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Title: Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 4 (of 7)
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Release date: May 5, 2025 [eBook #76020]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Review of Reviews Company, 1910
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, VOLUME 4 (OF 7) ***
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.
Page numbers are continuous with volume 3.
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:
Presidential Addresses and State Papers 361
At the Luncheon of the Merchants’ Club, Chicago, Ill.,
May 10, 1905 361
At the Banquet of the Iroquois Club, Chicago, Ill., May 10, 1905 365
Remarks to Strikers’ Committee, Chicago, Ill., May 10, 1905 374
At the Unveiling of the Statue of General Henry W. Slocum, Brooklyn,
N. Y., May 30, 1905 378
At the Naval Branch, Y. M. C. A., Brooklyn, N. Y., May 30, 1905 386
At the Graduating Exercises of the Collegiate Department of Clark
University, Worcester, Mass., June 21, 1905 391
At Holy Cross College, Worcester, Mass., June 21, 1905 397
At Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., June 22, 1905 398
At Harvard University, June 28, 1905 407
To the National Educational Association, Ocean Grove, N. J.,
July 7, 1905 422
To the Long Island Medical Society, at Oyster Bay, N. Y.,
July 12, 1905 429
At Wilkesbarre, Pa., August 10, 1905 433
At Chautauqua, N. Y., August 11, 1905 439
To the Representatives of the Colored Industrial Association,
Richmond, Va., October 18, 1905 456
At Capitol Square, Richmond, Va., October 18, 1905 456
At the Luncheon at Richmond, Va., October 18, 1905 465
At Raleigh, N. C., October 19, 1905 467
Remarks in Presenting the Patterson Memorial Cup to Mr. John
Charles Mcneill, in the Senate Chamber, Raleigh, N. C.,
October 19, 1905 477
At Durham, N. C., October 19, 1905 478
At Greensboro, N. C., October 19, 1905 481
At Charlotte, N. C., October 19, 1905 482
At Roswell, Ga., October 20, 1905 485
At Piedmont Park, Atlanta, Ga., October 20, 1905 487
At the Luncheon of the Piedmont Club, Atlanta, Ga.,
October 20, 1905 500
At Jacksonville, Fla., October 21, 1905 505
At the Florida Baptist College, Jacksonville, Fla.,
October 21, 1905 510
At Mobile, Ala., October 23, 1905 513
At the Alabama Conference Female College, Tuskegee, Ala.,
October 24, 1905 518
At Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Ala., October 24, 1905 521
At the Capitol Building, Montgomery, Ala., October 24, 1905 527
At Birmingham, Ala., October 24, 1905 530
Remarks on Being Presented With Two Confederate Badges, at
Birmingham, Ala., October 24, 1905 532
At City Park, Little Rock, Ark., October 25, 1905 533
At the Luncheon at Little Rock, Ark., October 25, 1905 538
To a Delegation of the Grand Army of the Republic, at New Orleans,
La., October 26, 1905 544
To a Delegation of Confederate Veterans, at New Orleans, La.,
October 26, 1905 544
At the Luncheon, New Orleans, La., October 26, 1905 545
Speech to the Officers and Crew of the U. S. Flagship “West
Virginia,” at Sea, October 29, 1905 552
Remarks to a Delegation of Railway Employees’ Orders—executive
Office, Washington, November 14, 1905 556
Message Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress at the
Beginning of the First Session of the Fifty-ninth Congress,
December 5, 1905. 560
“The Children of the Night” 659
To the Central Juvenile Reformatory Committee, at the White House,
December 15, 1905 664
To the Board of Education of the District of Columbia and Others, at
the White House, December 18, 1905 665
Message Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress,
January 8, 1906 666
To the Members of the Legislative Council of the American Medical
Association, at the White House, January 10, 1906 671
To the Members of the Interstate National Guard Association, at the
White House, January 22, 1906 673
To the Students of the Manassas, Virginia, Industrial School, at the
White House, February 14, 1906 676
Message Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress,
February 19, 1906 678
Message Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress, March 5, 1906 681
Message Communicated to the Two Houses of Congress, March 7, 1906 688
To the Consular Reform Association, at the White House,
March 14, 1906 691
To the Committee and Assistant Committees on Department Methods, at
the Residence of Mr. Pinchot, Washington, March 20, 1906 694
To the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor and
the Representatives of Labor Associated With Them, at the
Executive Office, March 21, 1906 702
To the Members of the National Playgrounds Councils at the White
House, April 12, 1906 708
To the German Veterans, at the White House, April 12, 1906 709
[Illustration: _PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ADDRESSING THE CITIZENS OF
ATLANTA, GEORGIA_
_October 20, 1905_ ]
Homeward Bound Edition
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
AND STATE PAPERS
_May 10, 1905, to April 12, 1906_
BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
[Illustration: colophon]
PUBLISHED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE
AUTHOR THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
VOLUME IV
=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
MAY 10, 1905
TO
APRIL 12, 1906
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS
AT THE LUNCHEON OF THE MERCHANTS’ CLUB, CHICAGO, ILL., MAY 10, 1905
_Mr. President and Gentlemen_:
This country of ours is pre-eminently a business country, and we can
succeed only if as a country we carry on the national business as the
typical member of this association carries on his business; that is, in
an entirely practical spirit, in a spirit which desires and commands
success, but which desires it and commands it as an incident to acting
with decency toward all our fellow-citizens. No business community
can permanently succeed if the average member of it does not possess
a certain quantity of high ideals; and, gentlemen, there is not a
business man of large experience here who will not agree with me when I
say that. Permanent success will come to the business community where
the average man’s word can be trusted, where the average man himself
can be trusted in dealing with his fellows. Just as that is true of the
average business community, so it is true of the Nation as a whole.
The Nation must act in a spirit which gives full recognition to the
national demands, which is not in the least Quixotic, which sees the
need of working for the interests of the average individual of the
Nation, but in a spirit which recognizes duties as well as rights,
which recognizes this in our internal affairs, which recognizes it in
our external affairs.
This leads me up to a subject concerning which I wish not merely to
congratulate, but on behalf of the Nation to thank those present;
the part played by the Merchants’ Club in initiating, and with the
aid of the Commercial Club in carrying to a successful conclusion,
the movement which resulted in the establishment of a naval training
station here on Lake Michigan. I need not say to those of you who know
anything at all about me that I believe in a big navy; and I hope I
need not say that I believe in it not as a provocative to war, but as a
guarantee of peace. I want to see every section of this country realize
that the navy stands for the whole country, and that the people of
the seacoast are not a particle more interested in it than the people
of the Mississippi Valley. There were two sides to the establishment
of that naval station here, where it was established. In the first
place, we get, as perhaps some of you know, a peculiarly valuable class
of recruit for the navy from the Mississippi Valley and the region
adjoining the Great Lakes. In the next place, I wanted to see part
of the establishment of the navy have its local habitation and name
here in the great West. So I feel that this organization conferred
a favor not only upon the city of Chicago, but an advantage to the
whole country in what it did toward securing the establishment of that
station here where it has been established.
I do not think that it is now very necessary to make an argument for
an efficient navy. We are so fortunate that in this country we can
get along with a very small army, an army which relatively to the
population of the country is smaller than the police force of many of
our great cities. With the navy the case is different We have not the
choice, gentlemen, as to whether or not this country will play a great
part in the world. We can not help playing a great part. All we can
decide is whether we shall play it well or ill. That is the decision we
have to make. We can decide whether we will do badly or well, but we
can not decide whether the part is to be played. We have got to play
it. We can not abandon our position on the Monroe Doctrine. We can not
abandon the Panama Canal. We can not abandon the duties that have come
to us from the mere fact of our growth as a Nation, from the growth of
our commercial interests in the East and in the West, on the Atlantic
and in the Pacific. I earnestly hope that with the added responsibility
will come not merely a growth of power to meet that responsibility,
but a growth of mental attitude on our part toward these new duties.
If there is one thing that ought to be more offensive to every good
American than almost anything else it is the habit of speaking with a
loose tongue, speaking offensively about foreign nations, or adopting
an ill-considered and irritating attitude toward any one of them. In
private life there is no one to whom we rightly object more than to the
man who is continually offending and insulting his neighbors; except
to the man who in addition to doing that then fails to make good. I
hope to see our foreign policy conducted always in a spirit not merely
of scrupulous regard for the rights of others, but of scrupulous
courtesy toward others; and at the same time to see us keep prepared
so that there is no position that we take in either hemisphere that
once taken we can not stand on. With this in order not only is it
important that the Government officials should behave themselves, but
it is also important that private citizens should. The public speaker,
the writer in the press, the legislator, the public servant, all owe
it to this country to behave with the courtesy toward others which we
would like to have extended toward us; but to behave with that courtesy
whether it is extended in return or not. Outsiders can not hurt us by
being insolent so long as we behave ourselves. What they say is of no
consequence to us compared to what we say to them. Hard words will
not hurt us if we will only disregard them. Let them say anything;
but let us go on and build up the navy. That will be a much greater
provocative to friendship and respect than any amount of recrimination.
I have a right to appeal to the men here before me, to the men who
in so many different walks take the lead in this great city, to aid
in consistently building up just that type of foreign policy, a
foreign policy under which we shall make the name of the United States
Government a symbol on the one hand, as it ought to be, for the just
and proper insistence upon its own rights, but also a symbol for a
disinterested and generous willingness to treat all other nations, all
other powers, with just and with frank courtesy and good-will, and to
make it evident that in this country’s foreign policy it recognizes
its duty toward the weak just as much as its responsibility to the
strong.
AT THE BANQUET OF THE IROQUOIS CLUB, CHICAGO, ILL., MAY 10, 1905
_Mr. President, Mr. Toastmaster, and you, my Hosts_:
Our country is governed, and under existing circumstances can only be
governed, under the party system, and that should mean, and that will
mean, when we have a sufficient number of people who take the point of
view that Judge Dickinson takes, that there shall be a frank and manly
opposition of party to party, of party man to party man, combined with
an equally frank refusal to conduct a party contest in any such way as
to give good Americans cause for regret because of what is said before
election, when compared with what is said after election. The frankest
opposition to a given man or a given party on questions of public
policy not only can be, but almost always should be, combined with
the frankest recognition of the infinitely greater number of points
of agreement than of the points of difference. I have accepted your
kind and generous invitation to come before you this evening, because
the longer I am in public life the more firmly I am convinced that the
great bulk of the questions of most importance before us as a people
are questions which we can best decide not from the standpoint of
republicanism or democracy, but from the standpoint of the interests
of the average American citizen, whether Republican or Democrat.
This is true of both foreign and domestic questions. Our political
differences should, and in the great majority of cases do, disappear at
the water’s edge. When I had to choose a man to represent to a peculiar
degree the interests of this Government in one of the most important
foreign negotiations of recent years—that concerning the Alaskan
boundary—I chose the best lawyer, one of the ablest public men, and one
of the most fair-minded patriots that could be found in the country;
and the fact that he was of opposite political faith did not interfere
with Judge Dickinson’s doing that work well. That was a question that
concerned the United States—all of the United States. Most questions
that come up in Washington are questions that go much deeper than
party, are questions that affect the whole country, and the man would
be indeed unfit for the position of President who did not feel that
when he held that office he held it in the most emphatic sense as the
representative of all the people.
One of the works that Uncle Sam has on hand just at present is digging
the Panama Canal; and it is going to be dug. It is going to be dug
honestly and as cheaply as is compatible with efficiency; but with the
efficiency first. I wanted Congress to give me power to remodel the
commission. It did not do it. So I remodeled it anyhow, purely in the
exercise of my executive functions. I made up my mind this time that
I was not going to make the slightest effort to represent different
sections of the country on that commission, that I was going to have
the whole country represented, by putting the best man I could get in
any given position, without the slightest regard to where he came from;
and while it was an accident, still I may mention it as a fortunate
accident that the two most important positions were filled from
Illinois—Shonts and Wallace are both from Illinois.
These are external questions, as regards which the interests of the
whole country and not the interests of any party or any section of the
country must be considered by the President. So it is with certain of
our great internal policies.
Among the vital questions that have come up for solution, because of
the extraordinary industrial development of this country, as of all the
modern world, are the questions affecting capital and labor as regards
each other, and the questions resulting from the effect upon the public
of the organization into great masses of both capital and labor. I
believe thoroughly in each kind of organization, but I recognize that
if either kind of organization does what is wrong, the increase in its
power for efficiency that has resulted from the combination means the
increase in its power to do harm; and that, therefore, corporation—that
is, organized capital—and union—that is, organized labor—must alike be
held to a peculiar responsibility to the public at large, and that from
each alike we have the right to demand not only obedience to the law,
but service to the public.
There are two sides to what I have said, and we are very apt to hear
only insistence upon one side—sometimes insistence upon one side,
sometimes insistence upon the other, but not as often as we should
insistence upon both sides.
I take up first the question of organized capital. When this Nation was
created, such a thing as a modern corporation not only did not exist,
but could not be imagined. This is especially true of the great modern
corporations engaged in interstate commerce. A century ago the highways
of commerce were exactly such as they had been from the days of the
dawn of civilization on the banks of the Nile and in Mesopotamia. All
that could be done by waterways and by roads for wheeled vehicles
drawn by animal power had been developed to a very marked degree; but
sails, oars, wheeled vehicles and beasts of burden were, as they had
been for many thousands of years, the only means of commerce, the
only methods by which individuals or corporations engaged in commerce
could act. Under such circumstances the fathers and founders of this
Republic could not foresee, and therefore, doubly, could not provide
for, the conditions of the present day. We now have the great highways
of commerce of an entirely different kind. The waterway, the road for
wheeled vehicles, have sunk into absolute insignificance compared
with the railway. We therefore have for the first time in history a
highway for the commerce of all the people under the control of a
private individual or private corporation. Now, gentlemen, let me in
the first place insist upon this fact, that we should keep ever before
us that the men who have built up the great railroad systems of this
country, like the men who have built up the other great industries of
this country, have as a rule (there are exceptions, but as a rule)
made their fortunes as incidents to benefiting and not to harming the
country. As a rule benefit and not harm has come from their efforts,
and in making fortunes for themselves they have done good to all of
us. We have all benefited by the talents of the great captains of
industry. I am speaking, as I say, as a rule, with full knowledge of
the exceptions to what I say, but disregarding those exceptions in
making a general statement. We can not afford to do damage to those
men or to those corporations, because in the first place we can not
afford to do injustice to any man, rich or poor; in the next place,
because to do such damage to them would mean widespread damage among
the wage-workers and among the general public. All of this that I have
said I wish kept in mind steadily in appreciating what I am about to
say; for while acknowledging in the frankest manner the benefits that
have come from the development of these great industrial enterprises, I
also feel that we must recognize that the time has now come when it is
essential in the interests of the public that there should be, and be
exercised, an effective power of supervision and regulation over them
in the interests of the public.
The State can properly deal with the corporations doing business within
its own limits. The State can not deal at all with corporations doing
business in many different States, and it is an absurdity at once
ludicrous and harmful to leave it in the power of one State to create a
corporation of gigantic size which shall do all its work in a number of
other States, and perhaps with the scantiest regard for their laws.
Personally, I believe that the Federal Government must take an
increasing control over corporations. It is better that that control
should increase by degrees than that it should be assumed all at
once. But there should be, and I trust will be, no halt in the steady
progress of assuming such national control. The first step toward it
should be the adoption of a law conferring upon some executive body the
power of increased supervision and regulation of the great corporations
engaged primarily in interstate commerce of the railroads. My views
on that subject could not have been better expressed than they were
expressed yesterday by Secretary Taft in Washington, and as they were
expressed by the Attorney-General in his communication to the Senate
Committee a couple of weeks ago. I believe that the representatives
of the Nation—that is, the representatives of all the people—should
lodge in some executive body the power to establish a maximum rate,
the power to have that rate go into effect practically immediately,
and the power to see that the provisions of the law apply in full to
companies owning private cars and private tracks, just as much as the
railroads themselves. The courts will retain, and should retain, no
matter what the Legislature does, the power to interfere and upset
any action that is confiscatory in its nature. I am well aware that
the action of such a body as I have spoken of may stop far short of
confiscation, and yet do great damage. In other words, I am well aware
that to give this power means the possibility that the power may be
abused. That possibility we must face. Any power strong enough, any
power which could be granted sufficiently great to be efficient, would
be sufficiently great to be harmful if abused. That is true of the
power of taxation. It is perfectly possible for the body that has the
power of taxation intrusted to it to use it viciously and harmfully
against certain interests or certain classes. Nevertheless, the power
must exist. The power must be lodged in the representatives of the
people. So it is with the power of which I speak. It must exist; it
must be lodged in some body which is to give expression to the needs of
the people as a whole. The fact that it is possible that the power may
be abused is not, and can not be, an argument against placing it where
we shall have a right to expect that it will be used fairly toward all.
One thing I wish definitely understood. If the power is granted me to
create such a board, such a commission, or to continue in power, if I
so desire, a commission or board with increased powers, I shall strive
to appoint and retain men who will do exactly the same justice to the
railroads as they will exact from the railroads. False hopes are always
raised by any measure of reform, because there are always people who
expect the impossible. If the measure which I advocate is enacted into
law, a good many people will expect that it will bring the millennium
considerably nearer than will prove to be the case. The men whom I
appoint to execute that law will be, so far as my ability to choose
them exists, men who will no more be frightened by an even sincere
popular clamor into doing an act of injustice to any great corporation
than they will be frightened, on the other hand, into refraining from
doing an act of justice because it is against the interests of some
great corporation. In other words, I shall strive to see that that
branch of the Government with its increased power is administered as
every branch of the Government ought to be administered—that is, in a
spirit of striving to do exact justice to the men of great means just
as much as, and no more than, to the man of small means.
Now for the other side of the question. There have been a great many
republics before our time, and again and again these republics have
split upon the rock of disaster. The greatest and most dangerous rock
in the course of any republic is the rock of class hatred. Sometimes
in the past the republic became a republic in which one class grew to
dominate over another class, so that for loyalty to the republic was
substituted loyalty to a class. The result was in such case inevitable.
It meant disaster and ultimately the downfall of the republic, and it
mattered not one whit which class became dominant; it mattered not
one whit whether the poor plundered the rich or the rich exploited
the poor. In either case, just as soon as the republic became one in
which one class substituted loyalty to that class for loyalty to the
republic, the end of the republic was at hand. No true patriot will
fail to do everything in his power to prevent the growth of any such
spirit in this country.
This Government is not and never shall be a government of a plutocracy.
This Government is not, and never shall be, a Government of a mob. I
believe in corporations. They are indispensable instruments of our
modern industrialism; but I believe that they should be so supervised
and regulated that they shall act for the interest of the community as
a whole. So I believe in unions. I am proud of the fact that I am an
honorary member of one union. But I believe that the union, like the
individual, must be held to a strict accountability to the power of the
law.
Mr. Mayor, as President of the United States, and therefore as
representative of the people of this country, I give you, as a matter
of course, my hearty support in upholding the law, in keeping order, in
putting down violence, whether by a mob or by an individual. There need
not be the slightest apprehension in the heart of the most timid that
ever the mob spirit will triumph in this country. Those immediately
responsible for dealing with the trouble must, as I know you feel,
exhaust every effort in so dealing with it before a call is made upon
any outside body. But if ever the need arises, back of the city stands
the State, and back of the State stands the Nation.
There, gentlemen, is a point upon which all good Americans are one.
They are all one in the conviction, in the firm determination that
this country shall remain in the future as it has been in the past, a
country of liberty and justice expressed through the forms of law; a
country in which the will of the people is supreme, but in which that
will finds its expression as provided for in the Constitution of the
United States, and of the several States that go to make up our Nation.
REMARKS TO STRIKERS’ COMMITTEE, CHICAGO, ILL., MAY 10, 1905
_Mr. Shea_:
We are here as a committee to present to you a statement stating our
position in this controversy between the Employers’ Association and the
Teamsters’ Association. We have understood that they had asked your aid
for bringing troops into Chicago. We want to present our position to
you. Mr. Quinn has the memorial.
_Mr. Quinn_:
It will take about ten minutes to read this. Perhaps we had better
leave it with you.
_The President_, after reading the memorial:
Mr. Shea, Mr. Quinn, and Gentlemen:
I have read the petition you have presented to me, the conclusion of
which is a request for a hearing before any action be taken by the
Federal President, relating to the Chicago strike situation. As yet no
suggestion of any kind has come to me from any source that I should
take any action. Of the merits of the case I am wholly ignorant. I have
no knowledge of what the situation is, or of what steps should properly
be taken to end it. I feel, however, that in view of one statement, or
series of statements, in your letter, I ought to say this: I regret
that you should have in the letter spoken at all of the use of the
Federal army as you have there spoken. No request has been made to me
for action by the Federal Government, but at the same time, Mr. Shea,
as you have in this communication to me brought up that fact, I want to
say one thing with all the emphasis in my power. In upholding law and
order, in doing what he is able to do to suppress mob violence in any
shape or way, the Mayor of Chicago, Mayor Dunne, has my hearty support.
I am glad to be able to say this to you gentlemen before I say it to
any other body. Now let me repeat that I know nothing of the facts of
the situation. I know nothing of the rights or wrongs of the points at
issue. What I have to say is based purely upon what I regard as the
unfortunate phrasing of a letter presented to the President of the
United States. I have not been called upon to interfere in any way,
but you must not misunderstand my attitude. In every effort of Mayor
Dunne to prevent violence by mobs or individuals, to see that the laws
are obeyed and that order is preserved, he has the hearty support of
the President of the United States, and in my judgment he should have
that of every good citizen of the United States.
Now, gentlemen, it has been a great pleasure to see you, and I am glad
to have had the chance to say this to you.
_Mr. Quinn_:
Mr. President, what prompted us to come to you with this statement is
that for the past two or three weeks there has been a continual howl
for the Federal army. I have known you long enough to know that you
would not respond to a one-sided demand, that you will not respond
until you have thoroughly investigated the case.
_The President_:
Mr. Quinn, as yet the Mayor has not made any appeal to the Governor,
and therefore, of course, the Governor has made none to me; and as yet
nothing in the situation has demanded action by me.
_Mr. Shea_:
Let me explain that. The Governor has been requested by the committee
of the employers to demand Federal troops. The statement has been made
in the papers. I immediately telegraphed Governor Deneen that we would
allow him to appoint a commission.
Regardless of that I want to make our position known to you in regard
to mob violence. Every time a mob congregates, every act of violence
performed by either a union man or a sympathizer, it reacts to our
detriment. I believe that we are skilled workmen enough in our
particular craft to demonstrate to our business men of Chicago that
it is to their interest to employ us. There is nothing at stake but
the re-employment of citizens of Chicago who have been forced out of
their positions. Acts of violence meet with the condemnation of the
officials, both local and national, of our organization. It does not
meet with the sympathies of our organization. I simply want to say that
we want to be fair, to preserve the business interests of Chicago,
realizing that the prosperity of our employers is our prosperity.
_The President_:
Mr. Shea, I can only repeat what I have said. I am a believer in
unions. I am an honorary member of one union. But the union must obey
the law just as the corporation must obey the law, just as every man,
rich or poor, must obey the law. As yet no action whatever has been
called for by me, and most certainly if action is called for by me I
shall try to do exact justice under the law to every man, so far as
I have power. But the first essential is the preservation of law and
order, the suppression of violence by mobs or individuals.
AT THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF GENERAL HENRY W. SLOCUM,
BROOKLYN, N. Y., MAY 30, 1905
_Mr. Mayor, Mr. Commissioner, and you, my Fellow Citizens, and, above
all, you who took part in the great war in which the man whose statue
is raised to-day won for himself and his country renown and honor_:
Day before yesterday I listened to a sermon in which the preacher,
dwelling upon the exercises to be held throughout the Union to-day,
preached on the text which tells of the altar raised by command of
Moses to commemorate the victory gained by the children of Israel over
the wild tribes of the desert who sought to bar their march toward
the promised land. Amalek came out against Israel and they fought all
day, while Aaron and Hur upheld the hands of Moses until as night fell
the sun went down on Israel’s triumph. Then they raised an altar to
“Jehovah is my banner”; to Jehovah, who stood as the exponent of the
principle for which Israel warred. They raised it to the principle of
righteousness, which alone can justify any war or any struggle. Mr.
Mayor, that is the thought that you developed in the excellent address
to which we have just listened; that we meet to-day to commemorate
a great victory, the triumph of the cause of union and liberty, not
primarily because it was a mere victory, but because it was a victory
for righteousness and for the peace and liberty and eternal spiritual
welfare of mankind.
I see before me here men who won high honor serving as comrades in arms
of General Slocum, and I know that there exists in the Union no men who
will appreciate more the fact that now, forty years after the war, the
crowning triumph of what they did is to be found in the fact that we
have a genuinely reunited country, a country in which the man who wore
the blue stretches out the hand of loyal friendship to his erstwhile
foe, his now devoted friend and fellow-countryman, the man who wore
the gray. A short while ago I passed through the great State of Texas.
Wherever I stopped in that great State I was greeted by representatives
of the Grand Army marching side by side with or intermingled with men
clad in the gray uniform that showed that they had fought in the armies
of the Confederacy. They had tested one another’s worth on the stricken
fields, they knew each that the other had been ready when the hour of
supreme appeal came to show his truth by his endeavors. Now these men,
now you and those like you, now the men in blue and the men in gray,
know that they leave to their children and their children’s children as
a heritage of honor forever the memory of the great deeds done alike by
those who fought under Grant and by those who fought under Lee; for we,
because of the very fact that the Union triumphed now have the right
to feel a like pride in the valor and devotion of those who valiantly
fought against the stars in their courses, no less than of those who
finally saw their efforts and their sufferings crowned by triumph.
Think of it, my fellow-countrymen! Think of what a thrice-blessed
fortune is ours, that the greatest war that the nineteenth century
saw after the close of the Napoleonic struggles has left, not as most
wars inevitably do and must leave, memories of bitterness and anger
and shame to offset the memories of glory, memories which make the men
of one side hang their heads because the men of the other side walk
exultingly; that it has left not such dreadful memories, but instead
to victor and vanquished alike, after the temporary soreness is over,
the same right to feel the proudest satisfaction in the fact that the
Union was saved, and the utmost pride in the honor, the gallantry, the
devotion to the right as each side had given it the light to see the
right, shown alike by those who warred under one banner and by those
who warred under the other.
I congratulate the people of Brooklyn, not primarily upon raising
this statue, because that they ought to do, but upon the opportunity,
upon the chance of having it to raise. I congratulate them upon the
good fortune of having a fellow-citizen who in war and in peace alike
served his people so well as to make it their duty, not so much to
him as to themselves, to erect this statue that it might serve as a
lesson for the generations to come. And, my fellow-citizens, I am sure
we all realize the peculiar appropriateness of having the statue of
General Slocum received on behalf of the city of New York by its chief
magistrate, whose father was General Slocum’s illustrious commander.
Surely there is need for me to say but little in emphasis of what has
been set forth before I began to speak as to the prime significance
of General Slocum’s career. He was a fine soldier, a gallant and able
commander. Once the war was over he turned as whole-heartedly to
the pursuits of peace as he had during the war turned to the strife
of arms. General Slocum was one of those men on whose career we are
fortunately able to dwell in its entirety. We do not have to dwell
with emphasis on part of it because we do not care to speak of another
part of it. We are able to point to General Slocum as the type of what
a decent American citizen should be, as a man who was an example in
his family life, an example in his business relations, an honest and
upright public servant, no less than a tried and fearless soldier.
Now I want our people to remember the two sides of the lesson taught
by General Slocum’s life. A successful war for unrighteousness is the
most dreadful of all things; it is the thing that sets back more than
aught else the course of civilization. But no people worth preserving
ever existed or will exist that was not able to fight well if the
need arose. So it is with the individual. The man who possesses great
ability and great courage unaccompanied by the moral sense, a courage
and ability unguided by the stern purpose to do what is just and
upright, that man is rendered by the very fact of his courage and
ability only so much the greater menace to the community in which he
unfortunately dwells. We can not afford as a people ever to forget for
one moment that ability, farsightedness, iron resolution, perseverance,
willingness to do and dare, are qualities to be admired only if they
are put at the service of the right, at the service of decency and of
justice. The man who possesses those qualities and does not shape his
course by a fundamental and underlying moral principle is a menace to
each and all of us; and thrice foolish, thrice wicked is the other man
who condones his moral shortcomings because of his intellectual or
physical strength and prowess.
But it is equally important to remember that no amount of good
intention, no amount of sweetness and light, no amount of appreciation
of decency avails in the least in the rough work of the world as we
find it, unless back of the honesty of purpose, back of the decency
of life and thought, lies the power that makes a man a man. This is
true of the individual and it is true of the Nation. It is absolutely
essential that this Nation, if it is to hold the position in the future
that it has held in the past, must act not only within but without
its own borders in a spirit of justice and of large generosity toward
all other peoples. We owe this as an obligation to ourselves, we owe
it as an obligation to all mankind. More and more as we increase in
strength I hope to see a corresponding increase in the sober sense
of responsibility which shall prevent us either injuring or insulting
any other people. You may notice that I said “insulting” as well as
“injuring.” If there is one quality sometimes shown among us which
is not commendable it is the habit of speaking loosely about foreign
powers, foreign races. You do not need any of you to be told that
in private life you will often resent an insult quite as much as an
injury; and our public speakers and writers need to steadily keep
before their minds the thought that no possible good can come to us by
speaking offensively of any one else; while trouble may come.
It has been well said that the surest way for a nation to invite
disaster is to be opulent, aggressive, and unarmed. Now, we are
opulent, and I hope we shall remain so. I trust that we shall never be
aggressive unless aggression is not merely justified, but demanded;
demanded either by our own self-respect or by the interests of mankind.
But above all, let us remember that to be aggressive in speech or act,
and not to be armed, invites not merely disaster, but the contempt of
mankind.
Brooklyn not only furnished valiant soldiers to the Civil War, but it
furnished in time of peace a most excellent Secretary of the Navy of
the United States, General Tracy. If our navy is good enough, we have
a long career of peace before us. The only likelihood of trouble ever
coming to us as a nation will arise if we let our navy become too small
or inefficient. A first-class navy—first-class in point of size, above
all first-class in point of efficiency of the individual units acting
as units and in combination—is the surest and the cheapest guarantee
of peace. I should think that any man looking at what is happening and
what has happened abroad and in our own history during the past few
years, must be indeed blind if he can not read that lesson clearly.
General Slocum did his first great public service when the crisis
called not primarily for the softer and milder, but for the sterner and
harder virtues; and we can not afford in this day of material luxury,
in this day when civilization tends to make life easy, to ignore those
hard and stern virtues. In the workaday world as it is, not only in
war, but in private life and in public life alike, a man has to have
toughness of fibre or he can not put into effect even the best of
intentions. We can not afford to let the generation that is coming grow
up with the feeling that any quality will serve as a substitute for the
old, essential qualities of manliness in a man and womanliness in a
woman.
Much, very much, has been done in this country by education. No one
can overstate the debt that this country is under to the educators;
but in taking advantage of all the improved methods let us not forget
that there are certain qualities which are not new, which are eternal
because they are eternally true, the failure to develop which will
cause a loss that can not be offset by any merely intellectual or
mental gain. A sound body is a first-class thing, a sound mind is
an even better thing, but the thing that counts for most in the
individual as in the Nation is character—the sum of those qualities
which make a man a good man and a woman a good woman. You men of the
Civil War, you men to whom this country owes more than to any others,
no matter how great the service of those others may be (because to you
this country owes its life), you won the place you did, you won for
this country its salvation, because you had in you those qualities
which in the aggregate we know by the name of character, the qualities
which made you put material gain, material well-being, not merely
below, but immeasurably below devotion to an ideal, when the crisis
called for showing your manhood.
You went to the war leaving those behind who would make more money, but
carrying with you in your hearts the honor and the future of a mighty
Nation. You had, in the first place, the right spirit, and then you had
the quality of making that spirit evident in the time of need. If you
had not had patriotism, devotion to the country and to the flag, you
could have done nothing. But you could not have done much more if your
patriotism, your devotion to the flag, had not been backed up by the
power to show that your metal rang true in battle.
You showed in times that tried men’s souls what this country has a
right to expect from its sons. You had the supreme good fortune to test
your manhood in one of the two great crises of the Nation’s history,
the great crisis in which the Nation was born in the days of 1776, and
the no less great crisis in which the Nation was saved by the men of
1861. You have left us not merely a reunited country, but you have
left us the glorious heritage of the memory of the exploits, of the
qualities by which the country was left reunited.
Our days have fallen, for our good fortune, in times of peace. We have
not had to show the qualities that you showed in the dark years that
closed in the sunburst of Appomattox; but if we are to leave undimmed
to our children the heritage that you left to us, we must show in
peace, and, should the need ever arise, in war also, the qualities that
you showed; the qualities that make it now the pleasantest of all tasks
for a public servant who appreciates the greatness of America to come
on an occasion like this and see the people of a great city dedicate
a monument in honor of a great citizen, who, at every point of his
career, illustrated what the name American should be when it is used in
its highest, its deepest, and its best significance.
AT THE NAVAL BRANCH, Y. M. C. A., BROOKLYN, N. Y., MAY 30, 1905
_Officers and Enlisted Men of the United States Navy; and you, Friends
of the Navy, for if you are good Americans, you can be nothing else_:
I made up my mind to-day that, although there were very many
invitations extended to me in addition to that because of which I first
agreed to come here, there was just one which I could not refuse, and
that was to come to this building and meet you here. I do not have
to tell you that I believe in the navy of the United States with all
my heart, and that I believe in that which counts most in the navy,
the officers and enlisted men, the man behind the gun; the man in the
conning tower, in the gun turret, in the engine room, the man, wherever
he is, if he is doing his duty.
We owe a peculiar debt of gratitude to those who have taken the lead
in securing this building. The people of the United States should make
it their especial duty to see to the welfare, moral even more than
physical, of the men upon whose exertions, upon whose skill, training,
and prowess, upon whose character in time of crisis the honor of the
entire Nation will depend. All respect is due to those who, led by Miss
Gould, have erected this building, who have given expression to the
spirit which lies behind the building up of everything of this nature.
It shows that we are fortunately past the period when we are afraid
that if we make a man too decent he will not fight well enough.
I have had a good deal of experience in civil life, and I have never
yet found any job in civil life to which, other things being equal, I
did not prefer to appoint a man who had seen service in the navy or
army of the United States; because he has learned, if he is worth his
salt, certain qualities which double and treble his value in whatever
position he may be put. Therefore, not only for his sake do we owe it
to him to see that he has every chance to lead a wholesome and manly
life, but we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the Nation of which we
are all part, to see that that man’s capacities for good are given the
fullest chance for development. And much though I believe in the Y. M.
C. A., and in kindred organizations generally, I believe in them most
when they take such shape as this.
Now, a special word to you upon whom so heavy a responsibility rests;
because it depends upon the way you do your duty in peace as to whether
or not, should ever the need for war arise, our flag will receive
credit or discredit at your hands, or at the hands of your successors.
I can not too often say, in speaking to civilians, what every naval man
knows, that in battle those win who have prepared best for the battle
beforehand. I have seen to-day men who fought at Manila and men who
fought off Santiago. In both places we won, and we won hands down. We
won because the shots that hit were those that counted; because the men
on our ships knew how to handle them alone and in squadron, knew how
to get the best speed out of them, and how to do decent shooting with
them. I want you to notice I said decent shooting. I did not say it was
first-class. I think most of you are doing first-class shooting now;
and I would be mightily ashamed of you if you did not do better than
was done seven years ago; and I shall be ashamed of you if you don’t do
even better in the future.
Nothing has given Americans a better right to satisfaction than the
way in which the target practice of the average American ship has
improved, until I think we can fairly say that there are certain gun
crews and certain individual gun pointers who have reached as high a
degree of excellence as it is possible for any man to reach. The gun
crew counts for more than its individual pointer. You might have all
the individual shots you could gather, and they would not be worth
a rap if they could not act together, if they did not act so as to
subordinate in the mind of each man the success of that particular man
to the success for which they all stood.
More and more our people are waking up to the need of a navy. I think
in view of events now happening all over the world that we can count
upon having Congress continue to build up our navy. It is all-important
that we should have ships, the best in hull, the best in armor, the
best in armament, of any nation in the world. But there is something
that is more important still, and that is the character of you men to
whom I am speaking here, and of your comrades in the navy. You can
do nothing without the proper training, but the training will not do
very much if there is not the right stuff in you to train. I wish a
big navy; but I wish still more a navy first class for its size. Every
warship which is not first class in efficiency becomes in battle not a
help to the Nation, but a menace to the national honor. If the officers
and enlisted men are not trained to the highest point, then the best
ships are useless; and it is better to have none than to have useless
ships.
I believe in the navy of the United States, primarily because I
believe in the intelligence, the patriotism, and the fighting edge of
the average man of the navy. Often it needs a tragedy to bring out
the qualities that are in a man. You remember the dreadful accident
aboard the battleship “Missouri” a year ago. Lamentable and terrible
though it was, there were things connected with it that should make
every American feel a sense of proud confidence in the officers and
enlisted men in whom Uncle Sam confides his honor. When that accident
occurred in the turret there were some twenty minutes when every man
of that ship knew that any moment the ship might sink. But there was
not a touch of nervousness among the crew. The men went quietly to
their quarters and stayed there and waited, cool and resolute, to meet
whatever was in store for them; while those whose duty had put them in
the turret, or called them thither, showed genuine heroism. Each man
showed the quality which makes us reasonably confident that in war the
men at the quickfire guns can hit a torpedo boat; and which makes me
reasonably confident that the greater the punishment suffered on the
ship, the straighter you would shoot back. In other words, I believe
you have the coolness, the courage, the endurance, the fighting edge.
When the accident occurred on the “Missouri” it was the turn of the
“Texas” to go out to target practice. The “Texas” sent her boats over
to find out if the “Missouri” needed help, and found that she did not;
then she steamed out to target practice and made the best record at
target practice that had been made by any ship in our fleet at that
time. The men aboard her were not rattled; what had happened merely
keyed them to a higher pitch of effort.
I feel that too much can not be said to impress upon you the
all-importance of the work that you are doing. Even if you yourselves
never go into battle, you create the spirit which makes those who come
after you on the ships able to do their duty in battle. The time of
peace is the time when we must make ready for war, should war come. I
do not think we will have any war if we have a good enough navy; and
I could appeal to any peace society in the land for support upon the
ground that every first-class record of target practice in the American
navy is a positive provocative of peace and not of war. I am speaking
to the men who, more than any others in this country, do most for
peace. You are doing it and you will continue to do it only by fitting
yourselves in every way to be ready for war, if war should come.
AT THE GRADUATING EXERCISES OF THE COLLEGIATE DEPARTMENT OF CLARK
UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, MASS., JUNE 21, 1905
While it is incumbent upon every citizen of this country to do the
best that is in him, not only for his own sake, and the sake of
those immediately connected with him, but for the sake of the people
as a whole, it is especially incumbent upon the graduates of such
an institution of learning as this. Every man that graduates here
has received something, and something big, for which he has made no
return, and for which he can never make any return to the men giving
it. It is given in part by those who are dead and in part by those
who are living, but who can not ever receive any reward for that they
have themselves done. You graduates can not pay back directly to
the founder, to the trustees, to the president, to the professors,
what they have done in money and effort for you. There is just one
way and only one way in which you can give back to the college, to
the university, what you have received from the college, from the
university, and that is by so leading your lives in point of purpose
and in point of efficiency as to reflect honor upon those who did so
much for you, to show that they were right in doing what they did, and
that their effort was not wasted when they gave you this great chance.
Every college man owes a debt of gratitude to his college, which he can
pay in but one way, and that is by the way in which through his life he
makes that college stand in the estimation of the public.
It is true of the Nation, as of the individual, that the greatest doer
must also be a great dreamer. Of course, if the dream is not followed
by action, then it is a bubble; it has merely served to divert the man
from doing something. But great action, action that is really great,
can not take place if the man has it not in his brain to think great
thoughts, to dream great dreams. As has been so well pointed out
to-day, the marvelous rise of Germany in the world of industry and of
commerce, no less than of art and of letters, has been due to the fact
that the German is trained to have high ideals, and yet to treat these
ideals in practical fashion. I was immensely struck, as I think all of
us must have been struck, by the way in which, a few weeks ago, our
fellow-citizens of German birth or descent took part in commemorating
the life and writings of Schiller. I feel strongly, as the president
of Amherst has phrased it, that here in this country, where we are
amalgamating into one people many different peoples of many different
tongues, one of the great works to which we should devote our attention
is trying to keep what each of these peoples can give of value to our
composite national life. Each race that comes here, each element, can
contribute something of value, can usually contribute very much of
value; and it would be a good thing for all of our people if we should
shape our development so that it would seem as natural to us as it does
to the people of Germany to recognize the incalculable debt of a nation
to a writer like Schiller, to a man who has done work for the public,
for the nation, for all mankind, upon which no price can be put. From
Germany this country has learned much. Germany has contributed a great
element to the blood of our people, and it has given the most marked
trend ever given to our scholastic and university system, to the whole
system of training students and scholars. In taking what we should
from Germany, from this great kindred nation, I wish that we could take
especially the idealism which renders it natural to them to celebrate
such an event as Schiller’s life and writings; and also the keen,
practical common-sense which enables them to turn their idealistic
spirit into an instrument for producing the most perfect military and
industrial organizations that this world has ever seen.
Mr. Mabie has said that character counts most; of course it counts
most. I believe in a sound body, I believe in a sound mind. I believe
in character a great deal more than in either; and I believe in both
the body and the mind chiefly as the foundation for the character.
I remember when I was Governor, and had some correspondence with
President Hall, I found to my great pleasure that he took the views
that I did on the subject of boxing, he feeling as strongly as I felt
that we did not want to produce in institutions of learning a race of
nice, clever, well-bred young men, who can not hold their own in the
rough work of the world. I do not give a snap of my finger for the
young fellow who is afraid of being hurt physically, or in any other
way; he is not going to amount to anything in after life. Each of you
as you lead your lives will be hurt a good deal; if you have any pluck
in you at all you will face the punishment, take it, and win out in
spite of it. I want to see the physical development, more because of
its moral side than for any other reason. I want to see the intellect
developed only in so far as it is controlled by conscience, by a sense
of right and wrong. The better educated a man is the more dangerous he
is if he has no conscience. In these universities the benefit comes
from the education of a man’s character as well as of his intellect.
I hope most earnestly for the day when we shall see peace prevail among
the nations of mankind; and peace, industrial as well as military,
prevail within the nations themselves. No man in public position can,
under penalty of forfeiting the right to the respect of those whose
regard he most values, fail as the opportunity comes to do all that
in him lies for peace. But peace of a valuable type comes not to the
man who craves it because he is afraid, but to the man who demands it
because it is right. The peace granted contemptuously to the weakling
and the coward is but a poor boon after it has been granted.
We must keep our minds upon the essentials and not upon the
non-essentials. In 1861 there were people who cried peace, peace,
who said that any peace, no matter how shameful, was preferable to
the worst of all wars—a fratricidal war; and if those people had had
their way we should now be hanging our heads in shame. We should now
be feeling that the country founded by Washington, the country that at
that time was perpetuated by Lincoln, had gone down in the wreck of
irretrievable disaster. We got peace then, peace forever, as I believe,
in this country, because there were a sufficient number of men who felt
as President Wright felt and went to the war to fight for permanent
peace. I have scant patience with the brawler, the quarreler, the
swashbuckler, and I have a little less for the anæmic person, either of
body or soul, who believes that a nation any more than an individual
can afford to put peace before justice. Put justice first; it will
generally lead to peace; but follow it wherever it leads.
In closing, let me say just one more thing. The same homely virtues
apply in managing the life of a nation as in managing an individual’s
life. All the statesman needs to do is to exercise common-sense and
stick as close to the Decalogue and the Golden Rule as imperfect human
nature will permit. In other words, he needs to carry himself in
public life as he would in private life, and never permit the mistake
being made of divorcing public from private morality any more than of
divorcing domestic from business morality. The man is a poor citizen,
no matter how high he stands in the church, whose allegiance to the
teachings of the church is limited to his home and to Sunday, and is
not carried into his work or his business. The man is a poor citizen
who does not do his best to see that the affairs of his country, both
as regards the country’s attitude to other nations, and as regards
the country’s dealings with matters vital to its own citizens within
its limits, are managed along the same lines—the old simple lines of
honesty, courage, and common-sense.
AT HOLY CROSS COLLEGE, WORCESTER, MASS., JUNE 21, 1905
_Father, Bishop, Alumni of Holy Cross, and you, My Fellow-Citizens, men
and women of Worcester, of Massachusetts_:
It is a pleasure to me to be the guest of Holy Cross. It is eminently
characteristic of your State, and of all our Nation, that we should
have institutions of learning like this, in which the effort is
constant to train not merely the body and the mind, but the soul of the
man, so that he may be a good American, a good citizen of our great
country.
In this country of ours we are developing a new type of nationality,
a type kin to each of the various Old World races from which it in
part springs, and yet separate from all. Each stock that comes here
can furnish something of permanent value to the country as a whole;
and from each stock we have the right to expect the furnishing of that
element. Here in Holy Cross College I want to say one word spoken I
trust to ears willing to hear it. During the last three years I have
happened, by chance, to grow peculiarly interested in the great subject
of Celtic literature, and I feel that it is not a creditable thing to
the American Republic, which has in its citizenship so large a Celtic
element, that we should leave it to the German scholars and students
to be our instructors in Celtic literature. I want to see in Holy
Cross, in Harvard, in all the other universities where we can get the
chairs endowed, chairs for the study of Celtic literature. A century
and over ago the civilized world, which had been looking down upon old
Norse poetry as the production of a barbarous race, suddenly awoke
to the wealth of beauty contained in the Scandinavian sagas. If I am
not greatly in error we are now about to see a similar awakening to
the wealth of beauty contained in the Celtic sagas; and I wish to see
American institutions of learning take the lead in that awakening.
AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE, WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS., JUNE 22, 1905
_Mr. President, and you of Williams_:
It is a high honor that I have received at your hands, and I deeply
appreciate it. I appreciate it particularly because it is my good
fortune to find on the platform with me so many men to whom I am knit
by the bonds of personal friendship and of work for a common end. I
have listened with real pleasure to the three discourses to-day; and of
course the first was in my line of business.
Before speaking of what I had intended to say here to-day, I want to
say a word just suggested by that address on “idealism in politics.” I
wish to see every graduate of this college, and every graduate of every
other college in the land, feel (and I thank the speaker for the way he
emphasized it) the need of ideals in business and in law, quite as much
as in politics. I wish to see every graduate do all that in him lies to
uphold a standard of practical idealism in after life. I was struck
and amused by the sentence in which the speaker said that at present if
you spoke of ideals, you met with the answer, “Oh, yes, that is very
pretty in theory, but it won’t work in Troy!” There are two sides to
that. In the first place, it is a bad thing for Troy if Troy will not
stand idealism; and in the next place it is a poor type of ideal that
is of no use in Troy. I want you to remember the last just as much as
the first. I want you to have high ideals, but practical ideals. I do
not want you ever to get into a frame of mind which we see pretty often
in the world at large, which believes that you can only have either
high or fantastic ideals, or else low and practical ones. If you have
to choose, of course I would a great deal rather see you choose high
and fantastic ideals than low and practical ones, because the last are
a detriment to the Nation at large, while the first are merely of no
earthly consequence. If you have to choose between being noxious and
being merely harmless, of course, choose to be harmless. But do not
expect very great gratitude from any person interested in the country
if you choose merely to be harmless. If you choose to have high ideals
so fantastic that they are of no use when you try to apply them in
practical life, do not for one moment delude yourself into the belief
that to have these fantastic ideals shows that you are more virtuous
than the man who has not got them. It merely shows that you are more
foolish. Have a high ideal and try to realize it, measurably, within
your powers, as, immeasurably and with tremendous power, Abraham
Lincoln and George Washington strove to realize their ideals. Have
high ideals, and then try to realize them in practical shape. I do not
want to see you go out of this institution of learning with an ideal
impossible to put into effect, because I am afraid if you leave it with
such an ideal and find that this ideal does not work, then instead of
realizing that the fault lies in you for having chosen that kind of an
ideal, you will think it lies with idealism itself, and will abandon
idealism. What I desire to see you feel is that you must have a high
ideal; that you must also apply that ideal in practice; and above all
things to avoid the state of mind in which you preach an impossible
idealism, and make amends for it by not practicing any idealism at all.
It is perfectly true that you want to avoid improper compromises,
but you will not get any other, if you are not able to compromise in
non-essential matters. I do not suppose there is one of these men
on this platform—Mr. Root, Mr. Choate, Senator Crane—who has not
disagreed with me on some pretty important points, ranging from the
navy to corporations. But we have been able to come to a working
agreement. We have been able to establish a basis for common action,
not by surrendering on matters of principle, but by agreeing each to
subordinate his views on certain points, so that we could secure the
efficiency of action that can only come from united effort. I want you
to feel that to accomplish anything in after life, you men who are
just going out into the great world, you must keep ever before your
minds both the desire to work for betterment, and the power to work in
combination with your fellows (who will not on all points agree with
you) practically to achieve that betterment.
