PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS — REMARKS AT THE DINNER OF THE PERIODICAL PUBLISHERS’ ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA. THE NEW WILLARD, WASHINGTON, D. C., APRIL 7, 1904 — ADDRESS AT THE PRIZE DAY EXERCISES AT GROTON SCHOOL, GROTON, MASS., MAY 24, 1904 — ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG, PA., MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 30, 1904 — REMARKS AT THE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL CHAPEL, VALLEY FORGE, PA. , JUNE 19, 1904 — ADDRESS AT OYSTER BAY, N. Y., JULY 27, 1904 , IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED TO NOTIFY HIM OF HIS NOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY — LETTER ACCEPTING THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES — REMARKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE, SEPT. 24, 1904 , ON THE OCCASION OF THE RECEPTION OF THE INTERPARLIAMENTARY UNION — — ADDRESS AT THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT, AT WASHINGTON, NOV. 19, 1904 — REMARKS AT ST. PATRICK’S CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C., NOV. 20, 1904 — REMARKS INTRODUCING REV. CHARLES WAGNER, AT THE LAFAYETTE OPERA HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D. C., NOV. 22, 1904 — MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE THIRD SESSION OF THE FIFTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS — ADDRESS TO THE FOREST CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, D. C., JAN. 5, 1905 — SPEECH AT THE DINNER OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, AT THE ARLINGTON HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C. , JAN. 11, 1905 — ADDRESS AT LUTHER PLACE MEMORIAL CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C., JAN. 29, 1905 — ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE NAVAL ACADEMY AT ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND, JAN. 30, 1905 — ADDRESS AT THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB, PHILADELPHIA, PA., JAN. 30, 1905 — ADDRESS AT THE LINCOLN DINNER OF THE REPUBLICAN CLUB OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL, FEB. 13, 1905 — ADDRESS AT THE HUNGARIAN CLUB DINNER, NEW YORK CITY, FEB. 14, 1905 — MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, TRANSMITTING A PROTOCOL OF AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, PROVIDING FOR THE COLLECTION AND DISBURSEMENT BY THE UNITED STATES OF THE CUSTOMS REVENUES OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, SIGNED ON FEBRUARY 4, 1905 — ADDRESS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIA, PA., FEB. 22, 1905 — INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1905
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:
It is always a pleasure to a man in public life
to meet the real governing classes. I wish to
bid you welcome to Washington this evening, and
to say but one word of greeting to you, and that
word shall take the form of a warning. I did
not speak in jest when I alluded to you as representatives
of the governing classes. I think that we
of the United States can not keep too fresh in our
minds the fact that the men ultimately responsible
for the Government are not the representatives of
the people, but the people themselves, and that therefore
heavy is the responsibility that lies upon the
people and above all upon those who do the most
toward shaping the thought of the people. In the
days of my youth I was a literary man myself. In
reading a book recently, a series of essays, I was
immensely struck by one thought developed in it.
The writer, one of our greatest scholars, was speaking
of the fact that freedom could not exist unless
there went with it a thorough appreciation of responsibility,
and he used a phrase somewhat like this—that
among all peoples there must be restraint; if
there is no restraint the result is inevitably anarchy.
That means the negation of all government, and
the negation of all government of course means the
negation of popular government; and that therefore
there must be restraint, and that therefore a free
people had merely substituted self-restraint for external
restraint; and the permanence of our freedom
as a people, the permanence of our liberties, depends
upon the way in which we show and exercise that
self-restraint.
There must be much more than good laws to
make a good people. The man whose morality is
expressed simply in the non-infringement of the law
is a pretty poor creature. Unless our average citizenship
is based upon a good deal more than the
mere observance of the laws on the statute books—that,
of course, is the preliminary—that, of course,
is the beginning—but unless it is based on more
than that then our average citizenship can never
produce the kind of government which it must and
will produce. So far from liberty, from freedom,
from responsible self-government, being things that
come easily and to any peoples, they are peculiarly
things that can come only to the highly developed
peoples. Only peoples capable, not merely of mastering
others, but of mastering themselves, can
achieve real liberty, can achieve real self-government;
and for that self-mastery, for the cultivation
of the spirit of self-restraint which is but another
side of the spirit of self-reliance, we must rely to
no small degree upon those who furnish us much
of the thought of the great bulk of our people who
think most. Therefore, gentlemen, in greeting you
here to-night I wish not merely to welcome you,
but to say that I trust every man of you feels the
weight of the responsibility that rests upon him.
The man who writes, the man who month in and
month out, week in and week out, day in and day
out, furnishes the material which is to do its part
in shaping the thoughts of our people is fundamentally
the man who, more than any other, determines
what kind of character, and therefore ultimately
what kind of government, this people shall possess.
I believe in the future of this people; I believe in
the growth and greatness of this country, because I
believe that fundamentally you and those like you
approach your task in the proper spirit. It seems
to me that because of the very fact that we are so
confident in the greatness of our country and in our
country’s future, we should beware of any undue
levity, of any spirit of mere boastfulness, of that
most irritating of all qualities, not the most noxious,
but the most irritating of all qualities—the tendency
to depreciate others and thereby exalt ourselves.
Courtesy among individuals is a good thing, but
international courtesy is quite as good a thing. If
there is any one quality to be deprecated in a public
man and in a public writer alike, it is the using of
language which without any corresponding gain to
ourselves tends to produce irritation among nations
with whom we ought to be on friendly terms. Nations
are now brought much nearer together than
they formerly were. Steam, electricity, the immense
spread of the newspaper press in all countries,
the way in which so much of what is written
in any country is translated into the language of
another country, all of these facts have tended to
bring peoples closer together now. That ought to
and I think in the future will tell predominantly for
good; but it does not help us in the least to be
brought closer together with other peoples if they
merely find our unamiable traits more strongly
marked than they thought. We can rest assured
that no man ever thinks better of us because we
point out his salient defects; and no nation is ever
won to a kindlier feeling toward us if we adopt
toward it a tone which we would resent if adopted
toward us.
We have a very large field for warring against
evil here at home. When we have made things all
as they should be in Nation, State, and municipality
here at home, then we can talk about reforming the
rest of mankind; but meanwhile let us begin at home.
Mr. Rector, and Boys, and Fellow-Parents:
All I shall have to say to you to-day will be
simply in the line of illustrating what the Rector
has said, for it seems to me that he has preached
just about the right gospel of life as we ought to
learn it; and let me at the beginning thank the
Rector for what I shall hope was a personal allusion
to me, because it is the only time in my life
that I have been even indirectly compared to Apollo.
When the comparison was made I saw the Bishop
look self-conscious, so I wish to put in my claim
first.
I want to speak to you first of all as regards your
duties as boys; and in the next place as regards your
duties as men; and the two things hang together.
The same qualities that make a decent boy make
a decent man. They have different manifestations,
but fundamentally they are the same. If a boy has
not got pluck and honesty and common-sense he is
a pretty poor creature; and he is a worse creature
if he is a man and lacks any one of those three
traits.
I was struck, Mr. Peabody, by what you said as
to the attitude these boys should have in college.
The boys from a school like this—from Groton,
from St. Mark’s, from St. Paul’s, from any of
these schools—if they are worth their salt, if they
have real loyalty and not merely lip-loyalty to
their schools, ought to go to Columbia, Princeton,
Yale, Harvard, with the firm intention of so carrying
themselves that Groton, St. Mark’s, St. Paul’s,
and the other schools shall not be sneered at because
of anything they do. You are not entitled,
either in college or in after life, to an ounce of
privilege because you have been at Groton—not an
ounce; but we are entitled to hold you to an exceptional
accountability because you have been at
Groton. Because much has been given to you,
therefore we have a right to expect much from you;
and we have a right to expect that you shall begin
to give that much just as soon as you leave school
and go to college, so that you shall count when you
are there.
I read the other day in a very bright college book
a sentence that grated on me because of a sneer it
contained at the “shoals of freshmen from church
schools,” which implied that they did not so conduct
themselves as to add weight for what was
best in college life. I do not think such sneers are
justified; but you are peculiarly liable to such
sneers, and therefore you should be peculiarly careful
to walk so as not to be suspected of deserving
them. We have a right to expect that you will,
from the outset, and without showing yourselves
varieties of that most obnoxious of creatures, the
prig, handle yourselves decently, so as to be a
force for what is decent and right in college.
Another thing: I was glad to hear the Rector,
in describing one pitfall that you are to avoid, use
just exactly the right word when he asked you to
be careful not to turn out snobs. Now, there are
in our civic and social life very much worse creatures
than snobs, but none more contemptible.
(By the way—this is not speaking to the boys,
but to the parents—I have had the good luck to
have my boys go to the public schools before they
came here.) If you have any stuff in you at all,
and try to amount to anything in after life, you
will not remain snobs even if you start as such. It
will be taken out of you very soon and very roughly
if you go into any real work. Go into politics—go
to your district convention, and try to carry it
on the snob basis and see how far you will get. The
thing that will strike you in just about a week is
that there are a whole lot of able people sliding
around this planet. The fact that the individual
opposed to you does not wear a cravat, and does
wear a saw-edge collar, does not imply that you
are going to carry the convention against him!
You will soon find that it is not his clothes but his
political sense and energy that control. You will
find that if you expect to do anything there will be
mighty little temptation to try to treat the men
with whom you are working on any basis save the
fundamental democratic basis of what they amount
to, and what you can show you amount to as compared
to them. So that if you go into life to do
anything, it is perfectly useless for me to tell you
to get rid of snobbery, because you will have to.
It is just as true in every other field as in politics.
Every man who works in philanthropy—and he
can do nothing in philanthropy unless he combines
a very earnest desire to accomplish what is decent
with the determination to accomplish it in practical
fashion (I shall speak of that later)—if he goes
into philanthropy and tries to do something in a college
settlement, tries to do his part in working to
disentangle the tangled knot of our social and civic
life, he will find just as soon as he gets interested
in his work he won’t care and won’t know who the
people are who are with him except as he judges
them by their fruits. The interest that you take
in him is, can a given man accomplish something?
If he can not, then let him give place to the man
who can.
You see, all I am doing is to amplify here and
there the Rector’s speech. Take what was said
about scholarship. I came here intending to speak
to you along that same line, although in a slightly
different way, approaching it from a slightly different
aspect. I believe with all my heart in athletics,
in sport, and have always done as much thereof as
my limited capacity and my numerous duties would
permit; but I believe in bodily vigor chiefly because
I believe in the spirit that lies back of it. If a boy
can not go into athletics because he is not physically
able to, that does not count in the least against him.
He may be just as much of a man in after life as
if he could, because it is not physical address but
the moral quality behind it which really counts.
But if he has the physical ability and keeps out because
he is afraid, because he is lazy, because he is
a mollycoddle, then I haven’t any use for him. If
he has not the right spirit, the spirit which makes
him scorn self-indulgence, timidity and mere ease,
that is if he has not the spirit which normally stands
at the base of physical hardihood, physical prowess,
then that boy does not amount to much, and he is
not ordinarily going to amount to much in after
life. Of course, there are people with special abilities
so great as to outweigh even defects like
timidity and laziness, but the man who makes the
Republic what it is, if he has not courage, the capacity
to show prowess, the desire for hardihood;
if he has not the scorn of mere ease, the scorn of
pain, the scorn of discomfort (all of them qualities
that go to make a man’s worth on an eleven or a
nine or an eight); if he has not something of that
sort in him then the lack is so great that it must be
amply atoned for, more than amply atoned for, in
other ways, or his usefulness to the community
will be small. So I believe heartily in physical
prowess, in the sports that go to make physical
prowess. I believe in them not only because of
the amusement and pleasure they bring, but because
I think they are useful. Yet I think you had a
great deal better never go into them than to go into
them with the idea that they are the chief end even
of school or college; still more of life. There was an
article in one of the “Atlantic” monthlies last year
which all parents (even those of the most limited
intellectual home development, Mr. Peabody!)
should read, by Lawrence Lowell, on the careers
in after life of those who have distinguished themselves
as scholars and as athletes in college; and
the showing for the athletes was not as good, either,
as I had hoped or as I had expected that it would
have been. I believe that to have been in athletics
is an advantage to a man only if he realizes that
even when he is in college it is not his chief end,
and if he realizes that once out of college it can not
be his end at all. It is a mighty good thing to be
a halfback on a varsity eleven; but it is a mighty
poor thing, when a man reaches the age of forty,
only to be able to say that he was once halfback on
an eleven. Do not lose the sense of proportion.
Remember that in life, and above all in the very
active, practical, workaday life on this continent,
the man who wins out must be the man who works.
He can not play all the time. He can not have play
as his principal occupation and win out. Let him
play; let him have as good a time as he can have.
I have a pity that is akin to contempt for the man
who does not have as good a time as he can out of
life. But let him work. Let him count in the
world. When he comes to the end of his life let
him feel he has pulled his weight and a little more.
A sound body is good; a sound mind is better; but
a strong and clean character is better than either.
In college it is not necessary to get into Phi Beta
Kappa, though that is desirable; but it is necessary
to work hard at your studies. It is necessary
to have the habit of application, the habit of subordinating
mere pleasure to serious duty, if you are
going to do really good work once you are out of
school and out of college. And while I would be
very sorry to see those who are in control here in
Groton lose that personal touch with their students
which has made them again and again keep a poor
scholar and thereby make in the end a good citizen;
while I should be very sorry to see that policy reversed,
still I am glad—I do not know that the boys
will share my joy on this point—I am glad that the
standard of scholarship is to be raised.
Now, what I have to say to you yourselves, boys,
as to what you will amount to when you are men,
is in substance but a repetition of what I have already
said. If you leave Groton, and the college to
which you afterward go, if you go to any—if you
leave simply with the feeling that you have had ten
delightful years; that you have just barely got
through your examinations; that you have graduated;
that you are not positively disgraced; that
you have met decent people, and that life has been
easy and it won’t be your fault if it does not continue
as easy—if that is the feeling with which you have
left school and college, then you are poor creatures,
and there is small good that will ever come out of
you. Of course, the worst of all lives is the vicious
life; the life of a man who becomes a positive addition
to the forces of evil in a community. Next to
that—and when I am speaking to people who, by
birth and training and standing, ought to amount
to a great deal, I have a right to say only second to
it in criminality—comes the life of mere vapid ease,
the ignoble life of a man who desires nothing from
his years but that they shall be led with the least
effort, the least trouble, the greatest amount of
physical enjoyment—or intellectual enjoyment of a
mere dilettante type. The life that is worth living,
and the only life that is worth living, is the life of
effort, the life of effort to attain what is worth
striving for. Incidentally, of all the miserable people
that I know I should put high in the top rank
those who reach middle age having steadfastly
striven only to amuse themselves as they went
through life. If there ever was a pursuit which
stultified itself by its very conditions, it is the pursuit
of pleasure as the all-sufficing end of life. Happiness
can not come to any man capable of enjoying
true happiness unless it comes as the sequel to duty
well and honestly done. To do that duty you need
to have more than one trait. You will meet plenty
of well-meaning people who speak to you as if one
trait were enough. That is not so. You might just
as well in any rough sport in any game, think that
a man could win by mere strength if he was clumsy;
or by mere agility and precision of movement without
strength; or by strength and agility if he had no
heart. You need a great many qualities to make a
successful man on a nine or an eleven; and just so
you need a great many different qualities to make a
good citizen. In the first place, of course it is almost
tautological to say that to make a good citizen
the prime need is to be decent, clean in thought, clean
in mind, clean in action; to have an ideal and not to
keep that ideal purely for the study—to have an ideal
which you will in good faith strive to live up to
when you are out in life. If you have an ideal only
good while you sit at home, an ideal that nobody
can live up to in outside life, then I advise you
strongly to take that ideal, examine it closely, and
then cast it away. It is not a good one. The ideal
that it is impossible for a man to strive after in
practical life is not the type of ideal that you wish
to hold up and follow. Be practical as well as generous
in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars,
but remember to keep your feet on the ground. Be
truthful; a lie implies fear, vanity or malevolence;
and be frank; furtiveness and insincerity are faults
incompatible with true manliness. Be honest, and
remember that honesty counts for nothing unless
back of it lie courage and efficiency. If in this
country we ever have to face a state of things in
which on one side stand the men of high ideals who
are honest, good, well-meaning, pleasant people, utterly
unable to put those ideals into shape in the
rough field of practical life, while on the other side
are grouped the strong, powerful, efficient men with
no ideals: then the end of the Republic will be near.
The salvation of the Republic depends—the salvation
of our whole social system depends—upon
the production year by year of a sufficient number
of citizens who possess high ideals combined
with the practical power to realize them in actual
life.
You often hear people speaking as if life was like
striving upward toward a mountain peak. That is
not so. Life is as if you were traveling a ridge
crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one
side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it
helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into
the other. It shall profit us nothing if our people are
decent and ineffective. It shall profit us nothing if
they are efficient and wicked. In every walk of life,
in business, politics; if the need comes, in war; in
literature, science, art, in everything, what we need
is a sufficient number of men who can work well and
who will work with a high ideal. The work can
be done in a thousand different ways. Our public
life depends primarily not upon the men who occupy
public positions for the moment, because they are
but an infinitesimal fraction of the whole. Our public
life depends upon men who take an active interest
in that public life; who are bound to see public
affairs honestly and competently managed; but who
have the good sense to know what honesty and competency
actually mean. And any such man, if he
is both sane and high-minded, can be a greater help
and strength to any one in public life than you
can easily imagine without having had yourselves
the experience. It is an immense strength to a public
man to know a certain number of people to whom
he can appeal for advice and for backing; whose
character is so high that baseness would shrink
ashamed before them; and who have such good
sense that any decent public servant is entirely willing
to lay before them every detail of his actions,
asking only that they know the facts before they pass
final judgment. And now, gentlemen and ladies, I
must be pardoned for one personal allusion. We
have here to-day one man whom I have found exactly
to answer to that need, who stands as a strong
pillar for decency because he has high ideals combined
with practical common-sense; and that is
Bishop Lawrence.
Well, I guess I have said about all I have to say.
Success does not lie entirely in the hands of any one
of us. From the day the tower of Siloam fell, misfortune
has fallen sometimes upon the just as well
as the unjust. We sometimes see the good man, the
honest man, the strong man, broken down by forces
over which he had no control. If the hand of the
Lord is heavy upon us the strength and wisdom of
man shall avail nothing. But as a rule in the long
run each of us comes pretty near to getting what he
deserves. Each of us can, as a rule—there are, of
course, exceptions—finally achieve the success best
worth having, the success of having played his part
honestly and manfully; of having lived so as to feel
at the end he has done his duty; of having been a
good husband, a good father; of having tried to
make the world a little better off rather than worse
off because he has lived; of having been a doer of
the word and not a hearer only—still less a mere
critic of the doers. Every man has it in him, unless
fate is indeed hard upon him, to win out that measure
of success if he will honestly try.
There are two kinds of success to be won. In
the first place, there is success in doing the thing
that can only be done by the exceptional man.
Therefore most of us can not achieve this kind of
success. It comes only to the man who has very
exceptional qualities. The other kind, a very, very
high kind, is the ordinary kind of success, the success
that comes to the man who does the things
which most men could do, but which they do not do;
which comes to the man who develops or possesses
to a higher degree the qualities that all of us have to
a greater or less extent. In the history of the world
some of the men who stand high—who stand in all
but the very highest places—are those who have not
possessed any wonderful genius in statecraft, war,
art, literature—in whatever calling; but who have
developed within themselves, by long, patient effort,
resolutely maintained in spite of repeated failure, the
ordinary, everyday, humdrum qualities of courage,
of resolution, of proper appreciation of the relative
importance of things; of honesty, of truth, of good
sense, of unyielding perseverance. We can each one
of us develop to a very high degree these qualities;
and if we do so develop them, each one of us is sure
of a measure of success; and I greet you here on
this twentieth anniversary of the founding of Groton
School because I feel that Groton School is one of
those institutions which pre-eminently stand for the
development of precisely those qualities among the
boys whom it sends forth to be American men,
American citizens, to do honor to themselves and
their school by honoring the commonwealth to which
we all belong.
Governor, and You, my Fellow-Citizens:
It is indeed a pleasure to greet you to-day. In
greeting all I, of course, greet above all others the
men to whom we owe it that we are here to-day,
or that we have a country of which to be proud—the
men who fought to a finish the great Civil War.
And, having greeted first those at one end of the
line, I want to speak of the others and say I was
exceedingly pleased to see the children. Also let
me say a word of greeting in your behalf, my comrades
of the Civil War, to the regulars who were
here to-day as an escort—to the men who now wear
the uniform of “Uncle Sam,” and wear it honorably
to defend the flag as you defended it in your
youth and early manhood. The memories of this
field are inextricably entwined in our hearts with
the great deeds of the leaders of the past, as one
by one the men who here signalized themselves
have passed away.
Governor Pennypacker alluded to the fact that
to-day Pennsylvania mourns its senior Senator.
The regiment which Senator Quay was instrumental
in raising took part in the battle of Gettysburg—the
battle in which Governor Pennypacker
shared. Senator Quay was not with it here; he
had gone with another regiment, and it is appropriate
at this time to recall the fact that when the
term of service of that regiment expired, just before
the battle of Fredericksburg, Senator Quay
declined to accept the discharge and continued as
a volunteer with the army that fought at Fredericksburg
and won the medal of honor on that
bloody day.
The place where we now are has won a double
distinction. Here was fought one of the great
battles of all time, and here was spoken one of the
few speeches which shall last through the ages.
As long as this Republic endures or its history is
known, so long shall the memory of the Battle of
Gettysburg likewise endure and be known; and as
long as the English tongue is understood, so long
shall Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech thrill
the hearts of mankind.
The Civil War was a great war for righteousness;
a war waged for the noblest ideals, but waged
also in thoroughgoing, practical fashion. That is
why you won then—because you had the ideals,
because you had the lift of soul in you, and because
also you had the right stuff in you to make
those ideals count in actual life. You had to have
the ideals, but if you had not been able to march
and shoot you could not have put them into practice.
It was one of the few wars which mean, in
their successful outcome, a lift toward better things
for the nations of mankind. Some wars have
meant the triumph of order over anarchy and licentiousness
masquerading as liberty; some wars
have meant the triumph of liberty over tyranny
masquerading as order; but this victorious war of
ours meant the triumph of both liberty and order,
the triumph of orderly liberty, the bestowal of civil
rights upon the freed slaves, and at the same time
the stern insistence on the supremacy of the national
law throughout the length and breadth of
the land. Moreover, this was one of those rare
contests in which it was to the immeasurable interest
of the vanquished that they should lose, while at the
same time the victors acquired the precious privilege
of transmitting to those who came after them, as a
heritage of honor forever, not only the memory
of their own valiant deeds, but the memory of the
deeds of those who, no less valiantly and with
equal sincerity of purpose, fought against the stars
in their courses. The war left to us all, as fellow-countrymen,
as brothers, the right to rejoice that
the Union has been restored in indestructible shape
in a country where slavery no longer mocks the
boast of freedom, and also the right to rejoice with
exultant pride in the courage, the self-sacrifice, and
the devotion, alike of the men who wore the blue
and the men who wore the gray.
He is but a poor American who, looking at this
field, does not feel within himself a deeper reverence
for the Nation’s past and a higher purpose to
make the Nation’s future rise level to her past.
Here fought the chosen sons of the North and the
South, the East and the West. The armies which
on this field contended for the mastery were veteran
armies, hardened by long campaigning and desperate
fighting into such instruments of war as no
other nation then possessed. The severity of the
fighting is attested by the proportionate loss—a
loss unrivaled in any battle of similar size since the
close of the Napoleonic struggles; a loss which in
certain regiments was from three-fourths to four-fifths
of the men engaged. Every spot on this field
has its own associations of soldierly duty nobly
done, of supreme self-sacrifice freely rendered.
The names of the chiefs who served in the two
armies form a long honor roll; and the enlisted
men were worthy, and even more than worthy, of
those who led them. Every acre of this ground
has its own associations. We see where the fight
thundered through and around the village of Gettysburg;
where the artillery formed on the ridges;
where the cavalry fought; where the hills were attacked
and defended; and where, finally, the great
charge surged up the slope only to break on the
summit in the bloody spray of gallant failure.
But the soldiers who won at Gettysburg, the
soldiers who fought to a finish the Civil War and
thereby made their countrymen forever their debtors,
have left us far more even than the memories of
the war itself. They fought for four years in order
that on this Continent those who came after them,
their children and their children’s children, might
enjoy a lasting peace. They took arms not to destroy,
but to save liberty; not to overthrow, but to
establish the supremacy of the law. The crisis
which they faced was to determine whether or not
this people was fit for self-government and, therefore,
fit for liberty. Freedom is not a gift which
can be enjoyed save by those who show themselves
worthy of it. In this world no privilege can
be permanently appropriated by men who have not
the power and the will successfully to assume the
responsibility of using it aright. In his recent admirable
little volume on freedom and responsibility
in democratic government, President Hadley of
Yale has pointed out that the freedom which is
worth anything is the freedom which means self-government
and not anarchy. Freedom thus conceived
is a constructive force, which enables an
intelligent and good man to do better things than
he could do without it; which is in its essence the
substitution of self-restraint for external restraint—the
substitution of a form of restraint which
promotes progress for the form which retards it.
This is the right view to take of freedom; but it
can only be taken if there is a full recognition of
the close connection between liberty and responsibility
in every domain of human thought and action.
It was essentially the view taken by Abraham
Lincoln, and by all those who, when the Civil War
broke out, realized that in a self-governing democracy
those who desire to be considered fit to enjoy
liberty must show that they know how to use it
with moderation and justice in peace, and how to
fight for it when it is jeoparded by malice domestic
or foreign levy.
The lessons they taught us are lessons as applicable
in our everyday lives now as in the rare times
of great stress. The men who made this field forever
memorable did so because they combined the
power of fealty to a lofty ideal with the power of
showing that fealty in hard, practical, common-sense
fashion. They stood for the life of effort,
not the life of ease. They had that love of country,
that love of justice, that love of their fellow-men,
without which power and resourceful efficiency
but make a man a danger to his fellows. Yet, in
addition thereto, they likewise possessed the power
and the efficiency; for otherwise their high purpose
would have been barren of result. They knew each
how to act for himself, and yet each how to act with
his fellows. They learned, as all the generation
of the Civil War learned, that rare indeed is the
chance to do anything worth doing by one sudden
and violent effort. The men who believed that
the Civil War would be ended in ninety days, the
men who cried loudest “On to Richmond,” if they
had the right stuff in them speedily learned their
error; and the war was actually won by those who
settled themselves steadfastly down to fight for three
years, or for as much longer as the war might last,
and who gradually grew to understand that the
triumph would come, not by a single brilliant victory,
but by a hundred painful and tedious campaigns.
In the East and the West the columns advanced
and recoiled, swayed from side to side, and
again advanced; along the coasts the black ships
stood endlessly off and on before the hostile forts;
generals and admirals emerged into the light, each
to face his crowded hour of success or failure; the
men in front fought; the men behind supplied and
pushed forward those in front; and the final victory
was due to the deeds of all who played their parts
well and manfully, in the scores of battles, in the
countless skirmishes, in march, in camp, or in reserve,
as commissioned officers, or in the ranks—wherever
and whenever duty called them. That is
why the title that most appeals to you now is the
title of comrade, by which the private in the ranks
and the lieutenant-general address one another, because
each did his duty and asks no more than
recognition of that fact. Just so it must be for us
in civil life. We can make and keep this country
worthy of the men who gave their lives to save it,
only on condition that the average man among us
on the whole does his duty bravely, loyally, and
with common-sense, in whatever position life allots
to him. Exactly as in time of war courage is the
cardinal virtue of the soldier, so in time of peace
honesty, using the word in its deepest and broadest
significance, is the essential basic virtue, without
which all else avails nothing. National greatness
is of slow growth. It can not be forced and yet be
stable and enduring; for it is based fundamentally
upon national character, and national character is
stamped deep in a people by the lives of many generations.
The men who went into the army had to
submit to discipline, had to submit to restraint
through the government of the leaders they had
chosen, as the price of winning. So we, the people,
can preserve our liberty and our greatness in time
of peace only by ourselves exercising the virtues of
honesty, of self-restraint, and of fair dealing between
man and man. In all the ages of the past
men have seen countries lose their liberty, because
their people could not restrain and order themselves,
and therefore forfeited the right to what they were
unable to use with wisdom.
It was because you men of the Civil War both
knew how to use liberty temperately and how to defend
it at need that we and our children and our
children’s children shall hold you in honor forever.
Here, on Memorial Day, on this great battlefield, we
commemorate not only the chiefs who actually won
this battle; not only Meade, and his lieutenants,
Hancock and Reynolds and Howard and Sickles,
and the many others whose names flame in our
annals; but also the chiefs who had made the Army
of the Potomac what it was, and those who afterward
led it in the campaigns which were crowned at
Appomattox; and furthermore those who made and
used its sister armies: McClellan, with his extraordinary
genius for organization; Rosecrans; Buell;
Thomas, the unyielding, the steadfast; and that
great trio, Sherman, Sheridan, and last and greatest
of all, Grant himself, the silent soldier whose hammer-like
blows finally beat down even the prowess of
the men who fought against him. Above all we
meet here to pay homage to the officers and enlisted
men who served and fought and died, without having,
as their chiefs had, the chance to write their
names on the tablets of fame; to the men who
marched and fought in the ranks, who were buried
in long trenches on the field of battle, who died in
cots marked only by numbers in the hospitals; who,
if they lived, when the war was over, went back
each to his task on the farm or in the town, to do
his duty in peace as he had done it in war; to take
up the threads of his working life where he had
dropped them when the trumpets of the Nation
pealed to arms. To-day, all over this land our
people meet to pay reverent homage to the dead
who died that the Nation might live; and we
pay homage also to their comrades who are still
with us.
All are at one now, the sons of those who wore
the blue and the sons of those who wore the gray,
and all can unite in paying respect to the memory of
those who fell, each of them giving his life for his
duty as he saw it; and all should be at one in learning
from the deaths of these men how to live usefully
while the times call for the performance of the
countless necessary duties of everyday life, and how
to hold ourselves ready to die nobly should the
Nation ever again demand of her sons the splendid
ultimate proof of loyalty to her and to the
flag.
It is a great pleasure to come here this afternoon
and say a word on behalf of the project to erect a
memorial chapel on this great historic site. Three
weeks ago I was at the field where the bloodiest and
most decisive battle of the Civil War was fought,
and it is a noteworthy thing that this State of Pennsylvania
should have within its borders the places
which mark the two turning points in our history—Gettysburg,
which saw the high-tide of the Rebellion—Valley
Forge, which saw the getting beyond
the danger point of the Revolution.
There have been two great crises in our national
history—two crises where failure meant the absolute
breaking asunder of the Nation—one the Revolutionary
War, one the Civil War. If the men who took
to arms in ’76 for national independence had failed,
then not merely would there never have been a
national growth on this Continent, but the whole
spirit of nationality for the younger lands of the
world would have perished still-born. If the men of
’61 had failed in the great struggle for national
unity it would have meant that the work done by
Washington and his associates might almost or quite
as well have been left undone. There would have
been no point in commemorating what was done at
Valley Forge if Gettysburg had not given us the
national right to commemorate it. If we were now
split up into a dozen wrangling little communities,
if we lacked the power to keep away here on our
own Continent, within our own lines, or to show ourselves
a unit as against foreign aggression, then,
indeed, the Declaration of Independence would read
like empty sound, and the Constitution would not be
worth the paper upon which it was written, save as
a study for antiquarians.
There have been other crises than those that culminated
during the War for Independence and the
great Civil War, there have been great deeds and
great men at other periods of our national history,
but there never has been another deed vital to the
welfare of the Nation save the two—the deed of
those who founded and the deed of those who saved
the Republic. There never has been another man
whose life has been vital to the Republic save Washington
and Lincoln. I am not here to say anything
about Lincoln, but I do not see how any American
can think of either of them without thinking of the
other too, because they represent the same work.
Think how fortunate we are as a Nation. Think
what it means to us as a people that our young men
should have as their ideals two men, not conquerors,
not men who have won glory by wrongdoing; not
men whose lives were spent in their own advancement,
but men who lived, one of whom died, that
the Nation might grow steadily greater and better—the
man who founded the Republic and took no
glory from it himself save what was freely given
him by his fellow-citizens, and that only in the shape
of a chance of rendering them service, and the man
who afterward saved the Republic, who saved the
state, without striking down liberty. Often in history
a state has been saved and liberty struck down
at the same time. Lincoln saved the Union and
lifted the cause of liberty higher than before.
Washington created the Republic, rose by statecraft
to the highest position, and used that position only
for the welfare of his fellows and for so long as his
fellows wished him to keep it.
It is a good thing that of these great landmarks
of our history—Gettysburg and Valley Forge—one
should commemorate a single tremendous effort
and the other what we need, on the whole, much
more commonly, and what I think is, on the whole,
rather more difficult to do—long-sustained effort.
Only men with a touch of the heroic in them could
have lasted out that three days’ struggle at Gettysburg.
Only men fit to rank with the great men of
all time could have beaten back the mighty onslaught
of that gallant and wonderful army of
Northern Virginia, whose final supreme effort faded
at the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge on that July
day forty-one years ago.
But after all, hard though it is to rise to the supreme
height of self-sacrifice and of effort at a time
of crisis that is short, to rise to it for a single great
effort—it is harder yet to rise to the level of a crisis
when that crisis takes the form of needing constant,
patient, steady work, month after month, year after
year, when, too, it does not end after a terrible struggle
in a glorious day—when it means months of
gloom and effort steadfastly endured, and triumph
wrested only at the very end.
Here at Valley Forge Washington and his Continentals
warred not against the foreign soldiery,
but against themselves, against all the appeals of our
nature that are most difficult to resist—against discouragement,
discontent, the mean envies and jealousies,
and heart-burnings sure to arise at any time
in large bodies of men, but especially sure to arise
when defeat and disaster have come to large bodies
of men. Here the soldiers who carried our national
flag had to suffer from cold, from privation, from
hardship, knowing that their foes were well housed,
knowing that things went easier for the others than
it did for them. And they conquered, because they
had in them the spirit that made them steadfast, not
merely on an occasional great day, but day after day
in the life of daily endeavor to do duty well.
When two lessons are both indispensable, it seems
hardly worth while to dwell more on one than on the
other. Yet I think that as a people we need more
to learn the lesson of Valley Forge even than that
of Gettysburg. I have not the slightest anxiety but
that this people, if the need should come in the
future, will be able to show the heroism, the supreme
effort that was shown at Gettysburg, though it may
well be that it would mean a similar two years of
effort, checkered by disaster, to lead up to it. But
the vital thing for this Nation to do is steadily to
cultivate the quality which Washington and those
under him so pre-eminently showed during the winter
at Valley Forge—the quality of steady adherence
to duty in the teeth of difficulty, in the teeth of discouragement,
and even disaster, the quality that
makes a man do what is straight and decent, not
one day when a great crisis comes, but every day,
day in and day out, until success comes at the
end.
Of course, all of us are agreed that a prime national
need is the need of commemorating the
memories of the men who did greatly, thought
highly, who fought, suffered, endured, for the
Nation. It is a great thing to commemorate their
lives; but, after all, the worthy way to do so is to
try to show by our lives that we have profited by
them. If we show that the lives of the great men
of the past have been to us incitements to do well
in the present, then we have paid to them the only
homage which is really worthy of them. If we
treat their great deeds as matters merely for idle
boasting, not as spurring us on to effort, but as excusing
us from effort, then we show that we are not
worthy of our sires, of the people who went before
us in the history of our land. What we as a people
need more than aught else is the steady performance
of the everyday duties of life, not with hope of
reward, but because they are duties.
I spoke of how we felt that we had in Washington
and Lincoln national ideals. I contrasted their
names with the names of many others in history,
names which will shine as brightly, but oh! with
how much less power and light. I think you will
find that the fundamental difference between our
two great national heroes and almost any other men
of equal note in the world’s history, is that when
you think of our two men you think inevitably not
of glory, but of duty, not of what the man did for
himself in achieving name, or fame, or position, but
of what he did for his fellows. They set the right
ideal and also they lived up to it in practical fashion.
Had either of them possessed that fantastic quality
of mind which sets an impossible, and, perhaps, an
undesirable ideal, or which declines to do the actual
work of the present because forsooth the implements
with which it is necessary to work are not to that
man’s choice, his fame would have been missed, his
achievement would have crumbled into dust, and he
would not have left one stroke on the book which
tells of effort accomplished for the good of mankind.
A man, to amount to anything, must be practical.
He must actually do things, not talk about doing
them, least of all cavil at how they are accomplished
by those who actually go down into the arena, and
actually face the dust and the blood and the sweat,
who actually triumphed in the struggle. The man
must have the force, the power, the will to accomplish
results, but he must have also the lift toward
lofty things which shall make him incapable of
striving for aught unless that for which he strives
is something honorable and high—something well
worth striving for.
I congratulate you that it is your good fortune to
be engaged in erecting a memorial to the great man
who was equal to the great days—to the man and the
men who showed by their lives that they were indeed
doers of the word and not hearers only.
Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Notification
Committee:
I am deeply sensible of the high honor conferred
upon me by the representatives of the Republican
party assembled in convention, and I accept the
nomination for the Presidency with solemn realization
of the obligations I assume. I heartily approve
the declaration of principles which the Republican
National Convention has adopted, and at
some future day I shall communicate to you, Mr.
Chairman, more at length and in detail a formal
written acceptance of the nomination.
Three years ago I became President because of
the death of my lamented predecessor. I then
stated that it was my purpose to carry out his principles
and policies for the honor and the interest of
the country. To the best of my ability I have kept the
promise thus made. If next November my countrymen
confirm at the polls the action of the convention
you represent, I shall, under Providence,
continue to work with an eye single to the welfare
of all our people.
A party is of worth only in so far as it promotes
the national interest, and every official, high or
low, can serve his party best by rendering to the
people the best service of which he is capable. Effective
government comes only as the result of the
loyal co-operation of many different persons. The
members of a legislative majority, the officers in
the various departments of the Administration, and
the Legislative and Executive branches as toward
each other, must work together with subordination
of self to the common end of successful government.
We who have been intrusted with power as
public servants during the past seven years of administration
and legislation now come before the
people content to be judged by our record of
achievement. In the years that have gone by we
have made the deed square with the word; and if
we are continued in power we shall unswervingly
follow out the great lines of public policy which
the Republican party has already laid down;
a public policy to which we are giving, and
shall give, a united, and therefore an efficient,
support.
In all of this we are more fortunate than our
opponents, who now appeal for confidence on the
ground, which some express and some seek to have
confidentially understood, that if triumphant they
may be trusted to prove false to every principle
which in the last eight years they have laid down
as vital, and to leave undisturbed those very acts
of the Administration because of which they ask
that the Administration itself be driven from power.
Seemingly their present attitude as to their past
record is that some of them were mistaken and
others insincere. We make our appeal in a wholly
different spirit. We are not constrained to keep
silent on any vital question; we are divided on no
vital question; our policy is continuous, and is the
same for all sections and localities. There is
nothing experimental about the Government we
ask the people to continue in power, for our performance
in the past, our proved governmental efficiency,
is a guarantee as to our promises for the
future. Our opponents, either openly or secretly,
according to their several temperaments, now ask
the people to trust their present promises in consideration
of the fact that they intend to treat their
past promises as null and void. We know our own
minds and we have kept of the same mind for a
sufficient length of time to give to our policy coherence
and sanity. In such a fundamental matter
as the enforcement of the law we do not have to depend
upon promises, but merely to ask that our
record be taken as an earnest of what we shall continue
to do. In dealing with the great organizations
known as trusts, we do not have to explain
why the laws were not enforced, but to point out
that they actually have been enforced, and that
legislation has been enacted to increase the effectiveness
of their enforcement. We do not have to
propose to “turn the rascals out,” for we have
shown in very deed that whenever by diligent investigation
a public official can be found who has
betrayed his trust he will be punished to the full
extent of the law without regard to whether he
was appointed under a Republican or a Democratic
Administration. This is the efficient way to
turn the rascals out and to keep them out, and it
has the merit of sincerity. Moreover, the betrayals
of trust in the last seven years have been insignificant
in number when compared with the extent of
the public service. Never has the administration
of the Government been on a cleaner and higher
level; never has the public work of the Nation been
done more honestly and efficiently.
Assuredly it is unwise to change the policies
which have worked so well and which are now
working so well. Prosperity has come at home.
The national honor and interest have been upheld
abroad. We have placed the finances of the Nation
upon a sound gold basis. We have done this with
the aid of many who were formerly our opponents,
but who would neither openly support nor silently
acquiesce in the heresy of unsound finance; and we
have done it against the convinced and violent opposition
of the mass of our present opponents who
still refuse to recant the unsound opinions which
for the moment they think it inexpedient to assert.
We know what we mean when we speak of an
honest and stable currency. We mean the same
thing from year to year. We do not have to avoid
definite and conclusive committal on the most important
issue which has recently been before the
people, and which may at any time in the near
future be before them again. Upon the principles
which underlie this issue the convictions of half of
our number do not clash with those of the other
half. So long as the Republican party is in power
the gold standard is settled, not as a matter
of temporary political expediency, not because of
shifting conditions in the production of gold in
certain mining centres, but in accordance with what
we regard as the fundamental principles of national
morality and wisdom.
Under the financial legislation which we have
enacted there is now ample circulation for every
business need; and every dollar of this circulation
is worth a dollar in gold. We have reduced the
interest-bearing debt, and in still larger measure
the interest on that debt. All of the war taxes imposed
during the Spanish War have been removed
with a view to relieve the people and to prevent the
accumulation of an unnecessary surplus. The result
is that hardly ever before have the expenditures
and income of the Government so closely corresponded.
In the fiscal year that has just closed the
excess of income over the ordinary expenditures
was nine millions of dollars. This does not take
account of the fifty millions expended out of the
accumulated surplus for the purchase of the Isthmian
Canal. It is an extraordinary proof of the
sound financial condition of the Nation that instead
of following the usual course in such matters
and throwing the burden upon posterity by an issue
of bonds, we were able to make the payment outright
and yet after it to have in the treasury a surplus
of one hundred and sixty-one millions. Moreover,
we were able to pay this fifty millions of
dollars out of hand without causing the slightest
disturbance to business conditions.
We have enacted a tariff law under which
during the past few years the country has attained
a height of material well-being never before
reached. Wages are higher than ever before.
That whenever the need arises there should be a
readjustment of the tariff schedules is undoubted;
but such changes can with safety be made only by
those whose devotion to the principle of a protective
tariff is beyond question; for otherwise the changes
would amount not to readjustment, but to repeal.
The readjustment when made must maintain and
not destroy the protective principle. To the farmer,
the merchant, the manufacturer this is vital; but
perhaps no other man is so much interested as the
wage-worker in the maintenance of our present
economic system, both as regards the finances and
the tariff. The standard of living of our wage-workers
is higher than that of any other country,
and it can not so remain unless we have a protective
tariff which shall always keep as a minimum a rate
of duty sufficient to cover the difference between
the labor cost here and abroad. Those who, like
our opponents, “denounce protection as a robbery”
thereby explicitly commit themselves to the proposition
that if they were to revise the tariff no heed
would be paid to the necessity of meeting this difference
between the standards of living for wage-workers
here and in other countries; and therefore
on this point their antagonism to our position is
fundamental. Here again we ask that their promises
and ours be judged by what has been done in
the immediate past. We ask that sober and sensible
men compare the workings of the present tariff law,
and the conditions which obtain under it, with the
workings of the preceding tariff law of 1894 and the
conditions which that tariff of 1894 helped to bring
about.
We believe in reciprocity with foreign nations
on the terms outlined in President McKinley’s
last speech, which urged the extension of our foreign
markets by reciprocal agreements whenever
they could be made without injury to American
industry and labor. It is a singular fact that the
only great reciprocity treaty recently adopted—that
with Cuba—was finally opposed almost alone by the
representatives of the very party which now states
that it favors reciprocity. And here again we ask
that the worth of our words be judged by comparing
their deeds with ours. On this Cuban reciprocity
treaty there were at the outset grave differences
of opinion among ourselves; and the notable
thing in the negotiation and ratification of the
treaty, and in the legislation which carried it into
effect, was the highly practical manner in which
without sacrifice of principle these differences of
opinion were reconciled. There was no rupture of
a great party, but an excellent practical outcome,
the result of the harmonious co-operation of two
successive Presidents and two successive Congresses.
This is an illustration of the governing
capacity which entitles us to the confidence of the
people not only in our purposes but in our practical
ability to achieve those purposes. Judging by
the history of the last twelve years, down to this
very month, is there justification for believing that
under similar circumstances and with similar initial
differences of opinion, our opponents would have
achieved any practical result?
We have already shown in actual fact that our
policy is to do fair and equal justice to all men,
paying no heed to whether a man is rich or poor;
paying no heed to his race, his creed, or his birthplace.
We recognize the organization of capital and the
organization of labor as natural outcomes of our
industrial system. Each kind of organization is to
be favored so long as it acts in a spirit of justice
and of regard for the rights of others. Each is to
be granted the full protection of the law, and each
in turn is to be held to a strict obedience to the law;
for no man is above it and no man below it. The
humblest individual is to have his rights safeguarded
as scrupulously as those of the strongest
organization, for each is to receive justice, no more
and no less. The problems with which we have to
deal in our modern industrial and social life are
manifold; but the spirit in which it is necessary to
approach their solution is simply the spirit of
honesty, of courage, and of common-sense.
In inaugurating the great work of irrigation in
the West the Administration has been enabled by
Congress to take one of the longest strides ever
taken under our Government toward utilizing our
vast national domain for the settler, the actual
homemaker.
Ever since this Continent was discovered the
need of an Isthmian Canal to connect the Pacific
and the Atlantic has been recognized; and ever
since the birth of our Nation such a canal has been
planned. At last the dream has become a reality.
The Isthmian Canal is now being built by the Government
of the United States. We conducted the
negotiation for its construction with the nicest and
most scrupulous honor, and in a spirit of the
largest generosity toward those through whose territory
it was to run. Every sinister effort which
could be devised by the spirit of faction or the
spirit of self-interest was made in order to defeat
the treaty with Panama and thereby prevent the
consummation of this work. The construction of
the canal is now an assured fact; but most certainly
it is unwise to intrust the carrying out of so
momentous a policy to those who have endeavored
to defeat the whole undertaking.
Our foreign policy has been so conducted that,
while not one of our just claims has been sacrificed,
our relations with all foreign nations are now of
the most peaceful kind; there is not a cloud on the
horizon. The last cause of irritation between us
and any other nation was removed by the settlement
of the Alaskan boundary.
In the Caribbean Sea we have made good our
promises of independence to Cuba, and have proved
our assertion that our mission in the island was one
of justice and not of self-aggrandizement; and
thereby no less than by our action in Venezuela and
Panama we have shown that the Monroe Doctrine
is a living reality, designed for the hurt of no nation,
but for the protection of civilization on the
Western Continent, and for the peace of the world.
Our steady growth in power has gone hand in hand
with a strengthening disposition to use this power
with strict regard for the rights of others, and for
the cause of international justice and goodwill.
We earnestly desire friendship with all the nations
of the New and Old Worlds; and we endeavor
to place our relations with them upon a basis of
reciprocal advantage instead of hostility. We hold
that the prosperity of each nation is an aid and not
a hindrance to the prosperity of other nations. We
seek international amity for the same reasons that
make us believe in peace within our own borders;
and we seek this peace not because we are afraid
or unready, but because we think that peace is right
as well as advantageous.
American interests in the Pacific have rapidly
grown. American enterprise has laid a cable across
this, the greatest of oceans. We have proved in
effective fashion that we wish the Chinese Empire
well and desire its integrity and independence.
Our foothold in the Philippines greatly strengthens
our position in the competition for the trade of
the East; but we are governing the Philippines in
the interest of the Philippine people themselves.
We have already given them a large share in their
government, and our purpose is to increase this
share as rapidly as they give evidence of increasing
fitness for the task. The great majority of the
officials of the islands, whether elective or appointive,
are already native Filipinos. We are now providing
for a legislative assembly. This is the first
step to be taken in the future; and it would be eminently
unwise to declare what our next step will
be until this first step has been taken and the results
are manifest. To have gone faster than we have
already gone in giving the islanders a constantly
increasing measure of self-government would have
been disastrous. At the present moment to give
political independence to the islands would result in
the immediate loss of civil rights, personal liberty,
and public order, as regards the mass of the Filipinos,
for the majority of the islanders have been
given these great boons by us, and only keep them
because we vigilantly safeguard and guarantee
them. To withdraw our Government from the islands
at this time would mean to the average native
the loss of his barely won civil freedom. We have
established in the islands a Government by Americans
assisted by Filipinos. We are steadily striving
to transform this into self-government by the
Filipinos assisted by Americans.
The principles which we uphold should appeal to
all our countrymen, in all portions of our country.
