The making of forest reserves within railroad and wagon-road land-grant

limits will hereafter, as for the past three years, be so managed as to

prevent the issue, under the act of June 4, 1897, of base for exchange

or lieu selection (usually called scrip). In all cases where forest

reserves within areas covered by land grants appear to be essential to

the prosperity of settlers, miners, or others, the Government lands

within such proposed forest reserves will, as in the recent past, be

withdrawn from sale or entry pending the completion of such

negotiations with the owners of the land grants as will prevent the

creation of so-called scrip.

It was formerly the custom to make forest reserves without first

getting definite and detailed information as to the character of land

and timber within their boundaries. This method of action often

resulted in badly chosen boundaries and consequent injustice to

settlers and others. Therefore this Administration adopted the present

method of first withdrawing the land from disposal, followed by careful

examination on the ground and the preparation of detailed maps and

descriptions, before any forest reserve is created.

I have repeatedly called attention to the confusion which exists in

Government forest matters because the work is scattered among three

independent organizations. The United States is the only one of the

great nations in which the forest work of the Government is not

concentrated under one department, in consonance with the plainest

dictates of good administration and common sense. The present

arrangement is bad from every point of view. Merely to mention it is to

prove that it should be terminated at once. As I have repeatedly

recommended, all the forest work of the Government should be

concentrated in the Department of Agriculture, where the larger part of

that work is already done, where practically all of the trained

foresters of the Government are employed, where chiefly in Washington

there is comprehensive first-class knowledge of the problems of the

reserves acquired on the ground, where all problems relating to growth

from the soil are already gathered, and where all the sciences

auxiliary to forestry are at hand for prompt and effective

co-operation. These reasons are decisive in themselves, but it should

be added that the great organizations of citizens whose interests are

affected by the forest-reserves, such as the National Live Stock

Association, the National Wool Growers' Association, the American

Mining Congress, the national Irrigation Congress, and the National

Board of Trade, have uniformly, emphatically, and most of them

repeatedly, expressed themselves in favor of placing all Government

forest work in the Department of Agriculture because of the peculiar

adaptation of that Department for it. It is true, also, that the forest

services of nearly all the great nations of the world are under the

respective departments of agriculture, while in but two of the smaller

nations and in one colony are they under the department of the

interior. This is the result of long and varied experience and it

agrees fully with the requirements of good administration in our own

case.

The creation of a forest service in the Department of Agriculture will

have for its important results:

First. A better handling of all forest work; because it will be under a

single head, and because the vast and indispensable experience of the

Department in all matters pertaining to the forest reserves, to

forestry in general, and to other forms of production from the soil,

will be easily and rapidly accessible.

Second. The reserves themselves, being handled from the point of view

of the man in the field, instead of the man in the office, will be more

easily and more widely useful to the people of the West than has been

the case hitherto.

Third. Within a comparatively short time the reserves will become

self-supporting. This is important, because continually and rapidly

increasing appropriations will be necessary for the proper care of this

exceedingly important interest of the Nation, and they can and should

he offset by returns from the National forests. Under similar

circumstances the forest possessions of other great nations form an

important source of revenue to their governments.

Every administrative officer concerned is convinced of the necessity

for the proposed consolidation of forest work in the Department of

Agriculture, and I myself have urged it more than once in former

messages. Again I commend it to the early and favorable consideration

of the Congress. The interests of the Nation at large and of the West

in particular have suffered greatly because of the delay.

I call the attention of the Congress again to the report and

recommendation of the Commission on the Public Lands forwarded by me to

the second session of the present Congress. The Commission has

prosecuted its investigations actively during the past season, and a

second report is now in an advanced stage of preparation.

In connection with the work of the forest reserves I desire again to

urge upon the Congress the importance of authorizing the President to

set aside certain portions of these reserves or other public lands as

game refuges for the preservation of the bison, the wapiti, and other

large beasts once so abundant in our woods and mountains and on our

great plains, and now tending toward extinction. Every support should

be given to the authorities of the Yellowstone Park in their successful

efforts at preserving the large creatures therein; and at very little

expense portions of the public domain in other regions which are wholly

unsuited to agricultural settlement could be similarly utilized. We owe

it to future generations to keep alive the noble and beautiful

creatures which by their presence add such distinctive character to the

American wilderness. The limits of the Yellowstone Park should be

extended southwards. The Canyon of the Colorado should be made a

national park; and the national-park system should include the Yosemite

and as many as possible of the groves of giant trees in California.

The veterans of the Civil War have a claim upon the Nation such as no

other body of our citizens possess. The Pension Bureau has never in its

history been managed in a more satisfactory manner than is now the

case.

The progress of the Indians toward civilization, though not rapid, is

perhaps all that could be hoped for in view of the circumstances.

Within the past year many tribes have shown, in a degree greater than

ever before, an appreciation of the necessity of work. This changed

attitude is in part due to the policy recently pursued of reducing the

amount of subsistence to the Indians, and thus forcing them, through

sheer necessity, to work for a livelihood. The policy, though severe,

is a useful one, but it is to be exercised only with judgment and with

a full understanding of the conditions which exist in each community

for which it is intended. On or near the Indian reservations there is

usually very little demand for labor, and if the Indians are to earn

their living and when work can not be furnished from outside (which is

always preferable), then it must be furnished by the Government.

Practical instruction of this kind would in a few years result in the

forming of habits of regular industry, which would render the Indian a

producer and would effect a great reduction in the cost of his

maintenance.