In striving to solve the immediate governmental problems that are
before us, we have a right to expect leadership from the men who come
out of Williams, who come out of the other colleges and universities of
the land; we have a right to expect that leadership to be shown with
practical efficiency, in seeing that this Nation does its duty abroad
and at home. I wish to see this Nation not merely talk for peace and
righteousness, but act for peace and righteousness; but I wish to see
this Nation stand for righteousness first and then for peace. I wish to
see the Nation stand for the peace of justice, for the righteousness in
the attainment of which peace is normally a potent instrument, but for
which we must stand, whether peace comes or not. In 1861, there were
men who cried peace, peace, when there was no peace; and we have peace
now combined with righteousness, and have secured it, as I believe,
for ages to come on this continent, because men then dared to draw the
sword for righteousness. We have no such terrible crisis as that of
1861 facing us now. On the contrary, we have a series of rather humdrum
little crises which it is sometimes exasperating to have to face, but
which we must.
The particular small crisis of which I am thinking is that in Santo
Domingo last year. I had done everything that in me lay to prevent
that crisis coming. All I asked, on behalf of the people of the United
States, of Santo Domingo was that it should be good and happy. Without
entering into the ethical question, I shall merely say that it was not
happy. Finally affairs grew into such shape down there that it was
evident that the bonds of society were on the point of dissolution;
and the Government of Santo Domingo made an earnest appeal to the
Government of the United States and asked that this Nation, out of the
abundance of its strength, should strive to help a weaker brother. Now
do not forget that that was the appeal, and that it was because of
this appeal that we took action. There were of course two motives that
influenced us. One was the desire to help the people of Santo Domingo
for their own sakes, and the other, and a legitimate one, was to try
to fend off the possibility of trouble coming to Santo Domingo, which
might bring the United States itself into trouble. The debts of Santo
Domingo were so great and the impossibility of paying all those debts
so patent that there was a threat of imminent interference by foreign
nations to collect the debts due their own citizens. And as the only
way of guaranteeing the collection of those debts was to seize the
custom-houses, it inevitably meant the seizure nominally, temporarily,
of a certain amount of Santo Domingo territory, which would almost
inevitably produce a conflict between us and those foreign governments.
So, in the interest of the peace of the world, and in the interest of
justice to Santo Domingo, we yielded to Santo Domingo’s request and
have started to try to help her so to carry on her finances that she
may be able to pay all that she can of what she justly owes. In taking
that action the Government has proceeded upon the theory that you
can not formulate a right, individual or national, without impliedly
formulating a responsibility and obligation to go with that right.
We say that in our own interest and in the interest of the peoples
of the Western Hemisphere we adhere to the Monroe Doctrine. With the
promulgation of that doctrine must go the responsibility that ought by
right to accompany it. We can not say that other peoples shall not do
what ought to be done, unless we do it ourselves. People answer that
trouble and bother will come if we do it. If this Nation refuses to do
its duty because it thinks the duty will necessitate encountering some
trouble, some bother, then let this Nation cease to claim to be great.
I demand that the Nation do its duty, and accept the responsibility
that must go with greatness. I ask that the Nation dare to be great,
and that in daring to be great it show that it knows how to do justice
to the weak no less than to exact justice from the strong. In order to
take such a position of being a great Nation, the one thing that we
must not do is to bluff. It is perhaps defensible, although I think
improper, to say that we will not try to be a big Nation, will not try
to play the part of a big Nation or act as such in the world. But the
unpardonable thing is to say we will act as a big Nation and then
decline to take the necessary steps to make the words good. Therefore,
gentlemen, see to it that the navy is built up, and kept at the highest
point of efficiency. I ask that, not in the interest of war, but as a
guarantee of peace. I believe in the Monroe Doctrine; I believe in the
building and maintaining as an open highway for the nations of mankind
the Panama Canal. But I had a great deal rather see this country
abandon the Monroe Doctrine and give up all thought of building the
Panama Canal than to see it attempt to maintain the one and construct
the other while refusing to provide the means which can alone render
our attitude as a Nation worthy of the respect of the other nations
of mankind. Keep on building and maintaining at the highest point of
efficiency the United States navy, or quit trying to be a big Nation.
Do one or the other.
Now for our internal affairs. I am particularly glad to speak to
an audience like this, because I do not know that I shall have the
unqualified assent of everybody here. If I address an audience merely
of men of very small means or wage-workers, then what I want to tell
them, as the most important thing for them to learn, is to avoid an
attitude of rancorous envy or hostility toward men of wealth, and above
all to remember that the well-being of our social structure rests upon
obedience to the law, upon the immediate suppression of mob violence,
mob rule, in any form. There can be and must be no paltering with any
manifestation of that spirit. Any attempt to override the law by action
of individuals or by the action of mobs, whether the attempt comes in
connection with labor difficulties or in any other way, must in the
interest of the Nation be met fearlessly at the earliest opportunity,
and the lawlessness put down.
On the other side, just as we must never allow this Government to be
changed into government by a mob, so we must never allow it to be
changed into government by a plutocracy. The growth of our modern
industrialism has resulted in an altogether disproportionate reward to
the man who goes into money-making as his only career. Two evil results
follow. One is the result to himself, for, unless he is a man of very
strong character, there almost inevitably comes a certain arrogance, or
at least a certain carelessness toward the rights of others. The other
result is to breed in the minds of poor people an attitude of sullen
envy toward men of wealth, which is infinitely more damaging to the
people who hold it than any action of the man of wealth could be.
There must be a closer supervision by the Government of great
industrial combinations, for of course wealth at present finds its
expression through these great industrial combinations. I think it
has been a mistake to act on the theory which has shaped most of our
legislation, National and State, for the last thirty years, that it is
possible to turn back the hands of the clock, to forbid combinations
and to restore business to conditions which have absolutely passed
away. That can not be done. What we can do is to exercise an efficient
supervision over the combinations, so as to see as far as possible
that they are used in the interest of and not against the interest
of the general public. I do not believe that such supervision can
come effectively through the State, nor that it can effectively come
through the municipality. Ultimately in the great majority of cases to
be effective it must be exercised by the National Government. I trust
that in the end means will be found by which the exercise of such
control over all the great industrial corporations which are really
engaged in and doing an interstate business will be lodged in the
hands of the National Government. As the first step to that I hope to
see the passage of legislation which will give as an executive, not
as a judicial function, to the National Government the supervision of
the railroads of the United States which are engaged in interstate
commerce, with the power, when a rate is complained of as improper and
unjust, to examine that rate, and if the rate should be changed to
change it to a given rate, and to have that given rate take practically
immediate effect. Now, I am perfectly well aware that there are
objections to the proposed change, but in my judgment they are far
outweighed by the objections attendant upon not making the change. The
fear expressed by excellent people, who no doubt feel it genuinely,
that we could not get a commission who would fix all the rates of the
railroads of the country, is to my mind much as if they should express
fear that you could not get Supreme Court Justices who would be able
to fix all the laws. I expect that the commission will be able to pass
upon a given rate brought before it, just as the Supreme Court passes
upon a given question of law brought before it; and one will prove to
be as feasible as the other has proved feasible. That system should
be, and in my judgment will be introduced. I believe it will work a
measurable betterment for the public. Listen to what I say—a measurable
betterment for the public. I do not believe that it will produce
the millennium, or anything approaching it; and I am quite certain
that some of its most ardent advocates will be disappointed with the
results. But I think measurable good will come. It can only come if the
officers intrusted with the administration of the law remember that it
is exactly as much their duty to protect the railroad from the public
as to protect the public from the railroad; to remember that when we
say we want justice from the railroad we must, if we are honest, add
also a pledge to do justice to the railroad.
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY, JUNE 28, 1905
THE HARVARD SPIRIT
_Bishop Lawrence, Brothers, Men of Harvard_:
We have just heard from a Harvard man speaking in behalf of the class
of ’55. I now speak to you in behalf of the class of ’80. Mr. Choate,
you can afford to be generous. A man whose life has been passed in
public service such as yours can freely praise those who come after
him. I speak in behalf of the younger men here present when I say
that we shall count ourselves more than happy if in the future we can
approach the service of the men of Harvard in the past. I trust that
if any great crisis come again—may Heaven forbid its coming—if ever a
great crisis like that of ’61 should come, may the men of that day who
have been brought up in Harvard rise level to it as you of the years
from ’55 onward rose level to meet the crisis of your day. We heard
from Mr. Agassiz what the class of his day did, how many of them went
into the Union Army, how some of them went into the gallant Confederate
Army, one of the members of which, the great justice from Louisiana,
Mr. Justice White, has to-day become an adopted son of Harvard. In
Kentucky, a number of years ago, I had a good friend, a man much older
than I was, Colonel John Mason Brown. He came back from a trip to the
Rocky Mountains just after Sumter had been fired on. His mother brought
him the sword that his father had worn with honor in the Mexican War,
and said to him, “My son, war has come, and you must draw this sword;
I hope you will draw it for the flag under which your father fought;
but draw it for one side or the other you must.” We Americans of to-day
have the right to feel the same pride in the valor, the devotion, the
fealty to the right as it was given them to see the right, of those who
wore the gray no less than of those who wore the blue.
In Bishop Lawrence’s introduction—an introduction which touched me
deeply, not only because of the words used, but because of the high
value which I put upon the friendship of the man using them—he spoke of
the effort that I am making for peace throughout the world. Of course
I am for peace. Of course every President who is fit to be President
must be for peace. But I am for one thing before peace; I am for
righteousness first, and then peace. I am for peace, because normally
peace is the best instrument wherewith to obtain righteousness. But,
Mr. Agassiz, when you and those like you faced 1861, you had to win
peace by war, and you rendered us forever your debtors, because when
the choice was between what was peaceful and what was right you chose
what was right.
A great university like this has two especial functions. The first is
to produce a small number of scholars of the highest rank, a small
number of men who, in science and literature, or in art, will do
productive work of the first class. The second is to send out into the
world a very large number of men who never could achieve, and who ought
not to try to achieve, such a position in the field of scholarship, but
whose energies are to be felt in every other form of activity; and who
should go out from our doors with the balanced development of body, of
mind, and above all of character, which shall fit them to do work both
honorable and efficient.
Much of the effort to accomplish the first function, that of developing
men capable of productive scholarship, as distinguished from merely
imitative, annotative, or pedagogic scholarship, must come through the
graduate school. The law school and medical school do admirable work in
fitting men for special professions, but they in no shape or way supply
any shortcomings in the graduate school any more than does the college
proper, the college of the undergraduates. The ideal for the graduate
school and for those undergraduates who are to go into it must be the
ideal of high scholarly production, which is to be distinguished in
the sharpest fashion from the mere transmittal of ready-made knowledge
without adding to it. If America is to contribute its full share to
the progress not alone of knowledge, but of wisdom, then we must put
ever-increasing emphasis on university work done along the lines of the
graduate school. We can best help the growth of American scholarship
by seeing that as a career it is put more on a level with the other
careers open to our young men. The general opinion of the community
is bound to have a very great effect even upon its most vigorous and
independent minds. If in the public mind the career of the scholar
is regarded as of insignificant value when compared with that of a
glorified pawnbroker, then it will with difficulty be made attractive
to the most vigorous and gifted of our American young men. Good
teachers, excellent institutions, and libraries are all demanded in a
graduate school worthy of the name. But there is an even more urgent
demand for the right sort of student. No first-class science, no
first-class literature or art, can ever be built up with second-class
men. The scholarly career, the career of the man of letters, the man of
arts, the man of science, must be made such as to attract those strong
and virile youths who now feel that they can only turn to business,
law, or politics. There is no one thing which will bring about this
desired change, but there is one thing which will materially help in
bringing it about, and that is to secure to scholars the chance of
getting one of a few brilliant positions as prizes if they rise to the
first rank in their chosen career. Every such brilliant position should
have as an accompaniment an added salary, which shall help indicate how
high the position really is; and it must be the efforts of the alumni
which can alone secure such salaries for such positions.
As a people I think we are waking up to the fact that there must be
better pay for the average man and average woman engaged in the work
of education. But I am not speaking of this now; I am not speaking of
the desirability, great though that is, of giving better payment to
the average educator, I am speaking of the desirability of giving to
the exceptional man the chance of winning an exceptional prize, just
as he has the chance to do in law and business. In business at the
present day nothing could be more healthy than an immense reduction
in the money value of the exceptional prizes thus to be won; but in
scholarship what is needed is the reverse. In this country we rightly
go upon the theory that it is more important to care for the welfare
of the average man than to put a premium upon the exertions of the
exceptional. But we must not forget that the establishment of such a
premium for the exceptional, though of less importance, is nevertheless
of very great importance. It is important even to the development of
the average man, for the average of all of us is raised by the work of
the great masters.
It is, I trust, unnecessary to say that I appreciate to the full the
fact that the highest work of all will never be affected one way or
the other by any question of compensation. And much of the work which
is really best for the Nation must from the very nature of things be
non-remunerative as compared with the work of the ordinary industries
and vocations. Nor would it ever be possible or desirable that the
rewards of transcendent success in scholarship should even approximate,
from a monetary standpoint, the rewards in other vocations. But it is
also true that the effect upon ambitious minds can not but be bad if
as a people we show our very slight regard for scholarly achievement
by making no provision at all for its reward. The chief use of the
increased money value of the scholar’s prize would be the index thereby
afforded of the respect in which it was popularly held. The American
scientist, the American scholar, should have the chance at least of
winning such prizes as are open to his successful brother in Germany,
England, or France, where the rewards paid for first-class scholarly
achievement are as much above those paid in this country as our
rewards for first-class achievement in industry or law are above those
paid abroad.
But of course what counts infinitely more than any possible outside
reward is the spirit of the worker himself. The prime need is to
instil into the minds of the scholars themselves a true appreciation
of real as distinguished from sham success. In productive scholarship,
in the scholarship which adds by its work to the sum of substantial
achievement with which the country is to be credited, it is only
first-class work that counts. In this field the smallest amount of
really first-class work is worth all the second-class work that can
possibly be produced; and to have done such work is in itself the
fullest and amplest reward to the man producing it. We outsiders should
according to our ability aid him in every way to produce it. Yet all
that we can do is but little compared to what he himself can and must
do. The spirit of the scholar is the vital factor in the productive
scholarship of the country.
So much for the first function of the university, the sending forth of
a small number of scholars of the highest rank who will do productive
work of the first class. Now turn to the second, and what may be called
the normal function of the college, the function of turning out each
year many hundreds of men who shall possess the trained intelligence,
and especially the character, that will enable them to hold high the
renown of this ancient seat of learning by doing useful service for
the Nation. It is not my purpose to discuss at length what should be
done in Harvard to produce the right spirit among the men who go
out of Harvard, but rather to speak of what this spirit should be.
Nor shall I speak of the exceptions, the men to whom college life is
a disadvantage. Randolph of Roanoke, he of the biting tongue, once
remarked of an opponent that he reminded him of certain tracts of land
“which were almost worthless by nature, and became entirely so by
cultivation.” Of course, if, in any individual, university training
produces a taste for refined idleness, a distaste for sustained effort,
a barren intellectual arrogance, or a sense of supercilious aloofness
from the world of real men who do the world’s real work, then it has
harmed that individual; but in such case there remains the abiding
comfort that he would not have amounted to much anyway. Neither a
college training nor anything else can do much good to the man of weak
fibre or to the man with a twist in his moral or intellectual makeup.
But the average undergraduate has enough robustness of nature, enough
capacity for enthusiasm and aspiration, to make it worth while to turn
to account the stuff that is in him.
There are, however, two points in the undergraduate life of Harvard
about which I think we have a right to feel some little concern. One
is the growth of luxury in the university. I do not know whether
anything we can say will have much effect on this point, but just so
far as the alumni have weight I hope to see that weight felt in serious
and sustained effort against the growing tendency to luxury, and in
favor of all that makes for democratic conditions. One of our number,
the one whom I think the rest of us most delight to honor—Colonel
Higginson—has given to our Alma Mater the Harvard Union, than which no
better gift, no gift meeting a more vital need, could have been given
to the university. It is neither possible nor desirable to try to take
away all social differences from the student life; but it is a good
thing to show how unimportant these differences are compared to the
differences of real achievement, and compared also to the bonds which
should unite together all the men who are in any degree capable of such
real achievement; bonds, moreover, which should also knit these capable
men to their brethren who need their help.
The second point upon which I wish to speak is the matter of sport.
Now I shall not be suspected of a tendency unduly to minimize the
importance of sport. I believe heartily in sport. I believe in outdoor
games, and I do not mind in the least that they are rough games, or
that those who take part in them are occasionally injured. I have no
sympathy whatever with the overwrought sentimentality which would keep
a young man in cotton wool, and I have a hearty contempt for him if
he counts a broken arm or collar bone as of serious consequence when
balanced against the chance of showing that he possesses hardihood,
physical address, and courage. But when these injuries are inflicted
by others, either wantonly or of set design, we are confronted by
the question, not of damage to one man’s body, but of damage to the
other man’s character. Brutality in playing a game should awaken the
heartiest and most plainly shown contempt for the player guilty of
it; especially if this brutality is coupled with a low cunning in
committing it without getting caught by the umpire. I hope to see both
graduate and undergraduate opinion come to scorn such a man as one
guilty of base and dishonorable action, who has no place in the regard
of gallant and upright men.
It is a bad thing for any college man to grow to regard sport as the
serious business of life. It is a bad thing to permit sensationalism
and hysteria to shape the development of our sports. And finally it
is a much worse thing to permit college sport to become in any shape
or way tainted by professionalism, or by so much as the slightest
suspicion of money-making; and this is especially true if the
professionalism is furtive, if the boy or man violates the spirit
of the rule while striving to keep within the letter. Professional
sport is all right in its way. I am glad to say that among my friends
I number professional boxers and wrestlers, oarsmen, and baseball
men, whose regard I value, and whom in turn I regard as thoroughly
good citizens. But the college undergraduate who, in furtive fashion,
becomes a semi-professional is an unmitigated curse, and that not
alone to university life and to the cause of amateur sport; for the
college graduate ought in after years to take the lead in putting the
business morality of this country on a proper plane, and he can not do
it if in his own college career his code of conduct has been warped
and twisted. Moreover, the spirit which puts so excessive a value upon
his work as to produce this semi-professional is itself unhealthy. I
wish to see Harvard win a reasonable proportion of the contests in
which it enters, and I should be heartily ashamed of every Harvard
athlete who did not spend every ounce there was in him in the effort
to win, provided only he does it in honorable and manly fashion. But
I think our effort should be to minimize rather than to increase that
kind of love of athletics which manifests itself, not in joining in
the athletic sports, but in crowding by tens of thousands to see other
people indulge in them. It is a far better thing for our colleges to
have the average student interested in some form of athletics than to
have them all gather in a mass to see other people do their athletics
for them.
So much for the undergraduates. Now for the alumni, the men who are
at work out in the great world. Of course the man’s first duty is to
himself and to those immediately dependent upon him. Unless he can pull
his own weight he must be content to remain a passenger all his life.
But we have a right to expect that the men who come out of Harvard will
do something more than merely pull their own weight. We have a right to
expect that they will count as positive forces for the betterment of
their fellow-countrymen; and they can thus count only if they combine
the power of devotion to a lofty ideal with practical common-sense in
striving to realize this ideal.
This Nation never stood in greater need than now of having among its
leaders men of lofty ideals, which they try to live up to and not
merely to talk of. We need men with these ideals in public life, and
we need them just as much in business and in such a profession as the
law. We can by statute establish only those exceedingly rough lines of
morality the overpassing of which means that the man is in jeopardy
of the constable or the sheriff. But the Nation is badly off if in
addition to this there is not a very much higher standard of conduct,
a standard impossible effectively to establish by statute, but one
upon which the community as a whole, and especially the real leaders
of the community, insist. Take such a question as the enforcement of
the law. It is, of course, elementary to say that this is the first
requisite in any civilization at all. But a great many people in the
ranks of life from which most college men are drawn seem to forget that
they should condemn with equal severity those men who break the law by
committing crimes of mob violence and those who evade the law, or who
actually break it, but so cunningly that they can not be discovered,
the crimes they commit being not those of physical outrage, but those
of greed and craft on the largest scale. The very rich man who conducts
his business as if he believed that he were a law unto himself thereby
immensely increases the difficulty of the task of upholding order when
the disorder is a menace to men of property; for if the community feels
that rich men disregard the law where it affects themselves, then
the community is apt to assume the dangerous and unwholesome attitude
of condoning crimes of violence committed against the interests which
in the popular mind these rich men represent. This last attitude is
wholly evil; but so is the attitude which produces it. We have a
right to appeal to the alumni of Harvard, and to the alumni of every
institution of learning in this land, to do their part in creating a
public sentiment which shall demand of all men of means, and especially
of the men of vast fortune, that they set an example to their less
fortunate brethren, by paying scrupulous heed not only to the letter
but to the spirit of the laws, and by acknowledging in the heartiest
fashion the moral obligations which can not be expressed in law, but
which stand back of and above all laws. It is far more important that
they should conduct their business affairs decently than that they
should spend the surplus of their fortunes in philanthropy. Much has
been given to these men and we have the right to demand much of them in
return. Every man of great wealth who runs his business with cynical
contempt for those prohibitions of the law which by hired cunning he
can escape or evade is a menace to our community; and the community is
not to be excused if it does not develop a spirit which actively frowns
on and discountenances him. The great profession of the law should be
that profession whose members ought to take the lead in the creation of
just such a spirit. We all know that, as things actually are, many of
the most influential and most highly remunerated members of the bar
in every centre of wealth make it their special task to work out bold
and ingenious schemes by which their very wealthy clients, individual
or corporate, can evade the laws which are made to regulate in the
interest of the public the use of great wealth. Now, the great lawyer
who employs his talent and his learning in the highly remunerative task
of enabling a very wealthy client to override or circumvent the law
is doing all that in him lies to encourage the growth in this country
of a spirit of dumb anger against all laws and of disbelief in their
efficacy. Such a spirit may breed the demand that laws shall be made
even more drastic against the rich, or else it may manifest itself in
hostility to all laws. Surely Harvard has the right to expect from her
sons a high standard of applied morality, whether their paths lead them
into public life, into business, or into the great profession of the
law, whose members are so potent in shaping the growth of the national
soul.
But in addition to having high ideals it can not too often be said to
a body such as is gathered here to-day, that together with devotion
to what is right must go practical efficiency in striving for what is
right. This is a rough, workaday, practical world, and if in it we
are to do the work best worth doing, we must approach that work in a
spirit remote from that of the mere visionary, and above all remote
from that of the visionary whose aspirations after good find expression
only in the shape of scolding and complaining. It shall not help us if
we avoid the Scylla of baseness of motive, only to be wrecked on the
Charybdis of wrong-headedness, of feebleness and inefficiency. There
can be nothing worse for the community than to have the men who profess
lofty ideals show themselves so foolish, so narrow, so impracticable,
as to cut themselves off from communion with the men who are actually
able to do the work of governing, the work of business, the work of
the professions. It is a sad and evil thing if the men with a moral
sense group themselves as impractical zealots, while the men of action
gradually grow to discard and laugh at all moral sense as an evidence
of impractical weakness. Macaulay, whose eminently sane and wholesome
spirit revolted not only at weakness, but at the censorious folly which
masquerades as virtue, describes the condition of Scotland at the end
of the seventeenth century in a passage which every sincere reformer
should keep constantly before him.
“It is a remarkable circumstance that the same country should have
produced in the same age the most wonderful specimens of both extremes
of human nature. Even in things indifferent the Scotch Puritan would
hear of no compromise; and he was but too ready to consider all who
recommended prudence and charity as traitors to the cause of truth. On
the other hand, the Scotchmen of that generation who made a figure in
Parliament were the most dishonest and unblushing time-servers that the
world has ever seen. Perhaps it is natural that the most callous and
impudent vice should be found in the near neighborhood of unreasonable
and impracticable virtue. Where enthusiasts are ready to destroy or
be destroyed for trifles magnified into importance by a squeamish
conscience, it is not strange that the very name of conscience should
become a byword of contempt to cool and shrewd men of business.”
The men who go out from Harvard into the great world of American life
bear a heavy burden of responsibility. The only way they can show
their gratitude to their Alma Mater is by doing their full duty to the
Nation as a whole; and they can do this full duty only if they combine
the high resolve to work for what is best and most ennobling with the
no less resolute purpose to do their work in such fashion that when
the end of their days comes they shall feel that they have actually
achieved results and not merely talked of achieving them.
TO THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION, OCEAN GROVE, N. J.,
JULY 7, 1905
_Mr. Maxwell; Members of the National Educational Association_:
I am glad to have the chance of greeting the National Educational
Association; for in all this democratic land there is no more genuinely
democratic association than this. It is truly democratic, because here
each member meets every other member as his peer without regard to
whether he is the president of one of the great universities or the
newest recruit to that high and honorable profession which has in its
charge the upbringing and training of those boys and girls who in a few
short years will themselves be settling the destinies of this Nation.
It is not too much to say that the most characteristic work of the
Republic is that done by the educators, for whatever our shortcomings
as a Nation may be, we have at least firmly grasped the fact that
we can not do our part in the difficult and all-important work of
self-government, that we can not rule and govern ourselves, unless we
approach the task with developed minds and trained characters. You
teachers make the whole world your debtor. If you did not do your work
well this Republic would not endure beyond the span of the generation.
Moreover, as an incident to your avowed work, you render some wellnigh
unbelievable services to the country. For instance, you render to
the Republic the prime, the vital service of amalgamating into one
homogeneous body the children alike of those who are born here and of
those who come here from so many different lands abroad. You furnish
a common training and common ideals for the children of all the mixed
peoples who are here being fused into one nationality. It is in no
small degree due to you and your efforts that we are one people instead
of a group of jarring peoples.
Moreover, where altogether too much prominence is given to the mere
possession of wealth, the country is under heavy obligations to such
a body as this, which substitutes for the ideal of accumulating
money the infinitely loftier, non-materialistic ideal of devotion to
work worth doing simply for that work’s sake. I do not in the least
underestimate the need of having material prosperity as the basis of
our civilization, but I most earnestly insist that if our civilization
does not build a lofty superstructure on this basis, we can never
rank among the really great peoples. A certain amount of money is of
course a necessary thing, as much for the Nation as for the individual;
and there are few movements in which I more thoroughly believe than
in the movement to secure better remuneration for our teachers. But,
after all, the service you render is incalculable, because of the very
fact that by your lives you show that you believe ideals to be worth
sacrifice, and that you are splendidly eager to do non-remunerative
work if this work is of good to your fellow-men.
To furnish in your lives such a realized high ideal is to do a great
service to the country. The chief harm done by the men of swollen
fortune to the community is not the harm that the demagogue is apt to
depict as springing from their actions, but the fact that their success
sets up a false standard, and so serves as a bad example for the rest
of us. If we did not ourselves attach an exaggerated importance to
the rich man who is distinguished only by his riches, this rich man
would have a most insignificant influence over us. It is generally
our own fault if he does damage to us, for he damages us chiefly by
arousing our envy or by rendering us sour and discontented. In his
actual business relations he is much more apt to benefit than harm the
rest of us; and though it is eminently right to take whatever steps
are necessary in order to prevent the exceptional members of his class
from doing harm, it is wicked folly to let ourselves be drawn into any
attack upon the man of wealth merely as such. Moreover, such an attack
is in itself an exceptionally crooked and ugly tribute to wealth, and
therefore the proof of an exceptionally ugly and crooked state of
mind in the man making the attack. Venomous envy of wealth is simply
another form of the spirit which in one of its manifestations takes the
shape of cringing servility toward wealth, and in another the shape
of brutal arrogance on the part of certain men of wealth. Each one of
these states of mind, whether it be hatred, servility, or arrogance,
is in reality closely akin to the other two; for each of them springs
from a fantastically twisted and exaggerated idea of the importance
of wealth as compared to other things. The clamor of the demagogue
against wealth, the snobbery of the social columns of the newspapers
which deal with the doings of the wealthy, and the misconduct of those
men of wealth who act with brutal disregard of the rights of others,
seem superficially to have no fundamental relation; yet in reality they
spring from shortcomings which are fundamentally the same; and one of
these shortcomings is the failure to have proper ideals.
This failure must be remedied in large part by the actions of you and
your fellow-teachers, your fellow-educators throughout this land. By
your lives, no less than by your teachings, you show that while you
regard wealth as a good thing, you regard other things as still better.
It is absolutely necessary to earn a certain amount of money; it is a
man’s first duty to those dependent upon him to earn enough for their
support; but after a certain point has been reached money-making can
never stand on the same plane with other and nobler forms of effort.
The roll of American worthies numbers men like Washington and Lincoln,
Grant and Farragut, Hawthorne and Poe, Fulton and Morse, St. Gaudens
and MacMonnies; it numbers statesmen and soldiers, men of letters,
artists, sculptors, men of science, inventors, explorers, roadmakers,
bridge builders, philanthropists, moral leaders in great reforms; it
numbers men who have deserved well in any one of countless fields of
activity; but of rich men it numbers only those who have used their
riches aright, who have treated wealth not as an end, but as a means,
who have shown good conduct in acquiring it and not merely lavish
generosity in disposing of it.
Thrice fortunate are you to whom it is given to lead lives of resolute
endeavor for the achievement of lofty ideals, and, furthermore, to
instil, both by your lives and by your teachings, these ideals into the
minds of those who in the next generation will, as the men and women of
that generation, determine the position which this Nation will hold in
the history of mankind.
In closing, I want to speak to you of how certain things, some of which
have happened, and some of which have been suggested to me by what has
happened, in the past week, emphasize what I have said to you as to the
importance to this country of having within its limits men who put the
realization of high ideals above any form of money-making.
Within a week this country has lost a great statesman, who was also a
great man of letters; a man who occupied a peculiar and unique position
in our country; a man of whose existence we could each of us be proud;
for the United States as a whole was better because John Hay lived.
John Hay entered the public service as a young man just come of age,
as the secretary of President Lincoln. He served in the war and was a
member of the Loyal Legion. He was trusted by and was intimate with
Lincoln as hardly any other man was. He then went on rendering service
after service; yet always able (this was one of his great advantages
and great merits) at any moment to go back to private life unless
he could continue in public life on his own terms. As the climax
of his career he served as Secretary of State under two successive
administrations, and by what he did and by what he was he contributed
in no small degree to achieving for this Republic the respect of the
nations of mankind. Such service as that could not have been rendered
save by a man who had before him ideals as far apart as the poles from
those ideals which have in them any taint of what is base or sordid.
Now I wished to secure as John Hay’s successor the man whom I regarded
as of all the men in the country that one best fitted to be such
successor. In asking him to accept the position of Secretary of State
I was asking him to submit to a very great pecuniary sacrifice; and I
never even thought of that aspect of the question, for I knew he would
not either. I knew that whatever other considerations he had to weigh
for and against taking the position, the consideration of how it would
affect his personal fortune would not be taken into account by Elihu
Root; and he has accepted.
I am not speaking of Hay and Root as solitary exceptions. On the
contrary, I am speaking of them as typical of a large class of men in
public life. When we hear so much criticism of certain aspects of our
public life and of certain of our public servants, criticism which
I regret to state is in many cases deserved, it is well for us to
remember also the other side of the picture, to remember that here in
America we have and always have had at the command of the Nation in any
crisis, in any emergency, the very best ability to be found within the
Nation; and this ability has been given with the utmost freedom, given
lavishly and generously, although at great pecuniary loss to the man
giving it.
There is not in my Cabinet a man to whom it is not a financial
disadvantage to stay in the Cabinet. There is not in my Cabinet a man
who does not have to give up something substantial, often very much
that is substantial, sometimes what it is a very real hardship for him
to give up, in order that he may continue in the service of the Nation;
and the only reward for which he looks or for which he cares is the
consciousness of doing service worth rendering. I hope to see more and
more throughout this Nation the spirit grow which makes such service
possible. I hope more and more to see the sentiment of the country as
a whole become such that each man shall feel borne in on him, whether
he is in public life or in private life (and, mind you, some of the
greatest public services can be best rendered by those who are not in
public life), that the chance to do good work is the greatest chance
that can come to any man or any woman in our generation or in any other
generation. Let each man feel that if such work can be well done it is
in itself the amplest reward and the amplest prize.
TO THE LONG ISLAND MEDICAL SOCIETY, AT OYSTER BAY, N. Y., JULY 12, 1905
_Mr. President, Members of the Association, Friends and Neighbors_:
I needed no invitation to come before you to-day. All I needed was
permission. As soon as I learned that this association was to meet in
our village I felt that I must take advantage of the opportunity to say
a word of greeting to you in person.
Of course it is almost needless to say that there is not and can not
be any other lay profession the members of which occupy such a dual
position, each side of which is of such importance—for the doctor has
on the one hand to be the most thoroughly educated man in applied
science that there is in the country, and on the other hand, as
every layman knows, and as doubtless many a layman in the circle of
acquaintance of each of you would gladly testify, the doctor gradually
becomes the closest friend to more people than would be possible in
any other profession. The feelings that a man has toward the one human
being to whom he turns, either in time of sickness for himself, or,
what is far more important, in the time of sickness of those closest
and dearest to him, can not but be of a peculiar kind. He can not but
have a feeling for him such as he has for no other man. The doctor
must, therefore, to the greatest degree develop his nature along the
two sides of his duties, although in the case of any other man you
would call him a mighty good citizen if he developed only on one side.
The scientific man who is really a first-class scientific man has a
claim upon the gratitude of all the country; and the man who is a
first-class neighbor, and is always called in in time of trouble by his
neighbors, has an equal claim upon society at large. But the doctor has
both claims. Yet in addition to filling both of those functions he may
fill many other functions. He may have served in the Civil War; he may
have rendered the greatest possible service to the community along any
one of a dozen different lines.
Take, for instance, just what is being done in one of the great works
of this country at the present time—the digging of the Panama Canal.
That is a work that only a big nation could undertake or that a big
nation could do, and it is a work for all mankind. The condition
precedent upon success in that work is having the proper type of
medical work as a preliminary, as a basis. That is the first condition,
upon the meeting of which must depend our success in solving the
engineering and administrative problems of the work itself. I am happy
to say that the work is being admirably done, and I am particularly
glad to have this chance of saying it. Now and then some alarmist
report will come from Panama. Just a couple of weeks ago there seemed
to be a succession of people coming up from Panama, each one of whom
had some tale of terror to tell. You will always find in any battle,
even if it is a victorious battle, that in the rear you will meet
a number of gentlemen who are glad that they are not at the front;
who, if they have unfortunately gotten at the front, have come away,
and who justify their absence from the front by telling tales of how
everything has gone wrong there. Now the people that flee from Panama
will carry up here just such stories as the people that flee from the
forefront of a battle carry to the rear with them. The people to whom
this country owes and will owe much are those who stay down there and
do not talk, but do their work, and do it well. Of course, in doing
a great work like that in the tropics, in a region which until this
Government took hold of it was accounted to be a region exceptionally
unhealthy, we are going to have trouble, have some yellow fever, have a
good deal of malarial fever, and suffer more from the latter than from
the yellow fever, although we will hear nothing like the talk about it.
We will have every now and then trouble as regards hygiene, just as we
will have trouble in the engineering problems, just as occasionally we
will have troubles in the administrative work. Whenever any of those
troubles come there will be a large number of excellent but timid men
who will at once say what an awful calamity it is, and express the
deepest sorrow and concern, and be rather inclined to the belief that
the whole thing is a failure. It will not be a failure. It will be a
success; and it will be a success because we shall treat every little
check, not as a reason for abandoning the work, but as a reason for
altering and bettering our plans so as to make it impossible that that
particular check shall happen again.
What is being done in Panama is but a sample of the things that this
country has done during the last few years, of the things in which
your profession has borne so prominent a part. Take what we did in
Cuba, where we tried the experiment which had not been tried for four
hundred years—of cleaning the cities. One of the most important items
of the work done by our Government in Cuba was the work of hygiene,
the work of cleaning and disinfecting the cities so as to minimize the
chance for yellow fever, so as to do away with as many as possible of
the conditions that told for disease. This country has never had done
for it better work, that is, work that reflected more honor upon the
country, or for humanity at large, than the work done for it in Cuba.
And the man who above all others was responsible for doing that work
so well was a member of your profession, who when the call to arms
came himself went as a soldier to the field—the present Major-General
Leonard Wood. Leonard Wood did in Cuba just the kind of work that,
for instance, Lord Cromer has done in Egypt. We have not been able to
reward Wood in anything like the proportion in which services such as
his would have been rewarded in any other country of the first rank;
and there have been no meaner and more unpleasant manifestations
in all our public history than the feelings of envy and jealousy
manifested toward Wood. And the foul assaults and attacks made upon
him, gentlemen, were largely because they grudged the fact that this
admirable military officer should have been a doctor.
AT WILKESBARRE, PA., AUGUST 10, 1905
I am particularly glad to speak to this audience of miners and their
wives and children, and especially to speak under the auspices of this
great temperance society. In our country the happiness of all the rest
of our people depends most of all upon the welfare of the wage-worker
and the welfare of the farmer. If we can secure the welfare of these
two classes we can be reasonably certain that the community as a
whole will prosper. And we must never forget that the chief factor
in securing the welfare alike of wage-worker and of farmer, as of
everybody else, must be the man himself.
The only effective way to help anybody is to help him help himself.
There are exceptional times when any one of us needs outside help, and
then it should be given freely; but normally each one of us must depend
upon his own exertions for his own success. Something can be done by
wise legislation and by wise and honest administration of the laws;
that is, something can be done by our action taken in our collective
capacity through the State and the Nation.
Something more can be done by combination and organization among
ourselves in our private capacities as citizens, so long as this
combination or organization is managed with wisdom and integrity, with
insistence upon the rights of those benefited and yet with just regard
for the rights of others.
But in the last analysis the factor most influential in determining any
man’s success must ever be the sum of that man’s own qualities, of his
knowledge, foresight, thrift, and courage. Whatever tends to increase
his self-respect, whatever tends to help him overcome the temptations
with which all of us are surrounded, is of benefit not only to him, but
to the whole community.
No one society can do more to help the wage-worker than such a
temperance society as that which I am now addressing. It is of
incalculable consequence to the man himself that he should be sober
and temperate, and it is of even more consequence to his wife and his
children; for it is a hard and cruel fact that in this life of ours the
sins of the man are often visited most heavily upon those whose welfare
should be his one especial care.
For the drunkard, for the man who loses his job because he can not
control or will not control his desire for liquor and for vicious
pleasure, we have a feeling of anger and contempt mixed with our pity;
but for his unfortunate wife and little ones we feel only pity, and
that of the deepest and tenderest kind.
Everything possible should be done to encourage the growth of that
spirit of self-respect, self-restraint, self-reliance, which if it only
grows enough is certain to make all those in whom it shows itself move
steadily upward toward the highest standard of American citizenship.
It is a proud and responsible privilege to be citizens of this great
self-governing Nation; and each of us needs to keep steadily before
his eyes the fact that he is wholly unfit to take part in the work of
governing others unless he can first govern himself. He must stand up
manfully for his own rights; he must respect the rights of others;
he must obey the law, and he must try to live up to those rules of
righteousness which are above and behind all laws.
This applies just as much to the man of great wealth as to the man
of small means; to the capitalist as to the wage-worker. And as one
practical point, let me urge that in the event of any difficulty,
especially if it is what is known as a labor trouble, both sides show
themselves willing to meet, willing to consult, and anxious each to
treat the other reasonably and fairly, each to look at the other’s side
of the case and to do the other justice. If only this course could
be generally followed, the chance of industrial disaster would be
minimized.
Now, my friends, I want to read you an extract from a letter I have
just received from a Catholic priest whom I know well and whom I know
to be as stanch a friend of the laboring man as there is to be found in
this country. Now and then—not too often—it is a good thing for all of
us to hear what is not perhaps altogether palatable, provided only that
the person who tells the truth is our genuine friend, knows what he is
talking about (even though he may not see all sides of the case), and
tells us what he has to say, not with a desire to hurt our feelings,
but with the transparent purpose to do us good. With this foreword,
here is a part of the letter:
“I would humbly recommend that you lend your entire weight to the cause
which the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America represents, and
especially so in its relation to the working classes of this country,
for whom it is doing so much good. You know that the temperance
movement is a potent auxiliary to the institutions of our country
in building up a better manhood and a truer Christianity among our
citizens. It played a very important part in the two coal strikes
of 1900 and 1902, respectively, by keeping the men sober, and thus
removing the danger of riotous and unbecoming conduct. There is one
discouraging feature connected with the upward tendency of the wage
scale among the workmen of this country. The higher the wages, the
more money they spend in saloons. The shorter the hours, the more they
are inclined to absent themselves from home. An apparent disregard for
family ties is growing among the poorer classes which will eventually
lead to a disregard for the blessings our country affords them. Hence,
with an increase of wages a corresponding movement for better manhood,
nobler citizenship, and truer Christianity should be set on foot.
The dignity of labor should be maintained, which can be done only
through the love that a man should have for his work, and through the
intelligence which he puts into it. A steady hand and sober mind are
necessary for this. Hence, the necessity of the temperance cause and of
the efforts which organized abstainers are putting into the movement.”
Now, in what is here written this priest does not mean that the
tendency is to grow worse; but he means that with shorter hours and
increased wages there is a tendency to go wrong which must be offset by
movements such as this great temperance movement and similar efforts
for social and civic betterment, or else the increase in leisure and
money will prove a curse instead of a blessing. I strive never to tell
any one what I do not thoroughly believe, and I shall not say to you
that to be honest, and temperate, and hardworking, and thrifty will
always bring success.
The hand of the Lord is sometimes heavy upon the just as well as upon
the unjust, and in the life of labor and effort which we must lead on
this earth it is not always possible either by work, by wisdom, or by
upright behavior to ward off disaster. But it is most emphatically true
that the chance for leading a happy and prosperous life is immensely
improved if only the man is decent, sober, industrious, and exercises
foresight and judgment. Let him remember above all that the performance
of duty is the first essential to right living, and that a good type
of average family life is the cornerstone of national happiness and
greatness. No man can be a good citizen, can deserve the respect of his
fellows, unless first of all he is a good man in his own family, unless
he does his duty faithfully by his wife and children.
I strongly believe in trades unions wisely and justly handled, in
which the rightful purpose to benefit those connected with them is not
accompanied by a desire to do injustice or wrong to others. I believe
it the duty of capitalist and wage-worker to try to seek one another
out, to understand each the other’s point of view, and to endeavor to
show broad and kindly human sympathy one with the other.
I believe in the work of these great temperance organizations, of all
kindred movements like the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian
Associations, in short in every movement which strives to help a man
by teaching him how to help himself. But most of all I believe in the
efficacy of the man himself striving continually to increase his own
self-respect by the way in which he does his duty to himself and to his
neighbor.
AT CHAUTAUQUA, N. Y., AUGUST 11, 1905
To-day I wish to speak to you on one feature of our national foreign
policy and one feature of our national domestic policy.
The Monroe Doctrine is not a part of international law. But it is the
fundamental feature of our entire foreign policy so far as the Western
Hemisphere is concerned, and it has more and more been meeting with
recognition abroad. The reason why it is meeting with this recognition
is because we have not allowed it to become fossilized, but have
adapted our construction of it to meet the growing, changing needs of
this hemisphere. Fossilization, of course, means death, whether to an
individual, a government, or a doctrine.
It is out of the question to claim a right and yet shirk the
responsibility for exercising that right. When we announce a policy
such as the Monroe Doctrine we thereby commit ourselves to accepting
the consequences of the policy, and these consequences from time to
time alter.
Let us look for a moment at what the Monroe Doctrine really is. It
forbids the territorial encroachment of non-American powers on American
soil. Its purpose is partly to secure this Nation against seeing great
military powers obtain new footholds in the Western Hemisphere, and
partly to secure to our fellow-republics south of us the chance to
develop along their own lines without being oppressed or conquered
by non-American powers. As we have grown more and more powerful our
advocacy of this doctrine has been received with more and more respect;
but what has tended most to give the doctrine standing among the
nations is our growing willingness to show that we not only mean what
we say and are prepared to back it up, but that we mean to recognize
our obligations to foreign peoples no less than to insist upon our own
rights.
We can not permanently adhere to the Monroe Doctrine unless we succeed
in making it evident in the first place that we do not intend to treat
it in any shape or way as an excuse for aggrandizement on our part at
the expense of the republics to the south of us; second, that we do not
intend to permit it to be used by any of these republics as a shield to
protect that republic from the consequences of its own misdeeds against
foreign nations; third, that inasmuch as by this doctrine we prevent
other nations from interfering on this side of the water, we shall
ourselves in good faith try to help those of our sister republics,
which need such help, upward toward peace and order.
As regards the first point we must recognize the fact that in some
South American countries there has been much suspicion lest we
should interpret the Monroe Doctrine in some way inimical to their
interests. Now let it be understood once for all that no just and
orderly government on this continent has anything to fear from us.
There are certain of the republics south of us which have already
reached such a point of stability, order, and prosperity that they are
themselves, although as yet hardly consciously, among the guarantors
of this doctrine. No stable and growing American republic wishes to
see some great non-American military power acquire territory in its
neighborhood. It is the interest of all of us on this continent that
no such event should occur, and in addition to our own Republic there
are now already republics in the regions south of us which have reached
a point of prosperity and power that enables them to be considerable
factors in maintaining this doctrine which is so much to the advantage
of all of us. It must be understood that under no circumstances will
the United States use the Monroe Doctrine as a cloak for territorial
aggression. Should any of our neighbors, no matter how turbulent, how
disregardful of our rights, finally get into such a position that the
utmost limits of our forbearance are reached, all the people south of
us may rest assured that no action will ever be taken save what is
absolutely demanded by our self-respect; that this action will not take
the form of territorial aggrandizement on our part, and that it will
only be taken at all with the most extreme reluctance and not without
having exhausted every effort to avert it.
As to the second point, if a republic to the south of us commits a
tort against a foreign nation, such, for instance, as wrongful action
against the persons of citizens of that nation, then the Monroe
Doctrine does not force us to interfere to prevent punishment of the
tort, save to see that the punishment does not directly or indirectly
assume the form of territorial occupation of the offending country.
The case is more difficult when the trouble comes from the failure to
meet contractual obligations. Our own Government has always refused to
enforce such contractual obligations on behalf of its citizens by the
appeal to arms. It is much to be wished that all foreign governments
would take the same view. But at present this country would certainly
not be willing to go to war to prevent a foreign government from
collecting a just debt or to back up some one of our sister republics
in a refusal to pay just debts; and the alternative may in any case
prove to be that we shall ourselves undertake to bring about some
arrangement by which so much as is possible of the just obligations
shall be paid. Personally I should always prefer to see this country
step in and put through such an arrangement rather than let any foreign
country undertake it.
I do not want to see any foreign power take possession permanently or
temporarily of the custom-houses of an American republic in order to
enforce its obligations, and the alternative may at any time be that
we shall be forced to do so ourselves.
Finally, and what is in my view really the most important thing of
all, it is our duty, so far as we are able, to try to help upward our
weaker brothers. Just as there has been a gradual growth of the ethical
element in the relations of one individual to another, so that with all
the faults of our Christian civilization it yet remains true that we
are, no matter how slowly, more and more coming to recognize the duty
of bearing one another’s burdens, similarly I believe that the ethical
element is by degrees entering into the dealings of one nation with
another.
Under strain of emotion caused by sudden disaster this feeling is very
evident. A famine or a plague in one country brings much sympathy and
some assistance from other countries. Moreover, we are now beginning
to recognize that weaker peoples have a claim upon us, even when the
appeal is made, not to our emotions by some sudden calamity, but to our
consciences by a long-continuing condition of affairs.
I do not mean to say that nations have more than begun to approach the
proper relationship one to another, and I fully recognize the folly
of proceeding upon the assumption that this ideal condition can now
be realized in full—for, in order to proceed upon such an assumption,
we would first require some method of forcing recalcitrant nations to
do their duty, as well as of seeing that they are protected in their
rights.
In the interest of justice, it is as necessary to exercise the police
power as to show charity and helpful generosity. But something can
even now be done toward the end in view. That something, for instance,
this Nation has already done as regards Cuba, and is now trying to do
as regards Santo Domingo. There are few things in our history in which
we should take more genuine pride than the way in which we liberated
Cuba, and then, instead of instantly abandoning it to chaos, stayed in
direction of the affairs of the island until we had put it on the right
path, and finally gave it freedom and helped it as it started on the
life of an independent republic.
