regulation over all corporations
doing an interstate business.”
The views thus expressed have now received effect by the wise,
conservative, and yet far-reaching legislation enacted by Congress at
its last session. In its wisdom Congress enacted the very important
law providing a Department of Commerce and Labor, and further
providing therein under the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for a
Commissioner of Corporations, charged with the duty of supervision
of and of making intelligent investigation into the organization and
conduct of corporations engaged in interstate commerce. His powers
to expose illegal or hurtful practices and to obtain all information
needful for the purposes of further intelligent legislation seem
adequate; and the publicity justifiable and proper for public purposes
is satisfactory guaranteed. The law was passed at the very end of the
session of Congress. Owing to the lateness of its passage Congress
was not able to provide proper equipment for the new Department;
and the first few months must necessarily be spent in the work of
organization, and the first investigations must necessarily be of a
tentative character. The satisfactory development of such a system
requires time and great labor. Those who are intrusted with the
administration of the new law will assuredly administer it in a
spirit of absolute fairness and justice and of entire fearlessness,
with the firm purpose not to hurt any corporation doing a legitimate
business—on the contrary to help it—and, on the other hand, not to
spare any corporation which may be guilty of illegal practices, or
the methods of which may make it a menace to the public welfare. Some
substantial good will be done in the immediate future; and as the
Department gets fairly to work under the law an ever larger vista for
good work will be opened along the lines indicated. The enactment
of this law is one of the most significant contributions which have
been made in our time toward the proper solution of the problem of
the relations to the people of the great corporations and corporate
combinations.
But much though this is, it is only a part of what has been done in
the effort to ascertain and correct improper trust or monopolistic
practices. Some eighteen months ago the Industrial Commission, an
able and non-partisan body, reported to Congress the result of
their investigation of trusts and industrial combinations. One of
the most important of their conclusions was that discriminations in
freight rates and facilities were granted favored shippers by the
railroads and that these discriminations clearly tended toward the
control of production and prices in many fields of business by large
combinations. That this conclusion was justifiable was shown by the
disclosures in the investigation of railroad methods pursued in the
fall and winter of 1901-1902. It was then shown that certain trunk
lines had entered into unlawful agreements as to the transportation
of food products from the West to the Atlantic seaboard, giving a few
favored shippers rates much below the tariff charges imposed upon the
smaller dealers and the general public. These unjust practices had
prevailed to such an extent and for so long a time that many of the
smaller shippers had been driven out of business, until practically
one buyer of grain on each railway system had been able by his illegal
advantages to secure a monopoly on the line with which his secret
compact was made; this monopoly enabling him to fix the price to
both producer and consumer. Many of the great packing house concerns
were shown to be in combination with each other and with most of the
great railway lines, whereby they enjoyed large secret concessions
in rates and thus obtained a practical monopoly of the fresh and
cured meat industry of the country. These fusions, though violative
of the statute, had prevailed unchecked for so many years that they
had become intrenched in and interwoven with the commercial life of
certain large distributing localities; although this was of course at
the expense of the vast body of law-abiding merchants, the general
public, and particularly of unfavored localities.
Under those circumstances it was a serious problem to determine
the wise course to follow in vitalizing a law which had in part
become obsolete or proved incapable of enforcement. Of what the
Attorney-General did in enforcing it I shall speak later. The
decisions of the courts upon the law had betrayed weaknesses and
imperfections, some of them so serious as to render abortive efforts
to apply any effective remedy for the existing evils.
It is clear that corporations created for quasi public purposes,
clothed for that reason with the ultimate power of the state to take
private property against the will of the owner, hold their corporate
powers as carriers in trust for the fairly impartial service of all
the public. Favoritism in the use of such powers, unjustly enriching
some and unjustly impoverishing others, discriminating in favor
of some places and against others, is palpably violative of plain
principles of justice. Such a practice unchecked is hurtful in
many ways. Congress, having had its attention drawn to the matter,
enacted a most important anti-rebate law, which greatly strengthens
the interstate commerce law. This new law prohibits under adequate
penalties the giving and as well the demanding or receiving of such
preferences, and provides the preventive remedy of injunction. The
vigorous administration of this law—and it will be enforced—will, it
is hoped, afford a substantial remedy for certain trust evils which
have attracted public attention and have created public unrest.
This law represents a noteworthy and important advance toward just
and effective regulation of transportation. Moreover, its passage
has been supplemented by the enactment of a law to expedite the
hearing of actions of public moment under the anti-trust act, known
as the Sherman law, and under the act to regulate commerce, at the
request of the Attorney-General; and furthermore, additional funds
have been appropriated to be expended under the direction of the
Attorney-General in the enforcement of these laws.
All of this represents a great and substantial advance in legislation.
But more important even than legislation is the administration of the
law, and I ask your attention for a moment to the way in which the
law has been administered by the profound jurist and fearless public
servant who now occupies the position of Attorney-General, Mr. Knox.
The Constitution enjoins upon the President that he shall take care
that the laws be faithfully executed, and under this provision the
Attorney-General formulated a policy which was in effect nothing but
the rigid enforcement, by suits managed with consummate skill and
ability, both of the anti-trust law and of the imperfect provisions of
the act to regulate commerce. The first step taken was the prosecution
of fourteen suits against the principal railroads of the Middle West,
restraining them by injunction from further violations of either of
the laws in question.
About the same time the case against the Northern Securities Company
was initiated. This was a corporation organized under the laws of
the State of New Jersey with a capital of four hundred million
dollars, the alleged purpose being to control the Great Northern
and the Northern Pacific railroad companies, two parallel and
competing lines extending across the northern tier of States from
the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Whatever the purpose,
its consummation would have resulted in the control of the two great
railway systems—upon which the people of the Northwestern States were
so largely dependent for their supplies and to get their products
to market—being practically merged into the New Jersey corporation.
The proposition that these independent systems of railroads should
be merged under a single control alarmed the people of the States
concerned, lest they be subjected to what they deemed a monopoly
of interstate transportation and the suppression of competition.
The Governors of the States most deeply affected held a meeting
to consider how to prevent the merger becoming effective and
passed resolutions calling upon the National Government to enforce
the anti-trust laws against the alleged combination. When these
resolutions were referred to the Attorney-General for consideration
and advice, he reported that in his opinion the Northern Securities
Company and its control of the railroads mentioned was a combination
in restraint of trade, and was attempting a monopoly in violation of
the national anti-trust law. Thereupon a suit in equity, which is now
pending, was begun by the Government to test the validity of this
transaction under the Sherman law.
At nearly the same time the disclosures respecting the secret
rebates enjoyed by the great packing house companies, coupled with
the very high price of meats, led the Attorney-General to direct an
investigation into the methods of the so-called beef trust. The
result was that he filed bills for injunction against six of the
principal packing house companies, and restrained them from combining
and agreeing upon prices at which they would sell their products in
States other than those in which their meats were prepared for market.
Writs of injunction were issued accordingly, and since then, after
full argument, the United States Circuit Court has made the injunction
perpetual.
The cotton interests of the South, including growers, buyers, and
shippers, made complaint that they were suffering great injury in
their business from the methods of the Southern railroads in the
handling and transportation of cotton. They alleged that these
railroads, by combined action under a pooling arrangement to support
their rate schedules, had denied to the shippers the right to elect
over what roads their commodities should be shipped, and that
by dividing upon a fixed basis the cotton crop of the South all
inducement to compete in rates for the transportation thereof was
eliminated. Proceedings were instituted by the Attorney-General under
the anti-trust law, which resulted in the destruction of the pool
and in restoring to the growers and shippers of the South the right
to ship their products over any road they elected, thus removing the
restraint upon the freedom of commerce.
In November, 1902, the Attorney-General directed that a bill for
an injunction be filed in the United States Circuit Court at San
Francisco against the Federal Salt Company—a corporation which had
been organized under the laws of an Eastern State, but had its main
office and principal place of business in California—and against a
number of other companies and persons constituting what was known
as the salt trust. These injunctions were to restrain the execution
of certain contracts between the Federal Salt Company and the other
defendants, by which the latter agreed neither to import nor buy or
sell salt, except from and to the Federal Salt Company, and not to
engage or assist in the production of salt west of the Mississippi
River during the continuance of such contracts. As the result of these
agreements the price of salt had been advanced about four hundred per
cent. A temporary injunction order was obtained, which the defendants
asked the court to modify on the ground that the anti-trust law had no
application to contracts for purchases and sales within a State. The
Circuit Court overruled this contention and sustained the Government’s
position. This practically concluded the case, and it is understood
that in consequence the Federal Salt Company is about to be dissolved
and that no further contest will be made.
The above is a brief outline of the most important steps, legislative
and administrative, taken during the past eighteen months in the
direction of solving, so far as at present it seems practicable by
national legislation or administration to solve, what we call the
trust problem. They represent a sum of very substantial achievement.
They represent a successful effort to devise and apply real remedies;
an effort which so far succeeded because it was made not only
with resolute purpose and determination, but also in a spirit of
common-sense and justice, as far removed as possible from rancor,
hysteria, and unworthy demagogic appeal. In the same spirit the laws
will continue to be enforced. Not only is the legislation recently
enacted effective, but in my judgment it was impracticable to attempt
more. Nothing of value is to be expected from ceaseless agitation
for radical and extreme legislation. The people may wisely, and with
confidence, await the results which are reasonably to be expected from
the impartial enforcement of the laws which have recently been placed
upon the statute books. Legislation of a general and indiscriminate
character would be sure to fail, either because it would involve all
interests in a common ruin, or because it would not really reach any
evil. We have endeavored to provide a discriminating adaptation of the
remedy to the real mischief.
Many of the alleged remedies advocated are of the unpleasantly drastic
type which seeks to destroy the disease by killing the patient. Others
are so obviously futile that it is somewhat difficult to treat them
seriously or as being advanced in good faith. High among the latter I
place the effort to reach the trust question by means of the tariff.
You can, of course, put an end to the prosperity of the trusts by
putting an end to the prosperity of the Nation; but the price for
such action seems high. The alternative is to do exactly what has been
done during the life of the Congress which has just closed—that is,
to endeavor, not to destroy corporations, but to regulate them with
a view of doing away with whatever is of evil in them and of making
them subserve the public use. The law is not to be administered in
the interest of the poor man as such, nor yet in the interest of the
rich man as such, but in the interest of the law-abiding man, rich or
poor. We are no more against organizations of capital than against
organizations of labor. We welcome both, demanding only that each
shall do right and shall remember its duty to the Republic. Such a
course we consider not merely a benefit to the poor man, but a benefit
to the rich man. We do no man an injustice when we require him to obey
the law. On the contrary, if he is a man whose safety and well-being
depend in a peculiar degree upon the existence of the spirit of law
and order, we are rendering him the greatest service when we require
him to be himself an exemplar of that spirit.
BEFORE THE MINNESOTA LEGISLATURE, ST. PAUL, MINN., APRIL 4, 1903
_Mr. Governor, Mr. Lieutenant-Governor, Mr. Speaker, Members of the
Legislative Body, Men and Women of Minnesota_:
I thank you for greeting me and for giving me the chance to say a word
or two in welcome and in acknowledgment of your greeting.
To any American capable of any depth of reflection whatever, it
should always be a somewhat solemn thing to come into the presence
of two bodies—one a legislative body; the other an educational
body; the legislative body, which is not only the method but the
symbol of our free government; the educational body, which, using
educational in its broadest and truest sense, means the body that
fits us for self-government. Self-government is not an easy thing.
The nations of antiquity, the nations of the middle ages, that tried
the experiment of independent self-government which should guarantee
freedom to the individual, and yet safety from without and within to
the body politic itself, rarely lasted long, never rose to a pitch of
greatness such as ours without having suffered some radical and, as it
proved ultimately, fatal change of structure. Until our Republic was
founded it had proved impossible in the long run to combine freedom
for the individual and greatness for the nation. The republics of
antiquity and of the middle ages went one of two lines; either proved
fatal. Either the individual’s interests were sacrificed, and, while
retaining the forms of freedom, the republic became in effect a
despotism, or else the freedom of the individual was kept at the cost
of utter impotence either to put down disorder at home or to repel
aggression from abroad.
It has been given to us during the century and a quarter of our
national life so to handle ourselves as a people that we have escaped
both dangers. We have been able to escape the leadership of those who
feared Scylla so much that they would plunge us into Charybdis, and
of those who feared Charybdis so much that they would plunge us into
Scylla. We have been able to preserve orderly liberty and strength
to grow in greatness among the nations of the earth, while becoming
steadily more and more democratic in the truest and broadest sense
of the word. I believe with all my heart that we shall continue on
the path thus marked out for us; but we shall so continue only if we
remember that in the last analysis the safety of the Republic depends
upon the high average of individual citizenship.
We can keep all the forms of free government; and every Fourth of
July we can talk possibly a little too boastfully of both the past
and the present; and yet it shall not avail us if we do not have
in our hearts the spirit that makes for decent citizenship, the
spirit that alone counts in the formation of a true republic. And
that spirit is essentially the same in public life as in private
life. The manifestations of it differ, but the spirit is the same.
A public man is as much bound to tell the truth on the stump as off
the stump. On the other hand, his critics will do well to remember
that truth-telling is a virtue for them to practice also. What we
need in public life and in private life is not genius so much as the
many-sided development of the qualities which in their sum make good
citizenship. In a great crisis we shall need a genius; thrice and
thrice over fortunate is the nation which then develops a Lincoln to
lead it in peace; a Grant to lead it in war; a Washington to lead it
in war and peace.
But what we need as a nation, as an individual, at the ordinary times
which are so much larger in the aggregate than the extraordinary
times, and upon our conduct in which really depends our conduct
in extraordinary times, are the commonplace virtues which we all
recognize, and which when we were young we wrote about in copybooks,
and which, if we practice, will count for a thousand times more in the
long run than any brilliance and genius of any kind or sort whatsoever.
I want to say just a word on the other side of the two great
questions, the legislative and educational questions. Education must
be twofold. Of course if we do not have education in the school,
the academy, the college, the university, and have it developed in
the highest and wisest manner, we shall make but a poor fist of
American citizenship. One of the things that is most hopeful in our
Republic is the way in which the State has taken charge of elementary
education; and the way in which, in the East through private gift,
here in the West through the wise liberality of the several States,
the higher education has been taken care of, as in your own University
of Minnesota. But such education can never be all. It can never be
more than half, and sometimes not that. Nothing can take the place
of the education of the home; and that education must be largely the
unconscious influence of character upon character. There is no use
in the father trying to instil wise saws and precepts into the son,
if his own character gives the lie to his advice. And unfortunately
it is just as true in the education of children as in everything
else, that it is almost as harmful to be a virtuous fool as a knave.
So often throughout our social structure from the wealthiest down
to the poorest you see the queer fatuity of the man or the woman
which makes them save their children temporary discomfort, temporary
unpleasantness, at the cost of future destruction; you see a great
many men, and I am sorry to say a great many women, who say, “I have
had to work hard; my boy or my girl shall not do anything.” I have
seen it in every rank. I have heard the millionaire say, “I have had
to work all my life to make money, let my boy spend it.” It would be
better for the boy never to have been born than to be brought up on
that principle. On the other hand, I have seen the overworked drudge,
the laborer’s wife, who said, “Well, I have had to work my heart out
all my days; my daughters shall be ladies”; and her conception of
her daughters being ladies was to have them sit around useless and
incompetent, unable to do anything, brought up to be discontented
cumberers of the earth’s surface. As Abraham Lincoln said: “There is
a deal of human nature in mankind.” Fundamentally, virtues and faults
are just the same in the millionaire and the day laborer. The man or
the woman who seeks to bring up his or her children with the idea that
their happiness is secured by teaching them to avoid difficulties is
doing them a cruel wrong. To bring up the boy and girl so sheltered
that they can not stand any rough knocks, that they shrink from toil,
that when they meet an obstacle they feel they ought to go around or
back instead of going on over it—the man or the woman who does that is
wronging the children to a degree that no other human being can wrong
them. If you are worth your salt and want your children to be worth
their salt, teach them that the life that is not a life of work and
effort is worthless, a curse to the man or woman leading it, a curse
to those around him or her. Teach the boys that if they are ever to
count in the world they will count not by flinching from difficulties,
but by warring with and overcoming them. What utter scorn one feels
for those who seek only the life of ease; the life passed in dexterous
effort to avoid all angular corners, to avoid being put in the places
where a strong man by blood and sweat and toil and risk wins triumph!
What a wretched life is the life of the man passed in endeavoring to
shirk his share of the burden laid upon him in this world! And it
makes no difference whether that man is a man of inherited wealth or
one who has to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow; it is equally
ignoble in either case. What is true of the individual is true of the
nation. The man who counts is not the man who dodges work, but he who
goes out into life rejoicing as a strong man to run a race, girding
himself for the effort, bound to win and wrest triumph from difficulty
and disaster.
So it is with our Nation. No nation which has bound itself only
to do easy things ever yet amounted to anything, ever yet came to
anything throughout the ages. We have become a great people. At the
threshold of this twentieth century we stand with the future looming
large before us. We face great problems within and great problems
without. We can not if we would refuse to face those problems. All we
can decide is whether we will do them well or ill; for the refusal to
face them would itself mean that we were doing them ill. We are in
the arena into which great nations must come. We must play our part.