It is commonly declared that the slow advance of the Indians is due to

the unsatisfactory character of the men appointed to take immediate

charge of them, and to some extent this is true. While the standard of

the employees in the Indian Service shows great improvement over that

of bygone years, and while actual corruption or flagrant dishonesty is

now the rare exception, it is nevertheless the fact that the salaries

paid Indian agents are not large enough to attract the best men to that

field of work. To achieve satisfactory results the official in charge

of an Indian tribe should possess the high qualifications which are

required in the manager of a large business, but only in exceptional

cases is it possible to secure men of such a type for these positions.

Much better service, however, might be obtained from those now holding

the places were it practicable to get out of them the best that is in

them, and this should be done by bringing them constantly into closer

touch with their superior officers. An agent who has been content to

draw his salary, giving in return the least possible equivalent in

effort and service, may, by proper treatment, by suggestion and

encouragement, or persistent urging, be stimulated to greater effort

and induced to take a more active personal interest in his work.

Under existing conditions an Indian agent in the distant West may be

wholly out of touch with the office of the Indian Bureau. He may very

well feel that no one takes a personal interest in him or his efforts.

Certain routine duties in the way of reports and accounts are required

of him, but there is no one with whom he may intelligently consult on

matters vital to his work, except after long delay. Such a man would be

greatly encouraged and aided by personal contact with some one whose

interest in Indian affairs and whose authority in the Indian Bureau

were greater than his own, and such contact would be certain to arouse

and constantly increase the interest he takes in his work.

The distance which separates the agents--the workers in the field--from

the Indian Office in Washington is a chief obstacle to Indian progress.

Whatever shall more closely unite these two branches of the Indian

Service, and shall enable them to co-operate more heartily and more

effectively, will be for the increased efficiency of the work and the

betterment of the race for whose improvement the Indian Bureau was

established. The appointment of a field assistant to the Commissioner

of Indian Affairs would be certain to insure this good end. Such an

official, if possessed of the requisite energy and deep interest in the

work, would be a most efficient factor in bringing into closer

relationship and a more direct union of effort the Bureau in Washington

and its agents in the field; and with the co-operation of its branches

thus secured the Indian Bureau would, in measure fuller than ever

before, lift up the savage toward that self-help and self-reliance

which constitute the man.

In 1907 there will be held at Hampton Roads the tricentennial

celebration of the settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, with which the

history of what has now become the United States really begins. I

commend this to your favorable consideration. It is an event of prime

historic significance, in which all the people of the United States

should feel, and should show, great and general interest.

In the Post-Office Department the service has increased in efficiency,

and conditions as to revenue and expenditure continue satisfactory. The

increase of revenue during the year was $9,358,181.10, or 6.9 per cent,

the total receipts amounting to $143,382,624.34. The expenditures were

$152,362,116.70, an increase of about 9 per cent over the previous

year, being thus $8,979,492.36 in excess of the current revenue.

Included in these expenditures was a total appropriation of

$152,956,637.35 for the continuation and extension of the rural

free-delivery service, which was an increase of $4,902,237.35 over the

amount expended for this purpose in the preceding fiscal year. Large as

this expenditure has been the beneficent results attained in extending

the free distribution of mails to the residents of rural districts have

justified the wisdom of the outlay. Statistics brought down to the 1st

of October, 1904, show that on that date there were 27,138 rural routes

established, serving approximately 12,000,000 of people in rural

districts remote from post-offices, and that there were pending at that

time 3,859 petitions for the establishment of new rural routes.

Unquestionably some part of the general increase in receipts is due to

the increased postal facilities which the rural service has afforded.

The revenues have also been aided greatly by amendments in the

classification of mail matter, and the curtailment of abuses of the

second-class mailing privilege. The average increase in the volume of

mail matter for the period beginning with 1902 and ending June, 1905

(that portion for 1905 being estimated), is 40.47 per cent, as compared

with 25.46 per cent for the period immediately preceding, and 15.92 for

the four-year period immediately preceding that.

Our consular system needs improvement. Salaries should be substituted

for fees, and the proper classification, grading, and transfer of

consular officers should be provided. I am not prepared to say that a

competitive system of examinations for appointment would work well; but

by law it should be provided that consuls should be familiar, according

to places for which they apply, with the French, German, or Spanish

languages, and should possess acquaintance with the resources of the

United States.

The collection of objects of art contemplated in section 5586 of the

Revised Statutes should be designated and established as a National

Gallery of Art; and the Smithsonian Institution should be authorized to

accept any additions to said collection that may be received by gift,

bequest, or devise.

It is desirable to enact a proper National quarantine law. It is most

undesirable that a State should on its own initiative enforce

quarantine regulations which are in effect a restriction upon

interstate and international commerce. The question should properly be

assumed by the Government alone. The Surgeon-General of the National

Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service has repeatedly and

convincingly set forth the need for such legislation.

I call your attention to the great extravagance in printing and binding

Government publications, and especially to the fact that altogether too

many of these publications are printed. There is a constant tendency to

increase their number and their volume. It is an understatement to say

that no appreciable harm would be caused by, and substantial benefit

would accrue from, decreasing the amount of printing now done by at

least one-half. Probably the great majority of the Government reports

and the like now printed are never read at all, and furthermore the

printing of much of the material contained in many of the remaining

ones serves no useful purpose whatever.

The attention of the Congress should be especially given to the

currency question, and that the standing committees on the matter in

the two Houses charged with the duty, take up the matter of our

currency and see whether it is not possible to secure an agreement in

the business world for bettering the system; the committees should

consider the question of the retirement of the greenbacks and the

problem of securing in our currency such elasticity as is consistent

with safety. Every silver dollar should be made by law redeemable in

gold at the option of the holder.

I especially commend to your immediate attention the encouragement of

our merchant marine by appropriate legislation.