Santo Domingo has now made an appeal to us to help it in turn, and
not only every principle of wisdom but every generous instinct within
us bids us respond to the appeal. The conditions in Santo Domingo
have for a number of years grown from bad to worse until recently all
society was on the verge of dissolution. Fortunately just at this time
a wise ruler sprang up in Santo Domingo, who, with his colleagues,
saw the dangers threatening their beloved country, and appealed to
the friendship of their great and powerful neighbor to help them. The
immediate threat came to them in the shape of foreign intervention. The
previous rulers of Santo Domingo had recklessly incurred debts, and
owing to her internal disorders she had ceased to be able to provide
means of paying the debts. The patience of her foreign creditors had
become exhausted, and at least one foreign nation was on the point of
intervention and was only prevented from intervening by the unofficial
assurance of this Government that it would itself strive to help Santo
Domingo in her hour of need. Of the debts incurred some were just,
while some were not of a character which really renders it obligatory
on, or proper for, Santo Domingo to pay them in full. But she could not
pay any of them at all unless some stability was assured.
Accordingly the Executive Department of our Government negotiated
a treaty under which we are to try to help the Dominican people to
straighten out their finances. This treaty is pending before the
Senate, whose consent to it is necessary. In the meantime we have made
a temporary arrangement which will last until the Senate has had time
to take action upon the treaty. Under this arrangement we see to the
honest administration of the custom-houses, collecting the revenues,
turning over forty-five per cent to the Government for running expenses
and putting the other fifty-five per cent into a safe deposit for
equitable division among the various creditors, whether European or
American, accordingly as, after investigation, their claims seem just.
The custom-houses offer wellnigh the only sources of revenue in
Santo Domingo, and the different revolutions usually have as their
real aim the obtaining possession of these custom-houses. The mere
fact that we are protecting the custom-houses and collecting the
revenue with efficiency and honesty has completely discouraged all
revolutionary movement, while it has already produced such an increase
in the revenues that the Government is actually getting more from the
forty-five per cent that we turn over to it than it got formerly when
it took the entire revenue. This is enabling the poor harassed people
of Santo Domingo once more to turn their attention to industry and to
be free from the curse of interminable revolutionary disturbance. It
offers to all bona fide creditors, American and European, the only
really good chance to obtain that to which they are justly entitled,
while it in return gives to Santo Domingo the only opportunity of
defence against claims which it ought not to pay—for now if it meets
the views of the Senate we shall ourselves thoroughly examine all
these claims, whether American or foreign, and see that none that are
improper are paid. Indeed, the only effective opposition to the treaty
will probably come from dishonest creditors, foreign and American, and
from the professional revolutionists of the island itself. We have
already good reason to believe that some of the creditors who do not
dare expose their claims to honest scrutiny are endeavoring to stir up
sedition in the island, and are also endeavoring to stir up opposition
to the treaty both in Santo Domingo and here, trusting that in one
place or the other it may be possible to secure either the rejection of
the treaty or else its amendment in such fashion as to be tantamount to
rejection.
Under the course taken, stability and order and all the benefits of
peace are at last coming to Santo Domingo, all danger of foreign
intervention has ceased, and there is at last a prospect that all
creditors will get justice, no more and no less. If the arrangement is
terminated, chaos will follow; and if chaos follows, sooner or later
this Government may be involved in serious difficulties with foreign
governments over the island, or else may be forced itself to intervene
in the island in some unpleasant fashion. Under the present arrangement
the independence of the island is scrupulously respected, the danger of
violation of the Monroe Doctrine by the intervention of foreign powers
vanishes, and the interference of our Government is minimized, so that
we only act in conjunction with the Santo Domingo authorities to secure
the proper administration of the customs, and therefore to secure the
payment of just debts and to secure the Santo Dominican Government
against demands for unjust debts. The present method prevents there
being any need of our establishing any kind of protectorate over the
island and gives the people of Santo Domingo the same chance to move
onward and upward which we have already given to the people of Cuba.
It will be doubly to our discredit as a Nation if we fail to take
advantage of this chance; for it will be of damage to ourselves, and,
above all, it will be of incalculable damage to Santo Domingo. Every
consideration of wise policy, and, above all, every consideration of
large generosity, bids us meet the request of Santo Domingo as we are
now trying to meet it.
So much for one feature of our foreign policy. Now for one feature
of our domestic policy. One of the main features of our national
governmental policy should be the effort to secure adequate and
effective supervisory and regulatory control over all great
corporations doing an interstate business. Much of the legislation
aimed to prevent the evils connected with the enormous development
of these great corporations has been ineffective, partly because it
aimed at doing too much, and partly because it did not confer on the
Government a really efficient method of holding any guilty corporation
to account. The effort to prevent all restraint of competition, whether
harmful or beneficial, has been ill-judged; what is needed is not so
much the effort to prevent combination as a vigilant and effective
control of the combinations formed, so as to secure just and equitable
dealing on their part alike toward the public generally, toward their
smaller competitors, and toward the wage-workers in their employ.
Under the present laws we have in the last four years accomplished
much that is of substantial value; but the difficulties in the way
have been so great as to prove that further legislation is advisable.
Many corporations show themselves honorably desirous to obey the law;
but, unfortunately, some corporations, and very wealthy ones at that,
exhaust every effort which can be suggested by the highest ability,
or secured by the most lavish expenditure of money, to defeat the
purposes of the laws on the statute books.
Not only the men in control of these corporations, but the business
world generally, ought to realize that such conduct is in every way
perilous, and constitutes a menace to the Nation generally, and
especially to the people of great property.
I earnestly believe that this is true of only a relatively small
portion of the very rich men engaged in handling the largest
corporations in the country; but the attitude of these comparatively
few men does undoubtedly harm the country, and above all harm the
men of large means, by the just, but sometimes misguided, popular
indignation to which it gives rise. The consolidation, in the form of
what are popularly called trusts, of corporate interests of immense
value has tended to produce unfair restraints of trade of an oppressive
character, and these unfair restraints tend to create great artificial
monopolies. The violations of the law known as the anti-trust law,
which was meant to meet the conditions thus arising, have more and
more become confined to the larger combinations, the very ones against
whose policy of monopoly and oppression the policy of the law was
chiefly directed. Many of these combinations by secret methods and
by protracted litigation are still unwisely seeking to avoid the
consequences of their illegal action. The Government has very properly
exercised moderation in attempting to enforce the criminal provisions
of the statute; but it has become our conviction that in some cases,
such as that of at least certain of the beef packers recently indicted
in Chicago, it is impossible longer to show leniency. Moreover, if the
existing law proves to be inadequate, so that under established rules
of evidence clear violations may not be readily proved, defiance of
the law must inevitably lead to further legislation. This legislation
may be more drastic than I would prefer. If so, it must be distinctly
understood that it will be because of the stubborn determination of
some of the great combinations in striving to prevent the enforcement
of the law as it stands, by every device, legal and illegal. Very many
of these men seem to think that the alternative is simply between
submitting to the mild kind of governmental control we advocate and the
absolute freedom to do whatever they think best. They are greatly in
error. Either they will have to submit to reasonable supervision and
regulation by the national authorities, or else they will ultimately
have to submit to governmental action of a far more drastic type.
Personally, I think our people would be most unwise if they let any
exasperation due to the acts of certain great corporations drive them
into drastic action, and I should oppose such action. But the great
corporations are themselves to blame if by their opposition to what is
legal and just they foster the popular feeling which calls for such
drastic action.
Some great corporations resort to every technical expedient to render
enforcement of the law impossible, and their obstructive tactics and
refusal to acquiesce in the policy of the law have taxed to the utmost
the machinery of the Department of Justice. In my judgment Congress may
well inquire whether it should not seek other means for carrying into
effect the law. I believe that all corporations engaged in interstate
commerce should be under the supervision of the National Government. I
do not believe in taking steps hastily or rashly, and it may be that
all that is necessary in the immediate future is to pass an interstate
commerce bill conferring upon some branch of the executive government
the power of effective action to remedy the abuses in connection
with railway transportation. But in the end, and in my judgment at a
time not very far off, we shall have to, or at least we shall find
that we ought to, take further action as regards all corporations
doing interstate business. The enormous increase in interstate trade,
resulting from the industrial development of the last quarter of a
century, makes it proper that the Federal Government should, so far as
may be necessary to carry into effect its national policy, assume a
degree of administrative control of these great corporations.
It may well be that we shall find that the only effective way of
exercising this supervision is to require all corporations engaged
in interstate commerce to produce proof satisfactory, say, to the
Department of Commerce, that they are not parties to any contract or
combination or engaged in any monopoly in interstate trade in violation
of the anti-trust law, and that their conduct on certain other
specified points is proper; and, moreover, that these corporations
shall agree, with a penalty of forfeiture of their right to engage in
such commerce, to furnish any evidence of any kind as to their trade
between the States whenever so required by the Department of Commerce.
It is the almost universal policy of the several States, provided
by statute, that foreign corporations may lawfully conduct business
within their boundaries only when they produce certificates that they
have complied with the requirements of their respective States; in
other words, that corporations shall not enjoy the privileges and
immunities afforded by the State governments without first complying
with the policy of their laws. Now the benefits which corporations
engaged in interstate trade enjoy under the United States Government
are incalculable; and in respect of such trade the jurisdiction of the
Federal Government is supreme when it chooses to exercise it.
When, as is now the case, many of the great corporations consistently
strain the last resources of legal technicality to avoid obedience
to a law for the reasonable regulation of their business, the only
way effectively to meet this attitude on their part is to give to the
Executive Department of the Government a more direct and therefore more
efficient supervision and control of their management.
In speaking against the abuses committed by certain very wealthy
corporations or individuals, and of the necessity of seeking so far as
it can safely be done to remedy these abuses, there is always danger
lest what is said may be misinterpreted as an attack upon men of means
generally. Now it can not too often be repeated in a Republic like ours
that the only way by which it is possible permanently to benefit the
condition of the less able and less fortunate is so to shape our policy
that all industrious and efficient people who act decently may be
benefited; and this means, of course, that the benefit will come even
more to the more able and more fortunate. If, under such circumstances,
the less fortunate man is moved by envy of his more fortunate brother
to strike at the conditions under which they have both, though
unequally, prospered, he may rest assured that while the result may be
damaging to the other man, it will be even more damaging to himself.
Of course, I am now speaking of prosperity that comes under normal and
proper conditions.
In our industrial and social system the interests of all men are
so closely intertwined that in the immense majority of cases the
straight-dealing man who by ingenuity and industry benefits himself
must also benefit others. The man of great productive capacity who gets
rich through guiding the labor of hundreds or thousands of other men
does so, as a rule, by enabling their labor to produce more than it
would without his guidance, and both he and they share in the benefit,
so that even if the share be unequal it must never be forgotten that
they too are really benefited by his success.
A vital factor in the success of any enterprise is the guiding
intelligence of the man at the top, and there is need in the interest
of all of us to encourage rather than to discourage the activity of the
exceptional men who guide average men so that their labor may result
in increased production of the kind which is demanded at the time.
Normally we help the wage-worker, we help the man of small means, by
making conditions such that the man of exceptional business ability
receives an exceptional reward for that ability.
But while insisting with all emphasis upon this, it is also true that
experience has shown that when there is no governmental restraint or
supervision, some of the exceptional men use their energies, not in
ways that are for the common good, but in ways which tell against this
common good; and that by so doing they not only wrong smaller and less
able men—whether wage-workers or small producers and traders—but force
other men of exceptional abilities themselves to do what is wrong under
penalty of falling behind in the keen race for success. There is need
of legislation to strive to meet such abuses. At one time or in one
place this legislation may take the form of factory laws and employers’
liability laws. Under other conditions it may take the form of dealing
with the franchises which derive their value from the grant of the
representatives of the people. It may be aimed at the manifold abuses,
far-reaching in their effects, which spring from overcapitalization.
Or it may be necessary to meet such conditions as those with which
I am now dealing and to strive to procure proper supervision and
regulation by the National Government of all great corporations engaged
in interstate commerce or doing an interstate business.
There are good people who are afraid of each type of legislation; and
much the same kind of argument that is now advanced against the effort
to regulate big corporations has been again and again advanced against
the effort to secure proper employers’ liability laws or proper factory
laws with reference to women and children; much the same kind of
argument was advanced but five years ago against the franchise-tax law
enacted in this State while I was Governor.
Of course there is always the danger of abuse if legislation of this
type is approached in a hysterical or sentimental spirit, or, above
all, if it is approached in a spirit of envy and hatred toward men of
wealth.
We must not try to go too fast, under penalty of finding that we may
be going in the wrong direction; and, in any event, we ought always to
proceed by evolution and not by revolution. The laws must be conceived
and executed in a spirit of sanity and justice, and with exactly as
much regard for the rights of the big man as for the rights of the
little man—treating big man and little man exactly alike.
Our ideal must be the effort to combine all proper freedom for
individual effort with some guarantee that the effort is not exercised
in contravention of the eternal and immutable principles of justice.
TO THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE COLORED INDUSTRIAL ASSOCIATION,
RICHMOND, VA., OCTOBER 18, 1905
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
I want to congratulate you upon the showing your school-children
have made, and further I wish as an American to congratulate the
representatives of the colored race who have shown such progress in
directing the industrial interests of this city. All they have done
in that way means a genuine progress for the race. I am glad as an
American for what you are doing. The standing of the bank which in
this city is managed by colored men should give genuine pride to all
the colored men of this country. Its record is an enviable one. You
colored men who show in business life both ability and a high order of
integrity are real benefactors not only of your race but of the whole
country.
AT CAPITOL SQUARE, RICHMOND, VA., OCTOBER 18, 1905
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
I trust I need hardly say how great is my pleasure at speaking in this
historic capital of your historic State—the State than which no other
has contributed a larger proportion to the leadership of the nation;
for on the honor roll of those American worthies whose greatness is not
only for the age but for all time, not only for one nation but for all
the world, on this honor roll Virginia’s name stands above all others.
And in greeting all of you, I know that no one will grudge my saying a
special word of acknowledgment to the veterans of the Civil War. A man
would indeed be but a poor American who could without a thrill witness
the way in which, in city after city in the North as in the South, on
every public occasion, the men who wore the blue and the men who wore
the gray now march and stand shoulder to shoulder, giving tangible
proof that we are all now in fact as well as in name a reunited people,
a people infinitely richer because of the priceless memories left to
all Americans by you men who fought in the great war. Last Memorial
Day I spoke in Brooklyn, at the unveiling of the statue of a Northern
general, under the auspices of the Grand Army of the Republic, and that
great audience cheered every allusion to the valor and self-devotion of
the men who followed Lee as heartily as they cheered every allusion to
the valor and self-devotion of the men who followed Grant. The wounds
left by the great civil war have long healed, but its memories remain.
Think of it, oh, my countrymen, think of the good fortune that is
ours! That whereas every other war of modern times has left feelings
of rancor and bitterness to keep asunder the combatants, our great war
has left to the sons and daughters of the men who fought, on whichever
side they fought, the same right to feel the keenest pride in the
great deeds alike of the men who fought on one side and of the men who
fought on the other. The proud self-sacrifice, the resolute and daring
courage, the high and steadfast devotion to the right as each man
saw it, whether Northerner or Southerner, these qualities render all
Americans forever the debtors of those who in the dark days from ’61 to
’65 proved their truth by their endeavor. Here around Richmond, here
in your own State, there lies battlefield after battlefield, rendered
forever memorable by the men who counted death as but a little thing
when weighed in the balance against doing their duty as it was given
them to see it. These men have left us of the younger generation not
merely the memory of what they did in war, but of what they did in
peace. Foreign observers predicted that when such a great war closed
it would be impossible for the hundreds of thousands of combatants to
return to the paths of peace. They predicted ceaseless disorder, wild
turbulence, the alternation of anarchy and despotism. But the good
sense and self-restraint of the average American citizen falsified
these prophecies. The great armies disbanded and the private in the
ranks, like the officer who had commanded him, went back to take up the
threads of his life where he had dropped them when the call to arms
came. It was a wonderful, a marvelous thing, in a country consecrated
to peace with but an infinitesimal regular army, to develop so quickly
the huge hosts which confronted one another between the James and
the Potomac and along the Mississippi and its tributaries. But it was
an even more wonderful, an even more marvelous thing, how these great
hosts, once their work done, resolved themselves into the general
fabric of the Nation.
Great though the meed of praise is which is due the South for the
soldierly valor her sons displayed during the four years of war, I
think that even greater praise is due to her for what her people
have accomplished in the forty years of peace which followed. For
forty years the South has made not merely a courageous, but at times
a desperate struggle, as she has striven for moral and material
well-being. Her success has been extraordinary, and all citizens of
our common country should feel joy and pride in it; for any great
deed done or any fine qualities shown by one group of Americans of
necessity reflects credit upon all Americans. Only a heroic people
could have battled successfully against the conditions with which the
people of the South found themselves face to face at the end of the
Civil War. There had been utter destruction and disaster, and wholly
new business and social problems had to be faced with the scantiest
means. The economic and political fabric had to be readjusted in the
midst of dire want, of grinding poverty. The future of the broken,
war-swept South seemed beyond hope, and if her sons and daughters had
been of weaker fibre there would in very truth have been no hope. But
the men and the sons of the men who had faced with unfaltering front
every alternation of good and evil fortune from Manassas to Appomattox,
and the women, their wives and mothers, whose courage and endurance
had reached an even higher heroic level—these men and these women
set themselves undauntedly to the great task before them. For twenty
years the struggle was hard and at times doubtful. Then the splendid
qualities of your manhood and womanhood told, as they were bound to
tell, and the wealth of your extraordinary natural resources began to
be shown. Now the teeming riches of mine and field and factory attest
the prosperity of those who are all the stronger because of the trials
and struggles through which this prosperity has come. You stand loyally
to your traditions and memories; you also stand loyally for our great
common country of to-day and for our common flag, which symbolizes all
that is brightest and most hopeful for the future of mankind; you face
the new age in the spirit of the age. Alike in your material and in
your spiritual and intellectual development you stand abreast of the
foremost in the world’s progress.
And now, my fellow-citizens, my fellow-Americans, exactly as all of
us, whether we live in the East or the West, in the North or the
South, have the right merely as Americans to feel pride in every
great deed done by any American in the past, and exactly as we are
knit together by this common heritage of memories, so we are knit
together, by the bond of our common duties in the present, our common
interest in the future. Many and great problems lie before us. If we
treat the mighty memories of the past merely as excuses for sitting
lazily down in the present, or for standing aside from the rough
work of the world, then these memories will prove a curse instead of
a blessing. But if we treat them as I believe we shall treat them,
not as excuses for inaction, but as incentives to make us show that
we are worthy of our fathers and of our fathers’ fathers, then in
truth the deeds of the past will not have been wasted, for they shall
bring forth fruit a hundred-fold in the present generation. We of
this Nation, we, the citizens of this mighty and wonderful Republic,
stretching across a continent between the two greatest oceans, enjoy
extraordinary privileges, and as our opportunity is great, therefore
our responsibility is great. We have duties to perform both abroad and
at home, and we can not shirk either set of duties and fully retain our
self-respect.
In foreign affairs we must make up our minds that, whether we wish it
or not, we are a great people and must play a great part in the world.
It is not open to us to choose whether we will play that great part or
not. We have to play it; all we can decide is whether we shall play it
well or ill. And I have too much confidence in my countrymen to doubt
what the decision will be. Our mission in the world should be one of
peace, but not the peace of cravens, the peace granted contemptuously
to those who purchase it by surrendering the right. No! Our voice
must be effective for peace because it is raised for righteousness
first and for peace only as the handmaiden of righteousness. We must be
scrupulous in respecting the rights of the weak, and no less careful to
make it evident that we do not act through fear of the strong. We must
be scrupulous in doing justice to others and scrupulous in exacting
justice for ourselves. We must beware equally of that sinister and
cynical teaching which would persuade us to disregard ethical standards
in international relations, and of the no less hurtful folly which
would stop the whole work of civilization by a well-meant but silly
persistency in trying to apply to peoples unfitted for them those
theories of government and of national action which are only suited
for the most advanced races. In particular, we must remember that in
undertaking to build the Panama Canal we have necessarily undertaken
to police the seas at either end of it; and this means that we have
a peculiar interest in the preservation of order in the coasts and
islands of the Caribbean. I firmly believe that by a little wise and
generous aid we can help even the most backward of the peoples in
these coasts and islands forward along the path of orderly liberty so
that they can stand alone. If we decline to give them such help the
result will be bad both for them and for us; and will in the end in all
probability cause us to face humiliation or bloodshed.
The problems that face us abroad are important, but the problems that
face us at home are even more important. The extraordinary growth
of industrialism during the last half century brings every civilized
people face to face with the gravest social and economic questions.
This is an age of combination among capitalists and combination among
wage-workers. It is idle to try to prevent such combinations. Our
efforts should be to see that they work for the good and not for the
harm of the body politic. New devices of law are necessary from time to
time in order to meet the changed and changing conditions. But after
all we will do well to remember that, although the problems to be
solved change from generation to generation, the spirit in which their
solution must be attempted remains forever the same. It is in peace
as it is in war. Tactics change and weapons change. The Continental
troops in their blue and buff, who fought under Washington and Greene
and Wayne, differed entirely in arms and in training from those who
in blue or gray faced one another in the armies of Grant and of Lee,
of Sherman and of Johnston. And now the sons of these same Union and
Confederate veterans, who serve in our gallant little army of to-day,
wear a different uniform, carry a different weapon, and practice
different tactics. But the soul of the soldier has remained the same
throughout, and the qualities which drove forward to victory or to
death the men of ’76 and the men of ’61 are the very qualities which
the men of to-day must keep unchanged if in the hour of need the honor
of the Nation is to be kept untarnished. So it is in civil life. This
Government was formed with as its basic idea the principle of treating
each man on his worth as a man, of paying no heed to whether he was
rich or poor, no heed to his creed or his social standing, but only to
the way in which he performed his duty to himself, to his neighbor, to
the state. From this principle we can not afford to vary by so much as
a hand’s breadth. Many republics have risen in the past, and some of
them flourished long, but sooner or later they fell; and the cause most
potent in bringing about their fall was in almost all cases the fact
that they grew to be governments in the interest of a class instead of
governments in the interest of all. It made no difference as to which
class it was that thus wrested to its own advantage the governmental
machinery. It was ultimately as fatal to the cause of freedom whether
it was the rich who oppressed the poor or the poor who plundered the
rich. The crime of brutal disregard of the rights of others is as much
a crime when it manifests itself in the shape of greed and brutal
arrogance on the one side, as when it manifests itself in the shape of
envy and lawless violence on the other. Our aim must be to deal justice
to each man; no more and no less. This purpose must find its expression
and support not merely in our collective action through the agencies of
the Government, but in our social attitude. Rich man and poor man must
alike feel that on the one hand they are protected by law and that on
the other hand they are responsible to the law; for each is entitled
to be fairly dealt with by his neighbor and by the State; and if we as
citizens of this Nation are true to ourselves and to the traditions of
our forefathers such fair measure of justice shall always be dealt to
each man; so that as far as we can bring it about each shall receive
his dues, each shall be given the chance to show the stuff there is
in him, shall be secured against wrong, and in turn prevented from
wronging others. More than this no man is entitled to, and less than
this no man shall have.
AT THE LUNCHEON AT RICHMOND, VA., OCTOBER 18, 1905
_Mr. Mayor, Governor, and you, my Hosts_:
One among the very many great Virginians at the time when this Nation
was born—Patrick Henry—said: “We are no longer New Yorkers or New
Englanders, Pennsylvanians or Virginians, we are Americans.” And
surely, Mr. Mayor, the man would be but a poor American who was not
touched and stirred to the depths by the reception that I have met
with to-day in this great historic city of America. Coming to-day
by the statue of Stonewall Jackson, in the city of Lee, I felt what
a privilege it is that I, as an American, have in claiming that you
yourselves have no more right of kinship in Lee and Jackson than I
have. I can claim to be a middling good American, because my ancestry
was half Southern and half Northern; I was born in the East and I have
lived a good while in the West—so long in fact that I do not admit that
any man can be a better Westerner than I am. In short, gentlemen, I
claim to be neither Northerner nor Southerner, neither Easterner nor
Westerner, but a good American, pure and simple.
Next only to a man’s having worn the blue comes the fact of the man’s
having worn the gray, as entitling him to honor in my sight. Last year
I told General Fitzhugh Lee that I wanted to add to my collection of
autograph letters of great Americans—Lincoln, Grant, Clay, Jefferson
(turning to the Governor), your namesake, Andrew Jackson—that of
General Lee, with his photograph. I got from General Fitzhugh Lee a
letter of General Lee and a photograph of him, handed to me after
General Fitzhugh Lee’s death. I was not able to thank my old and valued
friend, the father, but I put the son on my staff; and now I have the
grandson of General Grant and the grandnephew of General Lee and the
son of Phil Sheridan on my staff.
I noticed that the statue of Stonewall Jackson had been raised as a
gift by certain Englishmen. The best biography of General Jackson
was by an Englishman, Colonel Henderson. It is a curious and rather
lamentable fact that he died just as he was about to undertake another
biography which I had earnestly asked him to undertake. I had written
him urging that he should finish his very remarkable military study of
Stonewall Jackson by writing a military biography of General Lee, and
he had written me back that he intended to do so. Shortly afterward I
learned of his death.
Gentlemen, I can not sufficiently express to you my deep appreciation
of the way in which you have greeted me here to-day. You can not be
nearly as glad to see me as I am to see you. Let me say once more what
I said in my more formal address. Think of the good fortune that is
ours, think of the good fortune that is ours as a people in having,
each of us, whether we in our own persons or through our ancestors,
wore the blue or the gray, the proud right to challenge as our own all
of the valor, all of the self-devotion, all of the steadfast adherence
to right as God gave to each man to see the right, shown alike by the
man who wore the blue and by the man who wore the gray in the great
contest that was waged from ’61 to ’65.
AT RALEIGH, N. C., OCTOBER 19, 1905
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
I am glad here at the capital of North Carolina to have a chance to
greet so many of the sons and daughters of your great State. North
Carolina’s part in our history has ever been high and honorable.
It was in North Carolina that the Mecklenburg Declaration of
Independence foreshadowed the course taken in a few short months by the
representatives of the thirteen colonies assembled in Philadelphia.
North Carolina can rightfully say that she pointed us the way which
led to the formation of the new Nation. In the Revolution she did
many memorable deeds; and the battle of King’s Mountain marked the
turning point of the Revolutionary War in the South. But I congratulate
you not only upon your past, but upon your present. I congratulate
you upon the great industrial activity shown in your Commonwealth—an
industrial activity which, to mention but one thing, has placed this
State second only to one other in the number of its textile factories.
You are showing in practical fashion your realization of the truth that
there must be a foundation of material well-being in order that any
community may make real and rapid progress. And I am happy to say that
you are in addition showing in practical fashion your understanding
of the great truth that this material well-being, though necessary as
a foundation, can only be the foundation, and that upon it must be
raised the superstructure of a higher life, if the Commonwealth is
to stand as it should stand. More and more you are giving care and
attention to education; and education means the promotion not only of
industry, but of that good citizenship which rests upon individual
rights and upon the recognition by each individual that he has duties
as well as rights—in other words, of that good citizenship which
rests upon moral integrity and intellectual freedom. The man must be
decent in his home life, his private life, of course; but this is
not by itself enough. The man who fails to be honest and brave both
in his political franchise and in his private business contributes
to political and social anarchy. Self-government is not an easy
thing. Only those communities are fit for it in which the average
individual practices the virtue of self-command, of self-restraint,
of wise disinterestedness combined with wise self-interest; where the
individual possesses common-sense, honesty, and courage.
And now I want to say a word to you on a special subject in which all
the country is concerned, but in which North Carolina has a special
concern. The preservation of the forests is vital to the welfare of
every country. China and the Mediterranean countries offer examples of
the terrible effect of deforestation upon the physical geography, and
therefore ultimately upon the national well-being, of the nations. One
of the most obvious duties which our generation owes to the generations
that are to come after us is to preserve the existing forests. The
prime difference between civilized and uncivilized peoples is that
in civilized peoples each generation works not only for its own
well-being, but for the well-being of the generations yet unborn, and
if we permit the natural resources of this land to be destroyed so that
we hand over to our children a heritage diminished in value we thereby
prove our unfitness to stand in the forefront of civilized peoples.
One of the greatest of these heritages is our forest wealth. It is the
upper altitudes of the forested mountains that are most valuable to the
Nation as a whole, especially because of their effects upon the water
supply. Neither State nor Nation can afford to turn these mountains
over to the unrestrained greed of those who would exploit them at the
expense of the future. We can not afford to wait longer before assuming
control, in the interest of the public, of these forests; for if we do
wait, the vested interests of private parties in them may become so
strongly intrenched that it may be a most serious as well as a most
expensive task to oust them. If the Eastern States are wise, then from
the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf we will see, within the next few years, a
policy set on foot similar to that so fortunately carried out in the
high Sierras of the West by the National Government. All the higher
Appalachians should be reserved, either by the States or by the Nation.
I much prefer that they should be put under National control, but it
is a mere truism to say that they will not be reserved either by the
States or by the Nation unless you people of the South show a strong
interest therein.
Such reserves would be a paying investment, not only in protection
to many interests, but in dollars and cents to the Government. The
importance to the Southern people of protecting the Southern mountain
forests is obvious. These forests are the best defence against the
floods which in the recent past have, during a single twelvemonth,
destroyed property officially valued at nearly twice what it would
cost to buy the Southern Appalachian Reserve. The maintenance of your
Southern water powers is not less important than the prevention of
floods, because if they are injured your manufacturing interests will
suffer with them. The perpetuation of your forests, which have done so
much for the South, should be one of the first objects of your public
men. The two Senators from North Carolina have taken an honorable part
in this movement. But I do not think that the people of North Carolina
or of any other Southern State have quite grasped the importance of
this movement to the commercial development and prosperity of the South.
The position of honor in your parade to-day is held by the Confederate
veterans. They by their deeds reflect credit upon their descendants and
upon all Americans, both because they did their duty in war and because
they did their duty in peace. Now if the young men, their sons, will
not only prove that they possess the same power of fealty to an ideal,
but will also show the efficiency in the ranks of industrial life that
their fathers, the Confederate veterans, showed that they possessed in
the ranks of war, the industrial future of this great and typically
American Commonwealth is assured.
The extraordinary development of industrialism during the last half
century has been due to several causes, but above all to the revolution
in the methods of transportation and communication; that is, to steam
and to electricity, to the railroad and the telegraph.
When this Government was founded commerce was carried on by essentially
the same instruments that had been in use not only among civilized,
but among barbarian, nations, ever since history dawned; that is, by
wheeled vehicles drawn by animals, by pack trains, and by sailing
ships and rowboats. On land this meant that commerce went in slow,
cumbrous, and expensive fashion over highways open to all. Normally
these highways could not compete with water transportation, if such was
feasible between the connecting points.
All this has been changed by the development of the railroads. Save
on the ocean or on lakes so large as to be practically inland seas,
transport by water has wholly lost its old position of superiority
over transport by land, while instead of the old highways open to
every one on the same terms, but of a very limited usefulness, we have
new highways—railroads—which are owned by private corporations and
which are practically of unlimited, instead of limited, usefulness.
The old laws and old customs which were adequate and proper to meet
the old conditions need radical readjustment in order to meet these
new conditions. The cardinal features in these changed conditions
are, first, the fact that the new highway, the railway, is, from
the commercial standpoint, of infinitely greater importance in our
industrial life than was the old highway, the wagon road; and, second,
that this new highway, the railway, is in the hands of private owners,
whereas the old highway, the wagon road, was in the hands of the
State. The management of the new highway, the railroad, or rather of
the intricate web of railroad lines which cover the country, is a
task infinitely more difficult, more delicate, and more important than
the primitively easy task of acquiring or keeping in order the old
highway; so that there is properly no analogy whatever between the two
cases. I do not believe in government ownership of anything which can
with propriety be left in private hands, and in particular I should
most strenuously object to government ownership of railroads. But I
believe with equal firmness that it is out of the question for the
Government not to exercise a supervisory and regulatory right over the
railroads; for it is vital to the well-being of the public that they
should be managed in a spirit of fairness and justice toward all the
public. Actual experience has shown that it is not possible to leave
the railroads uncontrolled. Such a system, or rather such a lack of
system, is fertile in abuses of every kind, and puts a premium upon
unscrupulous and ruthless cunning in railroad management; for there are
some big shippers and some railroad managers who are always willing to
take unfair advantage of their weaker competitors, and they thereby
force other big shippers and big railroad men who would like to do
decently into similar acts of wrong and injustice, under penalty of
being left behind in the race for success. Government supervision is
needed quite as much in the interest of the big shipper and of the
railroad man who want to do right as in the interest of the small
shipper and the consumer.
Experience has shown that the present laws are defective and need
amendment. The effort to prohibit all restraint of competition, whether
reasonable or unreasonable, is unwise. What we need is to have some
administrative body with ample power to forbid combination that is
hurtful to the public, and to prevent favoritism to one individual
at the expense of another. In other words, we want an administrative
body with the power to secure fair and just treatment as among all
shippers who use the railroads—and all shippers have a right to use
them. We must not leave the enforcement of such a law merely to the
Department of Justice; it is out of the question for the law department
of the Government to do what should be purely administrative work.
The Department of Justice is to stand behind and co-operate with the
administrative body, but the administrative body itself must be given
the power to do the work and then held to a strict accountability for
the exercise of that power. The delays of the law are proverbial, and
what we need in this matter is reasonable quickness of action.
The abuses of which we have a genuine right to complain take many
shapes. Rebates are not now often given openly. But they can be given
just as effectively in covert form; and private cars, terminal tracks,
and the like must be brought under the control of the commission or
administrative body which is to exercise supervision by the Government.
But in my judgment the most important thing to do is to give to this
administrative body power to make its findings effective, and this can
be done only by giving it power, when complaint is made of a given rate
as being unjust or unreasonable, if it finds the complaint proper, then
itself to fix a maximum rate which it regards as just and reasonable,
this rate to go into effect practically at once, that is within a
reasonable time, and to stay in effect unless reversed by the courts.
I earnestly hope that we shall see a law giving this power passed by
Congress. Moreover, I hope that by law power will be conferred upon
representatives of the Government capable of performing the duty of
public accountants carefully to examine into the books of railroads
when so ordered by the Interstate Commerce Commission, which should
itself have power to prescribe what books, and what books only, should
be kept by railroads. If there is in the minds of the Commission any
suspicion that a certain railroad is in any shape or way giving rebates
or behaving improperly, I wish the Commission to have power as a matter
of right, not as a matter of favor, to make a full and exhaustive
investigation of the receipts and expenditures of the railroad, so
that any violation or evasion of the law may be detected. This is not
a revolutionary proposal on my part, for I only wish the same power
given in reference to railroads that is now exercised as a matter
of course by the national bank examiners as regards national banks.
My object in giving these additional powers to the administrative
body representing the Government—the Interstate Commerce Commission
or whatever it may be—is primarily to secure a real and not a sham
control to the Government representatives. The American people abhor a
sham, and with this abhorrence I cordially sympathize. Nothing is more
injurious from every standpoint than a law which is merely sound and
fury, merely pretence, and not capable of working out tangible results.
I hope to see all the power that I think it ought to have granted to
the Government; but I would far rather see only some of it granted, but
really granted, than see a pretence of granting all in some shape that
really amounts to nothing.
It must be understood, as a matter of course, that if this power
is granted it is to be exercised with wisdom and caution and
self-restraint. The Interstate Commerce Commissioner or other
Government official who failed to protect a railroad that was in the
right against any clamor, no matter how violent, on the part of the
public, would be guilty of as gross a wrong as if he corruptly rendered
an improper service to the railroad at the expense of the public. When
I say a square deal I mean a square deal; exactly as much a square deal
for the rich man as for the poor man; but no more. Let each stand on
his merits, receive what is due him, and be judged according to his
deserts. To more he is not entitled, and less he shall not have.
REMARKS IN PRESENTING THE PATTERSON MEMORIAL CUP TO MR. JOHN CHARLES
McNEILL, IN THE SENATE CHAMBER, RALEIGH, N. C., OCTOBER 19, 1905
_Mr. McNeill_:
I feel, and I am sure all good Americans must feel, that it is far
from enough for us to develop merely a great material prosperity. I
appreciate, and all of us must, that it is indispensable to have the
material prosperity as a foundation, but if we think the foundation
is the entire building, we never shall rank as among the nations of
the world; and therefore, it is with peculiar pleasure that I find
myself playing a small part in a movement, such as this, by which one
of the thirteen original States, one of our great States, marks its
sense of proper proportion in estimating the achievements of life,
the achievements of which the Commonwealth has a right to be proud.
It is a good thing to have the sense of historic continuity with the
past, which we largely get through the efforts of just such historic
societies as this, through which this cup is awarded to you. It is an
even better thing to try to do what we can to show our pleasure in and
approval of productive literary work in the present. Mr. McNeill, I
congratulate you and North Carolina.
AT DURHAM, N. C., OCTOBER 19, 1905
_Mr. Mayor, People of Durham, and Undergraduates and Graduates of
Trinity College_:
I know that the citizens of Durham will not begrudge my making a
special address to the representatives of a great typical Southern
college, which, because it is a typical Southern college, is a typical
American college. In speaking to-day to you undergraduates and
graduates of Trinity (and when I speak to the graduates of Trinity, I
speak to both the United States Senators of North Carolina—a pretty
good showing for one college—) I speak not only to you, but through you
to the college men of the South. I have been more impressed than I can
well express by the first article in the constitution of Trinity—the
article that sets forth the aims of the college. Not for your sake (for
you are familiar with it), but for the sake of all college men, North
and South, I am going to read that article:
“The aims of Trinity College are to assert a faith in the eternal union
of knowledge and religion set forth in the teachings and character
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; to advance learning in all lines of
truth; to defend scholarship against all false notions and ideals; to
develop a Christian love of freedom and truth; to educate a sincere
spirit of tolerance; to discourage all partisan and sectarian strife,
and to render the largest permanent service to the individual, the
State, the Nation, and the Church. Unto these ends shall the affairs of
this college always be administered.”
I know of no other college which has so nobly set forth as the object
of its being the principles to which every college should be devoted,
in whatever portion of this Union it may be placed. You stand for all
those things for which the scholar must stand if he is to render real
and lasting service to the state. You stand for academic freedom, for
the right of private judgment, for the duty, more incumbent upon the
scholar than upon any other man, to tell the truth as he sees it, to
claim for himself and give to others the largest liberty in seeking
after the truth. There must be no coercion of opinion if collegiate
training is to bring forth its full fruit. You men of this college, you
men throughout the South, who have had collegiate training, you men
throughout the Union, who have had collegiate training, bear a peculiar
burden of responsibility. I want you to have a good time, and I believe
you do. I believe in play with all my heart. Play when you play, but
work when you work; and remember that your having gone through college
does not so much confer a special privilege as it imposes a special
obligation on you. We have a right to expect a special quality of
leadership from the men to whom much has been given in the way of a
collegiate education. You are not entitled to any special privilege,
but you are entitled to be held to a peculiar accountability; you have
earned the right to be held peculiarly responsible for what you do.
Each one of you, if he is worth his salt, wishes, when he graduates, to
pay some portion of the debt due to his alma mater. You have received
from her, during your years of attendance in her halls, certain
privileges in the way of scholarship, in the way of companionship,
which makes it incumbent upon you to repay what you have been given.
You can not repay that to the college save in one way: by the quality
of your citizenship as displayed in the actual affairs of life you can
make it an honor to the college to have sent you forth into the great
world. That is the only way in which you can repay to the college what
the college has done for you. I earnestly hope and believe that you and
those like you in all the colleges of this land will make it evident
to the generation that is rising that you are fit to take leadership,
that the training has not been wasted, that you are ready to render to
the state the kind of service which is invaluable, because it can not
be bought, because there is no price that can be put upon it. We have
the right to expect from college men not merely disinterested service,
but intelligent service. The free peoples who exercise self-government
always have to war not merely against the knavish man who deliberately
does what he knows to be wrong, but against the foolish man, who may
mean very well, but who in actual fact turns out the ally of the other
man who does not mean well; and we must depend upon you men who have
been given special facilities in education to guide our people aright
so that they shall neither fall into the pit of folly nor into the pit
of knavery.
AT GREENSBORO, N. C., OCTOBER 19, 1905
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
No man could fail to be made a better American by traveling through
this great historic State of yours, where, throughout his journey,
he sees place after place associated with the historic past, such as
this city of yours near the Guilford battleground, commemorating by
its name one of Washington’s great generals. North Carolina’s history
has ever been high and honorable. It is right that we should remember
that the mighty deeds of our forefathers are not to serve to us as
excuses for inaction on our part, but as spurs to drive us forward to
doing our duty in our turn. We respect the son of a worthy father if
he feels that the fact that his father did well makes it incumbent
upon him to strive to do better. We despise the boy who treats the
fact that his father counted for something as being an excuse for his
counting for nothing. So I am glad to note the care that you in this
State are giving to education. The greatness of the country in the
time immediately to come will depend upon the way in which the young
generation of to-day is trained to citizenship in the future. I am
sorry to say that there is probably no one here who is not acquainted
with some kindly, well-meaning, and most foolish father or mother
who, because life has been hard with him or her in the past, takes the
view that the children are not to have to face any difficulties. The
worst thing that you can do for a child is to bring up him or her to
dodge difficulties. The children who will rise up to call their parents
blessed are those whom the parents have trained to meet difficulties,
not to shirk them; to overcome obstacles, not to get out of the way for
them. Neither the individual nor the community is worth anything if it
seeks after that which is easy. The thing to do is to find out what is
worth doing and do it—to show the manly quality that allows of this
being done.
AT CHARLOTTE, N. C., OCTOBER 19, 1905
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
I have enjoyed more than I can say passing through this great State
to-day. I entered your borders a pretty good American, and I leave
them a better American. I have rejoiced in the symptoms of your
abounding material prosperity. I am here in a great centre of cotton
manufacturing. Within a radius of a hundred miles of this city probably
half of the cotton manufacturing of the United States is done. I
realize to the full, as every good citizen should realize, that there
must be a foundation of material prosperity upon which to build the
welfare of State or Nation; but I realize also, as every good citizen
should, that material prosperity, material well-being, can never be
anything but the foundation. It is the indispensable foundation; but
if we do not raise upon it the superstructure of a higher citizenship
then we fail in bringing this country to the level to which it shall
and will be brought.
So, though I congratulate you upon what you have done in the way of
material growth, I congratulate you even more upon the great historic
memories of your State. It is not so far from here that the Mecklenburg
Declaration of Independence was made; the declaration that pointed out
the path along which the thirteen united colonies trod but a few months
later. As I got off the train here I was greeted by one citizen of
North Carolina (and I know that neither the Governor, the Mayor, nor
the Senators will blame me for what I am going to say) whose greeting
pleased and touched me more than the greeting of any man could have
touched me. I was greeted by the widow of Stonewall Jackson. We, of
this united country, have a right to challenge, as part of the heritage
of honor and glory of each American, the renown bought by all Americans
who fought in the Civil War, whether they wore the blue or whether they
wore the gray. The valor shown alike by the men of the North and by
the men of the South, as they battled for the right as God gave them
to see the right, is now part of what we all of us keep with pride. It
was my good fortune to appoint to West Point the grandson of Stonewall
Jackson. As I came up your streets I saw a monument raised to a
fellow-soldier of mine who fell in the Spanish War at Santiago—Shipp,
of North Carolina. We, who went to war in ’98, had the opportunity only
to fight in a small war, and all that we would claim is that we hope we
showed a spirit not entirely unworthy of the men who faced the mighty
and terrible days from ’61 to ’65. If there again comes a war I know I
can count on the men of the National Guard, like my escort, because the
memory of what your fathers did will make you ashamed not to rise level
to the demands of the new time as they rose level to the demands of
their time.
In civil life each generation has its problems. The tremendous
industrial development of the past half century, the very development
which has produced cities such as this, has brought great problems
with it; problems connected with corporations; problems connected
with labor; problems connected with both the accumulation and the
distribution of wealth. The problems are new, but the spirit in which
we must approach their solution is old. We must face the work we have
to do as our fathers faced their work, if we wish to be successful.
This is an age of organization, the organization of capital, the
organization of labor. Each type of organization should be welcomed
when it does good, and fearlessly opposed when it does evil. Our aim
should be to strive to keep the reign of justice alive in this country
so that we shall above all things avoid the chance of ever dividing on
the lines that separate one class from another, one occupation from
another. The man who would preach to either wage-worker or capitalist
that the other was his foe is a bad citizen and faithless American.
We can afford to divide along lines that represent honest difference
of opinion, but we can not afford to divide on the fundamental lines
of cleavage that separate good citizens from bad citizens. We must
remember, if we intend to keep this Republic in its position of
headship among the nations of mankind, that we can never afford to
deviate from the old American doctrine of treating each man on his
worth as a man, of paying heed, not to whether he is rich or poor, but
only to whether he acts as a decent citizen.
AT ROSWELL, GA., OCTOBER 20, 1905
_Senator Clay; and you, My Friends, whom it is hard for me not to call
My Neighbors, for I feel as if you were_:
You can have no idea of how much it means to me to come back to
Roswell, to the home of my mother and of my mother’s people, and to see
the spot which I already know so well from what my mother and my aunt
told me. It has been exactly as if I were revisiting some old place of
my childhood.
I hardly like to say how deeply my heart is moved by coming back
here among you. Among the earliest recollections I have as a child
is hearing from my mother and my aunt (Miss Annie Bulloch, she then
was) about Roswell; of how the Pratts, and Kings, and Dunwoodys, and
Bullochs came here first to settle; about the old homestead, the
house on the hill; about the Chattahoochee; about all kinds and sorts
of incidents that would not interest you, but interested me a great
deal when I was a child. I wish I could spend hours here to look all
through and see the different places about which I have heard all
kinds of incidents. All those anecdotes, looking back now, I can see
taught me an enormous amount, perhaps all the more because they were
not intended to teach anything. I think we are very apt to learn most
when neither we nor the people talking to us intend to teach anything.
All those stories of the life of those days taught me what a real home
life, a real neighbor life, was and should be. Looking back now at
what I learned through those stories of the childhood of my mother,
my aunts, my uncles, I can understand why the boys and girls of the
Roswell of that time grew up to be men and women who were good servants
of the community, who were good husbands, good fathers, good wives and
mothers; how it was that they learned to do their duty aright in peace
and in war also.
It is my very great good fortune to have the right to claim that my
blood is half Southern and half Northern; and I would deny the right of
any man here to feel a greater pride in the deeds of every Southerner
than I feel. Of the children, the brothers and sisters of my mother who
were born and brought up in that house on the hill over there, my two
uncles afterward entered the Confederate service, and served in the
Confederate Navy. One, the younger man, served on the “Alabama” as the
youngest officer aboard her. He was captain of one of her broadside
32-pounders in her final fight, and when at the very end the “Alabama”
was sinking, and the “Kearsarge” passed under her stern and came up
along the side that had not been engaged hitherto, my uncle, Irving
Bulloch, shifted his gun from one side to the other and fired the
last two shots fired from the “Alabama.” The other, the elder, James
Dunwoody Bulloch, was an admiral in the Confederate service. Of all the
people whom I have ever met he was the one that came nearest to that
beautiful creation of Thackeray—Colonel Newcome.
Men and women, don’t you think that I have the ancestral right to claim
a proud kinship with those who showed their devotion to duty as they
saw the duty, whether they wore the gray or whether they wore the blue?
All Americans who are worthy the name feel an equal pride in the valor
of those who fought on one side or the other, provided only that each
did with all his strength and soul and mind his duty as it was given
him to see his duty.
AT PIEDMONT PARK, ATLANTA, GA., OCTOBER 20, 1905
_Governor; Mr. Mayor; and you, My Valued Friend, Senator Clay; and
you, Men and Women of Georgia; Men and Women of my Mother’s State;
My Fellow-Citizens and Fellow-Americans_:
I can not too strongly express the feeling of gratitude I have for the
reception given to me to-day. I want to give you a word of explanation
as to what the Senator last said. The Senator said quite truly that
when I was in doubt as to the capacity or honesty of any man I was
seeking to appoint, or the wisdom of any policy, I was in the habit
of going to him. I will tell you why: because the Senator does what I
hope I try to do and what I have preached. Whenever I go to the Senator
I know I get a square deal. As I said once before to-day, the Senator
comes in that group of men upon whose advice I, like every other
American President who wishes to do what is best for the people, must
rely. If you will come down to bed-rock fact, the party differences
are mighty small compared to the common interests that all of us have
as Americans. On the great majority of questions, on almost all the
important questions that come up, what you want in public life is to
find the public man who cares for the interests of the people, and
who not only cares for them, but has the sense to know how to make
that care effective. I have found that I could consult Senator Clay
with absolute freedom and absolute confidence in his good faith and
sincere desire to do what was best for our people. All I had to do
was to convince him that I was right. I was not always successful in
convincing him; but if I did convince him I knew he would stand up for
what he thought right.
