I accept the nomination for the Presidency tendered me by the
Republican National Convention, and cordially approve the platform
adopted by it. In writing this letter there are certain points upon
which I desire to lay especial stress.
It is difficult to find out from the utterances of our opponents what
are the real issues upon which they propose to wage this campaign. It
is not unfair to say that, having abandoned most of the principles
upon which they have insisted during the last eight years, they now
seem at a loss, both as to what it is that they really believe, and
as to how firmly they shall assert their belief in anything. In fact,
it is doubtful if they venture resolutely to press a single issue; as
soon as they raise one they shrink from it and seek to explain it away.
Such an attitude is the probably inevitable result of the effort to
improvise convictions; for when thus improvised, it is natural that
they should be held in a tentative manner.
The party now in control of the Government is troubled by no such
difficulties. We do not have to guess at our own convictions, and
then correct the guess if it seems unpopular. The principles which we
profess are those in which we believe with heart and soul and strength.
Men may differ from us; but they can not accuse us of shiftiness or
insincerity. The policies we have pursued are those which we earnestly
hold as essential to the national welfare and repute. Our actions
speak even louder than our words for the faith that is in us. We base
our appeal upon what we have done and are doing, upon our record of
administration and legislation during the last seven years, in which we
have had complete control of the Government. We intend in the future to
carry on the Government in the same way that we have carried it on in
the past.
* * * * *
A party whose members are radically at variance on most vital issues,
and if united at all, are only united on issues where their attitude
threatens widespread disaster to the whole country, can not be trusted
to govern in any matter. A party which, with facile ease, changes all
its convictions before election can not be trusted to adhere with
tenacity to any principle after election. A party fit to govern must
have convictions. In 1896 the Republican party came into power, and
in 1900 it retained power on certain definite pledges, each of which
was scrupulously fulfilled. But in addition to meeting and solving the
problems which were issues in these campaigns, it also became necessary
to meet other problems which arose after election; and it is no small
part of our claim to public confidence that these were solved with the
same success that had attended the solution of those concerning which
the battles at the polls were fought. In other words, our governmental
efficiency proved equal not only to the tasks that were anticipated,
but to doing each unanticipated task as it arose.
When the contest of 1896 was decided, the question of the war with
Spain was not an issue. When the contest of 1900 was decided, the shape
which the Isthmian Canal question ultimately took could not have been
foreseen. But the same qualities which enabled those responsible for
making and administering the laws at Washington to deal successfully
with the tariff and the currency, enabled them also to deal with the
Spanish War; and the same qualities which enabled them to act wisely
in the Philippines, and in Cuba, also enabled them to do their duty
as regards the problems connected with the trusts, and to secure the
building of the Isthmian Canal. We are content to rest our case before
the American people upon the fact that to adherence to a lofty ideal we
have added proved governmental efficiency. Therefore, our promises may
surely be trusted as regards any issue that is now before the people;
and we may equally be trusted to deal with any problem which may
hereafter arise.
So well has the work been done that our opponents do not venture to
recite the facts about our policies or acts and then oppose them.
They attack them only when they have first misrepresented them; for a
truthful recital would leave no room for adverse comment.