It rests with us to decide that we shall not play it ignobly; that we
shall not flinch from the great problems that there are to do, but
that we shall take our place in the forefront of the great nations and
face each problem of the day with confident and resolute hope.
IN THE CHAPEL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.,
APRIL 4, 1903
_Mr. President; Ladies and Gentlemen_:
I am glad to have the chance of greeting you this evening, but I
regret that the engagements for me have been so numerous that it will
be only a greeting. I wish I could be here to see your beautiful
grounds and buildings by daylight, and to see a little of the life of
the university.
There are plenty of tendencies for good, and, I am sorry to say,
plenty of tendencies for evil in our modern life, and high among the
former must be placed the rapid growth of the great institutions of
learning in this country. There is a twofold side to the work done in
any institution of this kind. In the first place the institution is
to turn out scholars and men proficient in the different technical
branches for which it trains them. It should be the aim of every
university which seeks to develop the liberal side of education
to turn out men and women who will add to the sum of productive
achievement in scholarship; who will not merely be content to work in
the fields that have already been harrowed a thousand times by other
workers, but who will strike out for themselves and try to do new work
that counts; so in each technical school if the institution is worthy
of standing in the front rank, it will turn out those who in that
particular specialty stand at the head. But in addition to this merely
technical work, to the turning out of the scholar, the professional
man, the man or woman trained on some special line, each university
worthy the name must endeavor to turn out men and women in the fullest
sense of the word, good citizens, men and women who will add by what
they do to the sum of noble work in the whole community.
It is a good thing that so much attention should be given to physical
development. I believe in rough games and in rough, manly sports. I
do not feel any particular sympathy for the person who gets battered
about a good deal so long as it is not fatal, and if he feels any
sympathy for himself I do not like him. I believe thoroughly in the
sound and vigorous body. I believe still more in the vigorous mind.
And I believe most of all in what count for more than body, for more
than mind, and that is character. That is the sum of the forces
that make the man or the woman worth knowing, worth revering, worth
holding to. Play hard while you play, but do not mistake it for work.
If a young fellow is twenty it is a good thing that he should be a
crack half-back; but when he is forty I am sorry if he has never been
anything else except once at twenty a good half-back. Keep the sense
of proportion. Play hard; it will do you good in your work. But work
hard and remember that this is the main thing.
Finally, in closing, I think it is a safe thing to take a motto that
I heard from the lips of an old football player once: “Don’t flinch,
don’t foul, and hit the line hard.”
AT MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., APRIL 4, 1903
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
At the special session of the Senate held in March the Cuban
reciprocity treaty was ratified. When this treaty goes into effect,
it will confer substantial economic benefits alike upon Cuba, because
of the widening of her market in the United States, and upon the
United States, because of the equal widening and the progressive
control it will give to our people in the Cuban market. This treaty is
beneficial to both parties and justifies itself on several grounds.
In the first place we offer to Cuba her natural market. We can confer
upon her a benefit which no other nation can confer; and for the very
reason that we have started her as an independent republic and that
we are rich, prosperous, and powerful, it behooves us to stretch out
a helping hand to our feebler younger sister. In the next place, it
widens the market for our products, both the products of the farm and
certain of our manufactures; and it is therefore in the interests of
our farmers, manufacturers, merchants, and wage-workers. Finally,
the treaty was not merely warranted but demanded, apart from all
other considerations, by the enlightened consideration of our foreign
policy. More and more in the future we must occupy a preponderant
position in the waters and along the coasts in the region south of
us; not a position of control over the republics of the south, but
of control of the military situation so as to avoid any possible
complications in the future. Under the Platt amendment Cuba agreed
to give us certain naval stations on her coast. The Navy Department
decided that we needed but two, and we have specified where these two
are to be. President Palma has concluded an agreement giving them to
us—an agreement which the Cuban legislative body will doubtless soon
ratify. In other words, the Republic of Cuba has assumed a special
relation to our international political system, under which she gives
us outposts of defence, and we are morally bound to extend to her in a
degree the benefit of our own economic system. From every standpoint
of wise and enlightened home and foreign policy the ratification of
the Cuban treaty marked a step of substantial progress in the growth
of our nation toward greatness at home and abroad.
Equally important was the action on the tariff upon products of the
Philippines. We gave them a reduction of twenty-five per cent, and
would have given them a reduction of twenty-five per cent more had it
not been for the opposition, in the hurried closing days of the last
session, of certain gentlemen who, by the way, have been representing
themselves both as peculiarly solicitous for the interests of the
Philippine people and as special champions of the lowering of tariff
duties. There is a distinctly humorous side to the fact that the
reduction of duties which would benefit Cuba and the Philippines as
well as ourselves was antagonized chiefly by those who in theory
have been fond of proclaiming themselves the advanced guardians of
the oppressed nationalities in the islands affected and the ardent
advocates of the reduction of duties generally, but who instantly
took violent ground against the practical steps to accomplish either
purpose.
Moreover, a law was enacted putting anthracite on the free list and
completely removing the duties on all other kinds of coal for one year.
We are now in a condition of prosperity unparalleled not merely in our
own history but in the history of any other nation. This prosperity is
deep rooted and stands on a firm basis because it is due to the fact
that the average American has in him the stuff out of which victors
are made in the great industrial contests of the present day, just
as in the great military contests of the past; and because he is now
able to use and develop his qualities to best advantage under our
well-established economic system. We are winning headship among the
nations of the world because our people are able to keep their high
average of individual citizenship and to show their mastery in the
hard, complex, pushing life of the age. There will be fluctuations
from time to time in our prosperity, but it will continue to grow just
so long as we keep up this high average of individual citizenship
and permit it to work out its own salvation under proper economic
legislation.
The present phenomenal prosperity has been won under a tariff which
was made in accordance with certain fixed and definite principles,
the most important of which is an avowed determination to protect the
interests of the American producer, business man, wage-worker, and
farmer alike. The general tariff policy, to which, without regard to
changes in detail, I believe this country is irrevocably committed,
is fundamentally based upon ample recognition of the difference
between the cost of production—that is, the cost of labor—here and
abroad, and of the need to see to it that our laws shall in no
event afford advantage in our own market to foreign industries over
American industries, to foreign capital over American capital, to
foreign labor over our own labor. This country has and this country
needs better-paid, better-educated, better-fed, and better-clothed
workingmen, of a higher type, than are to be found in any foreign
country. It has and it needs a higher, more vigorous, and more
prosperous type of tillers of the soil than is possessed by any other
country. The business men, the merchants and manufacturers, and the
managers of the transportation interests show the same superiority
when compared with men of their type abroad. The events of the last
few years have shown how skilfully the leaders of American industry
use in international business competition the mighty industrial
weapons forged for them by the resources of our country, the wisdom of
our laws, and the skill, the inventive genius, and the administrative
capacity of our people.
It is, of course, a mere truism to say that we want to use everything
in our power to foster the welfare of our entire body politic. In
other words, we need to treat the tariff as a business proposition,
from the standpoint of the interests of the country as a whole, and
not with reference to the temporary needs of any political party. It
is almost as necessary that our policy should be stable as that it
should be wise. A nation like ours could not long stand the ruinous
policy of readjusting its business to radical changes in the tariff
at short intervals, especially when, as now, owing to the immense
extent and variety of our products, the tariff schedules carry rates
of duty on thousands of different articles. Sweeping and violent
changes in such a tariff, touching so vitally the interests of all of
us, embracing agriculture, labor, manufactures, and commerce, would
be disastrous in any event, and they would be fatal to our present
well-being if approached on the theory that the principle of the
protective tariff was to be abandoned. The business world, that is,
the entire American world, can not afford, if it has any regard for
its own welfare, even to consider the advisability of abandoning the
present system.
Yet, on the other hand, where the industrial conditions so frequently
change, as with us must of necessity be the case, it is a matter of
prime importance that we should be able from time to time to adapt
our economic policy to the changed conditions. Our aim should be to
preserve the policy of a protective tariff, in which the Nation as
a whole has acquiesced, and yet wherever and whenever necessary to
change the duties in particular paragraphs or schedules as matters of
legislative detail, if such change is demanded by the interests of the
Nation as a whole.
In making any readjustment there are certain important considerations
which can not be disregarded. If a tariff law has on the whole worked
well, and if business has prospered under it and is prospering, it
may be better to endure some inconveniences and inequalities for a
time than by making changes to risk causing disturbance and perhaps
paralysis in the industries and business of the country. The fact
that the change in a given rate of duty may be thought desirable does
not settle the question whether it is advisable to make the change
immediately. Every tariff deals with duties on thousands of articles
arranged in hundreds of paragraphs and in many schedules. These duties
affect a vast number of interests which are often conflicting. If
necessary for our welfare, then of course Congress must consider the
question of changing the law as a whole or changing any given rates
of duty, but we must remember that whenever even a single schedule
is considered some interests will appear to demand a change in
almost every schedule in the law; and when it comes to upsetting the
schedules generally the effect upon the business interests of the
country would be ruinous.
One point we must steadily keep in mind. The question of tariff
revision, speaking broadly, stands wholly apart from the question
of dealing with the trusts. No change in tariff duties can have any
substantial effect in solving the so-called trust problem. Certain
great trusts or great corporations are wholly unaffected by the
tariff. Practically all the others that are of any importance have
as a matter of fact numbers of smaller American competitors; and of
course a change in the tariff which would work injury to the large
corporation would work not merely injury but destruction to its
smaller competitors; and equally of course such a change would mean
disaster to all the wage-workers connected with either the large or
the small corporations. From the standpoint of those interested in the
solution of the trust problem such a change would therefore merely
mean that the trust was relieved of the competition of its weaker
American competitors, and thrown only into competition with foreign
competitors; and that the first effort to meet this new competition
would be made by cutting down wages, and would therefore be primarily
at the cost of labor. In the case of some of our greatest trusts such
a change might confer upon them a positive benefit. Speaking broadly,
it is evident that the changes in the tariff will affect the trusts
for weal or for woe simply as they affect the whole country. The
tariff affects trusts only as it affects all other interests. It makes
all these interests, large or small, profitable; and its benefits can
be taken from the large only under penalty of taking them from the
small also.
To sum up, then, we must as a people approach a matter of such prime
economic importance as the tariff from the standpoint of our business
needs. We can not afford to become fossilized or to fail to recognize
the fact that as the needs of the country change it may be necessary
to meet these new needs by changing certain features of our tariff
laws. Still less can we afford to fail to recognize the further fact
that these changes must not be made until the need for them outweighs
the disadvantages which may result; and when it becomes necessary
to make them they should be made with full recognition of the need
of stability in our economic system and of keeping unchanged the
principle of that system which has now become a settled policy in our
national life. We have prospered marvelously at home. As a nation we
stand in the very forefront in the giant international industrial
competition of the day. We can not afford by any freak or folly to
forfeit the position to which we have thus triumphantly attained.
AT SIOUX FALLS, S. D., APRIL 6, 1903
_Fellow-Citizens_:
There are many, many lesser problems which go to make up in their
entirety the huge and complex problems of our modern industrial life.
Each of these problems is, moreover, connected with many of the
others. Few indeed are simple or stand only by themselves. The most
important are those connected with the relation of the farmers, the
stock growers and soil tillers, to the community at large, and those
affecting the relations between employer and employed. In a country
like ours it is fundamentally true that the well-being of the tiller
of the soil and the wage-worker is the well-being of the State. If
they are well off, then we need concern ourselves but little as to how
other classes stand, for they will inevitably be well off too; and, on
the other hand, there can be no real general prosperity unless based
on the foundation of the prosperity of the wage-worker and the tiller
of the soil.
But the needs of these two classes are often not the same. The tiller
of the soil has been of all our citizens the one on the whole the
least affected in his ways of life and methods of industry by the
giant industrial changes of the last half century. There has been
change with him, too, of course. He also can work to best advantage
if he keeps in close touch with his fellows; and the success of the
national Department of Agriculture has shown how much can be done for
him by rational action of the Government. Nor is it only through the
Department that the Government can act. One of the greatest and most
beneficent measures passed by the last Congress, or indeed by any
Congress in recent years, is the Irrigation Act, which will do for the
States of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountain region at least as
much as ever has been done for the States of the humid region by river
and harbor improvements. Few measures that have been put upon the
statute books of the Nation have done more for the people than this
law will, I firmly believe, directly and indirectly accomplish for the
States in question.
The Department of Agriculture devotes its whole energy to working
for the welfare of farmers and stock growers. In every section of
our country it aids them in their constantly increasing search for
a better agricultural education. It helps not only them, but all
the nation, in seeing that our exports of meats have clean bills
of health, and that there is rigid inspection of all meats that
enter into interstate commerce. Thirty-eight million carcasses
were inspected during the last fiscal year. Our stock growers sell
forty-five million dollars’ worth of live stock annually, and these
animals must be kept healthy or else our people will lose their trade.
Our export of plant products to foreign countries amounts to over six
hundred million dollars a year, and there is no branch of its work
to which the Department of Agriculture devotes more care. Thus the
Department has been successfully introducing a macaroni wheat from
the headwaters of the Volga, which grows successfully in ten inches
of rainfall, and by this means wheat growing has been successfully
extended westward into the semi-arid region. Two million bushels of
this wheat were grown last year; and being suited to dry conditions it
can be used for forage as well as for food for man.
The Department of Agriculture has been helping our fruit men to
establish markets abroad by studying methods of fruit preservation
through refrigeration and through methods of handling and packing.
On the Gulf coasts of Louisiana and Texas, thanks to the Department
of Agriculture, a rice suitable to the region was imported from the
Orient and the rice crop is now practically equal to our needs in this
country, whereas a few years ago it supplied but one-fourth of them.
The most important of our farm products is the grass crop; and to show
what has been done with grasses, I need only allude to the striking
change made in the entire West by the extended use of alfalfa.
Moreover, the Department has taken the lead in the effort to prevent
the deforestation of the country. Where there are forests we seek to
preserve them; and on the once treeless plains and the prairies we are
doing our best to foster the habit of tree planting among our people.
In my own lifetime I have seen wonderful changes brought about by this
tree planting here in your own State and in the States immediately
around it.
There are a number of very important questions, such as that of good
roads, with which the States alone can deal, and where all that the
National Government can do is to co-operate with them. The same is
true of the education of the American farmer. A number of the States
have themselves started to help in this work and the Department of
Agriculture does an immense amount which is in the proper sense of the
word educational, and educational in the most practical way.
It is therefore clearly true that a great advance has been made in the
direction of finding ways by which the Government can help the farmer
to help himself—the only kind of help which a self-respecting man will
accept, or, I may add, which will in the end do him any good. Much has
been done in these ways, and farm life and farm processes continually
change for the better. The farmer himself still retains, because of
his surroundings and the nature of his work, to a pre-eminent degree
the qualities which we like to think of as distinctly American in
considering our early history. The man who tills his own farm, whether
on the prairie or in the woodland, the man who grows what we eat and
the raw material which is worked up into what we wear, still exists
more nearly under the conditions which obtained when the “embattled
farmers” of ’76 made this country a nation than is true of any others
of our people.
But the wage-workers in our cities, like the capitalists in our
cities, face totally changed conditions. The development of machinery
and the extraordinary change in business conditions have rendered the
employment of capital and of persons in large aggregations not merely
profitable but often necessary for success, and have specialized the
labor of the wage-worker at the same time that they have brought
great aggregations of wage-workers together. More and more in our
great industrial centres men have come to realize that they can not
live as independently of one another as in the old days was the case
everywhere, and as is now the case in the country districts.
Of course, fundamentally each man will yet find that the chief factor
in determining his success or failure in life is the sum of his
own individual qualities. He can not afford to lose his individual
initiative, his individual will and power; but he can best use that
power if for certain objects he unites with his fellows. Much can be
done by organization, combination, union among the wage-workers;
finally something can be done by the direct action of the State. It is
not possible empirically to declare when the interference of the State
should be deemed legitimate and when illegitimate.
The line of demarcation between unhealthy over-interference and
unhealthy lack of regulation is not always well defined, and shifts
with the change in our industrial needs. Most certainly we should
never invoke the interference of the State or Nation unless it is
absolutely necessary; but it is equally true that when confident
of its necessity we should not on academic grounds refuse it. Wise
factory laws, laws to forbid the employment of child labor and to
safeguard the employees against the effects of culpable negligence
by the employer, are necessary, not merely in the interest of the
wage-worker, but in the interest of the honest and humane employer,
who should not be penalized for his honesty and humanity by being
exposed to unchecked competition with an unscrupulous rival. It is far
more difficult to deal with the greed that works through cunning than
with the greed that works through violence. But the effort to deal
with it must be steadily made.
Very much of our effort in reference to labor matters should be by
every device and expedient to try to secure a constantly better
understanding between employer and employee. Everything possible
should be done to increase the sympathy and fellow-feeling between
them, and every chance taken to allow each to look at all questions,
especially at questions in dispute, somewhat through the other’s
eyes. If met with a sincere desire to act fairly by one another, and
if there is, furthermore, power by each to appreciate the other’s
standpoint, the chance for trouble is minimized. I suppose every
thinking man rejoices when by mediation or arbitration it proves
possible to settle troubles in time to avert the suffering and
bitterness caused by strikes. Moreover, a conciliation committee can
do best work when the trouble is in its beginning, or at least has
not come to a head. When the break has actually occurred, damage has
been done, and each side feels sore and angry; and it is difficult
to get them together—difficult to make either forget its own wrongs
and remember the rights of the other. If possible the effort at
conciliation or mediation or arbitration should be made in the earlier
stages, and should be marked by the wish on the part of both sides
to try to come to a common agreement which each shall think in the
interests of the other as well as of itself.