Before speaking to all of you here together let me say just one word
suggested by the generous and unexpected gift presented to me by the
representatives of organized labor here in Atlanta. I am speaking
in this mighty city, an industrial centre of the Union, in a great
agricultural State. It is of course a mere truism to say that if the
men who till the soil and the wage-workers are well off the rest of
the people will be well off; and it is the part of wise statesmanship
to try primarily to do all that can be done for the farmers, the men
who live on the land, who work on the land, and for the wage-workers,
the men who actually do the work with their hands. It has been my good
fortune to be an honorary member of a union of wage-workers. There
are few honors that I have ever had of which I am prouder than that.
I believe in organized labor; and I will do all that in me lies for
the wage-worker, except to do wrong, and if I was willing to do that I
would not be his true friend or any one else’s.
Having spoken to the farmer and the wage-worker, let me say just one
word to the men of the great Civil War, to the men who fought from
’61 to ’65. I am sure that you would be pleased if you could hear the
applause that greets, in any audience in the North, any allusion to
the valor, the self-devotion, the fealty to right as God gave them to
see the right, of the men who wore the gray in the great contest forty
years ago. We are indeed thrice fortunate as a people; because to us it
has been given alone among peoples in modern times to pass through one
of the most terrible contests of history; and, now that the bitterness
has died away, to cherish as our most precious heritage the memories
bequeathed to us alike by the men in blue and the men in gray, alike by
those who followed Grant and those who followed Lee, because each man
showed his readiness to sacrifice all, to sacrifice life itself, upon
the altar of duty as he saw it.
It is eminently appropriate that the representatives of organized labor
should be called upon to play a part in any ceremonies in a great
industrial city like this; and that incident alone would justify my
choice of subjects to-day.
Here in this great industrial centre, in this city which is a typical
Southern city, and therefore a typical American city, it is natural
to consider certain phases of the many-sided industrial problem which
this generation has to solve. In this world of ours it is practically
impossible to get success of any kind on a large scale without paying
something for it. The exceptions to the rule are too few to warrant
our paying heed to them; and as a rule it may be said that something
must be paid as an offset for everything we get and for everything
we accomplish. This is notably true of our industrial life. The
problems which we of America have to face to-day are very serious,
but we will do well to remember that after all they are only part of
the price which we have to pay for the triumphs we have won, for the
high position to which we have attained. If we were a backward and
stationary country we would not have to face these problems at all; but
I think that most of us are agreed that to be backward and stationary
would be altogether too heavy a price to pay for the avoidance of the
problems in question. There are no labor troubles where there is no
work to be done by labor. There are no troubles about corporations
where the poverty of the community is such that it is not worth while
to form corporations. There is no difficulty in regulating railroads
where the resources of a region are so few that it does not pay to
build railroads. There are many excellent people who shake their heads
over the difficulties that as a nation we now have to face; but their
melancholy is not warranted save in a very partial degree, for most of
the things of which they complain are the inevitable accompaniments of
the growth and greatness of which we are proud.
Now, I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not for one moment mean
to say that there are not many and serious evils with which we have to
grapple, or that there are not unhealthy signs in the body social and
politic; but I do mean to say that while we must not show a foolish
optimism we must no less beware of a mere blind pessimism. There is
every reason why we should be vigilant in searching out what is wrong
and unflinchingly resolute in striving to remedy it. But at the same
time we must not blind ourselves to what has been accomplished for
good, and above all we must not lose our heads and become either
hysterical or rancorous in grappling with what is bad.
Take such a question, for instance, as the question, or rather the
group of questions, connected with the growth of corporations in this
country. This growth has meant, of course, the growth of individual
fortunes. Undoubtedly the growth of wealth in this country has had some
very unfortunate accompaniments, but it seems to me that much the worst
damage that people of wealth can do the rest of us is not any actual
physical harm, but the awakening in our breasts of either the mean vice
of worshiping mere wealth, and the man of mere wealth, for the wealth’s
sake, or the equally mean vice of viewing with rancorous envy and
hatred the men of wealth merely because they are men of wealth. Envy
is, of course, merely a kind of crooked admiration; and we often see
the very man who in public is most intemperate in his denunciation of
wealth, in his private life most eager to obtain wealth, in no matter
what fashion, and at no matter what moral cost.
Undoubtedly there is need of regulation by the Government, in the
interest of the public, of these great corporations which in
modern life have shown themselves to be the most efficient business
implements, and which are, therefore, the implements commonly employed
by the owners of large fortunes. The corporation is the creature of the
State. It should always be held accountable to some sovereign, and this
accountability should be real and not sham. Therefore, in my judgment,
all corporations doing an interstate business, and this means the great
majority of the largest corporations, should be held accountable to the
Federal Government, because their accountability should be coextensive
with their field of action. But most certainly we should not strive to
prevent or limit corporate activity. We should strive to secure such
effective supervision over it, such power of regulation over it, as
to enable us to guarantee that its activity will be exercised only in
ways beneficial to the public. The unwisdom of any well-meaning but
misguided effort to check corporate activity has been shown in striking
fashion in recent years by our experience in the Philippines and in
Porto Rico. Our national legislators very properly determined that the
islands should not be exploited by adventurers without regard to the
interests of the people of the islands themselves. But unfortunately in
their zeal to prevent the islands from being improperly exploited they
took measures of such severity as to seriously, and in some respects
vitally, to hamper and retard the development of the islands. There is
nothing that the islands need more than to have their great natural
resources developed, and these resources can be developed only by
the abundant use of capital, which, of course, will not be put into
them unless on terms sufficiently advantageous to offer prospects of
good remuneration. We have made the terms not merely hard, but often
prohibitory, with the result that American capital goes into foreign
countries, like Mexico, and is there used with immense advantage to
the country in its development, while it can not go into our own
possessions or be used to develop the lands under our own flag. The
chief sufferers by this state of things are the people of the islands
themselves.
It is impossible too strongly to insist upon what ought to be the
patent fact, that it is not only in the interest of the people of
wealth themselves, but in our interest, in the interest of the public
as a whole, that they should be treated fairly and justly; that if they
show exceptional business ability they should be given exceptional
reward for that ability. The tissues of our industrial fabric are
interwoven in such complex fashion that what strengthens or weakens
part also strengthens or weakens the whole. If we penalize industry
we will ourselves in the end have to pay a considerable part of the
penalty. If we make conditions such that the men of exceptional ability
are able to secure marked benefits by the exercise of that ability,
then we shall ourselves benefit somewhat. It is our interest no less
than our duty to treat them fairly. On the other hand, it is no less
their interest to treat us fairly—by “us” I mean the great body of
the people, the men of moderate or small fortunes, the farmers, the
wage-workers, the smaller business men and professional men. The man
of great means who achieves fortune by crooked methods does wrong to
the whole body politic. But he not merely does wrong to, he becomes a
source of imminent danger to, other men of great means; for his ill-won
success tends to arouse a feeling of resentment, which if it becomes
inflamed fails to differentiate between the men of wealth who have done
decently and the men of wealth who have not done decently.
The conscience of our people has been deeply shocked by the revelations
made of recent years as to the way in which some of the great fortunes
have been obtained and used, and there is, I think, in the minds of the
people at large a strong feeling that a serious effort must be made
to put a stop to the cynical dishonesty and contempt for right which
have thus been revealed. I believe that something, and I hope that a
good deal, can be done by law to remedy the state of things complained
of. But when all that can be has thus been done, there will yet remain
much which the law can not touch, and which must be reached by the
force of public opinion. There are men who do not divide actions merely
into those that are honest and those that are not, but create a third
subdivision—that of law honesty; of that kind of honesty which consists
in keeping clear of the penitentiary. It is hard to reach astute men
of this type save by making them feel the weight of an honest public
indignation. But this indignation, if it is to be effective, must be
intelligent. It is, of course, to the great advantage of dishonest
men of wealth if they are denounced, not for being dishonest, but for
being wealthy, and if they are denounced in terms so overstrained and
hysterical as to invite a reaction in their favor. We can not afford in
this country to draw the distinction as between rich man and poor man.
The distinction upon which we must insist is the vital, deep-lying,
unchangeable distinction between the honest man and the dishonest
man, between the man who acts decently and fairly by his neighbor and
with a quick sense of his obligations, and the man who acknowledges
no internal law save that of his own will and appetite. Above all we
should treat with a peculiarly contemptuous abhorrence the man who in
a spirit of sheer cynicism debauches either our business life or our
political life. There are men who use the phrase “practical politics”
as merely a euphemism for dirty politics, and it is such men who have
brought the word “politician” into discredit. There are other men
who use the noxious phrase “business is business” as an excuse and
justification for every kind of mean and crooked work; and these men
make honest Americans hang their heads because of some of the things
they do. It is the duty of every honest patriot to rebuke in emphatic
fashion alike the politician who does not understand that the only kind
of “practical politics” which a nation can with safety tolerate is
that kind which we know as clean politics, and that we are as severe
in our condemnation of the business trickery which succeeds as of the
business trickery which fails. The scoundrel who fails can never by
any possibility be as dangerous to the community as the scoundrel who
succeeds; and of all the men in the country, the worst citizens, those
who should excite in our minds the most contemptuous abhorrence, are
the men who have achieved great wealth, or any other form of success,
in any save a clean and straightforward manner.
So much for the general subject of industrialism. Now, just a word
in reference to one of the great staples of this country, which is
peculiarly a staple of the Southern States. Of course I mean cotton. I
am glad to see diversifications of industry in the South, the growth
of manufactures as well as the growth of agriculture, and the growing
growth of diversification of crops in agriculture. Nevertheless, it
will always be true that in certain of the Southern States cotton will
be the basis of the wealth, the mainstay of prosperity in the future
as in the past. The cotton crop is of enormous consequence to the
entire country. It was the cotton crop of the South that brought four
hundred million dollars of foreign gold into the United States last
year, turning the balance of trade in our favor. The soil and climate
of the South are such that she enjoys a practical monopoly in the
production of raw cotton. No other clothing material can be accepted
as a substitute for cotton. I welcome the action of the planters in
forming a cotton association, and every assistance shall be given them
that can be given them by the National Government. Moreover, we must
not forget that the work of the manufacturer in the South supplements
the work of the planter. It is an advantage to manufacture the raw
material here and sell to the world the finished goods. Under proper
methods of distribution it may well be doubted whether there can be
such a thing as overproduction of cotton. Last year’s crop was nearly
fourteen million bales, and yet the price was sufficiently high to give
a handsome profit to the planter. The consumption of cotton increases
each year, and new uses are found for it.
This leads me to a matter of our foreign relations which directly
concerns the cotton planter. At present our market for cotton is
largely in China. The boycott of our goods in China during the past
year was especially injurious to the cotton manufacturers. This
Government is doing, and will continue to do, all it can to put a stop
to the boycott. But there is one measure to be taken toward this end
in which I shall need the assistance of the Congress. We must insist
firmly on our rights; and China must beware of persisting in a course
of conduct to which we can not honorably submit. But we in our turn
must recognize our duties exactly as we insist upon our rights. We can
not go into the international court of equity unless we go in with
clean hands. We can not expect China to do us justice unless we do
China justice. The chief cause in bringing about the boycott of our
goods in China was undoubtedly our attitude toward the Chinese who come
to this country. This attitude of ours does not justify the action of
the Chinese in the boycott, and especially some of the forms which that
action has taken. But the fact remains that in the past we have come
short of our duty toward the people of China. It is our clear duty,
in the interest of our own wage-workers, to forbid all Chinese of the
coolie class—that is, laborers, skilled or unskilled—from coming here.
The greatest of all duties is national self-preservation, and the
most important step in national self-preservation is to preserve in
every way the well-being of the wage-worker. I am convinced that the
well-being of our wage-workers demands the exclusion of the Chinese
coolies, and it is therefore our duty to exclude them, just as it would
be the duty of China to exclude American laboring men if they became
in any way a menace to China by entering into her country. The right
is reciprocal, and in our last treaty with China it was explicitly
recognized as inhering in both nations. But we should not only operate
the law with as little harshness as possible, but we should show every
courtesy and consideration and every encouragement to all Chinese who
are not of the laboring class to come to this country. Every Chinese
traveler or student, business man or professional man, should be given
the same right of entry to, and the same courteous treatment in, this
country as are accorded to the student or traveler, the business man
or professional man, of any other nation. Our laws and treaties should
be so framed as to guarantee to all Chinamen, save of the excepted
coolie class, the same right of entry to this country and the same
treatment while here as is guaranteed to citizens of any other nation.
By executive action I am as rapidly as possible putting a stop to the
abuses which have grown up during many years in the administration
of this law. I can do a good deal, and will do a good deal, even
without the action of the Congress; but I can not do all that should
be done unless such action is taken, and that action I most earnestly
hope will be taken. It is needed in our own interest, and especially
in the interest of the Pacific Slope and of the South Atlantic and
Gulf States; for it is short-sighted indeed for us to permit foreign
competitors to drive us from the great markets of China. Moreover, the
action I ask is demanded by considerations that are higher than mere
interest, for I ask it in the name of what is just and right. America
should take the lead in establishing international relations on the
same basis of honest and upright dealing which we regard as essential
as between man and man.
AT THE LUNCHEON OF THE PIEDMONT CLUB, ATLANTA, GA., OCTOBER 20, 1905
_Mr. Graves, and My Hosts_:
Surely it must be almost unnecessary for me to say not alone how I
have enjoyed to-day, but how deeply touched and moved I have been
at your reception of me, at Georgia’s reception of its descendant.
I told the Governor I had a kind of ancestral reversionary right to
his chair; because the first revolutionary President of Georgia was
my great-great-grandfather, Archibald Bulloch, after whom one of my
boys is named. No man could meet with such a reception as you have
given me to-day, no man could see your city, could see your people,
could address such an audience as I have addressed, and not be a
better citizen afterward. It means a great deal to me to meet all of
you personally, with all that you gentlemen typify in the world of
politics, the world of business, and that world of ethical effort which
can alone render either business or politics noble.
Now, I am going to very illy repay the courtesy with which I have been
greeted, by causing for a minute or two acute discomfort to a man of
whom I am very fond—Uncle Remus. Presidents may come and Presidents may
go; but Uncle Remus “stays put.” Georgia has done a great many things
for the Union; but she has never done more than when she gave Mr. Joel
Chandler Harris to American literature. I suppose he is one of those
literary people who insist that art should have nothing to do with
morals, and will condemn me as a Philistine for not agreeing with them;
but I want to say that one of the great reasons why I like what he has
written is because after reading it I rise up with the purpose of being
a better man, a man who is bound to strive to do what is in him for
the cause of decency and for the cause of righteousness. Gentlemen,
I feel too strongly to indulge in any language of mere compliment, of
mere flattery. Where Mr. Harris seems to me to have done one of his
greatest services is that he has written what exalts the South in the
mind of every man who reads it, and yet what has not even a flavor of
bitterness toward any other part of the Union. There is not an American
anywhere who can read Mr. Harris’s stories—I am not speaking at the
moment of his wonderful folk tales, but of his stories—who does not
rise up a better citizen for having read them, who does not rise up
with a more earnest desire to do his part in solving American problems
aright. I can not too strongly express the obligations I am under to
Mr. Harris; and one of those obligations is to feel as a principle that
it is my duty (which if I have transgressed, I have not transgressed
knowingly) never as an American to say anything that could be construed
into an attack upon any portion of our common country.
Let me say one word on something entirely different, suggested by our
talk here to-day. In speaking over with several of the gentlemen round
about me their experiences in the Georgia Legislature and some of my
experiences in the New York Legislature, the thing that struck me the
most was the truth of Abraham Lincoln’s saying that “there is a deal
of human nature in mankind.” The enemies we have to fight, the friends
upon whom we have to rely, are substantially the same, in whatever
part of the Union we live. We have to war against the same evil
tendencies in our own souls; we have to strive to give expression to
the same aspirations toward righteousness, toward honor. In doing this
there are two things that are necessary above all others. In the first
place, the fearless condemnation of what is wrong; the standing up for
what is decent, for what is straight; the refusing to palter with the
eternal principles of truth; refusing to pardon any man who for any
reason lapses from the law that teaches that the man who is to be of
service must obey the great rule of truth, of courage, and of honor. In
the second place, to remember that second only in iniquity, second only
in the injury done to the Republic, to the wrong of the man who acts
corruptly, comes the wrong of the man who wantonly accuses the honest
man of corruption. Thief is an ugly name, because it denotes an ugly
thing; liar is as ugly a name as thief and as little to be desired by
any right-thinking man; and either to steal or to lie marks the man as
unfit for association with decent men and an enemy of all that is best
and most upright in our political life. Too often we have seen public
sentiment condoning the acts both of the thief and the liar (I am using
ugly words, gentlemen, and I am using them because I wish to denote
in the sharpest and in the most ugly fashion ugly attributes), when
these acts are shifted a little so that they can be hidden under other
names. The man who in political life, the man who in business life,
by chicanery or by corruption in any shape or form, does or achieves
what could not be done or achieved save by or through chicanery or
corruption, stands on the same level with the man who in court is
convicted of theft. The man who on no grounds, or on insufficient
grounds, attacks the honest and upright man, whether in public or
private life, as corrupt; who seeks to persuade men to believe that
he is corrupt; who accuses him of corruption; this man stands on the
same evil eminence of infamy with the corruptionist himself; and he
is himself the greatest ally of the corruptionist he professes to
denounce. The Republic will go down, our democratic institutions will
be a failure, if the moral sense of the people grows so blunted that
they will accept anything else, whether brilliancy or loyalty of party
service, or any other deed or quality, as an offset to corruption. The
minute that there arises a question of corruption in public life, if
we have any sense of loyalty to the Union and its institutions, all
political lines vanish at once. We can afford to consider in a public
servant nothing but the question of his honesty or dishonesty when once
that question is raised.
The surest way of blunting the public conscience in dealing with
corruption is to confuse the public mind as to who is corrupt and who
is not. There are plenty of men with whom we differ radically, plenty
of men of whom we radically disapprove, as to whom it is right and
necessary that we should express that disapprobation; but beware of
expressing it in terms that imply moral reprobation. When we express
moral reprobation let us be sure that we know the facts and then that
we say only exactly what is true. To accuse an honest man of being a
thief is to gladden the heart of every thief in the Nation. In our
legislative bodies, in our National Congress, if you find that any man
is corrupt, you are not to be excused if you do not hunt him out of
public life, whether he is of one party or whether he is of another.
But if you accuse, either specifically or in loose general declamation,
all men of being corruptionists, you by just so much weaken your own
strength when it becomes necessary to assail the genuine corruptionist.
So far from asking that you be lenient in your judgment of any public
man, I hold that you are recreant to duty if you are thus lenient. Do
not be lenient, but do be just. If you dislike a man’s policy, say so.
If you think he is acting in a way so misguided that he will bring ruin
to the State or Nation, say so. But do not accuse him of corruption
unless you know that he is corrupt; and if you know that he is corrupt,
if you have good reason to believe that he is corrupt, then refuse
under any plea of party expediency, under any consideration, to refrain
from smiting him with the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.
AT JACKSONVILLE, FLA., OCTOBER 21, 1905
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
Here in Florida, the first of the Gulf States which I have visited upon
this trip, I wish to say a special word about the Panama Canal. I
believe that the canal will be of great benefit to all of our people,
but most of all to the States of the South Atlantic, the Gulf and the
Pacific Slope. When completed the canal will stand as a monument to
this Nation; for it will be the greatest engineering feat ever yet
accomplished in the world. It will be a good thing for the world as a
whole, and for the people of the Isthmus and of the northern portions
of South America in particular. Because of our especial interest in
it, and because of the position we occupy on this hemisphere, it is a
matter of especial pride to us that our Nation, the American Nation,
should have undertaken the performance of this world duty. A body of
the most eminent engineers in the world, both Americans and foreigners,
has been summoned to advise as to the exact type of canal which should
be built. At no distant date I hope to be able to announce what their
advice is, and also the action taken upon their advice. Meanwhile
the work is already well under way, and has advanced sufficiently
far to enable me to announce with certainty that it can surely be
accomplished, and probably at rather less expense than was anticipated.
But upon the last point, as well as upon the question of time, no
positive statement can be made until the report of the commission of
engineers as to the exact type of canal has been received. The work is
as difficult as it is important; and it is of course inevitable that
from time to time difficulties will occur and checks be encountered.
Whenever such is the case the men of little faith at home will lose
that little faith, and the critics who confound hysteria with emphasis
will act after their kind. But our people as a whole possess not only
faith, but resolution, and are of too virile fibre to be swept one
way or the other by mere sensationalism. No check that may come will
be of more than trivial and passing consequence, will inflict any
permanent damage, or cause any serious delay. The work can be done, is
being done, and will be done. What has already been accomplished is a
guaranty as to the future.
When any such work is undertaken there are always many mere adventurers
who flock to where it is going on, and many men who think they are
adventurers, but who are in reality either weak or timid, follow in
their footsteps. Some of the first class will now and then cause
trouble in one way or another. But every care will be taken to detect
any misdeed on their part and to punish them as soon as the misdeed is
detected. As for the second class, they will cause trouble chiefly by
losing heart, returning home, or writing home, and raising a cry that
they are not happy, and that the conditions of life are not easy, or
that the work is not being done as they think it ought to be done. Now
these men stand just as the stragglers and laggards stand who are ever
to be found in the rear of even a victorious army. The veterans of the
Civil War who are here present will tell you that the very rear of an
army, even when it is victorious, is apt to look and behave as if
the victory were defeat. And just the same thing is true in any great
enterprise in civil life; there are always weaklings who get trampled
down or lose heart, and there are always people who listen to their
complaints. They amount to nothing one way or the other, so far as
achieving results is concerned; and their complaints and outcries need
never detain us.
I call your attention specifically to the matter of health on the
Isthmus. The climate was supposed to be deadly, and yellow fever,
in especial, was supposed to be epidemic. Yet since we have assumed
control there has been far less yellow fever than in our own country.
The administration is steadily becoming better and more effective,
from the hygienic as well as from every other standpoint. The work
of building the canal is a great American work, in which the whole
American people are interested. It has nothing to do with parties
or partisanship, and is being carried on with absolute disregard to
all merely political considerations; with regard only to efficiency,
honesty, and economy.
The digging of the canal will, of course, greatly increase our interest
in the Caribbean Sea. It will be our duty to police the canal, both
in the interest of other nations and in our own interest. To do this
it is, of course, indispensable to have an efficient navy (and I am
happy to say that we are well on our way toward having one), and also
to possess, as we already possess, certain strategic points to control
the approach to the canal. In addition it is urgently necessary that
the insular and continental countries within or bordering upon the
Caribbean Sea should be able to secure fair dealing and orderly liberty
within their own borders. I need not say that the United States not
only has no purpose of aggression upon any republic, continental or
insular, to the south of us, but has the friendliest feeling toward
them, and desires nothing save their progress and prosperity. We do not
wish another foot of territory; and I think our conduct toward Cuba
is a guaranty that this is our genuine attitude toward all our sister
republics. If ever we should have to interfere in the affairs of any
of our neighbors it would only be when we found it impossible longer
to refrain from doing so without serious damage following; and even in
such case it would only be with the sincere and effective purpose to
make our interference beneficial to the peoples concerned. Of course,
occupying the position we do, occasions may now and then arise when we
can not refrain from such interference, save under penalty of seeing
some other strong nation undertake the duty which we neglect; and such
neglect would be unfortunate from more than one standpoint. Wherever
possible we should gladly give any aid we can to a weaker sister
republic which is endeavoring to achieve stability and prosperity. It
is an ungenerous thing for us to refuse such aid; and it is foolish not
to give it in a way that will make it really effective, and therefore
of direct benefit to the people concerned—and of indirect benefit to
us, simply because it is a benefit to them. In the last resort, and
only in the last resort, it may occasionally be necessary to interfere
by exercising what is virtually an international police power, if only
to avoid seeing some European power forced to exercise it. In short,
while we must interfere always cautiously, and never wantonly, yet,
on rare occasions, where the need is great, it may be necessary to
interfere, unless we are willing to confess ourselves too feeble for
the task that we have undertaken, and to avow that we are willing to
surrender it into stronger hands; and such confession and avowal I know
my countrymen too well to believe that they will ever make.
AT THE FLORIDA BAPTIST COLLEGE, JACKSONVILLE, FLA., OCTOBER 21, 1905
_Mr. Councilman; Mr. Principal; and you, My Fellow-Citizens_:
It is a very great pleasure to be here this afternoon and say a few
words of greeting to you. Let me by way of beginning say a word of
special greeting to my comrades of the Grand Army. I had a colored
cavalry regiment in my brigade at Santiago, and they did well.
My friends, let me say what a pleasure it has been in driving along the
streets to have the Governor and the Mayor point out to me house after
house owned by colored citizens, who by their own industry, energy, and
thrift had accumulated a small fortune honestly and were spending it
wisely. Every good American must be interested in seeing every other
American citizen rise, help himself upward, so as to be better able to
do his duty by himself and those dependent upon him and by the State at
large. It seems to me that it is true of all of us that our duties are
even more important than our rights. If we do our duties faithfully in
spite of all difficulties, then sooner or later the rights will take
care of themselves.
What I say to this body of my colored fellow-citizens is just exactly
what I would say to any body of my white fellow-citizens. What we
need in this country is typified by what I have been shown to-day as
having been done by people of your race. We need education, morality,
industry; we need intelligence, clean living, and the power to work
hard and effectively. No man interested, as every President must be,
in the welfare of all his fellow-Americans, could be otherwise than
deeply pleased, not only at the evidences of thrift and prosperity
among what must be evidently many hundreds of your number here in this
city, as shown by the homes that I have seen, but interested also in
seeing an educational institute like this carried on as this institute
evidently is carried on. The costliest crop for any community is the
crop of ignorance. It is perfectly true that education in mind alone
won’t make a good citizen; but it is equally true that you can not get
the best citizen without education. We need to have our people of every
race educated, as the Principal said in his words of introduction,
in heart, mind, and hand; educated so that head and hand can do their
several tasks, and so that there shall be behind head and hand also the
heart, the conscience, the sense of clean and just living, which make
the foundation of all good citizens. This is just as true for the white
man as for the colored man. It is true of every man.
I want to say a special word of acknowledgment to the school teachers,
men and women alike, who are doing the work of education; and in saying
that word I also want to point out this: it is absolutely essential
that we should have people do well in the professions; but there is
only a limited amount of room in the professions and there is almost an
unlimited amount of room in agriculture and in the mechanical trades.
Do your very best to develop good teachers, good doctors, to develop
good preachers—preachers who shall preach to the colored man as it
should be preached to the white man, that “by their fruits you shall
know them,” and that the truly religious man is the man who is decent
and clean in his private life; who is orderly and law-abiding; the
man who hunts down the criminal and does all he can to stop crime and
wrong-doing; the man who treats his neighbor well; who is a good man in
his own family and therefore a good man in the state. That is what we
have a right to expect from the Christian leadership of the churches.
All honor to the teacher, to the doctor, to the preacher; but remember
that it is impossible that the bulk of any people shall be teachers,
or doctors, or lawyers, or preachers. The bulk have got to be men
engaged in the trades, as mechanics, as wage-workers, as farmers. Every
man who is a good farmer, a thrifty, progressive, saving mechanic, who
owns his own house, who is free from debt, and able to bring up his
children well, and to keep his wife as she should be kept, is not only
a first-class citizen, but is doing a mighty work in helping to uplift
his race.
AT MOBILE, ALA., OCTOBER 23, 1905
_Mr. Mayor; My Fellow-Citizens_:
I know that the rest of you will not grudge my saying that most of
all I am touched by the sight of the men who wore the gray in the
great war, parading here to-day. I have just been presented by Judge
Semmes with this beautiful badge. I passed by the statue of Admiral
Semmes as we drove up hither. Admiral Semmes had under him on the
“Alabama” one of my uncles, and it was another uncle that built the
“Alabama.” The Judge’s sister, the Admiral’s daughter, is the wife of
that distinguished ex-Confederate who by his rule as Governor of the
Philippines has held aloft the record of American rule for integrity,
efficiency, and firmness.
In speaking before the citizens of this great seaport of the Gulf I
naturally wish to say a word about the Panama Canal. I hold that as
a matter of public policy whatever helps part of our country helps
the whole; and I did my best to bring about the construction of the
canal in the interest of all our people; but if there is any one
section to be most benefited by it, it is the section that includes the
Gulf States. Originally I had been for the Nicaragua canal; but when
Congress acted I abode by the decision of Congress. It became evident
that we should either have no canal or the Panama Canal; and I am for
a canal. If we had not acted as we have, all chance of building that
canal would have vanished for half a century to come; and as it is we
now are assured of having that canal within a comparatively short time.
Gentlemen, I want to warn you not to be misled by interested clamor.
Every man who had to do with bringing about the construction of the
canal knows that for decades it was opposed and successfully opposed
by great commercial interests which did not wish to see it completed,
which did not wish to see a canal speedily dug through the Isthmus and
communication between the Atlantic and Pacific established. It seems to
me evident from certain things I see in a portion of the daily press
that those enemies are still active, and that they are going to try
to becloud the issue, with the hope of putting off for ten or fifteen
years or over the digging of that canal. Their weapons will be and are
every form of misrepresentation. But, gentlemen, they will fail. You
need not have the slightest alarm. Uncle Sam has started to dig that
canal and it will be dug, and soon. The people who, largely by the
circulation of false rumors and by direct misstatement, are seeking
to create confusion such as will defer the building of the canal
will be disappointed. We have as a people the right to feel genuine
satisfaction with the progress that has already been made. Let me point
out something of which you here will appreciate the significance: the
sanitation of the Isthmus. Do you remember that a couple of years ago
men said that you could not dig that canal because yellow fever was
epidemic there? We are digging it, and with a cleaner bill of mortality
than the Isthmus has ever known before. I am happy to be able to tell
you that from information received this very day, I find that those who
have just returned from the Isthmus are not only pleased but astonished
at the excellent trim in which the project is; that it is going on
well, and that it will go along even better in the future.
Of all the things said about me to-day in the over-kind allusions to
me, I was especially pleased by what the Colonel said as to my attitude
toward crooked public servants. I will take advice about appointing
men; but if I find they are crooked I do not take any advice at all
about removing them. We have Scriptural authority for saying that
“offences must come”; but the Good Book adds, “woe to them through whom
they come.” I can not guarantee, and no human being can, that there
will not be an occasional man of an improper kind appointed, or an
occasional well-meaning man who after being appointed goes wrong; but I
can say that every effort within the power of the Government will be
made to hunt such a man out of the public service and to punish him to
the full extent of the law.
Here in this seaboard city I want to say another word, and that is
about the United States Navy. Again, Judge Semmes, in passing by the
monument of your illustrious father I felt the thrill of pride that
all Americans must feel that the names of the combatants in that
famous ship duel are commemorated in the names of the “Kearsarge” and
“Alabama” in the United States Navy now, and that if ever they have
to go into action they will go into action side by side, manned by
Americans, against a common foe. I know that an audience composed as
this audience is of men who either themselves fought or whose fathers
fought in the Civil War, appreciate to the full the sound national
policy (if I may use the vernacular) of never bluffing unless you
mean to make good. We undertook to build the Panama Canal because we
said that owing to our position and interest and standing we were the
only nation that could or should do it. That means that we have got
to protect it and police it ourselves. We do not ask anybody else to
help us do the work we have allotted to ourselves. We must therefore
bring up and keep up our navy to the highest point of efficiency. We
can afford to have a small army; although we must insist upon its being
kept up to the high point of efficiency that I am glad to say our
regular army in its individual units has now attained. In the event of
war, however, which I hope will never come, the American people in
the future as in the past must on land rely mainly upon its volunteer
soldiery. But while it is a comparatively simple task to turn a man of
the proper character, physique and intelligence into a good soldier,
you can not improvise either a battleship or the crew of a battleship.
At sea the battle has to be fought with the ships and the crews that
have been prepared before the war begins; and we wish to profit by the
lessons of history by seeing that our navy is always kept adequate
to our needs. It is not necessary to have a very large navy; but it
is necessary that ship for ship it should be just a little the most
efficient navy in the world. In battle the shots that count are the
shots that hit. There are plenty of gallant fellows who will go down
with their ships. That is all right; if there is nothing else to be
done, go down with the ships rather than surrender. But try to make the
other fellow’s ship go down first! I want our people to feel that in
assuming to dig the Isthmian canal, in assuming the position we have
assumed as regards this Western Hemisphere and in the Oriental seas,
we bind ourselves to keep our navy at such a point of efficiency that
there shall be no chance of humiliation at the hands of any foreign foe.
I appreciate immensely this mighty outpouring of people. The Mayor
in his most gratifying and touching speech spoke of the fact of
our agreement on the fundamental questions, without regard to our
differences on what are really matters only of political detail. The
things that count are the things upon which we are all agreed and must
be all agreed in our civic life. Whether President, Governor, Mayor,
Congressman, or State Legislator, there are certain basic principles to
which we must prove true if we are to make this country what it shall
be made. We can perfectly well afford to differ about the currency or
the tariff; but we can not afford to differ about such questions as
honesty in public life, decency and cleanliness in private life. Those
qualities and others like them go to the root of the whole question of
citizenship. I believe in the future of this country; I believe that
this great self-governing Republic will rise to a height never even
dreamed of by any other nation, because I believe that the average
American citizen, North or South, East or West, has the right stuff
in him; that the average American citizen has the three fundamental
virtues of honesty, courage, and common-sense.
AT THE ALABAMA CONFERENCE FEMALE COLLEGE, TUSKEGEE, ALA.,
OCTOBER 24, 1905
_Mr. Mayor; and you, My Friends and Fellow Americans_:
It is indeed a peculiar pleasure to be here this morning and be greeted
as you have greeted me. Mr. Mayor, I feel that those gathered here to
greet me symbolize what we most like to think of as typically American
in our national life. When you brought me here, Mr. Mayor, I was met
on the platform by the pastors of the Methodist and Baptist churches
in the shade of an institution of the higher learning, in the presence
of these students and of the children of the public schools; while
at the same time I see the industries of the nation typified both
by cotton being picked as I came up and also by the fact that I am
speaking on the most valuable platform I have ever spoken on (cotton
bales); and finally, I have as a guard of honor members of the National
Guard, whom, as I look at, I feel to be my own comrades, for they
are just the type I had in my own regiment in the Spanish war. These
elements, as I say, typify what we hope and believe are the elements
representing what is most vital in American life: the deep religious
feeling of our people, the understanding of our people that material
prosperity amounts to nothing if behind it and under it there is not
the spiritual sense, the sense of moral obligation, the fealty to an
ideal; the realization that in addition we must have, as the foundation
of national prosperity, industry, energy, and thrift, and their fruits.
There must be devotion to the arts and practices of peace, devotion
to civic duty, and yet the readiness of the man who does his duty in
civil life to do it in military life if ever the need arises; and
finally the recognition of the fact that though a great many crops are
important, the most important crop is the crop of children; and the one
thing that this Nation can not afford to neglect is the education of
the nation of the future. The Nation of the future will rise higher or
not just as the boys and girls of the present are or are not trained
to do their duty as men and as women. So I take a particular pleasure
in being here and greeting the children of the public schools and
those past childhood who are studying in this college itself. The one
all-essential thing in America, the thing that underlies everything
else, is to have the average American a good man or a good woman. If
there is any one thing that I respect more than a good man it is a good
woman. I think she is just a trifle more useful, and she has a harder
time in life; and so she is a little more entitled to our respect
than even the best man; and there is not a man here who is worth his
salt who does not agree with me. Of course it is a mere truism to say
that the ultimate factor in determining the welfare of the nation is
the life of the home; that is, the way in which the ordinary man,
the ordinary woman, performs his or her ordinary duties of the most
sacred and intimate kind. If the man is a good father, a good husband;
if he is decent and clean in his domestic life; if he does his duty
by his neighbor; if he is the kind of a man whom we are glad to have
as a neighbor and to do business with, that man is a good citizen.
It is just the same with the woman. If the woman is a good wife and
mother, she is a good citizen; and not merely a good citizen, but she
is the very best kind of citizen that this country can produce. What
we need is not merely desire to perform heroic feats under altogether
exceptional circumstances; but the steadfast determination to perform
the rather commonplace duties of every day, day by day, as they arise.
Speaking broadly, the man who does that is the man whom you can trust
if the need for heroism arises. Each of you boys here should remember
that the way to fit yourself to be of the utmost possible use is so
to act that your family likes to have you at home, instead of feeling
a relief when you are gone; and it is the same way with the girl. We
all of us know an occasional foolish mother who says, “I have had to
work hard; I have had a pretty hard time, my daughter shall not have
to work.” That is not kindness to the daughter. It is doing the very
worst thing that can be done for her. Do not bring up your boys and
girls to be useless, to avoid trouble, to get around trouble, to shirk
work. The man or the woman who counts in life is the man or the woman,
not who flinches from a task, but who does the task, who overcomes the
obstacle. The boy or girl won’t turn out that kind of a man or woman if
not brought up in that spirit from the beginning.
AT TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE, TUSKEGEE, ALA., OCTOBER 24, 1905
_Mr. Washington; Friends, and Pupils of Tuskegee Institute_:
To the white population as well as to the black, it is of the utmost
importance that the negro be encouraged to make himself a citizen
of the highest type of usefulness. It is to the interest of the
white people that this policy be conscientiously pursued, and to the
interest of the colored people that they clearly realize that they
have opportunities for economic development here in the South not
now offered elsewhere. Within the last twenty years the industrial
operations of the South have increased so tremendously that there is a
scarcity of labor almost everywhere; so that it is the part of wisdom
for all who wish the prosperity of the South to help the negro to
become in the highest degree useful to himself, and therefore to the
community in which he lives. The South has always depended, and now
depends, chiefly upon her native population for her work. Therefore
in view of the scarcity not only of common labor, but of skilled
labor, it becomes doubly important to train every available man to
be of the utmost use, by developing his intelligence, his skill, and
his capacity for conscientious effort. Hence the work of the Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute is a matter of the highest practical
importance to both the white man and the black man, and well worth
the support of both races alike in the South and in the North. Your
fifteen hundred students are not only being educated in head and heart,
but also trained to industrial efficiency, for from the beginning
Tuskegee has placed especial emphasis upon the training of men and
women in agriculture, mechanics, and household duties, Training in
these three fundamental directions does not embrace all that the negro,
or any other race, needs, but it does cover in a very large degree
the field in which the negro can at present do most for himself and
be most helpful to his white neighbors. Every black man who leaves
this institute better able to do mechanical or industrial work adds
by so much to the wealth of the whole community and benefits all
people in the community. The professional and mercantile avenues to
success are overcrowded; for the present the best chance of success
awaits the intelligent worker at some mechanical trade or on a farm;
for this man will almost certainly achieve industrial independence. I
am pleased, but not in the least surprised, to learn that many among
the men and women trained at Tuskegee find immediate employment as
leaders and workers among their own people, and that their services
are eagerly sought by white people for various kinds of industrial
work, the demand being much greater than the supply. Viewed from any
angle, ignorance is the costliest crop that can be raised in any part
of this Union. Every dollar put into the education of either white man
or black man, in head, in hand, and in heart, yields rich dividends to
the entire community. Merely from the economic standpoint it is of the
utmost consequence to all our citizens that institutions such as this
at Tuskegee should be a success. But there are other and even higher
reasons that entitle it to our support. In the interest of humanity, of
justice, and of self-protection, every white man in America, no matter
where he lives, should try to help the negro to help himself. It is in
the interest and for the protection of the white man to see that the
negro is educated. It is not only the duty of the white man, but it is
to his interest, to see that the negro is protected in property, in
life, and in all his legal rights. Every time a law is broken, every
individual in the community has the moral tone of his life lowered.
Lawlessness in the United States is not confined to any one section;
lynching is not confined to any one section; and there is perhaps no
body of American citizens who have deserved so well of the entire
American people as the public men, the publicists, the clergymen,
the countless thousands of high-minded private citizens, who have
done such heroic work in the South in arousing public opinion against
lawlessness in all its forms, and especially against lynching. I very
earnestly hope that their example will count in the North as well as
in the South, for there are just as great evils to be warred against
in one region of our country as in another, though they are not in all
places the same evils. And when any body of men in any community stands
bravely for what is right, these men not merely serve a useful purpose
in doing the particular task to which they set themselves, but give a
lift to the cause of good citizenship throughout the Union. I heartily
appreciate what you have done at Tuskegee; and I am sure you will not
grudge my saying that it could not possibly have been done save for the
loyal support you have received from the white people round about; for
during the twenty-five years of effort to educate the black man here
in the midst of a white community of intelligence and culture, there
has never been an outbreak between the races, or any difficulty of any
kind. All honor is due to the white men of Alabama, to the white men
of Tuskegee, for what they have done. And right here let me say that
if in any community a misunderstanding between the races arises, over
any matter, infinitely the best way out is to have a prompt, frank
and full conference and consultation between representatives of the
wise, decent, cool-headed men among the whites and the wise, decent,
cool-headed colored men. Such a conference will always tend to bring
about a better understanding, and will be a great help all round.
Hitherto I have spoken chiefly of the obligations existing on the part
of the white man. Now let you remember on the other hand that no help
can permanently avail you save as you yourselves develop capacity for
self-help. You young colored men and women educated at Tuskegee must
by precept and example lead your fellows toward sober, industrious,
law-abiding lives. You are in honor bound to join hands in favor of
law and order and to war against all crime, and especially against
all crime by men of your own race; for the heaviest wrong done by the
criminal is the wrong to his own race. You must teach the people of
your race that they must scrupulously observe any contract into which
they in good faith enter, no matter whether it is hard to keep or not.
If you save money, secure homes, become taxpayers, and lead clean,
decent, modest lives, you will win the respect of your neighbors of
both races. Let each man strive to excel his fellows only by rendering
substantial service to the community in which he lives. The colored
people have many difficulties to pass through, but these difficulties
will be surmounted if only the policy of reason and common-sense is
pursued. You have made real and great progress. According to the census
the colored people of this country own and pay taxes upon something
like three hundred million dollars’ worth of property, and have blotted
out over fifty per cent of their illiteracy. What you have done in the
past is an indication of what you will be able to accomplish in the
future under wise leadership. Moral and industrial education is what is
most needed, in order that this progress may continue. The race can not
expect to get everything at once. It must learn to wait and bide its
time; to prove itself worthy by showing its possession of perseverance,
of thrift, of self-control. The destiny of the race is chiefly in its
own hands, and must be worked out patiently and persistently along
these lines. Remember also that the white man who can be of most use
to the colored man is that colored man’s neighbor. It is the Southern
people themselves who must and can solve the difficulties that exist
in the South; of course what help the people of the rest of the Union
can give them must and will be gladly and cheerfully given. The hope
of advancement for the colored man in the South lies in his steady,
common-sense effort to improve his moral and material condition, and
to work in harmony with the white man in upbuilding the Commonwealth.
The future of the South now depends upon the people of both races
living up to the spirit and letter of the laws of their several States
and working out the destinies of both races, not as races, but as
law-abiding American citizens.
AT THE CAPITOL BUILDING, MONTGOMERY, ALA., OCTOBER 24, 1905
_Governor; Colonel Wiley; My Fellow-Citizens_:
My friends and fellow-citizens, think what a privilege ours is; think
what it means for this nation; that there is no place in this Union
where the President of the Union can feel more at home, can feel more
that he is indeed the President of all the Union, of a reunited and
indissoluble Union, than here under the shadow of the first capitol of
the Confederacy. Poor indeed would be the soul of the man who did not
leave Montgomery a better American than he came into it, after being
received as I have been received to-day.
In speaking to all of you I know that the younger—those of my own age
and younger still—will not grudge my saying a special word of greeting
to the veterans of the great war. Here again think how fortunate we
are. There is no other people of which history tells, which, having
passed through such a war as we passed through, after forty years finds
not only that the flag which had been rent in sunder is once again
whole without a seam; finds all the people challenging as theirs the
right to claim their part in the heritage of glory bequeathed to every
American, alike by the Americans who wore the blue and the Americans
who wore the gray in the great Civil War. In coming to your mighty
and beautiful State, with its wealth of agriculture, its wealth of
manufactures, I am more than ever impressed by the solidarity of our
interests as a people. As the Governor pointed out, the greatest and
most important single export of our people is the export of cotton; and
the whole nation is concerned in the welfare of the cotton growers.
It is not only important for Alabama and the rest of the Gulf States;
it is important for the entire Union, because it is the cotton crop
which determines the balance of trade as being in favor of this Nation.
The business of any part of this Nation is the business of the entire
Nation; and the National Government is bound to do everything it can
in the interest of the cotton growers; to preserve your markets; to do
everything that can possibly be done to see that the natural demand for
cotton abroad is kept up and is met here under fair conditions by our
own people. Perhaps no State in the Union is more interested than this
in the performance of what is to be the greatest engineering feat the
world has yet seen—the building of the Isthmian canal. The cotton crop
largely goes to Asia. The canal will of course immensely shorten the
water route to Asia. Our influence in the Orient must be kept at such
a pitch as will ensure our being able to guarantee fair treatment to
our merchants and manufacturers by China. We must insist upon having
fair treatment; and as a step toward getting it we must give fair
treatment in return. I would demand that on ethical grounds alone; I
would demand it also on grounds of self-interest.
Now I want to say a word about the children. Nothing pleases me more
than to see the care you are devoting to education in this State; and
among the many splendidly heroic deeds credited to the Southern people
in peace as well as in war is the fact of having to face, as they
did, the future in the midst of a broken and war-swept country, they
not only built up their industrial prosperity, but they have provided
steadily for the education of the coming generation.
The successful performance of political duty depends absolutely upon
the successful performance of domestic, of social, duty. There never
can be, there never will be a good government in which the average
citizen is not a decent man in private life. It is a contradiction in
terms to speak of a good government if the good government does not
rest upon cleanliness and decency in the home, respect of husband and
wife for one another, tenderness of the man for those dependent upon
him, performance of duty by woman and by man, and the proper education
of the children who are to make the next generation. The vital things
in life are the things that foolish people look upon as commonplace.
The vital deeds of life are those things which it lies within the
reach of each of us to do, and the failure to perform which means the
destruction of the State.
AT BIRMINGHAM, ALA., OCTOBER 24, 1905
_Mr. Rhodes; and you, My Fellow-Citizens_:
I wish to say that I am stirred most deeply by this magnificent
reception from what Mr. Rhodes has so well called the Magic City of
the South. Alabama has made a wonderful record. At the close of the
war, shattered, war-swept, it seemed that it was impossible for her
people, in the grip of poverty as they were, to rally; and any people
less strong than you of Alabama would have failed; but you had the
stuff in you and you succeeded. About the year 1880 the tide turned,
and the last quarter of a century has seen in Alabama a progress that
would have been absolutely impossible in any other age or in any other
nation than ours. The agriculture of the State went upward by leaps
and bounds; but even more marvelous was your mechanical and industrial
success. You have in this State coal and iron, the two basic elements
in modern industrialism, and you have also a wealth of water power only
partially used; and given that amount of natural resources and the
right type of man to use them, the result will be what we have seen.
But there is something that is ahead of any kind of natural resources,
and that is the citizenship of the man on the soil. Proud though I am
of your extraordinary industrial prosperity, I am prouder yet of the
men who have achieved it.
Think what it means for our nation to have the President of the United
States greeted as he has been to-day, with on his right and his left
hand as the guard of honor the veterans of the Civil War, the men who
wore the blue, the men who wore the gray, united forever.
As I came up the street nothing pleased me as much as the sight of the
school-children drawn up alongside the line of march. Remember that we
shall leave this country in the hands of the children of to-day, and
that the American of to-morrow will be what we train the boy or girl
to be. If the children are not well educated, if they are not brought
up as they should be, the State will go down. We of this generation
have received a splendid heritage from you men of the years of ’60 to
’65. Honor to us if we treat your great deeds as spurring us onward;
and shame to us if we treat your great deeds as excuses for our own
idleness or folly. When I speak of education I do not mean only
education in intelligence. That counts tremendously; but education in
character counts more. It is character that determines the Nation’s
progress in the long run.
In the organizations of veterans after the Civil War each hails
the other as comrade. It makes no difference whether the man was a
lieutenant-general or whether he was the youngest recruit that served
at the very end of the war. All that is asked is, did he do his duty in
the place in which he was. If he did, you are for him. If he did not,
you have no comradeship with him. I ask that the same lesson that you
of the Civil War applied practically in your own persons during and
since that war be applied by the rest of us in civil life. I ask that
we scorn alike the base arrogance of the rich man who would look down
on his poorer brother and the equally base envy of the poor man who
would hate his richer brother; and that you apply to every citizen of
this Republic just this one test—the test that gauges his worth as a
man. Does he do his duty fairly by himself, his family, his neighbor,
and the State and the Nation? If he does, be for him, whether he is
rich or poor, because if you do not you are recreant in the spirit of
Americanism.