The growing importance of the Orient as a field for American exports

drew from my predecessor, President McKinley, an urgent request for its

special consideration by the Congress. In his message of 1898 he

stated:

"In this relation, as showing the peculiar volume and value of our

trade with China and the peculiarly favorable conditions which exist

for their expansion in the normal course of trade, I refer to the

communication addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives

by the Secretary of the Treasury on the 14th of last June, with its

accompanying letter of the Secretary of State, recommending an

appropriation for a commission to study the industrial and commercial

conditions in the Chinese Empire and to report as to the opportunities

for and the obstacles to the enlargement of markets in China for the

raw products and manufactures of the United States. Action was not

taken thereon during the last session. I cordially urge that the

recommendation receive at your hands the consideration which its

importance and timeliness merit."

In his annual message of 1889 he again called attention to this

recommendation, quoting it, and stated further:

"I now renew this recommendation, as the importance of the subject has

steadily grown since it was first submitted to you, and no time should

be lost in studying for ourselves the resources of this great field for

American trade and enterprise."

The importance of securing proper information and data with a view to

the enlargement of our trade with Asia is undiminished. Our consular

representatives in China have strongly urged a place for permanent

display of American products in some prominent trade center of that

Empire, under Government control and management, as an effective means

of advancing our export trade therein. I call the attention of the

Congress to the desirability of carrying out these suggestions.

In dealing with the questions of immigration and naturalization it is

indispensable to keep certain facts ever before the minds of those who

share in enacting the laws. First and foremost, let us remember that

the question of being a good American has nothing whatever to do with a

man's birthplace any more than it has to do with his creed. In every

generation from the time this Government was founded men of foreign

birth have stood in the very foremost rank of good citizenship, and

that not merely in one but in every field of American activity; while

to try to draw a distinction between the man whose parents came to this

country and the man whose ancestors came to it several generations back

is a mere absurdity. Good Americanism is a matter of heart, of

conscience, of lofty aspiration, of sound common sense, but not of

birthplace or of creed. The medal of honor, the highest prize to be won

by those who serve in the Army and the Navy of the United States

decorates men born here, and it also decorates men born in Great

Britain and Ireland, in Germany, in Scandinavia, in France, and

doubtless in other countries also. In the field of statesmanship, in

the field of business, in the field of philanthropic endeavor, it is

equally true that among the men of whom we are most proud as Americans

no distinction whatever can be drawn between those who themselves or

whose parents came over in sailing ship or steamer from across the

water and those whose ancestors stepped ashore into the wooded

wilderness at Plymouth or at the mouth of the Hudson, the Delaware, or

the James nearly three centuries ago. No fellow-citizen of ours is

entitled to any peculiar regard because of the way in which he worships

his Maker, or because of the birthplace of himself or his parents, nor

should he be in any way discriminated against therefor. Each must stand

on his worth as a man and each is entitled to be judged solely thereby.

There is no danger of having too many immigrants of the right kind. It

makes no difference from what country they come. If they are sound in

body and in mind, and, above all, if they are of good character, so

that we can rest assured that their children and grandchildren will be

worthy fellow-citizens of our children and grandchildren, then we

should welcome them with cordial hospitality.

But the citizenship of this country should not be debased. It is vital

that we should keep high the standard of well-being among our

wage-workers, and therefore we should not admit masses of men whose

standards of living and whose personal customs and habits are such that

they tend to lower the level of the American wage-worker; and above all

we should not admit any man of an unworthy type, any man concerning

whom we can say that he will himself be a bad citizen, or that his

children and grandchildren will detract from instead of adding to the

sum of the good citizenship of the country. Similarly we should take

the greatest care about naturalization. Fraudulent naturalization, the

naturalization of improper persons, is a curse to our Government; and

it is the affair of every honest voter, wherever born, to see that no

fraudulent voting is allowed, that no fraud in connection with

naturalization is permitted.

In the past year the cases of false, fraudulent, and improper

naturalization of aliens coming to the attention of the executive

branches of the Government have increased to an alarming degree.

Extensive sales of forged certificates of naturalization have been

discovered, as well as many cases of naturalization secured by perjury

and fraud; and in addition, instances have accumulated showing that

many courts issue certificates of naturalization carelessly and upon

insufficient evidence.

Under the Constitution it is in the power of the Congress "to establish

a uniform rule of naturalization," and numerous laws have from time to

time been enacted for that purpose, which have been supplemented in a

few States by State laws having special application. The Federal

statutes permit naturalization by any court of record in the United

States having common-law jurisdiction and a seal and clerk, except the

police court of the District of Columbia, and nearly all these courts

exercise this important function. It results that where so many courts

of such varying grades have jurisdiction, there is lack of uniformity

in the rules applied in conferring naturalization. Some courts are

strict and others lax. An alien who may secure naturalization in one

place might be denied it in another, and the intent of the

constitutional provision is in fact defeated. Furthermore, the

certificates of naturalization issued by the courts differ widely in

wording and appearance, and when they are brought into use in foreign

countries, are frequently subject to suspicion.

There should be a comprehensive revision of the naturalization laws.

The courts having power to naturalize should be definitely named by

national authority; the testimony upon which naturalization may be

conferred should be definitely prescribed; publication of impending

naturalization applications should be required in advance of their

hearing in court; the form and wording of all certificates issued

should be uniform throughout the country, and the courts should be

required to make returns to the Secretary of State at stated periods of

all naturalizations conferred.

Not only are the laws relating to naturalization now defective, but

those relating to citizenship of the United States ought also to be

made the subject of scientific inquiry with a view to probable further

legislation. By what acts expatriation may be assumed to have been

accomplished, how long an American citizen may reside abroad and

receive the protection of our passport, whether any degree of

protection should be extended to one who has made the declaration of

intention to become a citizen of the United States but has not secured

naturalization, are questions of serious import, involving personal

rights and often producing friction between this Government and foreign

governments. Yet upon these question our laws are silent. I recommend

that an examination be made into the subjects of citizenship,

expatriation, and protection of Americans abroad, with a view to

appropriate legislation.