When we deal with such a subject we are fortunate in having before
us an admirable object-lesson in the work that has just been closed
by the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. This was the Commission
which was appointed last fall at the time when the coal strike in
the anthracite regions threatened our Nation with a disaster second
to none which has befallen us since the days of the Civil War. Their
report was made just before the Senate adjourned at the special
session; and no Government document of recent years marks a more
important piece of work better done, and there is none which teaches
sounder social morality to our people. The commission consisted of
seven as good men as were to be found in the country, representing the
bench, the church, the army, the professions, the employers, and the
employed. They acted as a unit, and the report which they unanimously
signed is a masterpiece of sound common-sense and of sound doctrine on
the very questions with which our people should most deeply concern
themselves. The immediate effect of this commission’s appointment and
action was of vast and incalculable benefit to the Nation; but the
ultimate effect will be even better, if capitalist, wage-worker, and
law-maker alike will take to heart and act upon the lessons set forth
in the report they have made.
Of course the National Government has but a small field in which it
can work in labor matters. Something it can do, however, and that
something ought to be done. Among other things I should like to see
the District of Columbia, which is completely under the control of the
National Government, receive a set of model labor laws. Washington
is not a city of very large industries, but still it has some. Wise
labor legislation for the city of Washington would be a good thing in
itself, and it would be a far better thing, because a standard would
thereby be set for the country as a whole.
In the field of general legislation relating to these subjects the
action of Congress is necessarily very limited. Still there are
certain ways in which we can act. Thus the Secretary of the Navy has
recommended, with my cordial and hearty approval, the enactment of
a strong employers’-liability law in the navy yards of the Nation.
It should be extended to similar branches of the Government work.
Again, sometimes such laws can be enacted as an incident to the
Nation’s control over interstate commerce. In my last annual Message
to Congress I advocated the passage of a law in reference to car
couplings—to strengthen the features of the one already on the statute
books so as to minimize the exposure to death and maiming of railway
employees. Much opposition had to be overcome. In the end an admirable
law was passed “to promote the safety of employees and travelers upon
railroads by compelling common carriers engaged in interstate commerce
to equip their cars with automatic couplers and continuous brakes and
their locomotives with driving-wheel brakes.” This law received my
signature a couple of days before Congress adjourned. It represents a
real and substantial advance in an admirable kind of legislation.
AT FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA, APRIL 7, 1903
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
The Northwest, whose sons in the Civil War added such brilliant pages
to the honor roll of the Republic, likewise bore a full share in the
struggle of which the war with Spain was the beginning; a struggle
slight indeed when compared with the gigantic death wrestle which
for four years stamped to and fro across the Southern States in the
Civil War; but a struggle fraught with consequences to the Nation, and
indeed to the world, out of all proportion to the smallness of the
effort upon our part.
Three and a half years ago President McKinley spoke in the adjoining
State of Minnesota on the occasion of the return of the Thirteenth
Minnesota Volunteers from the Philippine Islands, where they had
served with your own gallant sons of the North Dakota regiment.
After heartily thanking the returned soldiers for their valor and
patriotism, and their contemptuous refusal to be daunted or misled by
the outcry raised at home by the men of little faith who wished us to
abandon the islands, he spoke of the islands themselves as follows:
“That Congress will provide for them a government which will bring
them blessings, which will promote their material interests as well
as advance their people in the path of civilization and intelligence,
I confidently believe. They will not be governed as vassals or serfs
or slaves. They will be given a government of liberty, regulated by
law, honestly administered, without oppressing exactions, taxation
without tyranny, justice without bribe, education without distinction
of social condition, freedom of religious worship, and protection in
‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’”
What he said then lay in the realm of promise. Now it lies in the
realm of positive performance.
It is a good thing to look back upon what has been said and compare
it with the record of what has actually been done. If promises are
violated, if plighted word is not kept, then those who have failed in
their duty should be held up to reprobation. If, on the other hand,
the promises have been substantially made good; if the achievement has
kept pace and more than kept pace with the prophecy, then they who
made the one and are responsible for the other are entitled of just
right to claim the credit which attaches to those who serve the Nation
well. This credit I claim for the men who have managed so admirably
the military and the civil affairs of the Philippine Islands, and
for those other men who have so heartily backed them in Congress,
and without whose aid and support not one thing could have been
accomplished.
When President McKinley spoke, the first duty was the restoration of
order; and to this end the use of the Army of the United States—an
Army composed of regulars and volunteers alike—was necessary. To put
down the insurrection and restore peace to the islands was a duty
not only to ourselves but to the islanders also. We could not have
abandoned the conflict without shirking this duty, without proving
ourselves recreants to the memory of our forefathers. Moreover, if
we had abandoned it we would have inflicted upon the Filipinos the
most cruel wrong and would have doomed them to a bloody jumble of
anarchy and tyranny. It seems strange, looking back, that any of our
people should have failed to recognize a duty so obvious; but there
was such failure, and the Government at home, the civil authorities
in the Philippines, and above all our gallant Army, had to do their
work amid a storm of detraction. The Army in especial was attacked in
a way which finally did good, for in the end it aroused the hearty
resentment of the great body of the American people, not against the
Army, but against the Army’s traducers. The circumstances of the war
made it one of peculiar difficulty, and our soldiers were exposed
to peculiar wrongs from their foes. They fought in dense tropical
jungles against enemies who were very treacherous and very cruel, not
only toward our own men, but toward the great numbers of friendly
natives, the most peaceable and most civilized among whom eagerly
welcomed our rule. Under such circumstances, among a hundred thousand
hot-blooded and powerful young men serving in small detachments
on the other side of the globe, it was impossible that occasional
instances of wrongdoing should not occur. The fact that they occurred
in retaliation for wellnigh intolerable provocation can not for one
moment be admitted in the way of excuse or justification. All good
Americans regret and deplore them, and the War Department has taken
every step in its power to punish the offenders and to prevent or
minimize the chance of repetition of the offence. But these offences
were the exception and not the rule. As a whole our troops showed not
only signal courage and efficiency, but great humanity and the most
sincere desire to promote the welfare and liberties of the islanders.
In a series of exceedingly harassing and difficult campaigns they
completely overthrew the enemy, reducing them finally to a condition
of mere brigandage; and wherever they conquered they conquered only to
make way for the rule of the civil government, for the introduction
of law, and of liberty under the law. When, by last July, the last
vestige of organized insurrection had disappeared, peace and amnesty
were proclaimed.
As rapidly as the military rule was extended over the islands by
the defeat of the insurgents, just so rapidly was it replaced by
the civil government. At the present time the civil government is
supreme and the army in the Philippines has been reduced until it is
sufficient merely to provide against the recurrence of trouble. In
Governor Taft and his associates we sent to the Filipinos as upright,
as conscientious, and as able a group of administrators as ever any
country has been blessed with having. With them and under them we
have associated the best men among the Filipinos, so that the great
majority of the officials, including many of the highest rank, are
themselves natives of the islands. The administration is incorruptibly
honest; justice is as jealously safeguarded as here at home. The
government is conducted purely in the interests of the people of the
islands; they are protected in their religious and civil rights; they
have been given an excellent and well administered school system, and
each of them now enjoys rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness” such as were never before known in all the history of the
islands.
The Congress which has just adjourned has passed legislation of high
importance and great wisdom in the interests of the Filipino people.
First and foremost, they conferred upon them by law the present
admirable civil government; in addition they gave them an excellent
currency; they passed a measure allowing the organization of a native
constabulary; and they provided, in the interests of the islands, for
a reduction of twenty-five per cent in the tariff on Filipino articles
brought to this country. I asked that a still further reduction should
be made. It was not granted by the last Congress, but I think that in
some shape it will be granted by the next. And even without it, the
record of legislation in the interests of the Filipinos is one with
which we have a right to feel great satisfaction.
Moreover, Congress appropriated three million dollars, following the
precedent it set when the people of Porto Rico were afflicted by
sudden disaster; this money to be used by the Philippine government
in order to meet the distress occasioned primarily by the terrible
cattle disease which almost annihilated the carabao or water-buffalo,
the chief and most important domestic animal in the islands. Coming
as this disaster did upon the heels of the havoc wrought by the
insurrectionary war, great suffering has been caused; and this misery,
for which this Government is in no way responsible, will doubtless in
turn increase the difficulties of the Philippine government for the
next year or so. In consequence there will doubtless here and there
occur sporadic increases of the armed brigandage to which the islands
have been habituated from time immemorial, and here and there for
their own purposes the bandits may choose to style themselves patriots
or insurrectionists; but these local difficulties will be of little
consequence save as they give occasion to a few men here at home again
to try to mislead our people. Not only has the military problem in the
Philippines been worked out quicker and better than we had dared to
expect, but the progress socially and in civil government has likewise
exceeded our fondest hopes.
The best thing that can be done in handling such a problem as that in
the Philippine Islands, so peculiar, so delicate, so difficult and so
remote, is to put the best man possible in charge and then give him
the heartiest possible support, and the freest possible hand. This is
what has been done with Governor Taft. There is not in this Nation
a higher or finer type of public servant than Governor Taft. He has
rendered literally inestimable service, not only to the people of
the Philippine Islands but also to the people of the United States,
by what he has done in those islands. He has been able to do it,
because from the beginning he has been given absolute support by the
War Department, under Secretary Root. With the cessation of organized
resistance the civil government assumed its proper position of
headship. The army in the Philippines is now one of the instruments
through which Governor Taft does his admirable work. The civil
government, of which Governor Taft is the head, is supreme, and will
do well in the future as it has in the past, because it will be backed
up in the future as it has been in the past.
Remember always that in the Philippines the American Government has
tried and is trying to carry out exactly what the greatest genius
and most revered patriot ever known in the Philippine Islands—José
Rizal—steadfastly advocated. This man shortly before his death,
in a message to his countrymen, under date of December 16, 1896,
condemned unsparingly the insurrection of Aguinaldo, terminated just
before our navy appeared upon the scene, and pointed out the path
his people should follow to liberty and enlightenment. Speaking of
the insurrection and of the pretence that Filipino independence of a
wholesome character could thereby be obtained, he wrote:
“When, in spite of my advice, a movement was begun, I offered of my
own accord, not only my services, but my life and even my good name
to be used in any way they might believe effective in stifling the
rebellion. I thought of the disaster which would follow the success of
the revolution, and I deemed myself fortunate if by any sacrifice I
could block the progress of such a useless calamity.
“My countrymen, I have given proof that I was one who sought liberty
for our country and I still seek it. But as a first step I insisted
upon the development of the people in order that, by means of
education and of labor, they might acquire the proper individual
character and force which would make them worthy of it. In my writings
I have commended to you study and civic virtue, without which our
redemption does not exist.... I can not do less than condemn, and I do
condemn, this absurd and savage insurrection planned behind my back,
which dishonors us before the Filipinos and discredits us with those
who otherwise would argue in our behalf. I abominate its cruelties
and disavow any kind of connection with it, regretting with all the
sorrow of my soul that these reckless men have allowed themselves to
be deceived. Let them return, then, to their homes, and may God pardon
those who have acted in bad faith.”
This message embodied precisely and exactly the avowed policy upon
which the American Government has acted in the Philippines. What the
patriot Rizal said with such force in speaking of the insurrection
before we came to the islands applies with tenfold greater force
to those who foolishly or wickedly opposed the mild and beneficent
government we were instituting in the islands. The judgment of the
martyred public servant, Rizal, whose birthday the Philippine people
celebrate, and whom they worship as their hero and ideal, sets forth
the duty of American sovereignty; a duty from which the American
people will never flinch.
While we have been doing these great and beneficent works in the
islands, we have yet been steadily reducing the cost at which they
are done. The last Congress repealed the law for the war taxes, and
the War Department has reduced the Army from the maximum number of one
hundred thousand allowed under the law to very nearly the minimum of
sixty thousand.
Moreover, the last Congress enacted some admirable legislation
affecting the Army, passing first of all the militia bill and then
the bill to create a general staff. The militia bill represents the
realization of a reform which had been championed ineffectively by
Washington, and had been fruitlessly agitated ever since. At last we
have taken from the statute books the obsolete militia law of the
Revolutionary days and have provided for efficient aid to the National
Guard of the States. I believe that no other great country has such
fine natural material for volunteer soldiers as we have, and it is the
obvious duty of the nation and of the States to make such provision as
will enable this volunteer soldiery to be organized with all possible
rapidity and efficiency in time of war; and, furthermore, to help in
every way the National Guard in time of peace. The militia law enacted
by the Congress marks the first long step ever taken in this direction
by the National Government. The general-staff law is of immense
importance and benefit to the Regular Army. Individually, I would not
admit that the American regular, either officer or enlisted man, is
inferior to any other regular soldier in the world. In fact, if it
were worth while to boast, I should be tempted to say that he was
the best. But there must be proper training, proper organization and
administration, in order to get the best service out of even the best
troops. This is particularly the case with such a small army as ours,
scattered over so vast a country. We do not need a large Regular Army,
but we do need to have our small Regular Army the very best that can
possibly be produced. Under the worn-out and ineffective organization
which has hitherto existed, a sudden strain is absolutely certain to
produce the dislocation and confusion we saw at the outbreak of the
war with Spain; and when such dislocation and confusion occurs it is
easy and natural, but entirely improper, to blame the men who happen
to be in office, instead of the system which is really responsible.
Under the law just enacted by Congress this system will be changed
immensely for the better, and every patriotic American ought to
rejoice; for when we come to the Army and the Navy we deal with the
honor and interests of all our people; and when such is the case
party lines are as nothing, and we all stand shoulder to shoulder as
Americans, moved only by pride in and love for our common country.
AT MEDORA, NORTH DAKOTA, APRIL 7, 1903
_My Friends and Neighbors_:
I am very glad to see you all. I made up my mind that come what would
I would stop at Medora. I first came to Medora twenty years ago, so
I am a middling old settler. I meet boys, great big strapping men,
and mothers of families who were children about three feet high when
I knew them here. It is a very pleasant thing for me to see you. I
shall not try to make you more than a very short talk, because I want
to have the chance to shake hands with you. Most all of you are old
friends. I have stopped at your houses and shared your hospitality.
With some of the men I have ridden guard around the cattle at night,
worked with them in the round-up, and hunted with them, so that I know
them pretty well. It is the greatest possible pleasure to me to come
back and see how you are getting along, to see the progress made by
the State, to see the progress made up at this end in the place that I
know so well, and it does me good to come here and see you. There is
not a human being who is more proud of what you have done, and more
pleased with your welfare and progress, than I am.
AT JAMESTOWN, N. D., APRIL 7, 1903
_Mr. Chairman and my Fellow-Citizens_:
I have only time to develop one thought to you to-day, and that is
suggested to me by a letter sent me by a labor organization here in
your city thanking me for some of the work that has been done in
Congress this year, in connection with labor matters, in connection
with what is called trust legislation. All that we have been trying
to do, with a certain fair amount of success, through legislation
and through administration, has been to do square and equal justice
between man and man; to try to give every man a fair chance, to try
to secure good treatment for him, if he deserves it, be he rich or
poor, and to try to see that he does not wrong his fellow. After all,
that is about what must be the essence of legislation, if it is to
be really good legislation. Take such a matter as these so-called
anti-trust laws—I always hate to have them called anti-trust laws
or anti-corporation laws because they are not designed to hurt any
corporation, they are simply designed for such regulations and control
as will prevent the doing of ill. Take the anti-rebate law passed by
the last Congress. It was merely designed to make effective previous
legislation, to prevent any discrimination by any railroad in favor of
or against any particular shipper—not trying to favor the big shipper
or the little shipper; only trying to secure a fair deal for each, get
fair play for each, so that each man shall have the chance to which
he is entitled. That is not a bill aimed at the railroads, it is only
aimed at any railroad that does anything wrong, in the same way that
it is aimed at a shipper that does anything wrong—no more against the
big shipper than the little shipper. It is meant to do square justice
to each man, big or little, and to ensure, as far as by legislation we
can secure, that he will do fair justice in return.
Take the report of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission and the
spirit in which that commission went to work. They were not trying to
decide for the operators or for the miners. They were trying to do
justice to both the operator and the miner, and to secure justice for
the general public.
Legislation to be thoroughly effective for good must proceed upon the
principle of aiming to get for each man a fair chance to allow him
to show the stuff there is in him. No legislation can make some men
prosperous; no legislation can give wisdom to the foolish, courage to
the timid, strength to the shiftless. All that legislation can do, and
all that honest and fearless administration of the laws can do is to
give each man as good a chance as possible to develop the qualities
he has in him, and to protect him so far as is humanly possible
against wrong of any kind at the hands of his fellows. That is what
legislation can do, and that I think I may say we have successfully
tried to do both by legislation and by the administration of the law.
I have seen you grow up. I am proud of you. I can assure you that so
far as in me lies the efforts of the National Government, legislative
and administrative, will be to help you and all others of our people
in the only way in which they can be helped—to help them to help
themselves, to help them so that each man shall have the fairest field
to show the stuff that there is in him, the qualities that he has at
his command.