REMARKS ON BEING PRESENTED WITH TWO CONFEDERATE BADGES, AT
BIRMINGHAM, ALA., OCTOBER 24, 1905
_Ladies; General_:
I accept the two badges in the spirit in which they are offered; for
your spirit here is that we are now indeed and forever reunited under
the flag of the indissoluble Union; and that henceforth the only
rivalry between the man whose father fought in the Union army and the
man whose father fought in the Confederate army will be the generous
rivalry of seeing who can do most for our common country.
AT CITY PARK, LITTLE ROCK, ARK., OCTOBER 25, 1905
_Governor; Judge Trieber, and you, My Fellow-Citizens_:
I am fortunate enough to have spoken all over the Union, and I have
never said in any State or any section what I would not have said
in any other State or in any other section. I am fortunate in being
President of a nation where you do not have to praise one State by
running down any other State. Arkansas, the New England States, the
Western, the Eastern, the Northern, the Southern—they are all good
States and I am for them all. The thing that has impressed me most as
I have gone through this country from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
from the Canadian border to the Gulf, has been not the superficial
differences of our people, but the essential likenesses of our
people. The average American is a pretty good fellow; and all that is
necessary, as you men of the honor guard, you men of the blue and gray
know, is that he should know the other average American and they will
get on all right. That is true as regards locality and locality, and
true as regards occupation and occupation. Thank heaven, we are free
now from all danger of sectional antagonism! We must now see that there
never comes any spirit of class antagonism in this country, any spirit
of hostility between capitalist and wage-worker, between employer
and employed; and we can avoid the upgrowth of any such feeling by
remembering always to treat each man on his worth as a man. Do not hold
it for him or against him that he is either rich or poor. If he is a
crooked man and rich, hold it against him, not because he is rich, but
because he is crooked. If he is not a rich man and crooked, hold it
against him, still because he is crooked. If he is a square man, no
matter how much or how little money he has, stand by him because he is
a square man. Distrust more than any other man in this Republic the man
who would try to teach Americans to substitute loyalty to any class for
loyalty to the whole American people. Republics have flourished before
now, and have fallen; and they have usually fallen because there arose
within them parties that represented either the unscrupulous rich or
the unscrupulous poor, and that persuaded the majority of the people
to substitute loyalty to the one class for loyalty to the people as a
whole.
Remember that the rancorous envy that hates the rich is only one side
of the shield whose obverse is the insolence and arrogance that looks
down on the poor. The two qualities are fundamentally the same. They
only differ in their manifestations because it happens that the man
showing one is in a different position from the man showing the other.
You show me a rich man who is arrogant and insolent in his disregard
of the man of less means, and I tell you that same man, if he loses
his wealth, will want to plunder every rich man. In the same way the
man who preaches the gospel of hate and envy toward his fellows who
are better off, if he becomes better off will oppress the men whom he
once championed. Distrust the man who would persuade you that he would
do you good by trying to do any other man harm. The man who is true to
you will ultimately be the man who is true to the great fundamental
principles of righteousness. In public life the man who seeks to
persuade you that he will benefit you by wronging any one else, if the
chance arises, will surely try to benefit himself by wronging you. What
as a nation we need is to stand by the eternal, immutable principles
of right and decency, the principle of fair dealing as between man and
man, the principles that teach us to regard virtue with respect and
vice with abhorrence wherever either the virtue or the vice may be
found. If we substitute for the line that divides the decent man from
the man who is not decent, the line dividing the rich man from the poor
man, or the line making any other artificial division, we will have
done irreparable wrong to the Nation itself.
Governor, you spoke of a hideous crime that is often hideously avenged.
The worst enemy of the negro race is the negro criminal, and, above
all, the negro criminal of that type; for he has committed not only
an unspeakably dreadful and infamous crime against the victim, but he
has committed a hideous crime against the people of his own color; and
every reputable colored man, every colored man who wishes to see to the
uplifting of his race, owes it as his first duty to himself and to
that race to hunt down that criminal with all his soul and strength.
Now for the side of the white man. To avenge one hideous crime by
another hideous crime is to reduce the man doing it to the bestial
level of the wretch who committed the bestial crime. The horrible
effects of lynch law are shown in the fact that three-fourths of the
lynchings are not for that crime at all, but for other crimes. And
above all other men, Governor, you and I and all who are exponents and
representatives of the law, owe it to our people, owe it to the cause
of civilization and humanity, to do everything in our power, officially
and unofficially, directly and indirectly, to free the United States
from the menace and reproach of lynch law.
We can afford to be divided on questions of mere partisanship; they
do not make any real difference compared to other questions. The
questions of currency or the tariff are of no consequence compared to
the fundamental questions, the questions upon which all good Americans
should be one—the questions of decency in the life of the home and of
honesty in public life. It makes very little difference in the long run
whether it is a Democrat or a Republican who is President, compared
to the importance of honesty and broad patriotism; it makes all the
difference in the world that we shall have all our public officials
honest, clean men, earnest to serve their countrymen wherever they may
live. The candidate is the candidate of a party; but if the President
is worth his salt he is the President of the whole people. Remember,
the stream does not rise any higher than its source. You can not have
good public life unless you have as a basis good private life. The
country is going to be all right if the average man is decent and clean
in his home life; if he is a good husband, a good father, a good son;
if he does his duty by his neighbor; if he is the kind of a man you are
glad to have as a neighbor and glad to do business with. If that man is
the average American, America is going to continue to be all right; and
if the average goes below that you can not make the country right.
I have great respect for a good man. There is only one person I respect
more, and that is a good woman; and if there is any man here who
does not agree with me I do not think much of him. The foundation of
our happiness and well-being lies in the preservation of the typical
American home, the kind of home in which you veterans of the Civil War
were raised, so that when you went to battle, on whichever side you
fought, you had the memory of what your fathers and mothers had taught
you to rest upon and to live up to. We of the younger generation—my
comrades of the National Guard here and all of our time—inherited from
these older men of the heroic days, these men of the great Civil War,
this splendid country of ours; we inherited our position in the world.
Let us see to it that we leave to our children unimpaired and improved
the heritage we received from our fathers. Shame to us if we treat
the great deeds of the men of the past as excuses for laziness, or
idleness, or shirking of duty on our part. Let us treat these great
deeds as an incentive, as a spur; let us feel that we should hang our
heads if we do not prove ourselves worthy representatives of the men
who are before us—you men of the South here, whose heroism and valor
for four years of war have been wellnigh surpassed by the heroism and
valor you have displayed in the forty years of peace following it. Let
us go on with the work of the material upbuilding of this country;
and at the same time remember that, vital though it is to have a good
foundation of material well-being, yet it is only the foundation and
upon it must be built the superstructure of the moral and spiritual
higher life of the Nation. We all honor you men of the Civil War here,
you men of the blue and men of the gray. We honor you because when the
call to arms came you treated material considerations as dross to be
cast aside, not to be for one moment weighed in the balance, compared
to the proud privilege of laying down everything, life itself, on the
altar of your duty as light was given you to see your duty. Let us have
that same spirit deep in our heart.
AT THE LUNCHEON AT LITTLE ROCK, ARK., OCTOBER 25, 1905
_Mr. Toastmaster; Judge Rose; My Hosts_:
Let me at the outset say a word of thanks to the Arkansas Consistory
for its generous hospitality, and say how much I appreciate it.
I want to say just one word suggested by the fact that Judge Rose was
President of the American Bar Association and stands to-day as one of
that group of eminent American citizens, eminent for their services to
the whole country, whom we know as the leaders of the American bar.
I want to speak as a layman about certain services that the learned
profession, of which Judge Rose is so eminent a member, can render to
an even greater degree than they now render to the American people. I
know that there is a good deal of distrust, rightly, for the layman
who speaks of law or of theology. But I am going to say just a few
words on a matter that concerns good citizenship, in which the layman
has a right to expect leadership both from lawyer and from theologian.
Very naturally in any profession there come to be men who treat the
profession as an end instead of as a means (I am not now speaking
from the standpoint of the individual, but from the standpoint of
the Nation, of the State). Just as we have a right to judge the man
of religious profession by the output that comes as a result of that
profession, so we have a right to expect from the great profession of
the law, from that which is perhaps the leading among the liberal lay
professions, a peculiar quantity and quality of service to the public.
There are certain abuses in connection with our whole system of law
to-day which the laymen can not remedy, but which I earnestly hope that
the men of the law will themselves remedy. I speak merely to my fellow
laymen and invite correction. I am speaking before Gamaliel, and
shall expect correction from Gamaliel if I go wrong. But our law comes
down from the time when the state, the government, was all-powerful as
compared to the individual; when the government acted as a plaintiff
and it was necessary that every possible safeguard should be thrown
around the defendant, that he should be given every chance, and the
fear of injustice was a synonym for fear of injustice to the private
citizen against whom the state proceeded. It comes from a time, if
my memory of history is right, when about five per cent of any given
number of children born in England were punished by hanging, when
people were hanged for the most trivial offences, and when all the
machinery of the law was in the hands of the government and directed
against the individual; so that the one thing that had to be done was
to protect the individual. Circumstances in the past three or four
centuries have wholly changed; but the law has not changed nearly as
rapidly or completely. At present there is not the slightest question
as to the individual’s rights being preserved. They are amply guarded.
Of course there is the possibility of error in every human affair; but
speaking generally, the man accused of criminal wrong, especially the
man accused of criminal wrong against the public, has every possible
chance secured him; but the public has by no means the chance it ought
to have. No greater service is being rendered the American public
to-day than by those members of the legal profession whose great
good fortune it has been to stand forth as prominently identified
with the prosecution of crimes against the state. When I say crimes
against the state I not only refer to crimes like those of bribery
and corruption committed by any public official, but I mean such a
crime as murder, as any similar hideous misdeed, where the offence is
not merely against the individual, but against the entire community.
It is right to remember the interests of the individual, but it is
right also to remember the interests of that great mass of individuals
embodied in the public, in the government. It is unfortunate that
we have permitted practices that were necessary three hundred years
ago for the protection of innocent people to be elaborated, to be
perverted, so that they become a means for allowing criminals to
escape the punishment of their criminality. We urgently need in this
country methods for expediting punishment, methods for doing away with
delay, methods which will secure to the public an even chance with the
criminal. I do not ask any more; if we can get an average of just fifty
per cent of the criminals we will be pretty nearly all right; for that
will give the public an even chance with the criminal whose offence
is against the public. At present the right of appeal is in certain
cases so abused as to make it a matter of the utmost difficulty to
ultimately punish a man sufficiently rich or sufficiently influential
to command really good legal talent. I am speaking of what I know,
for I am speaking with very keenly in my mind experiences during the
past three years in trying to get at certain public offenders who
have been indicted, and some of whom it has been almost impossible to
get into the jurisdiction of the courts in Washington in order to try
them. There are others whose cases are still on appeal who profit by
interminable delays. I feel that the man who offends against the state
occupies a position rather worse than that of any other criminal, from
the very fact that he is a man who attacks everybody instead of just
one person, so that it is not the special business of any one to get
at him. In consequence, if he can keep the forces of justice at bay
long enough—if he can secure one or two mistrials—gradually the popular
interest evaporates and the criminal gets off.
As the Judge has so well said, the minute a man becomes President
he ceases being the President of a party and is the President of
every man, woman, and child within the confines of the Nation. But I
permit myself one particular bit of party discrimination. I am just
a trifle more intent on punishing the Republican offender than the
Democrat; because he is my own scoundrel, and I feel a certain sense of
responsibility for him, and I intend to discharge that responsibility
if I can. Of course, as we all know, offences must come; but I have
endeavored to carry out the Scriptural injunction and to make it a
matter of woe unto him by whom they come. I am happy to say that we
have a reasonable proportion of the offenders in question with stripes
on; but not up to the fifty per cent average that I would like; and I
want to go a little further than we have yet gone.
If the law is reasonably speedy and reasonably sure it takes away one
great excuse for lawlessness. If some horrible crime is committed
and the people feel that under the best circumstances there will be
an indefinite delay in the punishment of the criminal, and that the
punishment will be uncertain even when the time for administering it
comes, then a premium is put upon that kind of law-breaking which
more than any other is a menace to the law. Long delays of justice,
abuses of the pardoning power, the sluggishness with which either court
or attorney moves; all of those things count in bringing about the
condition of affairs which produces lynch law.
Now, a layman can do but little more than to give utterance to the
feeling that so many laymen have. I earnestly hope that the bench and
the bar of the United States will in all proper ways see to it that the
customs—for some of these things of which I complain are merely customs
and not laws—inherited from the past when conditions were totally
different, shall not be perverted so as to wrong the whole public by
giving the criminal an advantage to which he is not entitled, and that
some substantial improvement shall be made in the direction of securing
greater expedition and greater certainty in the administration of
justice, and especially in the administration of criminal justice.
TO A DELEGATION OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, AT NEW ORLEANS, LA.,
OCTOBER 26, 1905
_Comrades_:
I want to thank you for coming here to greet me. I can not say how
much it means to me to be greeted as I have been greeted by the men
who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray in this trip through
the Southland. At Little Rock my escort was composed of Union and
Confederate soldiers, riding side by side, in pairs.
As I said at Richmond, second only to the man who wore the blue, I hold
the man who wore the gray, and we should indeed consider ourselves
fortunate as a Nation that, forty years after the Civil War, we find
all of our people can challenge as the possession of all every memory
of valor left by both sides in the great contest. Now we know but one
rivalry—the rivalry to see which of us can do most for the flag of a
united country.
TO A DELEGATION OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS, AT NEW ORLEANS, LA.,
OCTOBER 26, 1905
_Gentlemen: Rather, if you will allow one who took part in a very small
war to call you so, Comrades_:
I accept your gift with pleasure. Although sometimes we have
difficulties in this country that we have to battle against, and
sometimes things that we are not quite satisfied with, yet we are
pretty good people. I have felt this almost as never before during the
past weeks. Now think what it means in a Nation for the President of
that Nation, forty years after one of the greatest wars of all time,
to be able to come and speak as I spoke in the capital of the Southern
Confederacy, and to feel that I was addressing a people as loyal to the
flag of our reunited country as can be found in this broad land of ours.
I passed in the shadow of the monument of Admiral Semmes in
Mobile—under whom one of my uncles fired the last gun that was
discharged from the “Alabama,” which another uncle built. The daughter
of that admiral is now the wife of our Governor in the Philippines.
Gentlemen, this is an honor I appreciate. I thank you not only for the
gift and the words which accompany it, but for the spirit which lies
behind the words.
AT THE LUNCHEON, NEW ORLEANS, LA., OCTOBER 26, 1905
_Governor; Mr. Mayor; and You, My Hosts_:
Let me, at the outset, express through you my profound gratitude, my
deeply moved appreciation of the way in which the people of New Orleans
and of Louisiana have greeted me to-day. Gentlemen, no President of
the United States could be greeted as I have been greeted to-day and
not go back to take up the duties of his office with a stronger and
more earnest purpose to try faithfully to represent all the people
whom he serves. And, Governor, as you have so well said, when a man
is President, when he holds any public office, questions of a merely
partisan character sink into absolute insignificance compared with the
mighty questions upon which all good Americans should be united.
And now, gentlemen, as you have greeted me so well, you have given me
the opportunity to indulge myself in a luxury. There have been moments
in the past when I was afraid of saying how well I thought of the
Senators and Representatives in the National Congress from Louisiana
for fear I might damage them! I did not know but that, may be, the
best service I could do them was to keep still about my feeling for
them. Now, I am emboldened by your generous kindness and confidence
to say that it has been indeed a pleasure to deal with Louisiana’s
representatives in the Senate and in the Lower House of Congress,
because whenever I had to do with a great question of national
importance I could go to them, convinced that if I could show them that
it was really for the good of the Nation they would stand for it. That
is all I ask of any man. I do not want any Senator or any Congressman
to vote for anything I favor just because I favor it; but I do not
want him to vote against it just because I favor it. There have been
certain very worthy men in both Houses of Congress among the colleagues
of the Louisiana representatives who instantly strove to prevent the
realization of their most cherished projects as soon as I strove to
bring it about! Now, from the representatives of Louisiana I was sure
of support in such matters, whether it was a question of building up
and keeping at a high point of efficiency the United States Navy, or
whether it was a question of building the Panama Canal. And mind you,
gentlemen, the two things go together. One thing that, as President of
this country, I will not do, is to make a bluff that I can not make
good. I do not intend, on behalf of the Nation, to take any position
until I have carefully thought out whether that position will be
advantageous to the Nation, but if I take it I am going to keep it, and
I am going to keep it no matter what outsider goes the other way. And
I am sure that you, gentlemen, know that it has been an utter mistake
to think of me as a man desirous of seeing this Nation quarrelsome;
this Nation eager to get into trouble. I have no respect either for the
nation or for the individual that brawls, that invites trouble. I want
to see this Nation do as the individual men in the Nation, who respect
themselves, should do, that is be scrupulously regardful of the rights
of others and honestly endeavor to avoid all cause of difficulty with
any one. But I want, on behalf of this Nation, the peace that comes,
not to the coward who cringes for it, but to the just man armed who
asks it as a right.
Listening to the greeting of the Governor and the Mayor this afternoon,
I felt at once very proud and very humble. I have been greeted with
words far above my worth, far above what is merited by what I have
done. (Cries of “No, No!”) I did not say that for the purpose of
asking your dissent from it. I do not say anything unless I mean it,
and I do not say anything to flatter any audience or speak well of them
unless I think well of them, and would speak well of them anywhere.
I come down to see you of this State and city with a heart full of
gratitude to you for having displayed, through the trials of the
hard summer that has passed, those qualities of heroism which we
like to think of as distinctly American. Gentlemen, in coming among
you this afternoon, I have the feeling of a man who, having been at
headquarters, but not in action, goes to see a regiment that has been
in action. I know that you understand, gentlemen, that the Governor
and Mayor, at any time during the past summer, had but to request my
presence, and I would have come down here at once, at any time when I
could have been of the slightest assistance to you in the magnificent
struggle you were waging. I wish to express the profound appreciation
and gratitude of all Americans toward you, our fellow-Americans, who
have borne the heat and burden of the contest during the long day that
is now passing. In actual war there can be no greater or more effective
heroism than was shown by those who stayed here at their posts; by
those who, being away, came back; and by those who, having planned to
go away, instantly gave up going away and stayed here to aid in the
fight for their fellows in distress. You have had your martyrs, among
them my lamented friend, Archbishop Chappelle; but you have also your
proud memories of service rendered, and the thrill that comes with the
victory you have already won. I have been both amused and irritated
at the criticisms sometimes made on you, by people who lived in other
communities that were not in danger. Among the younger men here are
some who when younger still have played football, and they will
remember how very much easier it was to play the game from the side
lines than on the field. Now, Louisiana and New Orleans, this summer,
did what, so far as I remember, has never before been done in the case
of a similar epidemic of yellow fever in the United States. They took
hold of it after it had started and when it had got well under way,
and they controlled and conquered it without waiting for the frost to
come. The highest gratitude is due to the officials of the State, to
the officials of the city, and to the private individuals, clergymen,
educators, philanthropists, and business men, who have spent their time
and money and risked their lives freely in organizing and achieving
success. It was the greatest privilege to me to contribute what I
was able to the work. Mr. Mayor, Governor, you can hardly realize
the pleasure I felt when a request was made upon me that gave me the
chance of doing something for you; and I am glad to find how well you
think of the work that was done by the United States Public Health and
Marine Hospital Service under Dr. White. It gives me pleasure now to
announce that in response to the request of the Governor and Mayor I
have told them that Dr. White shall be detailed down here just as long
as his services are needed. Now, just one word of warning to you, Dr.
White. We have excellent Scriptural authority for the statement that
it is well to beware when all men speak well of you; because it is an
unfortunate feature of human nature that when they have appreciated a
man up to the very last limit, they tend to go a little bit the other
way, after a while. The time when one is praised very much is the time
one should walk guardedly and carefully and work with all one’s soul
and strength. Gentlemen, that applies to Presidents quite as much as to
doctors!
The Governor spoke of the Panama Canal. It is a very big work, and it
is only a very big nation that can do that kind of work. I expect soon
to have a report from the engineers as to the exact shape the work will
take. I will then be able to make more definite forecasts as to the
time, but of this I can assure you, the work will be done well, it will
be done as speedily as possible, and it will absolutely and surely be
done.
One more point: New Orleans and Louisiana are vitally interested in the
levee system. The Mississippi, which flows through the State, drains
portions of twenty odd other States, and the control of that river
must, in my opinion, be, in good part, a national object. The National
Government now does something toward the erection and care of the
levees. In my judgment it should do not only more, but very much more.
I was greeted to-day by your school-children, clustered around the
monument erected to that pure and upright man and mighty General,
Robert E. Lee; and as we drove away from the square in which his statue
stands we passed by a house in this old Confederate city in which there
was prominently displayed a picture of Abraham Lincoln, and underneath
it the words, “With malice toward none, with charity toward all.” I
have been greeted by a special guard of honor, composed of men who, in
the great war, wore the Confederate uniform. I have also been greeted
by men who, in that war, wore the blue. I saw before me many of my
comrades of the lesser war. I had in my own regiment, from Louisiana
as well as from many other States, men whose fathers had worn the
gray, just as I had other men whose fathers had worn the blue, all
united forever in loyalty to one indissoluble union, and acknowledging
only the rivalry of trying to see which could do the most for the
flag of our common country. Oh, my fellow-countrymen, think what a
fortune is ours, that we belong to this Nation, which, having fought
one of the mightiest wars of all times, is now reunited forever, in
an indissoluble union, under one flag; so that we claim as ours the
heritage of honor and glory, left by every man who, on whichever side
he stood, when the days came which tried men’s souls, did all that in
him lay—did his whole duty—according to the light that was given him to
see that duty.
SPEECH TO THE OFFICERS AND CREW OF THE U. S. FLAGSHIP “WEST VIRGINIA,”
AT SEA, OCTOBER 29, 1905
_Admiral, Captain, Officers and Ship’s Company of the “West Virginia”_:
It is a privilege for any President to come on board a squadron of
American warships such as these, not alone to see the ships, but to
see the men who handle them. From the admiral down through the entire
ship’s company, every American should be proud of what I have seen
aboard this ship; the discipline, the ready subordination of each man,
whether officer or enlisted man, to duty; the care taken of the men,
and in return the eager, intelligent, self-respecting zeal of each
man in doing his work. What must impress especially any observer is
how essential it is that every individual on a ship like this should
do his whole duty, and in any crisis more than his duty. The result
as I see it in this ship is a triumph not only of organization and
discipline, but of the ready zeal with which each individual performs
his allotted task. At any time some emergency may arise in which the
safety of the entire ship will depend upon the vigilance, intelligence,
and cool courage of some one man among you, perhaps an officer, perhaps
an enlisted man. Any man in the whole ship’s company who does his full
duty can claim as his own the honor and repute of the ship and has the
right to feel a personal pride in all she does. You and your fellows
in the Navy and in its sister service, the Army, occupy a position
different from that of any other set of men in our country. Going
through the ship yesterday, in the engine rooms, storerooms, turrets,
everywhere the thing that impressed me most was the all-importance of
each man in his place: the all-importance of that man both knowing his
work and feeling it a matter of keen personal pride to do it as well as
it could possibly be done. All through the ship I have seen the same
purpose, the purpose to learn exactly what the duty to be done was and
then to do it; and the power to do presupposes the possession by each
of you of intelligence, courage, and physical address. I believe that
this attitude of yours is typical of the attitude of the men of our
Navy generally and of the Army also. Now on the one hand this should
make our country feel toward Uncle Sam’s men in the Army and in the
Navy a sense of obligation and gratitude such as they feel toward no
others; and on the other hand it should make you feel that no other
Americans rest under so great an obligation to do their duty well;
for in your hands lies the credit, the honor, and the interest of the
entire Nation. You are doing your duty well and faithfully in peace.
Remember that if ever, which may Heaven forbid, war comes, it will
depend upon you and those like you whether the people of this country
are to hold their heads even higher or to hang them in shame. I hope
that no such crisis will ever occur, but I have entire faith that if it
ever does occur, you will rise level to any demand that may be made
upon you, and that by the way you train yourselves and are trained in
time of peace, you will fit yourselves to do well should war arise.
Now a special word to the officers. Captain Arnold, as a boy you
witnessed a great fight of the “Merrimac” when she came out to Hampton
Roads, sank the “Congress” and the “Cumberland,” and the next day met
her match in the “Monitor.” That was a fight fraught with great honor
for our people. The “Cumberland” sank with her flags flying and her
guns firing while her decks were awash, and as the water was shallow,
her flag still floated from the mast above them after she had gone
down. The captain of the “Congress” met his death in the fight, winning
an epitaph which deserves to be remembered forever in the American
Navy. His name was Joe Smith, and his father, an old naval officer, was
in Washington. When word was brought to him that his son’s ship had
surrendered, he answered simply: “Then Joe is dead.” To have earned
the right to have his death assumed as a matter of course in such
conditions is of itself enough to crown any life, and every American
officer should keep ever before him all that is implied therein. Let
each of you officers remember, in the event of war, that while a
surrender must always be justifiable, yet that a surrender must always
be explained, while it is never necessary to explain the fact that you
don’t surrender, no matter what the conditions may be.
A tragedy occurred this morning. A man was lost from the “Colorado.”
Such cases are from time to time inevitable in a service like ours.
Under such circumstances, everything must always be done, as in this
instance everything was done, for the rescue of the man. But you men
are fitted for fighting because you have the fighting edge. This means
that you are willing at all times to face death in the performance of
your duty. The man who died this morning was an excellent seaman who
had done his duty faithfully and who died in the performance of that
duty. Therefore he died in the service of his country exactly as much
as if he had died in battle, and deserves as much honor.
What I have said so far applies to the whole Navy. Now a word
especially to this squadron and to this ship. No other nation can boast
of a better squadron, a squadron composed of more formidable vessels.
In the matter of the officers and men, we have no cause to shrink from
comparison with any other nation. So far, the “Colorado” has been the
one ship that has had the chance to show what she could do in gunnery
practice, and her record has been so astonishingly good that the other
ships of the squadron will have to do their level best if they expect
even to equal it. I need not tell you to remember that battles are
decided by gunfire, and that the only shots that count are the shots
that hit.
Men, I am glad to have seen you, and I don’t think that anywhere under
our flag there could be found a better set of clean-cut, vigorous,
self-respecting American citizens of the very type that makes one
proudest to be an American.
REMARKS TO A DELEGATION OF RAILWAY EMPLOYEES’ ORDERS—EXECUTIVE OFFICE,
WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 14, 1905
_Gentlemen_:
I have just a word that I want to say to you. In the first place, I
trust I need hardly say that no delegation will ever be more welcome
at the White House than such a delegation as this. The interests of
the wage-worker and the interests of the tiller of the soil must be
peculiarly close to all American public men; among other reasons for
the reason that if they prosper all other classes will prosper likewise
as a matter of course. As I said the other day to the representatives
of organized labor at Atlanta, I shall do everything in my power for
the laboring man except to do anything wrong; for the man who will
do anything wrong in the nominal interest of another man will also
do wrong against this same other man if ever it becomes to his own
interest to do so. Your associations deserve peculiar regard because
you have developed to a marked degree the very qualities that all
bodies of wage-workers should develop: the intelligence, the regard for
the future, the self-respect mingled with the respect for others, the
power of self-restraint, which are absolutely essential to any body
of men which is to move upward and onward. Remember always that every
man of us must in some shape or other have his passions and appetites
governed; and the less of that government there is from within the
more there will have to be from without.
With most of the general statements that you make I agree, but I am
not sure that I agree with your application of them. There has been
comparatively little complaint to me of the railroad rates being
as a whole too high. The most serious complaints that have been
made to me have been of improper discrimination in railroad rates.
For instance, in two recent cases affecting great corporations the
complaints that have been made to me have been that they are too low
as regards certain big shippers; the complaint in both these cases is
about the differential, the difference of treatment of two sets of
users of the railways, the difference in favor of one set of shippers
as against another set of shippers. Whether this is just or not I am
not prepared to say. I very deeply appreciate and sympathize with the
feeling you express as to the community of interest between the man
who actually does the handling of the trains, at the brakes, in the
engine cab, as a fireman, as a conductor, and the man who has to do,
as a capitalist or as the higher employee of the capitalist, with the
general management of the road. I feel that one of the lessons that can
not be overinculcated is the lesson of the identity of interest among
our people as a whole. I do not have to tell a body like this something
that I do have to tell some other bodies, and that is if you have not
got at the head of a railroad a man who can make a success of it, the
wage-workers on that railroad can not prosper. You must have at the
head the type of ability which can do well; just as you, comrade of
the Civil War (turning to an engineer who wore the button of the Grand
Army) needed a general who knew his business, or your valor did not
avail. You remember that the valor of the best enlisted man that ever
was (of course he was the basis of everything; the man who carried the
gun and made the army; and you could not get the right stuff out of
him if it was not in him) was of no value if there was not a directing
power to see that the valor was used aright. The Union Army could have
accomplished nothing if the feeling of the enlisted men had been the
wish to down Grant and Sherman instead of supporting them heartily in
achieving the common work for which all in common were striving.
If you will look at my Raleigh speech and my other recent utterances
you will see my principles clearly set forth. I have said again and
again that I would not tolerate for one moment any injustice to a
railroad any more than I would tolerate any injustice by a railroad.
I have said again and again that I would remove a public official who
improperly yielded to any public clamor against a railroad, no matter
how popular that clamor might be, just as quickly as I would remove
a public official who rendered an improper service to the railroad
at the expense of the public. But I am convinced that there must
be an increased regulatory and supervisory power exercised by the
Government over the railways. Indeed, I would like it exercised to a
much greater extent than I have any idea of pressing at the moment.
For instance, I would greatly like to have it exercised in the matter
of overcapitalization. I am convinced that the “wages fund” would be
larger if there was no fictitious capital upon which dividends had
to be paid. I need hardly say that this does not mean hostility to
wealth. If you gentlemen here, in whom I believe so strongly, were all
a unit in demanding that some improper action should be taken against
certain men of wealth, then, no matter whether I did or did not like
those same men of wealth, I would defend them against you, no matter
how much I cared for you; and in so doing I would really be acting in
your own interest. I would be false to your interest if I failed to do
justice to the capitalist as much as to the wage-worker. But I shall
act against the abuses of wealth just as against all other abuses. The
outcry against rate regulation is of much the same character as that
I encountered when I was engaged in putting through that car-coupling
business; or in endeavoring to secure certain legislation in which you
have all been interested, such as the employers’ liability law.
Most certainly I will join with you in resisting to the uttermost
any movement to hurt or damage any railroads which act decently, for
I would hold that such damage was not merely to the capitalist, not
merely to the wage-worker engaged on the railroads, but to all the
country. My aim is to secure the just and equal treatment of the
public by those (I trust and believe a limited number) who do not want
to give it, just as much as by the larger number who do want to give
it. All I want in any rate legislation is to give the Government an
efficient supervisory power which shall be exercised as scrupulously to
prevent injustice to the railroads as to prevent their doing injustice
to the public. Our endeavor is to see that those big railroad men and
big shippers who are not responsive to the demands of justice are
required to do what their fellows who are responsive to the demands of
justice would be glad to do of their own accord.
MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS AT THE BEGINNING OF
THE FIRST SESSION OF THE FIFTY-NINTH CONGRESS, DECEMBER 5, 1905.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
The people of this country continue to enjoy great prosperity.
Undoubtedly there will be ebb and flow in such prosperity, and this ebb
and flow will be felt more or less by all members of the community,
both by the deserving and the undeserving. Against the wrath of the
Lord the wisdom of man can not avail; in times of flood or drought
human ingenuity can but partially repair the disaster. A general
failure of crops would hurt all of us. Again, if the folly of man mars
the general well-being, then those who are innocent of the folly will
have to pay part of the penalty incurred by those who are guilty of
the folly. A panic brought on by the speculative folly of part of the
business community would hurt the whole business community. But such
stoppage of welfare, though it might be severe, would not be lasting.
In the long run the one vital factor in the permanent prosperity of
the country is the high individual character of the average American
worker, the average American citizen, no matter whether his work be
mental or manual, whether he be farmer or wage-worker, business man or
professional man.
In our industrial and social system the interests of all men are
so closely intertwined that in the immense majority of cases a
straight-dealing man who by his efficiency, by his ingenuity and
industry, benefits himself must also benefit others. Normally the man
of great productive capacity who becomes rich by guiding the labor
of many other men does so by enabling them to produce more than they
could produce without his guidance; and both he and they share in the
benefit, which comes also to the public at large. The superficial
fact that the sharing may be unequal must never blind us to the
underlying fact that there is this sharing, and that the benefit comes
in some degree to each man concerned. Normally the wage-worker, the
man of small means, and the average consumer, as well as the average
producer, are all alike helped by making conditions such that the man
of exceptional business ability receives an exceptional reward for
his ability. Something can be done by legislation to help the general
prosperity; but no such help of a permanently beneficial character
can be given to the less able and less fortunate, save as the results
of a policy which shall inure to the advantage of all industrious and
efficient people who act decently; and this is only another way of
saying that any benefit which comes to the less able and less fortunate
must of necessity come even more to the more able and more fortunate.
If, therefore, the less fortunate man is moved by envy of his more
fortunate brother to strike at the conditions under which they have
both, though unequally, prospered, the result will assuredly be that
while damage may come to the one struck at, it will visit with an even
heavier load the one who strikes the blow. Taken as a whole, we must
all go up or go down together.
* * * * *
Yet, while not merely admitting, but insisting upon this, it is also
true that where there is no governmental restraint or supervision some
of the exceptional men use their energies not in ways that are for
the common good, but in ways which tell against this common good. The
fortunes amassed through corporate organization are now so large, and
vest such power in those that wield them, as to make it a matter of
necessity to give to the sovereign—that is, to the Government, which
represents the people as a whole—some effective power of supervision
over their corporate use. In order to ensure a healthy social and
industrial life, every big corporation should be held responsible by,
and be accountable to, some sovereign strong enough to control its
conduct. I am in no sense hostile to corporations. This is an age of
combination, and any effort to prevent all combination will be not only
useless, but in the end vicious, because of the contempt for law which
the failure to enforce law inevitably produces. We should, moreover,
recognize in cordial and ample fashion the immense good effected
by corporate agencies in a country such as ours, and the wealth of
intellect, energy, and fidelity devoted to their service, and therefore
normally to the service of the public, by their officers and directors.
The corporation has come to stay, just as the trade union has come to
stay. Each can do and has done great good. Each should be favored so
long as it does good. But each should be sharply checked where it acts
against law and justice.
So long as the finances of the Nation are kept upon an honest basis
no other question of internal economy with which the Congress has
the power to deal begins to approach in importance the matter of
endeavoring to secure proper industrial conditions under which the
individuals—and especially the great corporations—doing an interstate
business are to act. The makers of our National Constitution provided
especially that the regulation of interstate commerce should come
within the sphere of the General Government. The arguments in favor
of their taking this stand were even then overwhelming. But they are
far stronger to-day, in view of the enormous development of great
business agencies, usually corporate in form. Experience has shown
conclusively that it is useless to try to get any adequate regulation
and supervision of these great corporations by State action. Such
regulation and supervision can only be effectively exercised by a
sovereign whose jurisdiction is coextensive with the field of work of
the corporations—that is, by the National Government. I believe that
this regulation and supervision can be obtained by the enactment of
law by the Congress. If this proves impossible, it will certainly be
necessary ultimately to confer in fullest form such power upon the
National Government by a proper amendment of the Constitution. It would
obviously be unwise to endeavor to secure such an amendment until it
is certain that the result can not be obtained under the Constitution
as it now is. The laws of the Congress and of the several States
hitherto, as passed upon by the courts, have resulted more often in
showing that the States have no power in the matter than that the
National Government has power; so that there at present exists a very
unfortunate condition of things, under which these great corporations
doing an interstate business occupy the position of subjects without
a sovereign, neither any State government nor the National Government
having effective control over them. Our steady aim should be by
legislation, cautiously and carefully undertaken, but resolutely
persevered in, to assert the sovereignty of the National Government by
affirmative action.
This is only in form an innovation. In substance it is merely a
restoration; for from the earliest time such regulation of industrial
activities has been recognized in the action of the lawmaking bodies;
and all that I propose is to meet the changed conditions in such manner
as will prevent the Commonwealth abdicating the power it has always
possessed, not only in this country but also in England before and
since this country became a separate Nation.
It has been a misfortune that the national laws on this subject have
hitherto been of a negative or prohibitive rather than an affirmative
kind, and still more that they have in part sought to prohibit what
could not be effectively prohibited, and have in part in their
prohibitions confounded what should be allowed and what should not be
allowed. It is generally useless to try to prohibit all restraint on
competition, whether this restraint be reasonable or unreasonable; and
where it is not useless it is generally hurtful. Events have shown
that it is not possible adequately to secure the enforcement of any
law of this kind by incessant appeal to the courts. The Department
of Justice has for the last four years devoted more attention to the
enforcement of the anti-trust legislation than to anything else. Much
has been accomplished; particularly marked has been the moral effect
of the prosecutions; but it is increasingly evident that there will be
a very insufficient beneficial result in the way of economic change.
The successful prosecution of one device to evade the law immediately
develops another device to accomplish the same purpose. What is needed
is not sweeping prohibition of every arrangement, good or bad, which
may tend to restrict competition, but such adequate supervision and
regulation as will prevent any restriction of competition from being to
the detriment of the public, as well as such supervision and regulation
as will prevent other abuses in no way connected with restriction of
competition. Of these abuses, perhaps the chief, although by no means
the only one, is overcapitalization—generally itself the result of
dishonest promotion—because of the myriad evils it brings in its train;
for such overcapitalization often means an inflation that invites
business panic; it always conceals the true relation of the profit
earned to the capital actually invested, and it creates a burden of
interest payments which is a fertile cause of improper reduction in or
limitation of wages; it damages the small investor, discourages thrift,
and encourages gambling and speculation; while perhaps worst of all is
the trickiness and dishonesty which it implies—for harm to morals is
worse than any possible harm to material interests, and the debauchery
of politics and business by great dishonest corporations is far worse
than any actual material evil they do the public. Until the National
Government obtains, in some manner which the wisdom of the Congress may
suggest, proper control over the big corporations engaged in interstate
commerce—that is, over the great majority of the big corporations—it
will be impossible to deal adequately with these evils.
I am well aware of the difficulties of the legislation that I am
suggesting, and of the need of temperate and cautious action in
securing it. I should emphatically protest against improperly radical
or hasty action. The first thing to do is to deal with the great
corporations engaged in the business of interstate transportation. As I
said in my Message of December 6 last, the immediate and most pressing
need, so far as legislation is concerned, is the enactment into law of
some scheme to secure to the agents of the Government such supervision
and regulation of the rates charged by the railroads of the country
engaged in interstate traffic as shall summarily and effectively
prevent the imposition of unjust or unreasonable rates. It must include
putting a complete stop to rebates in every shape and form. This power
to regulate rates, like all similar powers over the business world,
should be exercised with moderation, caution, and self-restraint; but
it should exist, so that it can be effectively exercised when the need
arises.
The first consideration to be kept in mind is that the power should be
affirmative and should be given to some administrative body created by
the Congress. If given to the present Interstate Commerce Commission
or to a reorganized Interstate Commerce Commission, such commission
should be made unequivocally administrative. I do not believe in the
Government interfering with private business more than is necessary.
I do not believe in the Government undertaking any work which can with
propriety be left in private hands. But neither do I believe in the
Government flinching from overseeing any work when it becomes evident
that abuses are sure to obtain therein unless there is governmental
supervision. It is not my province to indicate the exact terms of the
law which should be enacted; but I call the attention of the Congress
to certain existing conditions with which it is desirable to deal. In
my judgment the most important provision which such law should contain
is that conferring upon some competent administrative body the power
to decide, upon the case being brought before it, whether a given rate
prescribed by a railroad is reasonable and just, and if it is found
to be unreasonable and unjust, then, after full investigation of the
complaint, to prescribe the limit of rate beyond which it shall not be
lawful to go—the maximum reasonable rate, as it is commonly called—this
decision to go into effect within a reasonable time and to obtain from
thence onward, subject to review by the courts. It sometimes happens
at present, not that a rate is too high but that a favored shipper
is given too low a rate. In such case the Commission would have the
right to fix this already established minimum rate as the maximum;
and it would need only one or two such decisions by the Commission to
cure railroad companies of the practice of giving improper minimum
rates. I call your attention to the fact that my proposal is not to
give the Commission power to initiate or originate rates generally,
but to regulate a rate already fixed or originated by the roads, upon
complaint and after investigation. A heavy penalty should be exacted
from any corporation which fails to respect an order of the Commission.
I regard this power to establish a maximum rate as being essential
to any scheme of real reform in the matter of railway regulation.
The first necessity is to secure it; and unless it is granted to the
Commission there is little use in touching the subject at all.
Illegal transactions often occur under the forms of law. It has often
occurred that a shipper has been told by a traffic officer to buy a
large quantity of some commodity and then after it has been bought an
open reduction is made in the rate to take effect immediately, the
arrangement resulting to the profit of the one shipper and the one
railroad and to the damage of all their competitors; for it must not
be forgotten that the big shippers are at least as much to blame as
any railroad in the matter of rebates. The law should make it clear so
that nobody can fail to understand that any kind of commission paid on
freight shipments, whether in this form or in the form of fictitious
damages, or of a concession, a free pass, reduced passenger rate, or
payment of brokerage, is illegal. It is worth while considering whether
it would not be wise to confer on the Government the right of civil
action against the beneficiary of a rebate for at least twice the value
of the rebate; this would help stop what is really blackmail. Elevator
allowances should be stopped, for they have now grown to such an extent
that they are demoralizing and are used as rebates.
The best possible regulation of rates would, of course, be that
regulation secured by an honest agreement among the railroads
themselves to carry out the law. Such a general agreement would, for
instance, at once put a stop to the efforts of any one big shipper or
big railroad to discriminate against or secure advantages over some
rival; and such agreement would make the railroads themselves agents
for enforcing the law. The power vested in the Government to put a stop
to agreements to the detriment of the public should, in my judgment,
be accompanied by power to permit, under specified conditions and
careful supervision, agreements clearly in the interest of the public.
But, in my judgment, the necessity for giving this further power is
by no means as great as the necessity for giving the Commission or
administrative body the other powers I have enumerated above; and it
may well be inadvisable to attempt to vest this particular power in the
Commission or other administrative body until it already possesses and
is exercising what I regard as by far the most important of all the
powers I recommend—as indeed the vitally important power—that to fix a
given maximum rate, which rate, after the lapse of a reasonable time,
goes into full effect, subject to review by the courts.
All private-car lines, industrial roads, refrigerator charges, and the
like should be expressly put under the supervision of the Interstate
Commerce Commission or some similar body so far as rates, and
agreements practically affecting rates, are concerned. The private-car
owners and the owners of industrial railroads are entitled to a fair
and reasonable compensation on their investment, but neither private
cars nor industrial railroads nor spur tracks should be utilized as
devices for securing preferential rates. A rebate in icing charges,
or in mileage, or in a division of the rate for refrigerating charges
is just as pernicious as a rebate in any other way. No lower rate
should apply on goods imported than actually obtains on domestic goods
from the American seaboard to destination except in cases where water
competition is the controlling influence. There should be publicity
of the accounts of common carriers; no common carrier engaged in
interstate business should keep any books or memoranda other than those
reported pursuant to law or regulation, and these books or memoranda
should be open to the inspection of the Government. Only in this way
can violations or evasions of the law be surely detected. A system of
examination of railroad accounts should be provided similar to that
now conducted into the national banks by the bank examiners; a few
first-class railroad accountants, if they had proper direction and
proper authority to inspect books and papers, could accomplish much
in preventing wilful violations of the law. It would not be necessary
for them to examine into the accounts of any railroad unless for
good reasons they were directed to do so by the Interstate Commerce
Commission. It is greatly to be desired that some way might be found
by which an agreement as to transportation within a State intended to
operate as a fraud upon the Federal interstate commerce laws could be
brought under the jurisdiction of the Federal authorities. At present
it occurs that large shipments of interstate traffic are controlled by
concessions on purely State business, which of course amounts to an
evasion of the law. The Commission should have power to enforce fair
treatment by the great trunk lines of lateral and branch lines.
I urge upon the Congress the need of providing for expeditious action
by the Interstate Commerce Commission in all these matters, whether
in regulating rates for transportation or for storing or for handling
property or commodities in transit. The history of the cases litigated
under the present commerce act shows that its efficacy has been to
a great degree destroyed by the weapon of delay, almost the most
formidable weapon in the hands of those whose purpose it is to violate
the law.
Let me most earnestly say that these recommendations are not made
in any spirit of hostility to the railroads. On ethical grounds, on
grounds of right, such hostility would be intolerable; and on grounds
of mere national self-interest we must remember that such hostility
would tell against the welfare not merely of some few rich men, but
of a multitude of small investors, a multitude of railway employees,
wage-workers; and most severely against the interest of the public as
a whole. I believe that on the whole our railroads have done well and
not ill; but the railroad men who wish to do well should not be exposed
to competition with those who have no such desire, and the only way to
secure this end is to give to some Government tribunal the power to
see that justice is done by the unwilling exactly as it is gladly done
by the willing. Moreover, if some Government body is given increased
power the effect will be to furnish authoritative answer on behalf
of the railroad whenever irrational clamor against it is raised, or
whenever charges made against it are disproved. I ask this legislation
not only in the interest of the public, but in the interest of the
honest railroad man and the honest shipper alike, for it is they who
are chiefly jeoparded by the practices of their dishonest competitors.
This legislation should be enacted in a spirit as remote as possible
from hysteria and rancor. If we of the American body politic are true
to the traditions we have inherited we shall always scorn any effort
to make us hate any man because he is rich, just as much as we should
scorn any effort to make us look down upon or treat contemptuously any
man because he is poor. We judge a man by his conduct—that is, by his
character—and not by his wealth or intellect. If he makes his fortune
honestly, there is no just cause of quarrel with him. Indeed, we have
nothing but the kindliest feelings of admiration for the successful
business man who behaves decently, whether he has made his success
by building or managing a railroad or by shipping goods over that
railroad. The big railroad men and big shippers are simply Americans of
the ordinary type who have developed to an extraordinary degree certain
great business qualities. They are neither better nor worse than their
fellow-citizens of smaller means. They are merely more able in certain
lines and therefore exposed to certain peculiarly strong temptations.
These temptations have not sprung newly into being; the exceptionally
successful among mankind have always been exposed to them; but they
have grown amazingly in power as a result of the extraordinary
development of industrialism along new lines, and under these new
conditions, which the lawmakers of old could not foresee and therefore
could not provide against, they have become so serious and menacing
as to demand entirely new remedies. It is in the interest of the best
type of railroad man and the best type of shipper no less than of the
public that there should be governmental supervision and regulation
of these great business operations, for the same reason that it is in
the interest of the corporation which wishes to treat its employees
aright that there should be an effective employers’ liability act, or
an effective system of factory laws to prevent the abuse of women and
children. All such legislation frees the corporation that wishes to do
well from being driven into doing ill, in order to compete with its
rival, which prefers to do ill. We desire to set up a moral standard.
There can be no delusion more fatal to the Nation than the delusion
that the standard of profits, of business prosperity, is sufficient in
judging any business or political question—from rate legislation to
municipal government. Business success, whether for the individual or
for the Nation, is a good thing only so far as it is accompanied by and
develops a high standard of conduct—honor, integrity, civic courage.
The kind of business prosperity that blunts the standard of honor, that
puts an inordinate value on mere wealth, that makes a man ruthless and
conscienceless in trade and weak and cowardly in citizenship, is not a
good thing at all, but a very bad thing for the Nation. This Government
stands for manhood first and for business only as an adjunct of manhood.
The question of transportation lies at the root of all industrial
success, and the revolution in transportation which has taken place
during the last half century has been the most important factor in
the growth of the new industrial conditions. Most emphatically we do
not wish to see the man of great talents refused the reward for his
talents. Still less do we wish to see him penalized; but we do desire
to see the system of railroad transportation so handled that the strong
man shall be given no advantage over the weak man. We wish to ensure
as fair treatment for the small town as for the big city; for the
small shipper as for the big shipper. In the old days the highway of
commerce, whether by water or by road on land, was open to all; it
belonged to the public and the traffic along it was free. At present
the railway is this highway, and we must do our best to see that it is
kept open to all on equal terms. Unlike the old highway it is a very
difficult and complex thing to manage, and it is far better that it
should be managed by private individuals than by the Government. But it
can only be so managed on condition that justice is done the public.
It is because, in my judgment, public ownership of railroads is highly
undesirable and would probably in this country entail far-reaching
disaster, that I wish to see such supervision and regulation of them
in the interest of the public as will make it evident that there is
no need for public ownership. The opponents of Government regulation
dwell upon the difficulties to be encountered and the intricate and
involved nature of the problem. Their contention is true. It is a
complicated and delicate problem, and all kinds of difficulties are
sure to arise in connection with any plan of solution, while no plan
will bring all the benefits hoped for by its more optimistic adherents.