The power of the Government to protect the integrity of the elections

of its own officials is inherent and has been recognized and affirmed

by repeated declarations of the Supreme Court. There is no enemy of

free government more dangerous and none so insidious as the corruption

of the electorate. No one defends or excuses corruption, and it would

seem to follow that none would oppose vigorous measures to eradicate

it. I recommend the enactment of a law directed against bribery and

corruption in Federal elections. The details of such a law may be

safely left to the wise discretion of the Congress, but it should go as

far as under the Constitution it is possible to go, and should include

severe penalties against him who gives or receives a bribe intended to

influence his act or opinion as an elector; and provisions for the

publication not only of the expenditures for nominations and elections

of all candidates but also of all contributions received and

expenditures made by political committees.

No subject is better worthy the attention of the Congress than that

portion of the report of the Attorney-General dealing with the long

delays and the great obstruction to justice experienced in the cases of

Beavers, Green and Gaynor, and Benson. Were these isolated and special

cases, I should not call your attention to them; but the difficulties

encountered as regards these men who have been indicted for criminal

practices are not exceptional; they are precisely similar in kind to

what occurs again and again in the case of criminals who have

sufficient means to enable them to take advantage of a system of

procedure which has grown up in the Federal courts and which amounts in

effect to making the law easy of enforcement against the man who has no

money, and difficult of enforcement, even to the point of sometimes

securing immunity, as regards the man who has money. In criminal cases

the writ of the United States should run throughout its borders. The

wheels of justice should not be clogged, as they have been clogged in

the cases above mentioned, where it has proved absolutely impossible to

bring the accused to the place appointed by the Constitution for his

trial. Of recent years there has been grave and increasing complaint of

the difficulty of bringing to justice those criminals whose

criminality, instead of being against one person in the Republic, is

against all persons in the Republic, because it is against the Republic

itself. Under any circumstance and from the very nature of the case it

is often exceedingly difficult to secure proper punishment of those who

have been guilty of wrongdoing against the Government. By the time the

offender can be brought into court the popular wrath against him has

generally subsided; and there is in most instances very slight danger

indeed of any prejudice existing in the minds of the jury against him.

At present the interests of the innocent man are amply safeguarded; but

the interests of the Government, that is, the interests of honest

administration, that is the interests of the people, are not recognized

as they should be. No subject better warrants the attention of the

Congress. Indeed, no subject better warrants the attention of the bench

and the bar throughout the United States.

Alaska, like all our Territorial acquisitions, has proved resourceful

beyond the expectations of those who made the purchase. It has become

the home of many hardy, industrious, and thrifty American citizens.

Towns of a permanent character have been built. The extent of its

wealth in minerals, timber, fisheries, and agriculture, while great, is

probably not comprehended yet in any just measure by our people. We do

know, however, that from a very small beginning its products have grown

until they are a steady and material contribution to the wealth of the

nation. Owing to the immensity of Alaska and its location in the far

north, it is a difficult matter to provide many things essential to its

growth and to the happiness and comfort of its people by private

enterprise alone. It should, therefore, receive reasonable aid from the

Government. The Government has already done excellent work for Alaska

in laying cables and building telegraph lines. This work has been done

in the most economical and efficient way by the Signal Corps of the

Army.

In some respects it has outgrown its present laws, while in others

those laws have been found to be inadequate. In order to obtain

information upon which I could rely I caused an official of the

Department of Justice, in whose judgment I have confidence, to visit

Alaska during the past summer for the purpose of ascertaining how

government is administered there and what legislation is actually

needed at present. A statement of the conditions found to exist,

together with some recommendations and the reasons therefor, in which I

strongly concur, will be found in the annual report of the

Attorney-General. In some instances I feel that the legislation

suggested is so imperatively needed that I am moved briefly to

emphasize the Attorney-General's proposals.

Under the Code of Alaska as it now stands many purely administrative

powers and duties, including by far the most important, devolve upon

the district judges or upon the clerks of the district court acting

under the direction of the judges, while the governor, upon whom these

powers and duties should logically fall, has nothing specific to do

except to make annual reports, issue Thanksgiving Day proclamations,

and appoint Indian policemen and notaries public. I believe it

essential to good government in Alaska, and therefore recommend, that

the Congress divest the district judges and the clerks of their courts

of the administrative or executive functions that they now exercise and

cast them upon the governor. This would not be an innovation; it would

simply conform the government of Alaska to fundamental principles,

making the governorship a real instead of a merely nominal office, and

leaving the judges free to give their entire attention to their

judicial duties and at the same time removing them from a great deal of

the strife that now embarrasses the judicial office in Alaska.

I also recommend that the salaries of the district judges and district

attorneys in Alaska be increased so as to make them equal to those

received by corresponding officers in the United States after deducting

the difference in the cost of living; that the district attorneys

should be prohibited from engaging in private practice; that United

States commissioners be appointed by the governor of the Territory

instead of by the district judges, and that a fixed salary be provided

for them to take the place of the discredited "fee system," which

should be abolished in all offices; that a mounted constabulary be

created to police the territory outside the limits of incorporated

towns--a vast section now wholly without police protection; and that

some provision be made to at least lessen the oppressive delays and

costs that now attend the prosecution of appeals from the district

court of Alaska. There should be a division of the existing judicial

districts, and an increase in the number of judges.

Alaska should have a Delegate in the Congress. Where possible, the

Congress should aid in the construction of needed wagon roads.

Additional light-houses should be provided. In my judgment, it is

especially important to aid in such manner as seems just and feasible

in the construction of a trunk line of railway to connect the Gulf of

Alaska with the Yukon River through American territory. This would be

most beneficial to the development of the resources of the Territory,

and to the comfort and welfare of its people.

