WHITE HOUSE, _June 13, 1902_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I deem it important before the adjournment of the present session of
Congress to call attention to the following expressions in the message
which in the discharge of the duty imposed upon me by the Constitution
I sent to Congress on the first Tuesday of December last:
Elsewhere I have discussed the question of reciprocity. In the case of
Cuba, however, there are weighty reasons of morality and of national
interest why the policy should be held to have a peculiar application,
and I most earnestly ask your attention to the wisdom, indeed to the
vital need, of providing for a substantial reduction in the tariff
duties on Cuban imports into the United States. Cuba has in her
Constitution affirmed what we desired, that she should stand, in
international matters, in closer and more friendly relations with us
than with any other power; and we are bound by every consideration of
honor and expediency to pass commercial measures in the interest of
her material well being.
This recommendation was merely giving practical effect to President
McKinley's words, when, in his messages of December 5, 1898, and
December 5, 1899, he wrote:
It is important that our relations with this people (of Cuba) shall be
of the most friendly character and our commercial relations close and
reciprocal. * * * We have accepted a trust, the fulfillment of which
calls for the sternest integrity of purpose and the exercise of the
highest wisdom. The new Cuba yet to arise from the ashes of the past
must needs be bound to us by ties of singular intimacy and strength
if its enduring welfare is to be assured. * * * The greatest blessing
which can come to Cuba is the restoration of her agricultural and
industrial prosperity.
Yesterday, June 12, I received, by cable from the American minister in
Cuba, a most earnest appeal from President Palma for "legislative relief
before it is too late and (his) country financially ruined."
The granting of reciprocity with Cuba is a proposition which stands
entirely alone. The reasons for it far outweigh those for granting
reciprocity with any other nation, and are entirely consistent with
preserving intact the protective system under which this country has
thriven so marvelously. The present tariff law was designed to promote
the adoption of such a reciprocity treaty, and expressly provided for a
reduction not to exceed 20 per cent upon goods coming from a particular
country, leaving the tariff rates on the same articles unchanged as
regards all other countries. Objection has been made to the granting of
the reduction on the ground that the substantial benefit would not go
to the agricultural producer of sugar, but would inure to the American
sugar refiners. In my judgment provision can and should be made which
will guarantee us against this possibility, without having recourse to
a measure of doubtful policy, such as a bounty in the form of a rebate.
The question as to which if any of the different schedules of the
tariff ought most properly to be revised does not enter into this matter
in any way or shape. We are concerned with getting a friendly reciprocal
arrangement with Cuba. This arrangement applies to all the articles that
Cuba grows or produces. It is not in our power to determine what these
articles shall be, and any discussion of the tariff as it affects
special schedules or countries other than Cuba is wholly aside from the
subject matter to which I call your attention.
Some of our citizens oppose the lowering of the tariff on Cuban products
just as three years ago they opposed the admission of the Hawaiian
Islands lest free trade with them might ruin certain of our interests
here. In the actual event their fears proved baseless as regards Hawaii,
and their apprehensions as to the damage to any industry of our own
because of the proposed measure of reciprocity with Cuba seem to me
equally baseless. In my judgment no American industry will be hurt,
and many American industries will be benefited by the proposed action.
It is to our advantage as a nation that the growing Cuban market should
be controlled by American producers.
The events following the war with Spain, and the prospective building of
the Isthmian Canal, render it certain that we must take in the future a
far greater interest than hitherto in what happens throughout the West
Indies, Central America, and the adjacent coasts and waters. We expect
Cuba to treat us on an exceptional footing politically, and we should
put her in the same exceptional position economically. The proposed
action is in line with the course we have pursued as regards all the
islands with which we have been brought into relations of varying
intimacy by the Spanish war. Puerto Rico and Hawaii have been included
within our tariff lines, to their great benefit as well as ours,
and without any of the feared detriment to our own industries. The
Philippines, which stand in a different relation, have been granted
substantial tariff concessions.
Cuba is an independent republic, but a republic which has assumed
certain special obligations as regards her international position in
compliance with our request. I ask for her certain special economic
concessions in return; these economic concessions to benefit us as well
as her. There are few brighter pages in American history than the page
which tells of our dealings with Cuba during the past four years. On her
behalf we waged a war of which the mainspring was generous indignation
against oppression; and we have kept faith absolutely. It is earnestly
to be hoped that we will complete in the same spirit the record so well
begun, and show in our dealings with Cuba that steady continuity of
policy which it is essential for our nation to establish in foreign
affairs if we desire to play well our part as a world power.
We are a wealthy and powerful nation; Cuba is a young republic, still
weak, who owes to us her birth, whose whole future, whose very life,
must depend on our attitude toward her. I ask that we help her as she
struggles upward along the painful and difficult road of self-governing
independence. I ask this aid for her, because she is weak, because she
needs it, because we have already aided her. I ask that open-handed
help, of a kind which a self-respecting people can accept, be given to
Cuba, for the very reason that we have given her such help in the past.
Our soldiers fought to give her freedom; and for three years our
representatives, civil and military, have toiled unceasingly, facing
disease of a peculiarly sinister and fatal type, with patient and
uncomplaining fortitude, to teach her how to use aright her new freedom.
Never in history has any alien country been thus administered, with such
high integrity of purpose, such wise judgment, and such single-minded
devotion to the country's interests. Now, I ask that the Cubans be given
all possible chance to use to the best advantage the freedom of which
Americans have such right to be proud, and for which so many American
lives have been sacrificed.