* * * * *
Panama offers an instance in point. Our opponents can criticise what
we did in Panama only on condition of misstating what was done. The
Administration behaved throughout not only with good faith, but with
extraordinary patience and large generosity toward those with whom
it dealt. It was also mindful of American interests. It acted in
strict compliance with the law passed by Congress. Had not Panama been
promptly recognized, and the transit across the Isthmus kept open, in
accordance with our treaty rights and obligations, there would have
ensued endless guerilla warfare and possibly foreign complications;
while all chance of building the canal would have been deferred,
certainly for years, perhaps for a generation or more. Criticism of
the action in this matter is simply criticism of the only possible
action which could have secured the building of the canal; as well
as the peace and quiet which we were, by treaty, bound to preserve
along the line of transit across the Isthmus. The service rendered
this country in securing the perpetual right to construct, maintain,
operate, and defend the canal was so great that our opponents do not
venture to raise the issue in straightforward fashion; for if so raised
there would be no issue. The decisive action which brought about this
beneficent result was the exercise by the President of the powers
vested in him, and in him alone, by the Constitution; the power to
recognize foreign Governments by entering into diplomatic relations
with them, and the power to make treaties which, when ratified by
the Senate, become under the Constitution part of the supreme law of
the land. Neither in this nor in any other matter has there been the
slightest failure to live up to the Constitution in letter and in
spirit. But the Constitution must be observed positively as well as
negatively. The President’s duty is to serve the country in accordance
with the Constitution; and I should be derelict in my duty if I used
a false construction of the Constitution as a shield for weakness and
timidity, or as an excuse for governmental impotence.
* * * * *
Similar misrepresentation is the one weapon of our opponents in regard
to our foreign policy, and the way the Navy has been made useful in
carrying out this policy. Here again all that we ask is that they
truthfully state what has been done, and then say whether or not
they object to it; for if continued in power we shall continue our
foreign policy and our handling of the Navy on exactly the same lines
in the future as in the past. To what phase of our foreign policy,
and to what use of the Navy, do our opponents object? Do they object
to the way in which the Monroe Doctrine has been strengthened and
upheld? Never before has this doctrine been acquiesced in abroad as
it is now; and yet, while upholding the rights of the weaker American
republics against foreign aggression, the Administration has lost no
opportunity to point out to these republics that those who seek equity
should come with clean hands, and that whoever claims liberty as a
right must accept the responsibilities that go with the exercise of the
right. Do our opponents object to what was done in reference to the
petition of American citizens against the Kishineff massacre? or to
the protest against the treatment of the Jews in Roumania? or to the
efforts that have been made in behalf of the Armenians in Turkey? No
other Administration in our history, no other Government in the world,
has more consistently stood for the broadest spirit of brotherhood in
our common humanity, or has held a more resolute attitude of protest
against every wrong that outraged the civilization of the age at home
or abroad. Do our opponents object to the fact that the international
tribunal at The Hague was rescued from impotence, and turned into a
potent instrument for peace among the nations? This Government has
used that tribunal, and advocated its use by others, in pursuance of
its policy to promote the cause of international peace and goodwill
by all honorable methods. In carrying out this policy, it has settled
dispute after dispute by arbitration or by friendly agreement. It has
behaved toward all nations, strong or weak, with courtesy, dignity, and
justice; and it is now on excellent terms with all.
Do our opponents object to the settlement of the Alaska boundary
line? Do they object to the fact that after freeing Cuba we gave her
reciprocal trade advantages with the United States, while at the same
time keeping naval stations in the island and providing against its
sinking into chaos, or being conquered by any foreign Power? Do they
object to the fact that our flag now flies over Porto Rico? Do they
object to the acquisition of Hawaii? Once they “hauled down” our flag
there; we have hoisted it again; do they intend once more to haul it
down? Do they object to the part we played in China? Do they not know
that the voice of the United States would now count for nothing in the
Far East if we had abandoned the Philippines and refused to do what
was done in China? Do they object to the fact that this Government
secured a peaceful settlement of the troubles in Venezuela two years
ago? Do they object to the presence of the ship-of-war off Colon when
the revolution broke out in Panama, and when only the presence of
this ship saved the lives of American citizens, and prevented insult
to the flag? Do they object to the fact that American warships
appeared promptly at the port of Beirut when an effort had been made
to assassinate an American official, and in the port of Tangier when
an American citizen had been abducted? and that in each case the wrong
complained of was righted and expiated? and that within the last few
days the visit of an American squadron to Smyrna was followed by
the long-delayed concession of their just rights to those Americans
concerned in educational work in Turkey? Do they object to the trade
treaty with China, so full of advantage for the American people in the
future? Do they object to the fact that the ships carrying the national
flag now have a higher standard than ever before in marksmanship
and in seamanship, as individual units and as component parts of
squadrons and fleets? If they object to any or all of these things,
we join issue with them. Our foreign policy has been not only highly
advantageous to the United States, but hardly less advantageous to the
world as a whole. Peace and goodwill have followed in its footsteps.