Above all they should give us strength with the men
and women who are the spiritual heirs of those who
upheld the hands of Abraham Lincoln; for we are
striving to do our work in the spirit with which
Lincoln approached his. During the seven years
that have just passed there is no duty, domestic or
foreign, which we have shirked; no necessary task
which we have feared to undertake, or which we
have not performed with reasonable efficiency. We
have never pleaded impotence. We have never
sought refuge in criticism and complaint instead of
action. We face the future with our past and our
present as guarantors of our promises; and we are
content to stand or to fall by the record which we
have made and are making.
Oyster Bay, N. Y., Sept. 12, 1904
Hon. J. G. Cannon, Chairman of the Notification
Committee,
My dear Sir:
I accept the nomination for the Presidency tendered
me by the Republican National Convention,
and cordially approve the platform adopted by it.
In writing this letter there are certain points upon
which I desire to lay especial stress.
It is difficult to find out from the utterances of our
opponents what are the real issues upon which they
propose to wage this campaign. It is not unfair to
say that, having abandoned most of the principles
upon which they have insisted during the last eight
years, they now seem at a loss, both as to what it
is that they really believe, and as to how firmly they
shall assert their belief in anything. In fact, it is
doubtful if they venture resolutely to press a single
issue; as soon as they raise one they shrink from it
and seek to explain it away. Such an attitude is the
probably inevitable result of the effort to improvise
convictions; for when thus improvised, it is natural
that they should be held in a tentative manner.
The party now in control of the Government is
troubled by no such difficulties. We do not have to
guess at our own convictions, and then correct the
guess if it seems unpopular. The principles which
we profess are those in which we believe with heart
and soul and strength. Men may differ from us; but
they can not accuse us of shiftiness or insincerity.
The policies we have pursued are those which we
earnestly hold as essential to the national welfare and
repute. Our actions speak even louder than our
words for the faith that is in us. We base our appeal
upon what we have done and are doing, upon
our record of administration and legislation during
the last seven years, in which we have had complete
control of the Government. We intend in the future
to carry on the Government in the same way that
we have carried it on in the past.
A party whose members are radically at variance
on most vital issues, and if united at all, are only
united on issues where their attitude threatens widespread
disaster to the whole country, can not be
trusted to govern in any matter. A party which,
with facile ease, changes all its convictions before
election can not be trusted to adhere with tenacity
to any principle after election. A party fit to govern
must have convictions. In 1896 the Republican party
came into power, and in 1900 it retained power
on certain definite pledges, each of which was
scrupulously fulfilled. But in addition to meeting
and solving the problems which were issues in these
campaigns, it also became necessary to meet other
problems which arose after election; and it is no
small part of our claim to public confidence that
these were solved with the same success that had
attended the solution of those concerning which the
battles at the polls were fought. In other words,
our governmental efficiency proved equal not only
to the tasks that were anticipated, but to doing each
unanticipated task as it arose.
When the contest of 1896 was decided, the question
of the war with Spain was not an issue. When
the contest of 1900 was decided, the shape which
the Isthmian Canal question ultimately took could
not have been foreseen. But the same qualities
which enabled those responsible for making and administering
the laws at Washington to deal successfully
with the tariff and the currency, enabled them
also to deal with the Spanish War; and the same
qualities which enabled them to act wisely in the
Philippines, and in Cuba, also enabled them to do
their duty as regards the problems connected with
the trusts, and to secure the building of the Isthmian
Canal. We are content to rest our case before the
American people upon the fact that to adherence to
a lofty ideal we have added proved governmental
efficiency. Therefore, our promises may surely be
trusted as regards any issue that is now before the
people; and we may equally be trusted to deal with
any problem which may hereafter arise.
So well has the work been done that our opponents
do not venture to recite the facts about our policies
or acts and then oppose them. They attack them
only when they have first misrepresented them; for
a truthful recital would leave no room for adverse
comment.
Panama offers an instance in point. Our opponents
can criticise what we did in Panama only on
condition of misstating what was done. The Administration
behaved throughout not only with good
faith, but with extraordinary patience and large generosity
toward those with whom it dealt. It was
also mindful of American interests. It acted in strict
compliance with the law passed by Congress. Had
not Panama been promptly recognized, and the transit
across the Isthmus kept open, in accordance with
our treaty rights and obligations, there would have
ensued endless guerilla warfare and possibly foreign
complications; while all chance of building the canal
would have been deferred, certainly for years, perhaps
for a generation or more. Criticism of the
action in this matter is simply criticism of the only
possible action which could have secured the building
of the canal; as well as the peace and quiet which
we were, by treaty, bound to preserve along the line
of transit across the Isthmus. The service rendered
this country in securing the perpetual right to construct,
maintain, operate, and defend the canal was
so great that our opponents do not venture to raise
the issue in straightforward fashion; for if so raised
there would be no issue. The decisive action which
brought about this beneficent result was the exercise
by the President of the powers vested in him, and in
him alone, by the Constitution; the power to recognize
foreign Governments by entering into diplomatic
relations with them, and the power to make treaties
which, when ratified by the Senate, become under the
Constitution part of the supreme law of the land.
Neither in this nor in any other matter has there
been the slightest failure to live up to the Constitution
in letter and in spirit. But the Constitution
must be observed positively as well as negatively.
The President’s duty is to serve the country in accordance
with the Constitution; and I should be
derelict in my duty if I used a false construction of
the Constitution as a shield for weakness and timidity,
or as an excuse for governmental impotence.
Similar misrepresentation is the one weapon of
our opponents in regard to our foreign policy, and
the way the Navy has been made useful in carrying
out this policy. Here again all that we ask is that
they truthfully state what has been done, and then
say whether or not they object to it; for if continued
in power we shall continue our foreign policy and
our handling of the Navy on exactly the same lines
in the future as in the past. To what phase of our
foreign policy, and to what use of the Navy, do our
opponents object? Do they object to the way in
which the Monroe Doctrine has been strengthened
and upheld? Never before has this doctrine been
acquiesced in abroad as it is now; and yet, while
upholding the rights of the weaker American republics
against foreign aggression, the Administration
has lost no opportunity to point out to these
republics that those who seek equity should come
with clean hands, and that whoever claims liberty as
a right must accept the responsibilities that go with
the exercise of the right. Do our opponents object
to what was done in reference to the petition of
American citizens against the Kishineff massacre?
or to the protest against the treatment of the Jews
in Roumania? or to the efforts that have been
made in behalf of the Armenians in Turkey?
No other Administration in our history, no other
Government in the world, has more consistently
stood for the broadest spirit of brotherhood
in our common humanity, or has held a more
resolute attitude of protest against every wrong
that outraged the civilization of the age at home
or abroad. Do our opponents object to the
fact that the international tribunal at The Hague
was rescued from impotence, and turned into a
potent instrument for peace among the nations?
This Government has used that tribunal, and advocated
its use by others, in pursuance of its policy to
promote the cause of international peace and goodwill
by all honorable methods. In carrying out this
policy, it has settled dispute after dispute by arbitration
or by friendly agreement. It has behaved toward
all nations, strong or weak, with courtesy, dignity,
and justice; and it is now on excellent terms
with all.
Do our opponents object to the settlement of the
Alaska boundary line? Do they object to the fact
that after freeing Cuba we gave her reciprocal trade
advantages with the United States, while at the
same time keeping naval stations in the island and
providing against its sinking into chaos, or being
conquered by any foreign Power? Do they object
to the fact that our flag now flies over Porto Rico?
Do they object to the acquisition of Hawaii? Once
they “hauled down” our flag there; we have hoisted
it again; do they intend once more to haul it down?
Do they object to the part we played in China? Do
they not know that the voice of the United States
would now count for nothing in the Far East if we
had abandoned the Philippines and refused to do
what was done in China? Do they object to the
fact that this Government secured a peaceful settlement
of the troubles in Venezuela two years ago?
Do they object to the presence of the ship-of-war off
Colon when the revolution broke out in Panama,
and when only the presence of this ship saved the
lives of American citizens, and prevented insult to
the flag? Do they object to the fact that American
warships appeared promptly at the port of Beirut
when an effort had been made to assassinate an
American official, and in the port of Tangier when
an American citizen had been abducted? and that in
each case the wrong complained of was righted and
expiated? and that within the last few days the visit
of an American squadron to Smyrna was followed
by the long-delayed concession of their just rights
to those Americans concerned in educational work
in Turkey? Do they object to the trade treaty with
China, so full of advantage for the American people
in the future? Do they object to the fact that the
ships carrying the national flag now have a higher
standard than ever before in marksmanship and in
seamanship, as individual units and as component
parts of squadrons and fleets? If they object to
any or all of these things, we join issue with them.
Our foreign policy has been not only highly advantageous
to the United States, but hardly less advantageous
to the world as a whole. Peace and
goodwill have followed in its footsteps. The Government
has shown itself no less anxious to respect
the rights of others than insistent that the rights of
Americans be respected in return. As for the Navy,
it has been and is now the most potent guarantee of
peace; and it is such chiefly because it is formidable,
and ready for use.
When our opponents speak of “encroachments” by
the Executive upon the authority of Congress or the
Judiciary, apparently the act they ordinarily have
in view is Pension Order No. 78, issued under the
authority of existing law. This order directed that
hereafter any veteran of the Civil War who had
reached the age of sixty-two should be presumptively
entitled to the pension of six dollars a month, given
under the dependent pension law to those whose
capacity to earn their livelihood by manual labor
has been decreased fifty per cent, and that by the
time the age of seventy was reached the presumption
should be that the physical disability was complete;
the age being treated as an evidential fact in each
case. This order was made in the performance of
a duty imposed upon the President by an act of Congress,
which requires the Executive to make regulations
to govern the subordinates of the Pension
Office in determining who are entitled to pensions.
President Cleveland had already exercised this
power by a regulation which declared that seventy-five
should be set as the age at which total disability
should be conclusively presumed. Similarly, President
McKinley established sixty-five as the age at
which half disability should be conclusively presumed.
The regulation now in question, in the
exercise of the same power, supplemented these
regulations made under Presidents Cleveland and
McKinley.
The men who fought for union and for liberty in
the years from 1861 to 1865 not only saved this
Nation from ruin, but rendered an inestimable service
to all mankind. We of the United States owe
the fact that to-day we have a country to what they
did; and the Nation has decreed by law that no one
of them, if disabled from earning his own living,
shall lack the pension to which he is entitled, not
only as a matter of gratitude, but as a matter of justice.
It is the policy of the Republican party, steadily
continued through many years, to treat the veterans
of the Civil War in a spirit of broad liberality. The
order in question carried out this policy, and is justified
not merely on legal grounds, but also on grounds
of public morality. It is a matter of common knowledge
that when the average man who depends for
his wages upon bodily labor has reached the age of
sixty-two his earning ability is in all probability less
by half than it was when he was in his prime; and
that by the time he has reached the age of seventy
he has probably lost all earning ability. If there is
doubt upon this point let the doubter examine the
employees doing manual labor in any great manufactory
or any great railroad, and find out how
large is the proportion of men between the ages of
sixty-two and seventy, and whether these men are
still employed at the highly paid tasks which they
did in their prime. As a matter of fact, many railroads
pension their employees when they have
reached these ages, and in nations where old-age
pensions prevail they always begin somewhere between
the two limits thus set. It is easy to test
our opponents’ sincerity in this matter. The order
in question is revocable at the pleasure of the Executive.
If our opponents come into power they can
revoke this order and announce that they will treat
the veterans of sixty-two to seventy as presumably
in full bodily vigor and not entitled to pensions.
Will they now authoritatively state that they intend
to do this? If so, we accept the issue. If not, then
we have the right to ask why they raise an issue
which, when raised, they do not venture to meet.
In addition to those acts of the Administration
which they venture to assail only after misrepresenting
them, there are others which they dare not
overtly or officially attack, and yet which they covertly
bring forward as reasons for the overthrow of
the party. In certain great centres and with certain
great interests our opponents make every effort to
show that the settlement of the Anthracite Coal
Strike by the individual act of the President, and
the successful suit against the Northern Securities
Company—the Merger suit—undertaken by the Department
of Justice, were acts because of which the
present Administration should be thrown from
power. Yet they dare not openly condemn either
act. They dare not in any authoritative or formal
manner say that in either case wrong was done or
error committed in the method of action, or in the
choice of instruments for putting that action into
effect. But what they dare not manfully assert in
open day, they seek to use furtively and through
special agents. It is perhaps natural that an attack
so conducted should be made sometimes on the
ground that too much, sometimes on the ground
that too little, has been done. Some of our opponents
complain because under the anti-trust and
interstate commerce laws suits were undertaken
which have been successful; others, because suits
were not undertaken which would have been unsuccessful.
The Democratic State Convention in New
York dealt with the Anthracite Coal Strike
by demanding in deliberate and formal fashion
that the National Government should take possession
of the coal fields; yet champions of that convention’s
cause now condemn the fact that there
was any action by the President at all—though they
must know that it was only this action by the President
which prevented the movement for national
ownership of the coal fields from gaining what
might well have been an irresistible impetus. Such
mutually destructive criticisms furnish an adequate
measure of the chance for coherent action or constructive
legislation if our opponents should be
given power.
So much for what our opponents openly or covertly
advance in the way of an attack on the acts of
the Administration. When we come to consider the
policies for which they profess to stand we are met
with the difficulty always arising when statements
of policy are so made that they can be interpreted
in different ways. On some of the vital questions
that have confronted the American people in the
last decade, our opponents take the position that
silence is the best possible way to convey their views.
They contend that their lukewarm attitude of partial
acquiescence in what others have accomplished
entitles them to be made the custodians of the
financial honor and commercial interests which
they have but recently sought to ruin. Being unable
to agree among themselves as to whether the
gold standard is a curse or a blessing, and as to
whether we ought or ought not to have free and
unlimited coinage of silver, they have apparently
thought it expedient to avoid any committal on
these subjects, and individually each to follow his
particular bent. Their nearest approach to a majority
judgment seems to be that it is now inexpedient
to assert their convictions one way or the
other, and that the establishment of the gold standard
by the Republican party should not be disturbed
unless there is an alteration in the relative quantity
of production of silver and gold. Men who hold
sincere convictions on vital questions can respect
equally sincere men with whose views they radically
differ; and men may confess a change of faith without
compromising their honor or their self-respect.
But it is difficult to respect an attitude of mind
such as has been fairly described above; and where
there is no respect there can be no trust. A policy
with so slender a basis of principle would not stand
the strain of a single year of business adversity.
We, on the contrary, believe in the gold standard
as fixed by the usage and verdict of the business
world, and in a sound monetary system, as matters
of principle; as matters not of momentary political
expediency, but of permanent organic policy. In
1896 and again in 1900 farsighted men, without
regard to their party fealty in the past, joined to
work against what they regarded as a debased monetary
system. The policies which they championed
have been steadfastly adhered to by the Administration;
and by the act of March 14, 1900, Congress
established the single gold standard as the measure
of our monetary value. This act received the support
of every Republican in the House, and of every
Republican except one in the Senate. Of our opponents,
eleven supported it in the House and two in
the Senate; and one hundred and fifty opposed it in
the House and twenty-eight in the Senate. The
record of the last seven years proves that the party
now in power can be trusted to take the additional
action necessary to improve and strengthen our
monetary system, and that our opponents can not be
so trusted. The fundamental fact is that in a popular
government such as ours no policy is irrevocably
settled by law unless the people keep in control of the
Government men who believe in that policy as a matter
of deep-rooted conviction. Laws can always be
revoked; it is the spirit and the purpose of those
responsible for their enactment and administration
which must be fixed and unchangeable. It is idle to
say that the monetary standard of the Nation is
irrevocably fixed so long as the party which at the
last election cast approximately forty-six per cent
of the total vote refuses to put in its platform any
statement that the question is settled. A determination
to remain silent can not be accepted as equivalent
to a recantation. Until our opponents as a
party explicitly adopt the views which we hold and
upon which we have acted and are acting, in the
matter of sound currency, the only real way to keep
the question from becoming unsettled is to keep the
Republican party in power.
As for what our opponents say in reference to
capital and labor, individual or corporate, here
again all we need by way of answer is to point to
what we have actually done, and to say that if continued
in power we shall continue to carry out the
policy we have been pursuing, and to execute the
laws as resolutely and fearlessly in the future as we
have executed them in the past. In my speech of
acceptance I said:
“We recognize the organization of capital and the
organization of labor as natural outcomes of our
industrial system. Each kind of organization is to
be favored so long as it acts in a spirit of justice and
of regard for the rights of others. Each is to be
granted the full protection of the law, and each in
turn is to be held to a strict obedience to the law;
for no man is above it and no man below it. The
humblest individual is to have his rights safeguarded
as scrupulously as those of the strongest organization,
for each is to receive justice, no more and no
less. The problems with which we have to deal in
our modern industrial and social life are manifold;
but the spirit in which it is necessary to approach
their solution is simply the spirit of honesty, of
courage, and of common-sense.”
The action of the Attorney-General in enforcing
the anti-trust and interstate commerce laws, and the
action of the last Congress in enlarging the scope
of the interstate commerce law, and in creating the
Department of Commerce and Labor, with a Bureau
of Corporations, have for the first time opened a
chance for the National Government to deal intelligently
and adequately with the questions affecting
society, whether for good or for evil, because of
the accumulation of capital in great corporations,
and because of the new relations caused thereby.
These laws are now being administered with entire
efficiency; and as, in their working, need is shown
for amendment or addition to them—whether better
to secure the proper publicity, or better to guarantee
the rights of shippers, or in any other direction—this
need will be met. It is now asserted “that the
common law, as developed, affords a complete legal
remedy against monopolies.” But there is no common
law of the United States. Its rules can be enforced
only by the State courts and officers. No
Federal court or officer could take any action whatever
under them. It was this fact, coupled with the
inability of the States to control trusts and monopolies,
which led to the passage of the Federal
statutes known as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and
the Interstate Commerce Act; and it is only through
the exercise of the powers conferred by these acts,
and by the statutes of the last Congress supplementing
them, that the National Government acquires
any jurisdiction over the subject. To say that action
against trusts and monopolies should be limited
to the application of the common law is equivalent
to saying that the National Government should take
no action whatever to regulate them.
Undoubtedly, the multiplication of trusts and
their increase in power has been largely due to the
“failure of officials charged with the duty of enforcing
the law to take the necessary procedure.”
Such stricture upon the failure of the officials of the
National Government to do their duty in this matter
is certainly not wholly undeserved as far as the Administration
preceding President McKinley’s is concerned;
but it has no application at all to Republican
administration. It is also undoubtedly true that
what is most needed is “officials having both the disposition
and the courage to enforce existing law.”
This is precisely the need that has been met by the
consistent and steadily continued action of the Department
of Justice under the present Administration.
So far as the rights of the individual wage-worker
and the individual capitalist are concerned, both as
regards one another, as regards the public, and as
regards organized capital and labor, the position of
the Administration has been so clear that there is
no excuse for misrepresenting it, and no ground for
opposing it unless misrepresented. Within the limits
defined by the National Constitution the National
Administration has sought to secure to each
man the full enjoyment of his right to live his life
and dispose of his property and his labor as he
deems best, so long as he wrongs no one else. It
has shown in effective fashion that in endeavoring
to make good this guarantee, it treats all men, rich
or poor, whatever their creed, their color, or their
birthplace, as standing alike before the law. Under
our form of government the sphere in which the
Nation as distinguished from the State can act is
narrowly circumscribed; but within that sphere all
that could be done has been done. All thinking
men are aware of the restrictions upon the power
of action of the National Government in such matters.
Being ourselves mindful of them, we have
been scrupulously careful on the one hand to be
moderate in our promises, and on the other hand to
keep these promises in letter and in spirit. Our
opponents have been hampered by no such considerations.
They have promised, and many of them
now promise, action which they could by no possibility
take in the exercise of constitutional power,
and which, if attempted, would bring business to
a standstill; they have used, and often now use,
language of wild invective and appeal to all the
baser passions which tend to excite one set of Americans
against their fellow-Americans; and yet whenever
they have had power they have fittingly supplemented
this extravagance of promise by absolute
nullity in performance.
This Government is based upon the fundamental
idea that each man, no matter what his occupation,
his race, or his religious belief, is entitled to be
treated on his worth as a man, and neither favored
nor discriminated against because of any accident
in his position. Even here at home there is painful
difficulty in the effort to realize this ideal; and
the attempt to secure from other nations acknowledgment
of it sometimes encounters obstacles that
are wellnigh insuperable; for there are many nations
which in the slow procession of the ages have not
yet reached that point where the principles which
Americans regard as axiomatic obtain any recognition
whatever. One of the chief difficulties arises
in connection with certain American citizens of foreign
birth, or of particular creed, who desire to
travel abroad. Russia, for instance, refuses to admit
and protect Jews. Turkey refuses to admit
and protect certain sects of Christians. This Government
has consistently demanded equal protection
abroad for all American citizens, whether native
or naturalized. On March 27, 1899, Secretary
Hay sent a letter of instructions to all the diplomatic
and consular officers of the United States, in
which he said: “This Department does not discriminate
between native-born and naturalized citizens
in according them protection while they are abroad,
equality of treatment being required by the laws
of the United States.” These orders to our agents
abroad have been repeated again and again, and are
treated as the fundamental rule of conduct laid down
for them, proceeding upon the theory “that all naturalized
citizens of the United States while in foreign
countries are entitled to and shall receive from
this Government the same protection of person and
property which is accorded to native-born citizens.”
In issuing passports the State Department never
discriminates, or alludes to any man’s religion; and
in granting to every American citizen, native or
naturalized, Christian or Jew, the same passport, so
far as it has power it insists that all foreign Governments
shall accept the passport as prima facie
proof that the person therein described is a citizen
of the United States and entitled to protection as
such. It is a standing order to every American
diplomatic and consular officer to protect every
American citizen, of whatever faith, from unjust
molestation; and our officers abroad have been stringently
required to comply with this order.
Under such circumstances, the demand of our opponents
that negotiations be begun to secure equal
treatment of all Americans from those Governments
which do not now accord it, shows either
ignorance of the facts or insincerity. No change of
policy in the method or manner of negotiation
would add effectiveness to what the State Department
has done and is doing. The steady pressure
which the Department has been keeping up in the
past will be continued in the future. This Administration
has on all proper occasions given clear expression
to the belief of the American people that
discrimination and oppression because of religion,
wherever practiced, are acts of injustice before God
and man; and in making evident to the world the
depth of American convictions in this regard we
have gone to the very limit of diplomatic usage.
It is a striking evidence of our opponents’ insincerity
in this matter that with their demand for
radical action by the State Department they couple
a demand for a reduction in our small military establishment.
Yet they must know that the heed
paid to our protests against ill-treatment of our
citizens will be exactly proportionate to the belief
in our ability to make these protests effective should
the need arise.
Our opponents have now declared themselves in
favor of the Civil Service law, the repeal of which
they demanded in 1900 and in 1896. If consistent,
they should have gone one step further and congratulated
the country upon the way in which the
Civil Service law is now administered, and the way
in which the classified service has been extended.
The exceptions from examinations are fewer by far
than ever before, and are confined to individual
cases, where the application of the rules would be
impracticable, unwise, unjust, or unnecessary. The
administration of the great body of the classified
civil service is free from politics, and appointments
and removals have been put upon a business basis.
Statistics show that there is little difference between
the tenure of the Federal classified employees and
that of the employees of private business corporations.
Less than one per cent of the classified employees
are over seventy years of age, and in the
main the service rendered is vigorous and efficient.
Where the merit system was of course most needed
was in the Philippine Islands; and a civil service
law of very advanced type has there been put into
operation and scrupulously observed. Without one
exception every appointment in the Philippines has
been made in accordance with the strictest standard
of fitness, and without heed to any other consideration.
Finally, we come to certain matters upon which
our opponents do in their platform of principles
definitely take issue with us, and where, if they are
sincere, their triumph would mean disaster to the
country. But exactly as it is impossible to call attention
to the present promises and past record of
our opponents without seeming offensive, so it is
impossible to compare their platform with their
other and later official utterances and not create
doubt as to their sincerity. In their private or unofficial
utterances many of them frankly advance
this insincerity as a merit, taking the position that
as regards the points on which I am about to speak
they have no intention of keeping their promises or
of departing from the policies now established, and
that therefore they can be trusted not to abuse the
power they seek.
When we take up the great question of the tariff
we are at once confronted by the doubt as to whether
our opponents do or do not mean what they say.
They say that “protection is robbery,” and promise
to carry themselves accordingly if they are given
power. Yet prominent persons among them assert
that they do not really mean this and that if they
come into power they will adopt our policy as regards
the tariff; while others seem anxious to prove
that it is safe to give them partial power, because
the power would be only partial, and therefore they
would not be able to do mischief. The last is certainly
a curious plea to advance on behalf of a party
seeking to obtain control of the Government.
At the outset it is worth while to say a word as
to the attempt to identify the question of tariff revision
or tariff reduction with a solution of the
trust question. This is always a sign of desire to
avoid any real effort to deal adequately with the
trust question. In speaking on this point at Minneapolis,
on April 4, 1903, I said:
“The question of tariff revision, speaking broadly,
stands wholly apart from the question of dealing
with the trusts. No change in tariff duties can have
any substantial effect in solving the so-called trust
problem. Certain great trusts or great corporations
are wholly unaffected by the tariff. Almost
all the others that are of any importance have as a
matter of fact numbers of smaller American competitors;
and of course a change in the tariff which
would work injury to the large corporation would
work not merely injury but destruction to its smaller
competitors; and equally of course such a change
would mean disaster to all the wage-workers connected
with either the large or the small corporations.
From the standpoint of those interested in
the solution of the trust problem such a change
would therefore merely mean that the trust was relieved
of the competition of its weaker American
competitors, and thrown only into competition with
foreign competitors; and that the first effort to meet
this new competition would be made by cutting
down wages, and would therefore be primarily at
the cost of labor. In the case of some of our greatest
trusts such a change might confer upon them a
positive benefit. Speaking broadly, it is evident
that the changes in the tariff will affect the trusts
for weal or for woe simply as they affect the whole
country. The tariff affects trusts only as it affects
all other interests. It makes all these interests,
large or small, profitable; and its benefits can be
taken from the large only under penalty of taking
them from the small also.”
There is little for me to add to this. It is but
ten years since the last attempt was made, by means
of lowering the tariff, to prevent some people from
prospering too much. The attempt was entirely
successful. The tariff law of that year was among
the causes which in that year and for some time
afterward effectually prevented anybody from prospering
too much, and labor from prospering at all.
Undoubtedly it would be possible at the present time
to prevent any of the trusts from remaining prosperous
by the simple expedient of making such a
sweeping change in the tariff as to paralyze the industries
of the country. The trusts would cease to
prosper; but their smaller competitors would be
ruined, and the wage-workers would starve, while it
would not pay the farmer to haul his produce to
market. The evils connected with the trusts can
be reached only by rational effort, step by step,
along the lines taken by Congress and the Executive
during the past three years. If a tariff law is
passed under which the country prospers, as the
country has prospered under the present tariff law,
then all classes will share in the prosperity. If a
tariff law is passed aimed at preventing the prosperity
of some of our people, it is as certain as anything
can be that this aim will be achieved only by
cutting down the prosperity of all of our people.
Of course, if our opponents are not sincere in
their proposal to abolish the system of a protective
tariff, there is no use in arguing the matter at all,
save by pointing out again that if on one great issue
they do not mean what they say, it is hardly safe
to trust them on any other issue. But if they are
sincere in this matter, then their advent to power
would mean domestic misfortune and misery as
widespread and far-reaching as that which we saw
ten years ago. When they speak of protection as
“robbery,” they of course must mean that it is immoral
to enact a tariff designed (as is the present
protective tariff) to secure to the American wage-worker
the benefit of the high standard of living
which we desire to see kept up in this country.
Now to speak of the tariff in this sense as “robbery,”
thereby giving it a moral relation, is not
merely rhetorical; it is on its face false. The question
of what tariff is best for our people is primarily
one of expediency, to be determined not on abstract
academic grounds, but in the light of experience.
It is a matter of business; for fundamentally ours
is a business people—manufacturers, merchants,
farmers, wage-workers, professional men, all alike.
Our experience as a people in the past has certainly
not shown us that we could afford in this
matter to follow those professional counselors who
have confined themselves to study in the closet; for
the actual working of the tariff has emphatically
contradicted their theories. From time to time
schedules must undoubtedly be rearranged and readjusted
to meet the shifting needs of the country;
but this can with safety be done only by those who
are committed to the cause of the protective system.
To uproot and destroy that system would be to
ensure the prostration of business, the closing of
factories, the impoverishment of the farmer, the
ruin of the capitalist, and the starvation of the
wage-worker. Yet, if protection is indeed “robbery,”
and if our opponents really believe what they
say, then it is precisely to the destruction and uprooting
of the tariff, and therefore of our business
and industry, that they are pledged. When our
opponents last obtained power it was on a platform
declaring a protective tariff “unconstitutional”; and
the effort to put this declaration into practice was
one of the causes of the general national prostration
lasting from 1893 to 1897. If a protective tariff
is either “unconstitutional” or “robbery,” then it is
just as unconstitutional, just as much robbery, to
revise it down, still leaving it protective, as it would
be to enact it. In other words, our opponents have
committed themselves to the destruction of the protective
principle in the tariff, using words which if
honestly used forbid them from permitting this principle
to obtain in even the smallest degree.
Our opponents assert that they believe in reciprocity.
Their action on the most important reciprocity
treaty recently negotiated—that with Cuba—does
not bear out this assertion. Moreover, there
can be no reciprocity unless there is a substantial
tariff; free trade and reciprocity are not compatible.
We are on record as favoring arrangements for
reciprocal trade relations with other countries, these
arrangements to be on an equitable basis of benefit
to both the contracting parties. The Republican
party stands pledged to every wise and consistent
method of increasing the foreign commerce of the
country. That it has kept its pledge is proven by
the fact that while the domestic trade of this country
exceeds in volume the entire export and import
trade of all the nations of the world, the United
States has in addition secured more than an eighth
of the export trade of the world, standing first
among the nations in this respect. The United
States has exported during the last seven years
nearly ten billions of dollars’ worth of goods—on an
average half as much again annually as during the
previous four years, when many of our people were
consuming nothing but necessaries, and some of
them a scanty supply even of these.
Two years ago, in speaking at Logansport, Indiana,
I said:
“The one consideration which must never be
omitted in a tariff change is the imperative need
of preserving the American standard of living
for the American workingman. The tariff-rate
must never fall below that which will protect the
American workingman by allowing for the difference
between the general labor cost here and
abroad, so as at least to equalize the conditions
arising from the difference in the standard of labor
here and abroad—a difference which it should be
our aim to foster in so far as it represents the needs
of better educated, better paid, better fed, and better
clothed workingmen of a higher type than any
to be found in a foreign country. At all hazards,
and no matter what else is sought for or accomplished
by changes of the tariff, the American
workingman must be protected in his standard of
wages, that is, in his standard of living, and must
be secured the fullest opportunity of employment.
Our laws should in no event afford advantage to
foreign industries over American industries. They
should in no event do less than equalize the difference
in conditions at home and abroad.”
It is a matter of regret that the protective tariff
policy, which, during the last forty-odd years, has
become part of the very fibre of the country, is not
now accepted as definitely established. Surely we
have a right to say that it has passed beyond the
domain of theory, and a right to expect that not
only its original advocates but those who at one
time distrusted it on theoretic grounds should now
acquiesce in the results that have been proved over
and over again by actual experience. These forty-odd
years have been the most prosperous years this
Nation has ever seen; more prosperous years than
any other nation has ever seen. Beyond question
this prosperity could not have come if the American
people had not possessed the necessary thrift,
energy, and business intelligence to turn their vast
material resources to account. But it is no less true
that it is our economic policy as regards the tariff
and finance which has enabled us as a nation to
make such good use of the individual capacities of
our citizens, and the natural resources of our country.
Every class of our people is benefited by the
protective tariff. During the last few years the
merchant has seen the export trade of this country
grow faster than ever in our previous history. The
manufacturer could not keep his factory running if
it were not for the protective tariff. The wage-worker
would do well to remember that if protection
is “robbery,” and is to be punished accordingly,
he will be the first to pay the penalty; for either he
will be turned adrift entirely, or his wages will be
cut down to the starvation point. As conclusively
shown by the bulletins of the Bureau of Labor, the
purchasing power of the average wage received by
the wage-worker has grown faster than the cost of
living, and this in spite of the continual shortening
of working hours. The accumulated savings of the
workingmen of the country, as shown by the deposits
in the savings banks, have increased by leaps
and bounds. At no time in the history of this or
any other country has there been an era so productive
of material benefit alike to workingman and
employer as during the seven years that have just
passed.
The farmer has benefited quite as much as the
manufacturer, the merchant, and the wage-worker.
The most welcome and impressive fact established
by the last census is the wide and even distribution
of wealth among all classes of our countrymen.
The chief agencies in producing this distribution
are shown by the census to be the development of
manufactures, and the application of new inventions
to universal use. The result has been an increasing
interdependence of agriculture and manufactures.
Agriculture is now, as it always has been, the basis
of civilization. The six million farms of the United
States, operated by men who, as a class, are steadfast,
single-minded, and industrious, form the basis
of all the other achievements of the American people
and are more fruitful than all their other resources.
The men on those six million farms receive
from the protective tariff what they most need, and
that is the best of all possible markets. All other
classes depend upon the farmer, but the farmer in
turn depends upon the market they furnish him for
his produce. The annual output of our agricultural
products is nearly four billions of dollars. Their
increase in value has been prodigious, although agriculture
has languished in most other countries; and
the main factor in this increase is the corresponding
increase of our manufacturing industries.
American farmers have prospered because the
growth of their market has kept pace with the
growth of their farms. The additional market continually
furnished for agricultural products by domestic
manufacturers has been far in excess of the
outlet to other lands. An export trade in farm
products is necessary to dispose of our surplus; and
the export trade of our farmers, both in animal
products and in plant products, has very largely
increased. Without the enlarged home market to
keep this surplus down, we should have to reduce
production or else feed the world at less than the
cost of production. In the forty years ending in
1900 the total value of farm property increased
twelve and a half billions of dollars; the farmer
gaining even more during this period than the
manufacturer. Long ago overproduction would
have checked the marvelous development of our
national agriculture, but for the steadily increasing
demand of American manufacturers for farm products
required as raw materials for steadily expanding
industries. The farmer has become dependent
upon the manufacturer to utilize that portion of his
produce which does not go directly to food supply.
In 1900 fifty-two per cent, or a little over half, of
the total value of the farm products of the Nation
was consumed in manufacturing industries as the
raw materials of the factories. Evidently the
manufacturer is the farmer’s best and most direct
customer. Moreover, the American manufacturer
purchases his farm supplies almost exclusively in
his own country. Nine-tenths of all the raw materials
of every kind and description consumed in
American manufactories are of American production.
The manufacturing establishments tend steadily
to migrate into the heart of the great agricultural
districts. The centre of the manufacturing
industry in 1900 was near the middle of Ohio, and
it is moving westward at the rate of about thirty
miles in every decade; and this movement is invariably
accompanied by a marked increase in the
value of farm lands. Local causes, notably the
competition between new farm lands and old farm
lands, tend here and there to obscure what is happening;
but it is as certain as the operation of any
economic law that in the country as a whole farm
values will continue to increase as the partnership
between manufacturer and farmer grows more
intimate through further advance of industrial
science. The American manufacturer never could
have placed this Nation at the head of the manufacturing
nations of the world if he had not had
behind him, securing him every variety of raw material,
the exhaustless resources of the American
farm, developed by the skill and the enterprise of
intelligent and educated American farmers. On
the other hand, the debt of the farmers to the
manufacturers is equally heavy, and the future of
American agriculture is bound up in the future
of American manufactures. The two industries
have become, under the economic policy of our Government,
so closely interwoven, so mutually interdependent,
that neither can hope to maintain itself
at the high-water mark of progress without the
other. Whatever makes to the advantage of one is
equally to the advantage of the other.
So it is as between the capitalist and the wage-worker.
Here and there there may be an unequal
sharing as between the two in the benefits that have
come by protection; but benefits have come to
both; and a reversal in policy would mean damage
to both; and while the damage would be heavy to
all, it would be heaviest, and it would fall soonest,
upon those who are paid in the form of wages each
week or each month for that week’s or that
month’s work.
Conditions change and the laws must be modified
from time to time to fit new exigencies. But the
genuine underlying principle of protection, as it
has been embodied in all but one of the American
tariff laws for the last forty years, has worked out
results so beneficent, so evenly and widely spread,
so advantageous alike to farmers and capitalists and
workingmen, to commerce and trade of every kind,
that the American people, if they show their usual
practical business sense, will insist that when these
laws are modified they shall be modified with the
utmost care and conservatism, and by the friends
and not the enemies of the protective system. They
can not afford to trust the modification to those who
treat protection and robbery as synonymous terms.
In closing what I have to say about the system of
promoting American industry let me add a word
of cordial agreement with the policy of in some way
including within its benefits, by appropriate legislation,
the American merchant marine. It is not
creditable to us as a nation that our great export
and import trade should be wellnigh exclusively in
the hands of foreigners.
It is difficult to know if our opponents are really
sincere in their demand for the reduction of the
Army. If insincere, there is no need for comment,
and if sincere, what shall we say in speaking to
rational persons of an appeal to reduce an Army of
sixty thousand men which is taking care of the interests
of over eighty million people? The Army is
now relatively smaller than it was in the days of
Washington, when on the peace establishment there
were thirty-six hundred soldiers, while there were
a little less than four millions of population; smaller
than it was in the peaceful days of Jefferson, when
there were fifty-one hundred soldiers to five million
three hundred thousand population. There is
now one soldier to every fourteen hundred people in
this country—less than one-tenth of one per cent.
We can not be asked seriously to argue as to the
amount of possible tyranny contained in these
figures. The Army as it is now is as small as it
can possibly be and serve its purpose as an effective
nucleus for the organization, equipment, and supply
of a volunteer army in time of need. It is now
used, as never before, for aiding in the upbuilding
of the organized militia of the country. The War
Department is engaged in a systematic effort to
strengthen and develop the National Guard in the
several States; as witness, among many other instances,
the great field manœuvres at Manassas,
which have just closed. If our opponents should
come into power they could not reduce our Army
below its present size without greatly impairing its
efficiency and abandoning part of the national duty.
In short, in this matter, if our opponents should
come into power they would either have to treat
this particular promise of the year 1904 as they now
treat the promises they made in 1896 and 1900,
that is, as possessing no binding force; or else they
would have to embark on a policy which would be
ludicrous at the moment, and fraught with grave
danger to the national honor in the future.
Our opponents contend that the Government is
now administered extravagantly, and that whereas
there was “a surplus of $80,000,000 in 1900” there
is “a deficit of more than $40,000,000” in the year
that has just closed.
This deficit is imaginary, and is obtained by including
in the ordinary current expenses the sum
of fifty millions, which was paid for the right of
way of the Panama Canal out of the accumulated
surplus in the Treasury. Comparing the current
or ordinary expenditures for the two years, there
was a surplus of nearly eighty millions for the year
1900, and of only a little more than eight millions
for the year that has just closed. But this diminution
of the annual surplus was brought about designedly
by the abolition of the war taxes in the
interval between the two dates. The acts of
March 2, 1901, and April 12, 1902, cut down the
internal revenue taxes to an amount estimated at
one hundred and five millions a year. In other
words, the reduction of taxation has been considerably
greater than the reduction in the annual
surplus. Since the close of the war with Spain
there has been no substantial change in the rate of
annual expenditures. As compared with the fiscal
year ending in June, 1901, for example, the fiscal
year that has just closed showed a relatively small
increase in expenditure (excluding the canal payment
already referred to), while the year previous
showed a relatively small decrease.
The expenditures of the Nation have been managed
in a spirit of economy as far removed from
waste as from niggardliness; and in the future
every effort will be continued to secure an economy
as strict as is consistent with efficiency. Once more
our opponents have promised what they can not or
should not perform. The prime reason why the
expenses of the Government have increased of
recent years is to be found in the fact that the
people, after mature thought, have deemed it wise
to have certain new forms of work for the public
undertaken by the public. This necessitates such
expenditures, for instance, as those for rural free
delivery, or for the inspection of meats under the
Department of Agriculture, or for irrigation. But
these new expenditures are necessary; no one would
seriously propose to abandon them; and yet it is
idle to declaim against the increased expense of the
Government unless it is intended to cut down the
very expenditures which cause the increase. The
pensions to the veterans of the Civil War are demanded
by every sentiment of regard and gratitude.
The rural free-delivery is of the greatest
use and convenience to the farmers, a body of men
who live under conditions which make them ordinarily
receive little direct return for what they pay
toward the support of the Government. The irrigation
policy in the arid and semi-arid regions of
the West is one fraught with the most beneficent
and far-reaching good to the actual settlers, the
homemakers, whose encouragement is a traditional
feature in America’s National policy. Do our opponents
grudge the fifty millions paid for the
Panama Canal? Do they intend to cut down on
the pensions to the veterans of the Civil War?
Do they intend to put a stop to the irrigation policy?
or to the permanent census bureau? or to immigration
inspection? Do they intend to abolish rural
free-delivery? Do they intend to cut down the
Navy? or the Alaskan telegraph system? Do they
intend to dismantle our coast fortifications? If
there is to be a real and substantial cutting down in
national expenditures it must be in such matters
as these. The Department of Agriculture has done
service of incalculable value to the farmers of this
country in many different lines. Do our opponents
wish to cut down the money for this service? They
can do it only by destroying the usefulness of the
service itself.
The public work of the United States has never
been conducted with a higher degree of honesty
and efficiency than at the present time; and a special
meed of praise belongs to those officials responsible
for the Philippines and Porto Rico, where the administrations
have been models of their kind. Of
course, wrong has occasionally occurred, but it has
been relentlessly stamped out. We have known no
party in dealing with offenders, and have hunted
down without mercy every wrong-doer in the service
of the Nation whom it was possible by the utmost
vigilance to detect; for the public servant who
betrays his trust and the private individual who debauches
him stand as the worst of criminals, because
their crimes are crimes against the entire community,
and not only against this generation, but
against the generations that are yet to be.
Our opponents promise independence to the
Philippine Islands. Here again we are confronted
by the fact that their irreconcilable differences of
opinion among themselves, their proved inability to
create a constructive policy when in power, and
their readiness, for the sake of momentary political
expediency, to abandon the principles upon which
they have insisted as essential, conspire to puzzle us
as to whether they do or do not intend in good faith
to carry out this promise if they are given control
of the Government. In their platform they declare
for independence, apparently—for their language
is a little obscure—without qualification as to
time; and indeed a qualification as to time is an absurdity,
for we have neither right nor power to bind
our successors when it is impossible to foretell the
conditions which may confront them; while if there
is any principle involved in the matter, it is just as
wrong to deny independence for a few years as to
deny it for an indefinite period. But in later and
equally official utterances by our opponents the term
self-government was substituted for independence;
the words used being so chosen that in their natural
construction they described precisely the policy now
being carried on. The language of the platform indicated
a radical change of policy; the later utterances
indicated a continuance of the present policy.
But this caused trouble in their own ranks; and in a
still later, although less formal, utterance, the self-government
promise was recanted, and independence
at some future time was promised in its place. They
have occupied three entirely different positions within
fifty days. Which is the promise they really intend
to keep? They do not know their own minds;
and no one can tell how long they would keep of
the same mind, should they by any chance come to
a working agreement among themselves. If such
ambiguity affected only the American people it
would not so greatly matter; for the American people
can take care of themselves. But the Filipinos
are in no such condition. Confidence is with them
a plant of slow growth. They have been taught to
trust the word of this Government because this Government
has promised nothing which it did not perform.
If promised independence they will expect
independence; not in the remote future, for their
descendants, but immediately, for themselves. If
the promise thus made is not immediately fulfilled
they will regard it as broken, and will not again trust
to American faith; and it would be indeed a wicked
thing to deceive them in such fashion. Moreover,
even if the promise were made to take effect only in
the distant future, the Filipinos would be thrown
into confusion thereby. Instead of continuing to
endeavor to fit themselves for moral and material
advancement in the present, they would abandon all
effort at progress and begin factional intrigues for
future power.
To promise to give them independence when it is
“prudent” to do so, or when they are “fit” for it, of
course implies that they are not fit for it now, and
that it would be imprudent to give it to them
now. But as we must ourselves be the judges as to
when they become “fit,” and when it would be “prudent”
to keep such a promise if it were made, it
necessarily follows that to make such a promise now
would amount to a deception upon the Filipinos.
It may well be that our opponents have no real
intention of putting their promise into effect. If
this is the case, if, in other words, they are insincere
in the promise they make, it is only necessary to say
again that it is unwise to trust men who are false
in one thing to deal with anything. The mere consciousness
of broken faith would hamper them in
continuing our policy in the islands; and only by
continuing unchanged this policy can the honor of
the country be maintained, or the interests of the
islands subserved. If, on the other hand, our opponents
came into power and attempted to carry out
their promises to the Filipinos by giving them independence,
and withdrawing American control
from the islands, the result would be a frightful
calamity to the Filipinos themselves, and in its larger
aspect would amount to an international crime.
Anarchy would follow; and the most violent anarchic
forces would be directed partly against the civil government,
partly against all forms of religious and
educational civilization. Bloody conflicts would inevitably
ensue in the archipelago, and just as inevitably
the islands would become the prey of the first
Power which in its own selfish interest took up the
task we had cravenly abandoned. Of course, the
practical difficulty in adopting any such course of
action—such a “policy of scuttle,” as President McKinley
called it—would be found wellnigh insuperable.
If it is morally indefensible to hold the archipelago
as a whole under our tutelage in the interest
of its own people, then it is morally indefensible to
hold any part of it. In such case, what right have
we to keep a coaling station? What right to keep
control over the Moro peoples? What right to protect
the Igorrotes from their oppressors? What
right to protect the law-abiding friends of America
in the islands from treachery, robbery, and murder?
Yet, to abandon the islands completely, without
even retaining a coaling station, would mean to
abandon the position in the competition for the trade
of the Orient which we have acquired during the
last six years; and what is far more important, it
would mean irreparable damage to those who have
become the wards of the Nation. To abandon all
control over the Moros would amount to releasing
these Moros to prey upon the Christian Filipinos,
civilized or semi-civilized, as well as upon the commerce
of other peoples. The Moros are in large
part still in the stage of culture where the occupations
of the bandit and the pirate are those most
highly regarded; and it has not been found practical
to give them self-government in the sense that
we have been giving it to the Christian inhabitants.
To abandon the Moro country as our opponents
propose in their platform, would be precisely as if
twenty-five years ago we had withdrawn the Army
and the civil agents from within and around the
Indian reservations in the West, at a time when the
Sioux and the Apache were still the terror of our
settlers. It would be a criminal absurdity; and yet
our opponents have pledged themselves thereto. If
successful in the coming election they would either
have to break faith, or else to do an act which would
leave an indelible stain upon our national reputation
for courage, and for good sense. During the last
five years more has been done for the material and
moral well-being of the Filipinos than ever before
since the islands first came within the ken of civilized
man. We have opened before them a vista of
orderly development in their own interest, and not
a policy of exploitation. Every effort is being made
to fit the islanders for self-government, and they
have already in large measure received it, while for
the first time in their history their personal rights
and civil liberties have been guaranteed. They are
being educated; they have been given schools; they
have been given libraries; roads are being built for
their use; their health is being cared for; they have
been given courts in which they receive justice as
absolute as it is in our power to guarantee. Their
individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness are now by act of Congress jealously safeguarded
under the American flag; and if the protection
of the flag were withdrawn their rights would
be lost, and the islands would be plunged back under
some form of vicious tyranny. We have given them
more self-government than they have ever before
had; we are taking steps to increase it still further
by providing them with an elected legislative assembly;
and surely we had better await the results of
this experiment—for it is a wholly new experiment
in Asia—before we make promises which as a Nation
we might be forced to break, or which they
might interpret one way and we another. It may
be asserted without fear of successful contradiction
that nowhere else in recent years has there been as
fine an example of constructive statesmanship and
wise and upright Administration as has been given
by the civil authorities, aided by the Army, in the
Philippine Islands. We have administered them in
the interest of their own people; and the Filipinos
themselves have profited most by our presence in
the islands; but they have also been of very great
advantage to us as a nation.
So far from having “sapped the foundations” of
free popular government at home by the course
taken in the Philippines, we have been spreading
its knowledge, and teaching its practice, among peoples
to whom it had never before been more than an
empty name. Our action represents a great stride
forward in spreading the principles of orderly liberty
throughout the world. “Our flag has not lost
its gift of benediction in its world-wide journey to
their shores.” We have treated the power we have
gained as a solemn obligation, and have used it in
the interest of mankind; and the peoples of the
world, and especially the weaker peoples of the
world, are better off because of the position we have
assumed. To retrace our steps would be to give
proof of an infirm and unstable national purpose.
