To the Senate and House of Representatives:
The people of this country continue to enjoy great
prosperity. Undoubtedly there will be ebb and flow
in such prosperity, and this ebb and flow will be
felt more or less by all members of the community,
both by the deserving and the undeserving. Against
the wrath of the Lord the wisdom of man can not
avail; in times of flood or drought human ingenuity
can but partially repair the disaster. A general
failure of crops would hurt all of us. Again, if the
folly of man mars the general well-being, then those
who are innocent of the folly will have to pay part
of the penalty incurred by those who are guilty of
the folly. A panic brought on by the speculative
folly of part of the business community would hurt
the whole business community. But such stoppage
of welfare, though it might be severe, would not be
lasting. In the long run the one vital factor in the
permanent prosperity of the country is the high individual
character of the average American worker,
the average American citizen, no matter whether
his work be mental or manual, whether he be farmer
or wage-worker, business man or professional man.
In our industrial and social system the interests
of all men are so closely intertwined that in the
immense majority of cases a straight-dealing man
who by his efficiency, by his ingenuity and industry,
benefits himself must also benefit others. Normally
the man of great productive capacity who becomes
rich by guiding the labor of many other men does
so by enabling them to produce more than they
could produce without his guidance; and both he
and they share in the benefit, which comes also to
the public at large. The superficial fact that the
sharing may be unequal must never blind us to the
underlying fact that there is this sharing, and that
the benefit comes in some degree to each man concerned.
Normally the wage-worker, the man of
small means, and the average consumer, as well as
the average producer, are all alike helped by making
conditions such that the man of exceptional business
ability receives an exceptional reward for his
ability. Something can be done by legislation to
help the general prosperity; but no such help of
a permanently beneficial character can be given to
the less able and less fortunate, save as the results
of a policy which shall inure to the advantage of all
industrious and efficient people who act decently;
and this is only another way of saying that any
benefit which comes to the less able and less fortunate
must of necessity come even more to the more
able and more fortunate. If, therefore, the less fortunate
man is moved by envy of his more fortunate
brother to strike at the conditions under which they
have both, though unequally, prospered, the result
will assuredly be that while damage may come to
the one struck at, it will visit with an even heavier
load the one who strikes the blow. Taken as a
whole, we must all go up or go down together.
Yet, while not merely admitting, but insisting
upon this, it is also true that where there is no
governmental restraint or supervision some of the
exceptional men use their energies not in ways
that are for the common good, but in ways which
tell against this common good. The fortunes
amassed through corporate organization are now
so large, and vest such power in those that wield
them, as to make it a matter of necessity to give to
the sovereign—that is, to the Government, which
represents the people as a whole—some effective
power of supervision over their corporate use. In
order to ensure a healthy social and industrial life,
every big corporation should be held responsible by,
and be accountable to, some sovereign strong enough
to control its conduct. I am in no sense hostile to
corporations. This is an age of combination, and
any effort to prevent all combination will be not
only useless, but in the end vicious, because of the
contempt for law which the failure to enforce law
inevitably produces. We should, moreover, recognize
in cordial and ample fashion the immense
good effected by corporate agencies in a country
such as ours, and the wealth of intellect, energy, and
fidelity devoted to their service, and therefore normally
to the service of the public, by their officers
and directors. The corporation has come to stay,
just as the trade union has come to stay. Each can
do and has done great good. Each should be favored
so long as it does good. But each should
be sharply checked where it acts against law and
justice.
So long as the finances of the Nation are kept
upon an honest basis no other question of internal
economy with which the Congress has the power to
deal begins to approach in importance the matter of
endeavoring to secure proper industrial conditions
under which the individuals—and especially the
great corporations—doing an interstate business are
to act. The makers of our National Constitution
provided especially that the regulation of interstate
commerce should come within the sphere of the
General Government. The arguments in favor of
their taking this stand were even then overwhelming.
But they are far stronger to-day, in view
of the enormous development of great business
agencies, usually corporate in form. Experience
has shown conclusively that it is useless to try
to get any adequate regulation and supervision of
these great corporations by State action. Such
regulation and supervision can only be effectively
exercised by a sovereign whose jurisdiction is coextensive
with the field of work of the corporations—that
is, by the National Government. I believe
that this regulation and supervision can be obtained
by the enactment of law by the Congress.
If this proves impossible, it will certainly be necessary
ultimately to confer in fullest form such power
upon the National Government by a proper amendment
of the Constitution. It would obviously
be unwise to endeavor to secure such an amendment
until it is certain that the result can not be
obtained under the Constitution as it now is. The
laws of the Congress and of the several States
hitherto, as passed upon by the courts, have resulted
more often in showing that the States have
no power in the matter than that the National Government
has power; so that there at present exists
a very unfortunate condition of things, under which
these great corporations doing an interstate business
occupy the position of subjects without a sovereign,
neither any State government nor the National
Government having effective control over
them. Our steady aim should be by legislation,
cautiously and carefully undertaken, but resolutely
persevered in, to assert the sovereignty of the National
Government by affirmative action.
This is only in form an innovation. In substance
it is merely a restoration; for from the
earliest time such regulation of industrial activities
has been recognized in the action of the lawmaking
bodies; and all that I propose is to meet
the changed conditions in such manner as will prevent
the Commonwealth abdicating the power it
has always possessed, not only in this country but
also in England before and since this country became
a separate Nation.
It has been a misfortune that the national laws
on this subject have hitherto been of a negative or
prohibitive rather than an affirmative kind, and still
more that they have in part sought to prohibit what
could not be effectively prohibited, and have in part
in their prohibitions confounded what should be
allowed and what should not be allowed. It is generally
useless to try to prohibit all restraint on competition,
whether this restraint be reasonable or
unreasonable; and where it is not useless it is generally
hurtful. Events have shown that it is not
possible adequately to secure the enforcement of any
law of this kind by incessant appeal to the courts.
The Department of Justice has for the last four
years devoted more attention to the enforcement
of the anti-trust legislation than to anything else.
Much has been accomplished; particularly marked
has been the moral effect of the prosecutions; but
it is increasingly evident that there will be a very
insufficient beneficial result in the way of economic
change. The successful prosecution of one device
to evade the law immediately develops another
device to accomplish the same purpose. What is
needed is not sweeping prohibition of every arrangement,
good or bad, which may tend to restrict competition,
but such adequate supervision and regulation
as will prevent any restriction of competition
from being to the detriment of the public, as well
as such supervision and regulation as will prevent
other abuses in no way connected with restriction
of competition. Of these abuses, perhaps the chief,
although by no means the only one, is overcapitalization—generally
itself the result of dishonest promotion—because
of the myriad evils it brings in its
train; for such overcapitalization often means an inflation
that invites business panic; it always conceals
the true relation of the profit earned to the capital
actually invested, and it creates a burden of interest
payments which is a fertile cause of improper
reduction in or limitation of wages; it damages the
small investor, discourages thrift, and encourages
gambling and speculation; while perhaps worst of
all is the trickiness and dishonesty which it implies—for
harm to morals is worse than any possible
harm to material interests, and the debauchery of
politics and business by great dishonest corporations
is far worse than any actual material evil they
do the public. Until the National Government obtains,
in some manner which the wisdom of the
Congress may suggest, proper control over the big
corporations engaged in interstate commerce—that
is, over the great majority of the big corporations—it
will be impossible to deal adequately with these
evils.
I am well aware of the difficulties of the legislation
that I am suggesting, and of the need of temperate
and cautious action in securing it. I should
emphatically protest against improperly radical or
hasty action. The first thing to do is to deal with the
great corporations engaged in the business of interstate
transportation. As I said in my Message
of December 6 last, the immediate and most pressing
need, so far as legislation is concerned, is the
enactment into law of some scheme to secure to the
agents of the Government such supervision and
regulation of the rates charged by the railroads of
the country engaged in interstate traffic as shall
summarily and effectively prevent the imposition of
unjust or unreasonable rates. It must include putting
a complete stop to rebates in every shape and
form. This power to regulate rates, like all similar
powers over the business world, should be exercised
with moderation, caution, and self-restraint;
but it should exist, so that it can be effectively exercised
when the need arises.
The first consideration to be kept in mind is that
the power should be affirmative and should be given
to some administrative body created by the Congress.
If given to the present Interstate Commerce
Commission or to a reorganized Interstate Commerce
Commission, such commission should be made
unequivocally administrative. I do not believe in
the Government interfering with private business
more than is necessary. I do not believe in the
Government undertaking any work which can with
propriety be left in private hands. But neither do
I believe in the Government flinching from overseeing
any work when it becomes evident that
abuses are sure to obtain therein unless there is
governmental supervision. It is not my province to
indicate the exact terms of the law which should be
enacted; but I call the attention of the Congress to
certain existing conditions with which it is desirable
to deal. In my judgment the most important
provision which such law should contain is that conferring
upon some competent administrative body
the power to decide, upon the case being brought
before it, whether a given rate prescribed by a railroad
is reasonable and just, and if it is found to be
unreasonable and unjust, then, after full investigation
of the complaint, to prescribe the limit of rate
beyond which it shall not be lawful to go—the
maximum reasonable rate, as it is commonly called—this
decision to go into effect within a reasonable
time and to obtain from thence onward, subject to
review by the courts. It sometimes happens at present,
not that a rate is too high but that a favored
shipper is given too low a rate. In such case the
Commission would have the right to fix this already
established minimum rate as the maximum; and it
would need only one or two such decisions by the
Commission to cure railroad companies of the practice
of giving improper minimum rates. I call your
attention to the fact that my proposal is not to give
the Commission power to initiate or originate rates
generally, but to regulate a rate already fixed or
originated by the roads, upon complaint and after
investigation. A heavy penalty should be exacted
from any corporation which fails to respect an order
of the Commission. I regard this power to establish
a maximum rate as being essential to any
scheme of real reform in the matter of railway
regulation. The first necessity is to secure it; and
unless it is granted to the Commission there is little
use in touching the subject at all.
Illegal transactions often occur under the forms
of law. It has often occurred that a shipper has
been told by a traffic officer to buy a large quantity
of some commodity and then after it has been bought
an open reduction is made in the rate to take effect
immediately, the arrangement resulting to the profit
of the one shipper and the one railroad and to the
damage of all their competitors; for it must not be
forgotten that the big shippers are at least as much
to blame as any railroad in the matter of rebates.
The law should make it clear so that nobody can
fail to understand that any kind of commission paid
on freight shipments, whether in this form or in the
form of fictitious damages, or of a concession, a
free pass, reduced passenger rate, or payment of
brokerage, is illegal. It is worth while considering
whether it would not be wise to confer on the Government
the right of civil action against the beneficiary
of a rebate for at least twice the value of the
rebate; this would help stop what is really blackmail.
Elevator allowances should be stopped, for they
have now grown to such an extent that they are
demoralizing and are used as rebates.
The best possible regulation of rates would, of
course, be that regulation secured by an honest
agreement among the railroads themselves to carry
out the law. Such a general agreement would, for
instance, at once put a stop to the efforts of any
one big shipper or big railroad to discriminate
against or secure advantages over some rival; and
such agreement would make the railroads themselves
agents for enforcing the law. The power
vested in the Government to put a stop to agreements
to the detriment of the public should, in my
judgment, be accompanied by power to permit, under
specified conditions and careful supervision,
agreements clearly in the interest of the public. But,
in my judgment, the necessity for giving this further
power is by no means as great as the necessity
for giving the Commission or administrative body
the other powers I have enumerated above; and it
may well be inadvisable to attempt to vest this particular
power in the Commission or other administrative
body until it already possesses and is exercising
what I regard as by far the most important
of all the powers I recommend—as indeed the
vitally important power—that to fix a given maximum
rate, which rate, after the lapse of a reasonable
time, goes into full effect, subject to review by
the courts.
All private-car lines, industrial roads, refrigerator
charges, and the like should be expressly put
under the supervision of the Interstate Commerce
Commission or some similar body so far as rates,
and agreements practically affecting rates, are concerned.
The private-car owners and the owners of
industrial railroads are entitled to a fair and reasonable
compensation on their investment, but
neither private cars nor industrial railroads nor
spur tracks should be utilized as devices for securing
preferential rates. A rebate in icing charges, or
in mileage, or in a division of the rate for refrigerating
charges is just as pernicious as a rebate in
any other way. No lower rate should apply on
goods imported than actually obtains on domestic
goods from the American seaboard to destination
except in cases where water competition is the
controlling influence. There should be publicity of
the accounts of common carriers; no common carrier
engaged in interstate business should keep any
books or memoranda other than those reported pursuant
to law or regulation, and these books or memoranda
should be open to the inspection of the Government.
Only in this way can violations or evasions
of the law be surely detected. A system of
examination of railroad accounts should be provided
similar to that now conducted into the national banks
by the bank examiners; a few first-class railroad
accountants, if they had proper direction and proper
authority to inspect books and papers, could accomplish
much in preventing wilful violations of the
law. It would not be necessary for them to examine
into the accounts of any railroad unless for
good reasons they were directed to do so by the
Interstate Commerce Commission. It is greatly to
be desired that some way might be found by which
an agreement as to transportation within a State
intended to operate as a fraud upon the Federal
interstate commerce laws could be brought under
the jurisdiction of the Federal authorities. At present
it occurs that large shipments of interstate traffic
are controlled by concessions on purely State business,
which of course amounts to an evasion of the
law. The Commission should have power to enforce
fair treatment by the great trunk lines of lateral
and branch lines.
I urge upon the Congress the need of providing
for expeditious action by the Interstate Commerce
Commission in all these matters, whether in regulating
rates for transportation or for storing or
for handling property or commodities in transit.
The history of the cases litigated under the present
commerce act shows that its efficacy has been to a
great degree destroyed by the weapon of delay, almost
the most formidable weapon in the hands of
those whose purpose it is to violate the law.