The Government has shown itself no less anxious to respect the rights
of others than insistent that the rights of Americans be respected
in return. As for the Navy, it has been and is now the most potent
guarantee of peace; and it is such chiefly because it is formidable,
and ready for use.
* * * * *
When our opponents speak of “encroachments” by the Executive upon
the authority of Congress or the Judiciary, apparently the act they
ordinarily have in view is Pension Order No. 78, issued under the
authority of existing law. This order directed that hereafter any
veteran of the Civil War who had reached the age of sixty-two should
be presumptively entitled to the pension of six dollars a month, given
under the dependent pension law to those whose capacity to earn their
livelihood by manual labor has been decreased fifty per cent, and that
by the time the age of seventy was reached the presumption should be
that the physical disability was complete; the age being treated as an
evidential fact in each case. This order was made in the performance
of a duty imposed upon the President by an act of Congress, which
requires the Executive to make regulations to govern the subordinates
of the Pension Office in determining who are entitled to pensions.
President Cleveland had already exercised this power by a regulation
which declared that seventy-five should be set as the age at which
total disability should be conclusively presumed. Similarly, President
McKinley established sixty-five as the age at which half disability
should be conclusively presumed. The regulation now in question, in the
exercise of the same power, supplemented these regulations made under
Presidents Cleveland and McKinley.
The men who fought for union and for liberty in the years from 1861 to
1865 not only saved this Nation from ruin, but rendered an inestimable
service to all mankind. We of the United States owe the fact that
to-day we have a country to what they did; and the Nation has decreed
by law that no one of them, if disabled from earning his own living,
shall lack the pension to which he is entitled, not only as a matter
of gratitude, but as a matter of justice. It is the policy of the
Republican party, steadily continued through many years, to treat the
veterans of the Civil War in a spirit of broad liberality. The order
in question carried out this policy, and is justified not merely on
legal grounds, but also on grounds of public morality. It is a matter
of common knowledge that when the average man who depends for his
wages upon bodily labor has reached the age of sixty-two his earning
ability is in all probability less by half than it was when he was in
his prime; and that by the time he has reached the age of seventy he
has probably lost all earning ability. If there is doubt upon this
point let the doubter examine the employees doing manual labor in any
great manufactory or any great railroad, and find out how large is
the proportion of men between the ages of sixty-two and seventy, and
whether these men are still employed at the highly paid tasks which
they did in their prime. As a matter of fact, many railroads pension
their employees when they have reached these ages, and in nations where
old-age pensions prevail they always begin somewhere between the two
limits thus set. It is easy to test our opponents’ sincerity in this
matter. The order in question is revocable at the pleasure of the
Executive. If our opponents come into power they can revoke this order
and announce that they will treat the veterans of sixty-two to seventy
as presumably in full bodily vigor and not entitled to pensions. Will
they now authoritatively state that they intend to do this? If so, we
accept the issue. If not, then we have the right to ask why they raise
an issue which, when raised, they do not venture to meet.
* * * * *
In addition to those acts of the Administration which they venture to
assail only after misrepresenting them, there are others which they
dare not overtly or officially attack, and yet which they covertly
bring forward as reasons for the overthrow of the party. In certain
great centres and with certain great interests our opponents make
every effort to show that the settlement of the Anthracite Coal Strike
by the individual act of the President, and the successful suit
against the Northern Securities Company—the Merger suit—undertaken
by the Department of Justice, were acts because of which the present
Administration should be thrown from power. Yet they dare not openly
condemn either act. They dare not in any authoritative or formal manner
say that in either case wrong was done or error committed in the method
of action, or in the choice of instruments for putting that action into
effect. But what they dare not manfully assert in open day, they seek
to use furtively and through special agents. It is perhaps natural that
an attack so conducted should be made sometimes on the ground that too
much, sometimes on the ground that too little, has been done. Some
of our opponents complain because under the anti-trust and interstate
commerce laws suits were undertaken which have been successful; others,
because suits were not undertaken which would have been unsuccessful.