AT LAYING OF CORNERSTONE OF GATEWAY TO YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK,
GARDINER, MONTANA, APRIL 24, 1903
_Mr. Mayor, Mr. Superintendent, and my Fellow-Citizens_:
I wish to thank the people of Montana generally, those of Gardiner and
Cinnabar especially, and more especially still all those employed in
the Park, whether in civil or military capacity, for my very enjoyable
two weeks’ holiday.
It is a pleasure now to say a few words to you at the laying of the
cornerstone of the beautiful road which is to mark the entrance to
this Park. The Yellowstone Park is something absolutely unique in the
world, so far as I know. Nowhere else in any civilized country is
there to be found such a tract of veritable wonderland made accessible
to all visitors, where at the same time not only the scenery of the
wilderness, but the wild creatures of the Park are scrupulously
preserved; the only change being that these same wild creatures
have been so carefully protected as to show a literally astounding
tameness. The creation and preservation of such a great natural
playground in the interest of our people as a whole is a credit to the
nation; but above all a credit to Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. It has
been preserved with wise foresight. The scheme of its preservation
is noteworthy in its essential democracy. Private game preserves,
though they may be handled in such a way as to be not only good things
for themselves, but good things for the surrounding community, can
yet never be more than poor substitutes, from the standpoint of the
public, for great national playgrounds such as this Yellowstone Park.
This Park was created, and is now administered, for the benefit and
enjoyment of the people. The government must continue to appropriate
for it especially in the direction of completing and perfecting an
excellent system of driveways. But already its beauties can be seen
with great comfort in a short space of time and at an astoundingly
small cost, and with the sense on the part of every visitor that it
is in part his property, that it is the property of Uncle Sam and
therefore of all of us. The only way that the people as a whole can
secure to themselves and their children the enjoyment in perpetuity of
what the Yellowstone Park has to give is by assuming the ownership in
the name of the nation and by jealously safeguarding and preserving
the scenery, the forests, and the wild creatures. When we have a
good system of carriage roads throughout the Park—for of course it
would be very unwise to allow either steam or electric roads in the
Park—we shall have a region as easy and accessible to travel in as
it is already every whit as interesting as any similar territory of
the Alps or the Italian Riviera. The geysers, the extraordinary hot
springs, the lakes, the mountains, the canyons, and cataracts unite to
make this region something not wholly to be paralleled elsewhere on
the globe. It must be kept for the benefit and enjoyment of all of
us; and I hope to see a steadily increasing number of our people take
advantage of its attractions. At present it is rather singular that
a greater number of people come from Europe to see it than come from
our own Eastern States. The people near by seem awake to its beauties;
and I hope that more and more of our people who dwell far off will
appreciate its really marvelous character. Incidentally, I should like
to point out that some time people will surely awake to the fact that
the Park has special beauties to be seen in winter; and any hardy man
who can go through it in that season on skis will enjoy himself as he
scarcely could elsewhere.
I wish especially to congratulate the people of Montana, Wyoming, and
Idaho, and notably you of Gardiner and Cinnabar and the immediate
outskirts of the Park, for the way in which you heartily co-operate
with the superintendent to prevent acts of vandalism and destruction.
Major Pitcher has explained to me how much he owes to your
co-operation and your lively appreciation of the fact that the Park
is simply being kept in the interest of all of us, so that every one
may have the chance to see its wonders with ease and comfort at the
minimum of expense. I have always thought it was a liberal education
to any man of the East to come West, and he can combine profit
with pleasure if he will incidentally visit this Park, the Grand
Canyon of the Colorado, and the Yosemite, and take the sea voyage to
Alaska. Major Pitcher reports to me, by the way, that he has received
invaluable assistance from the game wardens of Montana and Wyoming,
and that the present game warden of Idaho has also promised his hearty
aid.
The preservation of the forests is of course the matter of prime
importance in every public reserve of this character. In this region
of the Rocky Mountains and the great plains the problem of the water
supply is the most important which the home-maker has to face.
Congress has not of recent years done anything wiser than in passing
the irrigation bill; and nothing is more essential to the preservation
of the water supply than the preservation of the forests. Montana
has in its water power a source of development which has hardly yet
been touched. This water power will be seriously impaired if ample
protection is not given the forests. Therefore this Park, like the
forest reserves generally, is of the utmost advantage to the country
around from the merely utilitarian side. But of course this Park, also
because of its peculiar features, is to be preserved as a beautiful
natural playground. Here all the wild creatures of the old days are
being preserved, and their overflow into the surrounding country
means that the people of the surrounding country, so long as they
see that the laws are observed by all, will be able to ensure to
themselves and to their children and to their children’s children
much of the old-time pleasure of the hardy life of the wilderness and
of the hunter in the wilderness. This pleasure, moreover, can under
such conditions be kept for all who have the love of adventure and
the hardihood to take advantage of it, with small regard for what
their fortune may be. I can not too often repeat that the essential
feature in the present management of the Yellowstone Park, as in all
similar places, is its essential democracy—it is the preservation
of the scenery, of the forests, of the wilderness life and the
wilderness game for the people as a whole, instead of leaving the
enjoyment thereof to be confined to the very rich who can control
private reserves. I have been literally astounded at the enormous
quantities of elk and at the number of deer, antelope and mountain
sheep which I have seen on their wintering grounds; and the deer and
sheep in particular are quite as tame as range stock. A few buffalo
are being preserved. I wish very much that the government could
somewhere provide for an experimental breeding station of cross-breeds
between buffalo and the common cattle. If these cross-breeds could be
successfully perpetuated we should have animals which would produce
a robe quite as good as the old buffalo robe with which twenty years
ago every one was familiar, and animals moreover which would be so
hardy that I think they would have a distinct commercial importance.
They would, for instance, be admirably suited for Alaska, a territory
which I look to see develop astoundingly within the next decade or
two, not only because of its furs and fisheries, but because of its
agricultural and pastoral possibilities.
AT OMAHA, NEB., APRIL 27, 1903
_Mr. Chairman, and you, my Fellow-Citizens_:
It is a great pleasure to come before you this evening. Since Saturday
I have been traveling through your great and beautiful State. I know
your people; I have been with them; I have worked with them; and it
is indeed a joy to come here now and see from one end of your State
to the other the signs of your abounding prosperity. I feel that the
future of Nebraska is secure. There will be temporary ups and downs,
and of course if any of you are guilty of folly, from your own folly
nothing can save you but yourselves. But if you act as I believe and
trust that you will act, this State has a future before it second to
that of no other State in this great Nation.
I address you to-night on the anniversary of the birth of the great
silent soldier—Ulysses Grant, and I am glad to have the chance of
saying a few words to an audience such as this in this great typical
city of the West on the occasion of the birthday of the great Western
general, the great American general. It is a good thing to pay homage
with our lips to the illustrious dead. It is a good thing to keep in
mind what we owe to the memories of Washington and his fellows, who
founded this mighty Republic; to Abraham Lincoln and Grant and their
fellows, who saved it. It is a far better thing to pay the homage that
counts—the homage of our lives and our deeds. Illustrious memories of
the Nation’s past are but curses if they serve the men of the Nation
at present as excuses for shirking the problems of the day. They are
blessings if they serve to spur on the men of now to see that they act
as well in their time as the men of yesterday did in theirs.
Each generation has its peculiar problems; each generation has certain
tasks allotted to it to do. Shame to it if it treats the glorious
deeds of a generation that went before as an excuse for its own
failure to do the peculiar task it finds ready to hand. Upon the way
in which we solve our problems will depend whether our children and
our children’s children shall look back or shall not look back to us
with the veneration which we feel for the men of the mighty years
of the Civil War. Our task is a lighter one than theirs, but it is
an important one, and do it we must, if we wish to rise level to
the standard set us by our forefathers. You in Nebraska have passed
through periods of terrible privation, of misery and hardship. They
were evil times. And yet, there is no experience, no evil, that out
of it good can not come, if only we look at it right. Things are
better now. Things can be kept better, but only on condition that
we face facts with coolness and sanity, with clear-eyed vision that
tells us what is true and what is false. When things go wrong there
is a tendency in humanity to wish to blame some of its fellows. It
is a natural tendency, and by no means always a wholesome tendency.
There is always a tendency to feel that somehow by legislation, by
the enactment of some law, by the trying of some patent scheme
things can be made permanently better. Now, something can be done
by law. A good deal can be done by law. Even more can be done by
the honest administration of the law; an administration which knows
neither fear nor favor, which treats each man exactly as that man’s
record entitles him to be treated; the kind of enforcement of the
law which I think I may promise that you will have while Mr. Knox
remains Attorney-General. But more than the law, far more than the
administration of the law, depends upon the individual quality of the
average citizen. The chief factor in winning success for your State,
for the people in the State, must be what the chief factor in winning
the success of a people has been from the beginning of time—the
character of the individual man, of the individual woman.
I have spoken of the homage we should pay to the memory of Grant.
It is the homage we should pay to the memory of Lincoln, the homage
we should pay to all of our fellow-countrymen who have at any time
rendered great service to the Republic, and it can be rendered in
most efficient form not by merely praising them for having dealt
with problems which now we do not have to face, but by facing our
problems in the same spirit in which they faced theirs. Nothing was
more noteworthy in all of Lincoln’s character than the way in which
he combined fealty to the loftiest ideal with a thoroughly practical
capacity to achieve that ideal by practical methods. He did not war
with phantoms; he did not struggle among the clouds; he faced facts;
he endeavored to get the best results he could out of the warring
forces with which he had to deal. When he could not get the best he
was forced to content himself, and did content himself, with the
best possible. What he did in his day we must do in ours. It is not
possible to lay down any rule of conduct so specific that it will
enable us to meet each particular issue as it arises. All that can be
done is to lay down certain general rules, and then to try, each man
for himself, to apply those general rules to the specific cases that
come up.
Our complex industrial civilization has not only been productive of
much benefit, but has also brought us face to face with many puzzling
problems; problems that are puzzling, partly because there are men
that are wicked, partly because there are good men who are foolish
or short-sighted. There are many such to-day—the problems of labor
and capital, the problems which we group together rather vaguely when
we speak of the problems of the trusts, the problems affecting the
farmers on the one hand, the railroads on the other. It would not be
possible in any one place to deal with the particular shapes which
these problems take at that time and in that place. And yet, there are
certain general rules which can be laid down for dealing with them,
and those rules are the immutable rules of justice, of sanity, of
courage, of common-sense. Six months ago it fell to my lot to appoint
a commission to investigate into and conclude about matters connected
with the great and menacing strike in the anthracite coal fields of
Pennsylvania. On that commission I appointed representatives of the
church, of the bench, of the army, a representative of the capitalists
of the region, and a representative of organized labor. They published
a report which was not only of the utmost moment because of dealing
with the great and vital problem with which they were appointed to
deal, but also because in its conclusions it initiated certain general
rules in so clear and masterful a fashion that I wish most earnestly
it could receive the broadest circulation as a tract wherever there
exists or threatens to exist trouble in any way akin to that with
which those commissioners dealt.
If I might give a word of advice to Omaha, I should like to see your
daily press publish in full the concluding portion of that report
of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, signed by all the members
thereof, by those in a special sense the champion of the wage-worker,
and by those in a special sense identified with capital, organized
or unorganized; because, men and women of Omaha, those people did
not speak first as capitalist or as laborer, did not speak first as
judge, as army man, as church man, but all of them signed that report
as American citizens anxious to see right and justice prevail. No one
quality will get us out of any difficulty. We need more than one; we
need a good many. We need, as I said, the power first of each man’s
honestly trying to look at the problem from his fellow’s standpoint.
Capitalist and wage-worker alike should honestly endeavor each to look
at any matter from the other’s standpoint, with a freedom on the one
hand from the contemptible arrogance which looks down upon the man
of less means, and on the other, from the no less contemptible envy,
jealousy and rancor, which hates another because he is better off.
Each quality is the supplement of the other, and in point of baseness
there is not the weight of a finger to choose between them. Look at
the report signed by those men; look at it in the spirit in which they
wrote it, and if you can only make yourselves, make this community,
approach the problems of to-day in the spirit that those men, your
fellows, showed in approaching the problem of yesterday, your problems
will be solved.
Any man who tries to excite class hatred, sectional hate, hate of
creeds, any kind of hatred in our community, though he may affect to
do it in the interest of the class he is addressing, is in the long
run with absolute certainty that class’s own worst enemy. In the long
run, and as a whole, we are going to go up or go down together. Of
course there will be individual exceptions, small, local exceptions,
exceptions in kind, exceptions in place; but as a whole, if the
commonwealth prospers some measure of prosperity comes to all of
us. If it is not prosperous, then the adversity, though it may fall
unequally upon us, will weigh more or less upon all. It lies with us
ourselves to determine our own fate. I can not too often say that the
wisest law, the best administration of the law, can do naught more
than give us a fair field in which to work out that fate aright. If as
individuals, or as a community, we mar our future by our own folly,
let us remember that it is upon ourselves that the responsibility must
rest.
FROM ADDRESS AT QUINCY, ILL., APRIL 29, 1903
_Mr. Chairman and my Fellow-Citizens_:
There is one matter which I think presses for national legislative
attention—the matter of the currency. From your sister State of Iowa
I have a Secretary of the Treasury, who, as he showed last fall,
can be counted on to act with courage and with wisdom whenever the
need arises, and to use fearlessly and coolly whatever the law now
allows him to use. Our currency laws have been recently improved
by specific declarations intended to secure permanency of values;
but this does not imply that these laws may not be further improved
and strengthened. It is wellnigh universally admitted, certainly in
any business community such as this, that our currency system is
wanting in elasticity; that is, the volume does not respond to the
varying needs of the country as a whole, nor to the varying needs of
the different localities as well as of different times. Our people
scarcely need to be reminded that grain-raising communities require
a larger volume of currency at harvest time than during the summer
months; and the same principle in greater or less extent applies to
every community. Our currency laws need such modification as will
ensure definitely the parity of every dollar coined or issued by the
government, and such expansion or contraction of the currency as will
promptly and automatically respond to the varying needs of commerce.
Permanent increase would be dangerous, permanent contraction ruinous,
but the needed elasticity must be brought about by provisions which
will permit both contraction and expansion as the varying needs of the
several communities and business interests at different times and in
different localities require.
AT ODEON HALL, ST. LOUIS, MO., BEFORE THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL
GOOD ROADS CONVENTION, APRIL 29, 1903
_Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen_:
When we wish to use descriptive terms fit to characterize great
empires and the men who made those empires great, invariably one of
the terms used is to signify that that empire built good roads. When
we speak of the Romans, we speak of them as rulers, as conquerors, as
administrators, as road builders. There were empires that rose over
night and fell over night, empires whose influence was absolutely
evanescent, which have passed away without leaving a trace of their
former existence; but wherever the Roman established his rule the
traces of that rule remain deep to-day, stamped on the language and
customs of the people, or stamped in tangible form upon the soil
itself. And so passing through Britain fifteen centuries and over
after the dominion of Rome passed away, the Roman roads as features
still remain; going through Italy, where power after power has
risen, and flourished, and vanished since the days when the temporal
dominion of the Roman emperors transferred its seat from Rome to
Byzantium—going through Italy after the Lombard, the Goth, the
Byzantine, and all the people of the Middle Ages that have ruled that
country—it is the imperishable Roman road that reappears.
The faculty, the art, the habit of road building marks in a nation
those solid, stable qualities which tell for permanent greatness.
Merely from the standpoint of historic analogy we should have a right
to ask that this people which has tamed a continent, which has built
up a country with a continent for its base, which boasts itself,
with truth, as the mightiest republic that the world has ever seen,
which I firmly believe will in the century now opening rise to a
position of headship and leadership such as no other nation has ever
yet attained—merely from historic analogy, I say, we should have
a right to demand that such a nation build good roads. Much more
have we the right to demand it from the practical standpoint. The
great difference between the semi-barbarism of the Middle Ages and
the civilization which succeeded it was the difference between poor
and good means of communication. And we to whom space is less of an
obstacle than ever it was in the history of any other nation, we who
have spanned a continent, who have thrust our border westward in the
course of a century and a quarter until it has gone from the Atlantic
to the Alleghanies, from the Alleghanies down into the valley of the
Mississippi, across the great plains, over the Rockies to where the
Golden Gate lets through the long heaving waters of the Pacific, and
finally to Alaska, to the Arctic regions, to the tropic islands of the
sea—we who take so little account of mere space must see to it that
the best means of nullifying the existence of space are at our command.
Of course, during the last century there has been an altogether
phenomenal growth of one kind of road wholly unknown to the people of
an earlier period—the iron road. The railroad is, of course, something
purely modern. A great many excellent people have proceeded upon
the assumption that somehow or other having good railways should be
a substitute for having good highways, good ordinary roads. A more
untenable position can not be imagined. What the railway does is to
develop the country; and of course its development implies that the
developed country will need more and better roads.
A few years ago it was a matter of humiliation that there should
be so little attention paid to our roads; that there should be a
willingness not merely to refrain from making good roads, but to let
the roads that were in existence become worse. I can not too heartily
congratulate our people upon the existence of a body such as this,
ramifying into every section of the country, having its connections
in every State of the country, and bent upon that eminently proper
work of making the conditions of life easier and better for the people
whom of all others we can least afford to see grow discontented with
their lot in life—the people who live in the country districts.