Let me most earnestly say that these recommendations
are not made in any spirit of hostility to the
railroads. On ethical grounds, on grounds of right,
such hostility would be intolerable; and on grounds
of mere national self-interest we must remember
that such hostility would tell against the welfare not
merely of some few rich men, but of a multitude of
small investors, a multitude of railway employees,
wage-workers; and most severely against the interest
of the public as a whole. I believe that on the
whole our railroads have done well and not ill; but
the railroad men who wish to do well should not
be exposed to competition with those who have no
such desire, and the only way to secure this end is
to give to some Government tribunal the power to
see that justice is done by the unwilling exactly as
it is gladly done by the willing. Moreover, if some
Government body is given increased power the
effect will be to furnish authoritative answer on
behalf of the railroad whenever irrational clamor
against it is raised, or whenever charges made
against it are disproved. I ask this legislation not
only in the interest of the public, but in the interest
of the honest railroad man and the honest shipper
alike, for it is they who are chiefly jeoparded by the
practices of their dishonest competitors. This legislation
should be enacted in a spirit as remote as
possible from hysteria and rancor. If we of the
American body politic are true to the traditions we
have inherited we shall always scorn any effort to
make us hate any man because he is rich, just as
much as we should scorn any effort to make us look
down upon or treat contemptuously any man because
he is poor. We judge a man by his conduct—that
is, by his character—and not by his wealth or
intellect. If he makes his fortune honestly, there is
no just cause of quarrel with him. Indeed, we have
nothing but the kindliest feelings of admiration for
the successful business man who behaves decently,
whether he has made his success by building or managing
a railroad or by shipping goods over that
railroad. The big railroad men and big shippers
are simply Americans of the ordinary type who
have developed to an extraordinary degree certain
great business qualities. They are neither better
nor worse than their fellow-citizens of smaller
means. They are merely more able in certain lines
and therefore exposed to certain peculiarly strong
temptations. These temptations have not sprung
newly into being; the exceptionally successful among
mankind have always been exposed to them; but
they have grown amazingly in power as a result
of the extraordinary development of industrialism
along new lines, and under these new conditions,
which the lawmakers of old could not foresee and
therefore could not provide against, they have become
so serious and menacing as to demand entirely
new remedies. It is in the interest of the best type
of railroad man and the best type of shipper no less
than of the public that there should be governmental
supervision and regulation of these great business
operations, for the same reason that it is in the
interest of the corporation which wishes to treat its
employees aright that there should be an effective
employers’ liability act, or an effective system of
factory laws to prevent the abuse of women and
children. All such legislation frees the corporation
that wishes to do well from being driven into doing
ill, in order to compete with its rival, which prefers
to do ill. We desire to set up a moral standard.
There can be no delusion more fatal to the Nation
than the delusion that the standard of profits, of
business prosperity, is sufficient in judging any business
or political question—from rate legislation to
municipal government. Business success, whether
for the individual or for the Nation, is a good thing
only so far as it is accompanied by and develops a
high standard of conduct—honor, integrity, civic
courage. The kind of business prosperity that
blunts the standard of honor, that puts an inordinate
value on mere wealth, that makes a man ruthless
and conscienceless in trade and weak and cowardly
in citizenship, is not a good thing at all, but a very
bad thing for the Nation. This Government stands
for manhood first and for business only as an adjunct
of manhood.
The question of transportation lies at the root of
all industrial success, and the revolution in transportation
which has taken place during the last half
century has been the most important factor in the
growth of the new industrial conditions. Most
emphatically we do not wish to see the man of great
talents refused the reward for his talents. Still less
do we wish to see him penalized; but we do desire
to see the system of railroad transportation so handled
that the strong man shall be given no advantage
over the weak man. We wish to ensure as fair
treatment for the small town as for the big city; for
the small shipper as for the big shipper. In the
old days the highway of commerce, whether by
water or by road on land, was open to all; it belonged
to the public and the traffic along it was free.
At present the railway is this highway, and we must
do our best to see that it is kept open to all on equal
terms. Unlike the old highway it is a very difficult
and complex thing to manage, and it is far better
that it should be managed by private individuals
than by the Government. But it can only be so
managed on condition that justice is done the public.
It is because, in my judgment, public ownership
of railroads is highly undesirable and would
probably in this country entail far-reaching disaster,
that I wish to see such supervision and regulation
of them in the interest of the public as will make it
evident that there is no need for public ownership.
The opponents of Government regulation dwell
upon the difficulties to be encountered and the intricate
and involved nature of the problem. Their
contention is true. It is a complicated and delicate
problem, and all kinds of difficulties are sure to
arise in connection with any plan of solution, while
no plan will bring all the benefits hoped for by its
more optimistic adherents. Moreover, under any
healthy plan, the benefits will develop gradually and
not rapidly. Finally, we must clearly understand
that the public servants who are to do this peculiarly
responsible and delicate work must themselves be
of the highest type both as regards integrity and
efficiency. They must be well paid, for otherwise
able men can not in the long run be secured; and
they must possess a lofty probity which will revolt
as quickly at the thought of pandering to any gust
of popular prejudice against rich men as at the
thought of anything even remotely resembling subserviency
to rich men. But while I fully admit the
difficulties in the way, I do not for a moment admit
that these difficulties warrant us in stopping in our
effort to secure a wise and just system. They should
have no other effect than to spur us on to the exercise
of the resolution, the even-handed justice, and
the fertility of resource, which we like to think of
as typically American, and which will in the end
achieve good results in this as in other fields of activity.
The task is a great one and underlies the
task of dealing with the whole industrial problem.
But the fact that it is a great problem does not warrant
us in shrinking from the attempt to solve it. At
present we face such utter lack of supervision, such
freedom from the restraints of law, that excellent
men have often been literally forced into doing what
they deplored because otherwise they were left at
the mercy of unscrupulous competitors. To rail at
and assail the men who have done as they best could
under such conditions accomplishes little. What
we need to do is to develop an orderly system; and
such a system can only come through the gradually
increased exercise of the right of efficient Government
control.
In my annual Message to the Fifty-eighth Congress,
at its third session, I called attention to the
necessity for legislation requiring the use of block
signals upon railroads engaged in interstate commerce.
The number of serious collisions upon unblocked
roads that have occurred within the past
year adds force to the recommendation then made.
The Congress should provide, by appropriate legislation,
for the introduction of block signals upon
all railroads engaged in interstate commerce at the
earliest practicable date, as a measure of increased
safety to the traveling public.
Through decisions of the Supreme Court of the
United States and the lower Federal courts in cases
brought before them for adjudication the safety-appliance
law has been materially strengthened, and
the Government has been enabled to secure its effective
enforcement in almost all cases, with the result
that the condition of railroad equipment throughout
the country is much improved and railroad employees
perform their duties under safer conditions
than heretofore. The Government’s most effective
aid in arriving at this result has been its inspection
service, and that these improved conditions are not
more general is due to the insufficient number of inspectors
employed. The inspection service has fully
demonstrated its usefulness, and in appropriating
for its maintenance the Congress should make provision
for an increase in the number of inspectors.
The excessive hours of labor to which railroad
employees in train service are in many cases subjected
is also a matter which may well engage the
serious attention of the Congress. The strain, both
mental and physical, upon those who are engaged
in the movement and operation of railroad trains
under modern conditions is perhaps greater than
that which exists in any other industry, and if there
are any reasons for limiting by law the hours of
labor in any employment, they certainly apply with
peculiar force to the employment of those upon
whose vigilance and alertness in the performance of
their duties the safety of all who travel by rail
depends.
In my annual Message to the Fifty-seventh Congress,
at its second session, I recommended the passage
of an Employers’ Liability Law for the District
of Columbia and in our navy yards. I renewed that
recommendation in my Message to the Fifty-eighth
Congress, at its second session, and further suggested
the appointment of a commission to make a
comprehensive study of employers’ liability, with a
view to the enactment of a wise and constitutional
law covering the subject, applicable to all industries
within the scope of the Federal power. I hope that
such a law will be prepared and enacted as speedily
as possible.
The National Government has as a rule but little
occasion to deal with the formidable group of problems
connected more or less directly with what is
known as the labor question, for in the great majority
of cases these problems must be dealt with by
the State and municipal authorities and not by the
National Government. The National Government
has control of the District of Columbia, however,
and it should see to it that the City of Washington
is made a model city in all respects, both as regards
parks, public playgrounds, proper regulation of the
system of housing so as to do away with the evils
of alley tenements, a proper system of education, a
proper system of dealing with truancy and juvenile
offenders, a proper handling of the charitable work
of the District. Moreover, there should be proper
factory laws to prevent all abuses in the employment
of women and children in the District. These will
be useful chiefly as object lessons, but even this limited
amount of usefulness would be of real national
value.
There has been demand for depriving courts of
the power to issue injunctions in labor disputes.
Such special limitation of the equity powers of our
courts would be most unwise. It is true that some
judges have misused this power; but this does not
justify a denial of the power any more than an improper
exercise of the power to call a strike by a
labor leader would justify the denial of the right to
strike. The remedy is to regulate the procedure by
requiring the judge to give due notice to the adverse
parties before granting the writ, the hearing to be
ex parte if the adverse party does not appear at the
time and place ordered. What is due notice must
depend upon the facts of the case: it should not be
used as a pretext to permit violation of the law, or
the jeopardizing of life or property. Of course, this
would not authorize the issuing of a restraining
order or injunction in any case in which it is not
already authorized by existing law.
I renew the recommendation I made in my last
annual Message for an investigation by the Department
of Commerce and Labor of general labor conditions,
especial attention to be paid to the conditions
of child labor and child-labor legislation in the
several States. Such an investigation should take
into account the various problems with which the
question of child labor is connected. It is true that
these problems can be actually met in most cases
only by the States themselves, but it would be well
for the Nation to endeavor to secure and publish
comprehensive information as to the conditions of
the labor of children in the different States, so as to
spur up those that are behindhand, and to secure approximately
uniform legislation of a high character
among the several States. In such a Republic as
ours the one thing that we can not afford to neglect
is the problem of turning out decent citizens. The
future of the Nation depends upon the citizenship
of the generations to come; the children of to-day
are those who to-morrow will shape the destiny of
our land, and we can not afford to neglect them.
The Legislature of Colorado has recommended that
the National Government provide some general
measure for the protection from abuse of children
and dumb animals throughout the United States. I
lay the matter before you for what I trust will be
your favorable consideration.
The Department of Commerce and Labor should
also make a thorough investigation of the conditions
of women in industry. Over five million
American women are now engaged in gainful occupations;
yet there is an almost complete dearth of
data upon which to base any trustworthy conclusions
as regards a subject as important as it is vast
and complicated. There is need of full knowledge
on which to base action looking toward State and
municipal legislation for the protection of working
women. The introduction of women into industry
is working change and disturbance in the domestic
and social life of the Nation. The decrease in marriage,
and especially in the birth rate, has been coincident
with it. We must face accomplished facts,
and the adjustment to factory conditions must be
made; but surely it can be made with less friction
and less harmful effects on family life than is now
the case. This whole matter in reality forms one of
the greatest sociological phenomena of our time; it
is a social question of the first importance, of far
greater importance than any merely political or
economic question can be; and to solve it we need
ample data, gathered in a sane and scientific spirit
in the course of an exhaustive investigation.
In any great labor disturbance not only are employer
and employee interested, but also a third
party—the general public. Every considerable labor
difficulty in which interstate commerce is involved
should be investigated by the Government and the
facts officially reported to the public.
The question of securing a healthy, self-respecting,
and mutually sympathetic attitude as between
employer and employee, capitalist and wage-worker,
is a difficult one. All phases of the labor problem
prove difficult when approached. But the underlying
principles, the root principles, in accordance with
which the problem must be solved are entirely simple.
We can get justice and right dealing only if
we put as of paramount importance the principle of
treating a man on his worth as a man rather than
with reference to his social position, his occupation,
or the class to which he belongs. There are selfish
and brutal men in all ranks of life. If they are capitalists
their selfishness and brutality may take the
form of hard indifference to suffering, greedy disregard
of every moral restraint which interferes with
the accumulation of wealth, and cold-blooded exploitation
of the weak; or, if they are laborers, the
form of laziness, of sullen envy of the more fortunate,
and of willingness to perform deeds of murderous
violence. Such conduct is just as reprehensible
in one case as in the other, and all honest and
far-seeing men should join in warring against it
wherever it becomes manifest. Individual capitalist
and individual wage-worker, corporation and union,
are alike entitled to the protection of the law, and
must alike obey the law. Moreover, in addition to
mere obedience to the law, each man, if he be really
a good citizen, must show broad sympathy for his
neighbor and genuine desire to look at any question
arising between them from the standpoint of that
neighbor no less than from his own; and to this end
it is essential that capitalist and wage-worker should
consult freely one with the other, should each strive
to bring closer the day when both shall realize that
they are properly partners and not enemies. To approach
the questions which inevitably arise between
them solely from the standpoint which treats each
side in the mass as the enemy of the other side in
the mass is both wicked and foolish. In the past
the most direful among the influences which have
brought about the downfall of republics has ever
been the growth of the class spirit, the growth of
the spirit which tends to make a man subordinate
the welfare of the public as a whole to the welfare
of the particular class to which he belongs, the substitution
of loyalty to a class for loyalty to the Nation.