The Democratic State Convention in New York dealt with the Anthracite
Coal Strike by demanding in deliberate and formal fashion that the
National Government should take possession of the coal fields; yet
champions of that convention’s cause now condemn the fact that there
was any action by the President at all—though they must know that it
was only this action by the President which prevented the movement for
national ownership of the coal fields from gaining what might well have
been an irresistible impetus. Such mutually destructive criticisms
furnish an adequate measure of the chance for coherent action or
constructive legislation if our opponents should be given power.
* * * * *
So much for what our opponents openly or covertly advance in the
way of an attack on the acts of the Administration. When we come to
consider the policies for which they profess to stand we are met with
the difficulty always arising when statements of policy are so made
that they can be interpreted in different ways. On some of the vital
questions that have confronted the American people in the last decade,
our opponents take the position that silence is the best possible
way to convey their views. They contend that their lukewarm attitude
of partial acquiescence in what others have accomplished entitles
them to be made the custodians of the financial honor and commercial
interests which they have but recently sought to ruin. Being unable to
agree among themselves as to whether the gold standard is a curse or
a blessing, and as to whether we ought or ought not to have free and
unlimited coinage of silver, they have apparently thought it expedient
to avoid any committal on these subjects, and individually each to
follow his particular bent. Their nearest approach to a majority
judgment seems to be that it is now inexpedient to assert their
convictions one way or the other, and that the establishment of the
gold standard by the Republican party should not be disturbed unless
there is an alteration in the relative quantity of production of silver
and gold. Men who hold sincere convictions on vital questions can
respect equally sincere men with whose views they radically differ; and
men may confess a change of faith without compromising their honor or
their self-respect. But it is difficult to respect an attitude of mind
such as has been fairly described above; and where there is no respect
there can be no trust. A policy with so slender a basis of principle
would not stand the strain of a single year of business adversity.
* * * * *
We, on the contrary, believe in the gold standard as fixed by the usage
and verdict of the business world, and in a sound monetary system, as
matters of principle; as matters not of momentary political expediency,
but of permanent organic policy. In 1896 and again in 1900 farsighted
men, without regard to their party fealty in the past, joined to
work against what they regarded as a debased monetary system. The
policies which they championed have been steadfastly adhered to by the
Administration; and by the act of March 14, 1900, Congress established
the single gold standard as the measure of our monetary value. This act
received the support of every Republican in the House, and of every
Republican except one in the Senate. Of our opponents, eleven supported
it in the House and two in the Senate; and one hundred and fifty
opposed it in the House and twenty-eight in the Senate. The record of
the last seven years proves that the party now in power can be trusted
to take the additional action necessary to improve and strengthen our
monetary system, and that our opponents can not be so trusted. The
fundamental fact is that in a popular government such as ours no policy
is irrevocably settled by law unless the people keep in control of the
Government men who believe in that policy as a matter of deep-rooted
conviction. Laws can always be revoked; it is the spirit and the
purpose of those responsible for their enactment and administration
which must be fixed and unchangeable. It is idle to say that the
monetary standard of the Nation is irrevocably fixed so long as the
party which at the last election cast approximately forty-six per cent
of the total vote refuses to put in its platform any statement that
the question is settled. A determination to remain silent can not be
accepted as equivalent to a recantation. Until our opponents as a party
explicitly adopt the views which we hold and upon which we have acted
and are acting, in the matter of sound currency, the only real way to
keep the question from becoming unsettled is to keep the Republican
party in power.