The extraordinary, the wholly unheard-of, rate of our industrial
development during the past seventy-five years, together with the
good sides has had some evil sides. It is a fine thing to see our
cities built up, but not at the expense of the country districts.
The healthy thing to see is the building up of both the country and
city go hand in hand. But we can not expect the ablest, the most
eager, the most ambitious young men to stay in the country, to stay
on the farm, unless they have certain advantages. If the farm life
is a life of isolation, a life in which it is a matter of great and
real difficulty for one man to communicate with his neighbor, you can
rest assured that there will be a tendency to leave it on the part
of those very people whom we should most wish to see stay in it. It
is a good thing to encourage in every way any tendency which will
tend to check an unhealthy flow from the country to the city. There
are several such tendencies in evidence at present. The growth of
electricity as a means of transportation tends to a certain degree
to exercise a centrifugal force to offset the centripetal force of
steam. Exactly as steam and electricity have tended to gather men in
masses, so now electricity, as applied to the purposes which steam
has so long claimed as exclusively its own, tends again to scatter
out the masses. The trolley lines that go out into the country are
doing a great deal to render it more possible to live in the country
and yet not to lose wholly the advantages of the town. The telephone
is not to be minimized as an instrument with a tendency in the same
direction; and rural free delivery is playing its part along the same
lines. But no one thing can do more to offset the tendency toward
an unhealthy growth from the country into the city than the making
and keeping of good roads. They are needed for the sake of their
effect upon the industrial conditions of the country districts; and
I am almost tempted to say they are needed for the sake of social
conditions in the country districts. If winter means to the average
farmer the existence of a long line of liquid morasses through which
he is to move his goods if bent on business, or to wade and swim if
bent on pleasure; if winter means that after an ordinary rain the
farmer boy or girl can not use his or her bicycle; if a little heavy
weather means a stoppage of all communication not only with industrial
centres but with the neighbors, you must expect that there will be
a great many young people of both sexes who will not find farm life
attractive. It is for this reason that I feel the work you are doing
is so pre-eminently one in the interest of the Nation as a whole. I
congratulate you upon the fact that you are doing it. In our American
life it would be hard to overestimate the amount of good that has
been accomplished by associations of individuals who have gathered
together to work for a common object which was to be of benefit to
the community as a whole; and among all the excellent objects for
which men and women combine to work to-day, there are few indeed which
have a better right to command the energies of those engaged in the
movement, and the hearty sympathy and support of those outside, than
this movement in which you are engaged.
AT ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, APRIL 29, 1903
_Cardinal Gibbons, Ladies and Gentlemen_:
It is indeed a pleasure to be received here as a guest of the first
and oldest university founded in our country west of the Mississippi
River in the Louisiana Purchase. I know your work. I have myself been
much in the West, and I have come across the traces of your work, both
among the communities of our own people and among the Indian tribes.
I thank you personally for your kind allusions to me, and would hold
myself recreant to the principles upon which this government was
founded did I not strive as Chief Executive to do fair and equal
justice to all men without regard to the way in which any man chooses
to worship his Maker.
AT THE DEDICATION CEREMONIES OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION, ST.
LOUIS, APRIL 30, 1903
_Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen_:
At the outset of my address let me recall to the minds of my
hearers that the soil upon which we stand, before it was ours, was
successively the possession of two mighty empires, Spain and France,
whose sons made a deathless record of heroism in the early annals
of the New World. No history of the Western country can be written
without paying heed to the wonderful part played therein in the early
days by the soldiers, missionaries, explorers, and traders, who did
their work for the honor of the proud banners of France and Castile.
While the settlers of English-speaking stock, and those of Dutch,
German, and Scandinavian origin who were associated with them, were
still clinging close to the Eastern seaboard, the pioneers of Spain
and of France had penetrated deep into the hitherto unknown wilderness
of the West, had wandered far and wide within the boundaries of what
is now our mighty country. The very cities themselves—St. Louis, New
Orleans, Santa Fe—bear witness by their titles to the nationalities
of their founders. It was not until the Revolution had begun that the
English-speaking settlers pushed west across the Alleghanies, and not
until a century ago that they entered in to possess the land upon
which we now stand.
We have met here to-day to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of
the event which more than any other, after the foundation of the
Government and always excepting its preservation, determined the
character of our national life—determined that we should be a great
expanding Nation instead of relatively a small and stationary one.
Of course it was not with the Louisiana Purchase that our career of
expansion began. In the middle of the Revolutionary War the Illinois
region, including the present States of Illinois and Indiana, was
added to our domain by force of arms, as a sequel to the adventurous
expedition of George Rogers Clark and his frontier riflemen. Later
the treaties of Jay and Pinckney materially extended our real
boundaries to the West. But none of these events was of so striking
a character as to fix the popular imagination. The old thirteen
colonies had always claimed that their rights stretched westward to
the Mississippi, and vague and unreal though these claims were until
made good by conquest, settlement, and diplomacy, they still served to
give the impression that the earliest westward movements of our people
were little more than the filling in of already existing national
boundaries.
But there could be no illusion about the acquisition of the vast
territory beyond the Mississippi, stretching westward to the Pacific,
which in that day was known as Louisiana. This immense region
was admittedly the territory of a foreign power, of a European
kingdom. None of our people had ever laid claim to a foot of it.
Its acquisition could in no sense be treated as rounding out any
existing claims. When we acquired it we made evident once for all
that consciously and of set purpose we had embarked on a career
of expansion, that we had taken our place among those daring and
hardy nations who risk much with the hope and desire of winning high
position among the great powers of the earth. As is so often the case
in nature, the law of development of a living organism showed itself
in its actual workings to be wiser than the wisdom of the wisest.
This work of expansion was by far the greatest work of our people
during the years that intervened between the adoption of the
Constitution and the outbreak of the Civil War. There were other
questions of real moment and importance, and there were many which
at the time seemed such to those engaged in answering them; but the
greatest feat of our forefathers of those generations was the deed of
the men who, with pack train or wagon train, on horseback, on foot, or
by boat, pushed the frontier ever westward across the continent.
Never before had the world seen the kind of national expansion which
gave our people all that part of the American continent lying west
of the thirteen original States; the greatest landmark in which was
the Louisiana Purchase. Our triumph in this process of expansion was
indissolubly bound up with the success of our peculiar kind of federal
government; and this success has been so complete that because of its
very completeness we now sometimes fail to appreciate not only the
all-importance but the tremendous difficulty of the problem with which
our Nation was originally faced.
When our forefathers joined to call into being this Nation, they
undertook a task for which there was but little encouraging precedent.
The development of civilization from the earliest period seemed to
show the truth of two propositions: In the first place, it had always
proved exceedingly difficult to secure both freedom and strength
in any government; and in the second place, it had always proved
wellnigh impossible for a nation to expand without either breaking
up or becoming a centralized tyranny. With the success of our effort
to combine a strong and efficient national union, able to put down
disorder at home and to maintain our honor and interest abroad, I have
not now to deal. This success was signal and all-important, but it was
by no means unprecedented in the same sense that our type of expansion
was unprecedented. The history of Rome and of Greece illustrates very
well the two types of expansion which had taken place in ancient time
and which had been universally accepted as the only possible types up
to the period when as a Nation we ourselves began to take possession
of this continent. The Grecian States performed remarkable feats of
colonization, but each colony as soon as created became entirely
independent of the mother State, and in after years was almost as
apt to prove its enemy as its friend. Local self-government, local
independence, was secured, but only by the absolute sacrifice of
anything resembling national unity. In consequence, the Greek world,
for all its wonderful brilliancy and the extraordinary artistic,
literary, and philosophical development which has made all mankind its
debtors for the ages, was yet wholly unable to withstand a formidable
foreign foe, save spasmodically. As soon as powerful, permanent
empires arose on its outskirts, the Greek states in the neighborhood
of such empires fell under their sway. National power and greatness
were completely sacrificed to local liberty.
With Rome the exact opposite occurred. The imperial city rose to
absolute dominion over all the peoples of Italy and then expanded
her rule over the entire civilized world by a process which kept
the nation strong and united, but gave no room whatever for local
liberty and self-government. All other cities and countries were
subject to Rome. In consequence this great and masterful race of
warriors, rulers, road-builders, and administrators stamped their
indelible impress upon all the after life of our race, and yet let an
over-centralization eat out the vitals of their empire until it became
an empty shell; so that when the barbarians came they destroyed only
what had already become worthless to the world.
The underlying viciousness of each type of expansion was plain enough
and the remedy now seems simple enough. But when the fathers of the
Republic first formulated the Constitution under which we live this
remedy was untried and no one could foretell how it would work. They
themselves began the experiment almost immediately by adding new
States to the original thirteen. Excellent people in the East viewed
this initial expansion of the country with great alarm. Exactly as
during the colonial period many good people in the mother-country
thought it highly important that settlers should be kept out of the
Ohio Valley in the interest of the fur companies, so after we had
become a Nation many good people on the Atlantic Coast felt grave
apprehension lest they might somehow be hurt by the westward growth of
the Nation. These good people shook their heads over the formation of
States in the fertile Ohio Valley which now forms part of the heart
of our Nation; and they declared that the destruction of the Republic
had been accomplished when through the Louisiana Purchase we acquired
nearly half of what is now that same Republic’s present territory. Nor
was their feeling unnatural. Only the adventurous and the far-seeing
can be expected heartily to welcome the process of expansion, for the
nation that expands is a nation which is entering upon a great career,
and with greatness there must of necessity come perils which daunt all
save the most stout-hearted.
We expanded by carving the wilderness into Territories and out of
these Territories building new States when once they had received
as permanent settlers a sufficient number of our own people. Being
a practical Nation we have never tried to force on any section of
our new territory an unsuitable form of government merely because
it was suitable for another section under different conditions. Of
the territory covered by the Louisiana Purchase a portion was given
Statehood within a few years. Another portion has not been admitted
to Statehood, although a century has elapsed—although doubtless it
soon will be. In each case we showed the practical governmental
genius of our race by devising methods suitable to meet the actual
existing needs; not by insisting upon the application of some abstract
shibboleth to all our new possessions alike, no matter how incongruous
this application might sometimes be.
Over by far the major part of the territory, however, our people
spread in such numbers during the course of the nineteenth century
that we were able to build up State after State, each with exactly the
same complete local independence in all matters affecting purely its
own domestic interests as in any of the original thirteen States—each
owing the same absolute fealty to the Union of all the States which
each of the original thirteen States also owes—and finally each having
the same proportional right to its share in shaping and directing the
common policy of the Union which is possessed by any other State,
whether of the original thirteen or not.
This process now seems to us part of the natural order of things, but
it was wholly unknown until our own people devised it. It seems to us
a mere matter of course, a matter of elementary right and justice,
that in the deliberations of the national representative bodies the
representatives of a State which came into the Union but yesterday
stand on a footing of exact and entire equality with those of the
Commonwealths whose sons once signed the Declaration of Independence.
But this way of looking at the matter is purely modern, and in its
origin purely American. When Washington during his Presidency saw new
States come into the Union on a footing of complete equality with the
old, every European nation which had colonies still administered them
as dependencies, and every other mother-country treated the colonist
not as a self-governing equal but as a subject.
The process which we began has since been followed by all the great
peoples who were capable both of expansion and self-government, and
now the world accepts it as the natural process, as the rule; but
a century and a quarter ago it was not merely exceptional; it was
unknown.
This, then, is the great historical significance of the movement of
continental expansion in which the Louisiana Purchase was the most
striking single achievement. It stands out in marked relief even among
the feats of a nation of pioneers, a nation whose people have from
the beginning been picked out by process of natural selection from
among the most enterprising individuals of the nations of western
Europe. The acquisition of the territory is a credit to the broad
and far-sighted statesmanship of the great statesmen to whom it was
immediately due, and above all to the aggressive and the masterful
character of the hardy pioneer folk to whose restless energy these
statesmen gave expression and direction, whom they followed rather
than led. The history of the land comprised within the limits of the
Purchase is the epitome of the entire history of our people. Within
these limits we have gradually built up State after State until now
they many times surpass in wealth, in population, and in many-sided
development, the original thirteen States as they were when their
delegates met in the Continental Congress. The people of these States
have shown themselves mighty in war with their fellow-man, and mighty
in strength to tame the rugged wilderness. They could not thus have
conquered the forest and the prairie, the mountain and the desert,
had they not possessed the great fighting virtues, the qualities
which enable a people to overcome the forces of hostile men and
hostile nature. On the other hand, they could not have used aright
their conquest had they not in addition possessed the qualities of
self-mastery and self-restraint, the power of acting in combination
with their fellows, the power of yielding obedience to the law and
of building up an orderly civilization. Courage and hardihood are
indispensable virtues in a people; but the people which possesses no
others can never rise high in the scale either of power or of culture.
Great peoples must have in addition the governmental capacity which
comes only when individuals fully recognize their duties to one
another and to the whole body politic, and are able to join together
in feats of constructive statesmanship and of honest and effective
administration.
The old pioneer days are gone, with their roughness and their
hardship, their incredible toil and their wild half-savage romance.
But the need for the pioneer virtues remains the same as ever. The
peculiar frontier conditions have vanished; but the manliness and
stalwart hardihood of the frontiersmen can be given even freer scope
under the conditions surrounding the complex industrialism of the
present day. In this great region acquired for our people under the
Presidency of Jefferson, this region stretching from the Gulf to the
Canadian border, from the Mississippi to the Rockies, the material and
social progress has been so vast that alike for weal and for woe its
people now share the opportunities and bear the burdens common to the
entire civilized world. The problems before us are fundamentally the
same east and west of the Mississippi, in the new States and in the
old, and exactly the same qualities are required for their successful
solution.
We meet here to-day to commemorate a great event, an event which marks
an era in statesmanship no less than in pioneering. It is fitting that
we should pay our homage in words; but we must in honor make our words
good by deeds. We have every right to take a just pride in the great
deeds of our forefathers; but we show ourselves unworthy to be their
descendants if we make what they did an excuse for our lying supine
instead of an incentive to the effort to show ourselves by our acts
worthy of them. In the administration of city, State, and Nation,
in the management of our home life and the conduct of our business
and social relations, we are bound to show certain high and fine
qualities of character under penalty of seeing the whole heart of our
civilization eaten out while the body still lives.
We justly pride ourselves on our marvelous material prosperity, and
such prosperity must exist in order to establish a foundation upon
which a higher life can be built; but unless we do in very fact build
this higher life thereon, the material prosperity itself will go for
but very little. Now, in 1903, in the altered conditions, we must meet
the changed and changing problems with the spirit shown by the men who
in 1803 and in the subsequent years gained, explored, conquered, and
settled this vast territory, then a desert, now filled with thriving
and populous States.
The old days were great because the men who lived in them had mighty
qualities; and we must make the new days great by showing these same
qualities. We must insist upon courage and resolution, upon hardihood,
tenacity, and fertility in resource; we must insist upon the strong,
virile virtues; and we must insist no less upon the virtues of
self-restraint, self-mastery, regard for the rights of others; we must
show our abhorrence of cruelty, brutality, and corruption, in public
and in private life alike. If we come short in any of these qualities
we shall measurably fail; and if, as I believe we surely shall, we
develop these qualities in the future to an even greater degree than
in the past, then in the century now beginning we shall make of this
Republic the freest and most orderly, the most just and most mighty,
nation which has ever come forth from the womb of time.
AT TOPEKA, KANSAS, MAY 1, 1903
_Colonel McCook, Gentlemen, and Ladies_:
It needed no urging to get me to accept your invitation. I hailed
the chance of speaking a few words to you on this occasion, because
it seems to me that the railroad branch of the Young Men’s Christian
Association exemplifies in practice just exactly what I like to
preach; that is, the combination of efficiency with decent living and
high ideals.
In our present advanced civilization we have to pay certain penalties
for what we have obtained. Among the penalties is the fact that in
very many occupations there is so little demand upon nerve, hardihood,
and endurance, that there is a tendency to unhealthy softening of
fibre and relaxation of fibre; and such being the case I think it is a
fortunate thing for our people as a whole that there should be certain
occupations, prominent among them railroading, in which the man has to
show the very qualities of courage, of hardihood, or willingness to
face danger, the cultivation of the power of an instantaneous decision
under difficulties, and the other qualities which go to make up the
virile side of a man’s character—the qualities, Colonel McCook, which
you and those like you showed when as boys, as young men, they fought
to a finish the great Civil War.
So much for the manliness, so much for the strength, so much for the
courage developed by your profession, all of which you show, and have
to show, or you could not succeed in doing the work you are doing as
your life work. These qualities are all-important, but they are not
all-sufficient. It is necessary absolutely to have them. No nation
can rise to greatness without them; but by them alone no nation will
ever become great. Reading through the pages of history you come
upon nation after nation in which there has been a high average of
individual strength, bravery, and hardihood, and yet in which there
has been nothing approaching to national greatness, because those
qualities were not supplemented by others just as necessary. With the
courage, with the hardihood, with the strength, must come the power
of self-restraint, the power of self-mastery, the capacity to work
for and with others as well as for one’s self, the power of giving to
others the love which each of us must bear for his neighbor, if we are
to make our civilization really great. And these are the qualities
which are fostered and developed, which are given full play, by
institutions such as the Young Men’s Christian Association.