This inevitably brings about a tendency to
treat each man not on his merits as an individual,
but on his position as belonging to a certain class
in the community. If such a spirit grows up in this
Republic it will ultimately prove fatal to us, as in
the past it has proved fatal to every community in
which it has become dominant. Unless we continue
to keep a quick and lively sense of the great fundamental
truth that our concern is with the individual
worth of the individual man, this Government
can not permanently hold the place which it has
achieved among the nations. The vital lines of
cleavage among our people do not correspond, and
indeed run at right angles, to the lines of cleavage
which divide occupation from occupation, which divide
wage-workers from capitalists, farmers from
bankers, men of small means from men of large
means, men who live in the towns from men who
live in the country; for the vital line of cleavage is
the line which divides the honest man who tries to
do well by his neighbor from the dishonest man who
does ill by his neighbor. In other words, the standard
we should establish is the standard of conduct,
not the standard of occupation, of means, or of social
position. It is the man’s moral quality, his
attitude toward the great questions which concern
all humanity, his cleanliness of life, his power to do
his duty toward himself and toward others, which
really count; and if we substitute for the standard
of personal judgment which treats each man according
to his merits, another standard in accordance
with which all men of one class are favored and all
men of another class discriminated against, we shall
do irreparable damage to the body politic. I believe
that our people are too sane, too self-respecting,
too fit for self-government, ever to adopt such an
attitude. This Government is not and never shall
be government by a plutocracy. This Government
is not and never shall be government by a mob. It
shall continue to be in the future what it has been
in the past, a government based on the theory that
each man, rich or poor, is to be treated simply and
solely on his worth as a man, that all his personal
and property rights are to be safeguarded, and that
he is neither to wrong others nor to suffer wrong
from others.
The noblest of all forms of government is self-government;
but it is also the most difficult. We
who possess this priceless boon, and who desire to
hand it on to our children and our children’s children,
should ever bear in mind the thought so finely
expressed by Burke: “Men are qualified for civil
liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to
put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion
as they are disposed to listen to the counsels
of the wise and good in preference to the
flattery of knaves. Society can not exist unless a
controlling power upon will and appetite be placed
somewhere, and the less of it there be within the
more there must be without. It is ordained in the
eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate
minds can not be free. Their passions forge
their fetters.”
The great insurance companies afford striking
examples of corporations whose business has extended
so far beyond the jurisdiction of the States
which created them as to preclude strict enforcement
of supervision and regulation by the parent
States. In my last annual Message I recommended
“that the Congress carefully consider whether the
power of the Bureau of Corporations can not constitutionally
be extended to cover interstate transactions
in insurance.” Recent events have emphasized
the importance of an early and exhaustive consideration
of this question, to see whether it is not possible
to furnish better safeguards than the several
States have been able to furnish against corruption
of the flagrant kind which has been exposed. It
has been only too clearly shown that certain of the
men at the head of these large corporations take
but small note of the ethical distinction between
honesty and dishonesty; they draw the line only this
side of what may be called law-honesty, the kind
of honesty necessary in order to avoid falling into
the clutches of the law. Of course the only complete
remedy for this condition must be found in an
aroused public conscience, a higher sense of ethical
conduct in the community at large, and especially
among business men and in the great profession
of the law, and in the growth of a spirit which condemns
all dishonesty, whether in rich man or in
poor man, whether it takes the shape of bribery or
of blackmail. But much can be done by legislation
which is not only drastic but practical. There is
need of a far stricter and more uniform regulation
of the vast insurance interests of this country. The
United States should in this respect follow the policy
of other nations by providing adequate national
supervision of commercial interests which are clearly
national in character. My predecessors have repeatedly
recognized that the foreign business of these
companies is an important part of our foreign commercial
relations. During the Administrations of
Presidents Cleveland, Harrison, and McKinley the
State Department exercised its influence, through
diplomatic channels, to prevent unjust discrimination
by foreign countries against American insurance
companies. These negotiations illustrated the
propriety of the Congress recognizing the national
character of insurance, for in the absence of Federal
legislation the State Department could only give expression
to the wishes of the authorities of the
several States, whose policy was ineffective through
want of uniformity.
I repeat my previous recommendation that the
Congress should also consider whether the Federal
Government has any power or owes any duty with
respect to domestic transactions in insurance of an
interstate character. That State supervision has
proved inadequate is generally conceded. The burden
upon insurance companies, and therefore their
policy-holders, of conflicting regulations of many
States, is unquestioned, while but little effective
check is imposed upon any able and unscrupulous
man who desires to exploit the company in his own
interest at the expense of the policy-holders and of
the public. The inability of a State to regulate
effectively insurance corporations created under the
laws of other States and transacting the larger part
of their business elsewhere is also clear. As a remedy
for this evil of conflicting, ineffective, and yet
burdensome regulations there has been for many
years a widespread demand for Federal supervision.
The Congress has already recognized that interstate
insurance may be a proper subject for Federal legislation,
for in creating the Bureau of Corporations
it authorized it to publish and supply useful
information concerning interstate corporations, “including
corporations engaged in insurance.” It is
obvious that if the compilation of statistics be the
limit of the Federal power, it is wholly ineffective
to regulate this form of commercial intercourse between
the States, and as the insurance business has
outgrown in magnitude the possibility of adequate
State supervision, the Congress should carefully
consider whether further legislation can be had.
What is said above applies with equal force to fraternal
and benevolent organizations which contract
for life insurance.
There is more need of stability than of the attempt
to attain an ideal perfection in the methods
of raising revenue; and the shock and strain to the
business world certain to attend any serious change
in these methods render such change inadvisable
unless for grave reason. It is not possible to lay
down any general rule by which to determine the
moment when the reasons for will outweigh the
reasons against such a change. Much must depend,
not merely on the needs, but on the desires,
of the people as a whole; for needs and desires are
not necessarily identical. Of course no change can
be made on lines beneficial to, or desired by, one section
or one State only. There must be something
like a general agreement among the citizens of the
several States, as represented in the Congress, that
the change is needed and desired in the interest of
the people as a whole; and there should then be a
sincere, intelligent, and disinterested effort to make
it in such shape as will combine, so far as possible,
the maximum of good to the people at large with
the minimum of necessary disregard for the special
interests of localities or classes. But in time of
peace the revenue must on the average, taking a
series of years together, equal the expenditures, or
else the revenues must be increased. Last year
there was a deficit. Unless our expenditures can
be kept within the revenues then our revenue laws
must be readjusted. It is as yet too early to attempt
to outline what shape such a readjustment should
take, for it is as yet too early to say whether there
will be need for it. It should be considered whether
it is not desirable that the tariff laws should provide
for applying as against or in favor of any other
nation maximum and minimum tariff rates established
by the Congress, so as to secure a certain reciprocity
of treatment between other nations and ourselves.
Having in view even larger considerations
of policy than those of a purely economic nature,
it would, in my judgment, be well to endeavor to
bring about closer commercial connections with the
other peoples of this continent. I am happy to be
able to announce to you that Russia now treats us
on the most-favored-nation basis.
I earnestly recommend to the Congress the need
of economy and to this end of a rigid scrutiny of
appropriations. As examples merely, I call your
attention to one or two specific matters. All unnecessary
offices should be abolished. The Commissioner
of the General Land Office recommends the
abolishment of the office of receiver of public moneys
for United States land offices. This will effect a
saving of about a quarter of a million dollars a
year. As the business of the Nation grows it is
inevitable that there should be from time to time a
legitimate increase in the number of officials, and
this fact renders it all the more important that when
offices become unnecessary they should be abolished.
In the public printing also a large saving of public
money can be made. There is a constantly growing
tendency to publish masses of unimportant information.
It is probably not unfair to say that many
tens of thousands of volumes are published at which
no human being ever looks and for which there is
no real demand whatever.
Yet, in speaking of economy, I must in no wise
be understood as advocating the false economy
which is in the end the worst extravagance. To cut
down on the Navy, for instance, would be a crime
against the Nation. To fail to push forward all
work on the Panama Canal would be as great a
folly.
In my Message of December 2, 1902, to the Congress
I said:
“Interest rates are a potent factor in business activity,
and in order that these rates may be equalized
to meet the varying needs of the seasons and of
widely separated communities, and to prevent the
recurrence of financial stringencies which injuriously
affect legitimate business, it is necessary that
there should be an element of elasticity in our monetary
system. Banks are the natural servants of
commerce, and upon them should be placed, as far
as practicable, the burden of furnishing and maintaining
a circulation adequate to supply the needs
of our diversified industries and of our domestic and
foreign commerce; and the issue of this should be
so regulated that a sufficient supply should be always
available for the business interests of the country.”
Every consideration of prudence demands the addition
of the element of elasticity to our currency
system. The evil does not consist in an inadequate
volume of money, but in the rigidity of this volume,
which does not respond as it should to the
varying needs of communities and of seasons. Inflation
must be avoided; but some provision should
be made that will ensure a larger volume of money
during the fall and winter months than in the less
active seasons of the year; so that the currency will
contract against speculation, and will expand for the
needs of legitimate business. At present the Treasury
Department is at irregularly recurring intervals
obliged, in the interest of the business world—that
is, in the interest of the American public—to try to
avert financial crises by providing a remedy which
should be provided by Congressional action.
At various times I have instituted investigations
into the organization and conduct of the business of
the Executive Departments. While none of these
inquiries have yet progressed far enough to warrant
final conclusions, they have already confirmed and
emphasized the general impression that the organization
of the Departments is often faulty in principle
and wasteful in results, while many of their business
methods are antiquated and inefficient. There is
every reason why our executive governmental machinery
should be at least as well planned, economical,
and efficient as the best machinery of the great
business organizations, which at present is not the
case. To make it so is a task of complex detail and
essentially executive in its nature; probably no legislative
body, no matter how wise and able, could
undertake it with reasonable prospect of success. I
recommend that the Congress consider this subject
with a view to provide by legislation for the transfer,
distribution, consolidation, and assignment of
duties and executive organizations or parts of organizations,
and for the changes in business methods,
within or between the several Departments, that
will best promote the economy, efficiency, and high
character of the Government work.
In my last annual Message I said:
“The power of the Government to protect the
integrity of the elections of its own officials is inherent
and has been recognized and affirmed by repeated
declarations of the Supreme Court. There
is no enemy of free government more dangerous and
none so insidious as the corruption of the electorate.
No one defends or excuses corruption, and it would
seem to follow that none would oppose vigorous
measures to eradicate it. I recommend the enactment
of a law directed against bribery and corruption
in Federal elections. The details of such a law
may be safely left to the wise discretion of the
Congress, but it should go as far as under the Constitution
it is possible to go, and should include
severe penalties against him who gives or receives
a bribe intended to influence his act or opinion as
an elector; and provisions for the publication not
only of the expenditures for nominations and elections
of all candidates, but also of all contributions
received and expenditures made by political committees.”
I desire to repeat this recommendation. In political
campaigns in a country as large and populous as
ours it is inevitable that there should be much expense
of an entirely legitimate kind. This, of course,
means that many contributions, and some of them
of large size, must be made, and, as a matter of fact,
in any big political contest such contributions are
always made to both sides. It is entirely proper
both to give and receive them, unless there is an
improper motive connected with either gift or reception.
If they are extorted by any kind of pressure
or promise, express or implied, direct or indirect,
in the way of favor or immunity, then the giving or
receiving becomes not only improper but criminal.
It will undoubtedly be difficult as a matter of practical
detail to shape an act which shall guard with
reasonable certainty against such misconduct; but
if it is possible to secure by law the full and verified
publication in detail of all the sums contributed to
and expended by the candidates or committees of
any political parties the result can not but be wholesome.
All contributions by corporations to any political
committee or for any political purpose should
be forbidden by law; directors should not be permitted
to use stockholders’ money for such purposes;
and, moreover, a prohibition of this kind would be,
as far as it went, an effective method of stopping the
evils aimed at in corrupt practices acts. Not only
should both the National and the several State legislatures
forbid any officer of a corporation from
using the money of the corporation in or about any
election, but they should also forbid such use of
money in connection with any legislation save by
the employment of counsel in public manner for distinctly
legal services.
The first Conference of Nations held at The
Hague in 1899, being unable to dispose of all the
business before it, recommended the consideration
and settlement of a number of important questions
by another conference to be called subsequently and
at an early date. These questions were the following:
(1) The rights and duties of neutrals; (2) the
limitation of the armed forces on land and sea, and
of military budgets; (3) the use of new types and
calibres of military and naval guns: (4) the inviolability
of private property at sea in times of war; (5)
the bombardment of ports, cities, and villages by
naval forces. In October, 1904, at the instance of
the Interparliamentary Union, which, at a conference
held in the United States and attended by the
lawmakers of fifteen different nations, had reiterated
the demand for a second Conference of Nations, I
issued invitations to all the Powers signatory to The
Hague Convention to send delegates to such a conference
and suggested that it be again held at The
Hague. In its note of December 16, 1904, the
United States Government communicated to the
representatives of foreign governments its belief
that the conference could be best arranged under the
provisions of the present Hague treaty.
From all the Powers acceptance was received,
coupled in some cases with the condition that we
should wait until the end of the war then waging
between Russia and Japan. The Emperor of Russia,
immediately after the treaty of peace which so
happily terminated this war, in a note presented to
the President on September 13, through Ambassador
Rosen, took the initiative in recommending that
the conference be now called. The United States
Government in response expressed its cordial acquiescence
and stated that it would, as a matter of
course, take part in the new conference and endeavor
to further its aims. We assume that all civilized
governments will support the movement, and
that the conference is now an assured fact. This
Government will do everything in its power to secure
the success of the conference to the end that
substantial progress may be made in the cause of
international peace, justice, and good-will.
This renders it proper at this time to say something
as to the general attitude of this Government
toward peace. More and more war is coming to be
looked upon as in itself a lamentable and evil thing.