Four years ago, in his speech of acceptance, President
McKinley said:
“We have been moving in untried paths, but our
steps have been guided by honor and duty. There
will be no turning aside, no wavering, no retreat.
No blow has been struck except for liberty and
humanity, and none will be. We will perform without
fear every national and international obligation.
The Republican party was dedicated to freedom
forty-four years ago. It has been the party of liberty
and emancipation from that hour; not of profession,
but of performance. It broke the shackles
of four million slaves, and made them free, and to
the party of Lincoln has come another supreme
opportunity which it has bravely met in the liberation
of ten millions of the human family from the yoke
of imperialism. In its solution of great problems,
in its performance of high duties, it has had the
support of members of all parties in the past, and
it confidently invokes their co-operation in the
future.”
This is as true now as four years ago. We did
not take the Philippines at will, and we can not put
them aside at will. Any abandonment of the policy
which we have steadily pursued in the islands would
be fraught with dishonor and disaster; and to such
dishonor and disaster I do not believe that the
American people will consent.
Alarm has been professed lest the Filipinos should
not receive all the benefits guaranteed to our people
at home by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
As a matter of fact, the Filipinos have
already secured the substance of these benefits. This
Government has been true to the spirit of the Fourteenth
Amendment in the Philippines. Can our
opponents deny that here at home the principles of
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments have
been in effect nullified? In this, as in many other
matters, we at home can well profit by the example
of those responsible for the actual management of
affairs in the Philippines. In our several commonwealths
here in the United States we, as a people,
now face the complex problem of securing fair
treatment to each man regardless of his race or color.
We can do so only if we approach the problem in
the spirit of courage, common-sense, and high-minded
devotion to the right, which has enabled
Governor Taft, Governor Wright, and their associates,
to do so noble a work in giving to the Philippine
people the benefit of the true principles of
American liberty.
Our appeal is made to all good citizens who hold
the honor and the interest of the Nation close to
their hearts. The great issues which are at stake,
and upon which I have touched, are more than mere
partisan issues, for they involve much that comes
home to the individual pride and individual well-being
of our people. Under conditions as they actually
are, good Americans should refuse, for the
sake of the welfare of the Nation, to change the
national policy. We, who are responsible for the administration
and legislation under which this country,
during the last seven years, has grown so greatly
in well-being at home and in honorable repute
among the nations of the earth abroad, do not stand
inertly upon this record, do not use this record
as an excuse for failure of effort to meet new conditions.
On the contrary, we treat the record of
what we have done in the past as incitement to do
even better in the future. We believe that the progress
that we have made may be taken as a measure
of the progress we shall continue to make if the
people again intrust the Government of the Nation
to our hands. We do not stand still. We press
steadily forward toward the goal of moral and material
well-being for our own people, of just and
fearless dealing toward all other peoples, in the
interest not merely of this country, but of mankind.
There is not a policy, foreign or domestic, which we
are now carrying out, which it would not be disastrous
to reverse or abandon. If our opponents
should come in and should not reverse our policies,
then they would be branded with the brand of
broken faith, of false promise, of insincerity in word
and deed; and no man can work to the advantage of
the Nation with such a brand clinging to him. If,
on the other hand, they should come in and reverse
any or all of our policies, by just so much would
the Nation as a whole be damaged. Alike as lawmakers
and as administrators of the law we have
endeavored to do our duty in the interest of the
people as a whole. We make our appeal to no
class and to no section, but to all good citizens, in
whatever part of the land they dwell, and whatever
may be their occupation or worldly condition. We
have striven both for civic righteousness and for
national greatness; and we have faith to believe that
our hands will be upheld by all who feel love of
country and trust in the uplifting of mankind. We
stand for enforcement of the law and for obedience
to the law; our Government is a government of
orderly liberty equally alien to tyranny and to
anarchy; and its foundation-stone is the observance
of the law, alike by the people and by the public
servants. We hold ever before us as the all-important
end of policy and administration the reign of
peace at home and throughout the world; of peace,
which comes only by doing justice.
Faithfully yours,
Theodore Roosevelt.
Gentlemen of the Interparliamentary Union:
I greet you with profound pleasure as representatives
in a special sense of the great international
movement for peace and goodwill among the
nations of the earth. It is a matter of gratification
to all Americans that we have had the honor of receiving
you here as the Nation’s guests. You are
men skilled in the practical work of government in
your several countries; and this fact adds weight to
your championship of the cause of international
justice. I thank you for your kind allusions to
what the Government of the United States has accomplished
for the policies you have at heart, and
I assure you that this Government’s attitude will
continue unchanged in reference thereto. We are
even now taking steps to secure arbitration treaties
with all other Governments which are willing to
enter into them with us.
In response to your resolutions I shall at an early
date ask the other nations to join in a second Congress
at The Hague. I feel, as I am sure you do,
that our efforts should take the shape of pushing
forward toward completion the work already begun
at The Hague, and that whatever is now done
should appear not as something divergent therefrom,
but as a continuance thereof. At the first
conference at The Hague several questions were
left unsettled, and it was expressly provided that
there should be a second conference. A reasonable
time has elapsed, and I feel that your body has
shown sound judgment in concluding that a second
conference should now be called to carry some steps
further toward completion the work of the first.
It would be visionary to expect too immediate success
for the great cause you are championing; but
very substantial progress can be made if we strive
with resolution and good sense toward the goal of
securing among the nations of the earth, as among
the individuals of each nation, a just sense of responsibility
in each toward others, and a just recognition
in each of the rights of others. The right and
the responsibility must go hand in hand. Our effort
must be unceasing both to secure in each nation
full acknowledgment of the rights of others, and
to bring about in each nation an ever growing sense
of its own responsibilities.
At an early date I shall issue the call for the conference
you request.
I again greet you and bid you welcome in the
name of the American people, and wish you Godspeed
in your efforts for the common good of
mankind.
White House, Washington
November 4, 1904
Certain slanderous accusations as to Mr. Cortelyou
and myself have been repeated time and
again by Judge Parker, the candidate of his party
for the office of President. He neither has produced
nor can produce any proof of their truth;
yet he has not withdrawn them; and as his position
gives them wide currency, I speak now lest the
silence of self-respect be misunderstood. Mr.
Parker’s charges are in effect that the President
of the United States and Mr. Cortelyou, formerly
Mr. Cleveland’s executive clerk, then Mr. McKinley’s
and my secretary, then Secretary of Commerce
and Labor, and now Chairman of the Republican
National Committee, have been in a conspiracy to
blackmail corporations, Mr. Cortelyou using his
knowledge gained while he was Secretary of the
Department of Commerce and Labor to extort
money from the corporations, and I, the President,
having appointed him for this especial purpose.
The gravamen of these charges lies in the assertion
that the corporations have been blackmailed into
contributing, and in the implication, which in one
or two of Mr. Parker’s speeches has taken the form
practically of an assertion, that they have been
promised certain immunities or favors, or have
been assured that they would receive some kind of
improper consideration in view of their contributions.
That contributions have been made to the
Republican Committee, as contributions have been
made to the Democratic Committee, is not the question
at issue. Mr. Parker’s assertion is in effect
that such contributions have been made for improper
motives, either in consequence of threats or
in consequence of improper promises, direct or indirect,
on the part of the recipients. Mr. Parker
knows best whether this is true of the contributions
to his campaign fund which have come through his
trusted friends and advisers who represent the
great corporate interests that stand behind him.
But there is not one particle of truth in the statement
as regards anything that has gone on in the
management of the Republican campaign. Mr.
Parker’s accusations against Mr. Cortelyou and me
are monstrous. If true they would brand both of
us forever with infamy; and inasmuch as they are
false, heavy must be the condemnation of the man
making them. I chose Mr. Cortelyou as Chairman
of the National Committee after having failed
successively to persuade Mr. Elihu Root, Mr. W.
Murray Crane, and Mr. Cornelius N. Bliss to accept
the position. I chose him with extreme reluctance,
because I could ill spare him from the
Cabinet. But I felt that he possessed the high integrity
which I demanded in the man who was to manage
my campaign. I am content that Mr. Parker
and I should be judged by the public on the characters
of the two men whom we chose to manage our
campaigns; he by the character of his nominee, Mr.
Thomas Taggart, and I by the character of Mr.
Cortelyou. The assertion that Mr. Cortelyou had
any knowledge, gained while in an official position,
whereby he was enabled to secure and did secure
any contributions from any corporation is a falsehood.
The assertion that there has been any blackmail,
direct or indirect, by Mr. Cortelyou or by me
is a falsehood. The assertion that there has been
made in my behalf and by my authority, by Mr.
Cortelyou or by any one else, any pledge or promise,
or that there has been any understanding as to
future immunities or benefits, in recognition of any
contributions from any source, is a wicked falsehood.
That Mr. Parker should desire to avoid the discussion
of principles I can well understand; for it
is but the bare truth to say that he has not attacked
us on any matter of principle or upon any action
of the Government save after first misstating that
principle or that action. But I can not understand
how any honorable man, a candidate for the highest
office in the gift of the people, can take refuge not
merely in personalities, but in such base and unworthy
personalities. If I deemed it necessary to
support my flat denial by any evidence, I would
ask all men of common-sense to ponder well what
has been done in this campaign by Mr. Cortelyou,
and to compare it with what Mr. Parker himself
did when he was managing Mr. Hill’s campaign
for Governor; and to compare what has been done
as regards the great corporations and moneyed interests
under this Administration with what was
done under the last Democratic Administration
while Mr. Olney was Attorney-General; I would ask
all honest men whether they seriously deem it possible
that the course this Administration has taken
in every matter, from the Northern Securities suit
to the settlement of the anthracite coal strike, is
compatible with any theory of public behavior save
the theory of doing exact justice to all men without
fear and without favoritism; I would ask all
honest and fair-minded men to remember that the
agents through whom I have worked are Mr. Knox
and Mr. Moody in the Department of Justice, Mr.
Cortelyou in the Department of Commerce and
Labor, and Mr. Garfield in the Bureau of Corporations,
and that no such act of infamy as Mr. Parker
charges could have been done without all these men
being parties to it.
The statements made by Mr. Parker are unqualifiedly
and atrociously false. As Mr. Cortelyou
has said to me more than once during the
campaign, if elected I shall go into the Presidency
unhampered by any pledge, promise, or understanding
of any kind, sort or description, save my
promise, made openly to the American people, that
so far as in my power lies I shall see to it that every
man has a square deal, no less and no more.
Theodore Roosevelt.
Mr. Ambassador:
Through you I wish on behalf of the people of
the United States to thank his Majesty, the German
Emperor, and the people of Germany for the
gift to the Nation which you have just formally
delivered to me. I accept it with deep appreciation
of the friendly regard which it typifies for the
people of this Republic both on the part of the
Emperor and on the part of the German people.
I accept it not merely as the statue of one of the
half-dozen greatest soldiers of all time, and therefore
peculiarly appropriate for placing in this War
College, but I accept it as the statue of a great man,
whose life was devoted to the service of a great
people, and whose deeds hastened the approach of
the day when a united Germany should spring into
being.
As a soldier Frederick the Great ranks in that
very, very small group which includes Alexander,
Cæsar, and Hannibal in antiquity, and Napoleon,
and possibly Gustavus Adolphus, in modern times.
He belonged to the ancient and illustrious house of
Hohenzollern, which, after playing a strong and
virile part in the Middle Ages, and after producing
some men, like the great Elector, who were among
the most famous princes of their time, founded the
royal house of Prussia two centuries ago, and at
last in our own day established the mighty German
Empire as among the foremost of world
powers. We receive this gift now at the hands of
the present Emperor, himself a man who has
markedly added to the lustre of his great house and
his great nation, a man who has devoted his life
to the welfare of his people, and who, while keeping
ever ready to defend the rights of that people,
has also made it evident in emphatic fashion that
he and they desire peace and friendship with the
other nations of the earth.
It is not my purpose here to discuss at length
the career of the mighty King and mighty General
whose statue we have just received. In all history
no other great commander save only Hannibal
fought so long against such terrible odds, and while
Hannibal finally failed, Frederick finally triumphed.
In almost every battle he fought against great
odds, and he almost always won the victory. When
defeated he rose to an even greater altitude than
when victorious. The memory of the Seven Years’
War will last as long as there lives in mankind the
love of heroism, and its operations will be studied
to the minutest detail as long as the world sees a
soldier worthy of the name. It is difficult to know
whether to admire most the victories of Leuthen
and Prague, Rossbach and Zorndorf, or the heartbreaking
campaigns after Kunersdorf, when the
great King, after having been beaten to the ground
by the banded might of Europe, yet rose again and
by an exhibition of skill, tenacity, energy, and daring
such as had never before been seen united in
one person, finally wrested triumph from defeat.
Not only must the military scholar always turn to
the career of Frederick the Great for lessons in
strategy and tactics; not only must the military
administrator always turn to his career for lessons
in organizing success; not only will the lover of
heroism read the tales of his mighty feats as long
as mankind cares for heroic deeds; but even those
who are not attracted by the valor of the soldier
must yet, for the sake of the greatness of the man,
ponder and admire the lessons taught by his undaunted
resolution, his inflexible tenacity of purpose,
his farsighted grasp of lofty possibilities, and
his unflinching, unyielding determination in following
the path he had marked out. It is eminently
fitting that the statue of this iron soldier, this born
leader of men, should find a place in this War College;
for when soldierly genius and soldierly heroism
reach the highest point of achievement the man in
whom they are displayed grows to belong not
merely to the nation from which he sprang, but to
all nations capable of showing, and therefore capable
of appreciating, the virile and masterful virtues
which alone make victors in those dread struggles
where resort is at last had to the arbitrament of
arms.
But, Mr. Ambassador, in accepting the statue
given us to-day through you from the German Emperor,
I accept it not merely because it is the statue
of a mighty and terrible soldier, but I accept it as
a symbol of the ties of friendship and goodwill
which I trust as the years go on will bind ever closer
together the American and the German peoples.
There is kinship of blood between the two nations.
We of the United States are of mixed stock. In
our veins runs the blood of almost all the peoples
of middle, northern, and western Europe. We already
have a history of which we feel that we have
the right to be legitimately proud, and yet our nationality
is still in the formative period. Nearly
three centuries have elapsed since the landing of
the English at Jamestown marked the beginning
of what has since grown into the United States.
During these three centuries streams of newcomers
from many different countries abroad have
in each generation contributed to swell the increase
of our people. Soon after the English settled in
Virginia and New England, the Hollander settled
at the mouth of the Hudson and the Swede at the
mouth of the Delaware. Even in Colonial days
the German element had become very strong
among our people in various parts of this country;
the Irish element was predominant in the foothills
of the Alleghenies; French Huguenots were
numerous. By the time of the Declaration of Independence
that process of fusion which has gone
on ever since was well under way. From the beginning
of our national history men of German
origin or German parentage played a distinguished
part in the affairs both of peace and of war. In
the Revolutionary War one of the leading generals
was Muhlenberg, an American of German descent,
just as among the soldiers from abroad who came
to aid us one of the most prominent was the German,
Steuben. Muhlenberg was the first Speaker
of the House of Representatives; and the battle
which in the Revolution saved the valley of the
Mohawk to the American cause was fought under
the lead of the German, Herkimer. As all the different
races here tend rapidly to fuse together, it
is rarely possible after one or two generations to
draw a sharp line between the various elements;
but there is no student of our national conditions
who has failed to appreciate what an invaluable
element in our composite stock the German is.
Here, on this platform, Mr. Ambassador, among
those present to-day are many men partly or wholly
of German blood, and among the officers of the
Army and Navy who have listened to you and
who now join with me in greeting you there are
many whose fathers or grandfathers were born in
Germany, and not a few who themselves first saw
the light there.
Each nation has its allotted tasks to do; each
nation has its peculiar difficulties to encounter;
and as the peoples of the world tend to become more
closely knit together alike for good and for evil,
it becomes ever more important to all that each
should prosper; for the prosperity of one is normally
not a sign of menace but a sign of hope for
the rest. Here on this Continent where it is absolutely
essential that the different peoples coming
to our shores should not remain separate, but
should fuse into one, our unceasing effort is to
strive to keep and profit by the good that each race
brings to our shores, and at the same time to
do away with all racial and religious animosities
among the various stocks. In both efforts we have
met with an astonishing measure of success. As
the years go by it becomes not harder but easier to
live in peace and goodwill among ourselves; and I
firmly believe that it will also become not harder
but easier to dwell in peace and friendship with the
other nations of the earth. A young people, a
people of composite stock, we have kinship with
many different nations, but we are identical with
none of them, and are developing a separate national
stock as we have already developed a separate
national life. We have in our veins the blood of
the Englishman, the Irishman, and the Welshman,
the German and the Frenchman, the Scotchman,
the Dutchman, the Scandinavian, the Italian, the
Magyar, the Finn, the Slav, so that to each of the
great powers of the Old World we can claim a
more or less distant kinship by blood; and to each
strain of blood we owe some peculiar quality in our
national life or national character. As such is the
case it is natural that we should have a peculiar
feeling of nearness to each of many peoples across
the water. We most earnestly wish not only to keep
unbroken our friendship for each, but so far as we
can without giving offence by an appearance of meddling,
to seek to bring about a better understanding
and a broader spirit of fair dealing and toleration
among all nations. It has been my great
pleasure, Mr. Ambassador, in pursuance of this
object, recently to take with you the first steps in
the negotiation of a treaty of friendly arbitration
between Germany and the United States.
In closing, let me thank you, and through you
the German Emperor and the German people, for
this statue, which I accept in the name of the
American people; a people claiming blood kinship
with your own; a people owing much to Germany;
a people which, though with a national history far
shorter than that of your people, nevertheless, like
your people, is proud of the great deeds of its past,
and is confident in the majesty of its future. I
most earnestly pray that in the coming years these
two great nations shall move on toward their several
destinies knit together by ties of the heartiest
friendship and goodwill.
Cardinal Gibbons, Father Stafford, and you, my
Fellow-Americans:
It is a great pleasure to me to be present with you
to-day to assist at the dedication of the school, hall,
and rectory of this Parish, a Parish whose one hundred
and tenth anniversary we also now celebrate;
for this Parish was founded six years before the
national capital was placed in the present District
of Columbia. I am glad indeed to have been introduced,
Cardinal Gibbons, by you, the spiritual representative
in a peculiar sense of that Bishop Carroll
who played so illustrious a part in the affairs of
the Church, and whose kinsfolk played as illustrious
a part in the affairs of the Nation at the dawning
of this Government. In greeting all of you I wish
to say that I am especially glad to see the children
present. You know I believe in children. I want
to see enough of them and of the right kind.
I wish to-day, in the very brief remarks that I
have to make, to dwell upon this thought—the
thought that ought to be in the mind of every man
and woman here, the thought that while in this
country we need wise laws honestly and fearlessly
executed, and while we can not afford to tolerate
anything but the highest standard in the public service
of the Government, yet that in the last analysis
the future of the country must depend upon the
quality of the individual home, of the individual
man or woman in that home. The future of this
country depends upon the way in which the average
man and the average woman in it does his or her
duty, and that very largely depends upon the way
in which the average boy or girl is brought up.
Therefore, a peculiar responsibility rests upon those
whose lifework it is to see to the spiritual welfare
of our people and upon those who make it their
lifework to try to train the citizens of the future
so that they shall be worthy of that future. In
wishing you well to-day, I wish you well in doing
the most important work which is allotted to any
of our people to do. The rules of good citizenship
are tolerably simple. The trouble is not in finding
them out; the trouble is in living up to them after
they have been found out. I think we all of us
know fairly well what qualities they are which in
their sum make up the type of character we like
to see in man or wife, son or daughter; but I am
afraid we do not always see them as well developed
as we would like to. I wish to see in the
average American citizen the development of the
two sets of qualities which we can roughly indicate
as sweetness and strength—the qualities on the one
hand which make the man able to hold his own,
and those which on the other hand make him jealous
for the rights of others just as much as for his
own rights. We must have both sets of qualities.
In the first place, the man must have the power to
hold his own. You probably know that I do not
care very much for the coward or the moral weakling.
I want each of you boys, and the girls just
as much, and each of you young men and young
women, to have the qualities without which people
may be amiable and pleasant while things go well,
but without which they can not succeed in times of
stern trial. I wish to see in the man manliness, in
the woman womanliness. I wish to see courage,
perseverance, the willingness to face work, to face,
you men, if it is necessary, danger, the determination
not to shrink back when temporarily beaten in
life, as each one will be now and then, but to come
up again and wrest triumph from defeat. I want
to see you men strong men and brave men, and in
addition I wish to see each man of you feel that
his strength and his courage but make him the
worse unless to that strength and courage are
joined the qualities of tenderness toward those he
loves, who are dependent upon him, and of right
dealing with all his neighbors.
Finally, I want to congratulate all of us here
on certain successes that we have achieved in the
century and a quarter that has gone by of our
American life. We have difficulties enough, and
we are a long ways short of perfection. I do not
see any immediate danger of our growing too
good; there is ample room for effort yet left. But
we have achieved certain results, we have succeeded
in measurably realizing certain ideals. We have
grown to accept it as an axiomatic truth of our
American life that the man is to be treated on his
worth as a man, without regard to the accidents of
his position; that this is not a Government designed
to favor the rich man as such, or the poor man as
such, but that it is designed to favor every man,
rich or poor, if he is a decent man who acts fairly
by his fellows. We have grown to realize that
part of the foundations upon which our liberty rests
is the right of each man to worship his Creator
according to the dictates of his conscience, and the
duty of each man to respect his fellow who so worships
Him. And, oh! my countrymen, one of the
best auguries for the future of this country, for the
future of this mighty and majestic Nation of ours,
lies in the fact that we have grown to regard one
another, that we brothers have grown to regard one
another, with a broad and kindly charity, and to
realize the field for human endeavor is wide, that
the field for charitable, philanthropic, religious work
is wide, and that while a corner of it remains untilled
we do a dreadful wrong if we fail to welcome
the work done in that field by every man, no matter
what his creed, provided only he works with a
lofty sense of his duty to God and his duty to his
neighbor.
Mr. Macfarland, Mr. Wagner, Men and Women of
Washington:
This is the first and will be the only time during
my Presidency that I shall ever introduce a speaker
to an audience; and I am more than glad to do it in
this instance, because if there is one book which I
should like to have read as a tract, and also, what is
not invariably true of tracts, as an interesting tract,
by all our people, it is “The Simple Life,” written
by Mr. Wagner. There are other books which he
has written from which we can gain great good,
but I know of no other book written of recent years
anywhere, here or abroad, which contains so much
that we of America ought to take to our hearts as
is contained in “The Simple Life.” I like the book
because it does not merely preach to the rich, and
does not merely preach to the poor. It is a very
easy thing to address a section of the community in
reprobation of the forms of vice to which it is not
prone. What we need to have impressed upon us
is that it is not usually the root principle of the vice
that varies with variation in social conditions, but
that it is the manifestation of the vice that varies;
and Mr. Wagner has well brought out the great
fundamental truth that the brutal arrogance of a
rich man who looks down upon a poor man because
he is poor, and the brutal envy and hatred felt by
a poor man toward a rich man merely because he is
rich, are at bottom twin manifestations of the same
vice. They are simply different sides of the same
shield. The arrogance that looks down in the one
case, the envy that hates in the other, are really
exhibitions of the same mean, base, and unlovely
spirit which happens in one case to be in different
surroundings from what it is in the other case. The
kind of man who would be arrogant in one case is
precisely the kind of man who would be envious
and filled with hatred in the other. The ideal should
be the just, the generous, the broad-minded man
who is as incapable of arrogance if rich as he is
of malignant envy and hatred if poor.
No republic can permanently exist when it becomes
a republic of classes, where the man feels
not the interest of the whole people, but the interest
of the particular class to which he belongs, or fancies
that he belongs, as being of prime importance. In
antiquity, republics failed as they did because they
tended to become either a republic of the few who
exploited the many, or a republic of the many who
plundered the few, and in either case the end of
the republic was inevitable; just as much so in one
case as in the other, and no more so in one case
than in the other. We can keep this Republic true
to the principles of those who founded, and of those
who afterward preserved it, we can keep it a Republic
at all, only by remembering that we must
live up to the theory of its founders, to the theory,
of treating each man on his worth as a man; neither
holding it for nor against him that he occupies any
particular station in life, so long as he does his duty
fairly and well by his fellows and by the Nation as a
whole.
So much for the general philosophy taught so
admirably in Mr. Wagner’s book—I might say
books, but I am thinking especially of “The Simple
Life,” because that has been the book that has appealed
to me particularly. Now, a word with special
reference to his address to this audience, to the
Young Men’s Christian Association: The profound
regard which I have always felt for those responsible
for the work of the Young Men’s Christian Association
and the Young Women’s Christian Association,
is largely because they have practically
realized, or at least have striven practically to
realize, the ideal of adherence to the text which
reads, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers
only.” If you here to-day came here only with the
idea of passing a pleasant afternoon and then go
home and do not actually practice somewhat of what
Mr. Wagner preaches and practices, then small will
be the use of your coming. It is not of the slightest
use to hear the word if you do not try to put it
into effect afterward. The Young Men’s Christian
Associations have accomplished so much because
those who have managed them have tried practically
to do their part in bringing about what is expressed
in the phrase “the fatherhood of God, and the
brotherhood of men.” We can act individually or
we can act by associations. I intend this afternoon
to illustrate by a couple of examples what I mean
by a man acting individually, and what I mean by a
man acting in associations with his fellows. I hesitated
whether I would use, as I shall use, the names
of the people whom I meant, but I came to the conclusion
that I would, because the worth of an
example consists very largely in the knowledge that
the example is a real one.
I have been immensely interested for a number of
years in the working of the Civic Club in New
York, which has been started and superintended by
Mr. Norton Goddard. It is a club on the East Side
of New York City, the range of whose membership
includes a big district of the city, extending from
about Lexington Avenue to the East River. Mr.
Goddard realized that such work can be done to
best advantage only upon condition of there being
genuine and hearty sympathy among those doing
it. There are a great many people so made in this
world (I think most of us come under the category)
that they would resent being patronized about as
much as being wronged. Great good can never be
done if it is attempted in a patronizing spirit. Mr.
Goddard realized that the work could be done
efficiently only on condition of getting into close and
hearty touch with the people through whom and
with whom he was to work. In consequence, this
Civic Club was founded, and it has gradually extended
its operations until now the entire club membership
of three or four thousand men practically
form a committee of betterment in social and civic
life; a committee spread throughout that district,
each member keeping a sharp lookout over the fortunes
of all his immediate neighbors, of all of those
of his neighborhood who do not come within the ken
of some other member of the club. Therefore, any
case of great destitution, of great suffering, in the
district, almost inevitably comes to the attention
of some member of the club, who then reports it at
headquarters, so that steps can be taken to alleviate
the misery; and I have reason to believe that there
has been in consequence a very sensible general uplifting,
a general increase of happiness, throughout
the district. If we had a sufficient number of clubs
of this kind throughout our great cities, while we
would not by any means have solved all of the
terrible problems that press upon us for solution in
connection with municipal misgovernment and with
the overcrowding, misery, vice, disease, and poverty
of great cities, yet we would have taken a long
stride forward in the right direction toward their
solution. So much for the example that I use to
illustrate what I mean by work in combination.
As an example of what can be done, and should
be done, by the individual citizen, I shall mention
something that recently occurred in this city of
Washington, a thing that doubtless many of you
know about, but which was unknown to me until
recently. A few weeks ago when I was walking
back from church one Sunday I noticed a great fire
and found that it was Downey’s livery stable—you
recollect it, three or four weeks ago when the livery
stable burned. Through a train of circumstances
that I need not mention, my attention was particularly
called to the case, and I looked into it. I had
long known of the very admirable work done with
singular modesty and self-effacement by Mr. Downey
in trying to give homes to the homeless, and to
be himself a friend of those in a peculiar sense
friendless in this community; and I now by accident
found out what had happened in connection with
this particular incident. It appears that last spring
Mr. Downey started to build a new livery stable; his
stable is next door to a colored Baptist church. Mr.
Downey is a white man and a Catholic and these
neighbors of his are colored men and Baptists, and
their kinship was simply the kinship of that broad
humanity that should underlie all our feelings toward
one another. Mr. Downey started to build his
stable, and naturally wanted to have it as big a
stable as possible and build it right up to the limits
of his land. That brought the wall close up against
the back of the colored Baptists’ church, cutting out
the light and air. The preacher called upon him
and told him that they would like to purchase a strip
six feet broad of the ground of Mr. Downey, upon
which he was intending to build, as it would be a
great inconvenience to them to lose the light and the
air; that they were aware that it was asking a good
deal of him to cramp the building out of which he
intended to make his livelihood, but that they hoped
he would do it because of their need. After a good
deal of thought, Mr. Downey came to the conclusion
that he ought to grant the request, and so he notified
them that he would change his plans, make a somewhat
smaller building, and sell them the six feet of
land in the strip adjoining their church. After a
little while the preacher came around with the trustees
of his church and said that they very much
appreciated Mr. Downey’s courtesy, and were sorry
they had bothered him as they had, because, on looking
into the affairs of the church, they found that
as they were already in debt they did not feel warranted
in incurring any further financial obligations,
and so they had to withdraw their request. They
thanked him for his kindly purpose, and said good-by.
But Mr. Downey found he could not get to
sleep that night until finally he made up his mind
that as they could not buy it he would give it to them
anyway; which he did. But, unfortunately, we know
that the tower of Siloam often falls upon the just
and the unjust alike, and Mr. Downey’s livery stable
caught fire, and burned down. It was Sunday morning,
and the Baptist church was in session next
door to him; and the clergyman stopped and said,
“Now, you women stay here and pray, and you men
go straight out and help our benefactor, Mr.
Downey”; and go out they did, and got his horses
all out, so that none of them was burned, although
he suffered otherwise a total loss. Now, I call that
a practical application of Mr. Wagner’s teachings.
Here in Washington we have a right to be proud
of a citizen like Mr. Downey; and if only we can
develop enough such citizens, we shall turn out just
the kind of community that does not need to, but
will always be glad to, study “The Simple Life,”
the author of which I now introduce to you.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
The Nation continues to enjoy noteworthy prosperity.
Such prosperity is of course primarily due
to the high individual average of our citizenship,
taken together with our great natural resources; but
an important factor therein is the working of our
long-continued governmental policies. The people
have emphatically expressed their approval of the
principles underlying these policies, and their desire
that these principles be kept substantially unchanged,
although of course applied in a progressive spirit
to meet changing conditions.
The enlargement of scope of the functions of the
National Government required by our development
as a nation involves, of course, increase of expense;
and the period of prosperity through which the
country is passing justifies expenditures for permanent
improvements far greater than would be wise
in hard times. Battleships and forts, public buildings,
and improved waterways are investments
which should be made when we have the money;
but abundant revenues and a large surplus always
invite extravagance, and constant care should be
taken to guard against unnecessary increase of the
ordinary expenses of government. The cost of
doing Government business should be regulated
with the same rigid scrutiny as the cost of doing
a private business.
In the vast and complicated mechanism of our
modern civilized life the dominant note is the note
of industrialism; and the relations of capital and
labor, and especially of organized capital and organized
labor, to each other and to the public at large
come second in importance only to the intimate questions
of family life. Our peculiar form of government,
with its sharp division of authority between
the Nation and the several States, has been on the
whole far more advantageous to our development
than a more strongly centralized government. But
it is undoubtedly responsible for much of the difficulty
of meeting with adequate legislation the new
problems presented by the total change in industrial
conditions on this continent during the last half century.
In actual practice it has proved exceedingly
difficult, and in many cases impossible, to get unanimity
of wise action among the various States on
these subjects. From the very nature of the case
this is especially true of the laws affecting the employment
of capital in huge masses.
With regard to labor the problem is no less important,
but it is simpler. As long as the States
retain the primary control of the police power the
circumstances must be altogether extreme which
require interference by the Federal authorities,
whether in the way of safeguarding the rights of
labor or in the way of seeing that wrong is not done
by unruly persons who shield themselves behind the
name of labor. If there is resistance to the Federal
courts, interference with the mails or interstate
commerce, or molestation of Federal property, or
if the State authorities in some crisis which they
are unable to face call for help, then the Federal
Government may interfere; but though such interference
may be caused by a condition of things arising
out of trouble connected with some question of
labor, the interference itself simply takes the form
of restoring order without regard to the questions
which have caused the breach of order—for to keep
order is a primary duty and in a time of disorder
and violence all other questions sink into abeyance
until order has been restored. In the District of
Columbia and in the Territories the Federal law
covers the entire field of government; but the labor
question is only acute in populous centres of commerce,
manufactures, or mining. Nevertheless,
both in the enactment and in the enforcement of
law the Federal Government within its restricted
sphere should set an example to the State Governments,
especially in a matter so vital as this affecting
labor. I believe that under modern industrial
conditions it is often necessary, and even where not
necessary it is yet often wise, that there should be
organization of labor in order better to secure the
rights of the individual wage-worker. All encouragement
should be given to any such organization,
so long as it is conducted with a due and decent
regard for the rights of others. There are in this
country some labor unions which have habitually,
and other labor unions which have often, been
among the most effective agents in working for
good citizenship and for uplifting the condition of
those whose welfare should be closest to our hearts.
But when any labor union seeks improper ends, or
seeks to achieve proper ends by improper means, all
good citizens and more especially all honorable public
servants must oppose the wrongdoing as resolutely
as they would oppose the wrongdoing of any
great corporation. Of course any violence, brutality,
or corruption should not for one moment be
tolerated. Wage-workers have an entire right to
organize and by all peaceful and honorable means
to endeavor to persuade their fellows to join with
them in organizations. They have a legal right,
which, according to circumstances, may or may not
be a moral right, to refuse to work in company with
men who decline to join their organizations. They
have under no circumstances the right to commit
violence upon those, whether capitalists or wage-workers,
who refuse to support their organizations,
or who side with those with whom they are at odds;
for mob rule is intolerable in any form.
The wage-workers are peculiarly entitled to the
protection and the encouragement of the law. From
the very nature of their occupation railroad men,
for instance, are liable to be maimed in doing the
legitimate work of their profession, unless the railroad
companies are required by law to make ample
provision for their safety. The Administration has
been zealous in enforcing the existing law for this
purpose. That law should be amended and strengthened.
Wherever the National Government has
power there should be a stringent employers’ liability
law, which should apply to the Government itself
where the Government is an employer of labor.
In my Message to the Fifty-seventh Congress, at
its second session, I urged the passage of an employers’
liability law for the District of Columbia.
I now renew that recommendation, and further recommend
that the Congress appoint a commission
to make a comprehensive study of employers’ liability
with the view of extending the provisions of a
great and constitutional law to all employments
within the scope of Federal power.
The Government has recognized heroism upon the
water, and bestows medals of honor upon those
persons who by extreme and heroic daring have
endangered their lives in saving, or endeavoring to
save, lives from the perils of the sea in the waters
over which the United States has jurisdiction, or
upon an American vessel. This recognition should
be extended to cover cases of conspicuous bravery
and self-sacrifice in the saving of life in private employments
under the jurisdiction of the United
States, and particularly in the land commerce of the
Nation.
The ever-increasing casualty list upon our railroads
is a matter of grave public concern, and
urgently calls for action by the Congress. In the
matter of speed and comfort of railway travel our
railroads give at least as good service as those of
any other nation, and there is no reason why this
service should not also be as safe as human ingenuity
can make it. Many of our leading roads have
been foremost in the adoption of the most approved
safeguards for the protection of travelers and employees,
yet the list of clearly avoidable accidents
continues unduly large. The passage of a law requiring
the adoption of a block-signal system has
been proposed to the Congress. I earnestly concur
in that recommendation, and would also point out
to the Congress the urgent need of legislation in the
interest of the public safety limiting the hours of
labor for railroad employees in train service upon
railroads engaged in interstate commerce, and providing
that only trained and experienced persons be
employed in positions of responsibility connected
with the operation of trains. Of course, nothing can
ever prevent accidents caused by human weakness
or misconduct; and there should be drastic punishment
for any railroad employee, whether officer or
man, who by issuance of wrong orders or by disobedience
of orders causes disaster. The law of
1901, requiring interstate railroads to make monthly
reports of all accidents to passengers and employees
on duty, should also be amended so as to empower
the Government to make a personal investigation,
through proper officers, of all accidents involving
loss of life which seem to require investigation,
with a requirement that the results of such investigation
be made public.
The safety-appliance law, as amended by the Act
of March 2, 1903, has proved beneficial to railway
employees, and in order that its provisions may be
properly carried out, the force of inspectors provided
for by appropriation should be largely increased.
This service is analogous to the Steamboat-Inspection
Service, and deals with even more
important interests. It has passed the experimental
stage and demonstrated its utility, and should receive
generous recognition by the Congress.
There is no objection to employees of the Government
forming or belonging to unions; but the
Government can neither discriminate for nor discriminate
against non-union men who are in its
employment, or who seek to be employed under it.
Moreover, it is a very grave impropriety for Government
employees to band themselves together for
the purpose of extorting improperly high salaries
from the Government. Especially is this true of
those within the classified service. The letter carriers,
both municipal and rural, are as a whole an
excellent body of public servants. They should be
amply paid. But their payment must be obtained
by arguing their claims fairly and honorably before
the Congress, and not by banding together for the
defeat of those Congressmen who refuse to give
promises which they can not in conscience give.
The Administration has already taken steps to prevent
and punish abuses of this nature; but it will
be wise for the Congress to supplement this action
by legislation.
Much can be done by the Government in labor
matters merely by giving publicity to certain conditions.
The Bureau of Labor has done excellent
work of this kind in many different directions. I
shall shortly lay before you in a special message
the full report of the investigation of the Bureau of
Labor into the Colorado mining strike, as this is a
strike in which certain very evil forces, which are
more or less at work everywhere under the conditions
of modern industrialism, became startlingly
prominent. It is greatly to be wished that the Department
of Commerce and Labor, through the
Labor Bureau, should compile and arrange for the
Congress a list of the labor laws of the various
States, and should be given the means to investigate
and report to the Congress upon the labor conditions
in the manufacturing and mining regions throughout
the country, both as to wages, as to hours of
labor, as to the labor of women and children, and
as to the effect in the various labor centres of immigration
from abroad. In this investigation especial
attention should be paid to the conditions of
child labor and child-labor legislation in the several
States. Such an investigation must necessarily take
into account many of the problems with which this
question of child labor is connected. These problems
can be actually met, in most cases, only by the
States themselves; but the lack of proper legislation
in one State in such a matter as child labor
often renders it excessively difficult to establish protective
restriction upon the work in another State
having the same industries, so that the worst tends
to drag down the better. For this reason, it would
be well for the Nation at least to endeavor to secure
comprehensive information as to the conditions of
labor of children in the different States. Such investigation
and publication by the National Government
would tend toward the securing of approximately
uniform legislation of the proper character
among the several States.
When we come to deal with great corporations
the need for the Government to act directly is far
greater than in the case of labor, because great corporations
can become such only by engaging in interstate
commerce, and interstate commerce is peculiarly
the field of the General Government. It is
an absurdity to expect to eliminate the abuses in
great corporations by State action. It is difficult to
be patient with an argument that such matters
should be left to the States, because more than one
State pursues the policy of creating on easy terms
corporations which are never operated within that
State at all, but in other States whose laws they
ignore. The National Government alone can deal
adequately with these great corporations. To try
to deal with them in an intemperate, destructive,
or demagogic spirit would, in all probability, mean
that nothing whatever would be accomplished, and,
with absolute certainty, that if anything were accomplished
it would be of a harmful nature. The
American people need to continue to show the very
qualities that they have shown—that is, moderation,
good sense, the earnest desire to avoid doing
any damage, and yet the quiet determination to proceed,
step by step, without halt and without hurry,
in eliminating or at least in minimizing whatever
of mischief or of evil there is to interstate commerce
in the conduct of great corporations. They are acting
in no spirit of hostility to wealth, either individual
or corporate. They are not against the rich
man any more than against the poor man. On the
contrary, they are friendly alike toward rich man
and toward poor man, provided only that each acts
in a spirit of justice and decency toward his fellows.
Great corporations are necessary, and only men of
great and singular mental power can manage such
corporations successfully, and such men must have
great rewards. But these corporations should be
managed with due regard to the interests of the
public as a whole. Where this can be done under
the present laws it must be done. Where these laws
come short others should be enacted to supplement
them.
Yet we must never forget the determining factor
in every kind of work, of head or hand, must be
the man’s own good sense, courage, and kindliness.
More important than any legislation is the gradual
growth of a feeling of responsibility and forbearance
among capitalists and wage-workers alike; a feeling
of respect on the part of each man for the rights
of others; a feeling of broad community of interest,
not merely of capitalists among themselves, and of
wage-workers among themselves, but of capitalists
and wage-workers in their relations to each other,
and of both in their relations to their fellows who
with them make up the body politic. There are
many captains of industry, many labor leaders, who
realize this. A recent speech by the president of one
of our great railroad systems to the employees of
that system contains sound common-sense. It runs
in part as follows:
“It is my belief we can better serve each other,
better understand the man as well as his business,
when meeting face to face, exchanging views, and
realizing from personal contact we serve but one
interest, that of our mutual prosperity.
“Serious misunderstandings can not occur where
personal goodwill exists and opportunity for personal
explanation is present.
“In my early business life I had experience with
men of affairs of a character to make me desire to
avoid creating a like feeling of resentment to myself
and the interests in my charge, should fortune ever
place me in authority, and I am solicitous of a
measure of confidence on the part of the public and
our employees that I shall hope may be warranted
by the fairness and good-fellowship I intend shall
prevail in our relationship.
“But do not feel I am disposed to grant unreasonable
requests, spend the money of our company
unnecessarily or without value received, nor expect
the days of mistakes are disappearing, or that cause
for complaint will not continually occur; simply to
correct such abuses as may be discovered, to better
conditions as fast as reasonably may be expected,
constantly striving, with varying success, for that
improvement we all desire, to convince you there
is a force at work in the right direction, all the
time making progress—is the disposition with
which I have come among you, asking your goodwill
and encouragement.
“The day has gone by when a corporation can be
handled successfully in defiance of the public will,
even though that will be unreasonable and wrong.
A public may be led, but not driven, and I prefer
to go with it and shape or modify, in a measure, its
opinion, rather than be swept from my bearings,
with loss to myself and the interests in my charge.
“Violent prejudice exists toward corporate activity
and capital to-day, much of it founded in
reason, more in apprehension, and a large measure
is due to the personal traits of arbitrary, unreasonable,
incompetent, and offensive men in positions
of authority. The accomplishment of results by
indirection, the endeavor to thwart the intention, if
not the expressed letter of the law (the will of the
people), a disregard of the rights of others, a disposition
to withhold what is due, to force by main
strength or inactivity a result not justified, depending
upon the weakness of the claimant and his indisposition
to become involved in litigation, has created
a sentiment harmful in the extreme and a disposition
to consider anything fair that gives gain
to the individual at the expense of the company.
“If corporations are to continue to do the world’s
work, as they are best fitted to, these qualities in
their representatives that have resulted in the present
prejudice against them must be relegated to the
background. The corporations must come out into
the open and see and be seen. They must take the
public into their confidence and ask for what they
want, and no more, and be prepared to explain satisfactorily
what advantage will accrue to the public
if they are given their desires; for they are permitted
to exist not that they may make money solely,
but that they may effectively serve those from whom
they derive their power.
“Publicity, and not secrecy, will win hereafter,
and laws be construed by their intent and not by
their letter, otherwise public utilities will be owned
and operated by the public which created them, even
though the service be less efficient and the result
less satisfactory from a financial standpoint.”
The Bureau of Corporations has made careful
preliminary investigation of many important corporations.
It will make a special report on the beef
industry.
The policy of the Bureau is to accomplish the
purposes of its creation by co-operation, not antagonism;
by making constructive legislation, not
destructive prosecution, the immediate object of its
inquiries; by conservative investigation of law and
fact, and by refusal to issue incomplete and hence
necessarily inaccurate reports. Its policy being thus
one of open inquiry into, and not attack upon, business,
the Bureau has been able to gain not only the
confidence, but, better still, the co-operation of men
engaged in legitimate business.
The Bureau offers to the Congress the means of
getting at the cost of production of our various
great staples of commerce.
Of necessity the careful investigation of special
corporations will afford the Commissioner knowledge
of certain business facts, the publication of
which might be an improper infringement of private
rights. The method of making public the results
of these investigations affords, under the law, a
means for the protection of private rights. The
Congress will have all facts except such as would
give to another corporation information which
would injure the legitimate business of a competitor
and destroy the incentive for individual superiority
and thrift.
The Bureau has also made exhaustive examinations
into the legal condition under which corporate
business is carried on in the various States; into all
judicial decisions on the subject; and into the various
systems of corporate taxation in use. I call
special attention to the report of the chief of the
Bureau; and I earnestly ask that the Congress carefully
consider the report and recommendations of
the Commissioner on this subject.
The business of insurance vitally affects the great
mass of the people of the United States and is national
and not local in its application. It involves a
multitude of transactions among the people of the
different States and between American companies
and foreign Governments. I urge that the Congress
carefully consider whether the power of the Bureau
of Corporations can not constitutionally be extended
to cover interstate transactions in insurance.
Above all else, we must strive to keep the highways
of commerce open to all on equal terms; and
to do this it is necessary to put a complete stop to
all rebates. Whether the shipper or the railroad
is to blame makes no difference; the rebate must
be stopped, the abuses of the private car and private
terminal-track and side-track systems must be
stopped, and the legislation of the Fifty-eighth Congress
which declares it to be unlawful for any person
or corporation to offer, grant, give, solicit, accept,
or receive any rebate, concession, or discrimination
in respect of the transportation of any property in
interstate or foreign commerce whereby such property
shall by any device whatever be transported at
a less rate than that named in the tariffs published
by the carrier must be enforced. For some time
after the enactment of the Act to Regulate Commerce
it remained a mooted question whether that
act conferred upon the Interstate Commerce Commission
the power, after it had found a challenged
rate to be unreasonable, to declare what thereafter
should, prima facie, be the reasonable maximum rate
for the transportation in dispute. The Supreme
Court finally resolved that question in the negative,
so that as the law now stands the Commission simply
possess the bare power to denounce a particular
rate as unreasonable. While I am of the opinion
that at present it would be undesirable, if it were
not impracticable, finally to clothe the Commission
with general authority to fix railroad rates, I do
believe that, as a fair security to shippers, the Commission
should be vested with the power, where a
given rate has been challenged and after full hearing
found to be unreasonable, to decide, subject to
judicial review, what shall be a reasonable rate to
take its place; the ruling of the Commission to take
effect immediately, and to obtain unless and until
it is reversed by the court of review. The Government
must in increasing degree supervise and regulate
the workings of the railways engaged in interstate
commerce; and such increased supervision is
the only alternative to an increase of the present
evils on the one hand or a still more radical policy
on the other. In my judgment the most important
legislative act now needed as regards the regulation
of corporations is this act to confer on the Interstate
Commerce Commission the power to revise rates
and regulations, the revised rate to at once go into
effect, and to stay in effect unless and until the court
of review reverses it.
Steamship companies engaged in interstate commerce
and protected in our coastwise trade, should
be held to a strict observance of the interstate commerce
act.
In pursuing the set plan to make the city of
Washington an example to other American municipalities
several points should be kept in mind
by the legislators. In the first place, the people of
this country should clearly understand that no
amount of industrial prosperity, and above all no
leadership in international industrial competition,
can in any way atone for the sapping of the vitality
of those who are usually spoken of as the working
classes. The farmers, the mechanics, the skilled
and unskilled laborers, the small shopkeepers, make
up the bulk of the population of any country; and
upon their well-being, generation after generation,
the well-being of the country and the race depends.
Rapid development in wealth and industrial leadership
is a good thing, but only if it goes hand in
hand with improvement, and not deterioration,
physical and moral. The overcrowding of cities
and the draining of country districts are unhealthy
and even dangerous symptoms in our modern life.
We should not permit overcrowding in cities. In
certain European cities it is provided by law that
the population of towns shall not be allowed to exceed
a very limited density for a given area, so that
the increase in density must be continually pushed
back into a broad zone around the centre of the
town, this zone having great avenues or parks
within it. The death-rate statistics show a terrible
increase in mortality, and especially in infant mortality,
in overcrowded tenements. The poorest
families in tenement houses live in one room, and
it appears that in these one-room tenements the
average death-rate for a number of given cities at
home and abroad is about twice what it is in a two-room
tenement, four times what it is in a three-room
tenement, and eight times what it is in a tenement
consisting of four rooms or over. These figures
vary somewhat for different cities, but they approximate
in each city those given above; and in all
cases the increase of mortality, and especially of
infant mortality, with the decrease in the number
of rooms used by the family and with the consequent
overcrowding is startling. The slum exacts
a heavy total of deaths from those who dwell therein;
and this is the case not merely in the great
crowded slums of high buildings in New York and
Chicago, but in the alley slums of Washington. In
Washington people can not afford to ignore the
harm that this causes. No Christian and civilized
community can afford to show a happy-go-lucky
lack of concern for the youth of to-day; for, if so,
the community will have to pay a terrible penalty
of financial burden and social degradation in the
to-morrow. There should be severe child-labor and
factory-inspection laws. It is very desirable that
married women should not work in factories. The
prime duty of the man is to work, to be the breadwinner;
the prime duty of the woman is to be the
mother, the housewife. All questions of tariff and
finance sink into utter insignificance when compared
with the tremendous, the vital importance of trying
to shape conditions so that these two duties of the
man and of the woman can be fulfilled under reasonably
favorable circumstances. If a race does
not have plenty of children, or if the children do not
grow up, or if when they grow up they are unhealthy
in body and stunted or vicious in mind, then
that race is decadent, and no heaping up of wealth,
no splendor of momentary material prosperity, can
avail in any degree as offsets.