The other day in a little Lutheran church at Sioux Falls I listened
to a most interesting and most stimulating sermon, which struck me
particularly because of the translation of a word which, I am ashamed
to say, I had myself always before mistranslated. It was on the old
text of faith, hope, and charity. The sermon was delivered in German,
and the word that the preacher used for charity was not charity, but
love; preaching that the greatest of all the forces with which we
deal for betterment is love. Looking it up I found, of course, what
I ought to have known but did not, that the Greek word which we have
translated into the word charity, should be more properly translated
love. That is, we use the word charity at present in a sense which
does not make it correspond entirely to the word used in the original
Greek. This Lutheran preacher developed in a very striking but very
happy fashion the absolute need of love in the broadest sense of the
word, in order to make mankind even approximately perfect.
We need then the two qualities—the quality of which I first spoke to
you which has many shapes, the quality which rests upon courage, upon
bodily and mental strength, upon will, upon daring, upon resolution,
the quality which makes a man work; and then we need the quality of
which the preacher spoke when he spoke of love as being the great
factor, the ultimate factor, in bringing about the kind of human
fellowship which will even approximately enable us to come up toward
the standard after which I think all of us with many shortcomings
strive. Work, the quality which makes a man ashamed not to be able to
pull his own weight, not to be able to do for himself as well as for
others without being beholden to any one for what he is doing. No man
is happy if he does not work. Of all miserable creatures the idler, in
whatever rank of society, is in the long run the most miserable. If a
man does not work, if he has not in him not merely the capacity for
work but the desire for work, then nothing can be done with him. He is
out of place in our community. We have in our scheme of government no
room for the man who does not wish to pay his way through life by what
he does for himself and for the community. If he has leisure which
makes it unnecessary for him to devote his time to earning his daily
bread, then all the more he is bound to work just as hard in some way
that will make the community the better off for his existence. If he
fails in that, he fails to justify his existence. Work, the capacity
for work, is absolutely necessary; and no man’s life is full, no man
can be said to live in the true sense of the word, if he does not
work. This is necessary, and yet it is not enough. If a man is utterly
selfish, if utterly disregardful of the rights of others, if he has no
ideals, if he works simply for the sake of ministering to his own base
passions, if he works simply to gratify himself, small is his good in
the community. I think even then he is probably better off than if he
is an idler, but he is of no real use unless together with the quality
which enables him to work he has the quality which enables him to
love his fellows, to work with them and for them for the common good
of all.
It seems to me that these Young Men’s Christian Associations play a
part of the greatest consequence, not merely because of the great
good they do in themselves, but because of the lesson of brotherhood
that they teach all of us. All of us here are knit together by bonds
which we can not sever. For weal or for woe our fates are inextricably
intermingled. All of us in our present civilization are dependent upon
one another to a degree never before known in the history of mankind,
and in the long run we are going to go up or go down together. For a
moment some man may rise by trampling on his fellows; for a moment,
and much more commonly, some men may think they will rise or gratify
their envy and hatred by pulling down others. But any such movement
upward is probably illusory, and is certainly short-lived. Any
permanent movement upward must come in such a shape that all of us
feel the lift a little, and if there is a tendency down ward all of us
will feel that tendency, too. We must, if we are to raise ourselves,
realize that each of us in the long run can with certainty be raised
only if the conditions are such that all of us are somewhat raised. In
order to bring about these conditions the first essential is that each
shall have a genuine spirit of regard and friendship for the others,
and that each of us shall try to look at the problems of life somewhat
from his neighbor’s standpoint—that we shall have the capacity to
understand one another’s position, one another’s needs, and also
the desire each to help his brother as well as to help himself. To
do that wisely, wisely to strive with that as the aim, is not very
easy. Many qualities are needed in order that we can contribute our
mite toward the upward movement of the world—among them the quality
of self-abnegation, and yet combined with it the quality which will
refuse to submit to injustice. I want to preach the two qualities
going hand in hand. I do not want a man to fail to try to strive
for his own betterment, I do not want him to be quick to yield to
injustice; I want him to stand for his rights; but I want him to be
very certain that he knows what his rights are, and that he does not
make them the wrongs of some one else.
I have a great deal of faith in the average American citizen. I think
he is a pretty good fellow, and I think he can generally get on with
the other average American citizen if he will only know him. If he
does not know him, but makes him a monster in his mind, then he will
not get on with him. But if he will take the trouble to know him and
realize that he is a being just like himself, with the same instincts,
not all of them good, the same desire to overcome those that are not
good, the same purposes, the same tendencies, the same shortcomings,
the same desires for good, the same need of striving against evil; if
he will realize all this, then if you can get the two together with
an honest desire each to try not only to help himself but to help the
other, most of our problems will be solved. And I can imagine no
way more likely to hurry forward such a favorable solution than to
encourage the building up of just such institutions as this.
Therefore, I congratulate you with all my heart upon this meeting
to-day. Therefore I esteem myself most fortunate in having the chance
of addressing you. It is a very good thing to attend to the material
side of life. We must in the first instance attend to our material
prosperity. Unless we have that as a foundation we can not build up
any higher kind of life. But we shall lead a miserable and sordid
life if we spend our whole time in doing nothing but attending to our
material needs. If the building up of the railroads, of the farms,
of the factories, of the industrial centres, means nothing whatever
but an increase in the instruments of production and an increase in
the fevered haste with which those instruments are used, progress
amounts to but a little thing. If, however, the developing of our
material prosperity is to serve as a foundation upon which we raise
a higher, a purer, a fuller, a better life, then indeed things are
well with the Republic. If as our wealth increases the wisdom of
our use of the wealth increases in even greater proportion, then
the wealth has justified its existence many times over. If with the
industry, the skill, the hardihood, of those whom I am addressing and
their fellows, nothing comes beyond a selfish desire each to grasp
for himself whatever he can of material enjoyment, then the outlook
for the future is indeed grave, then the advantages of living in
the twentieth century surrounded by all our modern improvements, our
modern symbols of progress, is indeed small. But if we mean to make of
each fresh development in the way of material betterment a step toward
a fresh development in moral and spiritual betterment, then we are to
be congratulated.
To me the future seems full of hope because, although there are many
conflicting tendencies, and although some of these tendencies of our
present life are for evil, yet, on the whole the tendencies for good
are in the ascendency. And I greet this audience, this great body of
delegates, with peculiar pleasure because they are men who embody, and
embody by the very fact of their presence here, the two essential sets
of qualities of which I have been speaking. They embody the capacity
for self-help with the desire mutually to help one the other. You
have several qualities I like. You have sound bodies. Your profession
is not one that can be carried on, at least in some of its branches,
without the sound body. You have sound minds, and that is better than
sound bodies; and finally, the fact that you are here, the fact that
you have done what you have done, shows that you have that which
counts for more than body, for more than mind—character.
I congratulate you upon what you are doing for yourselves, and I
congratulate you even more upon what you are doing for all men who
hope to see the day brought nearer when the people of all nations,
shall realize—not merely talk of, but realize—what the essence of
brotherhood is. I congratulate you, as I say, not only because you
are bettering yourselves, but because to you, for your good fortune,
it is given to better others, to teach, in the way in which teaching
is most effective, not merely by precept but by action. The railroad
men of this country are a body entitled to the well wishes of their
fellow-men in any event, but peculiarly is this true of the railroad
men of the country who join in such work as that of the Young Men’s
Christian Associations, because they are showing by their actions—and
oh, how much louder actions speak than words!—that it is not only
possible, but very, very possible and easy to combine the manliness
which makes a man able to do his own share of the world’s work, with
that fine and lofty love of one’s fellow-men which makes you able to
come together with your fellows and work hand in hand with them for
the common good of mankind in general.
FROM ADDRESS AT DENVER, COL., MAY 4, 1903
_Mr. Governor, Mr. Mayor, and you, my Fellow-Citizens_:
Colorado has certain special interests which it shares with the group
of States immediately around it. To my mind one of the best pieces of
legislation put upon the statute books of the National Government of
recent years was the irrigation act; an act under which we declare it
to be the national policy that exactly as care is to be taken of the
harbors and along the lower courses of the rivers, so in their upper
courses care is to be taken by the Nation of the irrigation work to be
done in connection with them.
Under that act a beginning has been made in Colorado, Montana,
Wyoming, Nevada, and the Territory of Arizona. There is bound to be
disappointment here and there where people have built hopes without a
quite sufficient warranty of fact behind. But good will surely come
at once and wellnigh immeasurable good in the future from the policy
which has thus been begun. In Colorado two-thirds of your products
come from irrigated farms, and four years ago those products already
surpassed fifteen million dollars. With the aid of the government far
more can be done in the future even than has been done in the past.
The object of the law is to provide small irrigated farms to actual
settlers, to actual home-makers; the land is given away ultimately
in small tracts under the terms of the homestead act, the settlers
repaying the cost of bringing water to their lands in ten annual
payments; and lands now in private ownership can be watered in small
tracts by similar payments, but the law forbids the furnishing of
water to large tracts, and the aim of the government is rigidly to
prevent the acquisition of large rights for speculative purposes.
The purpose of the law was, and that purpose is being absolutely
carried out, to promote settlement and cultivation of small farms
carefully tilled. Water made available under the terms of this law
becomes appurtenant under the law to the land, and can not be disposed
of without it, and thus monopoly and speculation in this vitally
important commodity are prevented, or at least their evil effects
minimized so far as the law or the administration of the law can bring
that end about. This is the great factor in future success. The policy
is a policy of encouragement to the home-maker, to the man who comes
to establish his home, to bring up his children here as a citizen of
the commonwealth, and his welfare is guarded by the union of the water
and the land.
The government can not deal with large numbers individually. We
have encouraged the formation of associations of water users, of
cultivators of the soil in small tracts. The ultimate ownership and
control of the irrigation works will pass away from the government
into the hands of those users, those home-makers, who through their
officers do the necessary business of their associations. The
aim of the government is to give locally the ultimate control of
water distributed and to leave neighborhood disputes to be settled
locally; and that should be so as far as it is possible. The law
protects vested rights; it prevents conflict with established laws
or institutions; but of course it is important that the legislatures
of the States should co-operate with the National Government. When
the works are constructed to utilize the waters now wasted happy
and prosperous homes will flourish where twenty years ago it would
have seemed impossible that a man could live. It is a great national
measure of benefit, and while, as I say, it is primarily to benefit
the people of the mountain States and of the great plains, yet it will
ultimately benefit the whole community. For, my fellow-countrymen,
you can never afford to forget for one moment that in the long
run anything that is of benefit to one part of our Republic is of
necessity of benefit to all the Republic. The creation of new homes
upon desert lands means greater prosperity for Colorado and the Rocky
Mountain States, and inevitably their greater prosperity means greater
prosperity for Eastern manufacturers, for Southern cotton growers, for
all our people throughout the Union.
AT SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO, MAY 5, 1903
_Mr. Governor, Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen_:
It is of course with a peculiar feeling of pleasure that I come here
to New Mexico, from which Territory half (and if my memory serves me
correctly a little over half) of the men of my regiment came. The man
is but a poor man wherever he may be born to whom one part of this
country is not exactly as dear as any other part. And I should count
myself wholly unworthy of the position I hold if I did not strive to
represent the people of the mountains and the plains exactly as much
as those of the Mississippi Valley or of either coast, the Atlantic
or the Pacific. I know your people, Mr. Governor, and I need not say
how fond I am of them, for that you know yourself. How could I help
being fond of people with whom I have worked, with whom I marched to
battle? The only men here to whom I would doff my hat quicker than to
the men of my own regiment are the men of the great war. You know well
the claim that comradeship in war makes between man and man; and it
has always seemed to me, Mr. Governor, that in a sense my regiment in
its composition was a typical American regiment. Its people came from
the West chiefly, but some from the East, from the South chiefly, but
some from the North, so that every section was represented in it. They
varied in birthplace as in creed; some were born on this side of the
water, some on the other side; some of their ancestors had come to New
Mexico, as did your ancestors, Mr. Governor, when this was already a
city and at a time when not one English-speaking community existed on
the Atlantic seaboard; some were men whose forefathers were among the
early Puritans and Pilgrims; some were of those whose forefathers had
settled by the banks of the James even before the Puritan and Pilgrim
came to this country, but after your people came. There were men in
that regiment who themselves were born, or whose parents were born, in
England, Ireland, Germany, or Scandinavia, but there was not a man,
no matter what his creed, what his birthplace, what his ancestry, who
was not an American and nothing else. We had representatives of the
real, original, native Americans, because we had no inconsiderable
number who were in whole or in part of Indian blood. There was in the
regiment but one kind of rivalry among those men, and but one would
have been tolerated. That was the rivalry of each man to see if he
could not do his duty a little better than any one else. Short would
have been the shrift of any man who tried to introduce division along
lines of section, or creed, or class. We had serving in the ranks
men of inherited wealth and men who all their lives had earned each
day’s bread by that day’s labor, and they stood on a footing of exact
equality. It would not have been any more possible for a feeling of
arrogance to exist on one side than for a feeling of rancor and envy
to exist on the other.
I appreciate to the full all the difficulties under which you labor,
and I think that your progress has been astonishing. I congratulate
you upon all that has been done, and I am certain that the future will
far more than make good the past. I believe that we have come upon
an era of fuller development for New Mexico. That development must
of course take place principally through the average of foresight,
thrift, industry, energy and will of the citizens of New Mexico; but
the government can and will help somewhat. This is a great grazing
State. Because of the importance of the grazing industry I wish to
bespeak your support for the preservation in proper shape of the
forest reserves of the State. These forest reserves are created
and are kept up in the interest of the home-maker. In many of them
there is much natural pasturage. Where that is the case the object
is to have that pasturage used by the settlers, by the people of the
Territory, not eaten out so that nobody will have the benefit after
three years. I want the land preserved so that the pasturage will do,
not merely for a man who wants to make a good thing out of it for two
or three years, but for the man who wishes to see it preserved for the
use of his children and his children’s children. That is the way to
use the resources of the land. I build no small hope upon the aid that
under the wise law of Congress will ultimately be extended to this
as to other States and Territories in the way of governmental aid to
irrigation. Irrigation is of course to be in the future wellnigh the
most potent factor in the agricultural development of this Territory
and one of the factors which will do most toward bringing it up to
Statehood. Nothing will count more than development of that kind in
bringing the Territory in as a State. That is the kind of development
which I am most anxious to see here—the development that means
permanent growth in the capacity of the land, not temporary, not the
exploiting of the land for a year or two at the cost of its future
impoverishment, but the building up of farm and ranch in such shape as
to benefit the home-maker whose intention it is that this Territory of
the present, this State of the future, shall be a great State in the
American Union.
AT THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL, ALBUQUERQUE, N. M., MAY 5, 1903
_Bishop_:
Permit me to thank you and to say how much I appreciate the courtesy
you showed in putting yourself to such inconvenience to come here to
greet me. I had hoped to meet you at Santa Fe in the cathedral, where
I participated in the baptism of the son of one of the men of my
regiment.
I greet the school children and the sisters. There can be no greater
privilege than to meet a missionary who has done good work. Of all the
work that is done or that can be done for our country, the greatest
is that of educating the body, the mind, and above all the character,
giving spiritual and moral training to those who in a few years are
themselves to decide the destinies of the nation.
AT THE INDIAN SCHOOL, ALBUQUERQUE, N. M., MAY 5, 1903
_Mr. Superintendent_:
I wish to express the peculiar pleasure it is to have seen the
Indian schools to-day, and through you, Mr. Superintendent, I want
to say to the Indians that are right behind you, what a fine thing
it is to see the industry and thrift of their people. I was struck
by their orchards, the irrigated fields, and by seeing them working
in the fields and along the road. The Indian who will work and do
his duty will stand on a par with any other American citizen. Of
course I will do as every President must do, I will stand for his
rights with the same jealous eagerness that I would for the rights of
any white man. I am glad to see the Indian children being educated
as these are educated so as to come more and more into the body of
American citizenship, to fit themselves for work in the home, work in
the fields, for leading decent, clean lives, for making themselves
self-supporting, for being good providers and good housekeepers; in
other words, for becoming American citizens just like other American
citizens.
AT GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA, MAY 6, 1903
_Mr. Governor, and you, my Fellow-Citizens_:
I am glad to be in Arizona to-day. From Arizona many gallant men came
into the regiment which I had the honor to command. Arizona sent men
who won glory on fought fields, and men to whom came a glorious and
an honorable death fighting for the flag of their country. As long
as I live it will be to me an inspiration to have served with Bucky
O’Neill. I have met so many comrades whom I prize, for whom I feel
respect and admiration and affection, that I shall not particularize
among them except to say that there is none for whom I feel all of
respect and admiration and affection more than for your Governor.
I have never been in Arizona before. It is one of the regions from
which I expect most development through the wise action of the
National Congress in passing the irrigation act. The first and
biggest experiment now in view under that act is the one that we are
trying in Arizona. I look forward to the effects of irrigation partly
as applied by and through the government, still more as applied by
individuals, and especially by associations of individuals, profiting
by the example of the government, and possibly by help from it—I look
forward to the effects of irrigation as being of greater consequence
to all this region of country in the next fifty years than any other
material movement whatsoever.