A wanton or useless war, or a war of mere aggression—in
short, any war begun or carried on in a
conscienceless spirit—is to be condemned as a peculiarly
atrocious crime against all humanity. We can,
however, do nothing of permanent value for peace
unless we keep ever clearly in mind the ethical element
which lies at the root of the problem. Our aim
is righteousness. Peace is normally the handmaiden
of righteousness; but when peace and righteousness
conflict then a great and upright people can never
for a moment hesitate to follow the path which
leads toward righteousness, even though that path
also leads to war. There are persons who advocate
peace at any price; there are others who, following
a false analogy, think that because it is no longer
necessary in civilized countries for individuals to
protect their rights with a strong hand, it is therefore
unnecessary for nations to be ready to defend
their rights. These persons would do irreparable
harm to any nation that adopted their principles,
and even as it is they seriously hamper the cause
which they advocate by tending to render it absurd
in the eyes of sensible and patriotic men. There can
be no worse foe of mankind in general, and of his
own country in particular, than the demagogue of
war, the man who in mere folly or to serve his own
selfish ends continually rails at and abuses other nations,
who seeks to excite his countrymen against
foreigners on insufficient pretexts, who excites and
inflames a perverse and aggressive national vanity,
and who may on occasions wantonly bring on conflict
between his nation and some other nation. But
there are demagogues of peace just as there are
demagogues of war, and in any such movement as
this for The Hague conference it is essential not to
be misled by one set of extremists any more than by
the other. Whenever it is possible for a nation or
an individual to work for real peace, assuredly it is
failure of duty not so to strive; but if war is necessary
and righteous, then either the man or the nation
shrinking from it forfeits all title to self-respect.
We have scant sympathy with the sentimentalist
who dreads oppression less than physical suffering,
who would prefer a shameful peace to the pain and
toil sometimes lamentably necessary in order to secure
a righteous peace. As yet there is only a partial
and imperfect analogy between international
law and internal or municipal law, because there is
no sanction of force for executing the former, while
there is in the case of the latter. The private citizen
is protected in his rights by the law, because the
law rests in the last resort upon force exercised
through the forms of law. A man does not have to
defend his rights with his own hand, because he can
call upon the police, upon the sheriff’s posse, upon
the militia, or in certain extreme cases upon the
Army, to defend him. But there is no such sanction
of force for international law. At present there
could be no greater calamity than for the free peoples,
the enlightened, independent, and peace-loving
peoples, to disarm while yet leaving it open to any
barbarism or despotism to remain armed. So long
as the world is as unorganized as now, the armies
and navies of those peoples who on the whole stand
for justice offer not only the best, but the only possible,
security for a just peace. For instance, if the
United States alone, or in company only with the
other nations that on the whole tend to act justly,
disarmed, we might sometimes avoid bloodshed, but
we would cease to be of weight in securing the
peace of justice—the real peace for which the most
law-abiding and high-minded men must at times be
willing to fight. As the world is now, only that nation
is equipped for peace that knows how to fight
and that will not shrink from fighting if ever the
conditions become such that war is demanded in the
name of the highest morality.
So much it is emphatically necessary to say in
order both that the position of the United States
may not be misunderstood, and that a genuine effort
to bring nearer the day of the peace of justice among
the nations may not be hampered by a folly which,
in striving to achieve the impossible, would render
it hopeless to attempt the achievement of the practical.
But while recognizing most clearly all above
set forth, it remains our clear duty to strive in every
practicable way to bring nearer the time when the
sword shall not be the arbiter among nations. At
present the practical thing to do is to try to minimize
the number of cases in which it must be the
arbiter, and to offer, at least to all civilized powers,
some substitute for war which will be available in at
least a considerable number of instances. Very
much can be done through another Hague conference
in this direction, and I most earnestly urge
that this Nation do all in its power to try to further
the movement and to make the result of the
decisions of The Hague conference effective. I earnestly
hope that the conference may be able to devise
some way to make arbitration between nations
the customary way of settling international disputes
in all save a few classes of cases, which should themselves
be as sharply defined and rigidly limited as the
present governmental and social development of the
world will permit. If possible, there should be a
general arbitration treaty negotiated among all the
nations represented at the conference. Neutral
rights and property should be protected at sea as
they are protected on land. There should be an
international agreement to this purpose and a similar
agreement defining contraband of war.
During the last century there has been a distinct
diminution in the number of wars between the most
civilized nations. International relations have become
closer, and the development of The Hague tribunal
is not only a symptom of this growing closeness
of relationship, but is a means by which the
growth can be furthered. Our aim should be from
time to time to take such steps as may be possible
toward creating something like an organization of
the civilized nations, because as the world becomes
more highly organized the need for navies and
armies will diminish. It is not possible to secure
anything like an immediate disarmament, because it
would first be necessary to settle what peoples are
on the whole a menace to the rest of mankind, and
to provide against the disarmament of the rest being
turned into a movement which would really chiefly
benefit these obnoxious peoples; but it may be possible
to exercise some check upon the tendency to
swell indefinitely the budgets for military expenditure.
Of course, such an effort could succeed only
if it did not attempt to do too much; and if it were
undertaken in a spirit of sanity as far removed as
possible from a merely hysterical pseudo-philanthropy.
It is worth while pointing out that since the
end of the insurrection in the Philippines this Nation
has shown its practical faith in the policy of
disarmament by reducing its little army one-third.
But disarmament can never be of prime importance;
there is more need to get rid of the causes of war
than of the implements of war.
I have dwelt much on the dangers to be avoided
by steering clear of any mere foolish sentimentality
because my wish for peace is so genuine and earnest;
because I have a real and great desire that
this second Hague conference may mark a long
stride forward in the direction of securing the peace
of justice throughout the world. No object is better
worthy the attention of enlightened statesmanship
than the establishment of a surer method than now
exists of securing justice as between nations, both
for the protection of the little nations and for the
prevention of war between the big nations. To this
aim we should endeavor not only to avert bloodshed,
but, above all, effectively to strengthen the
forces of right. The Golden Rule should be, and
as the world grows in morality it will be, the guiding
rule of conduct among nations as among individuals;
though the Golden Rule must not be construed,
in fantastic manner, as forbidding the exercise of the
police power. This mighty and free Republic should
ever deal with all other states, great or small, on
a basis of high honor, respecting their rights as
jealously as it safeguards its own.
One of the most effective instruments for peace
is the Monroe Doctrine as it has been and is being
gradually developed by this Nation and accepted
by other nations. No other policy could have been
as efficient in promoting peace in the Western Hemisphere
and in giving to each nation thereon the
chance to develop along its own lines. If we had
refused to apply the Doctrine to changing conditions
it would now be completely outworn, would not
meet any of the needs of the present day, and indeed
would probably by this time have sunk into complete
oblivion. It is useful at home, and is meeting
with recognition abroad because we have adapted
our application of it to meet the growing and changing
needs of the Hemisphere. When we announce
a policy, such as the Monroe Doctrine, we thereby
commit ourselves to the consequences of the policy,
and those consequences from time to time alter. It
is out of the question to claim a right and yet shirk
the responsibility for its exercise. Not only we, but
all American Republics who are benefited by the
existence of the Doctrine, must recognize the obligations
each nation is under as regards foreign peoples
no less than its duty to insist upon its own
rights.
That our rights and interests are deeply concerned
in the maintenance of the Doctrine is so
clear as hardly to need argument. This is especially
true in view of the construction of the Panama
Canal. As a mere matter of self-defence we must
exercise a close watch over the approaches to this
canal; and this means that we must be thoroughly
alive to our interests in the Caribbean Sea.
There are certain essential points which must
never be forgotten as regards the Monroe Doctrine.
In the first place, we must as a nation make it evident
that we do not intend to treat it in any shape
or way as an excuse for aggrandizement on our
part at the expense of the republics to the south.
We must recognize the fact that in some South
American countries there has been much suspicion
lest we should interpret the Monroe Doctrine as
in some way inimical to their interests, and we must
try to convince all the other nations of this continent
once and for all that no just and orderly government
has anything to fear from us. There are
certain republics to the south of us which have already
reached such a point of stability, order, and
prosperity that they themselves, though as yet hardly
consciously, are among the guarantors of this Doctrine.
These republics we now meet not only on a
basis of entire equality, but in a spirit of frank and
respectful friendship, which we hope is mutual. If
all the republics to the south of us will only grow
as those to which I allude have already grown, all
need for us to be the especial champions of the Doctrine
will disappear, for no stable and growing
American Republic wishes to see some great non-American
military power acquire territory in its
neighborhood. All that this country desires is that
the other republics on this Continent shall be happy
and prosperous; and they can not be happy and
prosperous unless they maintain order within their
boundaries and behave with a just regard for their
obligations toward outsiders. It must be understood
that under no circumstances will the United
States use the Monroe Doctrine as a cloak for territorial
aggression. We desire peace with all the
world, but perhaps most of all with the other peoples
of the American Continent. There are of course
limits to the wrongs which any self-respecting nation
can endure. It is always possible that wrong
actions toward this Nation, or toward citizens of
this Nation, in some state unable to keep order
among its own people, unable to secure justice from
outsiders, and unwilling to do justice to those outsiders
who treat it well, may result in our having to
take action to protect our rights; but such action will
not be taken with a view to territorial aggression,
and it will be taken at all only with extreme reluctance
and when it has become evident that every
other resource has been exhausted.
Moreover, we must make it evident that we do not
intend to permit the Monroe Doctrine to be used by
any nation on this Continent as a shield to protect it
from the consequences of its own misdeeds against
foreign nations. If a republic to the south of us
commits a tort against a foreign nation, such as an
outrage against a citizen of that nation, then the
Monroe Doctrine does not force us to interfere to
prevent punishment of the tort, save to see that the
punishment does not assume the form of territorial
occupation in any shape. The case is more difficult
when it refers to a contractual obligation. Our own
Government has always refused to enforce such contractual
obligations on behalf of its citizens by an
appeal to arms. It is much to be wished that all
foreign governments would take the same view.
But they do not; and in consequence we are liable
at any time to be brought face to face with disagreeable
alternatives. On the one hand, this country
would certainly decline to go to war to prevent
a foreign government from collecting a just debt;
on the other hand, it is very inadvisable to permit
any foreign power to take possession, even temporarily,
of the custom-houses of an American Republic
in order to enforce the payment of its obligations;
for such temporary occupation might turn
into a permanent occupation. The only escape from
these alternatives may at any time be that we must
ourselves undertake to bring about some arrangement
by which so much as possible of a just obligation
shall be paid. It is far better that this country
should put through such an arrangement, rather
than allow any foreign country to undertake it. To
do so ensures the defaulting republic from having to
pay debts of an improper character under duress,
while it also ensures honest creditors of the republic
from being passed by in the interest of dishonest
or grasping creditors. Moreover, for the United
States to take such a position offers the only possible
way of ensuring us against a clash with some
foreign power. The position is, therefore, in the
interest of peace as well as in the interest of
justice. It is of benefit to our people; it is of
benefit to foreign peoples; and most of all it is
really of benefit to the people of the country
concerned.
This brings me to what should be one of the fundamental
objects of the Monroe Doctrine. We must
ourselves in good faith try to help upward toward
peace and order those of our sister republics which
need such help. Just as there has been a gradual
growth of the ethical element in the relations of one
individual to another, so we are, even though slowly,
more and more coming to recognize the duty of
bearing one another’s burdens, not only as among
individuals, but also as among nations.
Santo Domingo, in her turn, has now made an
appeal to us to help her, and not only every principle
of wisdom but every generous instinct within
us bids us respond to the appeal. It is not of the
slightest consequence whether we grant the aid
needed by Santo Domingo as an incident to the wise
development of the Monroe Doctrine, or because
we regard the case of Santo Domingo as standing
wholly by itself, and to be treated as such, and not
on general principles or with any reference to the
Monroe Doctrine. The important point is to give
the needed aid, and the case is certainly sufficiently
peculiar to deserve to be judged purely on its own
merits. The conditions in Santo Domingo have for
a number of years grown from bad to worse until
a year ago all society was on the verge of dissolution.
Fortunately, just at this time a ruler sprang
up in Santo Domingo, who, with his colleagues,
saw the dangers threatening their country and appealed
to the friendship of the only great and powerful
neighbor who possessed the power and, as they
hoped, also the will to help them. There was imminent
danger of foreign intervention. The previous
rulers of Santo Domingo had recklessly incurred
debts, and owing to her internal disorders she had
ceased to be able to provide means of paying the
debts. The patience of her foreign creditors had
become exhausted, and at least two foreign nations
were on the point of intervention, and were only
prevented from intervening by the unofficial assurance
of this Government that it would itself strive
to help Santo Domingo in her hour of need. In
the case of one of these nations, only the actual
opening of negotiations to this end by our Government
prevented the seizure of territory in Santo
Domingo by a European power. Of the debts incurred
some were just, while some were not of
a character which really renders it obligatory on,
or proper for, Santo Domingo to pay them in full.
But she could not pay any of them unless some
stability was assured her Government and people.
Accordingly the Executive Department of our
Government negotiated a treaty under which we are
to try to help the Dominican people to straighten
out their finances. This treaty is pending before
the Senate. In the meantime a temporary arrangement
has been made which will last until the Senate
has had time to take action upon the treaty.
Under this arrangement the Dominican Government
has appointed Americans to all the important
positions in the customs service, and they are seeing
to the honest collection of the revenues, turning
over 45 per cent to the Government for running
expenses and putting the other 55 per cent into a
safe depositary for equitable division in case the
treaty shall be ratified, among the various creditors,
whether European or American.
The custom-houses offer wellnigh the only sources
of revenue in Santo Domingo, and the different
revolutions usually have as their real aim the obtaining
possession of these custom-houses. The
mere fact that the collectors of customs are Americans,
that they are performing their duties with efficiency
and honesty, and that the treaty is pending
in the Senate, gives a certain moral power to the
Government of Santo Domingo which it has not
had before. This has completely discouraged all
revolutionary movement, while it has already produced
such an increase in the revenues that the
Government is actually getting more from the 45
per cent that the American collectors turn over to
it than it got formerly when it took the entire revenue.