The Congress has the same power of legislation
for the District of Columbia which the State Legislatures
have for the various States. The problems
incident to our highly complex modern industrial
civilization, with its manifold and perplexing tendencies
both for good and for evil, are far less
sharply accentuated in the city of Washington than
in most other cities. For this very reason it is
easier to deal with the various phases of these problems
in Washington, and the District of Columbia
government should be a model for the other municipal
governments of the Nation, in all such matters
as supervision of the housing of the poor, the creation
of small parks in the districts inhabited by the
poor, in laws affecting labor, in laws providing for
the taking care of the children, in truant laws, and
in providing schools.
In the vital matter of taking care of children,
much advantage could be gained by a careful study
of what has been accomplished in such States as
Illinois and Colorado by the juvenile courts. The
work of the juvenile court is really a work of character
building. It is now generally recognized that
young boys and young girls who go wrong should
not be treated as criminals, not even necessarily as
needing reformation, but rather as needing to have
their characters formed, and for this end to have
them tested and developed by a system of probation.
Much admirable work has been done in many
of our Commonwealths by earnest men and women
who have made a special study of the needs of those
classes of children which furnish the greatest number
of juvenile offenders, and therefore the greatest
number of adult offenders; and by their aid, and
by profiting by the experiences of the different
States and cities in these matters, it would be
easy to provide a good code for the District of
Columbia.
Several considerations suggest the need for a
systematic investigation into and improvement of
housing conditions in Washington. The hidden
residential alleys are breeding grounds of vice and
disease, and should be opened into minor streets.
For a number of years influential citizens have
joined with the District Commissioners in the vain
endeavor to secure laws permitting the condemnation
of unsanitary dwellings. The local death-rates,
especially from preventable diseases, are so unduly
high as to suggest that the exceptional wholesomeness
of Washington’s better sections is offset by bad
conditions in her poorer neighborhoods. A special
“Commission on Housing and Health Conditions in
the National Capital” would not only bring about the
reformation of existing evils, but would also formulate
an appropriate building code to protect the city
from mammoth brick tenements and other evils
which threaten to develop here as they have in other
cities. That the Nation’s Capital should be made a
model for other municipalities is an ideal which
appeals to all patriotic citizens everywhere, and such
a special Commission might map out and organize
the city’s future development in lines of civic social
service, just as Major L’Enfant and the recent
Park Commission planned the arrangement of her
streets and parks.
It is mortifying to remember that Washington
has no compulsory school attendance law and that
careful inquiries indicate the habitual absence from
school of some twenty per cent of all children between
the ages of eight and fourteen. It must be
evident to all who consider the problems of neglected
child life, or the benefits of compulsory education
in other cities, that one of the most urgent
needs of the National Capital is a law requiring
the school attendance of all children, this law to be
enforced by attendance agents directed by the Board
of Education.
Public playgrounds are necessary means for the
development of wholesome citizenship in modern
cities. It is important that the work inaugurated
here through voluntary efforts should be taken up
and extended through Congressional appropriation
of funds sufficient to equip and maintain numerous
convenient small playgrounds upon land which can
be secured without purchase or rental. It is also
desirable that small vacant places be purchased and
reserved as small-park playgrounds in densely settled
sections of the city which now have no public
open spaces and are destined soon to be built up
solidly. All these needs should be met immediately.
To meet them would entail expenses; but a corresponding
saving could be made by stopping the
building of streets and leveling of ground for purposes
largely speculative in outlying parts of the
city.
There are certain offenders, whose criminality
takes the shape of brutality and cruelty toward the
weak, who need a special type of punishment. The
wife-beater, for example, is inadequately punished
by imprisonment; for imprisonment may often
mean nothing to him, while it may cause hunger
and want to the wife and children who have
been the victims of his brutality. Probably
some form of corporal punishment would be
the most adequate way of meeting this kind of
crime.
The Department of Agriculture has grown into
an educational institution with a faculty of two
thousand specialists making research into all the
sciences of production. The Congress appropriates,
directly and indirectly, six millions of dollars annually
to carry on this work. It reaches every State
and Territory in the Union and the islands of the
sea lately come under our flag. Co-operation is had
with the State experiment stations, and with many
other institutions and individuals. The world is
carefully searched for new varieties of grains, fruits,
grasses, vegetables, trees, and shrubs, suitable to various
localities in our country; and marked benefit
to our producers has resulted.
The activities of our age in lines of research
have reached the tillers of the soil and inspired
them with ambition to know more of the principles
that govern the forces of nature with which they
have to deal. Nearly half of the people of this
country devote their energies to growing things
from the soil. Until a recent date little has been
done to prepare these millions for their life work.
In most lines of human activity college-trained
men are the leaders. The farmer had no opportunity
for special training until the Congress made
provision for it forty years ago. During these
years progress has been made and teachers have
been prepared. Over five thousand students are
in attendance at our State agricultural colleges.
The Federal Government expends ten millions of
dollars annually toward this education and for research
in Washington and in the several States and
Territories. The Department of Agriculture has
given facilities for post-graduate work to five
hundred young men during the last seven years,
preparing them for advanced lines of work in the
Department and in the State institutions.
The facts concerning meteorology and its relations
to plant and animal life are being systematically
inquired into. Temperature and moisture are
controlling factors in all agricultural operations.
The seasons of the cyclones of the Caribbean Sea
and their paths are being forecasted with increasing
accuracy. The cold winds that come from the
north are anticipated and their times and intensity
told to farmers, gardeners, and fruiterers in all
southern localities.
We sell two hundred and fifty million dollars’
worth of animals and animal products to foreign
countries every year, in addition to supplying our
own people more cheaply and abundantly than any
other nation is able to provide for its people. Successful
manufacturing depends primarily on cheap
food, which accounts to a considerable extent for
our growth in this direction. The Department of
Agriculture, by careful inspection of meats, guards
the health of our people and gives clean bills of
health to deserving exports; it is prepared to deal
promptly with imported diseases of animals, and
maintain the excellence of our flocks and herds in
this respect. There should be an annual census of
the live stock of the nation.
We sell abroad about six hundred million dollars’
worth of plants and their products every year.
Strenuous efforts are being made to import from
foreign countries such grains as are suitable to
our varying localities. Seven years ago we bought
three-fourths of our rice; by helping the rice
growers on the Gulf Coast to secure seeds from
the Orient suited to their conditions, and by giving
them adequate protection, they now supply home
demand and export to the islands of the Caribbean
Sea and to other rice-growing countries. Wheat
and other grains have been imported from light-rainfall
countries to our lands in the West and
Southwest that have not grown crops because of
light precipitation, resulting in an extensive addition
to our cropping area and our home-making
territory that can not be irrigated. Ten million
bushels of first-class macaroni wheat were grown
from these experimental importations last year.
Fruits suitable to our soils and climates are being
imported from all the countries of the Old World—the
fig from Turkey, the almond from Spain, the
date from Algeria, the mango from India. We are
helping our fruit growers to get their crops into
European markets by studying their methods of
preservation through refrigeration, packing, and
handling, which have been quite successful. We
are helping our hop growers by importing varieties
that ripen earlier and later than the kinds they have
been raising, thereby lengthening the harvesting
season. The cotton crop of the country is threatened
with root rot, the bollworm, and the boll
weevil. Our pathologists will find immune varieties
that will resist the root disease, and the
bollworm can be dealt with, but the boll weevil is
a serious menace to the cotton crop. It is a Central
American insect that has become acclimated in
Texas and has done great damage. A scientist of
the Department of Agriculture has found the
weevil at home in Guatemala being kept in check
by an ant, which has been brought to our cotton
fields for observation. It is hoped that it may serve
a good purpose.
The soils of the country are getting attention
from the farmer’s standpoint, and interesting results
are following. We have duplicates of the
soils that grow the wrapper tobacco in Sumatra
and the filler tobacco in Cuba. It will be only a
question of time when the large amounts paid to
these countries will be paid to our own people.
The reclamation of alkali lands is progressing, to
give object lessons to our people in methods by
which worthless lands may be made productive.
The insect friends and enemies of the farmer
are getting attention. The enemy of the San Jose
scale was found near the Great Wall of China,
and is now cleaning up all our orchards. The fig-fertilizing
insect imported from Turkey has helped
to establish an industry in California that amounts
to from fifty to one hundred tons of dried figs annually,
and is extending over the Pacific Coast. A
parasitic fly from South Africa is keeping in subjection
the black scale, the worst pest of the orange
and lemon industry in California.
Careful preliminary work is being done toward
producing our own silk. The mulberry is being
distributed in large numbers, eggs are being imported
and distributed, improved reels were imported
from Europe last year, and two expert
reelers were brought to Washington to reel the
crop of cocoons and teach the art to our own
people.
The crop-reporting system of the Department of
Agriculture is being brought closer to accuracy every
year. It has two hundred and fifty thousand reporters
selected from people in eight vocations in life. It
has arrangements with most European countries
for interchange of estimates, so that our people
may know as nearly as possible with what they
must compete.
During the two and a half years that have
elapsed since the passage of the reclamation act,
rapid progress has been made in the surveys and
examinations of the opportunities for reclamation
in the thirteen States and three Territories of the
arid West. Construction has already been begun
on the largest and most important of the irrigation
works, and plans are being completed for works
which will utilize the funds now available. The
operations are being carried on by the Reclamation
Service, a corps of engineers selected through competitive
civil-service examinations. This corps includes
experienced consulting and constructing
engineers, as well as various experts in mechanical
and legal matters, and is composed largely of men
who have spent most of their lives in practical
affairs connected with irrigation. The larger
problems have been solved, and it now remains to
execute with care, economy, and thoroughness the
work which has been laid out. All important details
are being carefully considered by boards of
consulting engineers, selected for their thorough
knowledge and practical experience. Each project
is taken up on the ground by competent men and
viewed from the standpoint of the creation of
prosperous homes and of promptly refunding to
the Treasury the cost of construction. The reclamation
act has been found to be remarkably complete
and effective, and so broad in its provisions
that a wide range of undertakings has been possible
under it. At the same time, economy is
guaranteed by the fact that the funds must ultimately
be returned to be used over again.
It is the cardinal principle of the forest-reserve
policy of this Administration that the reserves are
for use. Whatever interferes with the use of their
resources is to be avoided by every possible means.
But these resources must be used in such a way as
to make them permanent.
The forest policy of the Government is just now
a subject of vivid public interest throughout the West
and to the people of the United States in general.
The forest reserves themselves are of extreme value
to the present as well as to the future welfare of all
the Western public-land States. They powerfully
affect the use and disposal of the public lands.
They are of special importance because they preserve
the water supply and the supply of timber
for domestic purposes, and so promote settlement
under the reclamation act. Indeed, they are essential
to the welfare of every one of the great interests
of the West.
Forest reserves are created for two principal purposes.
The first is to preserve the water supply.
This is their most important use. The principal
users of the water thus preserved are irrigation
ranchers and settlers, cities and towns to whom
their municipal water supplies are of the very
first importance, users and furnishers of water
power, and the users of water for domestic,
manufacturing, mining, and other purposes.
All these are directly dependent upon the forest
reserves.
The second reason for which forest reserves are
created is to preserve the timber supply for various
classes of wood users. Among the more important
of these are settlers under the reclamation act and
other acts, for whom a cheap and accessible supply
of timber for domestic uses is absolutely necessary;
miners and prospectors, who are in serious danger
of losing their timber supply by fire or through export
by lumber companies when timber lands adjacent
to their mines pass into private ownership;
lumbermen, transportation companies, builders, and
commercial interests in general.
Although the wisdom of creating forest reserves
is nearly everywhere heartily recognized, yet in a
few localities there has been misunderstanding and
complaint. The following statement is therefore
desirable:
The forest-reserve policy can be successful only
when it has the full support of the people of the
West. It can not safely, and should not in any
case, be imposed upon them against their will. But
neither can we accept the views of those whose
only interest in the forest is temporary; who are
anxious to reap what they have not sown and then
move away, leaving desolation behind them. On
the contrary, it is everywhere and always the interest
of the permanent settler and the permanent
business man, the man with a stake in the country,
which must be considered and which must
decide.
The making of forest reserves within railroad
and wagon-road land-grant limits will hereafter, as
for the past three years, be so managed as to prevent
the issue, under the act of June 4, 1897, of
base for exchange or lieu selection (usually called
scrip). In all cases where forest reserves within
areas covered by land grants appear to be essential
to the prosperity of settlers, miners, or others, the
Government lands within such proposed forest reserves
will, as in the recent past, be withdrawn
from sale or entry pending the completion of such
negotiations with the owners of the land grants
as will prevent the creation of so-called scrip.
It was formerly the custom to make forest reserves
without first getting definite and detailed
information as to the character of land and timber
within their boundaries. This method of action
often resulted in badly chosen boundaries and consequent
injustice to settlers and others. Therefore
this Administration adopted the present
method of first withdrawing the land from disposal,
followed by careful examination on the
ground and the preparation of detailed maps and
descriptions, before any forest-reserve is created.
I have repeatedly called attention to the confusion
which exists in Government forest matters
because the work is scattered among three independent
organizations. The United States is the
only one of the great nations in which the forest
work of the Government is not concentrated under
one department, in consonance with the plainest
dictates of good administration and common-sense.
The present arrangement is bad from every point
of view. Merely to mention it is to prove that it
should be terminated at once. As I have repeatedly
recommended, all the forest work of the Government
should be concentrated in the Department
of Agriculture, where the larger part of that work
is already done, where practically all of the trained
foresters of the Government are employed, where
chiefly in Washington there is comprehensive firsthand
knowledge of the problems of the reserves
acquired on the ground, where all problems relating
to growth from the soil are already gathered, and
where all the sciences auxiliary to forestry are
at hand for prompt and effective co-operation.
These reasons are decisive in themselves, but it
should be added that the great organizations of
citizens whose interests are affected by the forest
reserves, such as the National Live Stock Association,
the National Wool Growers’ Association,
the American Mining Congress, the National Irrigation
Congress, and the National Board of Trade,
have uniformly, emphatically, and most of them
repeatedly, expressed themselves in favor of placing
all Government forest work in the Department
of Agriculture because of the peculiar adaptation of
that Department for it. It is true, also, that the
forest services of nearly all the great nations of the
world are under the respective departments of
agriculture, while in but two of the smaller nations
and in one colony are they under the department
of the interior. This is the result of long and
varied experience, and it agrees fully with the requirements
of good administration in our own case.
The creation of a forest service in the Department
of Agriculture will have for its important
results:
First. A better handling of all forest work, because
it will be under a single head, and because
the vast and indispensable experience of the Department
in all matters pertaining to the forest reserves,
to forestry in general, and to other forms of
production from the soil, will be easily and rapidly
accessible.
Second. The reserves themselves, being handled
from the point of view of the man in the field, instead
of the man in the office, will be more easily
and more widely useful to the people of the West
than has been the case hitherto.
Third. Within a comparatively short time the
reserves will become self-supporting. This is important,
because continually and rapidly increasing
appropriations will be necessary for the proper care
of this exceedingly important interest of the Nation,
and they can and should be offset by returns from
the National forests. Under similar circumstances
the forest possessions of other great nations form an
important source of revenue to their Governments.
Every administrative officer concerned is convinced
of the necessity for the proposed consolidation
of forest work in the Department of Agriculture,
and I myself have urged it more than once
in former messages. Again I commend it to the
early and favorable consideration of the Congress.
The interests of the Nation at large and of the
West in particular have suffered greatly because
of the delay.
I call the attention of the Congress again to the
report and recommendation of the Commission on
the Public Lands forwarded by me to the second
session of the present Congress. The Commission
has prosecuted its investigations actively during
the past season, and a second report is now in an
advanced stage of preparation.
In connection with the work of the forest reserves
I desire again to urge upon the Congress
the importance of authorizing the President to
set aside certain portions of these reserves or
other public lands as game refuges for the
preservation of the bison, the wapiti, and other
large beasts once so abundant in our woods and
mountains and on our great plains, and now tending
toward extinction. Every support should be
given to the authorities of the Yellowstone Park in
their successful efforts at preserving the large
creatures therein; and at very little expense portions
of the public domain in other regions which are
wholly unsuited to agricultural settlement could be
similarly utilized. We owe it to future generations
to keep alive the noble and beautiful creatures
which by their presence add such distinctive character
to the American wilderness. The limits of
the Yellowstone Park should be extended southward.
The Canyon of the Colorado should be made
a national park; and the national park system
should include the Yosemite and as many as possible
of the groves of giant trees in California.
The veterans of the Civil War have a claim upon
the Nation such as no other body of our citizens
possess. The Pension Bureau has never in its history
been managed in a more satisfactory manner
than is now the case.
The progress of the Indians toward civilization,
though not rapid, is perhaps all that could be hoped
for in view of the circumstances. Within the past
year many tribes have shown, in a degree greater
than ever before, an appreciation of the necessity
of work. This changed attitude is in part due to
the policy recently pursued of reducing the amount
of subsistence to the Indians, and thus forcing
them, through sheer necessity, to work for a livelihood.
The policy, though severe, is a useful one, but
it is to be exercised only with judgment and with
a full understanding of the conditions which exist
in each community for which it is intended. On
or near the Indian reservations there is usually very
little demand for labor, and if the Indians are to
earn their living and when work can not be furnished
from outside (which is always preferable),
then it must be furnished by the Government.
Practical instruction of this kind would in a few
years result in the forming of habits of regular
industry, which would render the Indian a producer,
and would effect a great reduction in the
cost of his maintenance.
It is commonly declared that the slow advance
of the Indians is due to the unsatisfactory character
of the men appointed to take immediate
charge of them, and to some extent this is true.
While the standard of the employees in the Indian
Service shows great improvement over that of bygone
years, and while actual corruption or flagrant
dishonesty is now the rare exception, it is, nevertheless,
the fact that the salaries paid Indian agents
are not large enough to attract the best men to that
field of work. To achieve satisfactory results the
official in charge of an Indian tribe should possess
the high qualifications which are required in the
manager of a large business, but only in exceptional
cases is it possible to secure men of such a type for
these positions. Much better service, however,
might be obtained from those now holding the
places were it practicable to get out of them the best
that is in them, and this should be done by bringing
them constantly into closer touch with their superior
officers. An agent who has been content
to draw his salary, giving in return the least possible
equivalent in effort and service, may, by proper
treatment, by suggestion and encouragement, or
persistent urging, be stimulated to greater effort
and induced to take a more active personal interest
in his work.
Under existing conditions an Indian agent in the
distant West may be wholly out of touch with the
office of the Indian Bureau. He may very well feel
that no one takes a personal interest in him or his
efforts. Certain routine duties in the way of reports
and accounts are required of him, but there
is no one with whom he may intelligently consult
on matters vital to his work, except after long delay.
Such a man would be greatly encouraged and
aided by personal contact with some one whose interest
in Indian affairs and whose authority in the
Indian Bureau were greater than his own, and such
contact would be certain to arouse and constantly
increase the interest he takes in his work.
The distance which separates the agents—the
workers in the field—from the Indian Office in
Washington is a chief obstacle to Indian progress.
Whatever shall more closely unite these two
branches of the Indian Service, and shall enable
them to co-operate more heartily and more effectively,
will be for the increased efficiency of the
work and the betterment of the race for whose
improvement the Indian Bureau was established.
The appointment of a field assistant to the Commissioner
of Indian Affairs would be certain to
ensure this good end. Such an official, if possessed
of the requisite energy and deep interest in the work,
would be a most efficient factor in bringing into
closer relationship and a more direct union of effort
the Bureau in Washington and its agents in the field;
and with the co-operation of its branches thus secured
the Indian Bureau would, in measure fuller
than ever before, lift up the savage toward that self-help
and self-reliance which constitute the man.
In 1907 there will be held at Hampton Roads
the tricentennial celebration of the settlement at
Jamestown, Va., with which the history of what
has now become the United States really begins.
I commend this to your favorable consideration.
It is an event of prime historic significance, in
which all the people of the United States should
feel, and should show, great and general interest.
In the Post Office Department the service has increased
in efficiency, and conditions as to revenue
and expenditure continue satisfactory. The increase
of revenue during the year was $9,358,181.10,
or 6.9 per cent, the total receipts amounting
to $143,382,624.34. The expenditures were
$152,362,116.70, an increase of about 9 per cent
over the previous year, being thus $8,979,492.36
in excess of the current revenue. Included in these
expenditures was a total appropriation of $12,956,637.35
for the continuation and extension of
the rural free-delivery service, which was an increase
of $4,902,237.35 over the amount expended
for this purpose in the preceding fiscal year.
Large as this expenditure has been, the beneficent
results attained in extending the free distribution
of mails to the residents of rural districts have
justified the wisdom of the outlay. Statistics
brought down to the 1st of October, 1904, show
that on that date there were 27,138 rural routes
established, serving approximately 12,000,000 of
people in rural districts remote from post offices,
and that there were pending at that time 3,859 petitions
for the establishment of new rural routes.
Unquestionably some part of the general increase
in receipts is due to the increased postal facilities
which the rural service has afforded. The revenues
have also been aided greatly by amendments in the
classification of mail matter, and the curtailment of
abuses of the second-class mailing privilege. The
average increase in the volume of mail matter for
the period beginning with 1902 and ending June,
1905 (that portion for 1905 being estimated), is
40.47 per cent, as compared with 25.46 per cent
for the period immediately preceding, and 15.92 for
the four-year period immediately preceding that.
Our consular system needs improvement. Salaries
should be substituted for fees, and the proper
classification, grading, and transfer of consular
officers should be provided. I am not prepared to
say that a competitive system of examinations for
appointment would work well; but by law it should
be provided that consuls should be familiar, according
to places for which they apply, with the
French, German, or Spanish languages, and should
possess acquaintance with the resources of the
United States.
The collection of objects of art contemplated in
Section 5586 of the Revised Statutes should be
designated and established as a National Gallery
of Art; and the Smithsonian Institution should be
authorized to accept any additions to said collection
that may be received by gift, bequest, or devise.
It is desirable to enact a proper National
quarantine law. It is most undesirable that a State
should on its own initiative enforce quarantine
regulations which are in effect a restriction upon
interstate and international commerce. The question
should properly be assumed by the Government
alone. The Surgeon-General of the National
Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service has repeatedly
and convincingly set forth the need for
such legislation.
I call your attention to the great extravagance in
printing and binding Government publications, and
especially to the fact that altogether too many of
these publications are printed. There is a constant
tendency to increase their number and their volume.
It is an understatement to say that no appreciable
harm would be caused by, and substantial benefit
would accrue from, decreasing the amount of printing
now done by at least one-half. Probably the
great majority of the Government reports and the
like now printed are never read at all, and furthermore
the printing of much of the material contained
in many of the remaining ones serves no useful
purpose whatever.
The attention of the Congress should be especially
given to the currency question, and that the
standing committees on the matter in the two
Houses charged with the duty take up the matter
of our currency and see whether it is not possible
to secure an agreement in the business world for
bettering the system; the committees should consider
the question of the retirement of the greenbacks
and the problem of securing in our currency
such elasticity as is consistent with safety. Every
silver dollar should be made by law redeemable in
gold at the option of the holder.
I especially commend to your immediate attention
the encouragement of our merchant marine
by appropriate legislation.
The growing importance of the Orient as a field
for American exports drew from my predecessor,
President McKinley, an urgent request for its special
consideration by the Congress. In his message
of 1898 he stated:
“In this relation, as showing the peculiar volume
and value of our trade with China and the peculiarly
favorable conditions which exist for their expansion
in the normal course of trade, I refer to
the communication addressed to the Speaker of the
House of Representatives by the Secretary of the
Treasury on the 14th of last June, with its accompanying
letter of the Secretary of State, recommending
an appropriation for a commission to study
the industrial and commercial conditions in the Chinese
Empire and to report as to the opportunities
for and the obstacles to the enlargement of markets
in China for the raw products and manufactures of
the United States. Action was not taken thereon
during the last session. I cordially urge that the
recommendation receive at your hands the consideration
which its importance and timeliness merit.”
In his annual message of 1899 he again called attention
to this recommendation, quoting it, and
stated further:
“I now renew this recommendation, as the importance
of the subject has steadily grown since it
was first submitted to you, and no time should be
lost in studying for ourselves the resources of this
great field for American trade and enterprise.”
The importance of securing proper information
and data with a view to the enlargement of our
trade with Asia is undiminished. Our consular
representatives in China have strongly urged a
place for permanent display of American products
in some prominent trade centre of that Empire,
under Government control and management, as an
effective means of advancing our export trade
therein. I call the attention of the Congress to the
desirability of carrying out these suggestions.
In dealing with the questions of immigration and
naturalization it is indispensable to keep certain
facts ever before the minds of those who share in
enacting the laws. First and foremost, let us remember
that the question of being a good American
has nothing whatever to do with a man’s birthplace
any more than it has to do with his creed. In
every generation from the time this Government
was founded men of foreign birth have stood in the
very foremost rank of good citizenship, and that
not merely in one, but in every field of American
activity; while to try to draw a distinction between
the man whose parents came to this country and
the man whose ancestors came to it several generations
back is a mere absurdity. Good Americanism
is a matter of heart, of conscience, of lofty aspiration,
of sound common-sense, but not of birthplace
or of creed. The medal of honor, the highest prize
to be won by those who serve in the Army and the
Navy of the United States, decorates men born
here, and it also decorates men born in Great
Britain and Ireland, in Germany, in Scandinavia,
in France, and doubtless in other countries also.
In the field of statesmanship, in the field of business,
in the field of philanthropic endeavor, it
is equally true that among the men of whom
we are most proud as Americans no distinction
whatever can be drawn between those who
themselves or whose parents came over in sailing
ship or steamer from across the water and those
whose ancestors stepped ashore into the wooded
wilderness at Plymouth or at the mouth of the
Hudson, the Delaware, or the James nearly three
centuries ago. No fellow-citizen of ours is entitled
to any peculiar regard because of the way in which
he worships his Maker, or because of the birthplace
of himself or his parents, nor should he be in any
way discriminated against therefor. Each must
stand on his worth as a man and each is entitled
to be judged solely thereby.
There is no danger of having too many immigrants
of the right kind. It makes no difference
from what country they come. If they are sound
in body and in mind, and, above all, if they are of
good character, so that we can rest assured that
their children and grandchildren will be worthy fellow-citizens
of our children and grandchildren, then
we should welcome them with cordial hospitality.
But the citizenship of this country should not be
debased. It is vital that we should keep high the
standard of well-being among our wage-workers,
and therefore we should not admit masses of men
whose standards of living and whose personal customs
and habits are such that they tend to lower
the level of the American wage-worker; and above
all we should not admit any man of an unworthy
type, any man concerning whom we can say that
he will himself be a bad citizen, or that his children
and grandchildren will detract from instead of adding
to the sum of the good citizenship of the country.
Similarly we should take the greatest care
about naturalization. Fraudulent naturalization,
the naturalization of improper persons, is a curse
to our Government; and it is the affair of every
honest voter, wherever born, to see that no fraudulent
voting is allowed, that no fraud in connection
with naturalization is permitted.
In the past year the cases of false, fraudulent, and
improper naturalization of aliens coming to the attention
of the executive branches of the Government
have increased to an alarming degree. Extensive
sales of forged certificates of naturalization
have been discovered, as well as many cases of naturalization
secured by perjury and fraud; and in addition,
instances have accumulated showing that
many courts issue certificates of naturalization carelessly
and upon insufficient evidence.
Under the Constitution it is in the power of the
Congress “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization,”
and numerous laws have from time to time
been enacted for that purpose, which have been
supplemented in a few States by State laws having
special application. The Federal statutes permit
naturalization by any court of record in the United
States having common-law jurisdiction and a seal
and clerk, except the police court of the District
of Columbia, and nearly all these courts exercise
this improper function. It results that where so
many courts of such varying grades have jurisdiction,
there is lack of uniformity in the rules applied
in conferring naturalization. Some courts are strict
and others lax. An alien who may secure naturalization
in one place might be denied it in another,
and the intent of the constitutional provision is in
fact defeated. Furthermore, the certificates of
naturalization issued by the courts differ widely
in wording and appearance, and when they are
brought into use in foreign countries are frequently
subject to suspicion.
There should be a comprehensive revision of the
naturalization laws. The courts having power to
naturalize should be definitely named by national
authority; the testimony upon which naturalization
may be conferred should be definitely prescribed;
publication of impending naturalization applications
should be required in advance of their hearing
in court; the form and wording of all certificates
issued should be uniform throughout the country,
and the courts should be required to make returns to
the Secretary of State at stated periods of all naturalizations
conferred.
Not only are the laws relating to naturalization
now defective, but those relating to citizenship of
the United States ought also to be made the subject
of scientific inquiry with a view to probable further
legislation. By what acts expatriation may be
assumed to have been accomplished, how long an
American citizen may reside abroad and receive the
protection of our passport, whether any degree of
protection should be extended to one who has made
the declaration of intention to become a citizen of
the United States, but has not secured naturalization,
are questions of serious import, involving personal
rights and often producing friction between
this Government and foreign Governments. Yet
upon these questions our laws are silent. I recommend
that an examination be made into the subjects
of citizenship, expatriation, and protection of Americans
abroad, with a view to appropriate legislation.
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.
No subject is better worthy the attention of
the Congress than that portion of the report of the
Attorney-General dealing with the long delays and
the great obstruction to justice experienced in the
cases of Beavers, Green and Gaynor, and Benson.
Were these isolated and special cases, I should not
call your attention to them; but the difficulties encountered
as regards these men who have been indicted
for criminal practices are not exceptional;
they are precisely similar in kind to what occurs
again and again in the case of criminals who have
sufficient means to enable them to take advantage of
a system of procedure which has grown up in the
Federal courts and which amounts in effect to making
the law easy of enforcement against the man
who has no money, and difficult of enforcement,
even to the point of sometimes securing immunity,
as regards the man who has money. In criminal
cases the writ of the United States should run
throughout its borders. The wheels of justice
should not be clogged, as they have been clogged
in the case above-mentioned, where it has proved
absolutely impossible to bring the accused to the
place appointed by the Constitution for his trial.
Of recent years there has been grave and increasing
complaint of the difficulty of bringing to justice
those criminals whose criminality, instead of being
against one person in the Republic, is against all
persons in the Republic, because it is against the
Republic itself. Under any circumstances and from
the very nature of the case it is often exceedingly
difficult to secure proper punishment of those who
have been guilty of wrongdoing against the Government.
By the time the offender can be brought
into court the popular wrath against him has generally
subsided; and there is in most instances very
slight danger indeed of any prejudice existing in
the minds of the jury against him. At present the
interests of the innocent man are amply safeguarded;
but the interests of the Government, that is, the
interests of honest administration, that is the interests
of the people, are not recognized as they should
be. No subject better warrants the attention of the
Congress. Indeed, no subject better warrants the
attention of the bench and the bar throughout
the United States.
Alaska, like all our Territorial acquisitions, has
proved resourceful beyond the expectations of those
who made the purchase. It has become the home
of many hardy, industrious, and thrifty American
citizens. Towns of a permanent character have
been built. The extent of its wealth in minerals,
timber, fisheries, and agriculture, while great, is
probably not comprehended yet in any just measure
by our people. We do know, however, that from a
very small beginning its products have grown until
they are a steady and material contribution to the
wealth of the Nation. Owing to the immensity of
Alaska and its location in the far north, it is a
difficult matter to provide many things essential to
its growth and to the happiness and comfort of its
people by private enterprise alone. It should, therefore,
receive reasonable aid from the Government.
The Government has already done excellent work
for Alaska in laying cables and building telegraph
lines. This work has been done in the most economical
and efficient way by the Signal Corps of
the Army.
In some respects it has outgrown its present laws,
while in others those laws have been found to be
inadequate. In order to obtain information upon
which I could rely I caused an official of the Department
of Justice, in whose judgment I have confidence,
to visit Alaska during the past summer for
the purpose of ascertaining how government is administered
there and what legislation is actually
needed at present. A statement of the conditions
found to exist, together with some recommendations
and the reasons therefor, in which I strongly concur,
will be found in the annual report of the
Attorney-General. In some instances I feel that
the legislation suggested is so imperatively needed
that I am moved briefly to emphasize the Attorney-General’s
proposals.
Under the Code of Alaska as it now stands many
purely administrative powers and duties, including
by far the most important, devolve upon the district
judges or upon the clerks of the district court acting
under the direction of the judges, while the
Governor, upon whom these powers and duties
should logically fall, has nothing specific to do except
to make annual reports, issue Thanksgiving
Day proclamations, and appoint Indian policemen
and notaries public. I believe it essential to good
government in Alaska, and therefore recommend
that the Congress divest the district judges and the
clerks of their courts of the administrative or executive
functions that they now exercise and cast
them upon the Governor. This would not be an
innovation; it would simply conform the government
of Alaska to fundamental principles, making
the Governorship a real instead of a merely nominal
office, and leaving the judges free to give their entire
attention to their judicial duties and at the
same time removing them from a great deal of the
strife that now embarrasses the judicial office in
Alaska.
I also recommend that the salaries of the district
judges and district attorneys in Alaska be increased
so as to make them equal to those received by corresponding
officers in the United States after deducting
the difference in the cost of living; that the
district attorneys should be prohibited from engaging
in private practice; that United States commissioners
be appointed by the Governor of the
Territory instead of by the district judges, and that
a fixed salary be provided for them to take the
place of the discredited “fee system,” which should
be abolished in all offices; that a mounted constabulary
be created to police the territory outside the
limits of incorporated towns—a vast section now
wholly without police protection; and that some
provision be made to at least lessen the oppressive
delays and costs that now attend the prosecution of
appeals from the district court of Alaska. There
should be a division of the existing judicial districts,
and an increase in the number of judges.
Alaska should have a Delegate in the Congress.
Where possible, the Congress should aid in the construction
of needed wagon roads. Additional lighthouses
should be provided. In my judgment, it is
especially important to aid in such manner as seems
just and feasible in the construction of a trunk line
of railway to connect the Gulf of Alaska with the
Yukon River through American territory. This
would be most beneficial to the development of the
resources of the Territory, and to the comfort and
welfare of its people.
Salmon hatcheries should be established in many
different streams, so as to secure the preservation
of this valuable food fish. Salmon fisheries and
canneries should be prohibited on certain of the
rivers where the mass of those Indians dwell who
live almost exclusively on fish.
The Alaskan natives are kindly, intelligent, anxious
to learn, and willing to work. Those who have
come under the influence of civilization, even for a
limited period, have proved their capability of becoming
self-supporting, self-respecting citizens, and
ask only for the just enforcement of law and intelligent
instruction and supervision. Others, living
in more remote regions, primitive, simple hunters
and fisher folk, who know only the life of the
woods and the waters, are daily being confronted
with twentieth-century civilization with all of its
complexities. Their country is being overrun by
strangers, the game slaughtered and driven away,
the streams depleted of fish, and hitherto unknown
and fatal diseases brought to them, all of which
combine to produce a state of abject poverty and
want which must result in their extinction. Action
in their interest is demanded by every consideration
of justice and humanity.
The needs of these people are:
The abolition of the present fee system, whereby
the native is degraded, imposed upon, and taught
the injustice of law.
The establishment of hospitals at central points,
so that contagious diseases that are brought to them
continually by incoming whites may be localized
and not allowed to become epidemic, to spread
death and destitution over great areas.
The development of the educational system in the
form of practical training in such industries as will
assure the Indians self-support under the changed
conditions in which they will have to live.
The duties of the office of the Governor should
be extended to include the supervision of Indian affairs,
with necessary assistants in different districts.
He should be provided with the means and the
power to protect and advise the native people, to
furnish medical treatment in time of epidemics, and
to extend material relief in periods of famine and
extreme destitution.
The Alaskan natives should be given the right to
acquire, hold, and dispose of property upon the
same conditions as given other inhabitants; and the
privilege of citizenship should be given to such as
may be able to meet certain definite requirements.
In Hawaii Congress should give the Governor
power to remove all the officials appointed under
him. The harbor of Honolulu should be dredged.
The Marine-Hospital Service should be empowered
to study leprosy in the islands. I ask special consideration
for the report and recommendations of
the Governor of Porto Rico.
In treating of our foreign policy and of the attitude
that this great Nation should assume in the
world at large, it is absolutely necessary to consider
the Army and the Navy, and the Congress, through
which the thought of the Nation finds its expression,
should keep ever vividly in mind the fundamental
fact that it is impossible to treat our foreign
policy, whether this policy takes shape in the effort
to secure justice for others or justice for ourselves,
save as conditioned upon the attitude we are willing
to take toward our Army, and especially toward
our Navy. It is not merely unwise, it is contemptible,
for a nation, as for an individual, to use
high-sounding language to proclaim its purposes,
or to take positions which are ridiculous if unsupported
by potential force, and then to refuse to provide
this force. If there is no intention of providing
and of keeping the force necessary to back up
a strong attitude, then it is far better not to assume
such an attitude.
The steady aim of this Nation, as of all enlightened
nations, should be to strive to bring ever
nearer the day when there shall prevail throughout
the world the peace of justice. There are kinds of
peace which are highly undesirable, which are in
the long run as destructive as any war. Tyrants
and oppressors have many times made a wilderness
and called it peace. Many times peoples who were
slothful or timid or shortsighted, who had been
enervated by ease or by luxury, or misled by false
teachings, have shrunk in unmanly fashion from
doing duty that was stern and that needed self-sacrifice,
and have sought to hide from their own
minds their shortcomings, their ignoble motives,
by calling them love of peace. The peace of tyrannous
terror, the peace of craven weakness, the peace
of injustice, all these should be shunned as we shun
unrighteous war. The goal to set before us as a
Nation, the goal which should be set before all mankind,
is the attainment of the peace of justice, of the
peace which comes when each nation is not merely
safeguarded in its own rights, but scrupulously
recognizes and performs its duty toward others.
Generally peace tells for righteousness; but if there
is conflict between the two, then our fealty is due
first to the cause of righteousness. Unrighteous
wars are common, and unrighteous peace is rare;
but both should be shunned. The right of freedom
and the responsibility for the exercise of that right
can not be divorced. One of our great poets has
well and finely said that freedom is not a gift that
tarries long in the hands of cowards. Neither does
it tarry long in the hands of those too slothful, too
dishonest, or too unintelligent to exercise it. The
eternal vigilance which is the price of liberty must
be exercised, sometimes to guard against outside
foes; although of course far more often to guard
against our own selfish or thoughtless shortcomings.
If these self-evident truths are kept before us,
and only if they are so kept before us, we shall
have a clear idea of what our foreign policy in its
larger aspects should be. It is our duty to remember
that a nation has no more right to do injustice
to another nation, strong or weak, than an individual
has to do injustice to another individual; that the
same moral law applies in one case as in the other.
But we must also remember that it is as much the
duty of the Nation to guard its own rights and its
own interests as it is the duty of the individual so
to do. Within the Nation the individual has now
delegated this right to the State, that is, to the
representative of all the individuals, and it is a
maxim of the law that for every wrong there is
a remedy. But in international law we have not
advanced by any means as far as we have advanced
in municipal law. There is as yet no judicial way
of enforcing a right in international law. When
one nation wrongs another, or wrongs many others,
there is no tribunal before which the wrong-doer
can be brought. Either it is necessary supinely to
acquiesce in the wrong, and thus put a premium
upon brutality and aggression, or else it is necessary
for the aggrieved nation valiantly to stand up
for its rights. Until some method is devised by
which there shall be a degree of international control
over offending nations, it would be a wicked
thing for the most civilized powers, for those with
most sense of international obligations and with
keenest and most generous appreciation of the
difference between right and wrong, to disarm. If
the great civilized nations of the present day
should completely disarm, the result would mean
an immediate recrudescence of barbarism in one
form or another. Under any circumstances a sufficient
armament would have to be kept up to serve
the purposes of international police; and until international
cohesion and the sense of international
duties and rights are far more advanced than at
present, a nation desirous both of securing respect
for itself and of doing good to others must have a
force adequate for the work which it feels is
allotted to it as its part of the general world duty.
Therefore it follows that a self-respecting, just,
and far-seeing nation should on the one hand endeavor
by every means to aid in the development
of the various movements which tend to provide
substitutes for war, which tend to render nations
in their actions toward one another, and indeed
toward their own peoples, more responsive to the
general sentiment of humane and civilized mankind;
and on the other hand it should keep prepared,
while scrupulously avoiding wrongdoing
itself, to repel any wrong, and in exceptional cases
to take action which in a more advanced stage of
international relations would come under the head
of the exercise of the international police. A great
free people owes it to itself and to all mankind not
to sink into helplessness before the powers of evil.
We are in every way endeavoring to help on,
with cordial goodwill, every movement which will
tend to bring us into more friendly relations with
the rest of mankind. In pursuance of this policy I
shall shortly lay before the Senate treaties of arbitration
with all powers which are willing to
enter into these treaties with us. It is not possible
at this period of the world’s development to agree
to arbitrate all matters, but there are many matters
of possible difference between us and other nations
which can be thus arbitrated. Furthermore, at the
request of the Interparliamentary Union, an eminent
body composed of practical statesmen from all
countries, I have asked the Powers to join with this
Government in a second Hague conference, at
which it is hoped that the work already so happily
begun at The Hague may be carried some steps
further toward completion. This carries out the
desire expressed by the first Hague conference
itself.
It is not true that the United States feels any
land hunger or entertains any projects as regards
the other nations of the Western Hemisphere save
such as are for their welfare. All that this country
desires is to see the neighboring countries
stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country
whose people conduct themselves well can count
upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows
that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency
and decency in social and political matters, if it
keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear
no interference from the United States. Chronic
wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a
general loosening of the ties of civilized society,
may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require
intervention by some civilized nation, and in the
Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United
States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the
United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant
cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise
of an international police power. If every
country washed by the Caribbean Sea would show
the progress in stable and just civilization which
with the aid of the Platt amendment Cuba has
shown since our troops left the island, and which
so many of the republics in both Americas are constantly
and brilliantly showing, all question of interference
by this Nation with their affairs would be at
an end. Our interests and those of our southern
neighbors are in reality identical. They have great
natural riches, and if within their borders the reign
of law and justice obtains, prosperity is sure to
come to them. While they thus obey the primary
laws of civilized society they may rest assured that
they will be treated by us in a spirit of cordial and
helpful sympathy. We would interfere with them
only in the last resort, and then only if it became
evident that their inability or unwillingness to do
justice at home and abroad had violated the rights
of the United States or had invited foreign aggression
to the detriment of the entire body of American
nations. It is a mere truism to say that every
nation, whether in America or anywhere else,
which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence,
must ultimately realize that the right of such
independence can not be separated from the responsibility
of making good use of it.
In asserting the Monroe Doctrine, in taking
such steps as we have taken in regard to Cuba,
Venezuela, and Panama, and in endeavoring to
circumscribe the theatre of war in the Far East,
and to secure the open door in China, we have acted
in our own interest as well as in the interest of humanity
at large. There are, however, cases in
which, while our own interests are not greatly involved,
strong appeal is made to our sympathies.
Ordinarily it is very much wiser and more useful
for us to concern ourselves with striving for our
own moral and material betterment here at home
than to concern ourselves with trying to better the
condition of things in other nations. We have
plenty of sins of our own to war against, and under
ordinary circumstances we can do more for the
general uplifting of humanity by striving with
heart and soul to put a stop to civic corruption, to
brutal lawlessness and violent race prejudices here
at home than by passing resolutions about wrongdoing
elsewhere. Nevertheless there are occasional
crimes committed on so vast a scale and of such
peculiar horror as to make us doubt whether it is
not our manifest duty to endeavor at least to show
our disapproval of the deed and our sympathy with
those who have suffered by it. The cases must be
extreme in which such a course is justifiable. There
must be no effort made to remove the mote from
our brother’s eye if we refuse to remove the beam
from our own. But in extreme cases action may
be justifiable and proper. What form the action
shall take must depend upon the circumstances of
the case; that is, upon the degree of the atrocity and
upon our power to remedy it. The cases in which
we could interfere by force of arms as we interfered
to put a stop to intolerable conditions in
Cuba are necessarily very few. Yet it is not to be
expected that a people like ours, which in spite of
certain very obvious shortcomings, nevertheless as
a whole shows by its consistent practice its belief
in the principles of civil and religious liberty and
of orderly freedom, a people among whom even the
worst crime, like the crime of lynching, is never
more than sporadic, so that individuals and not
classes are molested in their fundamental rights—it
is inevitable that such a nation should desire
eagerly to give expression to its horror on an occasion
like that of the massacre of the Jews in
Kishineff, or when it witnesses such systematic
and long-extended cruelty and oppression as the
cruelty and oppression of which the Armenians
have been the victims, and which have won for them
the indignant pity of the civilized world.
Even where it is not possible to secure in other
nations the observance of the principles which we
accept as axiomatic, it is necessary for us firmly
to insist upon the rights of our own citizens without
regard to their creed or race; without regard
to whether they were born here or born abroad.
It has proved very difficult to secure from Russia
the right for our Jewish fellow-citizens to receive
passports and travel through Russian territory.
Such conduct is not only unjust and irritating toward
us, but it is difficult to see its wisdom from
Russia’s standpoint. No conceivable good is accomplished
by it. If an American Jew or an American
Christian misbehaves himself in Russia he can
at once be driven out; but the ordinary American
Jew, like the ordinary American Christian, would
behave just about as he behaves here, that is, behave
as any good citizen ought to behave; and
where this is the case it is a wrong against which
we are entitled to protest to refuse him his passport
without regard to his conduct and character,
merely on racial and religious grounds. In Turkey
our difficulties arise less from the way in which our
citizens are sometimes treated than from the indignation
inevitably excited in seeing such fearful
misrule as has been witnessed both in Armenia and
Macedonia.
The strong arm of the Government in enforcing
respect for its just rights in international matters
is the Navy of the United States. I most earnestly
recommend that there be no halt in the work of
upbuilding the American Navy. There is no more
patriotic duty before us as a people than to keep
the Navy adequate to the needs of this country’s
position. We have undertaken to build the Isthmian
Canal. We have undertaken to secure for
ourselves our just share in the trade of the Orient.
We have undertaken to protect our citizens from
improper treatment in foreign lands. We continue
steadily to insist on the application of the Monroe
Doctrine to the Western Hemisphere. Unless our
attitude in these and all similar matters is to be a
mere boastful sham we can not afford to abandon
our naval programme. Our voice is now potent
for peace, and is so potent because we are not
afraid of war. But our protestations upon behalf
of peace would neither receive nor deserve the
slightest attention if we were impotent to make
them good.
The war which now unfortunately rages in the
Far East has emphasized in striking fashion the
new possibilities of naval warfare. The lessons
taught are both strategic and tactical, and are political
as well as military. The experiences of the
war have shown in conclusive fashion that while
sea-going and sea-keeping torpedo destroyers are
indispensable, and fast lightly armed and armored
cruisers very useful, yet that the main reliance, the
main standby, in any navy worthy the name must
be the great battleships, heavily armored and
heavily gunned. Not a Russian or Japanese battleship
has been sunk by a torpedo boat, or by gunfire,
while among the less protected ships, cruiser
after cruiser has been destroyed whenever the
hostile squadrons have gotten within range of one
another’s weapons. There will always be a large
field of usefulness for cruisers, especially of the
more formidable type. We need to increase the
number of torpedo-boat destroyers, paying less heed
to their having a knot or two extra speed than
to their capacity to keep the seas for weeks and,
if necessary, for months at a time. It is wise to
build submarine torpedo boats, as under certain
circumstances they might be very useful. But most
of all we need to continue building our fleet of
battleships, or ships so powerfully armed that they
can inflict the maximum of damage upon our opponents,
and so well protected that they can suffer
a severe hammering in return without fatal impairment
of their ability to fight and manœuvre.