Salmon hatcheries should be established in many different streams, so

as to secure the preservation of this valuable food fish. Salmon

fisheries and canneries should be prohibited on certain of the rivers

where the mass of those Indians dwell who live almost exclusively on

fish.

The Alaskan natives are kindly, intelligent, anxious to learn, and

willing to work. Those who have come under the influence of

civilization, even for a limited period, have proved their capability

of becoming self-supporting, self-respecting citizens, and ask only for

the just enforcement of law and intelligent instruction and

supervision. Others, living in more remote regions, primitive, simple

hunters and fisher folk, who know only the life of the woods and the

waters, are daily being confronted with twentieth-century civilization

with all of its complexities. Their country is being overrun by

strangers, the game slaughtered and driven away, the streams depleted

of fish, and hitherto unknown and fatal diseases brought to them, all

of which combine to produce a state of abject poverty and want which

must result in their extinction. Action in their interest is demanded

by every consideration of justice and humanity.

The needs of these people are:

The abolition of the present fee system, whereby the native is

degraded, imposed upon, and taught the injustice of law.

The establishment of hospitals at central points, so that contagious

diseases that are brought to them continually by incoming whites may be

localized and not allowed to become epidemic, to spread death and

destitution over great areas.

The development of the educational system in the form of practical

training in such industries as will assure the Indians self-support

under the changed conditions in which they will have to live.

The duties of the office of the governor should be extended to include

the supervision of Indian affairs, with necessary assistants in

different districts. He should be provided with the means and the power

to protect and advise the native people, to furnish medical treatment

in time of epidemics, and to extend material relief in periods of

famine and extreme destitution.

The Alaskan natives should be given the right to acquire, hold, and

dispose of property upon the same conditions as given other

inhabitants; and the privilege of citizenship should be given to such

as may be able to meet certain definite requirements. In Hawaii

Congress should give the governor power to remove all the officials

appointed under him. The harbor of Honolulu should be dredged. The

Marine-Hospital Service should be empowered to study leprosy in the

islands. I ask special consideration for the report and recommendation

of the governor of Porto Rico.

In treating of our foreign policy and of the attitude that this great

Nation should assume in the world at large, it is absolutely necessary

to consider the Army and the Navy, and the Congress, through which the

thought of the Nation finds its expression, should keep ever vividly in

mind the fundamental fact that it is impossible to treat our foreign

policy, whether this policy takes shape in the effort to secure justice

for others or justice for ourselves, save as conditioned upon the

attitude we are willing to take toward our Army, and especially toward

our Navy. It is not merely unwise, it is contemptible, for a nation, as

for an individual, to use high-sounding language to proclaim its

purposes, or to take positions which are ridiculous if unsupported by

potential force, and then to refuse to provide this force. If there is

no intention of providing and of keeping the force necessary to back up

a strong attitude, then it is far better not to assume such an

attitude.

The steady aim of this Nation, as of all enlightened nations, should be

to strive to bring ever nearer the day when there shall prevail

throughout the world the peace of justice. There are kinds of peace

which are highly undesirable, which are in the long run as destructive

as any war. Tyrants and oppressors have many times made a wilderness

and called it peace. Many times peoples who were slothful or timid or

shortsighted, who had been enervated by ease or by luxury, or misled by

false teachings, have shrunk in unmanly fashion from doing duty that

was stern and that needed self-sacrifice, and have sought to hide from

their own minds their shortcomings, their ignoble motives, by calling

them love of peace. The peace of tyrannous terror, the peace of craven

weakness, the peace of injustice, all these should be shunned as we

shun unrighteous war. The goal to set before us as a nation, the goal

which should be set before all mankind, is the attainment of the peace

of justice, of the peace which comes when each nation is not merely

safe-guarded in its own rights, but scrupulously recognizes and

performs its duty toward others. Generally peace tells for

righteousness; but if there is conflict between the two, then our

fealty is due-first to the cause of righteousness. Unrighteous wars are

common, and unrighteous peace is rare; but both should be shunned. The

right of freedom and the responsibility for the exercise of that right

can not be divorced. One of our great poets has well and finely said

that freedom is not a gift that tarries long in the hands of cowards.

Neither does it tarry long in the hands of those too slothful, too

dishonest, or too unintelligent to exercise it. The eternal vigilance

which is the price of liberty must be exercised, sometimes to guard

against outside foes; although of course far more often to guard

against our own selfish or thoughtless shortcomings.

If these self-evident truths are kept before us, and only if they are

so kept before us, we shall have a clear idea of what our foreign

policy in its larger aspects should be. It is our duty to remember that

a nation has no more right to do injustice to another nation, strong or

weak, than an individual has to do injustice to another individual;

that the same moral law applies in one case as in the other. But we

must also remember that it is as much the duty of the Nation to guard

its own rights and its own interests as it is the duty of the

individual so to do. Within the Nation the individual has now delegated

this right to the State, that is, to the representative of all the

individuals, and it is a maxim of the law that for every wrong there is

a remedy. But in international law we have not advanced by any means as

far as we have advanced in municipal law. There is as yet no judicial

way of enforcing a right in international law. When one nation wrongs

another or wrongs many others, there is no tribunal before which the

wrongdoer can be brought. Either it is necessary supinely to acquiesce

in the wrong, and thus put a premium upon brutality and aggression, or

else it is necessary for the aggrieved nation valiantly to stand up for

its rights. Until some method is devised by which there shall be a

degree of international control over offending nations, it would be a

wicked thing for the most civilized powers, for those with most sense

of international obligations and with keenest and most generous

appreciation of the difference between right and wrong, to disarm. If

the great civilized nations of the present day should completely

disarm, the result would mean an immediate recrudescence of barbarism

in one form or another. Under any circumstances a sufficient armament

would have to be kept up to serve the purposes of international police;