* * * * *
As for what our opponents say in reference to capital and labor,
individual or corporate, here again all we need by way of answer is to
point to what we have actually done, and to say that if continued in
power we shall continue to carry out the policy we have been pursuing,
and to execute the laws as resolutely and fearlessly in the future as
we have executed them in the past. In my speech of acceptance I said:
“We recognize the organization of capital and the organization of
labor as natural outcomes of our industrial system. Each kind of
organization is to be favored so long as it acts in a spirit of justice
and of regard for the rights of others. Each is to be granted the full
protection of the law, and each in turn is to be held to a strict
obedience to the law; for no man is above it and no man below it. The
humblest individual is to have his rights safeguarded as scrupulously
as those of the strongest organization, for each is to receive justice,
no more and no less. The problems with which we have to deal in our
modern industrial and social life are manifold; but the spirit in which
it is necessary to approach their solution is simply the spirit of
honesty, of courage, and of common-sense.”
* * * * *
The action of the Attorney-General in enforcing the anti-trust and
interstate commerce laws, and the action of the last Congress in
enlarging the scope of the interstate commerce law, and in creating
the Department of Commerce and Labor, with a Bureau of Corporations,
have for the first time opened a chance for the National Government
to deal intelligently and adequately with the questions affecting
society, whether for good or for evil, because of the accumulation of
capital in great corporations, and because of the new relations caused
thereby. These laws are now being administered with entire efficiency;
and as, in their working, need is shown for amendment or addition
to them—whether better to secure the proper publicity, or better to
guarantee the rights of shippers, or in any other direction—this need
will be met. It is now asserted “that the common law, as developed,
affords a complete legal remedy against monopolies.” But there is no
common law of the United States. Its rules can be enforced only by
the State courts and officers. No Federal court or officer could take
any action whatever under them. It was this fact, coupled with the
inability of the States to control trusts and monopolies, which led to
the passage of the Federal statutes known as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
and the Interstate Commerce Act; and it is only through the exercise
of the powers conferred by these acts, and by the statutes of the last
Congress supplementing them, that the National Government acquires any
jurisdiction over the subject. To say that action against trusts and
monopolies should be limited to the application of the common law is
equivalent to saying that the National Government should take no action
whatever to regulate them.
Undoubtedly, the multiplication of trusts and their increase in power
has been largely due to the “failure of officials charged with the duty
of enforcing the law to take the necessary procedure.” Such stricture
upon the failure of the officials of the National Government to do
their duty in this matter is certainly not wholly undeserved as far as
the Administration preceding President McKinley’s is concerned; but
it has no application at all to Republican administration. It is also
undoubtedly true that what is most needed is “officials having both the
disposition and the courage to enforce existing law.” This is precisely
the need that has been met by the consistent and steadily continued
action of the Department of Justice under the present Administration.
* * * * *
So far as the rights of the individual wage-worker and the individual
capitalist are concerned, both as regards one another, as regards
the public, and as regards organized capital and labor, the position
of the Administration has been so clear that there is no excuse
for misrepresenting it, and no ground for opposing it unless
misrepresented. Within the limits defined by the National Constitution
the National Administration has sought to secure to each man the full
enjoyment of his right to live his life and dispose of his property
and his labor as he deems best, so long as he wrongs no one else. It
has shown in effective fashion that in endeavoring to make good this
guarantee, it treats all men, rich or poor, whatever their creed, their
color, or their birthplace, as standing alike before the law. Under our
form of government the sphere in which the Nation as distinguished from
the State can act is narrowly circumscribed; but within that sphere
all that could be done has been done. All thinking men are aware of
the restrictions upon the power of action of the National Government
in such matters. Being ourselves mindful of them, we have been
scrupulously careful on the one hand to be moderate in our promises,
and on the other hand to keep these promises in letter and in spirit.