Of course ample means must be provided for enabling
the personnel of the Navy to be brought to
the highest point of efficiency. Our great fighting
ships and torpedo boats must be ceaselessly trained
and manœuvred in squadrons. The officers and
men can only learn their trade thoroughly by ceaseless
practice on the high seas. In the event of war
it would be far better to have no ships at all than
to have ships of a poor and ineffective type, or ships
which, however good, were yet manned by untrained
and unskilful crews. The best officers and men in
a poor ship could do nothing against fairly good
opponents; and, on the other hand, a modern warship
is useless unless the officers and men aboard
her have become adepts in their duties. The marksmanship
in our Navy has improved in an extraordinary
degree during the last three years, and on
the whole the types of our battleships are improving;
but much remains to be done. Sooner or later
we shall have to provide for some method by which
there will be promotions for merit as well as for
seniority, or else retirement of all those who after
a certain age have not advanced beyond a certain
grade; while no effort must be spared to make the
service attractive to the enlisted men in order that
they may be kept as long as possible in it. Reservation
public schools should be provided wherever
there are navy-yards.
Within the last three years the United States has
set an example in disarmament where disarmament
was proper. By law our Army is fixed at a maximum
of one hundred thousand and a minimum of
sixty thousand men. When there was insurrection
in the Philippines we kept the Army at the maximum.
Peace came in the Philippines, and now our
Army has been reduced to the minimum at which
it is possible to keep it with due regard to its efficiency.
The guns now mounted require twenty-eight
thousand men, if the coast fortifications are to be
adequately manned. Relatively to the Nation, it
is not now so large as the police force of New York
or Chicago, relatively to the population of either
city. We need more officers; there are not enough
to perform the regular army work. It is very important
that the officers of the Army should be accustomed
to handle their men in masses, as it is
also important that the National Guard of the
several States should be accustomed to actual field
manœuvring, especially in connection with the
regulars. For this reason we are to be congratulated
upon the success of the field manœuvres
at Manassas last fall, manœuvres in which a larger
number of Regulars and National Guard took part
than was ever before assembled together in time of
peace. No other civilized nation has, relatively to
its population, such a diminutive Army as ours;
and while the Army is so small we are not to be
excused if we fail to keep it at a very high grade of
proficiency. It must be incessantly practiced; the
standard for the enlisted men should be kept very
high, while at the same time the service should be
made as attractive as possible; and the standard for
the officers should be kept even higher—which, as
regards the upper ranks, can best be done by introducing
some system of selection and rejection
into the promotions. We should be able, in the
event of some sudden emergency, to put into the
field one first-class army corps, which should be, as
a whole, at least the equal of any body of troops of
like number belonging to any other nation.
Great progress has been made in protecting our
coasts by adequate fortifications with sufficient
guns. We should, however, pay much more heed
than at present to the development of an extensive
system of floating mines for use in all our more
important harbors. These mines have been proved
to be a most formidable safeguard against hostile
fleets.
I earnestly call the attention of the Congress to
the need of amending the existing law relating to
the award of Congressional medals of honor in the
Navy so as to provide that they may be awarded
to commissioned officers and warrant officers as
well as to enlisted men. These justly prized medals
are given in the Army alike to the officers and the
enlisted men, and it is most unjust that the commissioned
officers and warrant officers of the Navy
should not in this respect have the same rights as
their brethren in the Army and as the enlisted men
of the Navy.
In the Philippine Islands there has been during
the past year a continuation of the steady progress
which has obtained ever since our troops definitely
got the upper hand of the insurgents. The Philippine
people, or, to speak more accurately, the many
tribes, and even races, sundered from one another
more or less sharply, who go to make up the people
of the Philippine Islands, contain many elements
of good, and some elements which we have a right
to hope stand for progress. At present they are
utterly incapable of existing in independence at all
or of building up a civilization of their own. I
firmly believe that we can help them to rise higher
and higher in the scale of civilization and of capacity
for self-government, and I most earnestly
hope that in the end they will be able to stand, if
not entirely alone, yet in some such relation to the
United States as Cuba now stands. This end is
not yet in sight, and it may be indefinitely postponed
if our people are foolish enough to turn the
attention of the Filipinos away from the problems
of achieving moral and material prosperity, of
working for a stable, orderly, and just government,
and toward foolish and dangerous intrigues
for a complete independence for which they are as
yet totally unfit.
On the other hand, our people must keep steadily
before their minds the fact that the justification for
our stay in the Philippines must ultimately rest
chiefly upon the good we are able to do in the islands.
I do not overlook the fact that in the development
of our interests in the Pacific Ocean and
along its coasts, the Philippines have played and
will play an important part, and that our interests
have been served in more than one way by the possession
of the islands. But our chief reason for
continuing to hold them must be that we ought in
good faith to try to do our share of the world’s
work, and this particular piece of work has been
imposed upon us by the results of the war with
Spain. The problem presented to us in the Philippine
Islands is akin to, but not exactly like, the
problems presented to the other great civilized
powers which have possessions in the Orient. There
are points of resemblance in our work to the work
which is being done by the British in India and
Egypt, by the French in Algiers, by the Dutch in
Java, by the Russians in Turkestan, by the Japanese
in Formosa; but more distinctly than any of these
Powers we are endeavoring to develop the natives
themselves so that they shall take an ever-increasing
share in their own government, and as far as
prudent we are already admitting their representatives
to a governmental equality with our own.
There are commissioners, judges, and governors
in the islands who are Filipinos and who have exactly
the same share in the government of the islands
as have their colleagues who are Americans,
while in the lower ranks, of course, the great majority
of the public servants are Filipinos. Within
two years we shall be trying the experiment of an
elective lower house in the Philippine legislature.
It may be that the Filipinos will misuse this legislature,
and they certainly will misuse it if they are
misled by foolish persons here at home into starting
an agitation for their own independence or into
any factious or improper action. In such case they
will do themselves no good, and will stop for the
time being all further effort to advance them and
give them a greater share in their own government.
But if they act with wisdom and self-restraint, if
they show that they are capable of electing a legislature
which in its turn is capable of taking a sane
and efficient part in the actual work of government,
they can rest assured that a full and increasing
measure of recognition will be given
them. Above all they should remember that
their prime needs are moral and industrial, not
political. It is a good thing to try the experiment
of giving them a legislature; but it is
a far better thing to give them schools, good
roads, railroads which will enable them to get their
products to market, honest courts, an honest and
efficient constabulary, and all that tends to produce
order, peace, fair dealing as between man and man,
and habits of intelligent industry and thrift. If
they are safeguarded against oppression, and if
their wants, material and spiritual, are studied intelligently
and in a spirit of friendly sympathy,
much more good will be done them than by any
effort to give them political power, though this
effort may in its own proper time and place be
proper enough.
Meanwhile our own people should remember that
there is need for the highest standard of conduct
among the Americans sent to the Philippine Islands,
not only among the public servants, but among
the private individuals who go to them. It is because
I feel this so deeply that in the administration
of these islands I have positively refused to
permit any discrimination whatsoever for political
reasons, and have insisted that in choosing the public
servants consideration should be paid solely to
the worth of the men chosen and to the needs of
the islands. There is no higher body of men in our
public service than we have in the Philippine Islands
under Governor Wright and his associates.
So far as possible these men should be given a free
hand, and their suggestions should receive the
hearty backing both of the Executive and of the
Congress. There is need of a vigilant and disinterested
support of our public servants in the Philippines
by good citizens here in the United States.
Unfortunately hitherto those of our people here at
home who have specially claimed to be the champions
of the Filipinos have in reality been their
worst enemies. This will continue to be the case
as long as they strive to make the Filipinos independent,
and stop all industrial development of the
islands by crying out against the laws which would
bring it on the ground that capitalists must not
“exploit” the islands. Such proceedings are not
only unwise, but are most harmful to the Filipinos,
who do not need independence at all, but who do
need good laws, good public servants, and the industrial
development that can only come if the investment
of American and foreign capital in the
islands is favored in all legitimate ways.
Every measure taken concerning the islands
should be taken primarily with a view to their advantage.
We should certainly give them lower
tariff rates on their exports to the United States;
if this is not done it will be a wrong to extend our
shipping laws to them. I earnestly hope for the
immediate enactment into law of the legislation
now pending to encourage American capital to seek
investment in the islands in railroads, in factories,
in plantations, and in lumbering and mining.
Theodore Roosevelt.
White House,
December 6, 1904.
Mr. Secretary, Gentlemen and Ladies:
It is a pleasure to greet all of you here this
afternoon, but of course especially the members of
the American Forest Congress. You have made,
by your coming, a meeting which is without parallel
in the history of forestry. And, Mr. Secretary, I
must take this opportunity of saying to you what
you so amply deserve, that no man in this country
has done so much as you have done in the last eight
years to make it possible to take a business view
from the standpoint of all the country of just such
questions as this. It is not many years since such
a meeting as this would have been regarded as
chimerical; the thought of it would have been regarded
as absolutely chimerical. In the old pioneer
days the American had but one thought about a
tree, and that was to cut it down; and the mental
attitude of the Nation toward the forests was
largely conditioned upon the fact that the life
work of the earlier generations of our people had
been of necessity to hew down the forests, for they
had to make clearings on which to live; and it was
not until half a century of our national life had
passed that any considerable body of American citizens
began to live under conditions where the tree
ceased to be something to be cleared off the earth.
It always takes time to get the mind of a people accustomed
to any change in conditions, and it took a
long time to get the mind of our people, as a whole,
accustomed to the fact that they had to alter their
attitude toward the forests. For the first time the
great business and the forest interests of the Nation
have joined together, through delegates altogether
worthy of the organizations they represent, to consider
their individual and their common interests
in the forest. This congress may well be called a
meeting of forest users, for that the users of the
forest come together to consider how best to combine
use with preservation is the significant fact
of the meeting, the fact full of powerful promise
for the forests of the future.
The producers, the manufacturers, and the great
common carriers of the Nation had long failed to
realize their true and vital relation to the great forests
of the United States, and the forests and industries
both suffered from that failure. The suffering
of the industries in such case comes after the destruction
of the forests, but it is just as inevitable
as that destruction. If the forest is destroyed it
is only a question of a relatively short time before
the business interests suffer in consequence. All
of you know that there is opportunity in any new
country for the development of the type of temporary
inhabitant whose idea is to skin the country
and go somewhere else. You all know, and especially
those of you from the West, the individual
whose idea of developing the country is to cut every
stick of timber off of it and then leave a barren
desert for the homemaker who comes in after him.
That man is a curse and not a blessing to the country.
The prop of the country must be the business
man who intends so to run his business that it will
be profitable for his children after him. That is
the type of business that it is worth while to develop.
The time of indifference and misunderstanding
has gone by. Your coming is a very great step toward
the solution of the forest problem—a problem
which can not be settled until it is settled right.
And it can not be settled right until the forces
which bring that settlement about come, not from
the Government, not even from the newspapers and
from public sentiment in general, but from the
active, intelligent, and effective interest of the men
to whom the forest is important from the business
point of view, because they use it and its product
and whose interest is therefore concrete instead of
general and diffuse. I do not in the least underrate
the power of an awakened public opinion; but
in the final test it will be the attitude of the industries
of the country which more than anything
else will determine whether or not our forests are
to be preserved. It is because of their recognition
of that prime material fact that so much has been
accomplished, Mr. Wilson, by those interested
under you and in the other departments of the
Government in the preservation of the forests.
We want the active and zealous help of every man
farsighted enough to realize the importance from
the standpoint of the Nation’s welfare in the future
of preserving the forests; but that help by itself
will not avail. It will not even be the main factor
in bringing about the result toward which we are
striving; the main factor must come from the intelligence
of the business interests concerned, so
that the manufacturer, the railway man, the miner,
the lumberman, the dealer in lumber, shall appreciate
that it is of direct interest to them to preserve
through use instead of waste, the great resources
upon which they depend for the successful
development of their business. This is true because
by far the greater part of all our forests must pass
into the hands of forest users, whether directly or
through the Government, which will continue to
hold some of them, but only as trustee. The forest
is for use, and its users will decide its future. It
was only a few years ago that the practical lumberman
felt that the forest expert was a man who
wished to see the forests preserved as bric-a-brac,
and the American business man was not prepared
to do much from the bric-a-brac standpoint. Now,
I think, we have got a working agreement between
the forester and the business man whose business
is the use of the forest. We have got them to come
together with the understanding that they must
work for a common end, work to see the forest
preserved for use. The great significance of this
congress comes from the fact that henceforth the
movement for the conservative use of the forest
is to come mainly from within, not from without;
from the men who are actively interested in the use
of the forest in one way or another, even more than
from those whose interest is philanthropic and general.
The difference means, as the difference in
such a case always does mean, to a large extent the
difference between mere agitation and actual execution,
between the hope of accomplishment and
the thing done. We believe that at last forces have
been set in motion which will convert the once distant
prospect of the conservation of the forest by
wise use into the practical accomplishment of that
great end; and of this most hopeful and significant
fact the coming together of this congress is the
sufficient proof.
I shall not pretend this afternoon to even describe
to you the place of the forest in the life of
any nation, and especially of its place in the United
States. The great industries of agriculture, transportation,
mining, grazing, and, of course, lumbering,
are each one of them vitally and immediately
dependent upon wood, water, or grass from the
forest. The manufacturing industries, whether or
not wood enters directly into their finished product,
are scarcely, if at all, less dependent upon the
forest than those whose connection with it is obvious
and direct. Wood is an indispensable part
of the material structure upon which civilization
rests; and it is to be remembered always that the
immense increase of the use of iron and substitutes
for wood in many structures, while it has meant
a relative decrease in the amount of wood used,
has been accompanied by an absolute increase in
the amount of wood used. More wood is used
than ever before in our history. Thus, the consumption
of wood in shipbuilding is far larger than
it was before the discovery of the art of building
iron ships, because vastly more ships are built.
Larger supplies of building lumber are required, directly
or indirectly, for use in the construction of
the brick and stone structures of great modern cities
than were consumed by the comparatively few and
comparatively small wooden buildings in the earlier
stages of these same cities. It is as sure as anything
can be that we will see in the future a steadily
increasing demand for wood in our manufacturing
industries. There is one point I want to speak
about in addition to the uses of the forest to which
I have already alluded. Those of us who have
lived on the great plains, who are acquainted with
the conditions in parts of Oklahoma, Nebraska,
Kansas, and the Dakotas, know that wood forms
an immensely portentous element in helping the
farmer on these plains battle against his worst
enemy—wind. The use of forests as windbreaks
out on the plains, where the tree does not grow
unless men help it, is of enormous importance, and,
Mr. Wilson, among the many services performed
by the public-spirited statesman who once occupied
the position that you now hold, none was greater
than what the late Secretary of Agriculture, Mr.
Morton, did in teaching, by actual example as well
as by precept, the people of the treeless regions the
immense advantage of the cultivation of trees.
When wood, dead or alive, is demanded in so many
ways, and when this demand will undoubtedly increase,
it is a fair question, then, whether the vast
demands of the future upon our forests are likely
to be met. You are mighty poor Americans if
your care for the well-being of this country is
limited to hoping that that well-being will last out
your own generation. No man, here or elsewhere,
is entitled to call himself a decent citizen if he
does not try to do his part toward seeing that our
national policies are shaped for the advantage of
our children and our children’s children. Our
country, we have faith to believe, is only at the
beginning of its growth. Unless the forests of the
United States can be made ready to meet the vast
demands which this growth will inevitably bring,
commercial disaster, that means disaster to the
whole country, is inevitable. The railroads must
have ties, and the general opinion is that no efficient
substitute for wood for this purpose has been
devised. The miner must have timber or he can
not operate his mine, and in very many cases the
profit which mining yields is directly proportionate
to the cost of timber supply. The farmer, East
and West, must have timber for numberless uses
on his farm, and he must be protected, by forest
cover upon the headwaters of the streams he uses,
against floods in the East, and the lack of water for
irrigation in the West. The stockman must have
fence posts, and very often he must have summer
range for his stock in the national forest reserves.
In a word, both the production of the great staples
upon which our prosperity depends and their movement
in commerce throughout the United States
are inseparably dependent upon the existence of
permanent and suitable supplies from the forest at
a reasonable cost.
If the present rate of forest destruction is allowed
to continue, with nothing to offset it, a timber
famine in the future is inevitable. Fire, wasteful
and destructive forms of lumbering, and the legitimate
use, taken together, are destroying our forest
resources far more rapidly than they are being
replaced. It is difficult to imagine what such a
timber famine would mean to our resources. And
the period of recovery from the injuries which a
timber famine would entail would be measured by
the slow growth of the trees themselves. Remember
that you can prevent such a timber famine occurring
by wise action taken in time, but once the
famine occurs there is no possible way of hurrying
the growth of the trees necessary to relieve it.
You have got to act in time or else the Nation
would have to submit to prolonged suffering after
it had become too late for forethought to avail.
Fortunately, the remedy is a simple one, and your
presence here to-day is a most encouraging sign
that there will be such forethought. It is the great
merit of the Department of Agriculture in the forest
work that its efforts have been directed to enlist
the sympathy and co-operation of the users of
wood, water, and grass, and to show that forestry
will and does pay, rather than to exhaust itself in
the futile attempt to introduce conservative methods
by any other means. I believe most emphatically
in sentiment, but I want the sentiment to be
put into co-operation with the business interests,
and that is what is being done. The policy is one
of helpfulness throughout, and never of hostility
or coercion toward any legitimate interest whatsoever.
In the very nature of things it can make
little progress apart from you. Whatever it may
be possible for the Government to accomplish, its
work must ultimately fail unless your interest and
support give it permanence and power. It is only
as the producing and commercial interests of the
country come to realize that they need to have
trees growing up in the forest not less than they
need the product of the trees cut down that we may
hope to see the permanent prosperity of both safely
secured.
This statement is true not only as to forests in
private ownership, but as to the national forests as
well. Unless the men from the West believe in forest
preservation the Western forests can not be preserved.
We here at the headquarters of the National
Government recognize that absolutely. We believe,
we know, that it is essential for the well-being of
the people of the States of the great plains, the States
of the Rockies, the States of the Pacific Slope, that
the forests shall be preserved, and we know also
that our belief will count for nothing unless the
people of those States themselves wish to preserve
the forests. If they do we can help materially; we
can direct their efforts, but we can not save the
forests unless they wish them to be saved.
I ask, with all the intensity that I am capable, that
the men of the West will remember the sharp distinction
I have just drawn between the man who
skins the land and the man who develops the country.
I am going to work with, and only with, the
man who develops the country. I am against the
land skinner every time. Our policy is consistent
to give to every portion of the public domain its
highest possible amount of use, and of course that
can be given only through the hearty co-operation
of the Western people. I would like to add one
word as to the creation of a national forest service
which I have recommended repeatedly in messages
to Congress, and especially in my last. I wish to
see all the forest work of the Government concentrated
in the Department of Agriculture. It is folly
to scatter such work, as I have said over and over
again, and the policy which this Administration is
trying to carry out through the creation of such a
service is that of making the national forests more
actively and more permanently useful to the people
of the West, and I am heartily glad to know that
the Western sentiment supports more and more
vigorously the policy of setting aside national forests,
the creation of a national forest service, and especially
the policy of increasing the permanent usefulness
of these forest lands to all who come in
contact with them. With what is rapidly getting to
be a practically unbroken sentiment in the West
behind such a forest policy, with what is rapidly
getting to be a practically unbroken support by the
great stable interests behind the general policy of the
conservative use of the forests, we have a right to
feel that we have entered on an era of great and
lasting progress. Only entered upon it; much, very
much, remains to be done; and as in every other
department of human activity our debt of gratitude
will be due, not to the amiable but shortsighted
optimist who thinks you have made a good beginning
and the end may take care of itself; still less
to the man who sits at one side and says how poorly
the work is being done by those who are doing it;
but to the men who try, each in his own place, practically
to forward this great work. That is the type
of man who is going to do the work, and it is because
I believe that we have enlisted the active,
practical sympathy of just that kind of man in this
work that I believe the future of this policy to be
bright and the permanence of our timber supplies
more nearly assured than at any previous time in
our history. To the men represented in this congress
this great result is primarily due. In closing,
I wish to thank you who are here, not merely for
what you are doing in this particular movement, but
for the fact that you are illustrating what I hope I
may call the typically American method of meeting
questions of great and vital importance to the Nation—the
method of seeing whether the individuals particularly
concerned can not by getting together and
co-operating with the Government do infinitely more
for themselves than it would be possible for any
Government under the sun to do for them. I believe
in the future of this movement, because I think you
have the right combination of qualities—the quality
of individual initiative, the quality of individual resourcefulness,
combined with the quality that enables
you to come together for mutual help, and having
so come, to work with the Government; and I pledge
you in the fullest measure the support of the Government
in what you are doing.
Mr. President, Your Eminence, Gentlemen:
It is a great pleasure to have the chance of coming
here this evening and saying a word of greeting
to a body of men who are engaged in doing work
for this Republic which is to count, not merely in
the present generation, but during the lifetimes
of many generations to come. We hear a great
deal said about true Americanism. Now the real
American, the American whom it is worth while
to call such, is the man whose belief in and work
for America are not merely for the America of
to-day, but for the America of the future.
It is a comparatively easy thing to do work when
the reward is to come in the present; but every
great nation that has ever existed on this globe
has been great because its sons had in them the capacity
to work for the well-being of generations yet
unborn. Such a spirit is peculiarly necessary when
the work that we desire to have done is essentially
work of a non-remunerative type, non-remunerative
in more than one way; non-remunerative in money,
and it may be in fame. We do not know the names
of the architects and builders of the great cathedrals
whose magnificent beauty is an heirloom to
civilization. We do not know the names of the
builders of the great majority of the works to which
every man with an aspiration after beauty naturally
turns when he thinks of the past. We owe that
beauty, we owe the elevation of thought, of mind
and soul, that come with association and belief in
it, to the fact that there were a sufficient number of
men who worked in the spirit that Ruskin prayed
for—the spirit of doing work not for the sake of
the fee, but for the sake of the work itself.
There are things in a nation’s life more important
than beauty; but beauty is very important.
And in this Nation of ours, while there is very
much in which we have succeeded marvelously, I
do not think that if we look dispassionately at what
we have done we will say that beauty has been
exactly the strong point of the Nation. It rests
largely with gatherings such as this, with the note
that is set by men such as those I am addressing to-night,
to determine whether or not this shall be
true of the future. A very large percentage of the
durable work, the work which is lasting, and therefore
the beauty of which, if it exists, is also lasting,
must be done by the Government. Many great
buildings and beautiful buildings will be created
by private effort; but many of the greatest buildings
must necessarily be erected by the Government,
national, State, or municipal. Those in control of
any branch of that Government necessarily have but
an ephemeral lease of power. Administration succeeds
administration; Congress succeeds Congress;
Legislature succeeds Legislature; and even if all
of the administrations, all of the Congresses, are
actuated (a not necessarily probable supposition)
by an artistic spirit, it would still remain true that
there could not be coherence in their work if they
had to rely on themselves alone. The best thing
that any administration, that any executive department
of the Government, can do—and if I may
venture to make any suggestion to the co-ordinate
branch, Senator Cockrell, I would say that the
best thing that any elective legislative body could
do—is in these matters to surrender itself, within
reasonable limits, to the guidance of those who really
do know what they are talking about. The only
way in which we can hope to have worthy artistic
work done for the Nation or for a State or for a
municipality, is by having such a growth of popular
sentiment as will render it incumbent upon successive
administrations, successive legislative bodies,
to carry out steadily a plan chosen for them, worked
out for them by such a body of men as that gathered
here this evening. What I have said does not
mean that we shall here in Washington, for instance,
go into immediate and extravagant expenditures
on public buildings. All that it means is
that, whenever hereafter a public building is provided
for and erected, it should be erected in accordance
with a carefully thought out plan adopted
long before; and that it should be not only beautiful
in itself, but fitting in its relations to the whole
scheme of the public buildings, the parks, the drives
of the District.
Working through municipal commissions, very
great progress has already been made in rendering
more beautiful our cities, from New York to San
Francisco. An incredible amount remains to be
done. But a beginning has been made, and now I
most earnestly hope that in the National Capital a
better beginning will be made than anywhere else,
and that can be made only by utilizing to the fullest
degree the thought and the disinterested effort of
the architects, the artists, the men of art, who stand
foremost in their professions here in the United
States, and who ask no other reward than the reward
of feeling that they have done their full part
to make as beautiful as it should be the capital city
of the great Republic.
Dr. Butler:
It is a great pleasure to meet with you this morning
and say a word of greeting on the occasion of
the rededication of this church, coming as it does
almost simultaneously with the entry of your pastor
into his eightieth year.
From the standpoint from which I am obliged so
continually to look at matters, there is a peculiar
function to be played by the great Lutheran Church
in the United States of America. This is a Church
which had its rise to power in, and, until it emigrated
to this side of the water, had always had its
fullest development in the two great races of Northern
and Northern Middle Europe—the German and
the Scandinavian. The Lutheran Church came to
the territory which is now the United States very
shortly after the first permanent settlements were
made within our limits; for when the earliest settlers
came to dwell around the mouth of the Delaware
they brought the Lutheran worship with them,
and so with the earliest German settlers who came
to Pennsylvania and afterward to New York and
the mountainous region in the western part of Virginia
and the States south of it. From that day to
this the history of the growth in population of this
Nation has consisted largely, in some respects
mainly, of the arrival of successive waves of newcomers
to our shores; and the prime duty of those
already in the land is to see that their own progress
and development are shared by these newcomers.
It is a serious and dangerous thing for any man
to tear loose from the soil, from the religion in
which he and his forbears have taken root, and to
be transplanted into a new land. He should receive
all possible aid in the new land; and the aid can be
tendered him most effectively by those who can appeal
to him on the ground of spiritual kinship.
Therefore the Lutheran Church can do most in helping
upward and onward so many of the newcomers
to our shores; and it seems to me that it should be,
I am tempted to say, wellnigh the prime duty of
this Church to see that the immigrant, especially
the immigrant of Lutheran faith from the Old
World, whether he comes from Scandinavia or
Germany, or whether he belonged to one of the
Lutheran countries of Finland, or Hungary, or
Austria, may be not suffered to drift off with no
friendly hand extended to him out of all the church
communion, away from all the influences that tend
toward safeguarding and uplifting him, and that
he find ready at hand in this country those eager to
bring him into fellowship with the existing bodies.
The Lutheran Church in this country is of very
great power now numerically, and through the intelligence
and thrift of its members, but it will
grow steadily to even greater power. It is destined
to be one of the two or three greatest and
most important national churches in the United
States; one of the two or three churches most distinctively
American, most distinctively among the
forces that are to tell for making this great country
even greater in the future. Therefore a peculiar
load of responsibility rests upon the members of this
Church. It is an important thing for the people of
this Nation to remember their rights, but it is an
even more important thing for them to remember
their duties. In the last analysis the work of statesmen
and soldiers, the work of the public men, shall
go for nothing if it is not based upon the spirit
of Christianity working in the millions of homes
throughout this country, so that there may be that
social, that spiritual, that moral foundation without
which no country can ever rise to permanent greatness.
For material well-being, material prosperity,
success in arts, in letters, great industrial triumphs,
all of them and all of the structures raised thereon
will be as evanescent as a dream if they do not rest
on “the righteousness that exalteth a nation.”
Let me congratulate you and congratulate all of
us that we live in a land and at a time when we accept
it as natural that there should be an interdenominational
service of thanksgiving, such a ceremony
as is to take place this afternoon, in which
the pastors of other churches join to congratulate
themselves and you upon the rebuilding of this
church. One of the constant problems of life is to
try to cultivate breadth without shallowness, just
as we want to try to cultivate depth without narrowness.
It seems to me that thanksgiving with
the combined earnestness, the liberty, of the great
body of the pastors who, for our good fortune, are
in the various churches of this country can be accepted
as in a peculiar measure typifying the American
spirit in religious thought; that for our good
fortune those men have been able to combine fervor
in doing the Lord’s work with charity toward their
brethren who do it with certain differences in the
non-essentials. The forces of evil are strong and
mighty in this century and in this country as they
are in other countries, as they have been in all the
past centuries; and the people who sincerely wish to
do the Lord’s work will find ample opportunity for
all their labor in fighting the common enemy and in
assuming toward their fellows of a different confession
an attitude of generous rivalry in the effort to
see how the most good can be done to our people
as a whole.
I thank you for having given me the chance to
speak to you this morning, to say a word of greeting
to you and to wish you Godspeed with all my
heart.
Captain Brownson, Members of the Graduating
Class, Governor Warfield, and to the other Midshipmen
and their friends and kinsmen here
gathered together:
I fail to see how any good American can be other
than a better American when he comes here to Annapolis
and sees the Academy as it is and as it soon
will be, thanks to the wise munificence of Congress;
and I am not surprised that you who graduate from
this institution should make the kind of men that
as a rule you do make afterward; should show the
qualities of courage, of lofty fidelity to duty, of devotion
to the flag, and of farsighted preparedness
to meet possible future emergencies; should show
the traits which I think, Captain Brownson, I can
say without flattery, characterize the service to
which you belong. I am not surprised that you
should show those traits, for I should be heartily
ashamed of you if you did not. More than any
other people in this country, with the sole exception
of those in the sister service who have had your
advantages, you owe a peculiar fealty to the Nation
which has trained you, which has given you a career
in after life, a career in which, if you do your duty,
you are sure to lead honorable lives, and to deserve
well of the Republic; and a career in which there
is always the chance that you may spring into one
of those few places to be occupied by the men of the
Nation who win deathless fame for themselves by
the way in which they serve the Nation in the hour
of the Nation’s need. On the one hand we have the
right to expect a peculiar measure of self-sacrificing
service from you. On the other hand we have the
right to expect from the representatives of the people
a peculiar care for your interests. It is well that
every public man should feel under a particular
obligation to see to the welfare of the Army and
the Navy. Governor Warfield, if you will pardon
the personal allusion, I want to thank you for the
way in which you have made evident your feeling
toward this institution, for the reception you gave
just the other night to these very men about to
graduate. It is well that they should understand
that because of the position they hold the Governor
of the great State in which the institution is situated
recognizes their possibilities of usefulness to the
country, the obligations due them, and the obligations
we have a right to feel that they will recognize
to the whole Nation in return.
There are a good many baseless alarms which
some worthy people feel from time to time in this
country, and which other less worthy people affect
to feel, but of all foolish crimes, of all baseless figments
of a disturbed imagination, the cry of militarism
in this country is the most foolish and the
most baseless. Not only there does not exist now,
but there never has existed in recent times, any nation
so wholly free as this is from any danger of
excessive militarism, so wholly free from any danger
of an undue growth of the military spirit. The
danger is now, will be, and always has been, the
exact reverse; the danger is lest we do not take sufficient
thought in preparing the men and material
which will make our attitude in claiming to be a
great nation respectable. I would be sorry to see
us content to assume the position of a nation unwilling
and unable to play a great part in the world,
unable to hold its own in the shock of arms, should
it be ever necessary, which I most earnestly hope
that in the lifetime of no man here present it will
be necessary. Should it ever be necessary, and I
hope it will not be, to appeal to arms, I should be
sorry to see us take the position of avowed weakness,
take the position that we did not intend to
rank ourselves among the great powers of the earth.
I should be sorry to see that; but I would a great
deal rather see that than see us insist upon taking
such a position and refuse to provide the means
which would make such a position other than a
sham. If this country believes in the Monroe Doctrine;
if this country intends to hold the Philippines;
if it intends, besides building, to police the
Isthmian Canal; if it intends to do its duty on the
side of civilization, on the side of law and order, and
that duty can be done only by the just man armed;
if this country intends to do that, then it must see
to it that it is able to make good, if the necessity
arises to make good. It is idle to talk of our faith in
the Monroe Doctrine if we are not able to make that
faith evident. It is foolish to remain permanently
in the Philippines unless we provide a base of military
action for our fleets and army should it be
necessary to defend the Philippines in time of war.
It is foolish to assert our position as entitled to the
respect of other great nations unless we are willing
to build the ships, to build the guns, and to train the
men who are to man the ships and handle the guns
if the need arises. I should be ashamed to see this
Nation play the part of a weakling. But I would
rather see it play that part frankly than see it boast
what it was and then so handle itself that if any one
questioned the boast we should have to retreat from
the position we assumed because we lacked the
power to make our words good.
I earnestly hope that our foreign policy shall be
continued absolutely without regard to change of
Administration, to change of party, along the lines
of treating every foreign nation with all possible
respect, of avoiding all provocation for war, for
trouble of any kind, of taking every step possible
to minimize the chance of trouble occurring; and
at the same time of taking every step possible to
see to it that if by any chance trouble does occur we
do not come out second best.
Just at this moment, to illustrate what I mean, we
have negotiated certain arbitration treaties with the
great foreign Powers. I most earnestly hope that
those arbitration treaties will become part of the
supreme law of the land. Every friend of peace
will join heartily in seeing that those arbitration
treaties do become part of the supreme law of the
land. By adopting them we will have taken a step,
not a very long step, but undoubtedly a step in the
direction of minimizing the chance for any trouble
that might result in war; we will have in measurable
degree provided for a method of substituting
international disputes other than that of war as regards
certain subjects, and as regards the particular
nations with whom those treaties are negotiated.
We can test the sincerity of those people devoted
to peace largely by seeing whether this people does
in effective fashion desire to have those treaties ratified,
to have those treaties adopted. I have proceeded
upon the assumption that this Nation was
sincere when it said that it desired peace, that all
proper steps to provide against the likelihood of war
ought to be taken; and these arbitration treaties represent
precisely those steps. But the adoption of
those treaties by themselves would not bring peace.
We are a good many years short of the millennium
yet; and for the present and the immediate future
we can rest assured that the word of the man who
is suspected of desiring peace because he is afraid
of war will count for but little. What we desire is
to have it evident that this Nation seeks peace, not
because it is afraid, but because it believes in the
eternal and immutable laws of justice and of right
living. Therefore, hand in hand with the negotiation
of treaties of that character, hand in hand with
the effort to put our foreign relations with every nation
on a better footing, must go the steady upbuilding
of the Army and the Navy; above all the Navy,
so that our national honor may be sure of an adequate
safeguard should our national honor ever be
actively menaced.
I want to say a word to you boys here in particular.
I am about to have the good fortune to present
a sword to the best gunner and certain medals also
for gunnery. The sword is given by the class of
’71, given annually, so as to put a premium upon
markmanship; and, Captain Brownson, I would
like through you to thank the members of that class
for the patriotic service they have done in making
such a gift.
The one thing that you graduates here, and all
of the others in this school, must remember, is that
you ought to bend your entire energies to fitting
yourselves as you can only be fitted by the most careful
training in advance for the possible supreme day
when upon your success or your failure will depend
not only whether your own lives will be crowned
with triumph or blasted with ruin, but whether the
Nation will or will not write a page of glory or a
page of shame on her history. There is not one of
you who is not derelict in his duty to the whole
Nation if he fails to prepare himself with all the
strength that in him lies to do his duty should the
occasion arise; and one of your great duties is to see
that shots hit. The result is going to largely depend
upon whether you or your adversary hits. I
expect you to be brave. I rather take that for
granted. It is not that you are to be commended
much for bravery. You would be condemned forever
if you lacked it. If you lacked it in the highest
form, courage physical and moral, the courage that
will assume responsibility, no less than the courage
that without a thought will face death, that we have
a right to expect from every one of you, and I say
that you are less to be commended for having it
than to be condemned for failure to have it. But,
in addition, you have got to prepare yourselves in
advance. Every naval action that has taken place
within the last twenty years in which our own ships
have been engaged or in which any foreign ships
have been engaged has shown, as a rule, that the
defeated party has suffered not from lack of courage,
but because it could not make the best use of its
weapons, or had not been given the right weapons.
Occasionally, of course, if the victor happened to be
matched against people who did not show courage,
the courage counted. But I want every one here to
proceed upon the assumption that any foe he may
meet will have the courage. Of course, you have
got to show the highest degree of courage yourself
or you will be beaten anyhow, and you will deserve
to be; but in addition to that you must prepare yourselves
by careful training so that you may make the
best possible use of the delicate and formidable
mechanism of a modern warship. The reason that
you are trained here, the reason that you are put
through this academy, the reason that your training
goes on in the service is because without that training
no man can hope to do the work that is set before
you to do. It is equally true that the training can
not be given you only from without unless you actively
and earnestly seek to get the best possible
benefit from it yourselves; that the best teachers, the
best superiors can not supply wholly or more than
in very small part the lack of that which is within
you. No other body of men of your age in our
country owes so much to the United States, to the
flag that symbolizes this Nation, as you do. No
other body of young men has on the average as
great a chance as each of you has to lead a life of
honor to himself and of benefit to the country at
large. Deep will be your shame if you fail to
rise level to your opportunities and duties, and great
will be the honor that I know you will win, because
I know that, judging you by those who have gone
before you in the service, you will rise level to your
opportunities and keep untarnished the proud fame
of the American officer.
Mr. President; and Gentlemen of the Union
League:
This club was founded to uphold the hands of
Abraham Lincoln when he stood as the great leader
in the struggle for union and liberty. We have a
right, therefore, to appeal to this club for aid in
every governmental or social effort made along the
lines marked out by Lincoln. The great President
taught many lessons which we who come after him
should learn. Among the most important of these
was the lesson that for weal or woe we are indissolubly
bound together, in whatever part of the
country we live, whatever our social standing,
whatever our wealth or our poverty, whatever form
of mental or physical activity our life work may
assume. Lincoln, who was, more emphatically
than any other President we have ever had, the
President of the plain people, was yet as far removed
as Washington himself from the slightest
taint of demagogy. With his usual farsighted
clearness of vision he saw that in a republic such
as ours permanent prosperity of any part of our
people was conditioned upon the prosperity of all;
and that on the other hand any effort to raise the
general level of happiness by striking at the well-being
of a portion of the people could not be but in
the end disastrous to all.
The principles which Lincoln applied to the solution
of the problems of his day are those which we
must apply if we expect successfully to solve the different
problems of our own day—problems which
are so largely industrial. Exactly as it is impossible
to develop a high morality unless we have as a
foundation those qualities which give at least a
certain minimum of material prosperity, so it is
impossible permanently to keep material prosperity
unless there is back of it a basis of right living and
right thinking. In the last analysis, of course, the
dominant factor in obtaining this good conduct
must be the individual character of the average
citizen. If there is not this condition of individual
character in the average citizenship of the country,
all effort to supply its place by the wisest legislation
and administration will in the end prove futile.
But given this average of individual character, then
wise laws and the honest administration of the laws
can do much to supplement it. If either the business
world or the world of labor loses its head,
then it has lost something which can not be made
good by any governmental effort. Our faith in
the future of the Republic is firm, because we believe
that on the whole and in the long run our
people think clearly and act rightly.
Unquestionably, however, the great development
of industrialism means that there must be an increase
in the supervision exercised by the Government
over business enterprises. This supervision
should not take the form of violent and ill-advised
interference; and assuredly there is danger lest it
take such form if the business leaders of the business
community confine themselves to trying to
thwart the effort at regulation instead of guiding
it aright. Such men as the members of this club
should lead in the effort to secure proper supervision
and regulation of corporate activity by the
Government, not only because it is for the interest
of the community as a whole that there should be
this supervision and regulation, but because in the
long run it will be in the interest above all of the
very people who often betray alarm and anger when
the proposition is first made.
Neither this people nor any other free people
will permanently tolerate the use of the vast power
conferred by vast wealth, and especially by wealth
in its corporate form, without lodging somewhere
in the Government the still higher power of seeing
that this power, in addition to being used in the
interest of the individual or individuals possessing
it, is also used for and not against the interests of
the people as a whole. Our peculiar form of government,
a Government in which the Nation is
supreme throughout the Union in certain respects,
while each of nearly half a hundred States is supreme
in its part of the Union in certain other respects,
renders the task of dealing with these conditions
especially difficult. No finally satisfactory
result can be expected from merely State action.
The action must come through the Federal Government.
The business of the country is now carried
on in a way of which the founders of our Constitution
could by no possibility have had any idea.
All great business concerns are engaged in interstate
commerce, and it was beyond question the
intention of the founders of our Government that
interstate commerce in all its branches and aspects
should be under national and not State control.
If the courts decide that this intention was not carried
out and made effective in the Constitution as
it now stands, then in the end the Constitution, if
not construed differently, will have to be amended
so that the original undoubted intention may be
made effective. But, of course, a constitutional
amendment is only to be used as a last resort, if
every effort of legislation and administration shall
have been proved inadequate.
Meanwhile the men in public life and the men
who direct the great business interests of the country
should work not in antagonism but in harmony
toward this given end. In entering a field where
the progress must of necessity be so largely experimental
it is essential that the effort to make
progress should be tentative and cautious. We
must grow by evolution, not by revolution. There
must be no hurry, but there must also be no halt;
and those who are anxious that there should be no
sudden and violent changes must remember that
precisely these sudden and violent changes will be
rendered likely if we refuse to make the needed
changes in cautious and moderate manner.
At the present moment the greatest need is for
an increase in the power of the National Government
to keep the great highways of commerce open
alike to all on reasonable and equitable terms. Less
than a century ago these highways were still, as
they had been since the dawn of history, either
waterways, natural or artificial, or else ordinary
roads for wheel vehicles drawn by animal power.
The railroad, which was utterly unknown when
our Government was formed and when the great
principles of our jurisprudence were laid down, has
now become almost everywhere the most important,
and, in many large regions, the only form
of highway for commerce. The man who controls
its use can not be permitted to control it in his own
interest alone.
It is not only just, but it is in the interest of the
public, that this man should receive the amplest
payment for the masterful business capacity which
enables him to benefit himself while benefiting the
public; but in return he must himself recognize his
duty to the public. He will not and can not do this
if our laws are so defective that in the sharp competition
of the business world the conscientious man
is put at a disadvantage by his less scrupulous fellows.
It is in the interest of the conscientious and
public-spirited railway man that there should be
such governmental supervision of the railway
traffic of the country as to require from his less
scrupulous competitors, and from unscrupulous big
shippers as well, that heed to the public welfare
which he himself would willingly give, and which
is of vital consequence to the small shipper. Every
important railroad is engaged in interstate commerce.
Therefore, this control over the railroads
must come through the National Government.
The control must be exercised by some governmental
tribunal, and it must be real and effective.
Doubtless there will be risk that occasionally, if
an unfit President is elected, this control will be
abused; but this is only another way of saying that
any adequate governmental power, from the power
of taxation down, can and will be abused if the
wrong men get control of it.
The details must rest with the lawmakers of the
two Houses of Congress; but about the principle
there can be no doubt. Hasty or vindictive action
would merely work damage; but in temperate,
resolute fashion, there must be lodged in some
tribunal the power over rates, and especially over
rebates—whether secured by means of private cars,
of private tracks, in the form of damages, or commissions,
or in any other manner—which will protect
alike the railroad and the shipper, and put the
big shipper and the little shipper on an equal footing.
Doubtless no law would accomplish all that
enthusiasts hope; there is always disappointment
over results of such a law among the oversanguine;
but very real and marked good has come from the
legislation and administration of the last few years;
and now, as part of a coherent plan, it is entirely
possible, and, indeed, necessary to enact an additional
law which will mean further progress along
the same lines of definite achievement in the direction
of securing fair dealing as between man and
man.
In some such body as the Interstate Commerce
Commission there must be lodged in effective shape
the power to see that every shipper who uses the
railroads and every man who owns or manages a
railroad shall on the one hand be given justice and
on the other hand be required to do justice. Justice—so
far as it is humanly possible to give and
to get justice—is the foundation of our Government.
We are not trying to strike down the rich
man; on the contrary, we will not tolerate any attack
upon his rights. We are not trying to give
an improper advantage to the poor man because he
is poor, to the man of small means because he has
not larger means; but we are striving to see that
the man of small means has exactly as good a
chance, so far as we can obtain it for him, as the
man of larger means; that there shall be equality
of opportunity for the one as for the other.
We do not intend that this Republic shall ever
fail as those republics of olden times failed, in
which there finally came to be a government by
classes, which resulted either in the poor plundering
the rich or in the rich exploiting and in one
form or another enslaving the poor; for either
event means the destruction of free institutions and
of individual liberty. Ours is not a Government
which recognizes classes. It is based on the recognition
of the individual. We are not for the poor
man as such, nor for the rich man as such. We are
for every man, rich or poor, provided he acts
justly and fairly by his fellows, and if he so acts
the Government must do all it can to see that inasmuch
as he does no wrong, so he shall suffer no
wrong.
Mr. President, and you, my Fellow-Members of
the Republican Club, and you, my Fellow-Guests
of the Republican Club:
In his second inaugural, in a speech which will be
read as long as the memory of this Nation endures,
Abraham Lincoln closed by saying:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all;
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are
in; ... to do all which may achieve and cherish
a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with
all nations.”
Immediately after his re-election he had already
spoken thus:
“The strife of the election is but human nature
practically applied to the facts of the case. What
has occurred in this case must ever recur in similar
cases. Human nature will not change. In any
future great national trial, compared with the men
of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as
silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us, therefore,
study the incidents of this as philosophy to
learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs
to be revenged.... May not all having a common
interest reunite in a common effort to (serve) our
common country? For my own part, I have striven
and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the
way. So long as I have been here I have not willingly
planted a thorn in any man’s bosom. While
I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of a re-election,
and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty
God for having directed my countrymen to a right
conclusion, as I think, for their own good, it adds
nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may
be disappointed or pained by the result.
“May I ask those who have not differed with me
to join with me in this same spirit toward those who
have?”
This is the spirit in which mighty Lincoln sought
to bind up the Nation’s wounds when its soul was
yet seething with fierce hatreds, with wrath, with
rancor, with all the evil and dreadful passions provoked
by civil war. Surely this is the spirit which
all Americans should show now, when there is so
little excuse for malice or rancor or hatred, when
there is so little of vital consequence to divide brother
from brother.
Lincoln, himself a man of Southern birth, did
not hesitate to appeal to the sword when he became
satisfied that in no other way could the Union
be saved, for high though he put peace he put righteousness
still higher. He warred for the Union;
he warred to free the slave; and when he warred
he warred in earnest, for it is a sign of weakness
to be half-hearted when blows must be struck. But
he felt only love, a love as deep as the tenderness of
his great and sad heart, for all his countrymen alike
in the North and in the South, and he longed above
everything for the day when they should once more
be knit together in the unbreakable bonds of eternal
friendship.
We of to-day, in dealing with all our fellow-citizens,
white or colored, North or South, should
strive to show just the qualities that Lincoln showed:
His steadfastness in striving after the right, and his
infinite patience and forbearance with those who
saw that right less clearly than he did; his earnest
endeavor to do what was best, and yet his readiness
to accept the best that was practicable when the
ideal best was unattainable; his unceasing effort to
cure what was evil, coupled with his refusal to make
a bad situation worse by any ill-judged or ill-timed
effort to make it better.
The great Civil War in which Lincoln towered as
the loftiest figure left us not only a reunited country,
but a country which has the proud right to claim
as its own glory won alike by those who wore the
blue and by those who wore the gray, by those who
followed Grant and by those who followed Lee; for
both fought with equal bravery and with equal sincerity
of conviction, each striving for the light as it
was given him to see the light; though it is now
clear to all that the triumph of the cause of freedom
and of the Union was essential to the welfare
of mankind. We are now one people, a people with
failings which we must not blink, but a people with
great qualities in which we have the right to feel
just pride.
All good Americans who dwell in the North
must, because they are good Americans, feel the
most earnest friendship for their fellow-countrymen
who dwell in the South, a friendship all the greater
because it is in the South that we find in its most
acute phase one of the gravest problems before our
people: the problem of so dealing with the man of
one color as to secure him the rights that no one
would grudge him if he were of another color. To
solve this problem it is, of course, necessary to educate
him to perform the duties a failure to perform
which will render him a curse to himself and to all
around him.
Most certainly all clear-sighted and generous men
in the North appreciate the difficulty and perplexity
of this problem, sympathize with the South in the
embarrassment of conditions for which she is not
alone responsible, feel an honest wish to help her
where help is practicable, and have the heartiest respect
for those brave and earnest men of the South
who, in the face of fearful difficulties, are doing all
that men can do for the betterment alike of white
and of black. The attitude of the North toward the
negro is far from what it should be and there is
need that the North also should act in good faith
upon the principle of giving to each man what is
justly due him, of treating him on his worth as a
man, granting him no special favors, but denying
him no proper opportunity for labor and the reward
of labor. But the peculiar circumstances of the
South render the problem there far greater and far
more acute.
Neither I nor any other man can say that any
given way of approaching that problem will present
in our time even an approximately perfect solution,
but we can safely say that there can never be such
solution at all unless we approach it with the effort
to do fair and equal justice among all men; and to
demand from them in return just and fair treatment
for others. Our effort should be to secure
to each man, whatever his color, equality of opportunity,
equality of treatment before the law. As
a people striving to shape our actions in accordance
with the great law of righteousness we can not
afford to take part in or be indifferent to the oppression
or maltreatment of any man who, against
crushing disadvantages, has by his own industry,
energy, self-respect, and perseverance struggled upward
to a position which would entitle him to the
respect of his fellows, if only his skin were of a
different hue.