and until international cohesion and the sense of international duties

and rights are far more advanced than at present, a nation desirous

both of securing respect for itself and of doing good to others must

have a force adequate for the work which it feels is allotted to it as

its part of the general world duty. Therefore it follows that a

self-respecting, just, and far-seeing nation should on the one hand

endeavor by every means to aid in the development of the various

movements which tend to provide substitutes for war, which tend to

render nations in their actions toward one another, and indeed toward

their own peoples, more responsive to the general sentiment of humane

and civilized mankind; and on the other hand that it should keep

prepared, while scrupulously avoiding wrongdoing itself, to repel any

wrong, and in exceptional cases to take action which in a more advanced

stage of international relations would come under the head of the

exercise of the international police. A great free people owes it to

itself and to all mankind not to sink into helplessness before the

powers of evil.

We are in every way endeavoring to help on, with cordial good will,

every movement which will tend to bring us into more friendly relations

with the rest of mankind. In pursuance of this policy I shall shortly

lay before the Senate treaties of arbitration with all powers which are

willing to enter into these treaties with us. It is not possible at

this period of the world's development to agree to arbitrate all

matters, but there are many matters of possible difference between us

and other nations which can be thus arbitrated. Furthermore, at the

request of the Interparliamentary Union, an eminent body composed of

practical statesmen from all countries, I have asked the Powers to join

with this Government in a second Hague conference, at which it is hoped

that the work already so happily begun at The Hague may be carried some

steps further toward completion. This carries out the desire expressed

by the first Hague conference itself.

It is not true that the United States feels any land hunger or

entertains any projects as regards the other nations of the Western

Hemisphere save such as are for their welfare. All that this country

desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and

prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count

upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act

with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters,

if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no

interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an

impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized

society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention

by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence

of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United

States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or

impotence, to the exercise of an international police power. If every

country washed by the Caribbean Sea would show the progress in stable

and just civilization which with the aid of the Platt amendment Cuba

has shown since our troops left the island, and which so many of the

republics in both Americas are constantly and brilliantly showing, all

question of interference by this Nation with their affairs would be at

an end. Our interests and those of our southern neighbors are in

reality identical. They have great natural riches, and if within their

borders the reign of law and justice obtains, prosperity is sure to

come to them. While they thus obey the primary laws of civilized

society they may rest assured that they will be treated by us in a

spirit of cordial and helpful sympathy. We would interfere with them

only in the last resort, and then only if it became evident that their

inability or unwillingness to do justice at home and abroad had

violated the rights of the United States or had invited foreign

aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations. It

is a mere truism to say that every nation, whether in America or

anywhere else, which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence,

must ultimately realize that the right of such independence can not be

separated from the responsibility of making good use of it.

In asserting the Monroe Doctrine, in taking such steps as we have taken

in regard to Cuba, Venezuela, and Panama, and in endeavoring to

circumscribe the theater of war in the Far East, and to secure the open

door in China, we have acted in our own interest as well as in the

interest of humanity at large. There are, however, cases in which,

while our own interests are not greatly involved, strong appeal is made

to our sympathies. Ordinarily it is very much wiser and more useful for

us to concern ourselves with striving for our own moral and material

betterment here at home than to concern ourselves with trying to better

the condition of things in other nations. We have plenty of sins of our

own to war against, and under ordinary circumstances we can do more for

the general uplifting of humanity by striving with heart and soul to

put a stop to civic corruption, to brutal lawlessness and violent race

prejudices here at home than by passing resolutions about wrongdoing

elsewhere. Nevertheless there are occasional crimes committed on so

vast a scale and of such peculiar horror as to make us doubt whether it

is not our manifest duty to endeavor at least to show our disapproval

of the deed and our sympathy with those who have suffered by it. The

cases must be extreme in which such a course is justifiable. There must

be no effort made to remove the mote from our brother's eye if we

refuse to remove the beam from our own. But in extreme cases action may

be justifiable and proper. What form the action shall take must depend

upon the circumstances of the case; that is, upon the degree of the

atrocity and upon our power to remedy it. The cases in which we could

interfere by force of arms as we interfered to put a stop to

intolerable conditions in Cuba are necessarily very few. Yet it is not

to be expected that a people like ours, which in spite of certain very

obvious shortcomings, nevertheless as a whole shows by its consistent

practice its belief in the principles of civil and religious liberty

and of orderly freedom, a people among whom even the worst crime, like

the crime of lynching, is never more than sporadic, so that individuals

and not classes are molested in their fundamental rights--it is

inevitable that such a nation should desire eagerly to give expression

to its horror on an occasion like that of the massacre of the Jews in

Kishenef, or when it witnesses such systematic and long-extended

cruelty and oppression as the cruelty and oppression of which the

Armenians have been the victims, and which have won for them the

indignant pity of the civilized world.

Even where it is not possible to secure in other nations the observance

of the principles which we accept as axiomatic, it is necessary for us

firmly to insist upon the rights of our own citizens without regard to

their creed or race; without regard to whether they were born here or

born abroad. It has proved very difficult to secure from Russia the

right for our Jewish fellow-citizens to receive passports and travel

through Russian territory. Such conduct is not only unjust and

irritating toward us, but it is difficult to see its wisdom from

Russia's standpoint. No conceivable good is accomplished by it. If an

American Jew or an American Christian misbehaves himself in Russia he

can at once be driven out; but the ordinary American Jew, like the

ordinary American Christian, would behave just about as he behaves

here, that is, behave as any good citizen ought to behave; and where

this is the case it is a wrong against which we are entitled to protest

to refuse him his passport without regard to his conduct and character,

merely on racial and religious grounds. In Turkey our difficulties

arise less from the way in which our citizens are sometimes treated

than from the indignation inevitably excited in seeing such fearful

misrule as has been witnessed both in Armenia and Macedonia.