Moreover, under any healthy plan, the benefits will develop gradually
and not rapidly. Finally, we must clearly understand that the public
servants who are to do this peculiarly responsible and delicate work
must themselves be of the highest type both as regards integrity and
efficiency. They must be well paid, for otherwise able men can not in
the long run be secured; and they must possess a lofty probity which
will revolt as quickly at the thought of pandering to any gust of
popular prejudice against rich men as at the thought of anything even
remotely resembling subserviency to rich men. But while I fully admit
the difficulties in the way, I do not for a moment admit that these
difficulties warrant us in stopping in our effort to secure a wise and
just system. They should have no other effect than to spur us on to the
exercise of the resolution, the even-handed justice, and the fertility
of resource, which we like to think of as typically American, and which
will in the end achieve good results in this as in other fields of
activity. The task is a great one and underlies the task of dealing
with the whole industrial problem. But the fact that it is a great
problem does not warrant us in shrinking from the attempt to solve it.
At present we face such utter lack of supervision, such freedom from
the restraints of law, that excellent men have often been literally
forced into doing what they deplored because otherwise they were left
at the mercy of unscrupulous competitors. To rail at and assail the men
who have done as they best could under such conditions accomplishes
little. What we need to do is to develop an orderly system; and such a
system can only come through the gradually increased exercise of the
right of efficient Government control.
* * * * *
In my annual Message to the Fifty-eighth Congress, at its third
session, I called attention to the necessity for legislation requiring
the use of block signals upon railroads engaged in interstate
commerce. The number of serious collisions upon unblocked roads that
have occurred within the past year adds force to the recommendation
then made. The Congress should provide, by appropriate legislation,
for the introduction of block signals upon all railroads engaged in
interstate commerce at the earliest practicable date, as a measure of
increased safety to the traveling public.
Through decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and the
lower Federal courts in cases brought before them for adjudication
the safety-appliance law has been materially strengthened, and the
Government has been enabled to secure its effective enforcement in
almost all cases, with the result that the condition of railroad
equipment throughout the country is much improved and railroad
employees perform their duties under safer conditions than heretofore.
The Government’s most effective aid in arriving at this result has been
its inspection service, and that these improved conditions are not
more general is due to the insufficient number of inspectors employed.
The inspection service has fully demonstrated its usefulness, and in
appropriating for its maintenance the Congress should make provision
for an increase in the number of inspectors.
* * * * *
The excessive hours of labor to which railroad employees in train
service are in many cases subjected is also a matter which may well
engage the serious attention of the Congress. The strain, both mental
and physical, upon those who are engaged in the movement and operation
of railroad trains under modern conditions is perhaps greater than that
which exists in any other industry, and if there are any reasons for
limiting by law the hours of labor in any employment, they certainly
apply with peculiar force to the employment of those upon whose
vigilance and alertness in the performance of their duties the safety
of all who travel by rail depends.
* * * * *
In my annual Message to the Fifty-seventh Congress, at its second
session, I recommended the passage of an Employers’ Liability Law
for the District of Columbia and in our navy yards. I renewed that
recommendation in my Message to the Fifty-eighth Congress, at its
second session, and further suggested the appointment of a commission
to make a comprehensive study of employers’ liability, with a view to
the enactment of a wise and constitutional law covering the subject,
applicable to all industries within the scope of the Federal power.
I hope that such a law will be prepared and enacted as speedily as
possible.
* * * * *
The National Government has as a rule but little occasion to deal
with the formidable group of problems connected more or less directly
with what is known as the labor question, for in the great majority
of cases these problems must be dealt with by the State and municipal
authorities and not by the National Government. The National
Government has control of the District of Columbia, however, and it
should see to it that the City of Washington is made a model city
in all respects, both as regards parks, public playgrounds, proper
regulation of the system of housing so as to do away with the evils
of alley tenements, a proper system of education, a proper system
of dealing with truancy and juvenile offenders, a proper handling
of the charitable work of the District. Moreover, there should be
proper factory laws to prevent all abuses in the employment of women
and children in the District. These will be useful chiefly as object
lessons, but even this limited amount of usefulness would be of real
national value.
There has been demand for depriving courts of the power to issue
injunctions in labor disputes. Such special limitation of the equity
powers of our courts would be most unwise. It is true that some judges
have misused this power; but this does not justify a denial of the
power any more than an improper exercise of the power to call a strike
by a labor leader would justify the denial of the right to strike. The
remedy is to regulate the procedure by requiring the judge to give due
notice to the adverse parties before granting the writ, the hearing
to be _ex parte_ if the adverse party does not appear at the time and
place ordered. What is due notice must depend upon the facts of the
case: it should not be used as a pretext to permit violation of the
law, or the jeopardizing of life or property. Of course, this would
not authorize the issuing of a restraining order or injunction in any
case in which it is not already authorized by existing law.
I renew the recommendation I made in my last annual Message for an
investigation by the Department of Commerce and Labor of general
labor conditions, especial attention to be paid to the conditions
of child labor and child-labor legislation in the several States.
Such an investigation should take into account the various problems
with which the question of child labor is connected. It is true that
these problems can be actually met in most cases only by the States
themselves, but it would be well for the Nation to endeavor to secure
and publish comprehensive information as to the conditions of the labor
of children in the different States, so as to spur up those that are
behindhand, and to secure approximately uniform legislation of a high
character among the several States. In such a Republic as ours the one
thing that we can not afford to neglect is the problem of turning out
decent citizens. The future of the Nation depends upon the citizenship
of the generations to come; the children of to-day are those who
to-morrow will shape the destiny of our land, and we can not afford
to neglect them. The Legislature of Colorado has recommended that the
National Government provide some general measure for the protection
from abuse of children and dumb animals throughout the United States.
I lay the matter before you for what I trust will be your favorable
consideration.
The Department of Commerce and Labor should also make a thorough
investigation of the conditions of women in industry. Over five million
American women are now engaged in gainful occupations; yet there is
an almost complete dearth of data upon which to base any trustworthy
conclusions as regards a subject as important as it is vast and
complicated. There is need of full knowledge on which to base action
looking toward State and municipal legislation for the protection of
working women. The introduction of women into industry is working
change and disturbance in the domestic and social life of the Nation.
The decrease in marriage, and especially in the birth rate, has been
coincident with it. We must face accomplished facts, and the adjustment
to factory conditions must be made; but surely it can be made with less
friction and less harmful effects on family life than is now the case.
This whole matter in reality forms one of the greatest sociological
phenomena of our time; it is a social question of the first importance,
of far greater importance than any merely political or economic
question can be; and to solve it we need ample data, gathered in a sane
and scientific spirit in the course of an exhaustive investigation.
In any great labor disturbance not only are employer and employee
interested, but also a third party—the general public. Every
considerable labor difficulty in which interstate commerce is involved
should be investigated by the Government and the facts officially
reported to the public.
The question of securing a healthy, self-respecting, and mutually
sympathetic attitude as between employer and employee, capitalist
and wage-worker, is a difficult one. All phases of the labor problem
prove difficult when approached. But the underlying principles, the
root principles, in accordance with which the problem must be solved
are entirely simple. We can get justice and right dealing only if we
put as of paramount importance the principle of treating a man on his
worth as a man rather than with reference to his social position,
his occupation, or the class to which he belongs. There are selfish
and brutal men in all ranks of life. If they are capitalists their
selfishness and brutality may take the form of hard indifference to
suffering, greedy disregard of every moral restraint which interferes
with the accumulation of wealth, and cold-blooded exploitation of the
weak; or, if they are laborers, the form of laziness, of sullen envy of
the more fortunate, and of willingness to perform deeds of murderous
violence. Such conduct is just as reprehensible in one case as in
the other, and all honest and far-seeing men should join in warring
against it wherever it becomes manifest. Individual capitalist and
individual wage-worker, corporation and union, are alike entitled to
the protection of the law, and must alike obey the law. Moreover, in
addition to mere obedience to the law, each man, if he be really a
good citizen, must show broad sympathy for his neighbor and genuine
desire to look at any question arising between them from the standpoint
of that neighbor no less than from his own; and to this end it is
essential that capitalist and wage-worker should consult freely one
with the other, should each strive to bring closer the day when both
shall realize that they are properly partners and not enemies. To
approach the questions which inevitably arise between them solely from
the standpoint which treats each side in the mass as the enemy of the
other side in the mass is both wicked and foolish. In the past the most
direful among the influences which have brought about the downfall of
republics has ever been the growth of the class spirit, the growth of
the spirit which tends to make a man subordinate the welfare of the
public as a whole to the welfare of the particular class to which he
belongs, the substitution of loyalty to a class for loyalty to the
Nation. This inevitably brings about a tendency to treat each man not
on his merits as an individual, but on his position as belonging to
a certain class in the community. If such a spirit grows up in this
Republic it will ultimately prove fatal to us, as in the past it has
proved fatal to every community in which it has become dominant. Unless
we continue to keep a quick and lively sense of the great fundamental
truth that our concern is with the individual worth of the individual
man, this Government can not permanently hold the place which it has
achieved among the nations. The vital lines of cleavage among our
people do not correspond, and indeed run at right angles, to the lines
of cleavage which divide occupation from occupation, which divide
wage-workers from capitalists, farmers from bankers, men of small means
from men of large means, men who live in the towns from men who live in
the country; for the vital line of cleavage is the line which divides
the honest man who tries to do well by his neighbor from the dishonest
man who does ill by his neighbor. In other words, the standard we
should establish is the standard of conduct, not the standard of
occupation, of means, or of social position. It is the man’s moral
quality, his attitude toward the great questions which concern all
humanity, his cleanliness of life, his power to do his duty toward
himself and toward others, which really count; and if we substitute for
the standard of personal judgment which treats each man according to
his merits, another standard in accordance with which all men of one
class are favored and all men of another class discriminated against,
we shall do irreparable damage to the body politic. I believe that our
people are too sane, too self-respecting, too fit for self-government,
ever to adopt such an attitude. This Government is not and never shall
be government by a plutocracy. This Government is not and never shall
be government by a mob. It shall continue to be in the future what it
has been in the past, a government based on the theory that each man,
rich or poor, is to be treated simply and solely on his worth as a man,
that all his personal and property rights are to be safeguarded, and
that he is neither to wrong others nor to suffer wrong from others.
The noblest of all forms of government is self-government; but it is
also the most difficult. We who possess this priceless boon, and who
desire to hand it on to our children and our children’s children,
should ever bear in mind the thought so finely expressed by Burke:
“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their
disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion
as they are disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good
in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society can not exist unless
a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and
the less of it there be within the more there must be without. It is
ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate
minds can not be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
* * * * *
The great insurance companies afford striking examples of corporations
whose business has extended so far beyond the jurisdiction of the
States which created them as to preclude strict enforcement of
supervision and regulation by the parent States. In my last annual
Message I recommended “that the Congress carefully consider whether
the power of the Bureau of Corporations can not constitutionally be
extended to cover interstate transactions in insurance.” Recent events
have emphasized the importance of an early and exhaustive consideration
of this question, to see whether it is not possible to furnish better
safeguards than the several States have been able to furnish against
corruption of the flagrant kind which has been exposed. It has been
only too clearly shown that certain of the men at the head of these
large corporations take but small note of the ethical distinction
between honesty and dishonesty; they draw the line only this side of
what may be called law-honesty, the kind of honesty necessary in order
to avoid falling into the clutches of the law. Of course the only
complete remedy for this condition must be found in an aroused public
conscience, a higher sense of ethical conduct in the community at
large, and especially among business men and in the great profession of
the law, and in the growth of a spirit which condemns all dishonesty,
whether in rich man or in poor man, whether it takes the shape of
bribery or of blackmail. But much can be done by legislation which
is not only drastic but practical. There is need of a far stricter
and more uniform regulation of the vast insurance interests of this
country. The United States should in this respect follow the policy of
other nations by providing adequate national supervision of commercial
interests which are clearly national in character. My predecessors have
repeatedly recognized that the foreign business of these companies
is an important part of our foreign commercial relations. During the
Administrations of Presidents Cleveland, Harrison, and McKinley the
State Department exercised its influence, through diplomatic channels,
to prevent unjust discrimination by foreign countries against American
insurance companies. These negotiations illustrated the propriety of
the Congress recognizing the national character of insurance, for in
the absence of Federal legislation the State Department could only give
expression to the wishes of the authorities of the several States,
whose policy was ineffective through want of uniformity.
I repeat my previous recommendation that the Congress should also
consider whether the Federal Government has any power or owes any duty
with respect to domestic transactions in insurance of an interstate
character. That State supervision has proved inadequate is generally
conceded. The burden upon insurance companies, and therefore their
policy-holders, of conflicting regulations of many States, is
unquestioned, while but little effective check is imposed upon any able
and unscrupulous man who desires to exploit the company in his own
interest at the expense of the policy-holders and of the public. The
inability of a State to regulate effectively insurance corporations
created under the laws of other States and transacting the larger part
of their business elsewhere is also clear. As a remedy for this evil
of conflicting, ineffective, and yet burdensome regulations there has
been for many years a widespread demand for Federal supervision. The
Congress has already recognized that interstate insurance may be a
proper subject for Federal legislation, for in creating the Bureau of
Corporations it authorized it to publish and supply useful information
concerning interstate corporations, “including corporations engaged in
insurance.” It is obvious that if the compilation of statistics be the
limit of the Federal power, it is wholly ineffective to regulate this
form of commercial intercourse between the States, and as the insurance
business has outgrown in magnitude the possibility of adequate State
supervision, the Congress should carefully consider whether further
legislation can be had. What is said above applies with equal force
to fraternal and benevolent organizations which contract for life
insurance.
* * * * *
There is more need of stability than of the attempt to attain an ideal
perfection in the methods of raising revenue; and the shock and strain
to the business world certain to attend any serious change in these
methods render such change inadvisable unless for grave reason. It is
not possible to lay down any general rule by which to determine the
moment when the reasons for will outweigh the reasons against such a
change. Much must depend, not merely on the needs, but on the desires,
of the people as a whole; for needs and desires are not necessarily
identical. Of course no change can be made on lines beneficial to, or
desired by, one section or one State only. There must be something
like a general agreement among the citizens of the several States, as
represented in the Congress, that the change is needed and desired
in the interest of the people as a whole; and there should then be a
sincere, intelligent, and disinterested effort to make it in such
shape as will combine, so far as possible, the maximum of good to the
people at large with the minimum of necessary disregard for the special
interests of localities or classes. But in time of peace the revenue
must on the average, taking a series of years together, equal the
expenditures, or else the revenues must be increased. Last year there
was a deficit. Unless our expenditures can be kept within the revenues
then our revenue laws must be readjusted. It is as yet too early to
attempt to outline what shape such a readjustment should take, for it
is as yet too early to say whether there will be need for it. It should
be considered whether it is not desirable that the tariff laws should
provide for applying as against or in favor of any other nation maximum
and minimum tariff rates established by the Congress, so as to secure a
certain reciprocity of treatment between other nations and ourselves.
Having in view even larger considerations of policy than those of a
purely economic nature, it would, in my judgment, be well to endeavor
to bring about closer commercial connections with the other peoples of
this continent. I am happy to be able to announce to you that Russia
now treats us on the most-favored-nation basis.
* * * * *
I earnestly recommend to the Congress the need of economy and to this
end of a rigid scrutiny of appropriations. As examples merely, I
call your attention to one or two specific matters. All unnecessary
offices should be abolished. The Commissioner of the General Land
Office recommends the abolishment of the office of receiver of public
moneys for United States land offices. This will effect a saving of
about a quarter of a million dollars a year. As the business of the
Nation grows it is inevitable that there should be from time to time a
legitimate increase in the number of officials, and this fact renders
it all the more important that when offices become unnecessary they
should be abolished. In the public printing also a large saving of
public money can be made. There is a constantly growing tendency to
publish masses of unimportant information. It is probably not unfair to
say that many tens of thousands of volumes are published at which no
human being ever looks and for which there is no real demand whatever.
Yet, in speaking of economy, I must in no wise be understood
as advocating the false economy which is in the end the worst
extravagance. To cut down on the Navy, for instance, would be a crime
against the Nation. To fail to push forward all work on the Panama
Canal would be as great a folly.
* * * * *
In my Message of December 2, 1902, to the Congress I said:
“Interest rates are a potent factor in business activity, and in
order that these rates may be equalized to meet the varying needs
of the seasons and of widely separated communities, and to prevent
the recurrence of financial stringencies which injuriously affect
legitimate business, it is necessary that there should be an element
of elasticity in our monetary system. Banks are the natural servants
of commerce, and upon them should be placed, as far as practicable,
the burden of furnishing and maintaining a circulation adequate to
supply the needs of our diversified industries and of our domestic and
foreign commerce; and the issue of this should be so regulated that a
sufficient supply should be always available for the business interests
of the country.”
Every consideration of prudence demands the addition of the element
of elasticity to our currency system. The evil does not consist in an
inadequate volume of money, but in the rigidity of this volume, which
does not respond as it should to the varying needs of communities and
of seasons. Inflation must be avoided; but some provision should be
made that will ensure a larger volume of money during the fall and
winter months than in the less active seasons of the year; so that
the currency will contract against speculation, and will expand for
the needs of legitimate business. At present the Treasury Department
is at irregularly recurring intervals obliged, in the interest of the
business world—that is, in the interest of the American public—to
try to avert financial crises by providing a remedy which should be
provided by Congressional action.
* * * * *
At various times I have instituted investigations into the organization
and conduct of the business of the Executive Departments. While none
of these inquiries have yet progressed far enough to warrant final
conclusions, they have already confirmed and emphasized the general
impression that the organization of the Departments is often faulty
in principle and wasteful in results, while many of their business
methods are antiquated and inefficient. There is every reason why our
executive governmental machinery should be at least as well planned,
economical, and efficient as the best machinery of the great business
organizations, which at present is not the case. To make it so is
a task of complex detail and essentially executive in its nature;
probably no legislative body, no matter how wise and able, could
undertake it with reasonable prospect of success. I recommend that the
Congress consider this subject with a view to provide by legislation
for the transfer, distribution, consolidation, and assignment of duties
and executive organizations or parts of organizations, and for the
changes in business methods, within or between the several Departments,
that will best promote the economy, efficiency, and high character of
the Government work.
* * * * *
In my last annual Message I said:
“The power of the Government to protect the integrity of the elections
of its own officials is inherent and has been recognized and affirmed
by repeated declarations of the Supreme Court. There is no enemy of
free government more dangerous and none so insidious as the corruption
of the electorate. No one defends or excuses corruption, and it would
seem to follow that none would oppose vigorous measures to eradicate
it. I recommend the enactment of a law directed against bribery and
corruption in Federal elections. The details of such a law may be
safely left to the wise discretion of the Congress, but it should go
as far as under the Constitution it is possible to go, and should
include severe penalties against him who gives or receives a bribe
intended to influence his act or opinion as an elector; and provisions
for the publication not only of the expenditures for nominations and
elections of all candidates, but also of all contributions received and
expenditures made by political committees.”
I desire to repeat this recommendation. In political campaigns in a
country as large and populous as ours it is inevitable that there
should be much expense of an entirely legitimate kind. This, of course,
means that many contributions, and some of them of large size, must
be made, and, as a matter of fact, in any big political contest such
contributions are always made to both sides. It is entirely proper
both to give and receive them, unless there is an improper motive
connected with either gift or reception. If they are extorted by any
kind of pressure or promise, express or implied, direct or indirect,
in the way of favor or immunity, then the giving or receiving becomes
not only improper but criminal. It will undoubtedly be difficult as
a matter of practical detail to shape an act which shall guard with
reasonable certainty against such misconduct; but if it is possible
to secure by law the full and verified publication in detail of all
the sums contributed to and expended by the candidates or committees
of any political parties the result can not but be wholesome. All
contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any
political purpose should be forbidden by law; directors should not be
permitted to use stockholders’ money for such purposes; and, moreover,
a prohibition of this kind would be, as far as it went, an effective
method of stopping the evils aimed at in corrupt practices acts. Not
only should both the National and the several State legislatures forbid
any officer of a corporation from using the money of the corporation in
or about any election, but they should also forbid such use of money in
connection with any legislation save by the employment of counsel in
public manner for distinctly legal services.
* * * * *
The first Conference of Nations held at The Hague in 1899, being unable
to dispose of all the business before it, recommended the consideration
and settlement of a number of important questions by another conference
to be called subsequently and at an early date. These questions
were the following: (1) The rights and duties of neutrals; (2) the
limitation of the armed forces on land and sea, and of military
budgets; (3) the use of new types and calibres of military and naval
guns: (4) the inviolability of private property at sea in times of war;
(5) the bombardment of ports, cities, and villages by naval forces. In
October, 1904, at the instance of the Interparliamentary Union, which,
at a conference held in the United States and attended by the lawmakers
of fifteen different nations, had reiterated the demand for a second
Conference of Nations, I issued invitations to all the Powers signatory
to The Hague Convention to send delegates to such a conference
and suggested that it be again held at The Hague. In its note of
December 16, 1904, the United States Government communicated to the
representatives of foreign governments its belief that the conference
could be best arranged under the provisions of the present Hague treaty.
* * * * *
From all the Powers acceptance was received, coupled in some cases
with the condition that we should wait until the end of the war then
waging between Russia and Japan. The Emperor of Russia, immediately
after the treaty of peace which so happily terminated this war, in a
note presented to the President on September 13, through Ambassador
Rosen, took the initiative in recommending that the conference be now
called. The United States Government in response expressed its cordial
acquiescence and stated that it would, as a matter of course, take
part in the new conference and endeavor to further its aims. We assume
that all civilized governments will support the movement, and that the
conference is now an assured fact. This Government will do everything
in its power to secure the success of the conference to the end that
substantial progress may be made in the cause of international peace,
justice, and good-will.
This renders it proper at this time to say something as to the general
attitude of this Government toward peace. More and more war is coming
to be looked upon as in itself a lamentable and evil thing. A wanton
or useless war, or a war of mere aggression—in short, any war begun
or carried on in a conscienceless spirit—is to be condemned as a
peculiarly atrocious crime against all humanity. We can, however, do
nothing of permanent value for peace unless we keep ever clearly in
mind the ethical element which lies at the root of the problem. Our aim
is righteousness. Peace is normally the handmaiden of righteousness;
but when peace and righteousness conflict then a great and upright
people can never for a moment hesitate to follow the path which leads
toward righteousness, even though that path also leads to war. There
are persons who advocate peace at any price; there are others who,
following a false analogy, think that because it is no longer necessary
in civilized countries for individuals to protect their rights with a
strong hand, it is therefore unnecessary for nations to be ready to
defend their rights. These persons would do irreparable harm to any
nation that adopted their principles, and even as it is they seriously
hamper the cause which they advocate by tending to render it absurd
in the eyes of sensible and patriotic men. There can be no worse foe
of mankind in general, and of his own country in particular, than
the demagogue of war, the man who in mere folly or to serve his own
selfish ends continually rails at and abuses other nations, who seeks
to excite his countrymen against foreigners on insufficient pretexts,
who excites and inflames a perverse and aggressive national vanity,
and who may on occasions wantonly bring on conflict between his nation
and some other nation. But there are demagogues of peace just as there
are demagogues of war, and in any such movement as this for The Hague
conference it is essential not to be misled by one set of extremists
any more than by the other. Whenever it is possible for a nation or an
individual to work for real peace, assuredly it is failure of duty not
so to strive; but if war is necessary and righteous, then either the
man or the nation shrinking from it forfeits all title to self-respect.
We have scant sympathy with the sentimentalist who dreads oppression
less than physical suffering, who would prefer a shameful peace to
the pain and toil sometimes lamentably necessary in order to secure a
righteous peace. As yet there is only a partial and imperfect analogy
between international law and internal or municipal law, because there
is no sanction of force for executing the former, while there is in the
case of the latter. The private citizen is protected in his rights by
the law, because the law rests in the last resort upon force exercised
through the forms of law. A man does not have to defend his rights with
his own hand, because he can call upon the police, upon the sheriff’s
posse, upon the militia, or in certain extreme cases upon the Army, to
defend him. But there is no such sanction of force for international
law. At present there could be no greater calamity than for the free
peoples, the enlightened, independent, and peace-loving peoples, to
disarm while yet leaving it open to any barbarism or despotism to
remain armed. So long as the world is as unorganized as now, the armies
and navies of those peoples who on the whole stand for justice offer
not only the best, but the only possible, security for a just peace.
For instance, if the United States alone, or in company only with
the other nations that on the whole tend to act justly, disarmed, we
might sometimes avoid bloodshed, but we would cease to be of weight
in securing the peace of justice—the real peace for which the most
law-abiding and high-minded men must at times be willing to fight. As
the world is now, only that nation is equipped for peace that knows how
to fight and that will not shrink from fighting if ever the conditions
become such that war is demanded in the name of the highest morality.
So much it is emphatically necessary to say in order both that the
position of the United States may not be misunderstood, and that
a genuine effort to bring nearer the day of the peace of justice
among the nations may not be hampered by a folly which, in striving
to achieve the impossible, would render it hopeless to attempt the
achievement of the practical. But while recognizing most clearly
all above set forth, it remains our clear duty to strive in every
practicable way to bring nearer the time when the sword shall not be
the arbiter among nations. At present the practical thing to do is to
try to minimize the number of cases in which it must be the arbiter,
and to offer, at least to all civilized powers, some substitute for
war which will be available in at least a considerable number of
instances. Very much can be done through another Hague conference in
this direction, and I most earnestly urge that this Nation do all in
its power to try to further the movement and to make the result of the
decisions of The Hague conference effective. I earnestly hope that the
conference may be able to devise some way to make arbitration between
nations the customary way of settling international disputes in all
save a few classes of cases, which should themselves be as sharply
defined and rigidly limited as the present governmental and social
development of the world will permit. If possible, there should be a
general arbitration treaty negotiated among all the nations represented
at the conference. Neutral rights and property should be protected at
sea as they are protected on land. There should be an international
agreement to this purpose and a similar agreement defining contraband
of war.
During the last century there has been a distinct diminution in the
number of wars between the most civilized nations. International
relations have become closer, and the development of The Hague tribunal
is not only a symptom of this growing closeness of relationship, but is
a means by which the growth can be furthered. Our aim should be from
time to time to take such steps as may be possible toward creating
something like an organization of the civilized nations, because as
the world becomes more highly organized the need for navies and armies
will diminish. It is not possible to secure anything like an immediate
disarmament, because it would first be necessary to settle what peoples
are on the whole a menace to the rest of mankind, and to provide
against the disarmament of the rest being turned into a movement which
would really chiefly benefit these obnoxious peoples; but it may be
possible to exercise some check upon the tendency to swell indefinitely
the budgets for military expenditure. Of course, such an effort could
succeed only if it did not attempt to do too much; and if it were
undertaken in a spirit of sanity as far removed as possible from a
merely hysterical pseudo-philanthropy. It is worth while pointing out
that since the end of the insurrection in the Philippines this Nation
has shown its practical faith in the policy of disarmament by reducing
its little army one-third. But disarmament can never be of prime
importance; there is more need to get rid of the causes of war than of
the implements of war.
I have dwelt much on the dangers to be avoided by steering clear of any
mere foolish sentimentality because my wish for peace is so genuine and
earnest; because I have a real and great desire that this second Hague
conference may mark a long stride forward in the direction of securing
the peace of justice throughout the world. No object is better worthy
the attention of enlightened statesmanship than the establishment of a
surer method than now exists of securing justice as between nations,
both for the protection of the little nations and for the prevention
of war between the big nations. To this aim we should endeavor not
only to avert bloodshed, but, above all, effectively to strengthen the
forces of right. The Golden Rule should be, and as the world grows in
morality it will be, the guiding rule of conduct among nations as among
individuals; though the Golden Rule must not be construed, in fantastic
manner, as forbidding the exercise of the police power. This mighty and
free Republic should ever deal with all other states, great or small,
on a basis of high honor, respecting their rights as jealously as it
safeguards its own.
* * * * *
One of the most effective instruments for peace is the Monroe Doctrine
as it has been and is being gradually developed by this Nation and
accepted by other nations. No other policy could have been as efficient
in promoting peace in the Western Hemisphere and in giving to each
nation thereon the chance to develop along its own lines. If we had
refused to apply the Doctrine to changing conditions it would now be
completely outworn, would not meet any of the needs of the present
day, and indeed would probably by this time have sunk into complete
oblivion. It is useful at home, and is meeting with recognition abroad
because we have adapted our application of it to meet the growing and
changing needs of the Hemisphere. When we announce a policy, such as
the Monroe Doctrine, we thereby commit ourselves to the consequences of
the policy, and those consequences from time to time alter. It is out
of the question to claim a right and yet shirk the responsibility for
its exercise. Not only we, but all American Republics who are benefited
by the existence of the Doctrine, must recognize the obligations each
nation is under as regards foreign peoples no less than its duty to
insist upon its own rights.
That our rights and interests are deeply concerned in the maintenance
of the Doctrine is so clear as hardly to need argument. This is
especially true in view of the construction of the Panama Canal. As a
mere matter of self-defence we must exercise a close watch over the
approaches to this canal; and this means that we must be thoroughly
alive to our interests in the Caribbean Sea.
There are certain essential points which must never be forgotten
as regards the Monroe Doctrine. In the first place, we must as a
nation make it evident that we do not intend to treat it in any shape
or way as an excuse for aggrandizement on our part at the expense
of the republics to the south. We must recognize the fact that in
some South American countries there has been much suspicion lest we
should interpret the Monroe Doctrine as in some way inimical to their
interests, and we must try to convince all the other nations of this
continent once and for all that no just and orderly government has
anything to fear from us. There are certain republics to the south of
us which have already reached such a point of stability, order, and
prosperity that they themselves, though as yet hardly consciously, are
among the guarantors of this Doctrine. These republics we now meet
not only on a basis of entire equality, but in a spirit of frank and
respectful friendship, which we hope is mutual. If all the republics to
the south of us will only grow as those to which I allude have already
grown, all need for us to be the especial champions of the Doctrine
will disappear, for no stable and growing American Republic wishes to
see some great non-American military power acquire territory in its
neighborhood. All that this country desires is that the other republics
on this Continent shall be happy and prosperous; and they can not be
happy and prosperous unless they maintain order within their boundaries
and behave with a just regard for their obligations toward outsiders.
It must be understood that under no circumstances will the United
States use the Monroe Doctrine as a cloak for territorial aggression.
We desire peace with all the world, but perhaps most of all with the
other peoples of the American Continent. There are of course limits to
the wrongs which any self-respecting nation can endure. It is always
possible that wrong actions toward this Nation, or toward citizens of
this Nation, in some state unable to keep order among its own people,
unable to secure justice from outsiders, and unwilling to do justice to
those outsiders who treat it well, may result in our having to take
action to protect our rights; but such action will not be taken with a
view to territorial aggression, and it will be taken at all only with
extreme reluctance and when it has become evident that every other
resource has been exhausted.
Moreover, we must make it evident that we do not intend to permit
the Monroe Doctrine to be used by any nation on this Continent as a
shield to protect it from the consequences of its own misdeeds against
foreign nations. If a republic to the south of us commits a tort
against a foreign nation, such as an outrage against a citizen of that
nation, then the Monroe Doctrine does not force us to interfere to
prevent punishment of the tort, save to see that the punishment does
not assume the form of territorial occupation in any shape. The case
is more difficult when it refers to a contractual obligation. Our own
Government has always refused to enforce such contractual obligations
on behalf of its citizens by an appeal to arms. It is much to be wished
that all foreign governments would take the same view. But they do not;
and in consequence we are liable at any time to be brought face to face
with disagreeable alternatives. On the one hand, this country would
certainly decline to go to war to prevent a foreign government from
collecting a just debt; on the other hand, it is very inadvisable to
permit any foreign power to take possession, even temporarily, of the
custom-houses of an American Republic in order to enforce the payment
of its obligations; for such temporary occupation might turn into
a permanent occupation. The only escape from these alternatives may
at any time be that we must ourselves undertake to bring about some
arrangement by which so much as possible of a just obligation shall be
paid. It is far better that this country should put through such an
arrangement, rather than allow any foreign country to undertake it. To
do so ensures the defaulting republic from having to pay debts of an
improper character under duress, while it also ensures honest creditors
of the republic from being passed by in the interest of dishonest or
grasping creditors. Moreover, for the United States to take such a
position offers the only possible way of ensuring us against a clash
with some foreign power. The position is, therefore, in the interest
of peace as well as in the interest of justice. It is of benefit to
our people; it is of benefit to foreign peoples; and most of all it is
really of benefit to the people of the country concerned.
This brings me to what should be one of the fundamental objects of the
Monroe Doctrine. We must ourselves in good faith try to help upward
toward peace and order those of our sister republics which need such
help. Just as there has been a gradual growth of the ethical element
in the relations of one individual to another, so we are, even though
slowly, more and more coming to recognize the duty of bearing one
another’s burdens, not only as among individuals, but also as among
nations.
Santo Domingo, in her turn, has now made an appeal to us to help her,
and not only every principle of wisdom but every generous instinct
within us bids us respond to the appeal. It is not of the slightest
consequence whether we grant the aid needed by Santo Domingo as an
incident to the wise development of the Monroe Doctrine, or because
we regard the case of Santo Domingo as standing wholly by itself,
and to be treated as such, and not on general principles or with any
reference to the Monroe Doctrine. The important point is to give the
needed aid, and the case is certainly sufficiently peculiar to deserve
to be judged purely on its own merits. The conditions in Santo Domingo
have for a number of years grown from bad to worse until a year ago
all society was on the verge of dissolution. Fortunately, just at this
time a ruler sprang up in Santo Domingo, who, with his colleagues, saw
the dangers threatening their country and appealed to the friendship
of the only great and powerful neighbor who possessed the power and,
as they hoped, also the will to help them. There was imminent danger
of foreign intervention. The previous rulers of Santo Domingo had
recklessly incurred debts, and owing to her internal disorders she had
ceased to be able to provide means of paying the debts. The patience of
her foreign creditors had become exhausted, and at least two foreign
nations were on the point of intervention, and were only prevented from
intervening by the unofficial assurance of this Government that it
would itself strive to help Santo Domingo in her hour of need. In the
case of one of these nations, only the actual opening of negotiations
to this end by our Government prevented the seizure of territory in
Santo Domingo by a European power. Of the debts incurred some were
just, while some were not of a character which really renders it
obligatory on, or proper for, Santo Domingo to pay them in full. But
she could not pay any of them unless some stability was assured her
Government and people.
Accordingly the Executive Department of our Government negotiated
a treaty under which we are to try to help the Dominican people to
straighten out their finances. This treaty is pending before the
Senate. In the meantime a temporary arrangement has been made which
will last until the Senate has had time to take action upon the treaty.
Under this arrangement the Dominican Government has appointed Americans
to all the important positions in the customs service, and they are
seeing to the honest collection of the revenues, turning over 45 per
cent to the Government for running expenses and putting the other 55
per cent into a safe depositary for equitable division in case the
treaty shall be ratified, among the various creditors, whether European
or American.
The custom-houses offer wellnigh the only sources of revenue in Santo
Domingo, and the different revolutions usually have as their real aim
the obtaining possession of these custom-houses. The mere fact that the
collectors of customs are Americans, that they are performing their
duties with efficiency and honesty, and that the treaty is pending in
the Senate, gives a certain moral power to the Government of Santo
Domingo which it has not had before. This has completely discouraged
all revolutionary movement, while it has already produced such an
increase in the revenues that the Government is actually getting more
from the 45 per cent that the American collectors turn over to it than
it got formerly when it took the entire revenue. It is enabling the
poor harassed people of Santo Domingo once more to turn their attention
to industry and to be free from the curse of interminable revolutionary
disturbance. It offers to all bonâ fide creditors, American and
European, the only really good chance to obtain that to which they are
justly entitled, while it in return gives to Santo Domingo the only
opportunity of defence against claims which it ought not to pay, for
now if it meets the views of the Senate we shall ourselves thoroughly
examine all these claims, whether American or foreign, and see that
none that are improper are paid. There is, of course, opposition to
the treaty from dishonest creditors, foreign and American, and from
the professional revolutionists of the island itself. We have already
reason to believe that some of the creditors who do not dare expose
their claims to honest scrutiny are endeavoring to stir up sedition
in the island and opposition to the treaty. In the meantime I have
exercised the authority vested in me by the joint resolution of the
Congress to prevent the introduction of arms into the island for
revolutionary purposes.
Under the course taken, stability and order and all the benefits
of peace are at last coming to Santo Domingo, danger of foreign
intervention has been suspended, and there is at last a prospect
that all creditors will get justice, no more and no less. If the
arrangement is terminated by the failure of the treaty chaos will
follow; and if chaos follows, sooner or later this Government may be
involved in serious difficulties with foreign governments over the
island, or else may be forced itself to intervene in the island in
some unpleasant fashion. Under the proposed treaty the independence
of the island is scrupulously respected, the danger of violation of
the Monroe Doctrine by the intervention of foreign powers vanishes,
and the interference of our Government is minimized, so that we shall
only act in conjunction with the Santo Domingo authorities to secure
the proper administration of the customs, and therefore to secure the
payment of just debts and to secure the Dominican Government against
demands for unjust debts. The proposed method will give the people of
Santo Domingo the same chance to move onward and upward which we have
already given to the people of Cuba. It will be doubly to our discredit
as a nation if we fail to take advantage of this chance; for it will be
of damage to ourselves, and it will be of incalculable damage to Santo
Domingo. Every consideration of wise policy, and, above all, every
consideration of large generosity, bids us meet the request of Santo
Domingo as we are now trying to meet it.
* * * * *
We can not consider the question of our foreign policy without at the
same time treating of the Army and Navy. We now have a very small
army—indeed, one wellnigh infinitesimal when compared with the army
of any other large nation. Of course the Army we do have should be as
nearly perfect of its kind and for its size as is possible. I do not
believe that any army in the world has a better average of enlisted
man or a better type of junior officer; but the Army should be trained
to act effectively in a mass. Provision should be made by sufficient
appropriations for manœuvres of a practical kind so that the troops may
learn how to take care of themselves under actual service conditions;
every march, for instance, being made with the soldier loaded exactly
as he would be in an active campaign. The generals and colonels
would thereby have opportunity of handling regiments, brigades, and
divisions, and the commissary and medical departments would be tested
in the field. Provision should be made for the exercise at least of
a brigade and by preference of a division in marching and embarking
at some point on our coast and disembarking at some other point and
continuing its march. The number of posts in which the Army is kept in
time of peace should be materially diminished and the posts that are
left made correspondingly larger. No local interests should be allowed
to stand in the way of assembling the greater part of the troops which
would at need form our field armies in stations of such size as will
permit the best training to be given to the personnel of all grades,
including the high officers and staff officers. To accomplish this
end we must have not company or regimental garrisons, but brigade and
division garrisons. Promotion by mere seniority can never result in
a thoroughly efficient corps of officers in the higher ranks unless
there accompanies it a vigorous weeding-out process. Such a weeding-out
process—that is, such a process of selection—is a chief feature of the
four years’ course of the young officer at West Point. There is no good
reason why it should stop immediately upon his graduation. While at
West Point he is dropped unless he comes up to a certain standard of
excellence, and when he graduates he takes rank in the Army according
to his rank of graduation. The results are good at West Point; and
there should be in the Army itself something that will achieve the same
end. After a certain age has been reached the average officer is unfit
to do good work below a certain grade. Provision should be made for
the promotion of exceptionally meritorious men over the heads of their
comrades and for the retirement of all men who have reached a given age
without getting beyond a given rank; this age of retirement of course
changing from rank to rank. In both the Army and the Navy there should
be some principle of selection, that is, of promotion for merit, and
there should be a resolute effort to eliminate the aged officers of
reputable character who possess no special efficiency.
There should be an increase in the coast artillery force, so that our
coast fortifications can be in some degree adequately manned. There
is special need for an increase and reorganization of the Medical
Department of the Army. In both the Army and Navy there must be the
same thorough training for duty in the staff corps as in the fighting
line. Only by such training in advance can we be sure that in actual
war field operations and those at sea will be carried on successfully.
The importance of this was shown conclusively in the Spanish-American
and the Russo-Japanese wars. The work of the medical departments in
the Japanese army and navy is especially worthy of study. I renew my
recommendation of January 9, 1905, as to the Medical Department of the
Army and call attention to the equal importance of the needs of the
staff corps of the Navy. In the Medical Department of the Navy the
first in importance is the reorganization of the Hospital Corps, on
the lines of the Gallinger Bill (S. 3984, February 1, 1904), and the
reapportionment of the different grades of the medical officers to meet
service requirements. It seems advisable also that medical officers of
the Army and Navy should have similar rank and pay in their respective
grades, so that their duties can be carried on without friction when
they are brought together. The base hospitals of the Navy should be
put in condition to meet modern requirements and hospital ships be
provided. Unless we now provide with ample forethought for the medical
needs of the Army and Navy, appalling suffering of a preventable kind
is sure to occur if ever the country goes to war. It is not reasonable
to expect successful administration in time of war of a department
which lacks a third of the number of officers necessary to perform
the medical service in time of peace. We need men who are not merely
doctors; they must be trained in the administration of military medical
service.
Our Navy must, relatively to the navies of other nations, always be of
greater size than our Army. We have most wisely continued for a number
of years to build up our Navy, and it has now reached a fairly high
standard of efficiency. This standard of efficiency must not only be
maintained, but increased. It does not seem to me necessary, however,
that the Navy should—at least in the immediate future—be increased
beyond the present number of units. What is now clearly necessary is
to substitute efficient for inefficient units as the latter become
worn-out or as it becomes apparent that they are useless. Probably the
result would be attained by adding a single battleship to our Navy
each year, the superseded or outworn vessels being laid up or broken
up as they are thus replaced. The four single-turret monitors built
immediately after the close of the Spanish war, for instance, are
vessels which would be of but little use in the event of war. The
money spent upon them could have been more usefully spent in other
ways. Thus it would have been far better never to have built a single
one of these monitors and to have put the money into an ample supply of
reserve guns. Most of the smaller cruisers and gunboats, though they
serve a useful purpose so far as they are needed for international
police work, would not add to the strength of our Navy in a conflict
with a serious foe. There is urgent need of providing a large increase
in the number of officers, and especially in the number of enlisted men.
Recent naval history has emphasized certain lessons which ought
not to, but which do, need emphasis. Sea-going torpedo boats or
destroyers are indispensable, not only for making night attacks by
surprise upon an enemy, but even in battle for finishing already
crippled ships. Under exceptional circumstances submarine boats would
doubtless be of use. Fast scouts are needed. The main strength of
the Navy, however, lies and can only lie in the great battleships,
the heavily-armored, heavily-gunned vessels which decide the mastery
of the seas. Heavy-armed cruisers also play a most useful part,
and unarmed cruisers, if swift enough, are very useful as scouts.
Between antagonists of approximately equal prowess the comparative
perfection of the instruments of war will ordinarily determine the
fight. But it is of course true that the man behind the gun, the man
in the engine room, and the man in the conning tower, considered not
only individually, but especially with regard to the way in which
they work together, are even more important than the weapons with
which they work. The most formidable battleship is of course helpless
against even a light cruiser if the men aboard it are unable to hit
anything with their guns; and thoroughly well-handled cruisers may
count seriously in an engagement with much superior vessels if the men
aboard the latter are ineffective, whether from lack of training or
from any other cause. Modern warships are most formidable mechanisms
when well handled, but they are utterly useless when not well handled;
and they can not be handled at all without long and careful training.
This training can under no circumstance be given when once war has
broken out. No fighting ship of the first class should ever be laid
up save for necessary repairs; and her crew should be kept constantly
exercised on the high seas, so that she may stand at the highest point
of perfection. To put a new and untrained crew upon the most powerful
battleship and send it out to meet a formidable enemy is not only to
invite but to ensure disaster and disgrace. To improvise crews at the
outbreak of a war, so far as the serious fighting craft are concerned,
is absolutely hopeless. If the officers and men are not thoroughly
skilled in, and have not been thoroughly trained to, their duties, it
would be far better to keep the ships in port during hostilities than
to send them against a formidable opponent, for the result could only
be that they would be either sunk or captured. The marksmanship of
our Navy is now on the whole in a gratifying condition, and there has
been a great improvement in fleet practice. We need additional seamen;
we need a large store of reserve guns; we need sufficient money for
ample target practice, ample practice of every kind at sea. We should
substitute for comparatively inefficient types—the old third-class
battleship “Texas,” the single-turreted monitors above mentioned,
and indeed all the monitors and some of the old cruisers—efficient,
modern, sea-going vessels. Sea-going torpedo-boat destroyers should
be substituted for some of the smaller torpedo boats. During the
present Congress there need be no additions to the aggregate number
of units of the Navy. Our Navy, though very small relatively to the
navies of other nations, is for the present sufficient in point of
numbers for our needs, and while we must constantly strive to make its
efficiency higher, there need be no additions to the total number of
ships now built and building, save in the way of substitution as above
outlined. I recommend the report of the Secretary of the Navy to the
careful consideration of the Congress, especially with a view to the
legislation therein advocated.
* * * * *
During the past year evidence has accumulated to confirm the
expressions contained in my last two annual Messages as to the
importance of revising by appropriate legislation our system of
naturalizing aliens. I appointed last March a commission to make
a careful examination of our naturalization laws, and to suggest
appropriate measures to avoid the notorious abuses resulting from the
improvident or unlawful granting of citizenship. This commission,
composed of an officer of the Department of State, of the Department of
Justice, and of the Department of Commerce and Labor, has discharged
the duty imposed upon it, and has submitted a report, which will be
transmitted to the Congress for its consideration, and, I hope, for its
favorable action.
The distinguishing recommendations of the Commission are:
First. A Federal bureau of naturalization, to be established in the
Department of Commerce and Labor, to supervise the administration of
the naturalization laws and to receive returns of naturalizations
pending and accomplished.
Second. Uniformity of naturalization certificates, fees to be charged,
and procedure.
Third. More exacting qualifications for citizenship.
Fourth. The preliminary declaration of intention to be abolished and no
alien to be naturalized until at least ninety days after the filing of
his petition.
Fifth. Jurisdiction to naturalize aliens to be confined to United
States district courts and to such State courts as have jurisdiction
in civil actions in which the amount in controversy is unlimited; in
cities of over 100,000 inhabitants the United States district courts
to have exclusive jurisdiction in the naturalization of the alien
residents of such cities.
* * * * *
In my last Message I asked the attention of the Congress to the
urgent need of action to make our criminal law more effective; and
I most earnestly request that you pay heed to the report of the
Attorney-General on this subject. Centuries ago it was especially
needful to throw every safeguard round the accused. The danger then was
lest he should be wronged by the state. The danger is now exactly the
reverse. Our laws and customs tell immensely in favor of the criminal
and against the interests of the public he has wronged. Some antiquated
and outworn rules, which once safeguarded the threatened rights of
private citizens, now merely work harm to the general body politic. The
criminal law of the United States stands in urgent need of revision.
The criminal process of any court of the United States should run
throughout the entire territorial extent of our country. The delays of
the criminal law, no less than of the civil, now amount to a very great
evil.
* * * * *
There seems to be no statute of the United States which provides for
the punishment of a United States attorney or other officer of the
Government who corruptly agrees to wrongfully do or wrongfully refrain
from doing any act when the consideration for such corrupt agreement
is other than one possessing money value. This ought to be remedied
by appropriate legislation. Legislation should also be enacted to
cover, explicitly, unequivocally, and beyond question, breach of
trust in the shape of prematurely divulging official secrets by an
officer or employee of the United States, and to provide a suitable
penalty therefor. Such officer or employee owes the duty to the United
States to guard carefully and not to divulge or in any manner use,
prematurely, information which is accessible to the officer or employee
by reason of his official position. Most breaches of public trust are
already covered by the law, and this one should be. It is impossible,
no matter how much care is used, to prevent the occasional appointment
to the public service of a man who when tempted proves unfaithful;
but every means should be provided to detect and every effort made to
punish the wrongdoer. So far as in my power lies each and every such
wrongdoer shall be relentlessly hunted down; in no instance in the past
has he been spared; in no instance in the future shall he be spared.
His crime is a crime against every honest man in the Nation, for it
is a crime against the whole body politic. Yet in dwelling on such
misdeeds, it is unjust not to add that they are altogether exceptional,
and that on the whole the employees of the Government render upright
and faithful service to the people. There are exceptions, notably in
one or two branches of the service; but at no time in the Nation’s
history has the public service of the Nation taken as a whole stood
on a higher plane than now, alike as regards honesty and as regards
efficiency.
* * * * *
Once again I call your attention to the condition of the public-land
laws. Recent developments have given new urgency to the need for such
changes as will fit these laws to actual present conditions. The honest
disposal and right use of the remaining public lands is of fundamental
importance. The iniquitous methods by which the monopolizing of the
public lands is being brought about under the present laws are becoming
generally known, but the existing laws do not furnish effective
remedies. The recommendations of the Public Lands Commission upon this
subject are wise and should be given effect.