It is enabling the poor harassed people of
Santo Domingo once more to turn their attention
to industry and to be free from the curse of interminable
revolutionary disturbance. It offers to all
bonâ fide creditors, American and European, the only
really good chance to obtain that to which they are
justly entitled, while it in return gives to Santo Domingo
the only opportunity of defence against
claims which it ought not to pay, for now if it meets
the views of the Senate we shall ourselves thoroughly
examine all these claims, whether American
or foreign, and see that none that are improper
are paid. There is, of course, opposition
to the treaty from dishonest creditors, foreign and
American, and from the professional revolutionists
of the island itself. We have already reason to
believe that some of the creditors who do not dare
expose their claims to honest scrutiny are endeavoring
to stir up sedition in the island and opposition
to the treaty. In the meantime I have exercised
the authority vested in me by the joint resolution
of the Congress to prevent the introduction of arms
into the island for revolutionary purposes.
Under the course taken, stability and order and
all the benefits of peace are at last coming to Santo
Domingo, danger of foreign intervention has been
suspended, and there is at last a prospect that all
creditors will get justice, no more and no less. If
the arrangement is terminated by the failure of the
treaty chaos will follow; and if chaos follows,
sooner or later this Government may be involved
in serious difficulties with foreign governments over
the island, or else may be forced itself to intervene
in the island in some unpleasant fashion. Under
the proposed treaty the independence of the island
is scrupulously respected, the danger of violation
of the Monroe Doctrine by the intervention of foreign
powers vanishes, and the interference of our
Government is minimized, so that we shall only act
in conjunction with the Santo Domingo authorities
to secure the proper administration of the customs,
and therefore to secure the payment of just debts
and to secure the Dominican Government against
demands for unjust debts. The proposed method
will give the people of Santo Domingo the same
chance to move onward and upward which we have
already given to the people of Cuba. It will be
doubly to our discredit as a nation if we fail to
take advantage of this chance; for it will be of
damage to ourselves, and it will be of incalculable
damage to Santo Domingo. Every consideration
of wise policy, and, above all, every consideration
of large generosity, bids us meet the request of
Santo Domingo as we are now trying to meet it.
We can not consider the question of our foreign
policy without at the same time treating of the
Army and Navy. We now have a very small army—indeed,
one wellnigh infinitesimal when compared
with the army of any other large nation. Of
course the Army we do have should be as nearly
perfect of its kind and for its size as is possible. I
do not believe that any army in the world has a
better average of enlisted man or a better type of
junior officer; but the Army should be trained to act
effectively in a mass. Provision should be made by
sufficient appropriations for manœuvres of a practical
kind so that the troops may learn how to take
care of themselves under actual service conditions;
every march, for instance, being made with the soldier
loaded exactly as he would be in an active campaign.
The generals and colonels would thereby
have opportunity of handling regiments, brigades,
and divisions, and the commissary and medical departments
would be tested in the field. Provision
should be made for the exercise at least of a brigade
and by preference of a division in marching and embarking
at some point on our coast and disembarking
at some other point and continuing its march.
The number of posts in which the Army is kept
in time of peace should be materially diminished
and the posts that are left made correspondingly
larger. No local interests should be allowed to
stand in the way of assembling the greater part of
the troops which would at need form our field
armies in stations of such size as will permit the
best training to be given to the personnel of all
grades, including the high officers and staff officers.
To accomplish this end we must have not company
or regimental garrisons, but brigade and division
garrisons. Promotion by mere seniority can never
result in a thoroughly efficient corps of officers in
the higher ranks unless there accompanies it a vigorous
weeding-out process. Such a weeding-out
process—that is, such a process of selection—is a
chief feature of the four years’ course of the young
officer at West Point. There is no good reason
why it should stop immediately upon his graduation.
While at West Point he is dropped unless he
comes up to a certain standard of excellence, and
when he graduates he takes rank in the Army according
to his rank of graduation. The results are
good at West Point; and there should be in the
Army itself something that will achieve the same
end. After a certain age has been reached the average
officer is unfit to do good work below a certain
grade. Provision should be made for the promotion
of exceptionally meritorious men over the heads of
their comrades and for the retirement of all men
who have reached a given age without getting beyond
a given rank; this age of retirement of course
changing from rank to rank. In both the Army
and the Navy there should be some principle of
selection, that is, of promotion for merit, and there
should be a resolute effort to eliminate the aged
officers of reputable character who possess no special
efficiency.
There should be an increase in the coast artillery
force, so that our coast fortifications can be in some
degree adequately manned. There is special need
for an increase and reorganization of the Medical
Department of the Army. In both the Army and
Navy there must be the same thorough training for
duty in the staff corps as in the fighting line. Only
by such training in advance can we be sure that in
actual war field operations and those at sea will
be carried on successfully. The importance of this
was shown conclusively in the Spanish-American
and the Russo-Japanese wars. The work of the
medical departments in the Japanese army and navy
is especially worthy of study. I renew my recommendation
of January 9, 1905, as to the Medical
Department of the Army and call attention to the
equal importance of the needs of the staff corps
of the Navy. In the Medical Department of the
Navy the first in importance is the reorganization of
the Hospital Corps, on the lines of the Gallinger
Bill (S. 3984, February 1, 1904), and the reapportionment
of the different grades of the medical
officers to meet service requirements. It seems advisable
also that medical officers of the Army and
Navy should have similar rank and pay in their respective
grades, so that their duties can be carried
on without friction when they are brought together.
The base hospitals of the Navy should be put in
condition to meet modern requirements and hospital
ships be provided. Unless we now provide
with ample forethought for the medical needs of
the Army and Navy, appalling suffering of a preventable
kind is sure to occur if ever the country
goes to war. It is not reasonable to expect successful
administration in time of war of a department
which lacks a third of the number of officers
necessary to perform the medical service in time of
peace. We need men who are not merely doctors;
they must be trained in the administration of military
medical service.
Our Navy must, relatively to the navies of other
nations, always be of greater size than our Army.
We have most wisely continued for a number of
years to build up our Navy, and it has now reached
a fairly high standard of efficiency. This standard
of efficiency must not only be maintained, but increased.
It does not seem to me necessary, however,
that the Navy should—at least in the immediate
future—be increased beyond the present
number of units. What is now clearly necessary is
to substitute efficient for inefficient units as the latter
become worn-out or as it becomes apparent that
they are useless. Probably the result would be
attained by adding a single battleship to our Navy
each year, the superseded or outworn vessels being
laid up or broken up as they are thus replaced. The
four single-turret monitors built immediately after
the close of the Spanish war, for instance, are vessels
which would be of but little use in the event of
war. The money spent upon them could have been
more usefully spent in other ways. Thus it would
have been far better never to have built a single
one of these monitors and to have put the money
into an ample supply of reserve guns. Most of the
smaller cruisers and gunboats, though they serve
a useful purpose so far as they are needed for international
police work, would not add to the strength
of our Navy in a conflict with a serious foe. There
is urgent need of providing a large increase in the
number of officers, and especially in the number of
enlisted men.
Recent naval history has emphasized certain lessons
which ought not to, but which do, need emphasis.
Sea-going torpedo boats or destroyers are
indispensable, not only for making night attacks by
surprise upon an enemy, but even in battle for finishing
already crippled ships. Under exceptional
circumstances submarine boats would doubtless be
of use. Fast scouts are needed. The main strength
of the Navy, however, lies and can only lie in the
great battleships, the heavily-armored, heavily-gunned
vessels which decide the mastery of the seas.
Heavy-armed cruisers also play a most useful part,
and unarmed cruisers, if swift enough, are very
useful as scouts. Between antagonists of approximately
equal prowess the comparative perfection of
the instruments of war will ordinarily determine
the fight. But it is of course true that the man
behind the gun, the man in the engine room, and the
man in the conning tower, considered not only individually,
but especially with regard to the way
in which they work together, are even more important
than the weapons with which they work. The
most formidable battleship is of course helpless
against even a light cruiser if the men aboard it
are unable to hit anything with their guns; and thoroughly
well-handled cruisers may count seriously
in an engagement with much superior vessels if the
men aboard the latter are ineffective, whether from
lack of training or from any other cause. Modern
warships are most formidable mechanisms when
well handled, but they are utterly useless when not
well handled; and they can not be handled at all
without long and careful training. This training
can under no circumstance be given when once war
has broken out. No fighting ship of the first class
should ever be laid up save for necessary repairs;
and her crew should be kept constantly exercised on
the high seas, so that she may stand at the highest
point of perfection. To put a new and untrained
crew upon the most powerful battleship and send
it out to meet a formidable enemy is not only to
invite but to ensure disaster and disgrace. To improvise
crews at the outbreak of a war, so far as the
serious fighting craft are concerned, is absolutely
hopeless. If the officers and men are not thoroughly
skilled in, and have not been thoroughly trained
to, their duties, it would be far better to keep the
ships in port during hostilities than to send them
against a formidable opponent, for the result could
only be that they would be either sunk or captured.
The marksmanship of our Navy is now on the
whole in a gratifying condition, and there has been
a great improvement in fleet practice. We need additional
seamen; we need a large store of reserve
guns; we need sufficient money for ample target
practice, ample practice of every kind at sea. We
should substitute for comparatively inefficient types—the
old third-class battleship “Texas,” the single-turreted
monitors above mentioned, and indeed all
the monitors and some of the old cruisers—efficient,
modern, sea-going vessels. Sea-going torpedo-boat
destroyers should be substituted for some of the
smaller torpedo boats. During the present Congress
there need be no additions to the aggregate
number of units of the Navy. Our Navy, though
very small relatively to the navies of other nations,
is for the present sufficient in point of numbers for
our needs, and while we must constantly strive to
make its efficiency higher, there need be no additions
to the total number of ships now built and
building, save in the way of substitution as above
outlined. I recommend the report of the Secretary
of the Navy to the careful consideration of the
Congress, especially with a view to the legislation
therein advocated.
During the past year evidence has accumulated to
confirm the expressions contained in my last two
annual Messages as to the importance of revising
by appropriate legislation our system of naturalizing
aliens. I appointed last March a commission
to make a careful examination of our naturalization
laws, and to suggest appropriate measures to avoid
the notorious abuses resulting from the improvident
or unlawful granting of citizenship. This commission,
composed of an officer of the Department
of State, of the Department of Justice, and of the
Department of Commerce and Labor, has discharged
the duty imposed upon it, and has submitted
a report, which will be transmitted to the
Congress for its consideration, and, I hope, for its
favorable action.
The distinguishing recommendations of the Commission
are:
First. A Federal bureau of naturalization, to be
established in the Department of Commerce and
Labor, to supervise the administration of the naturalization
laws and to receive returns of naturalizations
pending and accomplished.
Second. Uniformity of naturalization certificates,
fees to be charged, and procedure.
Third. More exacting qualifications for citizenship.
Fourth. The preliminary declaration of intention
to be abolished and no alien to be naturalized
until at least ninety days after the filing of his
petition.
Fifth. Jurisdiction to naturalize aliens to be confined
to United States district courts and to such
State courts as have jurisdiction in civil actions
in which the amount in controversy is unlimited;
in cities of over 100,000 inhabitants the United
States district courts to have exclusive jurisdiction
in the naturalization of the alien residents of
such cities.
In my last Message I asked the attention of the
Congress to the urgent need of action to make our
criminal law more effective; and I most earnestly
request that you pay heed to the report of the Attorney-General
on this subject. Centuries ago it
was especially needful to throw every safeguard
round the accused. The danger then was lest he
should be wronged by the state. The danger is now
exactly the reverse. Our laws and customs tell immensely
in favor of the criminal and against the
interests of the public he has wronged. Some antiquated
and outworn rules, which once safeguarded
the threatened rights of private citizens, now merely
work harm to the general body politic. The criminal
law of the United States stands in urgent need
of revision. The criminal process of any court of
the United States should run throughout the entire
territorial extent of our country. The delays of the
criminal law, no less than of the civil, now amount
to a very great evil.
There seems to be no statute of the United States
which provides for the punishment of a United
States attorney or other officer of the Government
who corruptly agrees to wrongfully do or wrongfully
refrain from doing any act when the consideration
for such corrupt agreement is other than one
possessing money value. This ought to be remedied
by appropriate legislation. Legislation should
also be enacted to cover, explicitly, unequivocally,
and beyond question, breach of trust in the shape
of prematurely divulging official secrets by an officer
or employee of the United States, and to provide
a suitable penalty therefor. Such officer or employee
owes the duty to the United States to guard
carefully and not to divulge or in any manner use,
prematurely, information which is accessible to the
officer or employee by reason of his official position.
Most breaches of public trust are already covered by
the law, and this one should be. It is impossible,
no matter how much care is used, to prevent the
occasional appointment to the public service of a
man who when tempted proves unfaithful; but
every means should be provided to detect and every
effort made to punish the wrongdoer. So far as
in my power lies each and every such wrongdoer
shall be relentlessly hunted down; in no instance
in the past has he been spared; in no instance
in the future shall he be spared. His crime is a
crime against every honest man in the Nation, for
it is a crime against the whole body politic. Yet in
dwelling on such misdeeds, it is unjust not to add
that they are altogether exceptional, and that on the
whole the employees of the Government render
upright and faithful service to the people. There
are exceptions, notably in one or two branches of
the service; but at no time in the Nation’s history
has the public service of the Nation taken as a
whole stood on a higher plane than now, alike as
regards honesty and as regards efficiency.
Once again I call your attention to the condition
of the public-land laws. Recent developments have
given new urgency to the need for such changes
as will fit these laws to actual present conditions.
The honest disposal and right use of the remaining
public lands is of fundamental importance. The
iniquitous methods by which the monopolizing of
the public lands is being brought about under the
present laws are becoming generally known, but the
existing laws do not furnish effective remedies.
The recommendations of the Public Lands Commission
upon this subject are wise and should be
given effect.