Every generous impulse in us revolts at the
thought of thrusting down instead of helping up
such a man. To deny any man the fair treatment
granted to others no better than he is to commit
a wrong upon him—a wrong sure to react in the
long run upon those guilty of such denial. The
only safe principle upon which Americans can act
is that of “all men up,” not that of “some men
down.” If in any community the level of intelligence,
morality, and thrift among the colored men
can be raised, it is, humanly speaking, sure that the
same level among the whites will be raised to an
even higher degree; and it is no less sure that the
debasement of the blacks will in the end carry with
it an attendant debasement of the whites.
The problem is so to adjust the relations between
two races of different ethnic type that the rights of
neither be abridged nor jeoparded; that the backward
race be trained so that it may enter into the
possession of true freedom, while the forward race
is enabled to preserve unharmed the high civilization
wrought out by its forefathers. The working
out of this problem must necessarily be slow; it is
not possible in offhand fashion to obtain or to confer
the priceless boons of freedom, industrial efficiency,
political capacity, and domestic morality.
Nor is it only necessary to train the colored man;
it is quite as necessary to train the white man, for
on his shoulders rests a wellnigh unparalleled sociological
responsibility. It is a problem demanding
the best thought, the utmost patience, the most
earnest effort, the broadest charity, of the statesman,
the student, the philanthropist; of the leaders
of thought in every department of our national life.
The Church can be a most important factor in solving
it aright. But above all else we need for its
successful solution the sober, kindly, steadfast, unselfish
performance of duty by the average plain
citizen in his everyday dealings with his fellows.
The ideal of elemental justice meted out to every
man is the ideal we should keep ever before us. It
will be many a long day before we attain to it, and
unless we show not only devotion to it, but also
wisdom and self-restraint in the exhibition of that
devotion, we shall defer the time for its realization
still further. In striving to attain to so much of it
as concerns dealing with men of different colors, we
must remember two things.
In the first place, it is true of the colored man, as
it is true of the white man, that in the long run his
fate must depend far more upon his own effort
than upon the efforts of any outside friend. Every
vicious, venal, or ignorant colored man is an even
greater foe to his own race than to the community
as a whole. The colored man’s self-respect entitles
him to do that share in the political work of the
country which is warranted by his individual ability
and integrity and the position he has won for himself.
But the prime requisite of the race is moral
and industrial uplifting.
Laziness and shiftlessness, these, and above all,
vice and criminality of every kind, are evils more
potent for harm to the black race than all acts of
oppression of white men put together. The colored
man who fails to condemn crime in another colored
man, who fails to co-operate in all lawful ways in
bringing colored criminals to justice, is the worst
enemy of his own people, as well as an enemy to
all the people. Law-abiding black men should, for
the sake of their race, be foremost in relentless and
unceasing warfare against law-breaking black men.
If the standards of private morality and industrial
efficiency can be raised high enough among the
black race, then its future on this continent is secure.
The stability and purity of the home is vital
to the welfare of the black race, as it is to the welfare
of every race.
In the next place the white man who, if only he
is willing, can help the colored man more than all
other white men put together, is the white man who
is his neighbor, North or South. Each of us must
do his whole duty without flinching, and if that
duty is national it must be done in accordance with
the principles above laid down. But in endeavoring
each to be his brother’s keeper it is wise to remember
that each can normally do most for the
brother who is his immediate neighbor. If we are
sincere friends of the negro let us each in his own
locality show it by his action therein, and let us
each show it also by upholding the hands of the
white man, in whatever locality, who is striving to
do justice to the poor and the helpless, to be a shield
to those whose need for such a shield is great.
The heartiest acknowledgments are due to the
ministers, the judges and law officers, the grand
juries, the public men, and the great daily newspapers
in the South, who have recently done such
effective work in leading the crusade against lynching
in the South; and I am glad to say that during
the last three months the returns, as far as they can
be gathered, show a smaller number of lynchings
than for any other three months during the last
twenty years. Let us uphold in every way the
hands of the men who have led in this work, who
are striving to do all their work in this spirit. I
am about to quote from the address of the Right
Reverend Robert Strange, Bishop Coadjutor of
North Carolina, as given in the “Southern Churchman”
of October 8, 1904.
The bishop first enters an emphatic plea against
any social intermingling of the races; a question
which must, of course, be left to the people of each
community to settle for themselves, as in such a
matter no one community—and indeed no one individual—can
dictate to any other; always provided
that in each locality men keep in mind the fact that
there must be no confusing of civil privileges with
social intercourse. Civil law can not regulate social
practices. Society, as such, is a law unto itself, and
will always regulate its own practices and habits.
Full recognition of the fundamental fact that all
men should stand on an equal footing, as regards
civil privileges, in no way interferes with recognition
of the further fact that all reflecting men
of both races are united in feeling that race purity
must be maintained. The bishop continues:
“What should the white men of the South do
for the negro? They must give him a free hand,
a fair field, and a cordial Godspeed, the two races
working together for their mutual benefit and for
the development of our common country. He must
have liberty, equal opportunity to make his living, to
earn his bread, to build his home. He must have
justice, equal rights, and protection before the law.
He must have the same political privileges; the
suffrage should be based on character and intelligence
for white and black alike. He must have
the same public advantages of education; the public
schools are for all the people, whatever their color
or condition. The white men of the South should
give hearty and respectful consideration to the
exceptional men of the negro race, to those who
have the character, the ability and the desire to be
lawyers, physicians, teachers, preachers, leaders of
thought and conduct among their own men and
women. We should give them cheer and opportunity
to gratify every laudable ambition, and to
seek every innocent satisfaction among their own
people. Finally, the best white men of the South
should have frequent conferences with the best
colored men, where, in frank, earnest, and sympathetic
discussion they might understand each other
better, smooth difficulties, and so guide and encourage
the weaker race.”
Surely we can all of us join in expressing our
substantial agreement with the principles thus laid
down by this North Carolina bishop, this representative
of the Christian thought of the South.
I am speaking on the occasion of the celebration
of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, and to men
who count it their peculiar privilege that they have
the right to hold Lincoln’s memory dear, and the
duty to strive to work along the lines that he laid
down. We can pay most fitting homage to his
memory by doing the tasks allotted to us in the
spirit in which he did infinitely greater and more
terrible tasks allotted to him.
Let us be steadfast for the right; but let us err
on the side of generosity rather than on the side of
vindictiveness toward those who differ from us as
to the method of attaining the right. Let us never
forget our duty to help in uplifting the lowly, to
shield from wrong the humble; and let us likewise
act in a spirit of the broadest and frankest generosity
toward all our brothers, all our fellow-countrymen;
in a spirit proceeding not from weakness but
from strength, a spirit which takes no more account
of locality than it does of class or of creed; a spirit
which is resolutely bent on seeing that the Union
which Washington founded and which Lincoln
saved from destruction shall grow nobler and
greater throughout the ages.
I believe in this country with all my heart and
soul. I believe that our people will in the end rise
level to every need, will in the end triumph over
every difficulty that rises before them. I could not
have such confident faith in the destiny of this
mighty people if I had it merely as regards one portion
of that people. Throughout our land things
on the whole have grown better and not worse, and
this is as true of one part of the country as it is of
another. I believe in the Southerner as I believe
in the Northerner. I claim the right to feel pride in
his great qualities and in his great deeds exactly as
I feel pride in the great qualities and deeds of every
other American. For weal or for woe we are knit
together, and we shall go up or go down together;
and I believe that we shall go up and not down,
that we shall go forward instead of halting and falling
back, because I have an abiding faith in the
generosity, the courage, the resolution, and the common-sense
of all my countrymen.
The Southern States face difficult problems; and
so do the Northern States. Some of the problems
are the same for the entire country. Others exist
in greater intensity in one section; and yet others
exist in greater intensity in another section. But in
the end they will all be solved; for fundamentally
our people are the same throughout this land; the
same in the qualities of heart and brain and hand
which have made this Republic what it is in the
great to-day; which will make it what it is to be in
the infinitely greater to-morrow. I admire and respect
and believe in and have faith in the men and
women of the South as I admire and respect and
believe in and have faith in the men and women of
the North. All of us alike, Northerners and Southerners,
Easterners and Westerners, can best prove
our fealty to the Nation’s past by the way in which
we do the Nation’s work in the present; for only thus
can we be sure that our children’s children shall
inherit Abraham Lincoln’s single-hearted devotion
to the great unchanging creed that “righteousness
exalteth a nation.”
Mr. President, and you, my Fellow-Americans:
It is a peculiar pleasure to me to be with you this
evening; and in greeting my hosts of the Hungarian
Republican Club, I give utterance to the thought of
my fellow-guest, Congressman Sulzer, when I say
that whatever our differences before election, when
once the election has taken place, all of us in public
life or in private life, President, Congressmen,
judges, legislators, alike are American citizens and
nothing else.
It is nearly ten years ago that I first took dinner
here in the immediate neighborhood of where I am
dining now, and at that time, I remember perfectly,
when I was first brought up here, it was by Mr.
Jacob Riis and Mr. Jim Reynolds, and I was told
that I would get a very good dinner and hear some
very good music, and both prophecies proved true.
It was about that time that I grew to be acquainted
with so many of my hosts and fellow-guests of this
evening. Others I had known before. With one
of my fellow-guests, General Grant, I was then
working, and at different times I spoke at meetings
presided over or held in the clubhouses of various
of the gentlemen here present, sometimes on political
subjects, much more often on matters of good
citizenship affecting us all as good citizens.
I grew in those years, gentlemen, to have a very
close feeling of sympathy and affection and regard
for the men and women of the great East Side of
this city. I needed no urging when I was invited
to come and be a guest at a club of the East Side
this evening. President Braun has described how
the preliminary invitation took place. It was six
years ago that this club gave me a dinner after I had
been elected Governor, and they then said that they
“intended to elect me President and that I must
then come and take dinner with them again.” I
told them that if they would carry out their part of
the contract I would carry out my part. I am not
perfectly certain that they anticipated that their
offer would be closed with so soon, but you see, gentlemen,
I have closed with it.
To-night I wish to greet you most warmly and to
say that I doubt if we could find a more typically
American gathering than this, for Americanism is
not a matter of birthplace, of ancestry, of creed, of
occupation. Americanism is a matter of the spirit
that is within, of a man’s soul. From the time when
we first became an independent Nation to the present
moment there has never been a generation in
which some of our most distinguished and most useful
men were not born on the other side of the Atlantic.
It is peculiarly appropriate, and to me peculiarly
pleasant that, in addressing this club of the
men upon whose efforts so much of the future welfare
of this city, of this State, of this Nation, depends,
I should be addressing men who show by
their actions that they know no difference between
Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, native-born
and foreign-born, provided only that the man,
whatever his creed, whatever his birthplace, strives
to live so as to do his full duty by his neighbor and
by the community as a whole.
We can not keep too clearly before our minds the
fact that for the success of our civilization what is
needed is, not so much brilliant ability, not so much
unusual genius, as the possession by the average
man of the plain homely workaday virtues that
make that man a good father, a good husband, a
good friend and neighbor, a decent man with whom
to deal in all relations of life. We need good laws.
We need honest administration of the laws. And
we can not afford to be contented with less. But
more than all else we need that the average man
shall have in him the root of righteous living; that
the average man shall have in him the feeling that
will make him ashamed to do wrong or to submit
to wrong, and that will make him feel his bounden
duty to help those that are weaker, to help those
especially that are in any way dependent upon him,
and while not in any way losing his power of individual
initiative, to cultivate the further power
of acting in combination with his fellows for the
common end of social uplifting and good government.
I shall not keep you very long this evening. I
have come here not to make you a set speech, but if
you will allow me to say so to speak as an old friend
among his old friends. I have seen a good deal of
your lives. I know the effort, the toil, the sorrow,
the happiness, and the success. I have endeavored
when I have been brought in contact with the East
Side in the course of any work in which I have been
engaged so to handle myself that the East Side
might be a little better for it. I do not know
whether I succeeded or not, but I do know that I
have always been better myself for contact with it.
In closing I want to say one word upon success
in life, upon the success that each of us should strive
for. It is a great mistake, oh, such a great mistake,
to measure success merely by that which glitters
from without, or to speak of it in terms which
will mislead those about us, and especially the
younger people about us, as to what success really is.
There must, of course, be for success a certain material
basis. I should think ill of any man here who
did not wish to leave his children a little better off
and not a little worse off materially than he was.
I should not feel that he was doing his duty by them;
and if he can not do his duty by his own children
he is not going to do his duty by any one else. But
after that certain amount of material prosperity has
been gained then the things that really count most
are the things of the soul rather than the things of
the body, and I am sure that each of you here, if he
will really think of what it is that has made him
most happy, of what it is that has made him most
respect his neighbors, will agree with me. Look
back in your own lives; see what the things are that
you are proudest of as you look back, and you will
in almost every case find that those memories of
pride are associated not with days of ease but with
days of effort, with the day when you had to do all
that was in you for some worthy end, and the
worthiest of all worthy ends is to make those that
are closest and nearest to you, your wife and children
and those near you, happy and not sorry that
you are alive; and after that has been done to be able
so to handle yourself that you can feel when the
end comes that on the whole your country, your
fellow-men are a little better off and not a little
worse off because you have lived. This kind of success
is open to every one of us. The great prizes
come more or less by accident, and no human being
knows that better than the man who has won any of
them. The great prizes come more or less by accident,
but to each man there comes normally the
chance so to lead his life that at the end of his days
his children, his wife, those that are dear to him,
shall rise up and call him blessed, and so that his
neighbors and those brought into intimate association
with him may feel that he has done his part as a
man in a world which sadly needs that each man
should play his part well.
Now, gentlemen, I have to say good-night. This
has been such a delightful dinner that I already find
I am staying pretty nearly as late as I can stay and
catch the train that is to take me back to my regular
work at Washington. I thank you for your greeting,
and I assure you that not one meeting which I
have attended since I have been President has given
me greater pleasure to attend than this dinner.
To the Senate:
I submit herewith a protocol concluded between
the Dominican Republic and the United States.
The conditions in the Republic of Santo Domingo
have been growing steadily worse for many years.
There have been many disturbances and revolutions,
and debts have been contracted beyond the
power of the Republic to pay. Some of these debts
were properly contracted and are held by those who
have a legitimate right to their money. Others are
without question improper or exorbitant, constituting
claims which should never be paid in full and
perhaps only to the extent of a very small portion
of their nominal value.
Certain foreign countries have long felt themselves
aggrieved because of the non-payment of debts
due their citizens. The only way by which foreign
creditors could ever obtain from the Republic itself
any guaranty of payment would be either by the
acquisition of territory outright or temporarily, or
else by taking possession of the custom-houses,
which would of course in itself, in effect, be taking
possession of a certain amount of territory.
It has for some time been obvious that those who
profit by the Monroe Doctrine must accept certain
responsibilities along with the rights which it confers;
and that the same statement applies to those
who uphold the doctrine. It can not be too often
and too emphatically asserted that the United States
has not the slightest desire for territorial aggrandizement
at the expense of any of its southern neighbors,
and will not treat the Monroe Doctrine as an
excuse for such aggrandizement on its part. We
do not propose to take any part of Santo Domingo,
or exercise any other control over the island save
what is necessary to its financial rehabilitation in
connection with the collection of revenue, part of
which will be turned over to the Government to
meet the necessary expense of running it, and part
of which will be distributed pro rata among the
creditors of the Republic upon a basis of absolute
equity. The justification for the United States
taking this burden and incurring this responsibility
is to be found in the fact that it is incompatible with
international equity for the United States to refuse
to allow other powers to take the only means at
their disposal of satisfying the claims of their creditors
and yet to refuse, itself, to take any such steps.
An aggrieved nation can without interfering with
the Monroe Doctrine take what action it sees fit
in the adjustment of its disputes with American
States, provided that action does not take the shape
of interference with their form of government or
of the despoilment of their territory under any disguise.
But, short of this, when the question is one
of a money claim, the only way which remains,
finally, to collect it is a blockade, or bombardment,
or the seizure of the custom-houses, and this means,
as has been said above, what is in effect a possession,
even though only a temporary possession, of territory.
The United States then becomes a party in
interest, because under the Monroe Doctrine it can
not see any European power seize and permanently
occupy the territory of one of these Republics; and
yet such seizure of territory, disguised or undisguised,
may eventually offer the only way in which
the power in question can collect any debts, unless
there is interference on the part of the United States.
One of the difficult and increasingly complicated
problems, which often arise in Santo Domingo,
grows out of the violations of contracts and concessions,
sometimes improvidently granted, with
valuable privileges and exemptions stipulated for
upon grossly inadequate considerations which were
burdensome to the State, and which are not infrequently
disregarded and violated by the governing
authorities. Citizens of the United States and of
other Governments holding these concessions and
contracts appeal to their respective Governments for
active protection and intervention. Except for arbitrary
wrong, done or sanctioned by superior authority,
to persons or to vested property rights, the
United States Government, following its traditional
usage in such cases, aims to go no further than the
mere use of its good offices, a measure which frequently
proves ineffective. On the other hand,
there are Governments which do sometimes take
energetic action for the protection of their subjects
in the enforcement of merely contractual claims, and
thereupon American concessionaries, supported by
powerful influences, make loud appeal to the United
States Government in similar cases for similar action.
They complain that in the actual posture of
affairs their valuable properties are practically confiscated,
that American enterprise is paralyzed, and
that unless they are fully protected even by the
enforcement of their merely contractual rights, it
means the abandonment to the subjects of other
Governments of the interests of American trade
and commerce through the sacrifice of their investments
by excessive taxes imposed in violation of
contract, and by other devices, and the sacrifice of
the output of their mines and other industries, and
even of their railway and shipping interests, which
they have established in connection with the exploitation
of their concessions. Thus the attempted solution
of the complex problem by the ordinary methods
of diplomacy reacts injuriously upon the United
States Government itself, and in a measure paralyzes
the action of the Executive in the direction
of a sound and consistent policy. The United States
Government is embarrassed in its efforts to foster
American enterprise and the growth of our commerce
through the cultivation of friendly relations
with Santo Domingo, by the irritating effects on
those relations, and the consequent injurious influence
upon that commerce, of frequent interventions.
As a method of solution of the complicated problem
arbitration has become nugatory, inasmuch as, in
the condition of its finances, an award against the
Republic is worthless unless its payment is secured
by the pledge of at least some portion of the customs
revenues. This pledge is ineffectual without actual
delivery over of the custom-houses to secure the appropriation
of the pledged revenues to the payment
of the award. This situation again reacts injuriously
upon the relations of the United States with
other nations. For when an award and such security
are thus obtained, as in the case of the Santo
Domingo Improvement Company, some foreign Government
complains that the award conflicts with its
rights, as a creditor, to some portion of these revenues
under an alleged prior pledge; and still other
Governments complain that an award in any considerable
sum, secured by pledges of the customs revenues,
is prejudicial to the payment of their equally
meritorious claims out of the ordinary revenues;
and thus controversies are begotten between the
United States and other creditor nations because of
the apparent sacrifice of some of their claims, which
may be just or may be grossly exaggerated, but
which the United States Government can not inquire
into without giving grounds of offence to other
friendly creditor nations. Still further illustrations
might easily be furnished of the hopelessness of the
present situation growing out of the social disorders
and the bankrupt finances of the Dominican Republic,
where for considerable periods during recent
years the bonds of civil society have been practically
dissolved.
Under the accepted law of nations foreign Governments
are within their right, if they choose to
exercise it, when they actively intervene in support
of the contractual claims of their subjects. They
sometimes exercise this power, and on account of
commercial rivalries there is a growing tendency
on the part of other Governments more and more to
aid diplomatically in the enforcement of the claims
of their subjects. In view of the dilemma in which
the Government of the United States is thus placed,
it must either adhere to its usual attitude of non-intervention
in such cases—an attitude proper under
normal conditions, but one which in this particular
kind of case results to the disadvantage of its citizens
in comparison with those of other States—or
else it must, in order to be consistent in its policy,
actively intervene to protect the contracts and con
cessions of its citizens engaged in agriculture, commerce,
and transportation in competition with the
subjects and citizens of other States. This course
would render the United States the insurer of all
the speculative risks of its citizens in the public securities
and franchises of Santo Domingo.
Under the plan in the protocol herewith submitted
to the Senate, ensuring a faithful collection and application
of the revenues to the specified objects, we
are well assured that this difficult task can be accomplished
with the friendly co-operation and goodwill
of all the parties concerned, and to the great
relief of the Dominican Republic.
The conditions in the Dominican Republic not
only constitute a menace to our relations with other
foreign nations, but they also concern the prosperity
of the people of the island, as well as the security
of American interests, and they are intimately associated
with the interests of the South Atlantic
and Gulf States, the normal expansion of whose
commerce lies in that direction. At one time, and
that only a year ago, three revolutions were in
progress in the island at the same time.
It is impossible to state with anything like approximate
accuracy the present population of the
Dominican Republic. In the report of the Commission
appointed by President Grant in 1871, the
population was estimated at not over 150,000 souls,
but according to the Statesman’s Yearbook for
1904, the estimated population in 1888 is given as
610,000. The Bureau of the American Republics
considers this the best estimate of the present population
of the Republic. As shown by the unanimous
report of the Grant Commission the public debt of
the Dominican Republic, including claims, was
$1,565,831.59¼. The total revenues were $772,684.75¼.
The public indebtedness of the Dominican
Republic, not including all claims, was on
September 12 last, as the Department of State is
advised, $32,280,000; the estimated revenues under
Dominican management of custom-houses were
$1,850,000; the proposed budget for current administration
was $1,300,000, leaving only $550,000 to
pay foreign and liquidated obligations, and payments
on these latter will amount during the ensuing
year to $1,700,000, besides $900,000 of arrearages
of payments overdue, amounting in all to
$2,600,000. It is therefore impossible under existing
conditions, which are chronic, and with the
estimated yearly revenues of the Republic, which
during the last decade have averaged approximately
$1,600,000, to defray the ordinary expenses of the
Government and to meet its obligations.
The Dominican debt owed to European creditors
is about $22,000,000, and of this sum over $18,000,000
is more or less formally recognized. The representatives
of European Governments have several
times approached the Secretary of State setting
forth the wrongs and intolerable delays to which
they have been subjected at the hands of the successive
Governments of Santo Domingo in the collection
of their just claims, and intimating that
unless the Dominican Government should receive
some assistance from the United States in the way
of regulating its finances, the creditor Governments
in Europe would be forced to resort to more effective
measures of compulsion to secure the satisfaction
of their claims.
If the United States Government declines to take
action and other foreign Governments resort to action
to secure payment of their claims, the latter
would be entitled, according to the decision of The
Hague tribunal in the Venezuelan cases, to the preferential
payment of their claims; and this would
absorb all the Dominican revenues and would be a
virtual sacrifice of American claims and interests
in the island. If moreover, any such action should
be taken by them, the only method to enable them
to secure the payment of their claims would be to
take possession of the custom-houses, and considering
the state of the Dominican finances this would
mean a definite and very possibly permanent occupation
of Dominican territory, for no period could
be set to the time which would be necessarily required
for the payment of their obligations and unliquidated
claims. The United States Government
could not interfere to prevent such seizure and occupation
of Dominican territory without either itself
proposing some feasible alternative in the way of
action, or else virtually saying to European Governments
that they would not be allowed to collect
their claims. This would be an unfortunate attitude
for the Government of the United States to be
forced to maintain at present. It can not with propriety
say that it will protect its own citizens and
interests, on the one hand, and yet on the other
hand refuse to allow other Governments to protect
their citizens and interests.
The actual situation in the Dominican Republic
can not, perhaps, be more forcibly stated than by
giving a brief account of the case of the Santo
Domingo Improvement Company.
From 1869 to 1897 the Dominican Government
issued successive series of bonds, the majority of
which were in the hands of European holders. Successive
issues bore interest at rates ranging from
2¾ to 6 per cent, and what with commissions and
other deductions and the heavy discount in the
market the Government probably did not receive
over 50 to 75 per cent of their nominal value. Other
portions of the debt were created by loans, for
which the Government received only one-half of
the amount it was nominally to repay, and these
obligations bore interest at the rate of 1 to 2 per
cent a month on their face, some of them compounded
monthly.
The improvidence of the Government in its financial
management was due to its weakness, to its
impaired credit, and to its pecuniary needs occasioned
by frequent insurrections and revolutionary
changes, and by its inability to collect its revenues.
In 1888 the Government, in order to secure the
payment of an issue of bonds, placed the custom-houses
and the collection of its customs duties,
which are substantially the only revenues of the
Republic, in the hands of the Westendorps, bankers
of Amsterdam, Holland. But the national debt
continued to grow and the Government finally intrusted
the collection of its revenues to an American
corporation, the Santo Domingo Improvement Company,
which was to take over the bonds of the
Westendorps. The Dominican Government finally
became dissatisfied with this arrangement, and, in
1901, ousted the Improvement Company from its
custom-houses and took into its own hands the collection
of its revenues. The company thereupon appealed
to the United States Government to maintain
them in their position, but their request was refused.
The Dominican Government then sent its minister
of foreign affairs to Washington to negotiate a
settlement. He admitted that the Improvement
Company had equities which ought not to be disregarded,
and the Department of State suggested
that the Dominican Government and the Improvement
Company should effect, by private negotiation,
a satisfactory settlement between them. They
accordingly entered into an arrangement for a settlement,
which was mutually satisfactory to the
parties. A similar arrangement was likewise made
between the Dominican Government and the European
bondholders. The latter arrangement was
carried into execution by the Dominican Government
and payments made toward the liquidation of
the bonds held by the European holders. The Dominican
Congress refused to ratify the similar
arrangement made with the Improvement Company,
and the Government refused to provide for
the payment of the American claimants. In this
state of the case it was evident that a continuance
of this treatment of the American creditors, and its
repetition in other cases, would, if allowed to run
its course, result in handing over the island to
European creditors, and in time would ripen into
serious controversies between the United States
and other Governments, unless the United States
should deliberately and finally abandon its interests
in the island.
The Improvement Company and its allied companies
held, besides bonds, certain banking and
railway interests in the island. The Dominican
Government, desirous to own and possess these
properties, agreed with the companies that the value
of their bonds and properties was $4,500,000, and
they submitted to arbitration the question as to the
instalments in which this sum should be paid and
the security that should be given. The Hon. George
Gray, judge of the United States Circuit Court of
Appeals, and the Hon. Manuel de J. Galvan, both
named by the Dominican Republic, and the Hon.
John G. Carlisle, named by the United States, were
the arbitrators, and rendered their award on July
14, 1904. By its terms the Dominican Government
was to pay the above-mentioned sum of $4,500,000,
with 4 per cent interest per annum, in monthly instalments
of $37,500 each during two years and of
$41,666.66 each month thereafter, beginning with
the month of September, 1904, said award to be secured
by the customs revenues and port dues of all
the ports on the northern coast of Santo Domingo.
The award further provides for the appointment of a
financial agent of the United States, who was authorized,
in case of failure during any month to receive
the sum then due, to enter into possession of the
custom-house at Puerto Plata in the first instance
and assume charge of the collection of customs
duties and port dues, and to fix and determine these
duties and dues and secure their payment; in case
the sums collected at Puerto Plata should at any
time be insufficient for the payment of the amounts
due under the award, or in case of any other manifest
necessity, or in case the Dominican Government
should so request, the financial agent of the United
States was authorized to have and exercise at any
and all of the other ports above described all the
rights and powers vested in him by the award in
respect of Puerto Plata. Under the award the
financial agent could only apply the revenues collected
toward its payment after he had first paid
the expenses of collection and certain other obligations
styled “aparods,” which constituted prior
charges on the revenues assigned. These prior
charges are specified in the award. The Dominican
Government defaulted in their payments; and in
virtue of the award and the authority conferred by
the Dominican Government, and at its request, possession
was delivered of the custom-house of Puerto
Plata to the fiscal agent appointed by the United
States to collect the revenues assigned by the arbitrators
for the payment of the award; and in virtue
of the same authority possession of the custom-house
of Monte Cristi has also been handed over.
I submit herewith a report of Mr. John B. Moore,
agent of the United States in this case, and a copy
of the award of the arbitrators.
During the past two years the European claimants
except the English, whose interests were embraced
in those of the American companies, have,
with the support of their respective Governments,
been growing more and more importunate in
pressing their unsatisfied demands. The French
and the Belgians, in 1901, had entered into a contract
with the Dominican Government, but, after
a few payments were made on account, it fell into
neglect. Other Governments also obliged the Dominican
Government to enter into arrangements of
various kinds by which the revenues of the Republic
were in large part sequestrated, and under
one of the agreements, which was concluded with
Italy in 1903, the minister of that Government was
empowered directly to collect from the importers
and exporters that portion of the customs revenues
assigned to him as security. As the result of
chronic disorders attended with a constant increase
of debt, the state of things in Santo Domingo has
become hopeless, unless the United States or some
other strong Government shall interpose to bring
order out of the chaos. The custom-houses, with
the exception of the two in the possession of the
financial agent appointed by the United States, have
become unproductive for the discharge of indebtedness,
except as to persons making emergency loans
to the Government or to its enemies for the purpose
of carrying on political contests by force. They
have, in fact, become the nuclei of the various revolutions.
The first effort of revolutionists is to take
possession of a custom-house so as to obtain funds,
which are then disposed of at the absolute discretion
of those who are collecting them. The chronic
disorders prevailing in Santo Domingo have, moreover,
become exceedingly dangerous to the interests
of Americans holding property in that country.
Constant complaints have been received of the injuries
and inconveniences to which they have been
subjected. As an evidence of the increasing aggravation
of conditions, the fact may be mentioned
that about a year ago the American railway, which
had previously been exempt from such attacks, was
seized, its tracks torn up, and a station destroyed
by revolutionary bands.
The ordinary resources of diplomacy and international
arbitration are absolutely impotent to deal
wisely and effectively with the situation in the
Dominican Republic, which can only be met by
organizing its finances on a sound basis and by
placing the custom-houses beyond the temptation
of insurgent chieftains. Either we must abandon
our duty under our traditional policy toward the
Dominican people, who aspire to a republican form
of government while they are actually drifting into
a condition of permanent anarchy, in which case
we must permit some other Government to adopt its
own measures in order to safeguard its own interests,
or else we must ourselves take seasonable
and appropriate action.
Again and again has the Dominican Government
invoked on its own behalf the aid of the United
States. It has repeatedly done so of recent years.
In 1899 it sought to enter into treaty relations by
which it would be placed under the protection of
the United States Government. The request was
refused. Again in January, 1904, its minister of
foreign affairs visited Washington and besought
the help of the United States Government to enable
it to escape from its financial and social disorders.
Compliance with this request was again
declined, for this Government has been most reluctant
to interfere in any way, and has finally concluded
to take action only because it has become
evident that failure to do so may result in a situation
fraught with grave danger to the cause of international
peace.
In 1903 a representative of a foreign Government
proposed to the United States the joint fiscal control
of the Dominican Republic by certain creditor
nations, and that the latter should take charge of
the custom-houses and revenues and give to the
Dominican Government a certain percentage and
apply the residue to the payment ratably of claims
of foreign creditors. The United States Government
declined to approve or to enter into such an
arrangement. But it has now become evident that
decided action of some kind can not be much longer
delayed. In view of our past experience and our
knowledge of the actual situation of the Dominican
Republic, a definite refusal of the United States
Government to take any effective action looking to
the relief of the Dominican Republic and to the discharge
of its own duty under the Monroe Doctrine
can only be considered as an acquiescence in some
such action by another Government.
That most wise measure of international statesmanship,
the Platt amendment, has provided a
method for preventing such difficulties from arising
in the new Republic of Cuba. In accordance with
the terms of this amendment the Republic of Cuba
can not issue any bonds which can be collected from
Cuba save as a matter of grace, unless with the consent
of the United States, which is at liberty at all
times to take measures to prevent the violation of
the letter and spirit of the Platt amendment. If a
similar plan could now be entered upon by the
Dominican Republic, it would undoubtedly be of
great advantage to them and to all other peoples,
for under such an arrangement no larger debt would
be incurred than could be honestly paid, and those
who took debts not thus authorized would, by the
mere fact of taking them, put themselves in the
category of speculators or gamblers, who deserved
no consideration and who would be permitted to
receive none; so that the honest creditor would on
the one hand be safe, while on the other hand the
Republic would be safeguarded against molestation
in the interest of mere speculators.
But no such plan at present exists; and under
existing circumstances, when the condition of affairs
becomes such as it has become in Santo Domingo,
either we must submit to the likelihood of
infringement of the Monroe Doctrine or we must
ourselves agree to some such arrangement as that
herewith submitted to the Senate. In this case, fortunately,
the prudent and far-seeing statesmanship
of the Dominican Government has relieved us of all
trouble. At their request we have entered into the
agreement herewith submitted. Under it the custom-houses
will be administered peacefully, honestly,
and economically, 45 per cent of the proceeds being
turned over to the Dominican Government and the
remainder being used by the United States to pay
what proportion of the debts it is possible to pay
on an equitable basis. The Republic will be secured
against over-seas aggression. This in reality entails
no new obligation upon us, for the Monroe
Doctrine means precisely such a guarantee on our
part.
It is perhaps unnecessary to state that no step of
any kind has been taken by the Administration
under the terms of the protocol which is herewith
submitted.
The Republic of Santo Domingo has by this
protocol wisely and patriotically accepted the responsibilities
as well as the privileges of liberty,
and is showing with evident good faith its purpose
to pay all that its resources will permit of its obligations.
More than this it can not do, and when it
has done this we should not permit it to be molested.
We on our part are simply performing in peaceful
manner, not only with the cordial acquiescence,
but in accordance with the earnest request of the
Government concerned, part of that international
duty which is necessarily involved in the assertion
of the Monroe Doctrine. We are bound to show
that we perform this duty in good faith and without
any intention of aggrandizing ourselves at the
expense of our weaker neighbors or of conducting
ourselves otherwise than so as to benefit both these
weaker neighbors and those European Powers
which may be brought into contact with them. It
is in the highest degree necessary that we should
prove by our action that the world may trust in
our good faith and may understand that this international
duty will be performed by us within
our own sphere, in the interest not merely of ourselves,
but of all other nations, and with strict
justice toward all. If this is done a general acceptance
of the Monroe Doctrine will in the end
surely follow; and this will mean an increase of
the sphere in which peaceful measures for the settlement
of international difficulties gradually displace
those of a warlike character.
We can point with just pride to what we have
done in Cuba as a guaranty of our good faith. We
stayed in Cuba only so long as to start her aright
on the road to self-government, which she has
since trod with such marked and distinguished
success; and upon leaving the island we exacted
no conditions save such as would prevent her from
ever becoming the prey of the stranger. Our purpose
in Santo Domingo is as beneficent. The good
that this country got from its action in Cuba was
indirect rather than direct. So it is as regards
Santo Domingo. The chief material advantage
that will come from the action proposed to be
taken will be to Santo Domingo itself and to Santo
Domingo’s creditors. The advantages that will
come to the United States will be indirect, but
nevertheless great, for it is supremely to our interest
that all the communities immediately south
of us should be or become prosperous and stable,
and therefore not merely in name but in fact independent
and self-governing.
I call attention to the urgent need of prompt
action on this matter. We now have a great opportunity
to secure peace and stability in the island,
without friction or bloodshed, by acting in
accordance with the cordial invitation of the governmental
authorities themselves. It will be unfortunate
from every standpoint if we fail to grasp
this opportunity; for such failure will probably
mean increasing revolutionary violence in Santo
Domingo, and very possibly embarrassing foreign
complications in addition. This protocol affords
a practical test of the efficiency of the United States
Government in maintaining the Monroe Doctrine.
Theodore Roosevelt.
White House,
February 15, 1905.
Mr. Provost, Members of the University, and my
Fellow-Citizens:
As a Nation we have had our full share of great
men, but the two men of pre-eminent greatness who,
as the centuries go on, will surely loom above all
others are Washington and Lincoln; and it is peculiarly
fitting that their birthdays should be celebrated
every year and the meaning of their lives
brought home close to us.
No other city in the country is so closely identified
with Washington’s career as Philadelphia. He
served here in 1775 in the Continental Congress.
He was here as commander of the Army at the
time of the battles of Brandywine and Germantown;
and it was near here that with that army he faced the
desolate winter at Valley Forge, the winter which
marked the turning point of the Revolutionary War.
Here he came again as President of the Convention
which framed the Constitution, and then as President
of the United States, and finally as Lieutenant-General
of the Army after he had retired from the
Presidency.
One hundred and eight years ago, just before he
left the Presidency, he issued his farewell address,
and in it he laid down certain principles which he
believed should guide the citizens of this Republic
for all time to come, his own words being “which
appear to me all-important to the permanency of
your felicity as a people.”
Washington, though in some ways an even greater
man than Lincoln, did not have Lincoln’s wonderful
gift of expression—that gift which makes certain
speeches of the rail-splitter from Illinois read like
the inspired utterances of the great Hebrew seers
and prophets. But he had all of Lincoln’s sound
common-sense, farsightedness, and devotion to a
lofty ideal. Like Lincoln he sought after the noblest
objects, and like Lincoln he sought after them by
thoroughly practical methods. These two greatest
Americans can fairly be called the best among the
great men of the world, and greatest among the
good men of the world. Each showed in actual
practice his capacity to secure under our system the
priceless union of individual liberty with governmental
strength. Each was as free from the vices
of the tyrant as from the vices of the demagogue.
To each the empty futility of the mere doctrinaire
was as alien as the baseness of the merely self-seeking
politician. Each was incapable alike of the
wickedness which seeks by force of arms to wrong
others and of the no less criminal weakness which
fails to provide effectively against being wronged
by others.
Among Washington’s maxims which he bequeathed
to his countrymen were the two following:
“Observe good faith and justice toward all nations,”
and “To be prepared for war is the most effective
means to promote peace.” These two principles
taken together should form the basis of our whole
foreign policy. Neither is sufficient taken by itself.
It is not merely an idle dream, but a most mischievous
dream, to believe that mere refraining from
wrongdoing will ensure us against being wronged.
Yet, on the other hand, a nation prepared for war is
a menace to mankind unless the national purpose
is to treat other nations with good faith and justice.
In any community it is neither the conscientious
man who is a craven at heart, nor yet the bold and
strong man without the moral sense, who is of real
use to the community; it is the man who to strength
and courage adds a realizing sense of the moral obligation
resting upon him, the man who has not only
the desire but the power to do his full duty by his
neighbor and by the State. So, in the world at large,
the nation which is of use in the progress of mankind
is that nation which combines strength of
character, force of character, and insistence upon its
own rights, with a full acknowledgment of its own
duties toward others. Just at present the best way
in which we can show that our loyalty to the teachings
of Washington is a loyalty of the heart and not
of the lips only is to see to it that the work of building
up our Navy goes steadily on, and that at the
same time our stand for international righteousness
is clear and emphatic.
Never since the beginning of our country’s history
has the Navy been used in an unjust war.
Never has it failed to render great and sometimes
vital service to the Republic. It has not been too
strong for our good, though often not strong enough
to do all the good it should have done. Our possession
of the Philippines, our interest in the trade
of the Orient, our building the Isthmian Canal, our
insistence upon the Monroe Doctrine, all demand
that our Navy shall be of adequate size and for its
size of unsurpassed efficiency. If it is strong enough
I believe it will minimize the chance of our being
drawn into foreign war. If we let it run down it is
as certain as the day that sooner or later we shall
have to choose between a probably disastrous foreign
war or a peace kept on terms that imply national
humiliation. Our Navy is the surest guaranty of
peace and the cheapest insurance against war, and
those who, in whatever capacity, have helped to
build it up during the past twenty years have been
in good faith observing and living up to one of the
most important of the principles which Washington
laid down for the guidance of his countrymen. Nor
was Washington the only one of our great Presidents
who showed farsighted patriotism by support
of the Navy. When Andrew Jackson was in Congress
he voted for the first warships we ever built
as part of our regular Navy; and he voted against
the grant of money to pay our humiliating tribute to
the pirates of the Barbary States. Old Hickory was
a patriot through and through, and there was not
an ounce of timidity in his nature, and of course he
felt only indignant contempt for a policy which
purchased an ignoble peace by cowardice instead of
exacting a just peace by showing we were as little
willing to submit to as to inflict aggression. Had a
majority of Jackson’s colleagues and successors felt
as he did about the Navy, had it been built up instead
of being brought to a standstill, it would probably
never have been necessary to fight the War of 1812.
Again Washington said: “Give to mankind the
example of a people always guided by an exalted
justice and benevolence.” This feeling can be
shown alike by our dealings within and without
our own borders. Taft and Wright in the
Philippines and Wood in Cuba have shown us
exactly how to practice this justice and benevolence
in dealing with other peoples—a justice
and benevolence which can be shown, not by shirking
our duty and abandoning to self-destruction
those unfit to govern themselves, but by doing our
duty by staying with them and teaching them how
to govern themselves, by uplifting them spiritually
and materially. Here at home we are obeying this
maxim of Washington’s just so far as we help in
every movement, whether undertaken by the Government,
or as is, and should be, more often the
case, by voluntary action among private citizens, for
the betterment of our own people. Observe that
Washington speaks both of justice and benevolence,
and that he puts justice first. We must be generous,
we must help our poorer brother, but above all, we
must remember to be just; and the first step toward
securing justice is to treat every man on his worth
as a man, showing him no special favor, but so far
as may be holding open for him the door of opportunity
so that reward may wait upon honest and
intelligent endeavor.
Again Washington said: “Cherish public credit.”
Just at the moment there is no attack on public
credit, but if ever the temptation arises again let
our people at the outset remember that the worst
because the most insidious form of the appeal that
would make a man a dishonest debtor is that which
would persuade him that it is anything but dishonest
for him to repudiate his debts.
Finally, it is peculiarly appropriate, when I have
come to this city as the guest of the University of
Pennsylvania, to quote another of Washington’s
maxims: “Promote, as an object of primary importance,
institutions for the general diffusion of
knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government
gives force to public opinion, it is essential
that public opinion should be enlightened.” Education
may not make a man a good citizen, but
most certainly ignorance tends to prevent his being
a good citizen. Washington was far too much of
a patriot, had far too much love for his fellow-citizens,
to try to teach them that they could govern
themselves unless they could develop a sound and
enlightened public opinion. No nation can permanently
retain free government unless it can retain
a high average of citizenship; and there can be
no such high average of citizenship without a high
average of education, using the word in its broadest
and truest sense to include the things of the soul
as well as the things of the mind. School education
can never supplant or take the place of self-education,
still less can it in any way take the place of
those rugged and manly qualities which we group
together under the name of character; but it can be
of enormous use in supplementing both. It is a
source of just pride to every American that our
people have so consistently acted in accordance with
Washington’s principle of promoting institutions for
the diffusion of knowledge. There is nothing dearer
to our hearts than our public school system, by which
free primary education is provided for every one
within our borders. The higher education, such as
is provided by the University of Pennsylvania and
kindred bodies, not only confers great benefits to
those able to take advantage of it, but entails upon
them corresponding duties.
The men who founded this Nation had to deal
with theories of government and the fundamental
principles of free institutions. We are now concerned
with a different set of questions, for the Republic
has been firmly established, its principles
thoroughly tested and fully approved. To merely
political issues have succeeded those of grave social
and economic importance, the solution of which demands
the best efforts of the best men. We have
a right to expect that a wise and leading part in
the effort to attain this solution will be taken by
those who have been exceptionally blessed in the
matter of obtaining an education. That college
graduate is but a poor creature who does not feel
when he has left college that he has received something
for which he owes a return. What he thus
owes he can, as a rule, only pay by the way he bears
himself throughout life. It is but occasionally that
a college graduate can do much outright for his
alma mater; he can best repay her by living a life
that will reflect credit upon her, by so carrying himself
as a citizen that men shall see that the years
spent in training him have not been wasted. The
educated man is entitled to no special privilege, save
the inestimable privilege of trying to show that his
education enables him to take the lead in striving to
guide his fellows aright in the difficult task which is
set to us of the twentieth century. The problems
before us to-day are very complex, and are widely
different from those which the men of Washington’s
generation had to face; but we can overcome them
surely, and we can overcome them only, if we approach
them in the spirit which Washington and
Washington’s great supporters brought to bear upon
the problems of their day—the spirit of sanity and
of courage, the spirit which combines hard common-sense
with the loftiest idealism.
My Fellow-Citizens:
No people on earth have more cause to be thankful
than ours, and this is said reverently, in no
spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with
gratitude to the Giver of Good, who has blessed
us with the conditions which have enabled us to
achieve so large a measure of well-being and of
happiness. To us as a people it has been granted to
lay the foundations of our national life in a new
continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet
we have had to pay few of the penalties which in
old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone
civilization. We have not been obliged to
fight for our existence against any alien race; and
yet our life has called for the vigor and effort
without which the manlier and hardier virtues
wither away. Under such conditions it would be
our own fault if we failed; and the success which
we have had in the past, the success which we confidently
believe the future will bring, should cause
in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep
and abiding realization of all which life has offered
us; a full acknowledgment of the responsibility
which is ours, and a fixed determination to show
that under a free government a mighty people can
thrive best, alike as regards the things of the body
and the things of the soul.
Much has been given to us, and much will rightfully
be expected from us. We have duties to
others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk
neither. We have become a great Nation, forced
by the fact of its greatness into relations with the
other nations of the earth; and we must behave as
beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward
all other nations, large and small, our attitude
must be one of cordial and sincere friendship.
We must show not only in our words but in our
deeds that we are earnestly desirous of securing
their goodwill by acting toward them in a spirit of
just and generous recognition of all their rights.
But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual,
count most when shown not by the weak
but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain
from wronging others, we must be no less insistent
that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish
peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace
of righteousness. We wish it because we think it
is right and not because we are afraid. No weak
nation that acts manfully and justly should ever
have cause to fear us, and no strong power should
ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent
aggression.
Our relations with the other Powers of the world
are important; but still more important are our
relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth,
in population, and in power as this Nation has seen
during the century and a quarter of its national
life is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in
the problems which are ever before every nation that
rises to greatness. Power invariably means both
responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced
certain perils which we have outgrown. We now
face other perils the very existence of which it was
impossible that they should foresee. Modern life
is both complex and intense, and the tremendous
changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development
of the last half century are felt in every
fibre of our social and political being. Never before
have men tried so vast and formidable an
experiment as that of administering the affairs of a
continent under the forms of a democratic republic.
The conditions which have told for our marvelous
material well-being, which have developed to a
very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual
initiative, have also brought the care and
anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great
wealth in industrial centres. Upon the success of
our experiment much depends; not only as regards
our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of
mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self-government
throughout the world will rock to its foundations;
and therefore our responsibility is heavy,
to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to the
generations yet unborn. There is no good reason
why we should fear the future, but there is every
reason why we should face it seriously, neither
hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems
before us nor fearing to approach these problems
with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve
them aright.
Yet, after all, though the problems are new,
though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks
set before our fathers who founded and preserved
this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must
be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty
is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged.
We know that self-government is difficult. We
know that no people needs such high traits of character
as that people which seeks to govern its affairs
aright through the freely expressed will of
the freemen who compose it. But we have faith
that we shall not prove false to the memories of
the men of the mighty past. They did their work,
they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy.
We in our turn have an assured confidence that we
shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and
enlarged to our children and our children’s children.
To do so we must show, not merely in great
crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities
of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood
and endurance, and above all the power of
devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men
who founded this Republic in the days of Washington,
which made great the men who preserved this
Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.
— ADDRESS AT THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, AT GRACE REFORMED CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 12, 1905 — ADDRESS BEFORE THE NATIONAL CONGRESS OF MOTHERS, WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 13, 1905 — ADDRESS AT THE DINNER OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDLY SONS OF ST. PATRICK, DELMONICO’S, NEW YORK CITY, MARCH 17, 1905 — ADDRESS AT THE DINNER OF THE SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, HOTEL ASTOR, NEW YORK CITY, MARCH 17, 1905 — ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL MEDICAL SCHOOL, WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 25, 1905 — AT OUTDOOR MEETING AT DALLAS, TEX. , APRIL 5, 1905 — AT THE BANQUET AT DALLAS, TEX., APRIL 5, 1905 — TO THE LEGISLATURE OF TEXAS, AUSTIN, TEX. , APRIL 6, 1905 — OUTSIDE OF CAPITOL BUILDING, AUSTIN, TEX., APRIL 6, 1905 — IN FRONT OF THE ALAMO, SAN ANTONIO, TEX., APRIL 7, 1905 — TO THE CONGREGATION ASSEMBLED AT THE BLUE SCHOOLHOUSE ON UPPER DIVIDE CREEK, COLO., SUNDAY, APRIL 30, 1905 — AT THE BANQUET OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND BOARD OF TRADE, DENVER, COLO., MAY 9, 1905
White House, Washington
March 6, 1905
To the Senate:
I wish to call the attention of the Senate at this
executive session to the treaty with Santo Domingo.
I feel that I ought to state to the Senate that the
condition of affairs in Santo Domingo is such that
it is very much for the interest of that Republic that
action on the treaty should be had at as early a moment
as the Senate, after giving the matter full consideration,
may find practicable.