In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which, so far as I
know, is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the
world. I want to ask you to do one thing in connection with it in your
own interest and in the interest of the country—to keep this great
wonder of nature as it now is. I was delighted to learn of the wisdom
of the Santa Fe railroad people in deciding not to build their hotel
on the brink of the canyon. I hope you will not have a building of
any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel, or anything else, to mar the
wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of
the canyon. Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. The ages
have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is
to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and for all
who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American
if he can travel at all should see. We have gotten past the stage,
my fellow-citizens, when we are to be pardoned if we treat any part
of our country as something to be skinned for two or three years for
the use of the present generation, whether it is the forest, the
water, the scenery. Whatever it is, handle it so that your children’s
children will get the benefit of it. If you deal with irrigation,
apply it under circumstances that will make it of benefit, not to
the speculator who hopes to get profit out of it for two or three
years, but handle it so that it will be of use to the home-maker, to
the man who comes to live here, and to have his children stay after
him. Keep the forests in the same way. Preserve the forests by use;
preserve them for the ranchman and the stockman, for the people of the
Territory, for the people of the region round about. Preserve them for
that use, but use them so that they will not be squandered, that they
will not be wasted, so that they will be of benefit to the Arizona of
1953 as well as the Arizona of 1903.
To the Indians here I want to say a word of welcome. In my regiment I
had a good many Indians. They were good enough to fight and to die,
and they are good enough to have me treat them exactly as squarely as
any white man. There are many problems in connection with them. We
must save them from corruption and from brutality; and I regret to say
that at times we must save them from unregulated Eastern philanthropy.
All I ask is a square deal for every man. Give him a fair chance. Do
not let him wrong any one, and do not let him be wronged.
I believe in you. I am glad to see you. I wish you well with all my
heart, and I know that your future will justify all the hopes we have.
AT BARSTOW, CALIFORNIA, MAY 7, 1903
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
This is the first time I have ever been to California, and I can not
say to you how much I have looked forward to making the trip. I can
tell you now with absolute certainty that I will have enjoyed it to
the full when I get through.
I have felt that the events of the last five or six years have been
steadily hastening the day when the Pacific will loom in the world’s
commerce as the Atlantic now looms, and I have wished greatly to see
these marvelous communities growing up on the Pacific Slope. There are
plenty of things that to you seem matters of course, that I have read
about and know about from reading, and yet when I see them they strike
me as very wonderful.
One thing that impresses me more than anything else as I go through
the country—as I said I have never been on the Pacific Slope; the
Rocky Mountain States and the States of the great plains I know quite
as well as I know the Eastern seaboard; I have worked with the men,
played with them, fought with them; I know them all through—the thing
that impresses me most as I go through this country and meet the men
and women of the country, is the essential unity of all Americans.
Down at bottom we are the same people all through. That is not merely
a unity of section, it is a unity of class. For my good fortune I
have been thrown into intimate relationship, into intimate personal
friendship, with many men of many different occupations, and my faith
is firm that we shall come unscathed out of all our difficulties here
in America, because I think that the average American is a decent
fellow, and that the prime thing in getting him to get on well with
the other average American is to have each remember that the other is
a decent fellow, and try to look at the problems a little from the
other’s standpoint.
I thank you for coming out here to greet me. I wish you well with all
my heart for the future.
AT SAN BERNARDINO, CAL., MAY 7, 1903
_Mr. Chairman, Mr. Governor, and you, my Fellow-Citizens_:
It is half a century since the early pioneers founded this place, and
while time goes fast in America anywhere, it has gone fastest here on
the Pacific Slope and in the regions of the Rocky Mountains directly
to the eastward. If you live in the presence of miracles you gradually
get accustomed to them. So it is difficult for any of us, and it is
especially difficult for those who have themselves been doing the
things, to realize the absolute wonder of the things that have been
done. California and the region round about have in the past fifty or
sixty years traversed the distance that separates the founders of
the civilization of Mesopotamia and Egypt from those who enjoy the
civilization of to-day. They have gone further than that. They have
seen this country change from a wilderness into one of the most highly
civilized regions of the world’s surface. They have seen cities,
farms, ranches, railroads grow up and transform the very face of
nature. The changes have been so stupendous that in our eyes they have
become commonplace. We fail to realize their immense, their tremendous
importance. We fail entirely to realize what they mean. Only the older
among you can remember the early pioneer days, and yet to-day I have
spoken to man after man yet in his prime who, when he first came to
this country warred against wild man and wild nature in the way in
which that warfare was waged in the prehistoric days of the old world.
We have spanned in a single lifetime—in less than the lifetime of any
man who reaches the age limit prescribed by the psalmist—the whole
space from savagery through barbarism, through semi-civilization, to
the civilization that stands two thousand years ahead of that of Rome
and Greece in the days of their prime.
The old pioneer days have gone, but if we are to prove ourselves
worthy sons of our sires we can not afford to let the old pioneer
virtues lapse. There is just the same need now that there was in
’49 for the qualities that mark a mighty and masterful people. East
and west we now face substantially the same problems. No people can
advance as far and as fast as we have advanced, no people can make
such progress as we have made, and expect to escape the penalties that
go with such speed and progress. The growth and complexity of our
civilization, the intensity of the movement of modern life, have meant
that with the benefits have come certain disadvantages and certain
perils. A great industrial civilization can not be built up without a
certain dislocation, a certain disarrangement of the old conditions,
and therefore the springing up of new problems. The problems are new,
but the qualities needed to solve them are as old as history itself,
and we shall solve them aright only on condition that we bring to the
solution the same qualities of head and heart that have been brought
to the solution of similar problems by every race that has ever
conquered for itself a space in the annals of time.
AT THE BIG TREE GROVE, SANTA CRUZ, CAL., MAY 11, 1903
_Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen_:
I want to thank you very much for your courtesy in receiving me, and
to say how much I have enjoyed being here. This is the first glimpse
I have ever had of the big trees, and I wish to pay the highest
tribute I can to the State of California, to those private citizens
and associations of citizens who have co-operated with the State in
preserving these wonderful trees for the whole nation, in preserving
them in whatever part of the State they may be found. All of us ought
to want to see nature preserved. Take a big tree whose architect has
been the ages—anything that man does toward it may hurt it and can not
help it. Above all, the rash creature who wishes to leave his name
to mar the beauties of nature should be sternly discouraged. Those
cards pinned up on that tree give an air of the ridiculous to this
solemn and majestic grove. To pin those cards up there is as much
out of place as if you tacked so many tin cans up there. I mean that
literally. You should save the people whose names are there from the
reprobation of every one by taking down the cards at the earliest
possible moment; and do keep these trees, keep all the wonderful
scenery of this wonderful State unmarred by the vandalism or the folly
of man. Remember that we have to contend not merely with knavery, but
with folly; and see to it that you by your actions create the kind
of public opinion which will put a stop to any destruction of or any
marring of the wonderful and beautiful gifts that you have received
from nature, that you ought to hand on as a precious heritage to your
children and your children’s children.
AT LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY, PALO ALTO, CAL., MAY 12, 1903
_President Jordan, and you, my Fellow-Citizens, and especially you,
my Fellow-college Men and Women_:
I thank you for your greeting, and I know you will not grudge my
saying, first of all, a special word of thanks to the men of the Grand
Army. It is a fine thing to have before a body of students men who by
their practice have rendered it unnecessary that they should preach;
for what we have to teach by precept, you, the men of ’61 to ’65,
have taught by deed, by action. I am proud as an American college man
myself to have seen the tablet outside within the court which shows
that this young university sent eighty-five of her sons to war when
the country called for them. I come from a college which boasts as its
proudest building that which stands to the memory of Harvard’s sons
who responded to the call of Lincoln when the hour of the Nation’s
danger was at hand. It will be a bad day for this country and a worse
day for all educative institutions in this country if ever such a call
is made, and the men of college training do not feel it peculiarly
incumbent upon them to respond.
President Jordan has been kind enough to allude to me as an old
friend. Mr. Jordan is too modest to say that he has long been not
only a friend, but a man to whom I have turned for advice and help,
before and since I became President. I am glad to have the chance of
acknowledging my obligations to him, and I am also glad that when I
ask you to strive toward productive scholarship, toward productive
citizenship, I can use the president of the university as an example.
Of course, in any of our American institutions of learning, even more
important than the production of scholarship is the production of
citizenship. That is the most important thing that any institution
of learning can produce. There are a great number of students who
can not and should not try, in after life, to lead a career of
scholarship, but no university can take high rank if it does not aim
at the production of, and succeed in producing, a certain number of
deep and thorough scholars—not scholars whose scholarship is of the
barren kind, but men of productive scholarship, men who do good work,
I trust great work, in the fields of literature, of art, of science,
in all their manifold activities. Here in California this Nation,
composite in its race stocks, speaking an Old World tongue, and with
an inherited Old World culture, has acquired an absolutely new domain.
I do not mean new only in the sense of additional territory like that
already possessed, I mean new in the sense of new surroundings, to
use the scientific phrase, of a new environment. Being new, I think
we have a right to look for a substantial achievement on the part
of your people along new lines. I do not mean the self-conscious
striving after newness, which is only too apt to breed eccentricity,
but I mean that those among you whose bent is toward scholarship as
a career should keep in mind the fact that such scholarship should
be productive, and should therefore aim at giving to the world some
addition to the world’s stock of what is useful or beautiful; and if
you work simply and naturally, taking advantage of your surroundings
as you find them, then in my belief a new mark will be made in
the history of intellectual achievement by our race. You of this
institution are blessed in its extraordinary physical beauty and
appropriateness of architecture and surroundings, with a suggestion of
what I might call the Americanized Greek. Such is your institution,
situated on the shores of this great ocean, built by a race which
has come steadily westward, which has come to where the Occident
looks west to the Orient, a race whose members here, fresh, vigorous,
have the boundless possibilities of the future brought to their very
doors in a sense that can not be possible for the members of the race
situated further east. Surely there will be some great outcome in the
way not merely of physical, but of moral and intellectual work worth
doing. I do not want you to turn out prigs; I do not want you to turn
out the self-conscious. I believe, with all my heart, in play. I want
you to play hard without encroaching on your work. I do, nevertheless,
think you ought to have at least the consciousness of the serious side
of what all this means, and of the necessity of effort, thrust upon
you, so that you may justify by your deeds in the future your training
and the extraordinary advantages under which that training has been
obtained.
America, the Republic of the United States, is of course in a
peculiar sense typical of the present age. We represent the fullest
development of the democratic spirit acting on the extraordinary
and highly complex industrial growth of the last half century. It
behooves us to justify by our acts the claims made for that political
and economic progress. We will never justify the existence of the
Republic by merely talking each Fourth of July about what the Republic
has done. If our homage is lip loyalty merely, the great deeds of
those who went before us, the great deeds of the times of Washington
and of the times of Lincoln, the great deeds of the men who won the
Revolution and founded the Nation, and of the men who preserved
it, who made it a Union and a free Republic, will simply arise to
shame us. We can honor our fathers and our fathers’ fathers only by
ourselves striving to rise level to their standard. There are plenty
of tendencies for evil in what we see round about us. Thank heaven,
there are an even greater number of tendencies for good, and one of
the things, Mr. Jordan, which it seems to me give this Nation cause
for hope is the national standard of ambition which makes it possible
to recognize with admiration and regard such work as the founding of
a university of this character. It speaks well for our Nation that
men and women should desire during their lives to devote the fortunes
which they were able to acquire or to inherit because of our system
of government, because of our social system, to objects so entirely
worthy and so entirely admirable as the foundation of a great seat
of learning such as this. All that we outsiders can do is to pay our
tribute of respect to the dead and to the living who have done such
good, and at least to make it evident that we appreciate to the full
what has been done.
I have spoken of scholarship; I want to go back to the question of
citizenship, a question affecting not merely the scholars among you,
not merely those who are hereafter to lead lives devoted to science,
to art, to productivity in literature. And when you take up science,
art, and literature, remember that one first-class bit of work is
better than one thousand fairly good bits of work; that as the years
roll on the man or the woman who has been able to make a masterpiece
with the pen, the brush, the pencil, in any way, has rendered a
service to the country such as not all his or her compeers who merely
do fairly good second-rate work can ever accomplish. Only a limited
number of us can ever become scholars or work successfully along the
lines I have spoken of, but we can all be good citizens. We can all
lead a life of action, a life of endeavor, a life that is to be judged
primarily by the effort, somewhat by the result, along the lines of
helping the growth of what is right and decent and generous and lofty
in our several communities, in the State, in the Nation.
You men and women who have had the advantages of a college training
are not to be excused if you fail to do, not as well as, but more than
the average man outside who has not had your advantages. Every now and
then I meet (at least I meet him in the East, and I dare say he is to
be found here) the man who, having gone through college, feels that
somehow that confers upon him a special distinction which relieves
him from the necessity of showing himself as good as his fellows.
I see you recognize the type. That man is not only a curse to the
community, and incidentally to himself, but he is a curse to the cause
of academic education, the college and university training, because by
his existence he serves as an excuse for those who like to denounce
such education. Your education, your training, will not confer on you
one privilege in the way of excusing you from effort or from work.
All it can do and what it should do, is to make you a little better
fitted for such effort, for such work; and I do not care whether that
is in business, politics, in no matter what branch of endeavor, all
it can do is by the training you have received, by the advantages you
have received, to fit you to do a little better than the average man
that you meet. It is incumbent upon you to show that the training
has had that effect. It ought to enable you to do a little better
for yourselves, and if you have in you souls capable of a thrill of
generous emotion, souls capable of understanding what you owe to your
training, to your alma mater, to the past and the present that have
given you all that you have—if you have such souls, it ought to make
you doubly bent upon disinterested work for the State and the Nation.
Such work can be done along many different lines. I want to-day,
here in California, to make a special appeal to all of you, and to
California as a whole, for work along a certain line—the line of
preserving your great natural advantages alike from the standpoint
of use and from the standpoint of beauty. If the students of this
institution have not by the mere fact of their surroundings learned
to appreciate beauty, then the fault is in you and not in the
surroundings. Here in California you have some of the great wonders
of the world. You have a singularly beautiful landscape, singularly
beautiful and singularly majestic scenery, and it should certainly be
your aim to try to preserve for those who are to come after you that
beauty, to try to keep unmarred that majesty. Closely entwined with
keeping unmarred the beauty of your scenery, of your great natural
attractions, is the question of making use of, not for the moment
merely, but for future time, of your great natural products. Yesterday
I saw for the first time a grove of your great trees, a grove which
it has taken the ages several thousands of years to build up; and
I feel most emphatically that we should not turn into shingles a
tree which was old when the first Egyptian conqueror penetrated to
the valley of the Euphrates, which it has taken so many thousands
of years to build up, and which can be put to better use. That, you
may say, is not looking at the matter from the practical standpoint.
There is nothing more practical in the end than the preservation
of beauty, than the preservation of anything that appeals to the
higher emotions in mankind. But, furthermore, I appeal to you from
the standpoint of use. A few big trees, of unusual size and beauty,
should be preserved for their own sake; but the forests as a whole
should be used for business purposes, only they should be used in a
way that will preserve them as permanent sources of national wealth.
In many parts of California the whole future welfare of the State
depends upon the way in which you are able to use your water supply;
and the preservation of the forests and the preservation of the use
of the water are inseparably connected. I believe we are past the
stage of national existence when we could look on complacently at the
individual who skinned the land and was content for the sake of three
years’ profit for himself to leave a desert for the children of those
who were to inherit the soil. I think we have passed that stage. We
should handle, and I think we now do handle, all problems such as
those of forestry and of the preservation and use of our waters from
the standpoint of the permanent interests of the home-maker in any
region—the man who comes in not to take what he can out of the soil
and leave, having exploited the country, but who comes to dwell
therein, to bring up his children, and to leave them a heritage in
the country not merely unimpaired, but if possible even improved.
That is the sensible view of civic obligation, and the policy of the
State and of the Nation should be shaped in that direction. It should
be shaped in the interest of the home-maker, the actual resident,
the man who is not only to be benefited himself, but whose children
and children’s children are to be benefited by what he has done.
California has for years, I am happy to say, taken a more sensible,
a more intelligent interest in forest preservation than any other
State. It early appointed a forest commission; later on some of the
functions of that commission were replaced by the Sierra Club, a club
which has done much on the Pacific Coast to perpetuate the spirit
of the explorer and the pioneer. Then I am happy to say a great
business interest showed an intelligent and far-sighted spirit which
is of happy augury, for the Redwood Manufacturers of San Francisco
were first among lumbermen’s associations to give assistance to the
cause of practical forestry. The study of the redwood which the
action of this association made possible was the pioneer study in the
co-operative work which is now being carried out between lumbermen
all over the United States and the Federal Bureau of Forestry. All of
this kind of work is peculiarly the kind of work in which we have a
right to expect not merely hearty co-operation from, but leadership in
college men trained in the universities of this Pacific Coast State;
for the forests of this State stand alone in the world. There are
none others like them anywhere. There are no other trees anywhere like
the giant Sequoias; nowhere else is there a more beautiful forest than
that which clothes the western slope of the Sierra. Very early your
forests attracted lumbermen from other States, and by the course of
timber land investments some of the best of the big tree groves were
threatened with destruction. Destruction came upon some of them, but
the women of California rose to the emergency through the California
Club, and later the Sempervirens Club took vigorous action. But the
Calaveras grove is not yet safe, and there should be no rest until
that safety is secured, by the action of private individuals, by the
action of the State, by the action of the Nation. The interest of
California in forest protection was shown even more effectively by the
purchase of the Big Basin Redwood Park, a superb forest property the
possession of which should be a source of just pride to all citizens
jealous of California’s good name.