The creation of small irrigated farms under the Reclamation Act is a
powerful offset to the tendency of certain other laws to foster or
permit monopoly of the land. Under that act the construction of great
irrigation works has been proceeding rapidly and successfully, the
lands reclaimed are eagerly taken up, and the prospect that the policy
of national irrigation will accomplish all that was expected of it is
bright. The act should be extended to include the State of Texas.
The Reclamation Act derives much of its value from the fact that it
tends to secure the greatest possible number of homes on the land,
and to create communities of freeholders, in part by settlement on
public lands, in part by forcing the subdivision of large private
holdings before they can get water from Government irrigation works.
The law requires that no right to the use of water for land in private
ownership shall be sold for a tract exceeding 160 acres to any one land
owner. This provision has excited active and powerful hostility, but
the success of the law itself depends on the wise and firm enforcement
of it. We can not afford to substitute tenants for freeholders on the
public domain.
The greater part of the remaining public lands can not be irrigated.
They are at present and will probably always be of greater value for
grazing than for any other purpose. This fact has led to the grazing
homestead of 640 acres in Nebraska and to the proposed extension of it
to other States. It is argued that a family can not be supported on
160 acres of arid grazing land. This is obviously true; but neither
can a family be supported on 640 acres of much of the land to which it
is proposed to apply the grazing homestead. To establish universally
any such arbitrary limit would be unwise at the present time. It would
probably result on the one hand in enlarging the holdings of some of
the great land owners, and on the other in needless suffering and
failure on the part of a very considerable proportion of the bonâ fide
settlers who give faith to the implied assurance of the Government that
such an area is sufficient. The best use of the public grazing lands
requires the careful examination and classification of these lands in
order to give each settler land enough to support his family and no
more. While this work is being done, and until the lands are settled,
the Government should take control of the open range, under reasonable
regulations suited to local needs, following the general policy already
in successful operation on the forest reserves. It is probable that the
present grazing value of the open public range is scarcely more than
half what it once was or what it might easily be again under careful
regulations.
The forest policy of the Administration appears to enjoy the unbroken
support of the people. The great users of timber are themselves
forwarding the movement for forest preservation. All organized
opposition to the forest reserves in the West has disappeared. Since
the consolidation of all Government forest work in the National Forest
Service there has been a rapid and notable gain in the usefulness of
the forest reserves to the people and in public appreciation of their
value. The national parks within or adjacent to forest reserves should
be transferred to the charge of the Forest Service also.
* * * * *
The National Government already does something in connection with the
construction and maintenance of the great system of levees along the
lower course of the Mississippi; in my judgment it should do much more.
* * * * *
To the spread of our trade in peace and the defence of our flag in war
a great and prosperous merchant marine is indispensable. We should
have ships of our own and seamen of our own to convey our goods to
neutral markets, and in case of need to reinforce our battle line. It
can not but be a source of regret and uneasiness to us that the lines
of communication with our sister republics of South America should be
chiefly under foreign control. It is not a good thing that American
merchants and manufacturers should have to send their goods and letters
to South America via Europe if they wish security and despatch. Even
on the Pacific, where our ships have held their own better than on the
Atlantic, our merchant flag is now threatened through the liberal aid
bestowed by other governments on their own steam lines. I ask your
earnest consideration of the report with which the Merchant Marine
Commission has followed its long and careful inquiry.
* * * * *
I again heartily commend to your favorable consideration the
tercentennial celebration of the settlement at Jamestown, Virginia.
Appreciating the desirability of this commemoration, the Congress
passed an act, March 3, 1905, authorizing in the year 1907, on and near
the waters of Hampton Roads, in the State of Virginia, an international
naval, marine, and military celebration in honor of this event. By the
authority vested in me by this act, I have made proclamation of said
celebration, and have issued, in conformity with its instructions,
invitations to all the nations of the earth to participate, by
sending their naval vessels and such military organizations as may
be practical. This celebration would fail of its full purpose unless
it were enduring in its results and commensurate with the importance
of the event to be celebrated, the event from which our Nation dates
its birth. I earnestly hope that this celebration, already indorsed
by the Congress of the United States, and by the legislatures of
sixteen States since the action of the Congress, will receive such
additional aid at your hands as will make it worthy of the great
event it is intended to celebrate, and thereby enable the Government
of the United States to make provision for the exhibition of its own
resources, and likewise enable our people who have undertaken the work
of such a celebration to provide suitable and proper entertainment and
instruction in the historic events of our country for all who may visit
the exposition and to whom we have tendered our hospitality.
* * * * *
It is a matter of unmixed satisfaction once more to call attention to
the excellent work of the Pension Bureau; for the veterans of the Civil
War have a greater claim upon us than any other class of our citizens.
To them, first of all among our people, honor is due.
Seven years ago my lamented predecessor, President McKinley, stated
that the time had come for the Nation to care for the graves of the
Confederate dead. I recommend that the Congress take action toward
this end. The first need is to take charge of the graves of the
Confederate dead who died in Northern prisons.
* * * * *
The question of immigration is of vital interest to this country.
In the year ending June 30, 1905, there came to the United States
1,026,000 alien immigrants. In other words, in the single year that
has just elapsed there came to this country a greater number of people
than came here during the one hundred and sixty-nine years of our
colonial life which intervened between the first landing at Jamestown
and the Declaration of Independence. It is clearly shown in the report
of the Commissioner-General of Immigration that, while much of this
enormous immigration is undoubtedly healthy and natural, a considerable
proportion is undesirable from one reason or another; moreover, a
considerable proportion of it, probably a very large proportion,
including most of the undesirable class, does not come here of its own
initiative, but because of the activity of the agents of the great
transportation companies. These agents are distributed throughout
Europe, and by the offer of all kinds of inducements they wheedle and
cajole many immigrants, often against their best interest, to come
here. The most serious obstacle we have to encounter in the effort to
secure a proper regulation of the immigration to these shores arises
from the determined opposition of the foreign steamship lines, who have
no interest whatever in the matter save to increase the returns on
their capital by carrying masses of immigrants hither in the steerage
quarters of their ships.
As I said in my last Message to the Congress, we can not have too much
immigration of the right sort, and we should have none whatever of
the wrong sort. Of course it is desirable that even the right kind of
immigration should be properly distributed in this country. We need
more of such immigration for the South; and special effort should be
made to secure it. Perhaps it would be possible to limit the number
of immigrants allowed to come in any one year to New York and other
Northern cities, while leaving unlimited the number allowed to come to
the South; always provided, however, that a stricter effort is made
to see that only immigrants of the right kind come to our country
anywhere. In actual practice it has proved so difficult to enforce
the immigration laws where long stretches of frontier marked by an
imaginary line alone intervene between us and our neighbors that I
recommend that no immigrants be allowed to come in from Canada and
Mexico, save natives of the two countries themselves. As much as
possible should be done to distribute the immigrants upon the land and
keep them away from the congested tenement-house districts of the great
cities. But distribution is a palliative, not a cure. The prime need is
to keep out all immigrants who will not make good American citizens.
The laws now existing for the exclusion of undesirable immigrants
should be strengthened. Adequate means should be adopted, enforced
by sufficient penalties, to compel steamship companies engaged in the
passenger business to observe in good faith the law which forbids them
to encourage or solicit immigration to the United States. Moreover,
there should be a sharp limitation imposed upon all vessels coming to
our ports as to the number of immigrants in ratio to the tonnage which
each vessel can carry. This ratio should be high enough to ensure the
coming hither of as good a class of aliens as possible. Provision
should be made for the surer punishment of those who induce aliens
to come to this country under promise or assurance of employment. It
should be made possible to inflict a sufficiently heavy penalty on any
employer violating this law to deter him from taking the risk. It seems
to me wise that there should be an international conference held to
deal with this question of immigration, which has more than a merely
national significance; such a conference could among other things
enter at length into the methods for securing a thorough inspection
of would-be immigrants at the ports from which they desire to embark
before permitting them to embark.
In dealing with this question it is unwise to depart from the old
American tradition and to discriminate for or against any man who
desires to come here and become a citizen, save on the ground of that
man’s fitness for citizenship. It is our right and duty to consider
his moral and social quality. His standard of living should be such
that he will not, by pressure of competition, lower the standard of
living of our own wage-workers; for it must ever be a prime object of
our legislation to keep high their standard of living. If the man who
seeks to come here is from the moral and social standpoint of such a
character as to bid fair to add value to the community he should be
heartily welcomed. We can not afford to pay heed to whether he is of
one creed or another, of one nation or another. We can not afford to
consider whether he is Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile; whether
he is Englishman or Irishman, Frenchman or German, Japanese, Italian,
Scandinavian, Slav, or Magyar. What we should desire to find out is
the individual quality of the individual man. In my judgment, with
this end in view, we shall have to prepare through our own agents a
far more rigid inspection in the countries from which the immigrants
come. It will be a great deal better to have fewer immigrants, but
all of the right kind, than a great number of immigrants, many of
whom are necessarily of the wrong kind. As far as possible we wish
to limit the immigration to this country to persons who propose to
become citizens of this country, and we can well afford to insist upon
adequate scrutiny of the character of those who are thus proposed for
future citizenship. There should be an increase in the stringency of
the laws to keep out insane, idiotic, epileptic, and pauper immigrants.
But this is by no means enough. Not merely the anarchist, but every
man of anarchistic tendencies, all violent and disorderly people,
all people of bad character, the incompetent, the lazy, the vicious,
the physically unfit, defective, or degenerate should be kept out.
The stocks out of which American citizenship is to be built should
be strong and healthy, sound in body, mind, and character. If it be
objected that the Government agents would not always select well, the
answer is that they would certainly select better than do the agents
and brokers of foreign steamship companies, the people who now do
whatever selection is done.
The questions arising in connection with Chinese immigration stand by
themselves. The conditions in China are such that the entire Chinese
coolie class, that is, the class of Chinese laborers, skilled and
unskilled, legitimately come under the head of undesirable immigrants
to this country, because of their numbers, the low wages for which
they work, and their low standard of living. Not only is it to the
interest of this country to keep them out, but the Chinese authorities
do not desire that they should be admitted. At present their entrance
is prohibited by laws amply adequate to accomplish this purpose.
These laws have been, are being, and will be thoroughly enforced. The
violations of them are so few in number as to be infinitesimal and can
be entirely disregarded. There is no serious proposal to alter the
immigration law as regards the Chinese laborer, skilled or unskilled,
and there is no excuse for any man feeling or affecting to feel the
slightest alarm on the subject.
But in the effort to carry out the policy of excluding Chinese
laborers, Chinese coolies, grave injustice and wrong have been done
by this Nation to the people of China, and therefore ultimately to
this Nation itself. Chinese students, business and professional men
of all kinds—not only merchants, but bankers, doctors, manufacturers,
professors, travelers, and the like—should be encouraged to come here
and treated on precisely the same footing that we treat students,
business men, travelers, and the like of other nations. Our laws
and treaties should be framed, not so as to put these people in the
excepted classes, but to state that we will admit all Chinese, except
Chinese of the coolie class, Chinese skilled or unskilled laborers.
There would not be the least danger that any such provision would
result in any relaxation of the law about laborers. These will, under
all conditions, be kept out absolutely. But it will be more easy to see
that both justice and courtesy are shown, as they ought to be shown,
to other Chinese, if the law or treaty is framed as above suggested.
Examinations should be completed at the port of departure from China.
For this purpose there should be provided a more adequate consular
service in China than we now have. The appropriations, both for the
officers of the consuls and for the office forces in the consulates,
should be increased.
As a people we have talked much of the open door in China, and we
expect, and quite rightly intend to insist, upon justice being shown us
by the Chinese. But we can not expect to receive equity unless we do
equity. We can not ask the Chinese to do to us what we are unwilling
to do to them. They would have a perfect right to exclude our laboring
men if our laboring men threatened to come into their country in such
numbers as to jeopardize the well-being of the Chinese population; and
as, _mutatis mutandis_, these were the conditions with which Chinese
immigration actually brought this people face to face, we had and have
a perfect right, which the Chinese Government in no way contests, to
act as we have acted in the matter of restricting coolie immigration.
That this right exists for each country was explicitly acknowledged
in the last treaty between the two countries. But we must treat the
Chinese student, traveler, and business man in a spirit of the broadest
justice and courtesy if we expect similar treatment to be accorded to
our own people of similar rank who go to China. Much trouble has come
during the past summer from the organized boycott against American
goods which has been started in China. The main factor in producing
this boycott has been the resentment felt by the students and business
people of China, by all the Chinese leaders, against the harshness
of our law toward educated Chinamen of the professional and business
classes.
This Government has the friendliest feelings for China and desires
China’s well-being. We cordially sympathized with the announced purpose
of Japan to stand for the integrity of China. Such an attitude tends to
the peace of the world.
The civil service law has been on the statute books for twenty-two
years. Every President and a vast majority of heads of departments
who have been in office during that period have favored a gradual
extension of the merit system. The more thoroughly its principles have
been understood, the greater has been the favor with which the law has
been regarded by administrative officers. Any attempt to carry on the
great executive departments of the Government without this law would
inevitably result in chaos. The Civil Service Commissioners are doing
excellent work; and their compensation is inadequate, considering the
service they perform.
The statement that the examinations are not practical in character
is based on a misapprehension of the practice of the Commission. The
departments are invariably consulted as to the requirements desired
and as to the character of questions that shall be asked. General
invitations are frequently sent put to all heads of departments asking
whether any changes in the scope or character of examinations are
required. In other words, the departments prescribe the requirements
and the qualifications desired, and the Civil Service Commission
co-operates with them in securing persons with these qualifications
and ensuring open and impartial competition. In a large number of
examinations (as, for example, those for trades positions) there
are no educational requirements whatever, and a person who can
neither read nor write may pass with a high average. Vacancies in
the service are filled with reasonable expedition and the machinery
of the Commission, which reaches every part of the country, is the
best agency that has yet been devised for finding people with the
most suitable qualifications for the various offices to be filled.
Written competitive examinations do not make an ideal method for
filling positions, but they do represent an immeasurable advance upon
the “spoils” method, under which outside politicians really made the
appointments nominally made by the executive officers, the appointees
being chosen by the politicians in question, in the great majority of
cases, for reasons totally unconnected with the needs of the service or
of the public.
Statistics gathered by the Census Bureau show that the tenure of
office in the Government service does not differ materially from that
enjoyed by employees of large business corporations. Heads of executive
departments and members of the Commission have called my attention to
the fact that the rule requiring a filing of charges and three days’
notice before an employee could be separated from the service for
inefficiency has served no good purpose whatever, because that is not
a matter upon which a hearing of the employee found to be inefficient
can be of any value, and in practice the rule providing for such
notice and hearing has merely resulted in keeping in a certain number
of incompetents, because of the reluctance of heads of departments
and bureau chiefs to go through the required procedure. Experience
has shown that this rule is wholly ineffective to save any man, if a
superior for improper reasons wishes to remove him, and is mischievous
because it sometimes serves to keep in the service incompetent men not
guilty of specific wrong-doing. Having these facts in view, the rule
has been amended by providing that where the inefficiency or incapacity
comes within the personal knowledge of the head of a department the
removal may be made without notice, the reasons therefor being filed
and made a record of the department. The absolute right of removal
rests where it always has rested, with the head of a department; any
limitation of this absolute right results in grave injury to the public
service. The change is merely one of procedure; it was much needed; and
it is producing good results.
The civil service law is being energetically and impartially enforced,
and in the large majority of cases complaints of violations of either
the law or rules are discovered to be unfounded. In this respect,
this law compares very favorably with any other Federal statute. The
question of politics in the appointment and retention of the men
engaged in merely ministerial work has been practically eliminated in
almost the entire field of Government employment covered by the civil
service law. The action of the Congress in providing the Commission
with its own force instead of requiring it to rely on detailed clerks
has been justified by the increased work done at a smaller cost to the
Government. I urge upon the Congress a careful consideration of the
recommendations contained in the annual report of the Commission.
* * * * *
Our copyright laws urgently need revision. They are imperfect in
definition, confused and inconsistent in expression; they omit
provision for many articles which, under modern reproductive processes,
are entitled to protection; they impose hardships upon the copyright
proprietor which are not essential to the fair protection of the
public; they are difficult for the courts to interpret and impossible
for the Copyright Office to administer with satisfaction to the public.
Attempts to improve them by amendment have been frequent, no less
than twelve acts for the purpose having been passed since the Revised
Statutes. To perfect them by further amendments seems impracticable. A
complete revision of them is essential. Such a revision, to meet modern
conditions, has been found necessary in Germany, Austria, Sweden, and
other foreign countries, and bills embodying it are pending in England
and the Australian colonies. It has been urged here, and proposals for
a commission to undertake it have, from time to time, been pressed upon
the Congress. The inconveniences of the present conditions being so
great, an attempt to frame appropriate legislation has been made by the
Copyright Office, which has called conferences of the various interests
especially and practically concerned with the operation of the
copyright laws. It has secured from them suggestions as to the changes
necessary; it has added from its own experience and investigations,
and it has drafted a bill which embodies such of these changes and
additions as, after full discussion and expert criticism, appeared
to be sound and safe. In form this bill would replace the existing
insufficient and inconsistent laws by one general copyright statute. It
will be presented to the Congress at the coming session. It deserves
prompt consideration.
* * * * *
I recommend that a law be enacted to regulate interstate commerce in
misbranded and adulterated foods, drinks, and drugs. Such law would
protect legitimate manufacture and commerce, and would tend to secure
the health and welfare of the consuming public. Traffic in foodstuffs
which have been debased or adulterated so as to injure health or to
deceive purchasers should be forbidden.
* * * * *
The law forbidding the emission of dense black or gray smoke in the
City of Washington has been sustained by the courts. Something has
been accomplished under it, but much remains to be done if we would
preserve the Capital City from defacement by the smoke nuisance.
Repeated prosecutions under the law have not had the desired effect. I
recommend that it be made more stringent by increasing both the minimum
and maximum fine; by providing for imprisonment in cases of repeated
violation; and by affording the remedy of injunction against the
continuation of the operation of plants which are persistent offenders.
I recommend, also, an increase in the number of inspectors, whose duty
it shall be to detect violations of the act.
* * * * *
I call your attention to the generous act of the State of California
in conferring upon the United States Government the ownership of the
Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove. There should be no
delay in accepting the gift, and appropriations should be made for
the including thereof in the Yosemite National Park, and for the care
and policing of the park. California has acted most wisely as well as
with great magnanimity in the matter. There are certain mighty natural
features of our land which should be preserved in perpetuity for our
children and our children’s children. In my judgment the Grand Canyon
of the Colorado should be made into a national park. It is greatly to
be wished that the State of New York should copy as regards Niagara
what the State of California has done as regards the Yosemite. Nothing
should be allowed to interfere with the preservation of Niagara Falls
in all their beauty and majesty. If the State can not see to this, then
it is earnestly to be wished that she should be willing to turn it over
to the National Government, which should in such case (if possible,
in conjunction with the Canadian Government) assume the burden and
responsibility of preserving unharmed Niagara Falls; just as it should
gladly assume a similar burden and responsibility for the Yosemite
National Park, and as it has already assumed them for the Yellowstone
National Park. Adequate provision should be made by the Congress for
the proper care and supervision of all these national parks. The
boundaries of the Yellowstone National Park should be extended to
the south and east to take in such portions of the abutting forest
reservation as will enable the Government to protect the elk on their
winter range.
The most characteristic animal of the Western plains was the great
shaggy-maned wild ox, the bison, commonly known as buffalo. Small
fragments of herds exist in a domesticated state here and there, a few
of them in the Yellowstone Park. Such a herd as that on the Flathead
Reservation should not be allowed to go out of existence. Either on
some reservation or on some forest reserve like the Wichita reserve and
game refuge provision should be made for the preservation of such a
herd. I believe that the scheme would be of economic advantage, for the
robe of the buffalo is of high market value, and the same is true of
the robe of the crossbred animals.
* * * * *
I call your especial attention to the desirability of giving to
the members of the Life-Saving Service pensions such as are given
to firemen and policemen in all our great cities. The men in the
Life-Saving Service continually and in the most matter-of-fact way
do deeds such as make Americans proud of their country. They have
no political influence; and they live in such remote places that the
really heroic services they continually render receive the scantiest
recognition from the public. It is unjust for a great nation like this
to permit these men to become totally disabled or to meet death in
the performance of their hazardous duty and yet to give them no sort
of reward. If one of them serves thirty years of his life in such a
position he should surely be entitled to retire on half pay, as a
fireman or policeman does, and if he becomes totally incapacitated
through accident or sickness or loses his health in the discharge of
his duty, he or his family should receive a pension just as any soldier
should. I call your attention with especial earnestness to this matter
because it appeals not only to our judgment but to our sympathy; for
the people on whose behalf I ask it are comparatively few in number,
render incalculable service of a particularly dangerous kind, and have
no one to speak for them.
* * * * *
During the year just past, the phase of the Indian question which has
been most sharply brought to public attention is the larger legal
significance of the Indian’s induction into citizenship. This has made
itself manifest not only in a great access of litigation in which the
citizen Indian figures as a party defendant and in a more widespread
disposition to levy local taxation upon his personalty, but in a
decision of the United States Supreme Court which struck away the main
prop on which has hitherto rested the Government’s benevolent effort
to protect him against the evils of intemperance. The court holds, in
effect, that when an Indian becomes, by virtue of an allotment of land
to him, a citizen of the State in which his land is situated, he passes
from under Federal control in such matters as this, and the acts of
the Congress prohibiting the sale or gift to him of intoxicants become
substantially inoperative. It is gratifying to note that the States
and municipalities of the West which have most at stake in the welfare
of the Indians are taking up this subject and are trying to supply,
in a measure at least, the abdication of its trusteeship forced upon
the Federal Government. Nevertheless, I would urgently press upon
the attention of the Congress the question whether some amendment of
the internal-revenue laws might not be of aid in prosecuting those
malefactors, known in the Indian country as “bootleggers,” who are
engaged at once in defrauding the United States Treasury of taxes and,
what is far more important, in debauching the Indians by carrying
liquors illicitly into territory still completely under Federal
jurisdiction.
Among the crying present needs of the Indians are more day schools
situated in the midst of their settlements, more effective instruction
in the industries pursued on their own farms, and a more liberal
extension of the field-matron service, which means the education of
the Indian women in the arts of home making. Until the mothers are
well started in the right direction we can not reasonably expect much
from the children who are soon to form an integral part of our American
citizenship. Moreover, the excuse continually advanced by male adult
Indians for refusing offers of remunerative employment at a distance
from their homes is that they dare not leave their families too long
out of their sight. One effectual remedy for this state of things is to
employ the minds and strengthen the moral fibre of the Indian women—the
end to which the work of the field matron is especially directed. I
trust that the Congress will make its appropriations for Indian day
schools and field matrons as generous as may consist with the other
pressing demands upon its providence.
* * * * *
During the last year the Philippine Islands have been slowly recovering
from the series of disasters which, since American occupation, have
greatly reduced the amount of agricultural products below what was
produced in Spanish times. The war, the rinderpest, the locusts, the
drought, and the cholera have been united as causes to prevent a return
of the prosperity much needed in the islands. The most serious is the
destruction by the rinderpest of more than 75 per cent of the draught
cattle, because it will take several years of breeding to restore
the necessary number of these indispensable aids to agriculture. The
Commission attempted to supply by purchase from adjoining countries the
needed cattle, but the experiments made were unsuccessful. Most of the
cattle imported were unable to withstand the change of climate and the
rigors of the voyage, and died from other diseases than rinderpest.
The income of the Philippine Government has necessarily been reduced
by reason of the business and agricultural depression in the islands,
and the government has been obliged to exercise great economy, to cut
down its expenses, to reduce salaries, and in every way to avoid a
deficit. It has adopted an internal-revenue law, imposing taxes on
cigars, cigarettes, and distilled liquors, and abolishing the old
Spanish industrial taxes. The law has not operated as smoothly as was
hoped, and although its principle is undoubtedly correct, it may need
amendments for the purpose of reconciling the people to its provisions.
The income derived from it has partly made up for the reduction in
customs revenue.
There has been a marked increase in the number of Filipinos employed
in the civil service, and a corresponding decrease in the number of
Americans. The government in every one of its departments has been
rendered more efficient by elimination of undesirable material and the
promotion of deserving public servants.
Improvements of harbors, roads, and bridges continue, although the
cutting down of the revenue forbids the expenditure of any great amount
from current income for these purposes. Steps are being taken, by
advertisement for competitive bids, to secure the construction and
maintenance of 1,000 miles of railway by private corporations under
the recent enabling legislation of the Congress. The transfer of the
friar lands, in accordance with the contract made some two years ago,
has been completely effected, and the purchase money paid. Provision
has just been made by statute for the speedy settlement in a special
proceeding in the Supreme Court of controversies over the possession
and title of church buildings and rectories arising between the Roman
Catholic Church and schismatics claiming under ancient municipalities.
Negotiations and hearings for the settlement of the amount due to the
Roman Catholic Church for rent and occupation of churches and rectories
by the Army of the United States are in progress, and it is hoped a
satisfactory conclusion may be submitted to the Congress before the end
of the session.
Tranquillity has existed during the past year throughout the
Archipelago, except in the province of Cavite, the province of
Batangas, and the province of Samar, and in the island of Jolo among
the Moros. The Jolo disturbance was put an end to by several sharp
and short engagements, and now peace prevails in the Moro province.
Cavite, the mother of ladrones in the Spanish times, is so permeated
with the traditional sympathy of the people for ladronism as to make
it difficult to stamp out the disease. Batangas was only disturbed by
reason of the fugitive ladrones from Cavite. Samar was thrown into
disturbance by the uneducated and partly savage peoples living in the
mountains, who, having been given by the municipal code more power than
they were able to exercise discreetly, elected municipal officers who
abused their trusts, compelled the people raising hemp to sell it at
a much less price than it was worth, and by their abuses drove their
people into resistance to constituted authority. Cavite and Samar are
instances of reposing too much confidence in the self-governing power
of a people. The disturbances have all now been suppressed, and it is
hoped that with these lessons local governments can be formed which
will secure quiet and peace to the deserving inhabitants. The incident
is another proof of the fact that if there has been any error as
regards giving self-government in the Philippines it has been in the
direction of giving it too quickly, not too slowly. A year from next
April the first legislative assembly for the islands will be held. On
the sanity and self-restraint of this body much will depend so far as
the future self-government of the islands is concerned.
The most encouraging feature of the whole situation has been the very
great interest taken by the common people in education and the great
increase in the number of enrolled students in the public schools.
The increase was from 300,000 to half a million pupils. The average
attendance is about 70 per cent. The only limit upon the number of
pupils seems to be the capacity of the government to furnish teachers
and schoolhouses.
The agricultural conditions of the islands enforce more strongly than
ever the argument in favor of reducing the tariff on the products
of the Philippine Islands entering the United States. I earnestly
recommend that the tariff now imposed by the Dingley bill upon the
products of the Philippine Islands be entirely removed, except the
tariff on sugar and tobacco, and that that tariff be reduced to 25
per cent of the present rates under the Dingley Act; that after July
1, 1909, the tariff upon tobacco and sugar produced in the Philippine
Islands be entirely removed, and that free trade between the islands
and the United States in the products of each country then be provided
for by law.
A statute in force, enacted April 15, 1904, suspends the operation
of the coastwise laws of the United States upon the trade between
the Philippine Islands and the United States until July 1, 1906. I
earnestly recommend that this suspension be postponed until July 1,
1909. I think it of doubtful utility to apply the coastwise laws to
the trade between the United States and the Philippines under any
circumstances, because I am convinced that it will do no good whatever
to American bottoms, and will only interfere and be an obstacle to
the trade between the Philippines and the United States; but if the
coastwise law must be thus applied, certainly it ought not to have
effect until free trade is enjoyed between the people of the United
States and the people of the Philippine Islands in their respective
products.
I do not anticipate that free trade between the islands and the United
States will produce a revolution in the sugar and tobacco production
of the Philippine Islands. So primitive are the methods of agriculture
in the Philippine Islands, so slow is capital in going to the islands,
so many difficulties surround a large agricultural enterprise in the
islands, that it will be many, many years before the products of those
islands will have any effect whatever upon the markets of the United
States. The problem of labor is also a formidable one with the sugar
and tobacco producers in the islands. The best friends of the Filipino
people and the people themselves are utterly opposed to the admission
of Chinese coolie labor. Hence the only solution is the training of
Filipino labor, and this will take a long time. The enactment of a law
by the Congress of the United States making provision for free trade
between the islands and the United States, however, will be of great
importance from a political and sentimental standpoint; and while its
actual benefit has doubtless been exaggerated by the people of the
islands, they will accept this measure of justice as an indication that
the people of the United States are anxious to aid the people of the
Philippine Islands in every way, and especially in the agricultural
development of their Archipelago. It will aid the Filipinos without
injuring interests in America.
In my judgment immediate steps should be taken for the fortification
of Hawaii. This is the most important point in the Pacific to fortify
in order to conserve the interests of this country. It would be hard
to overstate the importance of this need. Hawaii is too heavily taxed.
Laws should be enacted setting aside for a period of, say, twenty
years 75 per cent of the internal-revenue and customs receipts from
Hawaii as a special fund to be expended in the islands for educational
and public buildings, and for harbor improvements and military and
naval defences. It can not be too often repeated that our aim must
be to develop the Territory of Hawaii on traditional American lines.
That Territory has serious commercial and industrial problems to
reckon with; but no measure of relief can be considered which looks
to legislation admitting Chinese and restricting them by statute to
field labor and domestic service. The status of servility can never
again be tolerated on American soil. We can not concede that the proper
solution of its problems is special legislation admitting to Hawaii a
class of laborers denied admission to the other States and Territories.
There are obstacles, and great obstacles, in the way of building up a
representative American community in the Hawaiian Islands; but it is
not in the American character to give up in the face of difficulty.
Many an American Commonwealth has been built up against odds equal to
those that now confront Hawaii.
No merely half-hearted effort to meet its problems as other American
communities have met theirs can be accepted as final. Hawaii shall
never become a Territory in which a governing class of rich planters
exists by means of coolie labor. Even if the rate of growth of the
Territory is thereby rendered slower, the growth must only take place
by the admission of immigrants fit in the end to assume the duties and
burdens of full American citizenship. Our aim must be to develop the
Territory on the same basis of stable citizenship as exists on this
continent.
* * * * *
I earnestly advocate the adoption of legislation which will explicitly
confer American citizenship on all citizens of Porto Rico. There is, in
my judgment, no excuse for failure to do this. The harbor of San Juan
should be dredged and improved. The expenses of the Federal court of
Porto Rico should be met from the Federal Treasury, and not from the
Porto Rican treasury. The elections in Porto Rico should take place
every four years, and the legislature should meet in session every two
years. The present form of government in Porto Rico, which provides
for the appointment by the President of the members of the executive
council or upper house of the legislature, has proved satisfactory and
has inspired confidence in property owners and investors. I do not deem
it advisable at the present time to change this form in any material
feature. The problems and needs of the island are industrial and
commercial rather than political.
I wish also to call the attention of the Congress to one question which
affects our insular possessions, generally; namely, the need of an
increased liberality in the treatment of the whole franchise question
in these islands. In the proper desire to prevent the islands being
exploited by speculators and to have them develop in the interest
of their own people an error has been made in refusing to grant
sufficiently liberal terms to induce the investment of American capital
in the Philippines and in Porto Rico. Elsewhere in this Message I have
spoken strongly against the jealousy of mere wealth, and especially of
corporate wealth as such. But it is particularly regrettable to allow
any such jealousy to be developed when we are dealing either with our
insular or with foreign affairs. The big corporation has achieved its
present position in the business world simply because it is the most
effective instrument in business competition. In foreign affairs we can
not afford to put our people at a disadvantage with their competitors
by in any way discriminating against the efficiency of our business
organizations. In the same way we can not afford to allow our insular
possessions to lag behind in industrial development from any twisted
jealousy of business success. It is, of course, a mere truism to say
that the business interests of the islands will only be developed if it
becomes the financial interest of somebody to develop them. Yet this
development is one of the things most earnestly to be wished for in the
interest of the islands themselves. We have been paying all possible
heed to the political and educational interests of the islands, but,
important though these objects are, it is not less important that
we should favor their industrial development. The Government can in
certain ways help this directly, as by building good roads; but the
fundamental and vital help must be given through the development of
the industries of the islands, and a most efficient means to this end
is to encourage big American corporations to start industries in them,
and this means to make it advantageous for them to do so. To limit
the ownership of mining claims as has been done in the Philippines is
absurd. In both the Philippines and Porto Rico the limit of holdings of
land should be largely raised.
* * * * *
I earnestly ask that Alaska be given an elective Delegate. Some person
should be chosen who can speak with authority of the needs of the
Territory. The Government should aid in the construction of a railroad
from the Gulf of Alaska to the Yukon River, in American territory. In
my last two Messages I advocated certain additional action on behalf of
Alaska. I shall not now repeat those recommendations, but I shall lay
all my stress upon the one recommendation of giving to Alaska some one
authorized to speak for it. I should prefer that the Delegate was made
elective, but if this is not deemed wise, then make him appointive. At
any rate, give Alaska some person whose business it shall be to speak
with authority on her behalf to the Congress. The natural resources of
Alaska are great. Some of the chief needs of the peculiarly energetic,
self-reliant, and typically American white population of Alaska were
set forth in my last Message. I also earnestly ask your attention to
the needs of the Alaskan Indians. All Indians who are competent should
receive the full rights of American citizenship. It is, for instance, a
gross and indefensible wrong to deny to such hardworking, decent-living
Indians as the Metlakahtlas the right to obtain licenses as captains,
pilots, and engineers, the right to enter mining claims, and to profit
by the homestead law. These particular Indians are civilized, and are
competent and entitled to be put on the same basis with the white men
round about them.
* * * * *
I recommend that Indian Territory and Oklahoma be admitted as one State
and that New Mexico and Arizona be admitted as one State. There is no
obligation upon us to treat territorial subdivisions, which are matters
of convenience only, as binding us on the question of admission to
Statehood. Nothing has taken up more time in the Congress during the
past few years than the question as to the Statehood to be granted to
the four Territories above mentioned, and after careful consideration
of all that has been developed in the discussions of the question I
recommend that they be immediately admitted as two States. There is no
justification for further delay; and the advisability of making the
four Territories into two States has been clearly established.
In some of the Territories the legislative assemblies issue licenses
for gambling. The Congress should by law forbid this practice, the
harmful results of which are obvious at a glance.
* * * * *
The treaty between the United States and the Republic of Panama,
under which the construction of the Panama Canal was made possible,
went into effect with its ratification by the United States Senate on
February 23, 1904. The canal properties of the French Canal Company
were transferred to the United States on April 23, 1904, on payment
of $40,000,000 to that company. On April 1, 1905, the Commission was
reorganized, and it now consists of Theodore P. Shonts, chairman,
Charles E. Magoon, Benjamin M. Harrod, Rear-Admiral Mordecai T.
Endicott, Brig.-Gen. Peter C. Hains, and Col. Oswald H. Ernst. John
F. Stevens was appointed chief engineer on July 1 last. Active work
in canal construction, mainly preparatory, has been in progress for
less than a year and a half. During that period two points about the
canal have ceased to be open to debate. First, the question of route;
the canal will be built on the Isthmus of Panama. Second, the question
of feasibility; there are no physical obstacles on this route that
American engineering skill will not be able to overcome without serious
difficulty, or that will prevent the completion of the canal within
a reasonable time and at a reasonable cost. This is virtually the
unanimous testimony of the engineers who have investigated the matter
for the Government.
The point which remains unsettled is the question of type, whether
the canal shall be one of several locks above sea level, or at sea
level with a single tide lock. On this point I hope to lay before the
Congress at an early day the findings of the Advisory Board of American
and European Engineers, that at my invitation have been considering the
subject, together with the report of the Commission thereon; and such
comments thereon or recommendations in reference thereto as may seem
necessary.
The American people is pledged to the speediest possible construction
of a canal adequate to meet the demands which the commerce of the world
will make upon it, and I appeal most earnestly to the Congress to aid
in the fulfilment of the pledge. Gratifying progress has been made
during the past year and especially during the past four months. The
greater part of the necessary preliminary work has been done. Actual
work of excavation could be begun only on a limited scale till the
Canal Zone was made a healthful place to live in and to work in. The
Isthmus had to be sanitated first. This task has been so thoroughly
accomplished that yellow fever has been virtually extirpated from the
Isthmus and general health conditions vastly improved. The same methods
which converted the island of Cuba from a pest hole which menaced the
health of the world into a healthful place of abode have been applied
on the Isthmus with satisfactory results. There is no reason to doubt
that when the plans for water supply, paving, and sewerage of Panama
and Colon and the large labor camps have been fully carried out, the
Isthmus will be, for the Tropics, an unusually healthy place of abode.
The work is so far advanced now that the health of all those employed
in canal work is as well guarded as it is on similar work in this
country and elsewhere.
In addition to sanitating the Isthmus, satisfactory quarters are being
provided for employees and an adequate system of supplying them with
wholesome food at reasonable prices has been created. Hospitals have
been established and equipped that are without superiors of their kind
anywhere. The country has thus been made fit to work in, and provision
has been made for the welfare and comfort of those who are to do the
work. During the past year a large portion of the plant with which
the work is to be done has been ordered. It is confidently believed
that by the middle of the approaching year a sufficient proportion of
this plant will have been installed to enable us to resume the work of
excavation on a large scale.
What is needed now and without delay is an appropriation by the
Congress to meet the current and accruing expenses of the Commission.
The first appropriation of $10,000,000, out of the $135,000,000
authorized by the Spooner Act, was made three years ago. It is
nearly exhausted. There is barely enough of it remaining to
carry the Commission to the end of the year. Unless the Congress
shall appropriate before that time all work must cease. To arrest
progress for any length of time now, when matters are advancing so
satisfactorily, would be deplorable. There will be no money with which
to meet pay-roll obligations and none with which to meet bills coming
due for materials and supplies; and there will be demoralization of
the forces, here and on the Isthmus, now working so harmoniously and
effectively, if there is delay in granting an emergency appropriation.
Estimates of the amount necessary will be found in the accompanying
reports of the Secretary of War and the Commission.
* * * * *
I recommend more adequate provision than has been made heretofore for
the work of the Department of State. Within a few years there has been
a very great increase in the amount and importance of the work to be
done by that Department, both in Washington and abroad. This has been
caused by the great increase of our foreign trade, the increase of
wealth among our people, which enables them to travel more generally
than heretofore, the increase of American capital which is seeking
investment in foreign countries, and the growth of our power and weight
in the councils of the civilized world. There has been no corresponding
increase of facilities for doing the work afforded to the Department
having charge of our foreign relations.
Neither at home nor abroad is there a sufficient working force to do
the business properly. In many respects the system which was adequate
to the work of twenty-five, or even ten, years ago, is inadequate now,
and should be changed. Our consular force should be classified, and
appointments should be made to the several classes, with authority
to the Executive to assign the members of each class to duty at
such posts as the interests of the service require, instead of the
appointments being made as at present to specified posts. There should
be an adequate inspection service, so that the Department may be able
to inform itself how the business of each consulate is being done,
instead of depending upon casual private information or rumor. The
fee system should be entirely abolished, and a due equivalent made in
salary to the officers who now eke out their subsistence by means of
fees. Sufficient provision should be made for a clerical force in every
consulate, composed entirely of Americans, instead of the insufficient
provision now made, which compels the employment of great numbers of
citizens of foreign countries whose services can be obtained for less
money. At a large part of our consulates the office quarters and the
clerical force are inadequate to the performance of the onerous duties
imposed by the recent provisions of our immigration laws as well as by
our increasing trade. In many parts of the world the lack of suitable
quarters for our embassies, legations, and consulates detracts from the
respect in which our officers ought to be held, and seriously impairs
their weight and influence.
Suitable provision should be made for the expense of keeping our
diplomatic officers more fully informed of what is being done from day
to day in the progress of our diplomatic affairs with other countries.
The lack of such information, caused by insufficient appropriations
available for cable tolls and for clerical and messenger service,
frequently puts our officers at a great disadvantage and detracts from
their usefulness. The salary list should be readjusted. It does not
now correspond either to the importance of the service to be rendered
and the degrees of ability and experience required in the different
positions, or to the differences in the cost of living. In many cases
the salaries are quite inadequate.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
THE WHITE HOUSE,
_December 5, 1905_.
“THE CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT”
[Included in this volume because, although not an address or a state
paper, it was written by Mr. Roosevelt while President. It was
published in a recent number of “The Outlook”]
The “twilight of the poets” has been especially gray in America; for
poetry is of course one of those arts in which the smallest amount of
work of the very highest class is worth an infinity of good work that
is not of the highest class. The touch of the purple makes a poem out
of verse, and if it is not there, there is no substitute. It is hard
to account for the failure to produce in America of recent years a
poet who in the world of letters will rank as high as certain American
sculptors and painters rank in the world of art.
But true poems do appear from time to time, by Madison Cawein, by
Clinton Scollard, by Maurice Egan, and others; such are the poems in
Bliss Carman’s “Ballads of Lost Haven”; and such are the poems in
Edward Arlington Robinson’s “The Children of the Night.”
It is rather curious that Mr. Robinson’s volume should not have
attracted more attention. There is an undoubted touch of genius in
the poems collected in this volume, and a curious simplicity and good
faith, all of which qualities differentiate them sharply from ordinary
collections of the kind. There is in them just a little of the light
that never was on land or sea, and in such light the objects described
often have nebulous outlines; but it is not always necessary in order
to enjoy a poem that one should be able to translate it into terms
of mathematical accuracy. Indeed, those who admire the coloring of
Turner, those who like to read how—and to wonder why—Childe Roland to
the Dark Tower came, do not wish always to have the ideas presented to
them with cold, hard, definite outlines; and to a man with the poetic
temperament it is inevitable that life should often appear clothed with
a certain sad mysticism. In the present volume I am not sure that I
understand “Luke Havergal”; but I am entirely sure that I like it.
Whoever has lived in country America knows the gray, empty houses from
which life has gone. It is of one of these that “The House on the Hill”
was written.
“They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.
“Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill:
They are all gone away.
“Nor is there one to-day
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.
“Why is it then we stray
Around that sunken sill?
They are all gone away,
“And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.
“There is ruin and decay
In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,
There is nothing more to say.”
The next poem, “Richard Cory,” illustrates a very ancient but very
profound philosophy of life with a curiously local touch which points
its keen insight. Those who feel poetry in their marrow and fibre are
the spiritual heirs of the ages; and so it is natural that this man
from Maine, many of whose poems could have been written only by one to
whom the most real of lives is the life of the American small town,
should write his “Ballade of Broken Flutes”—where “A lonely surge
of ancient spray told of an unforgetful sea”;—should write the poem
beginning
“Since Persia fell at Marathon,
The yellow years have gathered fast:
Long centuries have come and gone”;
and the very original sonnet on Amaryllis, the last three lines of
which are:
“But though the trumpets of the world were glad,
It made me lonely and it made me sad
To think that Amaryllis had grown old.”
Some of his images stay fixed in one’s mind, as in “The Pity of the
Leaves,” the lines running:
“The brown, thin leaves that on the stones outside
Skipped with a freezing whisper.”
Sometimes he writes, as in “The Tavern,” of what most of us feel we
have seen; and then again of what we have seen only with the soul’s
eyes.
I shall close by quoting entire his poem on “The Wilderness,” which
could have been written only by a man into whose heart there had
entered deep the very spirit of the vast and melancholy Northern
forests:
“Come away! come away! there’s a frost along the marshes,
And a frozen wind that skims the shoal where it shakes the dead black water;
There’s a moan across the lowland and a wailing through the woodland
Of a dirge that sings to send us back to the arms of those that love us.
There is nothing left but ashes now where the crimson chills of autumn
Put off the summer’s languor with a touch that made us glad
For the glory that is gone from us, with a flight we can not follow,
To the slopes of other valleys and the sounds of other shores.
“Come away! come away! you can hear them calling, calling,
Calling to us to come to them, and roam no more.
Over there beyond the ridges and the land that lies between us,
There’s an old song calling us to come!
“Come away! come away! for the scenes we leave behind us
Are barren for the lights of home and a flame that’s young forever;
And the lonely trees around us creak the warning of the night-wind,
That love and all the dreams of love are away beyond the mountains.
The songs that call for us to-night, they have called for men before us,
And the winds that blow the message, they have blown ten thousand years;
But this will end our wander-time, for we know the joy that waits us
In the strangeness of home-coming, and a faithful woman’s eyes.
“Come away! come away! there is nothing now to cheer us—
Nothing now to comfort us, but love’s road home:—
Over there beyond the darkness there’s a window gleams to greet us,
And a warm heart waits for us within.
“Come away! come away!—or the roving-fiend will hold us,
And make us all to dwell with him to the end of human faring:
There are no men yet can leave him when his hands are clutched upon them,
There are none will own his enmity, there are none will call him brother.
So we’ll be up and on the way, and the less we brag the better
For the freedom that God gave us and the dread we do not know:—
The frost that skips the willow-leaf will again be back to blight it,
And the doom we can not fly from is the doom we do not see.
“Come away! come away! there are dead men all around us—
Frozen men that mock us with a wild, hard laugh
That shrieks and sinks and whimpers in the shrill November rushes,
And the long full wind on the lake.”
Mr. Robinson has written in this little volume not verse but poetry.
Whether he has the power of sustained flight remains to be seen.
TO THE CENTRAL JUVENILE REFORMATORY COMMITTEE, AT THE WHITE HOUSE,
DECEMBER 15, 1905
_Gentlemen_:
About all I can say to you is to express my very hearty sympathy with
and belief in your purpose. The time of my life when I was brought into
closest touch with conditions similar to those which you are trying to
remedy was while I was Police Commissioner in New York City. At that
time my closest friend and associate in all of my work was Mr. Jacob
Riis, with whose books and writings you are all more or less familiar.
I was even more impressed than I have been all along, ever since I have
grown up, with the fact that if you are going to do anything permanent
for the average man you have got to begin before he is a man. The older
man is almost impossible to reform. Of course there are exceptional
individuals, men who have been completely changed, not only after they
have reached years of manhood, but after very advanced periods of life.
But speaking generally, the chance of success lies in working with the
boy and not with the man. That applies peculiarly to those boys who
tend to drift off into courses which mean that unless they are checked
they will be formidable additions to the criminal population when
they grow older. It is eminently worth while to try to prevent those
boys becoming criminals, to try to prevent their being menaces to and
expenses and sores in society, while there is a chance of reforming
them.
A year ago I was approached by the people interested in Colorado in
their juvenile court, and they set an example which I wish could be
followed all over the country, and particularly here in the District of
Columbia. To the people of Colorado I expressed, as I express to you,
my very earnest belief in their work, and told them that “of course
so far as my very limited powers here go those powers will be at your
disposal.”
I think people rather often completely misapprehend what are really
the important questions. The question of the tariff, the currency, or
even the regulation of railroad rates, are all subordinate to the great
basic moral movements which mean the preservation of the individual in
his or her relations to the home; because if the homes are all straight
the State will take care of itself.
TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND OTHERS, AT
THE WHITE HOUSE, DECEMBER 18, 1905
_Mr. Macfarland; Ladies and Gentlemen_:
It is a peculiar pleasure to greet this body here to-day. As Mr.
Macfarland has well said, the public-school system of our country is
the most characteristically democratic and American feature of our
national life. It has been my good fortune that all of my children have
received, or are receiving, a portion of their education in the public
schools of this District, in this city; and I feel that the advantage
to them is incalculable. I certainly do not underrate the importance
of the higher education. It would be the greatest misfortune if we
ever permitted such a warped and twisted view of democracy to obtain
as would be implied in a denial of the advantage that comes to the
whole Nation from the high education of the few who are able to take
advantage of the opportunity to acquire it. But while fully admitting
this, it remains true that most important of all is the education of
the common school. The public schools are not merely the educational
centres for the mass of our people, but they are the factories of
American citizenship. Incidentally to its other work the public school
does more than any other institution of any kind, sort, or description
to Americanize the child of foreign-born parents who comes here when
young, or is born here. Nothing else counts for as much in welding
together into one compact mass of citizenship the different race stocks
which here are being fused into a new nationality.
MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, JANUARY 8, 1906
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I enclose herewith the annual report of the Isthmian Canal Commission,
the annual report of the Panama Railroad Company, and the Secretary of
War’s letter transmitting the same, together with certain papers.