Our opponents have been hampered by no such considerations. They
have promised, and many of them now promise, action which they could
by no possibility take in the exercise of constitutional power, and
which, if attempted, would bring business to a standstill; they have
used, and often now use, language of wild invective and appeal to all
the baser passions which tend to excite one set of Americans against
their fellow-Americans; and yet whenever they have had power they
have fittingly supplemented this extravagance of promise by absolute
nullity in performance.
* * * * *
This Government is based upon the fundamental idea that each man, no
matter what his occupation, his race, or his religious belief, is
entitled to be treated on his worth as a man, and neither favored nor
discriminated against because of any accident in his position. Even
here at home there is painful difficulty in the effort to realize this
ideal; and the attempt to secure from other nations acknowledgment
of it sometimes encounters obstacles that are wellnigh insuperable;
for there are many nations which in the slow procession of the ages
have not yet reached that point where the principles which Americans
regard as axiomatic obtain any recognition whatever. One of the chief
difficulties arises in connection with certain American citizens of
foreign birth, or of particular creed, who desire to travel abroad.
Russia, for instance, refuses to admit and protect Jews. Turkey refuses
to admit and protect certain sects of Christians. This Government
has consistently demanded equal protection abroad for all American
citizens, whether native or naturalized. On March 27, 1899, Secretary
Hay sent a letter of instructions to all the diplomatic and consular
officers of the United States, in which he said: “This Department
does not discriminate between native-born and naturalized citizens in
according them protection while they are abroad, equality of treatment
being required by the laws of the United States.” These orders to
our agents abroad have been repeated again and again, and are treated
as the fundamental rule of conduct laid down for them, proceeding
upon the theory “that all naturalized citizens of the United States
while in foreign countries are entitled to and shall receive from this
Government the same protection of person and property which is accorded
to native-born citizens.” In issuing passports the State Department
never discriminates, or alludes to any man’s religion; and in granting
to every American citizen, native or naturalized, Christian or Jew,
the same passport, so far as it has power it insists that all foreign
Governments shall accept the passport as prima facie proof that the
person therein described is a citizen of the United States and entitled
to protection as such. It is a standing order to every American
diplomatic and consular officer to protect every American citizen, of
whatever faith, from unjust molestation; and our officers abroad have
been stringently required to comply with this order.
Under such circumstances, the demand of our opponents that negotiations
be begun to secure equal treatment of all Americans from those
Governments which do not now accord it, shows either ignorance of the
facts or insincerity. No change of policy in the method or manner
of negotiation would add effectiveness to what the State Department
has done and is doing. The steady pressure which the Department has
been keeping up in the past will be continued in the future. This
Administration has on all proper occasions given clear expression to
the belief of the American people that discrimination and oppression
because of religion, wherever practiced, are acts of injustice before
God and man; and in making evident to the world the depth of American
convictions in this regard we have gone to the very limit of diplomatic
usage.
It is a striking evidence of our opponents’ insincerity in this matter
that with their demand for radical action by the State Department they
couple a demand for a reduction in our small military establishment.
Yet they must know that the heed paid to our protests against
ill-treatment of our citizens will be exactly proportionate to the
belief in our ability to make these protests effective should the need
arise.
* * * * *
Our opponents have now declared themselves in favor of the Civil
Service law, the repeal of which they demanded in 1900 and in 1896. If
consistent, they should have gone one step further and congratulated
the country upon the way in which the Civil Service law is now
administered, and the way in which the classified service has been
extended. The exceptions from examinations are fewer by far than ever
before, and are confined to individual cases, where the application of
the rules would be impracticable, unwise, unjust, or unnecessary. The
administration of the great body of the classified civil service is
free from politics, and appointments and removals have been put upon
a business basis. Statistics show that there is little difference
between the tenure of the Federal classified employees and that of the
employees of private business corporations. Less than one per cent of
the classified employees are over seventy years of age, and in the main
the service rendered is vigorous and efficient. Where the merit system
was of course most needed was in the Philippine Islands; and a civil
service law of very advanced type has there been put into operation and
scrupulously observed. Without one exception every appointment in the
Philippines has been made in accordance with the strictest standard of
fitness, and without heed to any other consideration.