I call attention to the following facts:
1. This treaty was entered into at the earnest
request of Santo Domingo itself, and is designed
to afford Santo Domingo relief and assistance. Its
primary benefit will be to Santo Domingo. It offers
the method most likely to secure peace and to prevent
war in the island.
2. The benefit to the United States will consist
chiefly in the tendency under the treaty to secure
stability, order, and prosperity in Santo Domingo,
and the removal of the apprehension lest foreign
powers make aggressions on Santo Domingo in the
course of collecting claims due their citizens; for
it is greatly to our interest that all the islands in the
Caribbean Sea should enjoy peace and prosperity
and feel goodwill toward this country. The benefit
to honest creditors will come from the fact that for
the first time under this treaty a practicable method
of attempting to settle the debts due them will be
inaugurated.
3. Many of the debts alleged to be due from
Santo Domingo to outside creditors unquestionably
on their face represent far more money than ever
was actually given Santo Domingo. The proposed
treaty provides for a process by which impartial experts
will determine what debts are valid and what
are in whole or in part invalid, and will apportion
accordingly the surplus revenue available for the
payment of the debts. This treaty offers the only
method for preventing the collection of fraudulent
debts, whether owed to Americans or to citizens of
other nations.
4. This treaty affords the most practicable means
of obtaining payment for the just claims of American
citizens.
5. If the treaty is ratified creditors belonging to
other nations will have exactly as good treatment
as creditors who are citizens of the United States,
and at the same time Santo Domingo will be protected
against unjust and exorbitant claims. If it
is not ratified the chances are that American creditors
will fare ill as compared with those of other
nations; for foreign nations, being denied the opportunity
to get what is rightfully due their citizens
under the proposed arrangement, will be left to collect
debts due their citizens as they see fit, provided,
of course, there is not permanent occupancy
of Dominican territory. As in such case the United
States will have nothing to say as to what debts
should or should not be collected, and as Santo
Domingo will be left without aid, assistance, or
protection, it is impossible to state that the sums
collected from it will not be improper in amount. In
such event, whatever is collected by means of forcible
intervention will be applied to the creditors of
foreign nations in preference to creditors who are
citizens of the United States.
6. The correspondence between the Secretary of
State and the Minister of Haiti, submitted to the
Senate several days ago, shows that our position is
explicitly and unreservedly that under no circumstances
do we intend to acquire territory in or possession
of either Haiti or Santo Domingo; it being
stated in these letters that even if the two republics
desired to become a part of the United States the
United States would certainly refuse its assent.
7. Santo Domingo grievously needs the aid of a
powerful and friendly nation. This aid we are able,
and I trust that we are willing, to bestow. She has
asked for this aid, and the expressions of friendship
repeatedly sanctioned by the people and the Government
of the United States warrant her in believing
that it will not be withheld in the hour of her need.
Theodore Roosevelt.
Mr. Justice, Dr. Schick, and you, my Fellow-Members
of this Congregation, and our Guests who
are with us to-day:
I am glad, on behalf of this church, to say amen to
the appeal that has been made by Dr. Swift on behalf
of the great society to the account of whose work
you have been listening. Mr. Justice, you quoted
the advice of a poet “to be doers rather than dreamers.”
In the Book of all books there is a sentence
to the same effect, “Be ye doers of the word and not
hearers only.” Let us show ourselves to-day doers
of the word, upholders in fact of what has been
preached to us by Dr. Swift.
He has set forth the needs of the society, and he has set forth
the great field over which it works. I wish to touch only on a small
portion of that field, but, after all, the portion that most concerns
us—the need here at home, here in this country, of furthering in every
way the work of the society, the work of all kindred societies, both
among the native-born and among the thousands who come to these shores
from abroad. And there is a peculiar propriety in such an appeal being
made to this church, for, as I have said here before, this church
more than most others should ever keep before it as part of its duty,
as one of the chief parts of its duty, that of caring in all ways, but especially in
spiritual ways, for the people who come to us from abroad.
The United States Government does endeavor to
do its duty by the immigrants who come to these
shores; and I was glad, Dr. Swift, to listen to what
you said as to the work that is being done on Ellis
Island, for it is a just tribute to that work. But
unless people have had some experience with the
dangers and difficulties surrounding the newly arrived
immigrant they can hardly realize how great
they are. The immigrant comes here almost unprotected;
he does not, as a rule, know our language;
he is wholly unfamiliar with our institutions, our
customs, our habits of life and ways of thought; and
there are, I am sorry to say, great numbers of evil
and wicked people who hope to make their livelihood
by preying on him. He is exposed to innumerable
temptations, innumerable petty oppressions,
on almost every hand; and unless some one is
on hand to help him he literally has no idea where
to turn. No greater work can be done by a philanthropic
or religious society than to stretch out the
helping hand to the man and the woman who come
here to this country to become citizens and the parents
of citizens, and therefore to do their part in
making up for weal or for woe the future of our
land. If we do not take care of them, if we do not
try to uplift them, then as sure as fate our own
children will pay the penalty. If we do not
see that the immigrant and the children of the
immigrant are raised up, most assuredly the
result will be that our own children and children’s
children are pulled down. Either they will
rise or we shall sink. The level of well-being in
this country will be a level for all of us. We can
not keep that level down for a part and not have it
sink more or less for the whole. If we raise it for a
part we shall raise it to a certain extent for the
whole. Therefore, it means much, not merely to the
immigrants, but to every good American, that there
should be at Ellis Island the colporteurs of this society,
and the representatives of other religious and
philanthropic societies to try to care for the immigrant’s
body, and above all to try to care for the
immigrant’s soul.
It is, of course, unnecessary to say that the things
of the body must be cared for; that the first duty of
any man, especially of the man who has others dependent
upon him, is to take care of them, and to
take care of himself. Nobody can help others if he
begins by being a burden upon others. Each man
must be able to pull his own weight, to carry his
own weight; and, therefore, each man must show the
capacity to earn for himself and his family enough
to secure a certain amount of material well-being.
That must be the foundation. But on that foundation
he must build as a superstructure the spiritual
life.
One of the best things done by this society, and
by kindred religious and benevolent societies, is
supplying in our American life of to-day the proper
ideals. It is a good thing to have had the extraordinary
material prosperity which has followed so
largely on the extraordinary scientific discoveries
alluded to by Justice Brewer, if we use this material
prosperity aright. It is not a good thing, it is a bad
thing, if we treat it as the be-all and end-all of our
life. If we make it the only ideal before this Nation,
if we permit the people of this Republic to get before
their minds the view that material well-being carried
to an ever higher degree is the one and only thing
to be striven for, we are laying up for ourselves not
merely trouble but ruin. I, too, feel the faith and
hope that have been expressed here to-day by the
vice-president and the secretary of the society; but I
so feel because I believe that we shall not permit mere
material well-being to become the only ideal in this
Nation, because I believe that more and more we
shall accustom ourselves to looking at the great
fortunes accumulated by certain men as being nothing
in themselves, either to admire, to envy or to deplore,
save as they are used well or ill. If the great
fortune is used well, if the man who has accumulated
it has the strength necessary to resist the temptations
either to use it wrongfully, or what is nearly as bad,
not to use it aright—for negation may be almost as
harmful as positive wrongdoing—then he is entitled
to the praise due to whoever employs great
powers for the common good. If the man who
accumulates that great fortune uses it ill or does not
use it well, then so far from being an object of
envy, still less an object of admiration, he should
take his place among those whom we condemn and
pity—for usually, if we have the root of the matter
in us, we will pity those we condemn.
Wonderful changes have come in the last half century.
It may well be as Mr. Justice Brewer has said,
that we tremble on the verge of still greater changes
in the future. The railway, the telegraph, the telephone,
steam, electricity, all the marvelous mechanical
inventions of these last five decades, have
changed much in the superficial aspect of the world,
and have, therefore, produced certain great changes
in the world itself. But after all, in glorying over
and wondering at this extraordinary development,
I think that we sometimes forget that compared to
the deeper things it is indeed only superficial in its
effect. The qualities that count most in man and
woman now are the qualities that counted most two
thousand years ago; and as a Nation we shall achieve
success or merit failure accordingly as we do or do
not display those qualities. Among the members of
this congregation is a man who, in his prime, served
as the fleet engineer of Farragut when Farragut
went into Mobile Bay. That was forty-one years
ago. The ships and the guns with which Farragut
did that mighty feat are now almost as obsolete as
the galleys that fought for the mastery of the Ægean
Sea when Athens waged war on Sparta. They could
no more stand against a modern ship than could the
ships that fought against the Invincible Armada in
1588. But if the need ever comes for this Nation
to call on its sons to face a foreign foe, the call will
or will not be made in vain just exactly according
to whether we do or do not still retain the spirit
which drove Farragut and the men under him onward
to victory. The gun changes, the ship
changes; but the qualities needed in the man behind
the gun, in the man who handles the ship, are just
the same as they ever were. So it is in our whole
material civilization of to-day. The railroad, the
telegraph, all these wonderful inventions, produce
new problems, confer new benefits, and bring about
new dangers. Cities are built up to enormous size,
and, of course, with the upbuilding of the cities
comes the growth of the terrible problems which
confront all of us who have to do with city life.
Outward circumstances change. New dangers spring
up and old dangers vanish. But the spirit necessary
to meet the new dangers, the spirit necessary
to ensure the triumph that we must and shall win, is
the same now that it has always been. This is the
spirit which lies behind this society, and all kindred
societies; and we owe to this society all the help we
can afford to give; for it is itself giving to our
people a service beyond price, a service of love, a
service which no money could buy.
Mrs. President:
In our modern industrial civilization there are
many and grave dangers to counterbalance the
splendors and the triumphs. It is not a good thing
to see cities grow at disproportionate speed relatively
to the country; for the small landowners,
the men who own their little homes, and therefore
to a very large extent the men who till farms, the
men of the soil, have hitherto made the foundation
of lasting national life in every State; and, if
the foundation becomes either too weak or too
narrow, the superstructure, no matter how attractive,
is in imminent danger of falling.
But far more important than the question of the
occupation of our citizens is the question of how
their family life is conducted. No matter what
that occupation may be, as long as there is a real
home and as long as those who make up that home
do their duty to one another, to their neighbors
and to the state, it is of minor consequence whether
the man’s trade is plied in the country or the city,
whether it calls for the work of the hands or for
the work of the head.
But the Nation is in a bad way if there is no real
home, if the family is not of the right kind; if the
man is not a good husband and father, if he is
brutal or cowardly or selfish, if the woman has
lost her sense of duty, if she is sunk in vapid self-indulgence
or has let her nature be twisted so that
she prefers a sterile pseudo-intellectuality to that
great and beautiful development of character which
comes only to those whose lives know the fulness
of duty done, of effort made and self-sacrifice
undergone.
In the last analysis the welfare of the state depends
absolutely upon whether or not the average
family, the average man and woman and their
children, represent the kind of citizenship fit for the
foundation of a great nation; and if we fail to appreciate
this we fail to appreciate the root morality
upon which all healthy civilization is based.
No piled-up wealth, no splendor of material
growth, no brilliance of artistic development, will
permanently avail any people unless its home life
is healthy, unless the average man possesses honesty,
courage, common-sense, and decency, unless he
works hard and is willing at need to fight hard;
and unless the average woman is a good wife, a
good mother, able and willing to perform the first
and greatest duty of womanhood, able and willing
to bear, and to bring up as they should be brought
up, healthy children, sound in body, mind, and
character, and numerous enough so that the race
shall increase and not decrease.
There are certain old truths which will be true as
long as this world endures, and which no amount
of progress can alter. One of these is the truth
that the primary duty of the husband is to be the
homemaker, the breadwinner for his wife and children,
and that the primary duty of the woman is
to be the helpmeet, the housewife, and mother.
The woman should have ample educational advantages;
but save in exceptional cases the man must
be, and she need not be, and generally ought not
to be, trained for a lifelong career as the family
breadwinner; and, therefore, after a certain point
the training of the two must normally be different
because the duties of the two are normally different.
This does not mean inequality of function, but it
does mean that normally there must be dissimilarity
of function. On the whole, I think the duty of the
woman the more important, the more difficult, and
the more honorable of the two; on the whole I respect
the woman who does her duty even more
than I respect the man who does his.
No ordinary work done by a man is either as
hard or as responsible as the work of a woman
who is bringing up a family of small children; for
upon her time and strength demands are made not
only every hour of the day but often every hour
of the night. She may have to get up night after
night to take care of a sick child, and yet must by
day continue to do all her household duties as well;
and if the family means are scant she must usually
enjoy even her rare holidays taking her whole brood
of children with her. The birth pangs make all
men the debtors of all women. Above all, our sympathy
and regard are due to the struggling wives
among those whom Abraham Lincoln called the
plain people, and whom he so loved and trusted; for
the lives of these women are often led on the lonely
heights of quiet, self-sacrificing heroism.
Just as the happiest and most honorable and
most useful task that can be set any man is to earn
enough for the support of his wife and family, for
the bringing up and starting in life of his children,
so the most important, the most honorable and desirable
task which can be set any woman is to be a
good and wise mother in a home marked by self-respect
and mutual forbearance, by willingness to
perform duty, and by refusal to sink into self-indulgence
or avoid that which entails effort and self-sacrifice.
Of course, there are exceptional men and
exceptional women who can do and ought to do
much more than this, who can lead and ought to
lead great careers of outside usefulness in addition
to—not as substitute for—their home work; but
I am not speaking of exceptions; I am speaking of
the primary duties, I am speaking of the average
citizens, the average men and women who make up
the Nation.
Inasmuch as I am speaking to an assemblage of
mothers I shall have nothing whatever to say in
praise of an easy life. Yours is the work which is
never ended. No mother has an easy time, and most
mothers have very hard times; and yet what true
mother would barter her experience of joy and
sorrow in exchange for a life of cold selfishness,
which insists upon perpetual amusement and the
avoidance of care, and which often finds its fit dwelling-place
in some flat designed to furnish with the
least possible expenditure of effort the maximum of
comfort and of luxury, but in which there is literally
no place for children?
The woman who is a good wife, a good mother,
is entitled to our respect as is no one else; but she
is entitled to it only because, and so long as, she is
worthy of it. Effort and self-sacrifice are the law
of worthy life for the man as for the woman;
though neither the effort nor the self-sacrifice may
be the same for the one as for the other. I do not
in the least believe in the patient Griselda type of
woman, in the woman who submits to gross and
long-continued ill-treatment, any more than I believe
in a man who tamely submits to wrongful aggression.
No wrongdoing is so abhorrent as wrongdoing
by a man toward the wife and the children
who should arouse every tender feeling in his nature.
Selfishness toward them, lack of tenderness toward
them, lack of consideration for them, above all,
brutality in any form toward them, should arouse
the heartiest scorn and indignation in every upright
soul.
I believe in the woman’s keeping her self-respect
just as I believe in the man’s doing so. I believe in
her rights just as much as I believe in the man’s, and
indeed a little more; and I regard marriage as a
partnership in which each partner is in honor bound
to think of the rights of the other as well as of his
or her own. But I think that the duties are even
more important than the rights; and in the long
run I think that the reward is ampler and greater for
duty well done than for the insistence upon individual
rights, necessary though this, too, must often
be. Your duty is hard, your responsibility great;
but greatest of all is your reward. I do not pity
you in the least. On the contrary, I feel respect and
admiration for you.
Into the woman’s keeping is committed the destiny
of the generations to come after us. In bringing
up your children you mothers must remember
that while it is essential to be loving and tender it is
no less essential to be wise and firm. Foolishness
and affection must not be treated as interchangeable
terms; and besides training your sons and
daughters in the softer and milder virtues you must
seek to give them those stern and hardy qualities
which in after life they will surely need. Some
children will go wrong in spite of the best training;
and some will go right even when their surroundings
are most unfortunate; nevertheless an immense
amount depends upon the family training. If you
mothers through weakness bring up your sons to be
selfish and to think only of themselves, you will be
responsible for much sadness among the women who
are to be their wives in the future. If you let your
daughters grow up idle, perhaps under the mistaken
impression that as you yourselves have had to work
hard they shall know only enjoyment, you are preparing
them to be useless to others and burdens to
themselves. Teach boys and girls alike that they are
not to look forward to lives spent in avoiding difficulties
but to lives spent in overcoming difficulties.
Teach them that work, for themselves and also for
others, is not a curse but a blessing; seek to make
them happy, to make them enjoy life, but seek also
to make them face life with the steadfast resolution
to wrest success from labor and adversity, and to do
their whole duty before God and to man. Surely
she who can thus train her sons and her daughters is
thrice fortunate among women.
There are many good people who are denied the
supreme blessing of children, and for these we have
the respect and sympathy always due to those who,
from no fault of their own, are denied any of the
other great blessings of life. But the man or woman
who deliberately foregoes these blessings, whether
from viciousness, coldness, shallow-heartedness, self-indulgence,
or mere failure to appreciate aright the
difference between the all-important and the unimportant—why,
such a creature merits contempt as
hearty as any visited upon the soldier who runs
away in battle, or upon the man who refuses to work
for the support of those dependent upon him, and
who though able-bodied is yet content to eat in idleness
the bread which others provide.
The existence of women of this type forms one of
the most unpleasant and unwholesome features of
modern life. If any one is so dim of vision as to
fail to see what a thoroughly unlovely creature such
a woman is I wish they would read Judge Robert
Grant’s novel “Unleavened Bread,” ponder seriously
the character of Selma, and think of the fate that
would surely overcome any nation which developed its
average and typical woman along such lines. Unfortunately
it would be untrue to say that this type exists
only in American novels. That it also exists in American
life is made unpleasantly evident by the statistics
as to the dwindling families in some localities. It is
made evident in equally sinister fashion by the census
statistics as to divorce, which are fairly appalling; for
easy divorce is now, as it ever has been, a bane to any
nation, a curse to society, a menace to the home, an incitement
to married unhappiness and to immorality,
an evil thing for men and a still more hideous evil for
women. These unpleasant tendencies in our American
life are made evident by articles such as those
which I actually read not long ago in the “Independent,”
where a clergyman was quoted, seemingly with
approval, as expressing the general American attitude
when he said that the ambition of any save a very rich
man should be to rear two children only, so as to give
his children an opportunity “to taste a few of the good
things of life.” This man, whose profession and calling
should have made him a moral teacher, writing in
what is professedly a religious paper, actually set before
others the ideal, not of training children to do
their duty, not of sending them forth with stout hearts
and ready minds to win triumphs for themselves and
their country, not of allowing them the opportunity
and giving them the privilege of making their own
place in the world, but, forsooth, of keeping the number
of children so limited that they might “taste a
few good things!” The way to give a child a fair
chance in life is not to bring it up in luxury, but to
see that it has the kind of training that will give it
strength of character. Even apart from the vital
question of national life, and regarding only the
individual interest of the children themselves, happiness
in the true sense is a hundredfold more apt to
come to any given member of a healthy family of
healthy-minded children, well brought up, well educated,
but taught that they must shift for themselves,
must win their own way, and by their own
exertions make their own positions of usefulness,
than it is apt to come to those whose parents themselves
have acted on and have trained their children
to act on, the selfish and sordid theory that the
whole end of life is “to taste a few good things.”
The intelligence of the remark is on a par with
its morality, for the most rudimentary mental process
would have shown the speaker that if the average
family in which there are children contained but two
children the Nation as a whole would decrease in
population so rapidly that in two or three generations
it would very deservedly be on the point of
extinction, so that the people who had acted on this
base and selfish doctrine would be giving place to
others with braver and more robust ideals. Nor
would such a result be in any way regrettable; for a
race that practiced such doctrine—that is, a race
that practiced race suicide—would thereby conclusively
show that it was unfit to exist, and that it had
better give place to people who had not forgotten
the primary laws of their being.
To sum up, then, the whole matter is simple
enough. If either a race or an individual prefers
the pleasures of mere effortless ease, of self-indulgence,
to the infinitely deeper, the infinitely higher
pleasures that come to those who know the toil and
the weariness, but also the joy, of hard duty well
done, why, that race or that individual must inevitably
in the end pay the penalty of leading a life
both vapid and ignoble. No man and no woman
really worthy of the name can care for the life spent
solely or chiefly in the avoidance of risk and trouble
and labor. Save in exceptional cases the prizes
worth having in life must be paid for, and the life
worth living must be a life of work for a worthy end,
and ordinarily of work more for others than for
one’s self.
The man is but a poor creature whose effort is not
rather for the betterment of his wife and children
than for himself; and as for the mother, her very
name stands for loving unselfishness and self-abnegation,
and, in any society fit to exist, is fraught
with associations which render it holy.
The woman’s task is not easy—no task worth doing
is easy—but in doing it, and when she has done
it, there shall come to her the highest and holiest joy
known to mankind; and having done it, she shall
have the reward prophesied in Scripture; for her
husband and her children, yes, and all people who
realize that her work lies at the foundation of all
national happiness and greatness, shall rise up and
call her blessed.
It is, of course, a matter of peculiar pleasure to
me to come to my own city and to meet so many
men with whom I have been associated for the last
quarter of a century—for it was nearly that time ago,
Judge, that you and I first met when we were both
in the New York Legislature together—and to be
greeted by you as you have greeted me to-night. I
wish to express at the outset my special sense of
obligation—and I know that the rest of you will not
grudge my expressing it—my special sense of obligation
to Colonel Duffy and the officers and men of
the Sixty-ninth, who were my escort to-day. I shall
write to Colonel Duffy later, to give him formal
notice, and to ask him to give the regiment formal
notice, of my appreciation, but I wish to express it
thus publicly to-night.
And now, before I begin my speech proper, I wish
to read a telegram which has been handed to me as
a sop to certain of my well-known prejudices. It
has been sent up to me by one of the members here
to-night, who when we came into the dining-room
was only a father, but who at this moment is a
grandfather. This telegram runs as follows:
“Peter McDonnell, Friendly Sons’ Dinner, Delmonico’s.
Patrick just arrived. Tired after parade.
Sends his regards to the President. He is the first
on record since the President attended the Friendly
Sons’ dinner. He is a fine singer. No race suicide
in this family. Weighs eight pounds, looks like the
whole family. The mother is doing well. Robert
McDonnell.”
And, gentlemen, I want you to join with me in
drinking the health of Patrick, Peter, Robert, and
above all, of the best of the whole outfit, Mrs. McDonnell,
the mother.
Now we will pass from the present to the past.
The Judge has spoken to you of the formation of
the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in
Philadelphia, in colonial days. It was natural that
it should have started in Philadelphia and at the
time of which the Judge spoke. For we must not
forget, in dealing with our history as a Nation, that
long before the outbreak of the Revolution there
had begun on the soil of the colonies, which afterward
became the United States, that mixture of
races which has been and still is one of the most
important features in our history as a people. At
the time, early in the eighteenth century, when the
immigrants from Ireland first began to come in
numbers to this country, the race elements were
still imperfectly fused, and for some time the then
new Irish strain was clearly distinguishable from the
others. And there was one peculiarity about these
immigrants who came from Ireland to the colonies
in the eighteenth century which has never been
paralleled in the case of any other immigrants
whatsoever. In all other cases since the very first
settlements, the pushing westward of the frontier,
the conquest of the Continent has been due primarily
to the men of native birth. But the immigrants
from Ireland in the eighteenth century, and those
alone, pushed boldly through the settled districts and
planted themselves as the advance guard of the conquering
civilization on the borders of the Indian-haunted
wilderness.
This was true in Northern Maine and New
Hampshire, in Western Pennsylvania, Virginia, and
the Carolinas alike. And, inasmuch as Philadelphia
was the largest city which was in touch with that
extreme Western frontier, it was most natural that
the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick
should first be formed in that city. We had, I wish
to say, in New York, frequently during colonial
days, dinners of societies of the Friendly Sons of
St. Patrick, but apparently the society in New York
did not take a permanent form; but we frequently
had dinners on March 17 of the Friendly Sons of St.
Patrick here in New York City even in colonial days.
By the time the Revolution had broken out, the
men of different race strains had begun to fuse together,
and the Irish among those strains furnished
their full share of leadership in the struggle. Among
their number was Commodore John Barry, one of
the two or three officers to whom our infant Navy
owed most. I had the honor in the last session of
Congress to recommend that a monument to Barry
should be erected in Washington. I heartily believe
in economy, but I think we can afford to let up
enough to let that monument through.
On land, the men of this strain furnished generals
like Montgomery, who fell so gloriously at Quebec,
and like Sullivan, the conqueror of the Iroquois, who
came of a New Hampshire family, which furnished
governors to three New England States. In her
old age, the mother, Mrs. Sullivan, used to say that
she had known what it was to work hard in the fields
carrying in her arms the Governor of Massachusetts,
with the Governors of New Hampshire and Vermont
tagging on at her skirts.
I have spoken of the generals. Now for the rank
and file. The Continental troops of the hardest
fighter among Washington’s generals, Mad Anthony
Wayne, were recruited so largely from this stock
that Lighthorse Harry Lee of Virginia, the father
of the great general, Robert Lee, always referred
to them as “The Line of Ireland.” Nor must we
forget that of this same stock there was a boy during
the days of the Revolution who afterward became
the chief American general of his time, and, as
President, one of the public men who left his impress
most deeply upon our Nation, Andrew Jackson, the
victor of New Orleans.
The Revolution was the first great crisis of our
history. The Civil War was the second. And in
this second great crisis the part played by the men
of Irish birth or parentage was no less striking than
it had been in the Revolution. Among the three or
four great generals who led the Northern Army
in the war, stood Phil Sheridan. Some of those
whom I am now addressing served in that immortal
brigade which on the fatal day of Fredericksburg
left its dead closest to the stonewall which marked
the limit that could not be overpassed even by the
highest valor.
And, gentlemen, it was my good fortune when
it befell me to serve as a regimental commander in
a very small war—but all the war there was—to
have under me more than one of the sons of those
who served in Meagher’s brigade. Among them was
one of my two best captains, both of whom were
killed, Allen Capron, and this man Bucky O’Neill.
Bucky O’Neill was killed at Santiago, showing the
same absolute indifference to life, the same courage,
the same gallant readiness to sacrifice everything
on the altar of an ideal, that his father had shown
when he died in Meagher’s brigade in the Civil War.
The people who have come to this country from
Ireland have contributed to the stock of our common
citizenship qualities which are essential to the welfare
of every great nation. They are a masterful
race of rugged character, a race the qualities of
whose womanhood have become proverbial, while its
men have the elemental, the indispensable virtues of
working hard in time of peace and fighting hard in
time of war.
And I want to say here, as I have said and shall
say again elsewhere, as I shall say again and again,
that we must never forget that no amount of material
wealth, no amount of intellect, no artistic or
scientific growth can avail anything to the nation
which loses the elemental virtues. If the average
man can not work and fight, the race is in a poor
way; and it will not have, because it will not deserve,
the respect of any one.
Let us avoid always, either as individuals or as a
Nation, brawling, speaking discourteously or acting
offensively toward others, but let us make it evident
that we wish peace, not because we are weak, but
because we think it right; and that while we do not
intend to wrong any one, we are perfectly competent
to hold our own if any one wrongs us. There has
never been a time in this country when it has not
been true of the average American of Irish birth or
parentage, that he came up to this standard, able to
work and able to fight at need.
But the men of Irish birth or of Irish descent
have been far more than soldiers—I will not say
more than, but much in addition to, soldiers. In
every walk in life in this country men of this blood
have stood and now stand pre-eminent, not only as
soldiers but as statesmen, on the bench, at the bar,
and in business. They are doing their full share
toward the artistic and literary development of the
country.
And right here let me make a special plea to you,
to this society and kindred societies: We Americans
take a just pride in the development of our great
universities, and more and more we are seeking to
provide for creative and original work in these universities.
I hope that an earnest effort will be made
to endow chairs in American universities for the
study of Celtic literature and for research in Celtic
antiquities. It is only of recent years that the extraordinary
wealth and beauty of the old Celtic
Sagas have been fully appreciated, and we of
America, who have so large a Celtic strain in our
blood, can not afford to be behindhand in the work
of adding to modern scholarship by bringing within
its ken the great Celtic literature of the past.
My fellow-countrymen, I have spoken to-night
especially of what has been done for this Nation of
ours by men of Irish blood. But, after all, in speaking
to you, or, to any other body of my fellow-citizens,
no matter from what Old World country
they themselves or their forefathers may have come,
the great thing is to remember that we are all of us
Americans. Let us keep our pride in the stocks from
which we have sprung, but let us show that pride,
not by holding aloof from one another, least of all
by preserving the Old World jealousies and bitternesses,
but by joining in a spirit of generous rivalry
to see which can do most for our great common
country.
Americanism is not a matter of creed or birthplace
or descent. That man is the best American
who has in him the American spirit, the American
soul. Such a man fears not the strong and harms
not the weak. He scorns what is base or cruel or
dishonest. He looks beyond the accidents of occupation
or social condition and hails each of his fellow-citizens
as his brother, asking nothing save that
each shall treat the other on his worth as a man, and
that they shall all join together to do what in them
lies for the uplifting of this mighty and vigorous
people. In our veins runs the blood of many an Old
World nation. We are kin to each of these nations
and yet identical with none.
Our policy should be one of cordial friendship for
them all, and yet we should keep ever before our
eyes the fact that we are ourselves a separate people
with our own ideals and standards, and destined,
whether for better or for worse, to work out a wholly
new national type. The fate of the twentieth century
will in no small degree—I ask you to think of
this from the standpoint of the world—the fate of
the twentieth century as it bears on the world will
in no small degree depend upon the type of citizenship
developed on this Continent. Surely such a
thought must thrill us with the resolute purpose so
to bear ourselves that the name American shall stand
as the symbol of just, generous, and fearless treatment
of all men and all nations. Let us be true to
ourselves, for we can not then be false to any man.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am glad to greet not merely the Sons but the
Daughters of the American Revolution, and it is
indeed a pleasure to be with you and say a few
words, partly of greeting to you and partly in reference
to what I feel should be the work, the special
work, of a society like this, the Society of the Sons
of the American Revolution. It ought to fulfil more
than one function. In the first place, it should, of
course, keep up our sense of historic continuity with
the past. It is a good thing, pre-eminently a good
thing, for this Nation never to lose sight of what
has been done in the past by those who founded and
those who preserved the Republic. It is eminently
fit that there should be associations banded together
for the special purpose of keeping fresh in the minds
of all of us the great memories of the men of the
past and of what these men did. But if we treat that
merely as a relaxation, merely as a pleasant mental
exercise, I think we come lamentably short of what
we ought to do.
The way to pay effective homage to the men of
the mighty past is to live decently and efficiently in
the present. We have a right to expect that every
society like this shall be a nucleus for patriotic endeavor
in the affairs of the day. Now, in studying
the past I wish that societies like this would pay
heed not only to what is pleasant for us to read
about, but also to what is unpleasant. I do not
think that a diet of all praise is good for any one,
and it is no better for us as a body politic than for
any one of us individually. Admiral Coghlan will
tell you that the first step necessary in bringing the
Navy up to its present standard of marksmanship
was having the Navy understand that its marksmanship
was not what it ought to be. I think the facts
will bear me out.
The thing to do is to remember what Emerson
says, that in the long run an unpleasant truth is a
very much safer companion than even the pleasantest
falsehood. Our pride in what was done in the past
should not permit us to be led away into blindness
by failure to appreciate whatever was wrong in the
past. Read what Washington said about the average
militia regiment of the Revolutionary War, and
you will not find he used complimentary language.
It was because our people declined to accept Washington’s
judgment on the militia, and persisted in
trying the experiment of fighting the War of 1812
with militia, that the first two years of that war resulted
not merely disastrously, but shamefully, and
among other things resulted in the burning of the
city of Washington. We did not begin to win on
land until we had evolved through mighty hard
knocks a small army under Brown and Scott on the
northern frontier, which, when evolved, proved able
to do what no Continental army at that time could
do, that is, meet to advantage the best troops of
Britain. We won at sea because we had a number
of frigates and sloops which had been built more
than fifteen years before and whose officers had been
trained in the school of their profession at sea and in
action. We won these victories because we had the
fleet; and if the fleet had been bigger we would not
have had to fight the war at all.
Now, I ask that societies like this teach the truth;
teach the truth that helps, even if it hurts a little in
the helping. Take our struggle in building up our
Navy to its present strength. We were hampered
in that struggle by the ignorant and unspeakably
foolish belief that somehow or other America was so
big and smart a Nation that we did not need a Navy,
and could improvise one out of hand if the need ever
arose.
Admiral Coghlan lived through the period which
saw the United States at the close of the Civil War,
with Farragut and his fellows as our admirals, loom
up as one of the great naval Powers of the earth,
which then saw us about the year 1882 reduced to
a condition of effective sea-strength when it would
have been flattery to call us a fifth-rate Power, and
which then saw the building up of our Navy until
at present, taking into account the ships built and
authorized, and, above all, taking into account the
way those ships are handled, singly and in squadrons—taking
into the account the ships, the armor,
the guns, and, above all, the men in the conning
towers, in the engine rooms and behind the guns—we
rank as one of the big naval Powers of the
earth. We rank as such, we occupy our present position
and we are a power potent for peace because we
deliberately faced the fact that we did not have a
Navy worth anything in 1882.
I take immense interest in the Navy, because the
Navy is the arm upon which this country must most
depend for holding its own and upholding its honor
so far as our international relations are concerned.
We had to educate our people slowly up to the need
of a Navy. We began by building some cruisers.
We then built two or three fast vessels called commerce
destroyers. We had quite a time for several
years in persuading excellent people of good intentions,
but not entirely clear minds, that it was rather
less immoral to destroy commerce than to take life
in battleships. Then we had to go through the stage
of meeting and by degrees overcoming the arguments
of those other excellent people who said we
must have fighting ships, but only for defence; that
we must only have coast defence ships; that is, we
must win the fight not by hitting, but by parrying.
If we had carried out that theory, Admiral Coghlan
and his fellow-captains under Dewey would have
been cooped up in coast defence vessels in San Francisco,
while the hostile ships rested unharmed in
Manila. That is the theory of coast defence; and in
that case the war would never have had any end.
We won because by that time our people had at last
awakened to the fact that in a navy you want the
very best type of ship; and that of all foolish things,
the most foolish is to hit soft. Do not hit at all if
you can help it. Avoid trouble of every kind. Do not
hit at all if you can help it, but never hit soft. When
Dewey and the captains under him went into Manila
Bay they went in in ships that had been built, not
that year nor the year before. Some of them had
been built as much as fifteen years before, twelve
years, eight years; and the legislators who authorized
the building of those ships, the men who built
them, the captains who first took them out, the captains
who trained the men aboard them, every man
who did his part in bringing up the Navy to the
standard of efficiency which it had reached in 1898
is justly entitled to his share of the credit in the
victory won on that first day of May.
When you cheer for Dewey, when you think of
Farragut, when you speak of the founders of the
American Navy in the days of the Revolution, do
not confine yourselves to cheers, do not confine
yourselves to saying what a great man Washington
was and how he was backed up by generals and
statesmen of that day; but take example from what
those men did, take warning from what their less
wise fellows did, and prepare for victory in the only
way in which victory can be prepared for, by preparing
for it in advance.
I spoke to you of the difficulties to be met with
in getting the Navy built up. Among these difficulties
is the fact that there are some very good people
who, whenever you say that you want a good Navy,
say that “this is a lamentable illustration of the
jingo spirit, and that there is no reason why this
country should ever have a war.” I know one excellent
gentleman in Congress who said he preferred
arbitration to battleships. So do I. But suppose
the other man does not. I want to have the battleships
as a provocative for arbitration so far as the
other man is concerned.
We have now got our Navy up to a good point.
We have built and are building forty armored ships.
For a year or two, or two or three years, to come,
what we need to do is to provide for the personnel
of those ships, and to secure the very highest standard
of efficiency in handling them, singly and in
squadrons; above all, for handling the great guns.
So much for the Navy.
Now a word for the Army. I was very sorry
that this year Congress did not provide the means
for having field manœuvres such as those General
Grant and General Bell took part in last year. Those
manœuvres are very useful. It is impossible to take
National Guard regiments and put them into such
manœuvres without causing them great discomfort,
and it may be better to keep such manœuvres as were
carried on last year for the Regular Army. But it
is a great mistake not to continue them for the
Regular Army. We have a small Regular Army. It
is not advisable or necessary that we should have a
large one. It is advisable, it is necessary, that the
Army we have should be efficient as a whole as well
as efficient in its individual parts. I firmly believe
that given an equal chance, the officers and enlisted
men of the American Army offer material quite as
good as any to be found in any army of the world.
Because I believe that I think it not merely an
iniquity but a crime not to give the officers and the
enlisted men that equal chance. We have an Army
now short of seventy thousand men. Deducting the
men necessary for the manning of the coast defences,
it would give us at the very outside figure a
possible Army of fifty thousand men—that is, an
Army about one-fourteenth the size of the forces
that have been contending in the mighty death
wrestle around Mukden. Surely we owe it to this
Nation that we should have that Army of fifty
thousand men able to manœuvre as an Army of fifty
thousand men and able to render as good service as
such as any army can render. We can never achieve
that ideal unless we are willing as a Nation to spend
the money so that the Army shall have the chance
of being handled in time of peace in great masses
by the men who will handle it in masses in time of
war. If when war comes you set thirty thousand
men, of whom no more than five or six hundred
have ever served together, under officers who have
never handled, any of them, more than five or six
hundred men, you can not expect anything but disaster;
unless perchance you go against a foe even
more foolish than you are.
So I ask you of this society, the Sons of the
American Revolution, to study the war of the
Revolution, to study the War of 1812, to study
the war with Mexico, and the Civil War, not only
from the standpoint of the victories, but from the
standpoint of the defeats, and to try to see to it that
in our policy at the present time we carry out the
old policies that won the victories, and avoid the old
policies that brought about the defeats.
I speak in the interest of peace when I ask for an
efficient Army and Navy. This is a high-spirited
people. This is a people that will not abandon the
Monroe Doctrine, will not stop building the Isthmian
Canal, will not surrender its hold upon the islands
of the sea. Very good; then take such steps as are
necessary to make your hold on those possessions,
your backing of this doctrine, effective, and not
empty bluster.
So it is in civic affairs. Study not only what
Washington and Washington’s supporters did, but
study what was done by those who brought the Continental
Congress to absolute impotence. Study
what was done by those who nearly undid the good
work of Washington. Study what has been done
in the past by the men who have made errors no less
than by the men who have won triumphs, and profit
alike by the study of the triumphs and by the study
of the errors.
Talking among ourselves, man to man, each of
us will admit to the other that there are things in
our life that he does not like; but when one of us
gets on his feet to address the rest he often seems to
feel as if somehow he ought never to speak save in
indiscriminate praise of all. The same man who
will take an unwarrantably pessimistic view of all
our governmental matters in private will feel obliged
to speak in unwarrantable praise of all these matters
in public. We ought to avoid ignorant praise as
much as ignorant blame. It is only by making a
correct diagnosis that we can find out how to treat
any given disease. A good physician in making a
diagnosis is not either an optimist or a pessimist.
He wants to find out the facts; for to take either too
dark or too rosy a view may be fatal to the patient.
Just so in our body politic. Try to find out what
the facts really are, try to find out what the good
qualities, what the defects; what the good side is in
any portion of our Government, what the defect is
in any portion of our Government. State the truth;
do not hysterically exaggerate what is good; do not
hysterically exaggerate what is evil. Find out the
facts; and then with your whole heart set to work
to preserve and make better the good and to cut out
and do away with the evil.
Ladies and Gentlemen; and especially the Members
of the Graduating Class:
I am glad to have the chance of saying a word of
greeting to you this morning. You represent two
professions, for you are members of the great medical
body and you are also officers of the Navy of the
United States, and therefore you have a double
standard of honor up to which to live. I think that
all of us laymen, men and women, have a peculiar
appreciation of what a doctor means; for I do not
suppose there is one of us who does not feel that the
family doctor stands in a position of close intimacy
with each of us, in a position of obligation to him
under which one is happy to rest to an extent hardly
possible with any one else; and those of us, I think
most of us, who are fortunate enough to have a
family doctor who is a beloved and intimate friend,
realize that there can be few closer ties of intimacy
and affection in the world. And while, of course,
even the greatest and best doctors can not assume
that very intimate relation with more than a certain
number of people (though it is to be said that more
than any other man, the doctor does commonly assume
such a relation to many people)—while it is
impossible this relation in its closest form shall obtain
between a doctor and more than a certain number
of people, still with every patient with whom
the doctor is thrown at all intimately he has this
peculiar relation to a greater or less extent. The
effect that the doctor has upon the body of the patient
is in very many cases no greater than the effect
that he has upon the patient’s mind. Each one of
you here has resting upon him not only a great
responsibility for the care of the body of the officer
or enlisted man who will be under his supervision,
but a care—which ought not to be too consciously
shown, but which should be unconsciously felt—for
the man’s spirit. The morale of the entire ship’s
company, of the entire body of men with which you
are to be thrown, will be sensibly affected by the way
in which each of you does his duty.
Just as the great doctor, the man who stands high
in his profession in any city, counts as one of the
most valuable assets in that city’s civic work, so in
the Navy or the Army the effect of having thoroughly
well-trained men with a high and sensitive
standard of professional honor and professional duty
is wellnigh incalculable upon the service itself. I
want you now, as you graduate, to feel that on your
shoulders rests a great weight of responsibility;
that your position is one of high honor, and that it
is impossible to hold a position of high honor and
not hold it under penalty of incurring the severest
reprobation if you fail to live up to its requirements.
I am not competent to speak save in the most
general terms of your professional duties. I do
want, however, to call your attention to one or two
features connected with them. In the first place:
In connection with the work you do for the service
you have certain peculiar advantages in doing work
that will be felt for the whole profession. For instance,
it will fall to your lot to deal with certain
types of tropical diseases. You will have to deal
with them as no ordinary American doctor, no matter
how great his experience, will have to deal with
them, and you should fit yourselves by most careful
study and preparation, so that you shall not only be
able to grapple with the cases as they come up, but
in grappling with them to make and record observations
upon them that will be of permanent value to
your fellows in civil life. You can there do what no
civilian doctor can possibly do. There probably is
not a branch of the profession into which, during
your career, you will not have to go; no type of
disease that you will not have to treat. But there
are certain diseases you will have to treat that the
ordinary man who stays at home, of course, does
not; and it is of consequence to the entire medical
profession that you should so fit yourself by study,
by preparation, that you shall not only be able to deal
with those cases, but to deal with them in a way
that will be of advantage to your stay-at-home
brethren.
There is one other point. Every effort should, of
course, be made to provide you with ample means
to do your work. Every effort ought to be made to
persuade the National Legislature to take that view
of the situation; to remember that in case of war
it is out of the question to improvise a great medical
service for the Army and the Navy. The need
of the increase would be more keenly felt in the
Army than in the Navy, because it is always the
Army that undergoes the greatest expansion in time
of war. But it is felt in both services. And when,
as is perfectly certain to be the case if ever a war
comes, and if we have made no greater preparation
than at present, there is fever in the camps, there
is sickness among the volunteer forces, it will be
mere dishonest folly for the public men, and especially
for the public press, to shriek against the
people who happen to be in power at that time. Let
them, if ever such occasion arises, solemnly think
over and repent of the fact that they have not made
their representatives provide adequately in advance
for the medical system in its personnel and its
material, for the organization, and for the physical
instruments necessary to make that organization
effective. Only adequate preparation in advance
will obviate the trouble which otherwise is certain
to come if we have a war. Let critics remember not
to blame the people in power when such a breakdown
comes, but to blame themselves, the people
of the United States, because they have not had the
forethought to take the steps in advance which
would prevent such breakdown from occurring.
Means ought to be provided in advance. That is
part of our duty. If we fail in it then it is our
responsibility, not yours. But now for your
duty. I want to impress, with all the strength
that in me lies, upon every medical man in
either the Army or the Navy, to remember always
that in any time of crisis the chances are that you
will have to work with imperfect implements. And
your conduct will then afford a pretty good test of
your worth. If you sit down and do nothing but
say you could have done excellently if only you had
had the right implements to work with, you will
show your unfitness for your position. Your business
will be to do the very best you can do, if you
have nothing in the world but a jack-knife to do it
with. Keep before your minds all the time that
when the crisis occurs it is almost sure to be the
case that you will have to do no small part of your
work with make-shifts; to do it, as I myself saw
at Santiago the Army physicians do their work,
roughly and hastily, when worn out with fatigue and
having but one-fourth or one-fifth of the appliances
that they would expect normally to have. Make
up your mind that while you will do all you can to
get the best material together in advance, you will
not put forward the lack of that material as an excuse
for not doing the best work possible with imperfect
tools. Make it a matter of pride to do your
utmost, without regard to the inadequacy of your
instruments.
I am sure that all of us outsiders here realize
the weight of responsibility resting upon those
who now join the great and honorable body of men
who in the Navy and in the Army have by their actions
upheld not only the standard of honor of the
medical profession, but the standard of honor of
the officers of the Army and the Navy of the United
States.
I greet you on your entrance into the service. I
welcome you as servants of the Nation, and I wish
you every success in the great and honorable calling
which you have chosen as yours.
Mr. Mayor; and you, My Fellow-Americans:
It has been indeed a pleasure for me to come to-day
within the limits of your mighty and beautiful
State. This afternoon I have been traveling
through a veritable garden of the Lord. It is only
a few weeks ago that I did my part in helping on
the growth here when I signed the bill under which
the Trinity River will be improved, which I was
mighty glad to do. For I think that we Americans
have learned the lesson that whatever is good for
some of us is good for all of us. We are all going
to go up, and not down, because we are going to go
together. I have been impressed even more than by
the beauty and fertility of your State by the character
of its people. Surely no President could be
more touched by any greeting than by a greeting
such as this; and above all (I know the others of
you will not mind my saying) to be greeted by the
men who, when the hour of trial came in 1861,
sprang to arms, and whether they wore the blue,
or whether they wore the gray, proved the sincerity
of their devotion by the valor with which they risked
their lives. Oh, my fellow-countrymen, think what
a blessed thing it is that now every man in this land
can feel the same pride in the valor and devotion of
those who fought for one side and of those who
fought for the other! I can, in a sense, claim to be,
by blood at least, a typical President, for I am half
Southern and half Northern; I was born in the East
and I have lived much in and learned much from the
West.
The Civil War has left us as a heritage of honor
not merely the memory of the mighty deeds done in
it alike by the men of the North and the men of the
South; it has left us also as an inspiration and a
memory the way in which when the war was over
those men turned to the works of peace, and wrought
out in peace success exactly as they had wrought it
out in war.
I come to Texas not for the first time. Seven
years ago, again there was a call to arms, a call to
arms against a foreign foe. It then fell to my lot
to come here to help in raising a regiment, a regiment
in which I think over half of the men had
fathers who served in the Confederate army, and
about one-third, perhaps somewhat more, fathers
who served in the Union army. We were the sons
of the men who wore the blue, the sons of the men
who wore the gray, and our only desire was to show
ourselves not wholly unworthy of the mighty men
of the years that are past.
You of this State of Texas have behind you a
history containing the deeds of which not only you
but all of the country must be forever proud. My
regiment was raised under the walls of that historic
building of which it was said that “Thermopylæ
had its messengers of death, but the Alamo had
none.” You, the men of Texas, like the men of
Oregon and California, like the men of Kentucky
and Tennessee in a previous generation, did your
part in changing this Nation from a string of Atlantic
seaboard commonwealths into a people bounded
only by a continent. No people more than the
Texans have rendered it impossible for this country
to be anything but great. It is not open to us to
choose whether we shall play a small part or a great
part. Your fathers helped to make that choice impossible.
Play a great part we must. All that we
can decide is whether we shall play it well or ill;
and I know too well, oh, my fellow-countrymen,
not to know what your decision will be.
The problems change. One generation faces different
difficulties from the difficulties faced by its
predecessors. But the spirit in which those problems
must be faced is forever the same. You, the
men of the Civil War, who wrought deeds of deathless
fame, who left memories of honor that will last
as long as this Nation endures, fought with muzzle-loading,
percussion-cap muskets and rifles, with
cannon that you could afford to put out in the open
when you wanted to shoot at the foe. You fought
still in the shoulder-to-shoulder tactics. Nowadays
men must fight with different weapons; men must
fight with different tactics; but the spirit in which
they must fight if they are to win must be the spirit
that sustained you alike in triumph and defeat. The
outward problem changes, the outward means of
solving that problem changes, but the heart of the
man who is to solve it can not be changed. We
must show as a Nation now the same spirit that has
been shown by the mighty men of times past under
penalty of failure; show it in war if the need arises;
and we must also show it in peace; show it in the
days that are with us all the time instead of waiting
for the heroic days that may never come.
Just as in time of war the man who does his duty
in camp, on the march, who does not throw away his
blanket at noon because it is heavy, and then wishes
that he had two at midnight, is the type of man who
makes the best soldier in the long run; so it is true
that in civil life the man who does his duty as a citizen
in the long run is the man who does his ordinary
work day by day, doing each day’s duty, great
or small, behaving as he should toward his wife, toward
his children, toward his neighbor, in his business,
in his home; and if he does those duties well
the sum of the duties performed means that he is a
good citizen.