The work on the Isthmus is being admirably done, and great progress
has been made, especially during the last nine months. The plant is
being made ready and the organization perfected. The first work to
be done was the work of sanitation, the necessary preliminary to the
work of actual construction; and this has been pushed forward with
the utmost energy and means. In a short while I shall lay before you
the recommendations of the Commission and of the Board of Consulting
Engineers as to the proper plan to be adopted for the canal itself,
together with my own recommendations thereon. All the work so far has
been done, not only with the utmost expedition, but in the most careful
and thorough manner; and what has been accomplished gives us good
reason to believe that the canal will be dug in a shorter time than had
been anticipated, and at an expenditure within the estimated amount.
All our citizens have a right to congratulate themselves upon the high
standard of efficiency and integrity which has been hitherto maintained
by the representatives of the Government in doing this great work. If
this high standard of efficiency and integrity can be maintained in the
future at the same level which it has now reached, the construction of
the Panama Canal will be one of the feats to which the people of this
Republic will look back with the highest pride.
From time to time various publications have been made, and from time
to time in the future various similar publications doubtless will
be made, purporting to give an account of jobbery, or immorality,
or inefficiency, or misery, as obtaining on the Isthmus. I have
carefully examined into each of these accusations which seemed worthy
of attention. In every instance the accusations have proved to be
without foundation in any shape or form. They spring from several
sources. Sometimes they take the shape of statements by irresponsible
investigators of a sensational habit of mind, incapable of observing
or repeating with accuracy what they see, and desirous of obtaining
notoriety by widespread slander. More often they originate with, or
are given currency by, individuals with a personal grievance. The
sensation-mongers, both those who stay at home and those who visit
the Isthmus, may ground their accusations on false statements by
some engineer, who, having applied for service on the Commission and
been refused such service, now endeavors to discredit his successful
competitors; or by some lessee or owner of real estate who has sought
action or inaction by the Commission to increase the value of his
lots, and is bitter because the Commission can not be used for such
purposes; or on the tales of disappointed bidders for contracts; or of
office-holders who have proved incompetent, or who have been suspected
of corruption and dismissed, or who have been overcome by panic and
have fled from the Isthmus. Every specific charge relating to jobbery,
to immorality, or to inefficiency, from whatever source it has come,
has been immediately investigated, and in no single instance have the
statements of these sensation-mongers and the interested complainants
behind them proved true. The only discredit inhering in these false
accusations is to those who originate and give them currency, and who,
to the extent of their abilities, thereby hamper and obstruct the
completion of the great work in which both the honor and the interest
of America are so deeply involved. It matters not whether those guilty
of these false accusations utter them in mere wanton recklessness and
folly or in a spirit of sinister malice to gratify some personal or
political grudge.
Any attempt to cut down the salaries of the officials of the Isthmian
Commission, or of their subordinates who are doing important work,
would be ruinous from the standpoint of accomplishing the work
effectively. To quote the words of one of the best observers on the
Isthmus: “Demoralization of the service is certain if the reward for
successful endeavor is a reduction of pay.” We are undertaking in
Panama a gigantic task—the largest piece of engineering ever done.
The employment of the men engaged thereon is only temporary, and yet
it will require the highest order of ability if it is to be done
economically, honestly, and efficiently. To attempt to secure men
to do this work on insufficient salaries would amount to putting a
premium upon inefficiency and corruption. Men fit for the work will
not undertake it unless they are well paid. In the end the men who
do undertake it will be left to seek other employment with as their
chief reward the reputations they achieve. Their work is infinitely
more difficult than any private work, both because of the peculiar
conditions of the tropical land in which it is laid, and because it
is impossible to free them from the peculiar limitations inseparably
connected with Government employment; while it is unfortunately
true that men engaged on public work, no matter how devoted and
disinterested their services, must expect to be made the objects of
misrepresentation and attack. At best, therefore, the positions are not
attractive in proportion to their importance; and among the men fit
to do the task, only those with a genuine sense of public spirit and
eager to do the great work for the work’s sake, can be obtained; and
such men can not be kept if they are to be treated with niggardliness
and parsimony, in addition to the certainty that false accusations will
continually be brought against them.
I repeat that the work on the Isthmus has been done and is being done
admirably. The organization is good. The mistakes are extraordinarily
few, and these few have been of practically no consequence. The zeal,
intelligence, and efficient public service of the Isthmian Commission
and its subordinates have been noteworthy. I court the fullest, most
exhaustive, and most searching investigation of any act of theirs, and
if any one of them is ever shown to have done wrong his punishment
shall be exemplary. But I ask that they be decently paid, and that
their hands be upheld as long as they act decently. On any other
conditions we shall not be able to get men of the right type to do the
work; and this means that on any other conditions we shall ensure, if
not failure, at least delay, scandal, and inefficiency in the task of
digging the giant canal.
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL
ASSOCIATION, AT THE WHITE HOUSE, JANUARY 10, 1906
_Gentlemen_:
I want to say just a word of greeting to you and to ask your influence
on behalf of the medical corps, not only of the Army, but of the Navy.
There is not a more exacting profession; there is not a profession
which makes greater demands upon those following it, and which more
entitles them to the gratitude of mankind, than is the profession which
is yours. The Army surgeon has to combine the work of your profession
with the work of the military man of the line. In saying that, I want
to call your attention to two specific things; one thing that is now
being done by men of your profession and one need of men of your
profession.
First, the thing that is being done: All the United States is the
debtor to the medical men who have accomplished such remarkable work
on the Isthmus of Panama. You hear very loose talk about making the
dirt fly in Panama. Before making the dirt fly it was necessary to get
the microbes under; it was necessary to grapple with the mosquitoes;
necessary to eradicate disease. That has been done to perfection. We
have had the foundation laid for that wonderful piece of constructive
engineering work, to dig the giant canal. Too much praise can not be
given to those who have done this work in Panama. So much for tribute
to your compeers. Now as to the need of your compeers. You recollect
the complaint made about hygienic conditions during the war with
Spain. Complaint was made that the troops were not properly treated,
etc. The blame rested, not on any one man then in office, but upon our
people as a whole who had declined, through their representatives, to
make provision long in advance for meeting such a need. If we had a
war break out to-morrow and had to raise any large army, there would
be an immediate breakdown in the medical department simply because
at present our medical corps is numerically only fit to take care of
about forty per cent of the Regular Army as it is now. The medical
corps is not numerically fit to grapple with a campaign in which our
whole Army as it is, the little Army as it is, should be employed. And
of course if we had to mobilize an army of volunteers we would under
present conditions have to count upon widespread disaster through the
shortcomings in the medical and sanitary and hygienic arrangements
rendered inevitable by our present lack of preparation.
The Japanese have given us a good lesson in this as in many other
particulars, by the way they handled their army in the recent war.
One of the reasons why their medical department did well—the main
reason—was the fact that they had an ample supply of doctors who had
been practiced in time of peace in doing the duties they would have to
do in war. And until we have provision for an ample corps of doctors
in the Army so that they can be practiced in time of peace we will not
have prepared as we ought to prepare for the possibilities of war.
Until we thus prepare we can make up our minds that we are ourselves
responsible for any disaster that occurs to any army that the United
States may raise in the future; not the man who may be at the head
of the Army at the time. The tendency is to attack the men in office
at the time. That is utterly unjust, and the people themselves, and
the representatives of the people in public life, who have failed
to provide the necessary means in advance—they are responsible when
disaster comes. That applies to the medical department, and it applies
to every other branch of the military establishment just as much.
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE INTERSTATE NATIONAL GUARD ASSOCIATION, AT THE
WHITE HOUSE, JANUARY 22, 1906
_Senator Dick; Members of the Association_:
I trust it is hardly necessary for me to say what a genuine pleasure it
is to me to-day to greet this organization. I have been a member of the
National Guard myself, and both at the time when I was Governor (as
the present Assistant Secretary of War can say) and since I have been
President, and even when I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, I have
always done all that in me lay to further the interests of the National
Guard.
I have a good many things on hand, but one of the things that are
interesting me most at present, Senator Dick, is the encouragement of
rifle practice to the National Guard. I want to have it understood,
gentlemen, that I do not care anything like as much for how your
regiments march and perform parade-ground and armory maneuvres as I
care for how they are instructed in the work that would make them
valuable as soldiers in time of war. I earnestly hope that the National
Guard, and, Mr. Taft, the Regular Army also, especially the Regular
Army, will more and more have the kind of instruction that will make
it second nature for the man who marches to march fully equipped as he
would be in time of war. If he is trained to march that way he will
not throw away his equipment the first time he goes to war; otherwise
he will do it. I want to see the average National Guardsman know how
to shoot well. I want to see the fund that we have for rifle practice
distributed among the several State organizations, partly at least
with reference to the way in which those State organizations promote
marksmanship. I want to see the young fellow who has been through the
National Guard receive a training which will make him able to do his
work in time of war if the need comes.
In a great industrial civilization such as ours we may just as well
face the fact that there is a constant tendency to do away with, to
eliminate, those qualities which make a man a good soldier. It should
be the steady object of every legislator, of every executive officer,
and above all of you gentlemen who have to do with the National Guard,
to try to encourage those qualities, to try to counteract the tendency
toward their elimination. Every officer of the National Guard should
train his men the whole time as if he were training them with a view to
possible action, so that the men under him will be trained by him to
have those habits of body and mind which will render them formidable
as soldiers in the field. You should try to train your men so they can
live in the open; train them so they will know what cover is, so they
will be able to take advantage of it, so they will know how to march
and march well; and you should realize the relative importance of what
it is that the men under you learn, that as war is carried on nowadays,
ninety per cent of the ordinary work done either on the parade-ground
or in the armory, either by a militia regiment or a regular regiment,
amounts to nothing whatever in the way of training except so far as
the incidental effect it has in accustoming the men to act together
and to obey; but they are not going to fight shoulder to shoulder when
they get out into the field. It is absolutely not of the slightest
consequence what their alignment is, but is of vital consequence that
they shall know how to take cover, how to shoot, and how to make
themselves at home under any circumstances.
We have such a small regular army that you men of the National Guard
have upon you a heavy responsibility. I want to say that while it is
incumbent upon you to take your duties seriously and do them with all
your heart, if you do even that you do more good to the Nation than any
equal body of citizens to be found in our country.
TO THE STUDENTS OF THE MANASSAS, VIRGINIA, INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, AT THE
WHITE HOUSE, FEBRUARY 14, 1906
_Mr. Hale_; _Ladies and Gentlemen_:
It is a peculiar pleasure to me to greet you to-day; and no body of our
fellow-citizens can have a greater claim to being received at the White
House than a body like this, which stands for the fundamental duty of
American citizenship—the duty of self-education. I am, of course, as we
all must be, peculiarly interested in the kind of development of which,
I am glad to say, I think we can accept this school as typical—not
as exceptional, but as typical. There are a great many very, very
excellent charitable people in the country, but some of them tend to
forget at times that the only charity that does permanent good is that
kind of charity that is not a charity at all, that teaches some one
how to help himself or herself. The only way in which any section of
our citizens, of no matter what color, can be permanently benefited is
by teaching them to pull their own weight, to do their own duty, their
duty to themselves, their duty to their neighbors, their duty to the
State at large. I have felt about the schools of which this is a type
as I feel, for instance, about Mr. Washington’s school at Tuskegee,
that one of the reasons they are so good is that they can serve as an
example of schools of which we should try to develop as many as we can
for the white people as well as for the colored people. The white man
needs just as much as the colored man to learn that for the average man
the education that fits him to do work in life is industrial. Other
things shall be added to it, or ought to be added to it, but that must
remain as the basis.
Of course, Miss Dean, the good that comes with any such school as this
is increased tenfold when the school is founded, as you founded this,
and as Mr. Washington founded Tuskegee, by a colored man or colored
woman to help the colored boys and colored girls of to-day to make the
best type of self-respecting, self-supporting American citizens of the
future. I esteem it an honor to welcome you here this afternoon, and it
is a very fitting thing that you should be introduced by the American
citizen whom every good American delights to honor—Rev. Edward Everett
Hale.
MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, FEBRUARY 19, 1906
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I submit herewith the letter of the Secretary of War transmitting the
report of the Board of Consulting Engineers on the Panama Canal, and
the report of the Isthmian Canal Commission thereon, together with
a letter written to the Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission
by Chief Engineer Stevens. Both the Board of Consulting Engineers
and the Canal Commission divide in their report. The majority of the
Board of Consulting Engineers, eight in number, including the five
foreign engineers, favor a sea-level canal; and one member of the
Canal Commission, Admiral Endicott, takes the same view. Five of the
eight American members of the Board of Consulting Engineers and five
members of the Isthmian Canal Commission favor the lock canal, and so
does Chief Engineer Stevens. The Secretary of War recommends a lock
canal pursuant to the recommendation of the minority of the Board of
Consulting Engineers and of the majority of the Canal Commission.
After careful study of the papers submitted and full and exhaustive
consideration of the whole subject, I concur in this recommendation.
It will be noticed that the American engineers on the consulting board
and on the commission by a more than two to one majority favor the
lock canal, whereas the foreign engineers are a unit against it.
I think this is partly to be explained by the fact that the great
traffic canal of the Old World is the Suez Canal, a sea-level canal,
whereas the great traffic canal of the New World is the Sault Ste.
Marie Canal, a lock canal. Although the latter, the Soo, is closed to
navigation during the winter months, it carries annually three times
the traffic of the Suez Canal. In my judgment the very able argument
of the majority of the Board of Consulting Engineers is vitiated
by their failure to pay proper heed to the lessons taught by the
construction and operation of the Soo Canal. It must be borne in mind,
as the Commission points out, that there is no question of building
what has been picturesquely termed “the Straits of Panama”; that is,
a waterway through which the largest vessels could go with safety at
uninterrupted high speed. Both the sea-level canal and the proposed
lock canal would be too narrow and shallow to be called with any
truthfulness a strait, or to have any of the properties of a wide, deep
water strip. Both of them would be canals, pure and simple. Each type
has certain disadvantages and certain advantages. But in my judgment
the disadvantages are fewer and the advantages very much greater in the
case of a lock canal substantially as proposed in the papers forwarded
herewith; and I call especial attention to the fact that the Chief
Engineer, who will be mainly responsible for the success of this mighty
engineering feat, and who has therefore a peculiar personal interest
in judging aright, is emphatically and earnestly in favor of the
lock-canal project and against the sea-level project.
A careful study of the reports seems to establish a strong probability
that the following are the facts: The sea-level canal would be slightly
less exposed to damage in the event of war; the running expenses, apart
from the heavy cost of interest on the amount employed to build it,
would be less; and for small ships the time of transit would probably
be less. On the other hand, the lock canal at a level of eighty feet
or thereabout would not cost much more than half as much to build and
could be built in about half the time, while there would be very much
less risk connected with building it, and for large ships the transit
would be quicker; while, taking into account the interest on the amount
saved in building, the actual cost of maintenance would be less.
After being built it would be easier to enlarge the lock canal than
the sea-level canal. Moreover, what has been actually demonstrated in
making and operating the great lock canal, the Soo, a more important
artery of traffic than the great sea-level canal, the Suez, goes
to support the opinion of the minority of the Consulting Board of
Engineers and of the majority of the Isthmian Canal Commission as to
the superior safety, feasibility, and desirability of building a lock
canal at Panama.
The law now on our statute books seems to contemplate a lock canal. In
my judgment a lock canal as herein recommended is advisable. If the
Congress directs that a sea-level canal be constructed its direction
will of course be carried out. Otherwise the canal will be built on
substantially the plan for a lock canal outlined in the accompanying
papers, such changes being made of course as may be found actually
necessary; including possibly the change recommended by the Secretary
of War as to the site of the dam on the Pacific side.
MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, MARCH 5, 1906
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
Our coast defences as they existed in 1860 were not surpassed
in efficiency by those of any country, but within a few years
the introduction of rifled cannon and armor in the navies of the
world, against which the smoothbore guns were practically useless,
rendered them obsolete. For many years no attempt was made to remedy
the deficiencies of these seacoast fortifications. There was no
establishment in the country equipped for the manufacture of high-power
rifled guns; there was no definite adopted policy of coast defence, and
Congress was reluctant to undertake a work the cost of which could not
be stated even approximately and the details of which had not advanced,
so far as could be ascertained, beyond the experimental stages.
The Act of March 3, 1883, was the first decisive step taken to secure
suitable and adequate ordnance for military purposes. Under the
provisions of this act a joint board of officers of the Army and
Navy was appointed “for the purpose of examining and reporting to
Congress which of the navy-yards or arsenals owned by the Government
has the best location and is best adapted for the establishment of a
Government foundry, or what other method, if any, should be adopted for
the manufacture of heavy ordnance adapted to modern warfare for the
use of the Army and Navy of the United States.” This board, known as
the “Gun Foundry Board,” made its report in 1884 and directed public
attention not only to the defenceless condition of our coasts, but to
the importance and necessity of formulating a comprehensive scheme for
the protection of our harbors and coast cities.
As a result, the Act of Congress approved March 3, 1885, provided that
“the President of the United States shall appoint a board ... which
board shall examine and report at what ports fortifications or other
defences are most urgently required, the character and kind of defences
best adapted to each with reference to armament, the utilization of
torpedoes, mines, and other defensive appliances.”
The board, organized under the foregoing provision of law, popularly
known as the “Endicott Board,” in its report of January 23, 1886, cited
the principles on which any system of coast defence should be based,
and clearly stated the necessity of having our important strategic and
commercial centres made secure against naval attack. In determining
the ports that were in urgent need of defence, since a fleet did not
exist for the protection of the merchant marine, fortifications were
provided at every harbor of importance along the coast and at several
of the lake ports. For any particular harbor or locality the report
specifies the armament considered necessary for proper protection, the
character of emplacements to be used, the number of submarine mines and
torpedo boats, with detailed estimates of cost for these various items.
The proposed guns, mounts, and emplacements were of types that seemed
at that time best suited to accomplish the desired results, based on
the only data available, namely, experiments and information of similar
work from abroad.
After the report was made part of the public records, the development
and adoption of a suitable disappearing gun carriage caused the
substitution of open emplacements for the expensive turrets and armored
casements, materially reducing the cost of installing the armament.
The great advances in ordnance, increasing the power and range of
the later guns, caused a diminution in the number and calibre of the
pieces to be mounted, and this fact, combined with advances in the
science of engineering, rendered unnecessary the construction of the
expensive “floating batteries” designed by the Endicott Board for
mounting guns to give sufficient fire for the defence of wide channels
or for harbors where suitable foundations could not be secured on land.
Furthermore, keeping pace with the gradual development and improvement
in the engines and implements of war, fortified harbors are equipped
with rapid-fire guns, and, to a certain extent, with power plants,
searchlights, and a system of fire control and direction, now essential
adjuncts of a complete system of defence, though not so considered by
that board.
While the details of the scheme of defence recommended by the
Endicott Board have been departed from, in making provision for later
developments of war material, the great value of its report lies in
the fact that it sets forth a definite and intelligible plan or policy
upon which the very important work of coast defence should proceed, and
which is as applicable to-day as when formulated.
The greater effective ranges possible with the later rifled cannon, the
necessity of thoroughly covering with gun fire all available waters of
approach, and the growth of seacoast towns beyond the limits of some
of the military reservations, have combined to move defensive works
more to the front, and many of the gun positions now occupied have been
obtained from private ownership. The cost of such sites has been a
large item in the present cost of fortifications, and this purchase of
land was not included in its estimates by the Endicott Board.
An examination of the report also discloses the fact that no estimates
were submitted covering a supply of ammunition to be kept in reserve
for the services of the guns that were recommended, due, perhaps, to
the fact that a satisfactory powder to give the energy desired and a
suitable projectile to accomplish the desired destruction of armor were
still in experimental stages. These questions, however, are no longer
in doubt, and Congress already has made provision for some of the
ammunition needed.
The omissions in the estimates of the Endicott Board and the changes in
the details of its plans have caused doubts in the minds of many as to
the money that will be needed to defend completely our coasts by guns,
mines, and their adjuncts. New localities are pressing their claims for
defence. The insular possessions can not be held unless the principal
ports, naval bases, and coaling stations are fortified before the
outbreak of war. These considerations have led me to appoint a joint
board of officers of the Army and Navy “to recommend the armament,
fixed and floating, mobile torpedoes, submarine mines, and all other
defensive appliances that may be necessary to complete the harbor
defence with the most economical and advantageous expenditures of
money.” The board was further instructed “to extend its examinations so
as to include estimates and recommendations relative to defences of the
insular possessions,” and to “recommend the order in which the proposed
defence shall be completed, so that all the elements of harbor defence
may be properly and effectively co-ordinated.”
The board has completed its labors, and its report, together with a
letter of transmittal by the Secretary of War, is herewith transmitted
for the information of the Congress. It is to be noted that the
entrance to Chesapeake Bay, not heretofore recommended or authorized
by Congress, is added to the list of ports in the United States to be
defended, with the important reasons therefor clearly stated; that the
gun defence proper is well advanced toward completion, and that the
greater part of the estimate is for new work of gun defence, for the
accessories now so necessary for efficiency, and for an allowance of
ammunition which, added to that already on hand, will give the minimum
supply that should be kept in reserve to successfully meet any sudden
attack. The letter of the Secretary of War contains a comparison of the
estimates of the Endicott Board, with the amounts already appropriated
for the present defence and the estimates of the new board, from
which it appears that a completed defence of our coast, omitting
cost of ammunition and sites, can be accomplished for less than the
amount estimated by the Endicott Board, even including the additional
localities not recommended by it.
In the insular possessions, the great naval bases at Guantanamo,
Subig Bay, and Pearl Harbor, the coaling stations at Guam and San
Juan, require protection, and, in addition, defences are recommended
for Manila Bay and Honolulu, because of the strategic importance of
these localities. In the letter of the Secretary of War will be found
the sums already appropriated for defences at some of these ports
or harbors, and the estimates are for the completion of an adequate
defence at each locality.
Defences are recommended for the entrances to the Panama Canal as
contemplated by the Act of June 28, 1902 (Spooner Act), and under the
terms of this act the cost of such fortifications would probably be
paid from appropriations for the construction and defence of the canal.
The necessity for a complete and adequate system of coast defence is
greater to-day than twenty years ago, for the increased wealth of the
country offers more tempting inducements to attack and a hostile fleet
can reach our coast in a much shorter period of time. The fact that
we now have a navy does not in any wise diminish the importance of
coast defences; on the contrary, that fact emphasizes their value and
the necessity for their construction. It is an accepted naval maxim
that a navy can be used to strategic advantage only when acting on
the offensive, and it can be free to so operate only after our coast
defence is reasonably secure and so recognized by the country. It was
due to the securely defended condition of the Japanese ports that the
Japanese fleet was free to seek out and watch its proper objective—the
Russian fleet—without fear of interruption or recall to guard its home
ports against raids by the Vladivostok squadron. This one of the most
valuable lessons of the late war in the East is worthy of serious
consideration by our country, with its extensive coast line, its many
important harbors, and its many wealthy manufacturing coast cities.
The security and protection of our interests require the completion of
the defences of our coast, and the accompanying plan merits and should
receive the generous support of the Congress.
MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, MARCH 7, 1906
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I have signed the joint resolution “instructing the Interstate
Commerce Commission to make examinations into the subject of railroad
discriminations and monopolies in coal and oil, and report on the same
from time to time.” I have signed it with hesitation because in the
form in which it was passed it achieves very little and may achieve
nothing; and it is highly undesirable that a resolution of this kind
shall become law in such form as to give the impression of insincerity;
that is, of pretending to do something which really is not done. But
after much hesitation I concluded to sign the resolution because its
defects can be remedied by legislation which I hereby ask for; and it
must be understood that unless this subsequent legislation is granted
the present resolution must be mainly, and may be entirely, inoperative.
Before specifying what this legislation is, I wish to call attention
to one or two preliminary facts. In the first place, a part of the
investigation requested by the House of Representatives in the
resolution adopted February 15, 1905, relating to the oil industry,
and a further part having to do with the anthracite coal industry, has
been for some time under investigation by the Department of Commerce
and Labor. These investigations, I am informed, are approaching
completion, and before Congress adjourns I shall submit to you the
preliminary reports of these investigations. Until these reports
are completed the Interstate Commerce Commission could not endeavor
to carry out so much of the resolution of Congress as refers to the
ground thus already covered without running the risk of seeing the two
investigations conflict, and therefore render each other more or less
nugatory. In the second place, I call your attention to the fact that
if an investigation of the nature proposed in this joint resolution
is thoroughly and effectively conducted, it will result in giving
immunity from criminal prosecution to all persons who are called, sworn
and constrained by compulsory process of law to testify as witnesses;
though of course such immunity from prosecution is not given to those
from whom statements or information, merely, in contradistinction to
sworn testimony, is obtained. This is not at all to say that such
investigations should not be undertaken. Publicity can by itself often
accomplish extraordinary results for good; and the court of public
judgment may secure such results where the courts of law are powerless.
There are many cases where an investigation securing complete publicity
about abuses and giving Congress the material on which to proceed in
the enactment of laws, is more useful than a criminal prosecution can
possibly be. But it should not be provided for by law without a clear
understanding that it may be an alternative instead of an additional
remedy; that is, that to carry on the investigation may serve as a bar
to the successful prosecution of the offences disclosed. The official
body directed by Congress to make the investigation must, of course,
carry out its direction, and therefore the direction should not be
given without full appreciation of what it means.
But the direction contained in the joint resolution which I have signed
will remain almost inoperative unless money is provided to carry out
the investigations in question, and unless the Commission in carrying
them out is authorized to administer oaths and compel the attendance of
witnesses. As the resolution now is, the Commission, which is very busy
with its legitimate work and which has no extra money at its disposal,
would be able to make the investigation only in the most partial and
unsatisfactory manner; and moreover it is questionable whether it
could, under this resolution, administer oaths at all or compel the
attendance of witnesses. If this power were disputed by the parties
investigated, the investigation would be held up for a year or two
until the courts passed upon it, in which case, during the period of
waiting, the Commission could only investigate to the extent and in the
manner already provided under its organic law; so that the passage of
the resolution would have achieved no good result whatever.
I accordingly recommend to Congress the serious consideration of
just what they wish the Commission to do, and how far they wish it
to go, having in view the possible incompatibility of conducting an
investigation like this and of also proceeding criminally in a court
of law; and furthermore, that a sufficient sum, say fifty thousand
dollars, be at once added to the current appropriation for the
Commission so as to enable them to do the work indicated in a thorough
and complete manner; while at the same time the power is explicitly
conferred upon them to administer oaths and compel the attendance of
witnesses in making the investigation in question, which covers work
quite apart from their usual duties. It seems unwise to require an
investigation by a commission and then not to furnish either the full
legal power or the money, both of which are necessary to render the
investigation effective.
TO THE CONSULAR REFORM ASSOCIATION, AT THE WHITE HOUSE, MARCH 14, 1906
_Gentlemen_:
I need hardly say that our one chance for getting the consular service
put upon a really effective basis lies with just such organizations as
this.
We in Washington must rely upon you to make our people, who are
pre-eminently a business people—I do not think that is by any means
all they either are or ought to be, but I think they must have and
ought to have a very strong business side to them—appreciate that the
consular service should be in its essence a part of the general scheme
of business development of the country. Of course my own view is that
that applies to all the affairs of the State Department, and under both
Mr. Hay and Mr. Root that Department has been managed and is being
managed with an eye single to the good of the country as a whole. I
have not, I am sorry to say, been able to persuade people thus to
look upon even such a question as the Santo Domingo Treaty, which is
a purely non-partisan measure; for if it was treated as it should be,
purely on its merits, there would not be one shadow of opposition to or
criticism of it. But while we have not yet been successful in getting
the work of the Department looked upon quite in the non-partisan spirit
that should be our national attitude in foreign affairs, and have not
been successful in getting the consular service made by law what we
strive to have it made—an absolutely non-partisan service—still we
have made a certain amount of progress, and with the help of you and
those like you, we shall be able to make a great deal more progress.
One point let me dwell upon. You can not expect to get permanently
good service when that service is unattractive and ill-paid. We have
had a great deal of difficulty with our consular service in China.
It came partly because men were appointed for political reasons,
with scant regard to their qualifications, partly because men found
themselves in remote Eastern ports where there was not much that made
life attractive, where there was very little supervision over them, and
yet great temptation. Gentlemen, we all know that under such conditions
it is necessarily difficult to secure honest and efficient service. We
made a pretty thorough clean-up there. But we can not keep the service
as high as it should be kept unless we have adequate salaries. There
must be a better monetary provision for our consuls. I think that
some such scheme as that so admirably advocated by Mr. Loomis, whose
experience peculiarly fits him to speak on the subject, of charging a
graded fee for invoices would furnish a solution. But in any event,
in some way or other, we should provide for better salaries for the
consuls, for better facilities for doing their work. Remember that the
dearest kind of public servant is a servant who is paid so cheaply
that he must render cheap service. Also, I feel most strongly that in
the consular service, which stands entirely apart from the diplomatic
service proper, entrance should be made by law into the lower grades
and that the higher grades should be filled by a gradual process of
weeding out and promotion; remembering, gentlemen, that the weeding-out
process must not be interfered with. It is not any too easy, at best,
to get rid of a kindly-natured elderly incompetent, and if you add to
the difficulty by law, he then stays permanently. Make the entrance
to the service as far as possible non-partisan and make it at the
lower grades, so that desirable positions shall come to those who have
rendered good and faithful service in the lower grades, so that those
entering the lower grades shall feel that if they do well they have a
long and worthy career ahead of them.
TO THE COMMITTEE AND ASSISTANT COMMITTEES ON DEPARTMENT METHODS, AT THE
RESIDENCE OF MR. PINCHOT, WASHINGTON, MARCH 20, 1906
_Gentlemen_:
I wish to express my very great appreciation of the work that you are
doing. It would be a good thing for certain critics of our Government
to realize the amount of hard, disinterested work for the Government
represented by this gathering to which I am now speaking—a work which
must in the immense majority of cases be its own reward, and therefore
an ample reward; for there is nothing pleasanter than the consciousness
of having done well a bit of work well worth doing.
A year ago I appointed the Keep Commission, because I had become
convinced that the business methods of our Government were by no means
abreast of the times. While I think there is comparatively little
corruption in the National Governmental service, and while that little
I intend to cut out or have cut out through other agencies than yours,
it yet remains true that there is a good deal of duplication of work,
a good deal of clumsiness of work, and above all, the inevitable
tendency toward mere bureaucratic methods against which every
Government official should be perpetually on his guard—the tendency to
regard not the case, but the papers in the case, as the all-important
matter with which to deal, and to feel a proud sense of duty performed
if all those papers are appropriately docketed and referred and minutes
made about them, and then referred back, without regard to what has
become of the real fact at issue.
As you are aware, the Keep Commission sent out questions to those
responsible for the actual work in all branches of the Government
service. Answers were received, or are now being received, to
those questions, and they furnish a useful aid to the study by the
commission of Governmental conditions. But inevitably in the great
majority of cases these answers are inadequate to form a basis for
definite recommendations, and of course that is what I want from
this commission. I do not want a diagnosis of the case; I want a
recommendation how to reach the case. I do not want merely to know that
things are bad; I want to know what is bad and what is to be done to
make it better, so that if legislation is necessary I can recommend
it, or if, as I hope will be true in the enormous majority of cases,
the matter can be reached by executive regulation, I can see that that
regulation is issued. I want to say right here, gentlemen, that I shall
value the reports that I receive largely in proportion as they do not
call for legislation. There is nothing easier, as all of you know,
than to draw up an elaborate minute to show how well things would go
on if some one else did something different. I want you, so far as is
possible, to recommend something that I can do, something that the
heads of the departments can do, so that we can ourselves put a stop
to much at least of the evil that exists, remedy much at least of the
shortcomings that exist.
With this in view, a number of assistant committees were appointed,
consisting of you gentlemen here, carefully chosen men from the
Government service, who are already largely responsible for the
efficiency of the work done in your several departments and bureaus. It
was a compliment to choose you, gentlemen; though it is one of those
compliments that take the form of imposition of additional labor.
If you were not of the type that I know you to be it would not be a
compliment that would be appreciated. These committees, you gentlemen,
have been at work for about a month, and you are taking up your work
within your specific fields through study of the data already collected
by the Committee on Department Methods, through bringing before you
men whose knowledge is of expert value, and above all by a thorough
study on the ground by experts (for that is what you are) of the
conditions and needs within the departments themselves. I shall not
enumerate the different committees. They are now at work. You compose
them, gentlemen, and all told they have a membership of about seventy
individuals.
As I have said, your particular effectiveness lies in the fact that
you are dealing at first hand with work with which you are thoroughly
familiar. You are not outsiders. You are not engaged in constructing
a parlor theory of how the work should be done; you are engaged in
recommendations to better the business which you are yourselves to
carry through and see made better when those recommendations have been
adopted. You have literally an unparalleled opportunity for useful
work. As far as I am aware, there has never before been made in this
country, or indeed, in any country, such a comprehensive systematic
effort to put the country’s housekeeping in order. I need not say to
you that it is urgent. A great deal of our Government work has become
proverbial for the red tape involved. Of course much of the outside
criticism upon red tape is due to forgetfulness of the fact that you
and I are responsible to Congress for every dollar we spend, and
for every dollar’s worth of work that we do, while the outsider is
responsible only to himself or those interested with him, so that we
not only have to do what is right and efficient, but have to be able to
show that what we have done is right and efficient; and this inevitably
means that there must be certain forms observed which the unthinking
outsider is apt to stigmatize as red tape. Nevertheless it is true
that there is always a tendency in Government work to run to needless
red tape. I asked the Keep Commission, for instance, to take up with
particular care, through the Assistant Secretaries of War and the
Navy, the burden of paper work resting on the officers of the Army and
Navy. I remember very well the pride with which a certain high officer
in one of the bureaus in the Navy Department, a good many years ago,
told me, pointing to a big case of papers, that in that he could find
out through the reports of the officers of each battleship how many
bottles of violet ink each captain of a battleship was responsible for.
I remarked that I did not care a snap of my finger about the number
of bottles of violet ink on the ship, that what I wanted to know was
whether the men at the guns could shoot; I did not accept the knowledge
of the whereabouts of the violet ink as a substitute for shooting. The
paper work must be subordinated in the departments and bureaus to the
efficiency of the work itself, keeping only enough of it to make a
record of what is done.
Of course it is impossible to set any actual time limit to the work
you are doing, but it would be a mighty good thing to inaugurate the
next fiscal year by adopting the new policies and methods in the
departmental business. I want to assure you of one thing, and that is
that your mere appointment has already produced a very marked moral
effect. The good results of seventy men studying local methods and
local needs on the ground, in the departments, does not lie only in
the knowledge gained; you render a great service by making the men
with whom you come in contact feel that they actually share in this
movement.
The most magnificent architecture that our race has ever been able to
produce—the great Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages—were made, not
by any known architect, not even by any number of architects whose
names have ever been recorded. We do not know the name of an architect
or builder connected with those great masterpieces. Each was made by
a number of men, architects and builders, each of whom felt amply
rewarded by the mere fact that he was able to put all the best that
there was in him into his work. He did not care to have his name known,
he did not desire to be immortalized in connection with the work; he
cared only to make the work itself the best that it could possibly be
made. There never was an army that amounted to anything in campaign or
in battle unless the average soldier had in him the spirit which made
him regard the winning of the campaign, the winning of the battle,
as in itself the end, and his service, if good enough, as in itself
the reward. He might wish other rewards if they happened to come; but
if they did not, well and good. The doing the duty is of itself a
sufficient reward for any man.
So it has to be if the work of the Government is to be really well
done. As Ruskin has said, there are two ways of doing work; to work
for the fee, for the payment, and to work for the work’s own sake. The
work done simply to get money for having done it will never, under
any circumstances, rank with the work done by the man whose sense
of self-respect, whose capacity for loyalty to an ideal, makes him
discontented unless the work that is at his hand is done with all the
skill that heart and hand and brain can bring to it.
Of course, gentlemen, when you come to make your recommendations,
you will have to deal with broad principles for the conduct of the
Government business; but those broad principles must be supported by
definite plans ready to be given immediate effect. I believe in broad
principles, but I do not want them so broad that they will not apply to
any given case. I want a general scheme, but also a way to make that
general scheme effective in each department, each bureau, each section
and subdivision touched by your committee. I do not want you in any
case to recommend a change simply for the sake of making a change;
nothing could be more foolish. But never hesitate for a moment in
basing your recommendations upon the conditions actually found and the
best way to meet them, no matter how radical may be the departure from
established methods required. As I have said before, remember that in
the vastly larger number of cases the essential need will not be for
new legislation, but for better organization and improved methods under
existing law. Now and then you will find where there must be a change
in law, but the essential thing will be to change methods so that we
can better administer the existing law.
There is, however, one fundamental weakness in the Government service
which can not be remedied without additional legislation. That
weakness lies in the faulty distribution of work among the different
departments. It is one of the most serious of all the obstacles to
good executive work, to effective work, and to economy in the public
service. No matter how well a bureau or division may be organized
and directed, you can not get the best work out of it unless it is
associated with, and co-operating with, the other bureaus and divisions
which are engaged in cognate lines of work and with which it naturally
belongs. Good teamwork is as much needed in the executive civil service
as it can possibly be anywhere else. And it is the only way to prevent
duplication of work. Your own work is most important, but it covers
only half of the field. To put the departments on the best and most
economical working basis the President, as I have already recommended,
should be given power to transfer any part of the work of a department
to another department, as was done in the case of the Department of
Commerce and Labor.
In closing I wish to say a word of acknowledgment of the
public-spirited and most valuable co-operation of the American
Association of Public Accountants, which has been promised to the
Committee on Department Methods. I wish to thank them, and I wish to
thank you, gentlemen, for the invaluable work that you are doing.
TO THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND THE
REPRESENTATIVES OF LABOR ASSOCIATED WITH THEM, AT THE EXECUTIVE
OFFICE, MARCH 21, 1906
_Gentlemen_:
If your body objects to the passage of the proposed anti-injunction
bill, I have no question that you can stop it, for there is not a
capitalist concerned who simply as capitalist is not against it; though
I believe that a goodly number both of capitalists and wage-workers
who are concerned primarily as citizens favor it. The law was worked
over and substantially whipped into its present shape at a number of
conferences between representatives of the railroad organizations, of
the Department of Justice, and of the Bureau of Corporations with me.
It goes as far as I personally think it should go in limiting the right
of injunction; at any rate, no arguments have hitherto been advanced
which make me think it should go farther. I do not believe it has any
chance of passing, because there has been great criticism in both
Houses of Congress against the attitude of the Administration in going
so far as we have gone; and if you think it is not far enough, why,
you will have no earthly difficulty in killing the bill. Personally,
I think the proposed law a most admirable one, and I very sincerely
wish it would be put through. As for the right of injunction, it is
absolutely necessary to have this power lodged in the courts; though
of course any abuse of the power is strongly to be reprobated. During
the four and a half years that I have been President I do not remember
an instance where the Government has invoked the right of injunction
against a combination of laborers. We have invoked it certainly a score
of times against combinations of capital; I think possibly oftener.
Thus, though we have secured the issuance of injunctions in a number of
cases against capitalistic combinations, it has happened that we have
never tried to secure an injunction against a combination of labor.
But understand me, gentlemen; if I ever thought it necessary, if I
thought a combination of laborers were doing wrong, I would apply for
an injunction against them just as quick as against so many capitalists.
Now I come to the general subject of your petition. I wish in the
first place to state my regret that you did not divorce so much of
the petition as refers to the action of the Executive from so much
as refers to the action of the legislative branch, because I can not
consider any petition that you make that reflects upon the co-ordinate
branch of the Government, or that makes any charges whatever against
it. I would not even receive it save for the fact that in part it
affects the Executive. Therefore in what I have to say I shall limit
myself solely to what you assert in reference to the acts of the
Executive.
You speak of the eight-hour law. Your criticism, so far as it relates
to the Executive, bears upon the signature of the appropriation bill
containing the money for expenditure on the Panama Canal, with
the proviso that the eight-hour law shall not there apply. If your
statement is intended to mean that no opportunity was given for a
hearing before me, then the statement is not in accordance with the
facts. There was ample opportunity, but not a single request for such a
hearing came to me. I received, however, some hundreds of telegrams and
letters requesting the veto of the entire appropriation bill because
it contained that proviso. Frankly, I found it difficult to believe
that you were writing and telegraphing with any kind of knowledge of
the conditions in the case. I believe emphatically in the eight-hour
law for our own people in our own country. But the conditions of
labor, such as we have to work with in the tropics, are so absolutely
different that there is no possible analogy between them; and an
eight-hour law for the Panama Canal is an absurdity. Every one of you
knows that we can not get white labor, can not get labor of the United
States, to go down to Panama and work. We are driven to extremities
in the effort to get any kind of labor at all. Just at the moment we
are working chiefly with negro labor from the West Indies. The usual
result in the employment of those men is that Monday and Tuesday they
work fairly well, Wednesday and Thursday there is a marked falling
off, and by Friday and Saturday not more than a half, sometimes less
than a fourth, of the laborers will be at work. The conditions that
make the eight-hour law proper here have no possible reference to
the conditions that make the eight-hour law entirely improper there.
The conditions are so utterly different on the Isthmus, as compared
to here, that it is impossible to try to draw conclusions affecting
the one from what is true about the other. You hamper me in the effort
to get for you what I think you ought to have in connection with the
eight-hour law, when you make a request that is indefensible, and to
grant which would mean indefinite delay and injury to the work on the
Isthmus.
As to the violations of the eight-hour law, Mr. Morrison, you give me
no specifications. At your earliest convenience please lay before me
in detail any complaints you have of violations of the eight-hour law.
Where I have power I will see that the law is obeyed. All I ask is that
you give me the cases. I will take them up, and if they prove to be
sustained by the facts I shall see that the law is enforced.
Now, about the Chinese exclusion. The number of Chinese now in this
country is, if I remember aright, some sixty or seventy thousand. So
far from there being a great influx of the Chinese, the fact is that
the number has steadily decreased. There are fewer Chinese than there
were ten years ago, fewer than there were twenty years ago, fewer
than there were thirty years ago. Unquestionably some scores of cases
occur each year where Chinese laborers get in either by being smuggled
over the Mexican and Canadian borders, or by coming in under false
certificates; but the steps that we have taken, the changes in the
consuls that have been made within the last few years in the Orient,
and the effort to conduct examinations in China before the immigrants
are allowed to come here, are materially reducing even the small number
of cases that do occur. But even as it is the number of these cases
is insignificant. There is no appreciable influx of Chinese laborers,
and there is not the slightest or most remote danger of any; the whole
scare that has been worked up on the subject is a pure chimera. It is
my deep conviction that we must keep out of this country every Chinese
laborer, skilled or unskilled—every Chinaman of the coolie class. This
is what the proposed law will do; it will be done as effectively as
under the present law; and the present law is being handled with the
utmost efficiency. But I will do everything in my power to make it easy
and desirable for the Chinese of the business and professional classes,
the Chinese travelers and students, to come here, and I will do all
I can to secure their good treatment when they come; and no laboring
man has anything whatever to fear from that policy. I have a right to
challenge you as good American citizens to support that policy; and in
any event I shall stand unflinchingly for it; and no man can say with
sincerity that on this, or indeed on any other point, he has any excuse
for misunderstanding my policy.
You have spoken of the immigration laws. I believe not merely that all
possible steps should be taken to prevent the importation of laborers
under any form, but I believe further that this country ought to make
a resolute effort from now on to prevent the coming to the country of
men with a standard of living so low that they tend, by entering into
unfair competition with, to reduce the standard of living of our own
people. Not one of you can go farther than I will go in the effort
steadily to raise the status of the American wage-worker, so long as,
while doing it, I can retain a clear conscience and the certainty that
I am doing what is right. I will do all in my power for the laboring
man except to do what is wrong; and I will not do that for him or for
any one else.
We must not let our national sentiment for succoring the oppressed and
unfortunate of other lands lead us into that warped moral and mental
attitude of trying to succor them at the expense of pulling down our
own people. Laws should be enacted to keep out all immigrants who do
not show that they have the right stuff in them to enter into our life
on terms of decent equality with our own citizens. This is needed,
first, in the interest of the laboring man, but furthermore in the
interests of all of us as American citizens; for, gentlemen, the bonds
that unite all good American citizens are stronger by far than the
differences, which I think you accentuate altogether too much, between
the men who do one kind of labor and the men who do another. As for
immigrants, we can not have too many of the right kind; and we should
have none at all of the wrong kind; and they are of the right kind if
we can be fairly sure that their children and grandchildren can meet
on terms of equality our children and grandchildren, so as to try to be
decent citizens together and to work together for the uplifting of the
Republic.
Now a word as to the petitioning of employees to Congress. That stands
in no shape or way on a par with the petitioning of men not employed by
the Government. I can not have and will not have when I can prevent it
men who are concerned in the administration of Government affairs going
to Congress and asking for increased pay, without the permission of the
heads of the departments. Their business is to come through the heads
of departments. This applies to postmasters, to Army and Navy officers,
to clerks in the Government departments, to laborers; it applies to
each and all, and must apply, as a matter of simple discipline.
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL PLAYGROUNDS COUNCILS AT THE WHITE HOUSE,
APRIL 12, 1906
_Ladies and Gentlemen_:
I trust that it is not necessary for me to say what a pleasure it is
to meet you and how very earnest and hearty my sympathy is with your
purpose. I owed my first interest in the playground question, among
a great many other things, to Jacob Riis when he spoke of the poor
children who were not allowed to play in the streets, but had to play
in the streets as they had no other place to play. I have felt very
keenly the need of playgrounds, and of course as the children grow
older, the need of athletic grounds. In expressing my adherence to what
you have said, Dr. Gulick, as to the need of helping adapt the plays,
and of course the playgrounds and athletic grounds, to the needs of
the citizenship of city life, let me add just one thing, which, I am
sure, it is hardly necessary for me to say; and that is to remember
that in trying to shape the plays for the children you must previously
consult the children’s wishes. You must try to take advantage of their
initiative and simply help in shaping it in the proper direction. One
of the chief difficulties that all of us have encountered who have
tried to help, whether in establishing playgrounds for children, or
in establishing hotels for young women, or houses where working girls
could live, or clubs, which instead of being saloons should be coffee
clubs, for men, has arisen from the fact that philanthropists often
establish such excellent but minute and overprecautionary regulations
that nobody will inhabit them. As far as possible let the children
work out their own salvation in their own way; simply exercise such
supervision as to see that they do not do harm. Remember that in the
last analysis the play has to suit them and not us.
TO THE GERMAN VETERANS, AT THE WHITE HOUSE, APRIL 12, 1906
I welcome you here, my fellow-Americans; for among the many strains
that go to make up our composite race stock in this country, no strain
has given us better Americans than those who are of German birth or
blood. It is our peculiar pride as a nation that in this Republic we
have measurably realized the ideal under which good citizens know no
discrimination as between creed and creed, birthplace and birthplace,
provided only that whatever the man’s parentage may have been, whatever
the way in which he worships his Creator, he strives in good faith
to do his duty by himself and by his fellow-men and to show his
unflinching loyalty to our common country. In addition to thus greeting
you, my fellow-Americans of German birth, I wish also to greet the
German citizens present, the members of the German army, belonging to
the reserve of that army, and to welcome them here; especially Mr.
Ambassador, as they are brought here by you, yourself an old soldier,
who have endeared yourself to the American people by your hearty
friendship for this country.
The reverence a man preserves for his native land, so far from standing
in the way of his loving and doing his full duty by the land of his
adoption, should help him toward this love and the performance of this
duty. If a man is a good son he is apt to make a good husband; and the
quality that makes a man reverence the country of his birth is apt to
be the quality that makes him a good citizen in the country of his
adoption.
The ties that unite Germany and the United States are many and close,
and it must be a prime object of our statesmanship to knit the
two nations ever closer together. In no country is there a warmer
admiration for Germany and for Germany’s exalted ruler, Emperor
William, than here in America.
It is not out of place in closing for me to say a word of
congratulation both to the German people and the German Emperor upon
the work that has been accomplished in the Algeciras convention which
has just closed, a conference held chiefly because of the initiative
of Germany. It was not a conference in which we Americans as a nation
had much concern, save that it is always our concern to see justice
obtained everywhere, and, so far as we properly can, to work for
the cause of international peace and good-will. In its outcome this
conference has added to the likelihood of the betterment of conditions
in Morocco itself, has secured equitable dealing as among the foreign
Powers who have commercial relations with Morocco, and has diminished
the chance of friction between these Powers. In particular it may
not be out of place for me to say that I hope and believe that the
conference has resulted and will result in rendering continually more
friendly the relations between the mighty Empire of Germany and the
mighty Republic of France; for it is my hope and wish, as it must be
the hope and wish of every sincere well wisher of humankind, that these
friendly relations may not only continue unbroken but may ever grow in
strength.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the
text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a
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 453: ‘est’ replaced by ‘lest’.
Pg 549: ‘contribue’ replaced by ‘contribute’.
Pg 584: ‘corrupton’ replaced by ‘corruption’
Pg 634: ‘poiliticians’ replaced by ‘politicians’
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Pg 711: ‘obtain’ replaced by ‘obtained’
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