Finally, we come to certain matters upon which our opponents do in
their platform of principles definitely take issue with us, and where,
if they are sincere, their triumph would mean disaster to the country.
But exactly as it is impossible to call attention to the present
promises and past record of our opponents without seeming offensive,
so it is impossible to compare their platform with their other and
later official utterances and not create doubt as to their sincerity.
In their private or unofficial utterances many of them frankly advance
this insincerity as a merit, taking the position that as regards the
points on which I am about to speak they have no intention of keeping
their promises or of departing from the policies now established, and
that therefore they can be trusted not to abuse the power they seek.
When we take up the great question of the tariff we are at once
confronted by the doubt as to whether our opponents do or do not mean
what they say. They say that “protection is robbery,” and promise to
carry themselves accordingly if they are given power. Yet prominent
persons among them assert that they do not really mean this and that
if they come into power they will adopt our policy as regards the
tariff; while others seem anxious to prove that it is safe to give them
partial power, because the power would be only partial, and therefore
they would not be able to do mischief. The last is certainly a curious
plea to advance on behalf of a party seeking to obtain control of the
Government.
At the outset it is worth while to say a word as to the attempt to
identify the question of tariff revision or tariff reduction with a
solution of the trust question. This is always a sign of desire to
avoid any real effort to deal adequately with the trust question. In
speaking on this point at Minneapolis, on April 4, 1903, I said:
“The question of tariff revision, speaking broadly, stands wholly
apart from the question of dealing with the trusts. No change
in tariff duties can have any substantial effect in solving the
so-called trust problem. Certain great trusts or great corporations
are wholly unaffected by the tariff. Almost all the others that
are of any importance have as a matter of fact numbers of smaller
American competitors; and of course a change in the tariff which
would work injury to the large corporation would work not merely
injury but destruction to its smaller competitors; and equally of
course such a change would mean disaster to all the wage-workers
connected with either the large or the small corporations. From the
standpoint of those interested in the solution of the trust problem
such a change would therefore merely mean that the trust was relieved
of the competition of its weaker American competitors, and thrown
only into competition with foreign competitors; and that the first
effort to meet this new competition would be made by cutting down
wages, and would therefore be primarily at the cost of labor. In
the case of some of our greatest trusts such a change might confer
upon them a positive benefit. Speaking broadly, it is evident that
the changes in the tariff will affect the trusts for weal or for woe
simply as they affect the whole country. The tariff affects trusts
only as it affects all other interests. It makes all these interests,
large or small, profitable; and its benefits can be taken from the
large only under penalty of taking them from the small also.”
There is little for me to add to this. It is but ten years since the
last attempt was made, by means of lowering the tariff, to prevent some
people from prospering too much. The attempt was entirely successful.
The tariff law of that year was among the causes which in that year and
for some time afterward effectually prevented anybody from prospering
too much, and labor from prospering at all. Undoubtedly it would
be possible at the present time to prevent any of the trusts from
remaining prosperous by the simple expedient of making such a sweeping
change in the tariff as to paralyze the industries of the country. The
trusts would cease to prosper; but their smaller competitors would be
ruined, and the wage-workers would starve, while it would not pay the
farmer to haul his produce to market. The evils connected with the
trusts can be reached only by rational effort, step by step, along
the lines taken by Congress and the Executive during the past three
years. If a tariff law is passed under which the country prospers,
as the country has prospered under the present tariff law, then all
classes will share in the prosperity. If a tariff law is passed aimed
at preventing the prosperity of some of our people, it is as certain as
anything can be that this aim will be achieved only by cutting down the
prosperity of all of our people.
Of course, if our opponents are not sincere in their proposal to
abolish the system of a protective tariff, there is no use in arguing
the matter at all, save by pointing out again that if on one great
issue they do not mean what they say, it is hardly safe to trust
them on any other issue. But if they are sincere in this matter,
then their advent to power would mean domestic misfortune and misery
as widespread and far-reaching as that which we saw ten years ago.