The strong arm of the Government in enforcing respect for its just

rights in international matters is the Navy of the United States. I

most earnestly recommend that there be no halt in the work of

upbuilding the American Navy. There is no more patriotic duty before us

a people than to keep the Navy adequate to the needs of this country's

position. We have undertaken to build the Isthmian Canal. We have

undertaken to secure for ourselves our just share in the trade of the

Orient. We have undertaken to protect our citizens from proper

treatment in foreign lands. We continue steadily to insist on the

application of the Monroe Doctrine to the Western Hemisphere. Unless

our attitude in these and all similar matters is to be a mere boastful

sham we can not afford to abandon our naval programme. Our voice is now

potent for peace, and is so potent because we are not afraid of war.

But our protestations upon behalf of peace would neither receive nor

deserve the slightest attention if we were impotent to make them good.

The war which now unfortunately rages in the far East has emphasized in

striking fashion the new possibilities of naval warfare. The lessons

taught are both strategic and tactical, and are political as well as

military. The experiences of the war have shown in conclusive fashion

that while sea-going and sea-keeping torpedo destroyers are

indispensable, and fast lightly armed and armored cruisers very useful,

yet that the main reliance, the main standby, in any navy worthy the

name must be the great battle ships, heavily armored and heavily

gunned. Not a Russian or Japanese battle ship has been sunk by a

torpedo boat, or by gunfire, while among the less protected ships,

cruiser after cruiser has been destroyed whenever the hostile squadrons

have gotten within range of one another's weapons. There will always be

a large field of usefulness for cruisers, especially of the more

formidable type. We need to increase the number of torpedo-boat

destroyers, paying less heed to their having a knot or two extra speed

than to their capacity to keep the seas for weeks, and, if necessary,

for months at a time. It is wise to build submarine torpedo boats, as

under certain circumstances they might be very useful. But most of all

we need to continue building our fleet of battle ships, or ships so

powerfully armed that they can inflict the maximum of damage upon our

opponents, and so well protected that they can suffer a severe

hammering in return without fatal impairment of their ability to fight

and maneuver. Of course ample means must be provided for enabling the

personnel of the Navy to be brought to the highest point of efficiency.

Our great fighting ships and torpedo boats must be ceaselessly trained

and maneuvered in squadrons. The officers and men can only learn their

trade thoroughly by ceaseless practice on the high seas. In the event

of war it would be far better to have no ships at all than to have

ships of a poor and ineffective type, or ships which, however good,

were yet manned by untrained and unskillful crews. The best officers

and men in a poor ship could do nothing against fairly good opponents;

and on the other hand a modern war ship is useless unless the officers

and men aboard her have become adepts in their duties. The marksmanship

in our Navy has improved in an extraordinary degree during the last

three years, and on the whole the types of our battleships are

improving; but much remains to be done. Sooner or later we shall have

to provide for some method by which there will be promotions for merit

as well as for seniority, or else retirement all those who after a

certain age have not advanced beyond a certain grade; while no effort

must be spared to make the service attractive to the enlisted men in

order that they may be kept as long as possible in it. Reservation

public schools should be provided wherever there are navy-yards.

Within the last three years the United States has set an example in

disarmament where disarmament was proper. By law our Army is fixed at a

maximum of one hundred thousand and a minimum of sixty thousand men.

When there was insurrection in the Philippines we kept the Army at the

maximum. Peace came in the Philippines, and now our Army has been

reduced to the minimum at which it is possible to keep it with due

regard to its efficiency. The guns now mounted require twenty-eight

thousand men, if the coast fortifications are to be adequately manned.

Relatively to the Nation, it is not now so large as the police force of

New York or Chicago relatively to the population of either city. We

need more officers; there are not enough to perform the regular army

work. It is very important that the officers of the Army should be

accustomed to handle their men in masses, as it is also important that

the National Guard of the several States should be accustomed to actual

field maneuvering, especially in connection with the regulars. For this

reason we are to be congratulated upon the success of the field

maneuvers at Manassas last fall, maneuvers in which a larger number of

Regulars and National Guard took part than was ever before assembled

together in time of peace. No other civilized nation has, relatively to

its population, such a diminutive Army as ours; and while the Army is

so small we are not to be excused if we fail to keep it at a very high

grade of proficiency. It must be incessantly practiced; the standard

for the enlisted men should be kept very high, while at the same time

the service should be made as attractive as possible; and the standard

for the officers should be kept even higher--which, as regards the

upper ranks, can best be done by introducing some system of selection

and rejection into the promotions. We should be able, in the event of

some sudden emergency, to put into the field one first-class army

corps, which should be, as a whole, at least the equal of any body of

troops of like number belonging to any other nation.

Great progress has been made in protecting our coasts by adequate

fortifications with sufficient guns. We should, however, pay much more

heed than at present to the development of an extensive system of

floating mines for use in all our more important harbors. These mines

have been proved to be a most formidable safeguard against hostile

fleets.

I earnestly call the attention of the Congress to the need of amending

the existing law relating to the award of Congressional medals of honor

in the Navy so as to provide that they may be awarded to commissioned

officers and warrant officers as well as to enlisted men. These justly

prized medals are given in the Army alike to the officers and the

enlisted men, and it is most unjust that the commissioned officers and

warrant officers of the Navy should not in this respect have the same

rights as their brethren in the Army and as the enlisted men of the

Navy.