I want you men of Texas, you men of my age,
to see to it that exactly as you lift your heads higher
because of what your fathers have done, so your
children have the right to hold their heads higher
because of the way in which you handle yourselves.
A glorious memory is the best of all things for a
nation if it spurs that nation on to try to rise level
with that memory. It is a poor thing for a nation
if it uses the memory of the past to excuse it for
inaction or failure in the present. Keep it before
yourselves ever that the very fact that you are proud
of those who have gone before makes it incumbent
upon you to leave a heritage of honor to those who
are to come after you, and to train up those who
are to come after you so that they can do their work
in the world. One of the things that has pleased me
most in passing through the part of your State that
I have passed through this afternoon was to see the
care that you are giving to the education of the
children, to see the public schools and the private
schools that you have built and in which your boys
and girls are being trained. Do not forget that besides
the training of the school must come the training
in the family. Take care the next generation is
able to rise level to its duty. You can not make it
rise level if you do not give it the proper training.
Remember always that this life is certain to contain
much that is hard, much that is unpleasant. It is
not a kindness to the children, it is a curse, if you
train them so that they can not meet any need that
arises. I do not believe that we ought ever to try
to delude ourselves with the thought that we can
make life easy, effortless, and yet keep it worth having.
For a nation as for an individual the life is the
life of effort. You have made this great State of
Texas what it is because your forefathers had in
them the spirit which recognized in a difficulty
something not to be flinched from, but to be overcome.
I can not sufficiently thank you for the way you
have greeted me to-day. I am more touched than
I can express by it. I come to the soil of this State,
hallowed by the great deeds of great men, I come
knowing your people already and believing in them
with my heart and soul. A couple of years ago I
went from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I have now
come down to this mighty State, this wonderful
commonwealth, which borders on the Gulf, and I
shall go away with the feeling that after all, while
there are small differences among us, the fundamental
fact is that wherever you find the average American,
the average American is a pretty good man. It
is our unity, not our divergency, that is the great
fundamental fact of our national life. I shall go
away a stronger and better American for having
been in this State of strong and good Americans,
this mighty commonwealth of Texas.
Mr. Toastmaster, and you, My Hosts:
Before I came to Texas I knew the generous hospitality
which is one of your chief characteristics, and
I anticipated a good reception, but neither I nor any
one else could have anticipated such a reception, and
it has touched me and pleased me more than I can
well say. I think I was a middling good American
before I came here, but I go away an even better one.
Mr. Simpson spoke of the fact that nearly seven
years ago I came to this State to take part in raising
a volunteer regiment. Many among you who served
on one side or the other in the Civil War will remember
the number of things that you did not know
at the beginning. If you will take that lack of
knowledge and multiply it by two you will get a fair
estimate of what I and the regiment did not know
when we started. That we learned something I
hope is true.
I want to say a word of serious thanks to you,
and a word as to my accountability as a steward to
you. No man is fit to hold the position of President
of the United States at all unless as President he
feels that he represents no party but the people as
a whole. So far as in me lies I have tried and shall
try so to handle myself that every decent American
citizen can feel that I have at least made the effort.
Each man has got to carry out his own principles
in his own way. If he tries to model himself on
some one else he will make a poor show of it. My
own view has been that if I must choose between
taking risks by not doing a thing or by doing it, I
will take the risks of doing it.
I have been a very close student of Texan history.
The history of your State has always held a peculiar
fascination for me. I had begun certain historic
studies connected with the growth of our Western
people many years ago, before I took much of a part
in public life.
However little some of you may now agree with
me, when you come to take into account what I have
done in the Caribbean Sea, in future you will find
that I have been carrying out the doctrine of the
Texans who made Texas what it is. Especially as
regards what was done in Panama, I want to say
that while I was most anxious to deserve the approval
of my countrymen, and while I was very glad
to be elected President, I would without one moment’s
hesitation have given up the second term in
the Presidency rather than not to have begun the
Panama Canal.
Now in the same way with our internal affairs;
take what the toastmaster was kind enough to say
as to my standing for a square deal. I want that
understood literally. I do not want it exaggerated
on one side or the other. When I say I believe in a
square deal I do not mean, and nobody who speaks
the truth can mean, that he believes it possible to
give every man the best hand. If the cards do not
come to any man, or if they do come, and he has
not got the power to play them, that is his affair.
All I mean is that there shall not be any crookedness
in the dealing. In other words, it is not in the
power of any human being to devise legislation or
administration by which each man shall achieve
success and have happiness; it not only is not in the
power of any man to do that, but if any man says
that he can do it, distrust him as a quack. If the
hand of the Lord is heavy upon any man, if misfortune
comes upon him, he may be unable to win;
or even if fortune favors him and he lacks the
courage, the nerve, the common-sense, the ability,
to do the best with the chance given him, then he
will fail. All any of us can pretend to do is to come
as near as our imperfect abilities will allow to securing
through governmental agencies an equal opportunity
for each man to show the stuff that is in
him; and that must be done with no more intention
of discrimination against the rich man than
the poor man, or against the poor man than the rich
man; with the intention of safeguarding each man,
rich or poor, poor or rich, in his rights, and giving
him as nearly as may be a fair chance to do what
his powers permit him to do; always provided he
does not wrong his neighbor.
This is not in the least a partisan question. It is
one of those questions that affect all our citizens, a
question that goes to the root of our citizenship; and
when it comes to a question like that you citizens of
this country have the right to expect your representatives
in public life to join hands and work for the
common good and without regard to any mere party
differences. As to the details of carrying out those
general principles we can not expect everybody to
agree. My own views are pretty definite, both about
foreign and domestic policies. In foreign policies,
for instance, I have this strong belief, which I am
sure will appeal to every cow-man present—never
draw, unless you mean to shoot; and that implies,
of course, that when you draw it shall not be an
empty gun. Do not speak impolitely, disrespectfully
of other nations. Always treat them with courtesy.
Remember that nobody likes to be insulted. One
would rather be wronged than insulted; and this is
just as true internationally as among individuals.
Always speak courteously; be dead sure you are
right before going into trouble; being in, see it
through.
As a corollary to that, if you need a weapon which
you can not possibly improvise, get it ready in advance.
The individual who gets into trouble and
then thinks he will go and buy a six-shooter is left.
He does not want to get into trouble unless he has
the six-shooter. It is just so with us. We have
built up and are building up a pretty good navy. If
we had not done that and were not doing it, I for
one would not have recommended going into the
Panama business, and I would not advocate the
Monroe Doctrine, for I do not intend to go into anything
and make a bluff and then have the bluff called
and not be able to make good.
In the same way when you come to internal affairs;
I have advocated giving the Interstate Commerce
Commission increased power; power that will
enable it to work effectively and quickly. I should
not do that for one moment if I believed that there
would be injustice done to the railroads by the Interstate
Commerce Commission. I wish it understood
definitely that if I find any subordinate of
mine doing an injustice against a railroad, or doing
an injustice for it, I will cinch him just as quickly
in one case as in the other. I shall expect him to do
the square thing, both by the railroad and by the
public. If the railroad wants more than it is entitled
to have, then he must decide against it; if
the public ignorantly demands that the railroad shall
do more than it can with propriety do, then just as
fearlessly he must antagonize public sentiment, even
if the public sentiment is unanimous.
These are the general principles. It is much
easier to lay down general principles than it is to
work out those principles in detail. But I have told
you substantially what are, as I regard them, the
main features of the platform upon which I stand,
and I think that you agree with me that it is a pretty
straight American platform.
Governor, Mr. Speaker, Mr. President pro tem.,
Senators, and Members of the House of Representatives,
and all of you, men and women of
Texas, those whom I am so proud to call my
Fellow-Americans:
No President of the United States, no good American
proud of his country, could enter this Capitol
and stand in this hall without feeling a certain thrill
of pride in his citizenship, and in the history of the
country’s past. This building in which we are now
is not only one of the largest but one of the most
beautiful of its kind throughout the world. It is
eminently fitting that so great a State should have
so fine a capitol building.
There are one or two things that I would like
particularly to say in this chamber, and to the members
of the Texas Legislature. I received a copy of
the resolution passed by your body, introduced, I
understand, by ex-Minister Terrell, in reference to
the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act. I wish
to thank you most heartily for what you did. I
think, Governor, Mr. Speaker, and gentlemen, that
the longer our experience in public office is, the more
we realize that at least ninety-five per cent, if not
more, in importance, of the work done by any public
officer who is worth his salt has nothing whatever
to do with partisan politics. The things that
concern us all as good citizens are infinitely larger
than the matters concerning which we are divided
one from the other along party lines. Fundamentally
our attitude in our foreign affairs and in reference
to foreign nations must in the long run, if
we are to be successful as a people, be based upon
certain common-sense rules of conduct, the identical
rules upon which every self-respecting citizen must
base his private actions.
This is equally true as regards all questions dealing
with capital and labor; and especially with those
dealings with the great aggregates of capital usually
to be found in corporate form through which so
much of our business at the present day is conducted.
It is essential, in dealing thus by legislative
action with corporate wealth, or indeed with
wealth in any form, that we remember and act upon
certain rules simple enough and commonplace
enough to state, but not always easy to act upon.
Most emphatically we can not as good Americans
bear hostility to any rich man as such any more
than to any poor man as such. My experience has
been that the man who talks over-loudly of his hostility
to corporate wealth can not be trusted even to
antagonize corporate wealth when it is wrong. Let
us be moderate in our statements; but let us make
our deeds bear out absolutely our words.
With this preliminary I would like to say in brief
just what my position is as regards the particular
question with which I had to deal and as regards
which the Texas Legislature took the action I so
much appreciate.
On the whole there have been few instruments in
the economic development of the country which have
done more for the country than the railroads. I do
not wish in any shape or way to interfere with the
legitimate gain of any of the big men whose special
industrial capacity enables them to handle the railroads
so as to be of profit to themselves and of advantage
to all of us. I should be most reluctant—I
will put it stronger than that—I should absolutely
refuse to be a party to any measure, to any
proposition, that interfered with the proper and
legitimate prosperity of those men; and I should feel
that such a measure was aimed not only at them,
but at all of us, for any attack upon the legitimate
prosperity of any of us is in the long run sure to
turn into an attack upon all. With that proviso (as
to which I ask you to remember that I mean literally
every word) let me further add that the public
has the right (not a privilege, but in my view a duty)
to see that there is on its behalf exercised such supervisory
and regulatory power over the railroads
as will ensure that while they get fair treatment
themselves, they give it in return. The proper exercise
of that power is conditioned upon the securing
of proper legislation, which will enable the representatives
of the public to see to it that any unjust
or oppressive or discriminating rate is altered, so
as to be a just and fair rate, and is altered immediately.
I know well that when you give that power there
is a chance of its being occasionally abused. There
is no power that can be given to the representatives
of the people which it is not possible to abuse. As
every one knows, the power of taxation, which
must of course be given to the representatives of the
people, is the power of death, for it is possible to
kill any industry by excessive taxation. There must
be a certain trust placed in the common-sense and
common honesty of those who are to enforce the
law. If it ever falls, and I think it will, to my lot
to nominate a board to carry out such a law, I shall
nominate men, as far as I am able, on whose ability,
courage, and integrity I can count, men who will
not be swayed by any influence whatever, direct or
indirect, social, political, or any other, to show improper
favoritism to any railroad, and who, on the
other hand, if a railroad is unjustly attacked, no
matter if that attack has behind it the feeling of
prejudice of ninety-nine per cent of the people, will
stand up against that attack. That is my interpretation
of the doctrine of the square deal.
I want to say just one word more on an entirely
different subject. I have always taken a very great
interest in the National Guard in this country. It
is our pride that we have the smallest possible regular army.
There is not another first-class power,
there is not a second or third class power in the
world that has not got relatively to its population
and wealth a very much larger regular army than we
have. We do not need anything but a small regular
army. We need and must and shall have the very
best regular army of its size that is to be found anywhere.
We do not need a large regular army, because
of the possibilities of our people in raising
volunteer troops. Those possibilities are largely conditioned
upon the excellence of the National Guard.
Since I have been in Texas, at almost every stopping
place there have been members of the National
Guard, companies of the National Guard out to do
duty in connection with keeping the crowds in order,
in preventing any trouble of any kind, keeping the
whole proceedings orderly and proper. I have been
immensely struck with their soldier-like efficiency.
It is only what I ought to expect. When I was last
in Texas I was engaged with certain others in raising
a volunteer regiment, and as I think I know a
good thing when I see it, I got just as many Texans
as possible in that regiment.
Your whole history, from the days of Austin and
Houston and Davy Crockett, right to the present
time, shows what fighting material the average
Texan makes. But I do not care how good the
material, it is not going to amount to much if it
is not given a chance. It is a most important thing
for all of us, if we desire to keep the regular army
small, that we shall have the militia, the National
Guard of the several States, kept up to a proper
point. Last year, I am happy to be able to say,
that, at the manœuvres of the regulars, your Texan
troops did admirably. I have been told again and
again how well they did. I want to congratulate you
upon the excellent law for the administration of the
National Guard that has recently been passed by the
Texas Legislature. With that law backed up by a
sufficient appropriation to make it available, you can
count upon having the Texas National Guard a
model for the National Guard of the country.
I feel very much at home here: I have been Governor,
and I have served in the Legislature, so I
have a good deal of fellow-feeling with all of you.
I have had for a good many years to grapple with
just about the problems you are grappling with
from time to time here; and I know, as any man
who has taken part in active work must know, how
easy it is for the outsider to say that everything
should be managed perfectly, and how difficult it is
in practice to get even fairly good results. There
is a heap of difference between the critic, the onlooker
on one side, and on the other the doer, the
man who does the job.
Mr. Governor; and you, My
Fellow-Citizens:
I have been particularly pleased to be greeted
wherever I have gone by the great masses of school
children, the children from the public schools and the
children from the higher institutions of learning,
State and private. It is a mere truism to say that
the prime work of any State should be to keep up
and raise ever higher its standard of citizenship.
Texas has a right to be proud of its industrial development
and of its wonderful natural resources,
but I tell you the best crop for any State to rear
after all is the crop of men and women. I believe
in the future of Texas so heartily because I believe
that you are steadily taking measures for the uptraining
of the children, for the uptraining of the
generations that in a very few years will take our
places and rule the destinies of the State.
No State can be great without paying the penalty
of responsibility that comes with greatness.
That is true of the Nation; it is true likewise of the
States that go to make up the Nation. You have
here in Texas a commonwealth which in area and
diversification of resources already stands unequaled,
which in population and wealth will soon be one of
the three or four first in the entire land. That means
that besides feeling exaltation about it you ought to
have a very heavy sense of responsibility entailed
upon you thereby. No man can do any work worth
doing except at the cost of effort, of self-restraint,
of forcing himself to achieve things. No State can
do anything except by possessing just those qualities,
because the State is of course simply the aggregate
of the individuals within it. If Texas fails
in any way the failure will be felt by the entire
country, because its influence and its power are so
great. There is no royal road to good government;
and I think all those interested in managing your
public affairs will agree with me that what we need
in our public officials is not genius, not even brilliancy,
so much as the exercise of the ordinary rather
commonplace qualities of honesty, courage, and
common-sense—the qualities that make a man a
good husband, a good father, a good neighbor; that
make it advantageous to have dealings with him in
business, or make it worth while having him as a
friend. These are the qualities which are fundamental,
which should be shown by the man who has
to do with public life; and do not forget that each
one of you here has to do his share in governing
this commonwealth. It is not a figure of speech, it
is the literal fact that in the United States every
man is a sovereign. Remember that the fate of the
sovereign who does not do his duty is to get dethroned;
and if the average man who is sovereign
does not do his duty he will get ousted from his sovereignty.
If a man can not govern himself he will
find a boss or some one else who can govern him, and
then do not blame the boss, blame yourself for not
having the self-control, the resolution, the forethought,
and the sense of civic duty which would
make you do your full part in the work of governing
this country. We will not lose our birthright
of citizenship unless by our own fault. If the average
man keeps his head and his wits, and if he takes
a little pains, he will be governed just about the
way he desires to be governed. If he is not governed
that way do not let him sit down and blame
the politicians, let him blame himself, for it is in his
power to get any government that he seriously desires
to have. My fellow-citizens, together with expressing
the exultation that we have a right to express
about our country, we need to have impressed
upon us a sense of our own responsibility, and of
the shortcomings of which we are guilty if we do not
rise level to that responsibility. It is a very good
thing that we should gather together on state occasions,
on the 4th of July, and at public festivals, and
hear speakers say how big a country we have. But
it is a better thing if we will go home and think
over certain of the shortcomings that all of us have
and make up our minds to remedy them in the future.
What I ask of you and what I most firmly
believe you will give is a patriotic perseverance in
doing each his average round of duties, in doing
the duties both of private life and as a citizen in
public affairs each day. Do not wait for some special
time when heroism will be called for, but do
unweariedly the humdrum work that comes to every
man. If we will do that, we will find that the affairs
of state will be settled as we desire to have them settled.
There is no use sitting at home finding fault
with the way in which public affairs are handled,
and then every four years, in a burst of animosity
against some person, voting to turn him out. What
you need to do is, month in and month out, year in
and year out, to do your ordinary political duties
as those political duties come up, and only under
such conditions can you get really good public
servants.
Let me say one more word of warning. In public
life you will sometimes encounter a man who
will endeavor to lead you to do something which
down at bottom you doubt being right, which he
tells you will be to your advantage to do, usually
something that looks like wronging some one else.
But the man who will wrong some one else for
your advantage will, when the chance comes, be
sure to wrong you for his own advantage.
My fellow-citizens, my fellow-Americans, I address
you here under the shadow of your beautiful
capitol of this great and wonderful State, with its
heroic memories of Austin, of Sam Houston, of
Davy Crockett, of all the men who in picture or in
statue are commemorated on these walls; and my
strongest feeling is that, proud though you are of
Texas, you can not be prouder of it than I am.
One of the great and splendid features of our American
life is that each American has a right to be
proud of the deeds of every other American, no
matter from what part of the country his fellow-American
may come. Your honor, your glory, are
the honor and the glory of every man of our great
country. All that is necessary for our people is that
they should get to know one another in order to appreciate
how slight are the divergencies and how
vital and fundamental is the union among them.
Mr. Mayor; Mr. Kirkpatrick; and you, My Fellow-Americans
of this mighty Commonwealth:
I thank you for the way in which I have been
greeted to-day. You can hardly imagine how much
it means to me to come back to San Antonio in this
way, and to be received as you have received me.
I know that the rest of you will not grudge my
saying a special word of acknowledgment to two sets
among your citizens; first to the men of the great
war, to the men who wore the blue or wore the gray
in the days that tried men’s souls. My fellow-citizens,
infinitely more important than any President,
infinitely more important even than the reception to
any President, is what is symbolized by seeing the
men who fought in the Union army and the men
who fought in the Confederate army standing mingled
together, fellow-Americans, one in devotion
and honor and loyalty to the country, shoulder to
shoulder as fellow-citizens of the mightiest republic
upon which the sun has ever shone. Indeed the man
would have a poor heart, a poor spirit, who would
not be thrilled by such a meeting as this, by such a
sight as you accord me to-day, you of the gray, you
of the blue, all one under the flag of this reunited
country.
I suppose you must know it, but I want to tell
you that it was of course the memory of the valor,
the self-sacrifice, the endurance you displayed in the
great war, that made us of the younger generation
feel that when the lesser war came we wished to
emulate your course. The regiment which I had
the honor to command, and which was raised and
organized in this city, took part in what were only
skirmishes compared with the campaigns in which
you did your share; and all that we claim is that
while it was not given to us to have the chance to do
great deeds, yet we hope we made you feel that the
old spirit was not altogether lost. This regiment
served under men who had themselves fought in the
Civil War, both under Grant and under Lee. The
commander of the cavalry division was that gallant
ex-Confederate soldier, Major-General Joseph
Wheeler; and our immediate commander, our brigade
commander, was an ex-Union soldier, who entered
the Union army as a private, and to whom for
my great good fortune it befell me to sign the commission
as Lieutenant-General of the army of the
United States—Lieutenant-General Young. Afterward
at San Juan the cavalry served under General
Sumner, from whom I took my orders.
I can not say how much it meant to me to be able
to take part in raising that regiment under the
shadow of the Alamo. My admiration for Texas
and Texans is no new thing. Since I have been a
boy and first studied the history of this country my
veins have thrilled and tingled as I read of the
mighty deeds of Houston, of Bowie, of Crockett, of
Travis, of the men who were victorious at the fight
at San Jacinto, of the even more glorious men who
fell in the fight of the Alamo, of which it was said,
“Thermopylæ had its messengers of death, but the
Alamo had none.”
I remember so well seven years ago when we were
raising this regiment, riding in here one day to see
the Alamo, and going away feeling that come what
would I was going to try to handle myself so that
there should no disgrace come to the memory of the
Americans who died there. I want you to remember
that ours was a volunteer regiment and a small
war, and that we do not claim any credit for what
we did more than falls to the lot of any number of
other people. All we ask of you is to believe that
we tried to show the spirit which would have made
us do the kind of a job that you of the Civil War
did, if the need had arisen.
I wish to express my acknowledgments for the
greeting which I have received here in San Antonio
and which I have received throughout the length and
breadth of Texas. This is the third time I have
visited this beautiful city—and it is such a beautiful
city. I wonder if you yourselves, proud though you
are of it, appreciate the charm it has to an outsider
coming here. It is fifteen years ago that I first came
here, simply passing through as any number of other
travelers pass through, and saw it. Seven years ago
when I came here I was here strictly on business.
When we got back that year from Santiago I said
to the officers of the regiment, “Now we have got to
have a reunion of the regiment in San Antonio.” All
kinds of things happened in between. I have led a
middling busy life myself since; and now at last
the chance has come to make good the promise and
to have those of the regiment who are able to come
together here in the city where the regiment was
raised to greet one another and talk over the past.
In a sense we can claim that that regiment was a
typical American body. The men composing it
were raised chiefly in the Southwest, but some from
the North, some from the East, so that we had the
Northerner and the Southerner, the Easterner and
the Westerner in that regiment; we had men in it
who worshiped their Creator some according to one
creed, some according to another, for almost every
religious body of any size in the United States was
represented within our ranks. We had men who
had been born abroad and men who were born here,
whose ancestors came to what is now the United
States at the time of the landing of the first colonists
at the mouth of the James or at Plymouth. We
had men of inherited wealth and men who all their
lives long had earned each day’s bread by that day’s
toil. We had men of every grade socially; men who
worked with their heads; men who worked with
their hands; men of all the types that our country
produces; but each of them glad to get in on his
worth as a man only, and content to be judged
purely by what he could show himself to be.
It has always seemed to me that one of the greatest
lessons taught by the Civil War was the lesson
of brotherhood. You, my friends, who wore the
blue; you, my friends, who wore the gray, what
each of you when he went forward to battle was
concerned with about the man on his right hand
and the man on his left was not what that man’s
ancestry was, not as to how he worshiped his Maker,
not as to what his profession was, or his means; what
you wanted to know was whether he would stay
put. If he did you were for him, and if he did not
you were against him.
The same thing that was true in the great war is
true in time of peace. This Government is emphatically
a government by the people, for the people, of
the people. Now, besides applauding that sentiment,
let us live up to it. It has two sides to it. In the
first place, it applies in a dozen different directions.
It applies, for instance, in reference to creed. We
have a right to ask that our neighbor do his duty
toward God and man; but we have no business to
dictate to him how he shall worship his Maker, and
no business to discriminate for or against him because
of the way in which he does it. In the same
way, if a man is a decent citizen, he is a decent
citizen, whether rich or poor. To judge from some
of the talk you occasionally hear, a man can not be
a square man if he is rich. Remember always that
you listen at your peril to any man who would seek
to inflame you against your fellow-citizen because he
is better off. Again, in the Civil War, come back to
the consideration about your bunkie. You did not
care whether he was a banker or bricklayer. If he
was a banker he was all right if he was a good fellow,
if he did his duty in camp, if he did not straggle
on the march, if he did not drop his share of the
joint provisions on the march, and then expect you
to share yours with him at the end of the day. You
wanted him to do his part, and if he did it you were
for him. Now, apply that in civil life. If the
rich man does not his duty, cinch him, and I will
help you just as far as I can. But don’t cinch him
because he is a rich man. If you do you are a
mighty mean creature yourself; you are not a good
American yourself. Give him a perfectly fair show.
If he is a poor man and does his duty, help him, stand
by him. If he whines about his poverty and says
that he ought to be carried, you may just as well
make up your mind to drop him then and there.
Every man of us stumbles at times. Every man
of us at times needs a helping hand stretched out to
him; and shame to any man who will not stretch out
that helping hand to his brother if that brother needs
it. But if the brother lies down, you can do mighty
little in carrying him. You can help him up; but
once up he has got to walk himself. The only way
in which you can ever really help any man is to help
him to help himself.
That brings me to the second set of people here
whom I have been most especially glad to see and
to greet—the children. In the first place, I believe in
them, as you know, and judging by the showing that
San Antonio has made to-day, San Antonio is all
right as regards both quality and quantity. As I
like your stock I am glad that it does not seem likely
to die out. In passing through Texas I have been
more impressed than by anything else by the evident
care you are giving to education, the evident
care given to training your children, the school facilities,
both for primary and higher education, and
the way in which those facilities are being taken advantage
of. Of course it is a mere truism to say
that the care of the children is the most important
task of any generation. You have a wonderful empire
here in Texas. It is literally larger than most
Old World empires. Your diversification of soil
and climate, the marvelous fertility of your soil,
your natural advantages, ensure you a phenomenal
future agriculturally and industrially, ensure this
State a wonderful growth in population and wealth.
All that is essential. You must have the material
basis upon which to build as a foundation, but I need
not say to you to remember that it is only a foundation.
The material counts for nothing if you do not
build upon it the spiritual, if you do not build upon
it the things of the soul, of the mind.
Let me again take an example from the war. We
need arms and equipment, but the best rifle ever
made does not make a soldier if it has not got the
right man behind it. You may take the finest modern
weapon, put it in the hands of a weakling or a
coward, and a good man will beat him with a club.
If the other man is a good man too, you want a
mighty good weapon, or you will get beaten. But
the weapon does not in any shape or way serve as a
substitute for the spirit of the soldier. That is what
counts in the last resort. Tactics change, weapons
change, but the soul that drives a man forward to
victory does not change as the ages go by. The
men of the Civil War, alike the men who wore the
gray and the men who wore the blue, made a record
which remains forever a heritage of honor and of
glory for all this people. They did that because they
had in them the spirit which from time immemorial
has made the soldiers of whom the world is proud,
the spirit for the lack of which no other quality in
man or in nation will atone. We of to-day, we who,
if a war should come, will have to fight under new
conditions, with new arms, will win (as assuredly
I believe we shall win) only because our men still
have in them the spirit that made their forefathers
do well in battle. So you must train your children
up so that in addition to having what counts for material
prosperity in a State, you must have the
things that tell most for greatness, the things that
make for the soul of the Nation.
Here in San Antonio what is the building you are
proudest of?—the Alamo. It is not exactly up to
date. Other buildings are more useful. But you
are proud of it because it commemorates forever the
spirit of those who made its fame immortal. So in
the State itself, important though it is to provide for
the industrial welfare of the commonwealth, the
thing that is most important is to take care of the
really vital crop—the crop of citizens. The thing
which the State most needs to care for is the welfare,
not merely material, but moral and intellectual
as well, of the children who are going to make up
the State fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years hence;
and that is why I am so glad to see the care which
you of Texas are taking in the training of the generation
that is now coming up.
A thing that is distressing to me to see is when
sometimes the man and woman who have done well
in life show a curious inability to train their own
children in the way that has resulted successfully
for themselves. I think that all of us know people
who, because they have worked hard and triumphed,
feel that somehow or other they will spare their
children the acquisition of the very qualities which
have made the parents triumph. Too often you see
the man, and I am sorry to say the woman, who
says, “I have had to work hard; my sons and my
daughters shall have an easy time.” Such a man
or woman is preparing ruin for the children about
whom this is said. Of course, you want to give
your children all the love possible; but it is not
right to mistake folly for affection. When you
spare the child that which alone will enable it to
conquer in after life, you are not giving it a blessing;
you are doing it the greatest wrong in your
power. Bring up the boy and girl alike with the
understanding that life is not generally soft, is not
generally easy, that there will be plenty of rough
times, and that what they have to show is not the
spirit that avoids difficulties and flinches from them,
but the spirit which overcomes them. Let each of
the older among you look back upon your lives.
You men of the Civil War; what are the times of
which you are proudest? What are the memories
you are most glad to hand down to your children and
your children’s children? The times that were easy?
No. You are proud to remember and have them
remember the days of toil, of peril, of effort, the
days when you had to risk life and endure every
form of hardship and of labor, when you had in you
the spirit that made you endure it, that made you rise
level to the great need. Surely you must not rob
your sons of the right to feel in their turn the same
pride that you now feel in the power to overcome
difficulty, the power to work, the power of wresting
triumph out of danger.
There is only one of my fellow-citizens to whom
I will touch my hat quicker than to the soldier; and
that is the mother, because I think she has a little
harder time of it. The mother who has brought
up as they should be brought up a family of young
children is entitled to such respect as no other person
in the community is entitled to. When the end
of her life comes she has endured any amount of
hardship, the sitting up by beds of sick children, the
endless taking care of them, for a mother is not
allowed to know the difference between night and
day as far as the ending of the day’s task is concerned;
but, after all, when her life is done she can
look back upon it with a prouder sense of satisfaction
than any one else, if she has done her duty, for
her children and her husband shall rise up and call
her blessed. The worthy life for the Nation, for the
individual, for the man, for the woman, is the life
of effort for the things worth striving for; and our
whole aim should be not to teach those who are to
come after us to shirk difficulties, and to strive to
have an easy time in life, but to strive to do their
duty, whether that duty is hard or not, and to feel
that no success is so great as the success of duty
worth doing which is well done.
Of course, that is my conception of the life for the
Nation as well as for the individual. I am not going
to develop my theory about that; in the first place,
because I want to keep clear of anything that you
might think touched in the faintest degree upon
politics, and in the next place because I believe you
know pretty well how I feel anyway. I feel that
this Nation, whether it wishes to or not, can not help
being a great Nation. You of Texas by what your
forefathers did and what you have done have helped
in making this Nation so that it is impossible not to
be great. We can not decide whether we will be
great or not. The only thing we can decide is
whether, being great, we will do well or do ill. We
have got our duty in the world. We must do our
duty to others, and we must do our duty to ourselves.
We must so handle ourselves that no weak
power which is behaving itself shall have cause to
fear us; and no strong power of any kind shall be
able to oppress or wrong us. We all believe in the
Monroe Doctrine. I have a little difficulty in getting
some of my friends to accept my interpretation of it;
but they will in time, because that interpretation has
come to stay. We are building the Panama Canal.
While that will be a benefit to all the country, it will
be of most benefit to the Gulf States. We have
duties in connection with the great position we have
taken. We can not shirk these duties. We can do
them well or do them ill, but do them we must
That is one reason why I want to see a good navy;
and we have got a good navy. I am going to use
a simile that I used a couple of nights ago at Dallas.
In the old days in Texas I understand that
there used to be a proverb that while you would not
generally want a gun at all, if you did want it you
wanted it quick and you wanted it awfully bad.
That is just the way I feel about the navy. I feel
that if we have it the chances are that we will not
need it; but that if we do not have it, we might find
that our need for it was vital.
Friends:
It is hard for me not to call you neighbors, for
during a number of years my neighbors were just
such men and women as those I now see before me,
and they were as good friends as I ever had. I do
not intend to say more than a few words to-day, but
I do wish to tell you how thoroughly at home I feel
with you, how much I have enjoyed my stay here,
and how I have appreciated the kind and thoughtful
hospitality with which I have been treated.
Here, as elsewhere in almost every gathering in
the West, I see men wearing the button which shows
that they served in the Grand Army of the Republic,
and carrying the flag which they more than any
other men in this Nation have the right to carry
because it is owing to them that this Nation has a
flag at all. The few words which I have to say are
to be on success, and I wish to illustrate what I
mean by taking these veterans of the Civil War as
examples; and what I am about to say was suggested
by a conversation I had with the Dominie
here, when he was with me the other day on a bear
hunt. The Grand Army in its organization is
typically and fundamentally American, because in
the Grand Army every man from lieutenant-general
to drummer boy is judged not by his position,
but by the way he discharges or discharged his duty
while in that position. In other words, to the Grand
Army man success, in the highest and truest acceptation
of the word, means the full performance of duty
in whatever position Providence has assigned the
man to whom the duty comes. Success from the
soldier’s standpoint, if an army is to rank as one of
the great armies of all time, must mean that whether
the man carries sword or musket, whether he looks
after the mules or the commissary, he does his duty
up to the handle. If the soldier feels that he has
done that, then he has a right to feel that his career
has been honorable and successful, and that his children’s
children will be proud of him. Success had
this meaning from 1861 to 1865.
So it is in civil life. Real success consists in
doing one’s duty well in the path where one’s life
is led. Of course, you must remember that to do
your duty you must in the first place do it to yourself
and to those that are nearest you. There is no
use whatever in having lofty ambitions or great
schemes for helping mankind if you are not able
in the first place to keep yourself and your own
family decently fed, clothed, and housed. You must
pull your own weight first before you can do more
than be a passenger in the boat. You must do
what is right to your family and your neighbors
before you can help the State. If, however, you
have the ordinary humdrum qualities, the workaday
qualities, you can win real success; for real success
in civil life means that the man is able to make a
living for himself and his family, to educate his
children, to do his duty by his neighbors, and when
the end of his life comes, to be able to feel that the
world has been a little better and not a little worse
off because he has lived.
When it comes to the great prizes of life there
must always be more or less accident in winning.
No man who has made what the world at large calls
a great success can fail to recognize, if he is sincere
with himself, that there has been much of chance,
of fortune, in his triumph; and surely this should
prevent arrogance on his part, and should also prevent
any feeling of mean envy toward him on the
part of others. Carry yourself so that if accident
puts great opportunities in your way you will be
able to take advantage of them, and so that, at any
rate, even if the exceptional opportunities do not
come, you can do the things that count most for real
happiness in life, the things that in their sum mean
the life that is successful, because they make up a
happy and healthy home. No amount of skill, perseverance,
energy, or genius can win either the great
or the small prizes of life unless back of them lie
character and the courage of moral convictions.
With this character, whether the great opportunity
comes or not, you can count upon so bearing yourselves
that your children will bless you for having
done all that was in your power to bring them up
to an honored name.
So much for success in private life. Now for the
success from the national standpoint. In this country
of ours the Government can no more rise higher
than those who make it than a stream can rise higher
than its source. No one leader, no set of leaders,
can make the Government. It will be made by the
average citizen, and whether it stands high or low
will and must depend upon the character of the average
citizenship. Only this average citizen can make
or unmake it. The right type of leader can guide
and help him—in short, can lead him; but he
must himself be trusted to see to it that his
leadership is right, and if he has not the right
stuff in him, then no leadership will avail him
or any of us. In the Civil War, Grant and Sherman
and Farragut rendered incalculable service;
but in the last analysis it was the average man in
the ranks who made the army. If that man had
not had the right stuff in him not all the generalship
of the greatest leaders would have availed to
win victory. So it is now. The man who carries
the hod or the axe or the coupling-pin; the man who
holds the plow or the hammer; the average man
who does the average work of the Nation, is the man
upon whom our whole political and social fabric
rests. If he continues to have the right stuff in him,
then as a Nation we shall continue to go up. If
he surrenders himself to idleness and ignorance, to
mean envy and mean hate; if he is not thrifty, industrious,
energetic and intelligent; above all, if his
moral fibre weakens—then the Republic will be in
a bad way. There is no secret about good citizenship.
The qualities that make a good citizen are
those that the humblest man or woman, girl or boy,
can have; but they are the qualities upon which the
foundations of the State rest. Dishonesty, especially
if accompanied by that unpleasant type of
ability without conscientiousness which some people
deify under the name of “smartness,” is a curse and
a disgrace to the individual and to the community.
Honesty is the first quality for the individual and
for the Nation; and it must be backed up by courage—the
courage which does not wait before showing
itself until the heroic days which may never come,
but which unflinchingly does each day that day’s
duty, be it easy or hard; and finally it must be backed
up by the common-sense without which courage and
honesty are of so little avail. The man who is a
good husband; the woman who is a good wife and
mother; the son who so carries himself that the family
are glad to have him at home instead of earnestly
wishing he were away; the daughter who as she
grows up is a help to her mother instead of an added
burden; the family in which tenderness and consideration
are shown for one another, together with
the strong, fearless qualities absolutely necessary
both for man and for woman in this rough, workaday
world of ours—such men and women, such families,
have won the success that most counts, and in
their aggregate make up the Nation that is really
successful.
Mr. President; Mr. Toastmaster; and you, Men of
Denver; Men of Colorado:
I hope I need not say how glad I am to be your
guest to-night. Let me say just one word in reference
to the work of this organization of which I
am not only the guest, but to which I owe my most
sincere thanks for having elected me to honorary
membership. You have done a great work for the
material prosperity of this city, of this State. I
fully appreciate, as every sensible man must, the
great, the vital importance of that work. We must
have a basis of material prosperity before any community,
whether State, municipality, or nation, can
develop itself, can rise in any degree. There must
in the community as in the individual be first as a
basis the material prosperity; but woe to the community,
woe to the individual, that accepts such material
prosperity as the be-all and the end-all of its
life. In the world at large, and especially in this
Nation, we have been passing through an era of materialism.
It has had its good side, and it has had
its poor side; and we of this country will never rise
level to the standard that should be set here until
we not only understand but apply the truth that material
prosperity is only the foundation, and that its
worth depends entirely upon the kind of moral
superstructure of good citizenship that we build
upon it. No wealth, no material well-being, shall
avail the Nation where class hatreds flourish, where
man looks upon his brother with envy and hatred
or with arrogance and contempt, according to his
position, where the average man fails to understand
that the supreme good for any man is the granting
him the opportunity and training him to the power
to do service to the community at large. I believe
in material well-being, of course; I should be a fool
if I did not. I believe in material well-being; I
believe in those who have built it up; but I believe
also that it is a curse if it is not accompanied by the
lift toward higher things. We of this country; we
who have enjoyed the marvelous prosperity that this
country has possessed in a degree pre-eminent above
all other nations of earth, must in the future show
our understanding of this doctrine, or we shall fail
to make of the Republic what it must and shall be
made—an example for all the nations of mankind.
But do not think that I fail to understand the importance
of our material well-being. I congratulate
Denver with all my heart that it is the centre of the
great mining and livestock industries. It is of enormous
consequence to all our people that any section
of this country should do well. Do not forget
that. So far from its being a hurt to any one section
to see another section prosper, we can on the
contrary count it as certain that if a part of this
country prospers much the rest of the country will
as a whole feel some good effects from the result of
the prosperity. As Senator Patterson was just saying
to me, when three years ago we succeeded in getting
through that law which I am so very proud
should have been enacted during my administration,
the law by which the Nation undertook to do
its share in the great work of reclamation of the arid
lands of the West; when we got through that law
there were certain shortsighted people, representing
as they believed the interests of the non-arid Eastern
lands, who objected to its passage on the ground
that it would help build up their rivals; whereas,
they ought to have seen that whatever built up the
inter-mountain States would add to the prosperity of
all the United States. There is just one safe motto
for Americans to act on; that is, the motto of all
men up; not some men down.
In a very small way I am trying to build up an
other industry for the benefit of the whole country,
which we are starting here in Colorado. Through
Secretary Wilson of the Department of Agriculture,
in connection with your Agricultural College,
we are starting the development of a breed of American
horse which may be called the general utility
horse. If I have any influence with this Administration
I am going to have this work continued!
Also, incidentally (if any of you have come from
Vermont you will appreciate this), I think that for
this end we should develop the old breed of Morgan
horse, because we have in the Morgan horse a type
which is not surpassed in any country for the purpose
to be served by the breed of horse most important
for us to develop. I do not think that the
perpetuation of that fine old stock should be left to
private breeders. I think the Government should
take part in it. The reason we have started this
horse breeding by the Government here in Colorado
is that we find, for reasons that I am not wholly able
to explain, that the stoutest forelegs in horses are
developed here in Colorado; and so I hope the Senators
from Colorado will help me to develop the
Morgan horse in Colorado.
Gentlemen, I want to say a word as to a governmental
policy in which I feel that this whole country
ought to take a great interest and which is itself but
part of a general policy into which I think our Government
must go. I speak of the policy of extending
the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission,
of giving them the power to fix rates and
to have the rates that they fix go into effect practically
at once. As I say, that represents in my mind
part of what should be the general policy of this
country, the policy of giving not to the State but
to the National Government an increased supervisory
and regulatory power over corporations. The
first step and to my mind the most important step in
this general policy is to give the Nation in effective
form this power over the great transportation corporations
of this country. In the days of the fathers
of the older among you the highways of commerce
for civilized nations were what they had always been—waterways
and roads. Therefore they were open
to all who chose to travel upon them. Within the
last two generations we have seen a system grow up
under which the old methods were completely revolutionized,
and now the typical highway of commerce
is the railroad. Compared to the railroad the
ordinary road for wheeled vehicles, and the waterway,
whether natural or artificial, have lost their
importance. Here in Colorado, for instance, it is
the railroads which, of course, are the only highways
that you need take into account in dealing with
the question of commerce in the State or outside of
the State. Therefore, under this changed system,
we see highways of commerce grow up each of
which is controlled by a single corporation or individual;
sometimes several of them being controlled
in combination by corporations or a few individuals.
When such is the case, in my judgment it is absolutely
necessary that the Nation (for the separate
States can not possibly do it) should assume a supervisory
and regulatory function over the great corporations
which practically control the highways of
commerce.
Now fix clearly in your minds two facts at the
outset. As with everything else mundane, when you
get that supervisory and regulatory power on behalf
of the Nation you will not have cured all the evils
that existed and you will not equal the expectations
of the amiable but ill-regulated enthusiast who thinks
that you ought to have cured all those evils. A
measure of good will come, some good will be done,
some injustice will have been prevented; but we shall
be a long way from the millennium. Get that fact
clear in your mind or you will be laying up for your
selves a store of incalculable disappointment in the
future. That is the first thing.
Now the second and even more important matter:
When you give the Nation that power, remember
that harm and not good will come unless you give
it with the firm determination not only to get justice
for yourselves, but to do justice to others. You
must be as jealous to do justice to the railroads as
to exact justice from them. We can not afford in
any shape or way in this country to encourage a
feeling which would do injustice to a man of property,
any more than to submit to injustice from a
man of property. Whether the man owns the biggest
railroad or the greatest outside corporation in
the land, or whether he makes each day’s bread by
the sweat of that day’s toil, he is entitled to justice
and fair dealing, to no more and to no less. A
spirit of envy on the part of those less well off
against the better off is as bad as and no worse than
a spirit of arrogant disregard for the rights of the
man of small means on the part of the man of large
means. The arrogance and the envy are not two
different qualities; they are the same quality shown
by men under different circumstances.
We must make up our minds that nothing but
harm will come from any scheme to exercise such
supervision as that I advocate over corporations,
and especially over the common carriers, unless we
have it clearly fixed in our minds that the scheme
is to be one of substantial justice alike to the common
carrier and to the public. If I have the appointment
or retention of any commission and power to
administer a law of such increased powers I shall
neither appoint nor retain the man who would fail
to do justice to the railroads any more than I would
appoint or retain the man who would fail to exact
justice from the railroads. I want that understood
as a preliminary. If I have the appointment of any
of those men, or their retention, they will give a
square deal all around or else their shrift will be
short.
But with that statement as a preliminary I wish to
urge with all the earnestness I possess, not only
upon the public, but upon those interested in the
great railway corporations, the absolute need of acquiescence
in the enactment of such law. As has
been well set forth by the Attorney-General, Mr.
Moody, in his recent masterly argument presented
to the committee of the Senate which is investigating
the matter, the Legislators have the right
and as I believe the duty to confer these powers upon
some executive body. It can not confer them upon
any court, nor can it take away the court’s power to
interfere if the law is administered in a way that
amounts to confiscation of property. Of course, it
would be possible to come much short of such confiscation
and yet do great damage, perhaps irreparable
damage, to the great corporations engaged in interstate
commerce. We must remember always that
most of the men who are responsible for the management
of these great corporations, and who have
profited thereby, have made their fortunes not as
incidental to damaging, but to benefiting the community
as a whole. We must be careful that nothing
is done that would jeopardize their industries
and that would therefore work harm of the most
far-reaching kind not only to all, from the humblest
to the highest, engaged in these industries, but to the
business community as a whole. We must be careful
to see that the law is administered with sanity
and conservatism. But the power must exist, if justice
is to be done as between the public and the
common carrier, in some governmental executive
tribunal, not only to fix rates and alter them, when
convinced that existing rates do injustice, but to
see that the rate thus fixed goes into effect practically
at once.
I do not ascribe it to any moral culpability of the
men engaged in handling these great corporations
that they can not see some of the bad effects of certain
things they do. It is most natural for a man
who is trying to carry on his business in competition
with some other business to think that whatever
he does that would beat his competitor is a
pretty good thing for the community at large; and
often I do not blame him for what he does; but I intend
to prevent his doing it when it is against the
public weal.
I can not attempt to speak in detail of all that
should be put into the law as I hope it will be enacted
at the next session of the National Congress.
Not only should this power over rates go in, but
in my belief we should at the same time deal with
the private car question, which, as regards certain
industries, offers an even greater menace than is
offered by the present system of fixing rates. I do
not think that the law will have to deal with many
subjects, but I do feel that with the two I have
mentioned and with perhaps one or two others it
should deal effectively. There will be the argument
made on the other side (doubtless the argument
being made in their own minds by certain of my
hearers) that such power is liable to abuse. Of
course it is. The power of taxation is liable to
grave abuse, and yet it must exist in the appropriate
legislative body. You can not give any
needed power to the representatives of the people
without exposing yourselves to the danger of that
power being abused. There must be the possibility
of abuse or there can not be the possibility of effective
use.
In closing I wish to mention one governmental
project which I have been instrumental, I think, in
having started which will have a certain bearing
upon this question, and that is the Panama Canal.
It is perhaps unnecessary for me to say that I am
perfectly aware that many most admirable gentlemen
disagreed with me in my action toward the
Panama Canal. But I am in a wholly unrepentant
frame of mind in reference thereto. The ethical
conception upon which I acted was that I did not
intend that Uncle Sam should be held up while he
was doing a great work for himself and all mankind.
But without regard to that, when the canal
comes into operation I think it will have a very important
regulatory effect in connection with the
transcontinental commerce of the great railroads. I
think when such is the case those great railroads
will have to revise their way of looking at the interests
of certain inland cities.
Let me repeat. I have told you my views as to
what I regard to be the most important matter of
internal national legislation that in the immediate future
will be before this people. I wish to say again
that, important though that legislation is, it is nothing
like as important as the spirit in which we
approach it. If we approach it in the spirit of demagogy,
if we permit ourselves as a people to be deluded
into the belief that permanent good will come
to us as a mass, if we attack unjustly the proper
rights of others because they are wealthy, we shall
do ourselves just as much damage as if we permitted
an attack upon those who are poor because
they are poor. In time past republic after republic
has existed in this world and has gone down to destruction,
sometimes because the republic was turned
into a government of the poor who plundered the
rich, sometimes because it was turned into a government
of the rich who exploited the poor. It made
no difference whatever to the fate of the republic
which form its fall took. That fall was just as certain
in one case as in the other. It was just as
certain to follow the triumph of a class which plundered
another class, whether the class thus given
mastery was the class of the poor who plundered the
rich, or the class of the rich who exploited the poor.
The destruction was as inevitable in one instance as
in the other.
We have the right to look forward with confident
hope to the future of this Republic because
it will not and shall not become the Republic of any
class, either poor or rich, because it will and shall
remain as its founders intended it to be, and as its
rescuers under Abraham Lincoln intended it to be,
a government where every man, rich or poor, so
long as he does his duty to his neighbor, is given his
full rights, is guaranteed justice and has justice exacted
from him in return.
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 |
47: |
“appoached” replaced with “approached” |
| Pg |
78: |
“maunfactories” replaced with “manufactories” |
| Pg |
148: |
“everwhere” replaced with “everywhere” |
| Pg |
195: |
Replaced “that” with “than” in “...none was greater than what the late Secretary...” |
| Pg |
216: |
Removed duplicate “be” in “Deep will be your shame...” |
| Pg |
246: |
“commerical” replaced with “commercial” |
| Pg |
250: |
Replaced “if” with “of” in “...interest at the rate of 1 to 2...” |
| Pg |
336: |
“Amercians” replaced with “Americans” |
| Pg |
341: |
“Civl” replaced with “Civil” |