The creation of small irrigated farms under the
Reclamation Act is a powerful offset to the tendency
of certain other laws to foster or permit
monopoly of the land. Under that act the construction
of great irrigation works has been proceeding
rapidly and successfully, the lands reclaimed are
eagerly taken up, and the prospect that the policy
of national irrigation will accomplish all that was
expected of it is bright. The act should be extended
to include the State of Texas.
The Reclamation Act derives much of its value
from the fact that it tends to secure the greatest
possible number of homes on the land, and to create
communities of freeholders, in part by settlement
on public lands, in part by forcing the subdivision of
large private holdings before they can get water
from Government irrigation works. The law requires
that no right to the use of water for land in
private ownership shall be sold for a tract exceeding
160 acres to any one land owner. This provision
has excited active and powerful hostility, but
the success of the law itself depends on the wise and
firm enforcement of it. We can not afford to substitute
tenants for freeholders on the public domain.
The greater part of the remaining public lands
can not be irrigated. They are at present and will
probably always be of greater value for grazing
than for any other purpose. This fact has led to
the grazing homestead of 640 acres in Nebraska
and to the proposed extension of it to other States.
It is argued that a family can not be supported on
160 acres of arid grazing land. This is obviously
true; but neither can a family be supported on 640
acres of much of the land to which it is proposed
to apply the grazing homestead. To establish universally
any such arbitrary limit would be unwise
at the present time. It would probably result on the
one hand in enlarging the holdings of some of the
great land owners, and on the other in needless
suffering and failure on the part of a very considerable
proportion of the bonâ fide settlers who give
faith to the implied assurance of the Government
that such an area is sufficient. The best use of the
public grazing lands requires the careful examination
and classification of these lands in order to give
each settler land enough to support his family and
no more. While this work is being done, and until
the lands are settled, the Government should take
control of the open range, under reasonable regulations
suited to local needs, following the general
policy already in successful operation on the forest
reserves. It is probable that the present grazing
value of the open public range is scarcely more than
half what it once was or what it might easily be
again under careful regulations.
The forest policy of the Administration appears
to enjoy the unbroken support of the people. The
great users of timber are themselves forwarding the
movement for forest preservation. All organized
opposition to the forest reserves in the West has
disappeared. Since the consolidation of all Government
forest work in the National Forest Service
there has been a rapid and notable gain in the usefulness
of the forest reserves to the people and in
public appreciation of their value. The national
parks within or adjacent to forest reserves should
be transferred to the charge of the Forest Service
also.
The National Government already does something
in connection with the construction and maintenance
of the great system of levees along the
lower course of the Mississippi; in my judgment it
should do much more.
To the spread of our trade in peace and the defence
of our flag in war a great and prosperous merchant
marine is indispensable. We should have
ships of our own and seamen of our own to convey
our goods to neutral markets, and in case of need
to reinforce our battle line. It can not but be a
source of regret and uneasiness to us that the lines
of communication with our sister republics of South
America should be chiefly under foreign control.
It is not a good thing that American merchants and
manufacturers should have to send their goods and
letters to South America via Europe if they wish
security and despatch. Even on the Pacific, where
our ships have held their own better than on the
Atlantic, our merchant flag is now threatened
through the liberal aid bestowed by other governments
on their own steam lines. I ask your earnest
consideration of the report with which the Merchant
Marine Commission has followed its long and careful
inquiry.
I again heartily commend to your favorable consideration
the tercentennial celebration of the settlement
at Jamestown, Virginia. Appreciating the desirability
of this commemoration, the Congress
passed an act, March 3, 1905, authorizing in the
year 1907, on and near the waters of Hampton
Roads, in the State of Virginia, an international
naval, marine, and military celebration in honor of
this event. By the authority vested in me by this
act, I have made proclamation of said celebration,
and have issued, in conformity with its instructions,
invitations to all the nations of the earth to
participate, by sending their naval vessels and such
military organizations as may be practical. This
celebration would fail of its full purpose unless it
were enduring in its results and commensurate with
the importance of the event to be celebrated, the
event from which our Nation dates its birth. I earnestly
hope that this celebration, already indorsed
by the Congress of the United States, and by the
legislatures of sixteen States since the action of
the Congress, will receive such additional aid at
your hands as will make it worthy of the great event
it is intended to celebrate, and thereby enable the
Government of the United States to make provision
for the exhibition of its own resources, and likewise
enable our people who have undertaken the
work of such a celebration to provide suitable and
proper entertainment and instruction in the historic
events of our country for all who may visit the
exposition and to whom we have tendered our hospitality.
It is a matter of unmixed satisfaction once more
to call attention to the excellent work of the Pension
Bureau; for the veterans of the Civil War have
a greater claim upon us than any other class of our
citizens. To them, first of all among our people,
honor is due.
Seven years ago my lamented predecessor, President
McKinley, stated that the time had come for
the Nation to care for the graves of the Confederate
dead. I recommend that the Congress take
action toward this end. The first need is to take
charge of the graves of the Confederate dead who
died in Northern prisons.
The question of immigration is of vital interest
to this country. In the year ending June 30, 1905,
there came to the United States 1,026,000 alien
immigrants. In other words, in the single year
that has just elapsed there came to this country a
greater number of people than came here during
the one hundred and sixty-nine years of our colonial
life which intervened between the first landing
at Jamestown and the Declaration of Independence.
It is clearly shown in the report of the
Commissioner-General of Immigration that, while
much of this enormous immigration is undoubtedly
healthy and natural, a considerable proportion
is undesirable from one reason or another; moreover,
a considerable proportion of it, probably a
very large proportion, including most of the undesirable
class, does not come here of its own initiative,
but because of the activity of the agents of the
great transportation companies. These agents are
distributed throughout Europe, and by the offer of
all kinds of inducements they wheedle and cajole
many immigrants, often against their best interest,
to come here. The most serious obstacle we have
to encounter in the effort to secure a proper regulation
of the immigration to these shores arises from
the determined opposition of the foreign steamship
lines, who have no interest whatever in the matter
save to increase the returns on their capital by carrying
masses of immigrants hither in the steerage
quarters of their ships.
As I said in my last Message to the Congress, we
can not have too much immigration of the right
sort, and we should have none whatever of the
wrong sort. Of course it is desirable that even the
right kind of immigration should be properly distributed
in this country. We need more of such
immigration for the South; and special effort should
be made to secure it. Perhaps it would be possible
to limit the number of immigrants allowed to come
in any one year to New York and other Northern
cities, while leaving unlimited the number allowed
to come to the South; always provided, however,
that a stricter effort is made to see that only immigrants
of the right kind come to our country anywhere.
In actual practice it has proved so difficult
to enforce the immigration laws where long stretches
of frontier marked by an imaginary line alone intervene
between us and our neighbors that I recommend
that no immigrants be allowed to come in
from Canada and Mexico, save natives of the two
countries themselves. As much as possible should
be done to distribute the immigrants upon the land
and keep them away from the congested tenement-house
districts of the great cities. But distribution
is a palliative, not a cure. The prime need is to
keep out all immigrants who will not make good
American citizens. The laws now existing for the
exclusion of undesirable immigrants should be
strengthened. Adequate means should be adopted,
enforced by sufficient penalties, to compel steamship
companies engaged in the passenger business to observe
in good faith the law which forbids them to
encourage or solicit immigration to the United
States. Moreover, there should be a sharp limitation
imposed upon all vessels coming to our ports as
to the number of immigrants in ratio to the tonnage
which each vessel can carry. This ratio should be
high enough to ensure the coming hither of as good
a class of aliens as possible. Provision should be
made for the surer punishment of those who induce
aliens to come to this country under promise or assurance
of employment. It should be made possible
to inflict a sufficiently heavy penalty on any employer
violating this law to deter him from taking
the risk. It seems to me wise that there should be
an international conference held to deal with this
question of immigration, which has more than a
merely national significance; such a conference could
among other things enter at length into the methods
for securing a thorough inspection of would-be immigrants
at the ports from which they desire to
embark before permitting them to embark.
In dealing with this question it is unwise to depart
from the old American tradition and to discriminate
for or against any man who desires to
come here and become a citizen, save on the ground
of that man’s fitness for citizenship. It is our right
and duty to consider his moral and social quality.
His standard of living should be such that he will
not, by pressure of competition, lower the standard
of living of our own wage-workers; for it must ever
be a prime object of our legislation to keep high
their standard of living. If the man who seeks to
come here is from the moral and social standpoint
of such a character as to bid fair to add value to the
community he should be heartily welcomed. We
can not afford to pay heed to whether he is of one
creed or another, of one nation or another. We
can not afford to consider whether he is Catholic or
Protestant, Jew or Gentile; whether he is Englishman
or Irishman, Frenchman or German, Japanese,
Italian, Scandinavian, Slav, or Magyar. What we
should desire to find out is the individual quality of
the individual man. In my judgment, with this end
in view, we shall have to prepare through our own
agents a far more rigid inspection in the countries
from which the immigrants come. It will be a great
deal better to have fewer immigrants, but all of the
right kind, than a great number of immigrants,
many of whom are necessarily of the wrong kind.
As far as possible we wish to limit the immigration
to this country to persons who propose to become
citizens of this country, and we can well afford to
insist upon adequate scrutiny of the character of
those who are thus proposed for future citizenship.
There should be an increase in the stringency of
the laws to keep out insane, idiotic, epileptic, and
pauper immigrants. But this is by no means
enough. Not merely the anarchist, but every man
of anarchistic tendencies, all violent and disorderly
people, all people of bad character, the incompetent,
the lazy, the vicious, the physically unfit, defective,
or degenerate should be kept out. The stocks out of
which American citizenship is to be built should be
strong and healthy, sound in body, mind, and character.
If it be objected that the Government agents
would not always select well, the answer is that
they would certainly select better than do the agents
and brokers of foreign steamship companies, the
people who now do whatever selection is done.
The questions arising in connection with Chinese
immigration stand by themselves. The conditions
in China are such that the entire Chinese coolie
class, that is, the class of Chinese laborers, skilled
and unskilled, legitimately come under the head of
undesirable immigrants to this country, because of
their numbers, the low wages for which they work,
and their low standard of living. Not only is it to
the interest of this country to keep them out, but the
Chinese authorities do not desire that they should
be admitted. At present their entrance is prohibited
by laws amply adequate to accomplish this purpose.
These laws have been, are being, and will be thoroughly
enforced. The violations of them are so
few in number as to be infinitesimal and can be
entirely disregarded. There is no serious proposal
to alter the immigration law as regards the Chinese
laborer, skilled or unskilled, and there is no excuse
for any man feeling or affecting to feel the slightest
alarm on the subject.
But in the effort to carry out the policy of excluding
Chinese laborers, Chinese coolies, grave injustice
and wrong have been done by this Nation
to the people of China, and therefore ultimately to
this Nation itself. Chinese students, business and
professional men of all kinds—not only merchants,
but bankers, doctors, manufacturers, professors,
travelers, and the like—should be encouraged to
come here and treated on precisely the same footing
that we treat students, business men, travelers,
and the like of other nations. Our laws and treaties
should be framed, not so as to put these people in
the excepted classes, but to state that we will admit
all Chinese, except Chinese of the coolie class, Chinese
skilled or unskilled laborers. There would not
be the least danger that any such provision would
result in any relaxation of the law about laborers.
These will, under all conditions, be kept out absolutely.
But it will be more easy to see that both
justice and courtesy are shown, as they ought to be
shown, to other Chinese, if the law or treaty is
framed as above suggested. Examinations should
be completed at the port of departure from China.
For this purpose there should be provided a more
adequate consular service in China than we now
have. The appropriations, both for the officers of
the consuls and for the office forces in the consulates,
should be increased.
As a people we have talked much of the open door
in China, and we expect, and quite rightly intend to
insist, upon justice being shown us by the Chinese.
But we can not expect to receive equity unless
we do equity. We can not ask the Chinese to do
to us what we are unwilling to do to them. They
would have a perfect right to exclude our laboring
men if our laboring men threatened to come into
their country in such numbers as to jeopardize the
well-being of the Chinese population; and as, mutatis
mutandis, these were the conditions with which
Chinese immigration actually brought this people
face to face, we had and have a perfect right, which
the Chinese Government in no way contests, to act
as we have acted in the matter of restricting coolie
immigration. That this right exists for each country
was explicitly acknowledged in the last treaty
between the two countries. But we must treat the
Chinese student, traveler, and business man in a
spirit of the broadest justice and courtesy if we
expect similar treatment to be accorded to our own
people of similar rank who go to China. Much
trouble has come during the past summer from the
organized boycott against American goods which
has been started in China. The main factor in
producing this boycott has been the resentment felt
by the students and business people of China, by
all the Chinese leaders, against the harshness of
our law toward educated Chinamen of the professional
and business classes.
This Government has the friendliest feelings for
China and desires China’s well-being. We cordially
sympathized with the announced purpose of
Japan to stand for the integrity of China. Such
an attitude tends to the peace of the world.
The civil service law has been on the statute
books for twenty-two years. Every President and
a vast majority of heads of departments who have
been in office during that period have favored a
gradual extension of the merit system. The more
thoroughly its principles have been understood, the
greater has been the favor with which the law has
been regarded by administrative officers. Any attempt
to carry on the great executive departments
of the Government without this law would inevitably
result in chaos. The Civil Service Commissioners
are doing excellent work; and their
compensation is inadequate, considering the service
they perform.
The statement that the examinations are not practical
in character is based on a misapprehension of
the practice of the Commission. The departments
are invariably consulted as to the requirements desired
and as to the character of questions that shall
be asked. General invitations are frequently sent
put to all heads of departments asking whether
any changes in the scope or character of examinations
are required. In other words, the departments
prescribe the requirements and the qualifications
desired, and the Civil Service Commission co-operates
with them in securing persons with these qualifications
and ensuring open and impartial competition.