In the Philippine Islands there has been during the past year a

continuation of the steady progress which has obtained ever since our

troops definitely got the upper hand of the insurgents. The Philippine

people, or, to speak more accurately, the many tribes, and even races,

sundered from one another more or less sharply, who go to make up the

people of the Philippine Islands, contain many elements of good, and

some elements which we have a right to hope stand for progress. At

present they are utterly incapable of existing in independence at all

or of building up a civilization of their own. I firmly believe that we

can help them to rise higher and higher in the scale of civilization

and of capacity for self-government, and I most earnestly hope that in

the end they will be able to stand, if not entirely alone, yet in some

such relation to the United States as Cuba now stands. This end is not

yet in sight, and it may be indefinitely postponed if our people are

foolish enough to turn the attention of the Filipinos away from the

problems of achieving moral and material prosperity, of working for a

stable, orderly, and just government, and toward foolish and dangerous

intrigues for a complete independence for which they are as yet totally

unfit.

On the other hand our people must keep steadily before their minds the

fact that the justification for our stay in the Philippines must

ultimately rest chiefly upon the good we are able to do in the islands.

I do not overlook the fact that in the development of our interests in

the Pacific Ocean and along its coasts, the Philippines have played and

will play an important part; and that our interests have been served in

more than one way by the possession of the islands. But our chief

reason for continuing to hold them must be that we ought in good faith

to try to do our share of the world's work, and this particular piece

of work has been imposed upon us by the results of the war with Spain.

The problem presented to us in the Philippine Islands is akin to, but

not exactly like, the problems presented to the other great civilized

powers which have possessions in the Orient. There are points of

resemblance in our work to the work which is being done by the British

in India and Egypt, by the French in Algiers, by the Dutch in Java, by

the Russians in Turkestan, by the Japanese in Formosa; but more

distinctly than any of these powers we are endeavoring to develop the

natives themselves so that they shall take an ever-increasing share in

their own government, and as far as is prudent we are already admitting

their representatives to a governmental equality with our own. There

are commissioners, judges, and governors in the islands who are

Filipinos and who have exactly the same share in the government of the

islands as have their colleagues who are Americans, while in the lower

ranks, of course, the great majority of the public servants are

Filipinos. Within two years we shall be trying the experiment of an

elective lower house in the Philippine legislature. It may be that the

Filipinos will misuse this legislature, and they certainly will misuse

it if they are misled by foolish persons here at home into starting an

agitation for their own independence or into any factious or improper

action. In such case they will do themselves no good and will stop for

the time being all further effort to advance them and give them a

greater share in their own government. But if they act with wisdom and

self-restraint, if they show that they are capable of electing a

legislature which in its turn is capable of taking a sane and efficient

part in the actual work of government, they can rest assured that a

full and increasing measure of recognition will be given them. Above

all they should remember that their prime needs are moral and

industrial, not political. It is a good thing to try the experiment of

giving them a legislature; but it is a far better thing to give them

schools, good roads, railroads which will enable them to get their

products to market, honest courts, an honest and efficient

constabulary, and all that tends to produce order, peace, fair dealing

as between man and man, and habits of intelligent industry and thrift.

If they are safeguarded against oppression, and if their real wants,

material and spiritual, are studied intelligently and in a spirit of

friendly sympathy, much more good will be done them than by any effort

to give them political power, though this effort may in its own proper

time and place be proper enough.

Meanwhile our own people should remember that there is need for the

highest standard of conduct among the Americans sent to the Philippine

Islands, not only among the public servants but among the private

individuals who go to them. It is because I feel this so deeply that in

the administration of these islands I have positively refused to permit

any discrimination whatsoever for political reasons and have insisted

that in choosing the public servants consideration should be paid

solely to the worth of the men chosen and to the needs of the islands.

There is no higher body of men in our public service than we have in

the Philippine Islands under Governor Wright and his associates. So far

as possible these men should be given a free hand, and their

suggestions should receive the hearty backing both of the Executive and

of the Congress. There is need of a vigilant and disinterested support

of our public servants in the Philippines by good citizens here in the

United States. Unfortunately hitherto those of our people here at home

who have specially claimed to be the champions of the Filipinos have in

reality been their worst enemies. This will continue to be the case as

long as they strive to make the Filipinos independent, and stop all

industrial development of the islands by crying out against the laws

which would bring it on the ground that capitalists must not "exploit"

the islands. Such proceedings are not only unwise, but are most harmful

to the Filipinos, who do not need independence at all, but who do need

good laws, good public servants, and the industrial development that

can only come if the investment, of American and foreign capital in the

islands is favored in all legitimate ways.

Every measure taken concerning the islands should be taken primarily

with a view to their advantage. We should certainly give them lower

tariff rates on their exports to the United States; if this is not done

it will be a wrong to extend our shipping laws to them. I earnestly

hope for the immediate enactment into law of the legislation now

pending to encourage American capital to seek investment in the islands

in railroads, in factories, in plantations, and in lumbering and

mining.

***

State of the Union Address

Theodore Roosevelt

December 5, 1905

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

The people of this country continue to enjoy great prosperity.

Undoubtedly there will be ebb and flow in such prosperity, and this ebb

and flow will be felt more or less by all members of the community,

both by the deserving and the undeserving. Against the wrath of the

Lord the wisdom of man cannot avail; in time 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 danger 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 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 insure 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 today, 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 cannot 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 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 willful 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 employes, 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 law-makers 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 employes 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 insure 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 a 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, but 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 cannot 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 employes

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 employes 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 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 cannot 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 today are those who

tomorrow will shape the destiny of our land, and we cannot 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

of 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 employe

interested, but 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 employe, 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 farseeing 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 cannot 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 cannot 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 cannot 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 cannot constitutionally be extended

to cover interstate transactions in insurance."