I appeal to you, as I say, to protect these mighty trees, these
wonderful monuments of beauty. I appeal to you to protect them for
the sake of their beauty, but I also make the appeal just as strongly
on economic grounds; as I am well aware that in dealing with such
questions a far-sighted economic policy must be that to which alone
in the long run one can safely appeal. The interests of California
in forests depend directly of course upon the handling of her wood
and water supplies and the supply of material from the lumber woods
and the production of agricultural products on irrigated farms. The
great valleys which stretch through the State between the Sierra
Nevada and Coast Ranges must owe their future development as they owe
their present prosperity to irrigation. Whatever tends to destroy
the water supply of the Sacramento, the San Gabriel, and the other
valleys strikes vitally at the welfare of California. The welfare of
California depends in no small measure upon the preservation of water
for the purposes of irrigation in those beautiful and fertile valleys
which can not grow crops by rainfall alone. The forest cover upon the
drainage basins of streams used for irrigation purposes is of prime
importance to the interests of the entire State. Now keep in mind
that the whole object of forest protection is, as I have said again
and again, the making and maintaining of prosperous homes. I am not
advocating forest protection from the æsthetic standpoint only. I do
advocate the keeping of big trees, the great monarchs of the woods,
for the sake of their beauty, but I advocate the preservation and
wise use of the forests because I feel it essential to the interests
of the actual settlers. I am asking that the forests be used wisely
for the sake of the successors of the pioneers, for the sake of the
settlers who dwell on the land and by doing so extend the borders
of our civilization. I ask it for the sake of the man who makes his
farm in the woods, or lower down along the sides of the streams which
have their rise in the mountains. Every phase of the land policy of
the United States is, as it by right ought to be, directed to the
upbuilding of the home-maker. The one sure test of all public land
legislation should be: does it help to make and to keep prosperous
homes? If it does, the legislation is good. If it does not, the
legislation is bad. Any legislation which has a tendency to give
land in large tracts to people who will lease it out to tenants is
undesirable. We do not want ever to let our land policy be shaped so
as to create a big class of proprietors who rent to others. We want
to make the smaller men who, under such conditions would rent, actual
proprietors. We must shape our policy so that these men themselves
shall be the land owners, the makers of homes, the keepers of homes.
Certain of our land laws, however beneficent their purposes, have been
twisted into an improper use, so that there have grown up abuses under
them by which they tend to create a class of men who, under one color
and another, obtain large tracts of soil for speculative purposes, or
to rent out to others; and there should be now a thorough scrutiny
of our land laws with the object of so amending them as to do away
with the possibility of such abuses. If it was not for the national
irrigation act we would be about past the time when Uncle Sam could
give every man a farm. Comparatively little of our land is left which
is adapted to farming without irrigation. The home-maker on the public
land must hereafter, in the great majority of cases, have water for
irrigation, or the making of his home will fail. Let us keep that
fact before our minds. Do not misunderstand me when I have spoken
of the defects of our land laws. Our land laws have served a noble
purpose in the past and have become the models for other governments.
The homestead law has been a notable instrument for good. To establish
a family permanently upon a quarter section of land, or of course upon
a less quantity if it is irrigated land, is the best use to which it
can be put. The first need of any nation is intelligent and honest
citizens. Such can come only from honest and intelligent homes, and to
get the good citizenship we must get the good homes. It is absolutely
necessary that the remainder of our public land should be reserved for
the home-maker, and it is necessary in my judgment that there should
be a revision of the land laws and a cutting out of such provisions
from them as in actual practice under present conditions tend to make
possible the acquisition of large tracts for speculative purposes or
for the purpose of leasing to others.
Citizenship is the prime test in the welfare of the Nation; but we
need good laws; and above all we need good land laws throughout the
West. We want to see the free farmer own his home. The best of the
public lands are already in private hands, and yet the rate of their
disposal is steadily increasing. More than six million acres were
patented during the first three months of the present year. It is
time for us to see that our remaining public lands are saved for
the home-maker to the utmost limit of his possible use. I say this
to you of this university because we have a right to expect that
the best trained, the best educated men on the Pacific Slope, the
Rocky Mountains and great plains States will take the lead in the
preservation and right use of the forests, in securing the right use
of the waters, and in seeing to it that our land policy is not twisted
from its original purpose, but is perpetuated by amendment, by change
when such change is necessary in the line of that purpose, the purpose
being to turn the public domain into farms each to be the property of
the man who actually tills it and makes his home on it.
Infinite are the possibilities for usefulness that lie before such a
body as that I am addressing. Work? Of course you will have to work.
I should be sorry for you if you did not have to work. Of course you
will have to work, and I envy you the fact that before you, before the
graduates of this university, lies the chance of lives to be spent in
hard labor for great and glorious and useful causes, hard labor for
the uplifting of your States of the Union, of all mankind.
AT MECHANICS’ PAVILION, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., MAY 13, 1903
_Mr. Chairman, and you, Men and Women of San Francisco_:
Before I came to the Pacific Slope I was an expansionist, and after
having been here I fail to understand how any man, convinced of his
country’s greatness and glad that his country should challenge
with proud confidence its mighty future, can be anything but an
expansionist. In the century that is opening the commerce and the
command of the Pacific will be factors of incalculable moment in the
world’s history.
The seat of power ever shifts from land to land, from sea to sea. The
earliest civilizations, those seated beside the Nile, the Tigris,
and the Euphrates, had little to do with sea traffic. But with the
rise of those people who went down to the sea in ships, with the
rise of the Phœnicians, the men of Tyre and Sidon, the Mediterranean
became the central sea on whose borders lay the great wealthy and
cultivated powers of antiquity. The war navies and the merchant
marines of Carthage, Greece, and Rome strove thereon for military and
industrial supremacy. Its control was the prerequisite to greatness,
and the Roman became lord of the western world only when his fleet
rode unchallenged from the Ægean to the Pillars of Hercules. Then
Rome fell. But for centuries thereafter the wealth and the culture of
Europe were centred on its southern shores, and the control of the
Mediterranean was vital in favoring or checking their growth. It was
at this time that Venice and Genoa flourished in their grandeur and
their might.
But gradually the nations of the north grew beyond barbarism and
developed fleets and commerce of their own. The North Sea, the Baltic,
the Bay of Biscay, saw trading cities rise to become independent
or else to become props of mighty civilized nations. The sea-faring
merchants ventured with ever greater boldness into the Atlantic. The
cities of the Netherlands, the ports of the Hansa, grew and flourished
as once the Italian cities had grown. Holland and England, Spain,
Portugal, and France sent forth mercantile adventurers to strive for
fame and profit on the high seas. The Cape of Good Hope was doubled,
America was discovered, and the Atlantic Ocean became to the greater
modern world what the Mediterranean had been to the lesser world of
antiquity.
Now, men and women of California, in our own day, the greatest of all
the seas and the last to be used on a large scale by civilized man
bids fair to become in its turn the first in point of importance.
The empire that shifted from the Mediterranean will in the lifetime
of those now children bid fair to shift once more westward to the
Pacific. When the 19th century opened the lonely keels of a few
whale ships, a few merchantmen, had begun to furrow the vast expanse
of the Pacific; but as a whole its islands and its shores were not
materially changed from what they had been in the long past ages when
the Phœnician galleys traded in the purple of Tyre, the ivory of
Libya, the gold of Cyprus. The junks of the Orient still crept between
China and Japan and Farther India; and from the woody wilderness
which shrouded the western shores of our own continent the red lords
of the land looked forth upon a waste of waters which only their
own canoes traversed. That was but a century ago; and now at the
opening of the 20th century the change is so vast that it is wellnigh
impossible for us to estimate its importance. In the South Seas the
great commonwealth of Australia has sprung into being. Japan, shaking
off the lethargy of centuries, has taken her rank among civilized,
modern powers. European nations have seated themselves along the
eastern coast of Asia, while China by her misfortunes has given us an
object-lesson in the utter folly of attempting to exist as a nation at
all if both rich and defenceless.
Meanwhile our own mighty Republic has stretched from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, and now in California, Oregon, and Washington,
in Alaska, Hawaii and the Philippines, holds an extent of coast
line which makes it of necessity a power of the first class in the
Pacific. The extension in the area of our domain has been immense,
the extension in the area of our influence even greater. America’s
geographical position on the Pacific is such as to ensure our
peaceful domination of its waters in the future if only we grasp with
sufficient resolution the advantages of that position. We are taking
long strides in that direction; witness the cables we are laying down,
the steamship lines we are starting—some of them already containing
steamships larger than any freight carriers that have previously
existed. We have taken the first steps toward digging an Isthmian
canal, to be under our own control, a canal which will make our
Atlantic and Pacific coast lines in effect continuous, which will be
of incalculable benefit to our mercantile navy, and above all to our
military navy in the event of war.
The inevitable march of events gave us the control of the Philippine
Islands at a time so opportune that it may without irreverence be
called Providential. Unless we show ourselves weak, unless we show
ourselves degenerate sons of the sires from whose loins we sprang, we
must go on with the work we have undertaken. I most earnestly hope
that this work will ever be of a peaceful character. We infinitely
desire peace, and the surest way of obtaining it is to show that we
are not afraid of war. We should deal in a spirit of justice and
fairness with weaker nations, and we should show to the strongest
that we are able to maintain our rights. Such showing can not be
made by bluster; for bluster merely invites contempt. Let us speak
courteously, deal fairly, and keep ourselves armed and ready. If we
do these things we can count on the peace that comes to the just man
armed, to the just man who neither fears nor inflicts wrong. We must
keep on building and maintaining a thoroughly efficient navy, with
plenty of the best and most formidable ships, with an ample supply of
officers and men, and with those officers and men trained in the most
efficient fashion to perform their duties. Only thus can we assure
our position in the world at large. It behooves all men of lofty soul
fit and proud to belong to a mighty nation to see to it that we keep
our position in the world; for our proper place is with the great
expanding peoples, with the peoples that dare to be great, that
accept with confidence a place of leadership in the world. All our
people should take that position, but especially of California, you
of the Pacific Slope, for much of our expansion must go through the
Golden Gate, and inevitably you who are seated by the Pacific must
take the lead in and must profit by the growth of American influence
along the coasts and among the islands of that mighty ocean, where
east and west finally become one.
The citizen that counts, the man that counts in our life, is the man
who endeavors not to shirk difficulties but to meet and overcome them,
is the man who endeavors not to lead his life in the world’s soft
places, not to walk easily and take his comfort, but the man who goes
out to tread the rugged ways that lead to honor and success, the ways
the treading of which means good work worthily done.
What father or what mother here, if capable of taking the right view,
does not wish to see his or her children grow up trained, not to
flinch but to overcome, trained not to avoid whatever is hard and
rough and difficult, but to go down into the hurly-burly of actual
life and win glory in the arena, heedless of the dust and the sweat
and blood of the contest?
You men of the West, the older among you, came here and hewed out
your own fates for yourselves. The younger among you are the heirs
of the men who did this, and you can not, unless you are false to
your blood, desire to see the Nation, which is but the aggregate of
the individuals, act otherwise than in the way which you esteem as
honorable for the individual.
Our place as a Nation is and must be with the nations that have left
indelibly their impress on the centuries. Men will tell you that the
great expanding nations of antiquity have passed away. So they have;
and so have all others. Those that did not expand passed away and
left not so much as a memory behind them. The Roman expanded, the
Roman passed away, but the Roman has left the print of his law, of
his language, of his masterful ability in administration, deep in the
world’s history, deeply imprinted in the character of the races that
came after him. I ask that this people rise level to the greatness of
its opportunities. I do not ask that it seek for the easiest path.
If our fathers had preferred ease to effort, if they had been content
to say: “Go in peace; we would prefer that the Union were kept, but
we are not willing to pay the price in blood and effort of keeping
it”; if they had done that there is not a man or woman in this hall
who would now walk with head erect, who would now have the right to
feel, as we have the right to feel, that we challenge equality with
the citizens of the proudest country that the world has yet seen. I
ask that this generation and future generations strive in the spirit
of those who strove to found the Republic, of those who strove to
save and perpetuate it. I ask that this Nation shape its policy in
a spirit of justice toward all, a spirit of resolute endeavor to
accept each duty as the duty comes, and to rest ill-content until that
duty is done. I ask that we meet the many problems with which we are
confronted from without and from within, not in the spirit that seeks
to purchase present peace by the certainty of future disaster, but
with a wise, a fearless, and a resolute desire to make of this Nation
in the end, as the centuries go by, the example for all the nations
of the earth, to make of it a nation in which we shall see the spirit
of peace and of justice incarnate, but in which also we shall see
incarnate the spirit of courage, of hardihood, the spirit which while
refusing to wrong the weak is incapable of flinching from the strong.
AT THE CEREMONIES INCIDENT TO THE BREAKING OF SOD FOR THE ERECTION
OF A MONUMENT IN MEMORY OF THE LATE PRESIDENT McKINLEY, SAN
FRANCISCO, CAL., MAY 13, 1903
_Friends and Fellow-Americans_:
It is a befitting thing that the first sod turned to prepare for the
monument to commemorate President McKinley should be turned in the
presence of his old comrades of the great war, and in the presence of
the men who in a lesser war strove to show that they were not wholly
unworthy of those who in the dark years of ’61 to ’65 proved their
truth by their endeavor, and with their blood cemented the foundation
of the American Republic. It is a solemn thing to speak in memory of
a man who when young went to war for the honor and the life of the
Nation, who for four years did his part in the camp, on the march,
in battle, rising steadily upward from the ranks, and to whom it was
given in after life to show himself exemplary in public and in private
conduct, to become the ideal of the Nation in peace as he had been a
typical representative of the Nation’s young sons in war.
It is not too much to say that no man since Lincoln was as widely and
as universally beloved in this country as was President McKinley; for
it was given to him not only to rise to the most exalted station but
to typify in his character and conduct those virtues which any citizen
worthy of the name likes to regard as typically American; to typify
the virtues of cleanly and upright living in all relations private and
public, in the most intimate family relations, in the relations of
business, in relations with his neighbors, and finally in his conduct
of the great affairs of state. And exactly as it was given to him to
do his part in settling aright the greatest problem which it has ever
befallen this Nation to settle since it became a Nation—the problem
of the preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery—exactly
as it was his good fortune to do his part as a man should in his
youth in settling that great problem, so it was his good fortune,
when he became in fact and in name the Nation’s chief, to settle the
problems springing out of the Spanish War; problems less important
only than those which were dealt with by the men who under the lead
of Washington founded our government and the men who, upholding the
statesmanship of Lincoln and following the sword of Grant, or Sherman,
or Thomas, or Sheridan, saved and perpetuated the Republic.
When 1898 came and the war which President McKinley in all honesty and
in all sincerity sought to avoid became inevitable and was pressed
upon him he met it as he and you had met the crisis of 1861. He did
his best to prevent the war coming; once it became evident that it
had to come then he did his best to see that it was ended as quickly
and as thoroughly as possible. It is a good lesson for nations and
individuals to learn never to hit if it can be helped and then never
to hit softly. I think it is getting to be fairly understood that that
is our foreign policy. We do not want to threaten; certainly we do not
desire to wrong any man; we are going to keep out of trouble if we
possibly can keep out; and if it becomes necessary for our honor and
our interest to assert a given position we shall assert it with every
intention of making the assertion good.
The Spanish War came. As its aftermath came trouble in the
Philippines, and it was natural that this State, within whose borders
live and have lived so many of the men who fought in the great war,
should find its sons eagerly volunteering for the chance to prove
their truth in the war that came in their days; and it was to be
expected that California’s sons should do well, as they did do well,
in the Philippines in the new contest.
And now it is eminently fitting that the men of the great war and the
men of the lesser war claiming not only to have been good soldiers
but to be good citizens should come here to assist at laying the
foundation of the monument to him who typified in his career the
virtues of the soldier and exemplified in his high office our ideals
of good citizenship. I am glad that such a monument should have been
erected here in this wonderful State on the shores of the Pacific;
in this city with a great past and with a future so great that the
most sanguine among us can not properly estimate it; this city of the
Occident which looks west to the Orient across the Pacific, westward
to the west that is the hoary east; this city situated upon that giant
ocean which will in a not distant future be commercially the most
important body of water in the entire world.
I thank you for coming here and for giving me the privilege of joining
with you to-day in these solemn ceremonies of commemoration, the
ceremonies of laying the foundation of a monument which is to keep
green in mind the memory of McKinley as a lesson in war and a lesson
in peace, as a lesson to all Americans of what can be done by the
American who in good faith strives to do his whole duty by the mighty
Republic.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Illustrations without captions have had a description added, this is
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Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
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text and consultation of external sources.
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predominant preference was found in the original book.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Pg 12: “hundreth” replaced with “hundredth”
Pg 12: “thoroughout” replaced with “throughout”
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