In a large number of examinations (as, for
example, those for trades positions) there are no
educational requirements whatever, and a person
who can neither read nor write may pass with a
high average. Vacancies in the service are filled
with reasonable expedition and the machinery of the
Commission, which reaches every part of the country,
is the best agency that has yet been devised for
finding people with the most suitable qualifications
for the various offices to be filled. Written competitive
examinations do not make an ideal method
for filling positions, but they do represent an immeasurable
advance upon the “spoils” method,
under which outside politicians really made the appointments
nominally made by the executive officers,
the appointees being chosen by the politicians in
question, in the great majority of cases, for reasons
totally unconnected with the needs of the service
or of the public.
Statistics gathered by the Census Bureau show
that the tenure of office in the Government service
does not differ materially from that enjoyed by
employees of large business corporations. Heads
of executive departments and members of the Commission
have called my attention to the fact that the
rule requiring a filing of charges and three days’
notice before an employee could be separated from
the service for inefficiency has served no good purpose
whatever, because that is not a matter upon
which a hearing of the employee found to be inefficient
can be of any value, and in practice the rule
providing for such notice and hearing has merely
resulted in keeping in a certain number of incompetents,
because of the reluctance of heads of departments
and bureau chiefs to go through the
required procedure. Experience has shown that
this rule is wholly ineffective to save any man, if a
superior for improper reasons wishes to remove
him, and is mischievous because it sometimes serves
to keep in the service incompetent men not guilty
of specific wrong-doing. Having these facts in
view, the rule has been amended by providing that
where the inefficiency or incapacity comes within the
personal knowledge of the head of a department
the removal may be made without notice, the reasons
therefor being filed and made a record of the
department. The absolute right of removal rests
where it always has rested, with the head of a department;
any limitation of this absolute right results
in grave injury to the public service. The
change is merely one of procedure; it was much
needed; and it is producing good results.
The civil service law is being energetically and
impartially enforced, and in the large majority of
cases complaints of violations of either the law or
rules are discovered to be unfounded. In this respect,
this law compares very favorably with any
other Federal statute. The question of politics in
the appointment and retention of the men engaged
in merely ministerial work has been practically
eliminated in almost the entire field of Government
employment covered by the civil service law. The
action of the Congress in providing the Commission
with its own force instead of requiring it to rely
on detailed clerks has been justified by the increased
work done at a smaller cost to the Government. I
urge upon the Congress a careful consideration of
the recommendations contained in the annual report
of the Commission.
Our copyright laws urgently need revision. They
are imperfect in definition, confused and inconsistent
in expression; they omit provision for many
articles which, under modern reproductive processes,
are entitled to protection; they impose hardships
upon the copyright proprietor which are not
essential to the fair protection of the public; they
are difficult for the courts to interpret and impossible
for the Copyright Office to administer with satisfaction
to the public. Attempts to improve them
by amendment have been frequent, no less than
twelve acts for the purpose having been passed since
the Revised Statutes. To perfect them by further
amendments seems impracticable. A complete revision
of them is essential. Such a revision, to meet
modern conditions, has been found necessary in
Germany, Austria, Sweden, and other foreign countries,
and bills embodying it are pending in England
and the Australian colonies. It has been
urged here, and proposals for a commission to undertake
it have, from time to time, been pressed
upon the Congress. The inconveniences of the
present conditions being so great, an attempt to
frame appropriate legislation has been made by the
Copyright Office, which has called conferences of
the various interests especially and practically concerned
with the operation of the copyright laws. It
has secured from them suggestions as to the changes
necessary; it has added from its own experience and
investigations, and it has drafted a bill which embodies
such of these changes and additions as, after
full discussion and expert criticism, appeared to be
sound and safe. In form this bill would replace the
existing insufficient and inconsistent laws by one
general copyright statute. It will be presented to
the Congress at the coming session. It deserves
prompt consideration.
I recommend that a law be enacted to regulate
interstate commerce in misbranded and adulterated
foods, drinks, and drugs. Such law would protect
legitimate manufacture and commerce, and would
tend to secure the health and welfare of the consuming
public. Traffic in foodstuffs which have
been debased or adulterated so as to injure health
or to deceive purchasers should be forbidden.
The law forbidding the emission of dense black
or gray smoke in the City of Washington has been
sustained by the courts. Something has been accomplished
under it, but much remains to be done
if we would preserve the Capital City from defacement
by the smoke nuisance. Repeated prosecutions
under the law have not had the desired effect.
I recommend that it be made more stringent by increasing
both the minimum and maximum fine; by
providing for imprisonment in cases of repeated violation;
and by affording the remedy of injunction
against the continuation of the operation of plants
which are persistent offenders. I recommend, also,
an increase in the number of inspectors, whose duty
it shall be to detect violations of the act.
I call your attention to the generous act of the
State of California in conferring upon the United
States Government the ownership of the Yosemite
Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove. There
should be no delay in accepting the gift, and appropriations
should be made for the including
thereof in the Yosemite National Park, and for the
care and policing of the park. California has acted
most wisely as well as with great magnanimity in
the matter. There are certain mighty natural features
of our land which should be preserved in
perpetuity for our children and our children’s children.
In my judgment the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado should be made into a national park. It
is greatly to be wished that the State of New York
should copy as regards Niagara what the State of
California has done as regards the Yosemite.
Nothing should be allowed to interfere with the
preservation of Niagara Falls in all their beauty and
majesty. If the State can not see to this, then it is
earnestly to be wished that she should be willing
to turn it over to the National Government, which
should in such case (if possible, in conjunction
with the Canadian Government) assume the burden
and responsibility of preserving unharmed Niagara
Falls; just as it should gladly assume a similar
burden and responsibility for the Yosemite National
Park, and as it has already assumed them for the
Yellowstone National Park. Adequate provision
should be made by the Congress for the proper care
and supervision of all these national parks. The
boundaries of the Yellowstone National Park
should be extended to the south and east to take
in such portions of the abutting forest reservation
as will enable the Government to protect the elk
on their winter range.
The most characteristic animal of the Western
plains was the great shaggy-maned wild ox, the
bison, commonly known as buffalo. Small fragments
of herds exist in a domesticated state here
and there, a few of them in the Yellowstone Park.
Such a herd as that on the Flathead Reservation
should not be allowed to go out of existence. Either
on some reservation or on some forest reserve like
the Wichita reserve and game refuge provision
should be made for the preservation of such a herd.
I believe that the scheme would be of economic
advantage, for the robe of the buffalo is of high
market value, and the same is true of the robe of
the crossbred animals.
I call your especial attention to the desirability
of giving to the members of the Life-Saving Service
pensions such as are given to firemen and policemen
in all our great cities. The men in the
Life-Saving Service continually and in the most
matter-of-fact way do deeds such as make Americans
proud of their country. They have no political
influence; and they live in such remote places
that the really heroic services they continually render
receive the scantiest recognition from the public.
It is unjust for a great nation like this to permit
these men to become totally disabled or to meet
death in the performance of their hazardous duty
and yet to give them no sort of reward. If one of
them serves thirty years of his life in such a position
he should surely be entitled to retire on half
pay, as a fireman or policeman does, and if he becomes
totally incapacitated through accident or sickness
or loses his health in the discharge of his duty,
he or his family should receive a pension just as
any soldier should. I call your attention with especial
earnestness to this matter because it appeals not
only to our judgment but to our sympathy; for the
people on whose behalf I ask it are comparatively
few in number, render incalculable service of a particularly
dangerous kind, and have no one to speak
for them.
During the year just past, the phase of the Indian
question which has been most sharply brought to
public attention is the larger legal significance of the
Indian’s induction into citizenship. This has made
itself manifest not only in a great access of litigation
in which the citizen Indian figures as a party
defendant and in a more widespread disposition to
levy local taxation upon his personalty, but in a decision
of the United States Supreme Court which
struck away the main prop on which has hitherto
rested the Government’s benevolent effort to protect
him against the evils of intemperance. The
court holds, in effect, that when an Indian becomes,
by virtue of an allotment of land to him, a
citizen of the State in which his land is situated,
he passes from under Federal control in such matters
as this, and the acts of the Congress prohibiting
the sale or gift to him of intoxicants become substantially
inoperative. It is gratifying to note that
the States and municipalities of the West which
have most at stake in the welfare of the Indians are
taking up this subject and are trying to supply, in a
measure at least, the abdication of its trusteeship
forced upon the Federal Government. Nevertheless,
I would urgently press upon the attention of
the Congress the question whether some amendment
of the internal-revenue laws might not be of
aid in prosecuting those malefactors, known in the
Indian country as “bootleggers,” who are engaged
at once in defrauding the United States Treasury
of taxes and, what is far more important, in debauching
the Indians by carrying liquors illicitly
into territory still completely under Federal jurisdiction.
Among the crying present needs of the Indians
are more day schools situated in the midst of their
settlements, more effective instruction in the industries
pursued on their own farms, and a more
liberal extension of the field-matron service, which
means the education of the Indian women in the
arts of home making. Until the mothers are well
started in the right direction we can not reasonably
expect much from the children who are soon to
form an integral part of our American citizenship.
Moreover, the excuse continually advanced by male
adult Indians for refusing offers of remunerative
employment at a distance from their homes is that
they dare not leave their families too long out of
their sight. One effectual remedy for this state of
things is to employ the minds and strengthen the
moral fibre of the Indian women—the end to which
the work of the field matron is especially directed.
I trust that the Congress will make its appropriations
for Indian day schools and field matrons as
generous as may consist with the other pressing
demands upon its providence.
During the last year the Philippine Islands have
been slowly recovering from the series of disasters
which, since American occupation, have greatly reduced
the amount of agricultural products below
what was produced in Spanish times. The war, the
rinderpest, the locusts, the drought, and the cholera
have been united as causes to prevent a return of the
prosperity much needed in the islands. The most
serious is the destruction by the rinderpest of more
than 75 per cent of the draught cattle, because it
will take several years of breeding to restore the
necessary number of these indispensable aids to
agriculture. The Commission attempted to supply
by purchase from adjoining countries the needed
cattle, but the experiments made were unsuccessful.
Most of the cattle imported were unable to withstand
the change of climate and the rigors of the
voyage, and died from other diseases than rinderpest.
The income of the Philippine Government has
necessarily been reduced by reason of the business
and agricultural depression in the islands, and the
government has been obliged to exercise great economy,
to cut down its expenses, to reduce salaries,
and in every way to avoid a deficit. It has adopted
an internal-revenue law, imposing taxes on cigars,
cigarettes, and distilled liquors, and abolishing the
old Spanish industrial taxes. The law has not
operated as smoothly as was hoped, and although
its principle is undoubtedly correct, it may need
amendments for the purpose of reconciling the
people to its provisions. The income derived from
it has partly made up for the reduction in customs
revenue.
There has been a marked increase in the number
of Filipinos employed in the civil service, and a corresponding
decrease in the number of Americans.
The government in every one of its departments
has been rendered more efficient by elimination of
undesirable material and the promotion of deserving
public servants.
Improvements of harbors, roads, and bridges continue,
although the cutting down of the revenue forbids
the expenditure of any great amount from
current income for these purposes. Steps are
being taken, by advertisement for competitive bids,
to secure the construction and maintenance of 1,000
miles of railway by private corporations under the
recent enabling legislation of the Congress. The
transfer of the friar lands, in accordance with the
contract made some two years ago, has been completely
effected, and the purchase money paid. Provision
has just been made by statute for the speedy
settlement in a special proceeding in the Supreme
Court of controversies over the possession and title
of church buildings and rectories arising between the
Roman Catholic Church and schismatics claiming
under ancient municipalities. Negotiations and
hearings for the settlement of the amount due
to the Roman Catholic Church for rent and occupation
of churches and rectories by the Army
of the United States are in progress, and it
is hoped a satisfactory conclusion may be submitted
to the Congress before the end of the
session.
Tranquillity has existed during the past year
throughout the Archipelago, except in the province
of Cavite, the province of Batangas, and the province
of Samar, and in the island of Jolo among the
Moros. The Jolo disturbance was put an end to by
several sharp and short engagements, and now
peace prevails in the Moro province. Cavite, the
mother of ladrones in the Spanish times, is so permeated
with the traditional sympathy of the people
for ladronism as to make it difficult to stamp out
the disease. Batangas was only disturbed by
reason of the fugitive ladrones from Cavite. Samar
was thrown into disturbance by the uneducated and
partly savage peoples living in the mountains, who,
having been given by the municipal code more
power than they were able to exercise discreetly,
elected municipal officers who abused their trusts,
compelled the people raising hemp to sell it at a
much less price than it was worth, and by their
abuses drove their people into resistance to constituted
authority. Cavite and Samar are instances
of reposing too much confidence in the self-governing
power of a people. The disturbances have all
now been suppressed, and it is hoped that with
these lessons local governments can be formed
which will secure quiet and peace to the deserving
inhabitants. The incident is another proof of the
fact that if there has been any error as regards giving
self-government in the Philippines it has been
in the direction of giving it too quickly, not too
slowly. A year from next April the first legislative
assembly for the islands will be held. On the sanity
and self-restraint of this body much will depend so
far as the future self-government of the islands is
concerned.
The most encouraging feature of the whole situation
has been the very great interest taken by the
common people in education and the great increase
in the number of enrolled students in the public
schools. The increase was from 300,000 to half a
million pupils. The average attendance is about
70 per cent. The only limit upon the number of
pupils seems to be the capacity of the government
to furnish teachers and schoolhouses.
The agricultural conditions of the islands enforce
more strongly than ever the argument in favor of
reducing the tariff on the products of the Philippine
Islands entering the United States. I earnestly
recommend that the tariff now imposed by
the Dingley bill upon the products of the Philippine
Islands be entirely removed, except the tariff on
sugar and tobacco, and that that tariff be reduced
to 25 per cent of the present rates under the Dingley
Act; that after July 1, 1909, the tariff upon tobacco
and sugar produced in the Philippine Islands be
entirely removed, and that free trade between the
islands and the United States in the products of
each country then be provided for by law.
A statute in force, enacted April 15, 1904, suspends
the operation of the coastwise laws of the
United States upon the trade between the Philippine
Islands and the United States until July 1,
1906. I earnestly recommend that this suspension
be postponed until July 1, 1909. I think it of doubtful
utility to apply the coastwise laws to the trade
between the United States and the Philippines under
any circumstances, because I am convinced that it
will do no good whatever to American bottoms,
and will only interfere and be an obstacle to the
trade between the Philippines and the United States;
but if the coastwise law must be thus applied, certainly
it ought not to have effect until free trade is
enjoyed between the people of the United States
and the people of the Philippine Islands in their
respective products.
I do not anticipate that free trade between the
islands and the United States will produce a revolution
in the sugar and tobacco production of the
Philippine Islands. So primitive are the methods
of agriculture in the Philippine Islands, so slow is
capital in going to the islands, so many difficulties
surround a large agricultural enterprise in the islands,
that it will be many, many years before the
products of those islands will have any effect whatever
upon the markets of the United States. The
problem of labor is also a formidable one with the
sugar and tobacco producers in the islands. The
best friends of the Filipino people and the people
themselves are utterly opposed to the admission of
Chinese coolie labor. Hence the only solution is
the training of Filipino labor, and this will take
a long time. The enactment of a law by the Congress
of the United States making provision for
free trade between the islands and the United States,
however, will be of great importance from a political
and sentimental standpoint; and while its actual
benefit has doubtless been exaggerated by the
people of the islands, they will accept this measure
of justice as an indication that the people of the
United States are anxious to aid the people of the
Philippine Islands in every way, and especially in
the agricultural development of their Archipelago.
It will aid the Filipinos without injuring interests
in America.
In my judgment immediate steps should be taken
for the fortification of Hawaii. This is the most
important point in the Pacific to fortify in order to
conserve the interests of this country. It would be
hard to overstate the importance of this need.
Hawaii is too heavily taxed. Laws should be enacted
setting aside for a period of, say, twenty
years 75 per cent of the internal-revenue and customs
receipts from Hawaii as a special fund to be
expended in the islands for educational and public
buildings, and for harbor improvements and military
and naval defences. It can not be too often
repeated that our aim must be to develop the Territory
of Hawaii on traditional American lines.
That Territory has serious commercial and industrial
problems to reckon with; but no measure of
relief can be considered which looks to legislation
admitting Chinese and restricting them by statute to
field labor and domestic service. The status of servility
can never again be tolerated on American
soil. We can not concede that the proper solution
of its problems is special legislation admitting to
Hawaii a class of laborers denied admission to the
other States and Territories. There are obstacles,
and great obstacles, in the way of building up a
representative American community in the Hawaiian
Islands; but it is not in the American character
to give up in the face of difficulty. Many an
American Commonwealth has been built up against
odds equal to those that now confront Hawaii.
No merely half-hearted effort to meet its problems
as other American communities have met
theirs can be accepted as final. Hawaii shall never
become a Territory in which a governing class of
rich planters exists by means of coolie labor. Even
if the rate of growth of the Territory is thereby rendered
slower, the growth must only take place by
the admission of immigrants fit in the end to assume
the duties and burdens of full American citizenship.
Our aim must be to develop the Territory
on the same basis of stable citizenship as exists on
this continent.
I earnestly advocate the adoption of legislation
which will explicitly confer American citizenship
on all citizens of Porto Rico. There is, in my judgment,
no excuse for failure to do this. The harbor
of San Juan should be dredged and improved. The
expenses of the Federal court of Porto Rico should
be met from the Federal Treasury, and not from the
Porto Rican treasury. The elections in Porto
Rico should take place every four years, and the
legislature should meet in session every two years.
The present form of government in Porto Rico,
which provides for the appointment by the President
of the members of the executive council or
upper house of the legislature, has proved satisfactory
and has inspired confidence in property owners
and investors. I do not deem it advisable at the
present time to change this form in any material
feature. The problems and needs of the island are
industrial and commercial rather than political.
I wish also to call the attention of the Congress
to one question which affects our insular possessions,
generally; namely, the need of an increased
liberality in the treatment of the whole franchise
question in these islands. In the proper desire to
prevent the islands being exploited by speculators
and to have them develop in the interest of their
own people an error has been made in refusing to
grant sufficiently liberal terms to induce the investment
of American capital in the Philippines and in
Porto Rico. Elsewhere in this Message I have
spoken strongly against the jealousy of mere
wealth, and especially of corporate wealth as such.
But it is particularly regrettable to allow any such
jealousy to be developed when we are dealing either
with our insular or with foreign affairs. The big
corporation has achieved its present position in the
business world simply because it is the most effective
instrument in business competition. In foreign
affairs we can not afford to put our people at
a disadvantage with their competitors by in any
way discriminating against the efficiency of our
business organizations. In the same way we can
not afford to allow our insular possessions to lag
behind in industrial development from any twisted
jealousy of business success. It is, of course, a mere
truism to say that the business interests of the islands
will only be developed if it becomes the financial
interest of somebody to develop them. Yet this
development is one of the things most earnestly to
be wished for in the interest of the islands themselves.
We have been paying all possible heed to
the political and educational interests of the islands,
but, important though these objects are, it is
not less important that we should favor their industrial
development. The Government can in certain
ways help this directly, as by building good roads;
but the fundamental and vital help must be given
through the development of the industries of the
islands, and a most efficient means to this end is
to encourage big American corporations to start
industries in them, and this means to make it advantageous
for them to do so. To limit the ownership
of mining claims as has been done in the Philippines
is absurd. In both the Philippines and Porto
Rico the limit of holdings of land should be largely
raised.
I earnestly ask that Alaska be given an elective
Delegate. Some person should be chosen who can
speak with authority of the needs of the Territory.
The Government should aid in the construction of
a railroad from the Gulf of Alaska to the Yukon
River, in American territory. In my last two Messages
I advocated certain additional action on behalf
of Alaska. I shall not now repeat those recommendations,
but I shall lay all my stress upon
the one recommendation of giving to Alaska some
one authorized to speak for it. I should prefer that
the Delegate was made elective, but if this is not
deemed wise, then make him appointive. At any
rate, give Alaska some person whose business it
shall be to speak with authority on her behalf to
the Congress. The natural resources of Alaska
are great. Some of the chief needs of the peculiarly
energetic, self-reliant, and typically American
white population of Alaska were set forth in my
last Message. I also earnestly ask your attention
to the needs of the Alaskan Indians. All Indians
who are competent should receive the full rights
of American citizenship. It is, for instance, a gross
and indefensible wrong to deny to such hardworking,
decent-living Indians as the Metlakahtlas
the right to obtain licenses as captains, pilots, and
engineers, the right to enter mining claims, and to
profit by the homestead law. These particular Indians
are civilized, and are competent and entitled
to be put on the same basis with the white men
round about them.
I recommend that Indian Territory and Oklahoma
be admitted as one State and that New Mexico
and Arizona be admitted as one State. There
is no obligation upon us to treat territorial subdivisions,
which are matters of convenience only, as
binding us on the question of admission to Statehood.
Nothing has taken up more time in the
Congress during the past few years than the question
as to the Statehood to be granted to the four
Territories above mentioned, and after careful consideration
of all that has been developed in the discussions
of the question I recommend that they be
immediately admitted as two States. There is no
justification for further delay; and the advisability
of making the four Territories into two States has
been clearly established.
In some of the Territories the legislative assemblies
issue licenses for gambling. The Congress
should by law forbid this practice, the harmful results
of which are obvious at a glance.
The treaty between the United States and the
Republic of Panama, under which the construction
of the Panama Canal was made possible, went into
effect with its ratification by the United States Senate
on February 23, 1904. The canal properties
of the French Canal Company were transferred to
the United States on April 23, 1904, on payment
of $40,000,000 to that company. On April 1,
1905, the Commission was reorganized, and it now
consists of Theodore P. Shonts, chairman, Charles
E. Magoon, Benjamin M. Harrod, Rear-Admiral
Mordecai T. Endicott, Brig.-Gen. Peter C. Hains,
and Col. Oswald H. Ernst. John F. Stevens was
appointed chief engineer on July 1 last. Active
work in canal construction, mainly preparatory, has
been in progress for less than a year and a half.
During that period two points about the canal have
ceased to be open to debate. First, the question of
route; the canal will be built on the Isthmus of
Panama. Second, the question of feasibility; there
are no physical obstacles on this route that American
engineering skill will not be able to overcome
without serious difficulty, or that will prevent the
completion of the canal within a reasonable time
and at a reasonable cost. This is virtually the unanimous
testimony of the engineers who have investigated
the matter for the Government.
The point which remains unsettled is the question
of type, whether the canal shall be one of several
locks above sea level, or at sea level with a single
tide lock. On this point I hope to lay before the
Congress at an early day the findings of the Advisory
Board of American and European Engineers,
that at my invitation have been considering the
subject, together with the report of the Commission
thereon; and such comments thereon or recommendations
in reference thereto as may seem necessary.
The American people is pledged to the speediest
possible construction of a canal adequate to meet
the demands which the commerce of the world will
make upon it, and I appeal most earnestly to the
Congress to aid in the fulfilment of the pledge.
Gratifying progress has been made during the past
year and especially during the past four months.
The greater part of the necessary preliminary work
has been done. Actual work of excavation could
be begun only on a limited scale till the Canal Zone
was made a healthful place to live in and to work in.
The Isthmus had to be sanitated first. This task
has been so thoroughly accomplished that yellow
fever has been virtually extirpated from the Isthmus
and general health conditions vastly improved.
The same methods which converted the island of
Cuba from a pest hole which menaced the health
of the world into a healthful place of abode have
been applied on the Isthmus with satisfactory results.
There is no reason to doubt that when the
plans for water supply, paving, and sewerage of
Panama and Colon and the large labor camps have
been fully carried out, the Isthmus will be, for the
Tropics, an unusually healthy place of abode. The
work is so far advanced now that the health of all
those employed in canal work is as well guarded as
it is on similar work in this country and elsewhere.
In addition to sanitating the Isthmus, satisfactory
quarters are being provided for employees and an
adequate system of supplying them with wholesome
food at reasonable prices has been created. Hospitals
have been established and equipped that are
without superiors of their kind anywhere. The
country has thus been made fit to work in, and provision
has been made for the welfare and comfort
of those who are to do the work. During the past
year a large portion of the plant with which the
work is to be done has been ordered. It is confidently
believed that by the middle of the approaching
year a sufficient proportion of this plant will
have been installed to enable us to resume the work
of excavation on a large scale.
What is needed now and without delay is an appropriation
by the Congress to meet the current and
accruing expenses of the Commission. The first
appropriation of $10,000,000, out of the $135,000,000
authorized by the Spooner Act, was made three
years ago. It is nearly exhausted. There is barely
enough of it remaining to carry the Commission to
the end of the year. Unless the Congress shall appropriate
before that time all work must cease. To
arrest progress for any length of time now, when
matters are advancing so satisfactorily, would be
deplorable. There will be no money with which to
meet pay-roll obligations and none with which to
meet bills coming due for materials and supplies;
and there will be demoralization of the forces, here
and on the Isthmus, now working so harmoniously
and effectively, if there is delay in granting an
emergency appropriation. Estimates of the amount
necessary will be found in the accompanying reports
of the Secretary of War and the Commission.
I recommend more adequate provision than has
been made heretofore for the work of the Department
of State. Within a few years there has been
a very great increase in the amount and importance
of the work to be done by that Department, both
in Washington and abroad. This has been caused
by the great increase of our foreign trade, the increase
of wealth among our people, which enables
them to travel more generally than heretofore, the
increase of American capital which is seeking investment
in foreign countries, and the growth of
our power and weight in the councils of the civilized
world. There has been no corresponding increase
of facilities for doing the work afforded to
the Department having charge of our foreign relations.
Neither at home nor abroad is there a sufficient
working force to do the business properly. In many
respects the system which was adequate to the work
of twenty-five, or even ten, years ago, is inadequate
now, and should be changed. Our consular force
should be classified, and appointments should be
made to the several classes, with authority to the
Executive to assign the members of each class to
duty at such posts as the interests of the service
require, instead of the appointments being made
as at present to specified posts. There should be
an adequate inspection service, so that the Department
may be able to inform itself how the business
of each consulate is being done, instead of depending
upon casual private information or rumor. The
fee system should be entirely abolished, and a due
equivalent made in salary to the officers who now
eke out their subsistence by means of fees. Sufficient
provision should be made for a clerical force
in every consulate, composed entirely of Americans,
instead of the insufficient provision now made,
which compels the employment of great numbers of
citizens of foreign countries whose services can be
obtained for less money. At a large part of our
consulates the office quarters and the clerical force
are inadequate to the performance of the onerous
duties imposed by the recent provisions of our immigration
laws as well as by our increasing trade.
In many parts of the world the lack of suitable
quarters for our embassies, legations, and consulates
detracts from the respect in which our officers
ought to be held, and seriously impairs their weight
and influence.
Suitable provision should be made for the expense
of keeping our diplomatic officers more fully informed
of what is being done from day to day in
the progress of our diplomatic affairs with other
countries. The lack of such information, caused
by insufficient appropriations available for cable
tolls and for clerical and messenger service, frequently
puts our officers at a great disadvantage
and detracts from their usefulness. The salary list
should be readjusted. It does not now correspond
either to the importance of the service to be rendered
and the degrees of ability and experience
required in the different positions, or to the differences
in the cost of living. In many cases the
salaries are quite inadequate.
Theodore Roosevelt.
The White House,
December 5, 1905.