When they speak of protection as “robbery,” they of course must mean
that it is immoral to enact a tariff designed (as is the present
protective tariff) to secure to the American wage-worker the benefit
of the high standard of living which we desire to see kept up in
this country. Now to speak of the tariff in this sense as “robbery,”
thereby giving it a moral relation, is not merely rhetorical; it is on
its face false. The question of what tariff is best for our people is
primarily one of expediency, to be determined not on abstract academic
grounds, but in the light of experience. It is a matter of business;
for fundamentally ours is a business people—manufacturers, merchants,
farmers, wage-workers, professional men, all alike. Our experience as a
people in the past has certainly not shown us that we could afford in
this matter to follow those professional counselors who have confined
themselves to study in the closet; for the actual working of the
tariff has emphatically contradicted their theories. From time to time
schedules must undoubtedly be rearranged and readjusted to meet the
shifting needs of the country; but this can with safety be done only
by those who are committed to the cause of the protective system. To
uproot and destroy that system would be to ensure the prostration of
business, the closing of factories, the impoverishment of the farmer,
the ruin of the capitalist, and the starvation of the wage-worker.
Yet, if protection is indeed “robbery,” and if our opponents really
believe what they say, then it is precisely to the destruction and
uprooting of the tariff, and therefore of our business and industry,
that they are pledged. When our opponents last obtained power it was
on a platform declaring a protective tariff “unconstitutional”; and
the effort to put this declaration into practice was one of the causes
of the general national prostration lasting from 1893 to 1897. If a
protective tariff is either “unconstitutional” or “robbery,” then it
is just as unconstitutional, just as much robbery, to revise it down,
still leaving it protective, as it would be to enact it. In other
words, our opponents have committed themselves to the destruction of
the protective principle in the tariff, using words which if honestly
used forbid them from permitting this principle to obtain in even the
smallest degree.
* * * * *
Our opponents assert that they believe in reciprocity. Their action
on the most important reciprocity treaty recently negotiated—that
with Cuba—does not bear out this assertion. Moreover, there can be
no reciprocity unless there is a substantial tariff; free trade
and reciprocity are not compatible. We are on record as favoring
arrangements for reciprocal trade relations with other countries,
these arrangements to be on an equitable basis of benefit to both the
contracting parties. The Republican party stands pledged to every
wise and consistent method of increasing the foreign commerce of the
country. That it has kept its pledge is proven by the fact that while
the domestic trade of this country exceeds in volume the entire export
and import trade of all the nations of the world, the United States
has in addition secured more than an eighth of the export trade of the
world, standing first among the nations in this respect. The United
States has exported during the last seven years nearly ten billions of
dollars’ worth of goods—on an average half as much again annually as
during the previous four years, when many of our people were consuming
nothing but necessaries, and some of them a scanty supply even of these.
Two years ago, in speaking at Logansport, Indiana, I said:
“The one consideration which must never be omitted in a tariff change
is the imperative need of preserving the American standard of living
for the American workingman. The tariff-rate must never fall below
that which will protect the American workingman by allowing for the
difference between the general labor cost here and abroad, so as at
least to equalize the conditions arising from the difference in the
standard of labor here and abroad—a difference which it should be our
aim to foster in so far as it represents the needs of better educated,
better paid, better fed, and better clothed workingmen of a higher
type than any to be found in a foreign country. At all hazards, and
no matter what else is sought for or accomplished by changes of the
tariff, the American workingman must be protected in his standard of
wages, that is, in his standard of living, and must be secured the
fullest opportunity of employment. Our laws should in no event afford
advantage to foreign industries over American industries. They should
in no event do less than equalize the difference in conditions at home
and abroad.”
* * * * *
It is a matter of regret that the protective tariff policy, which,
during the last forty-odd years, has become part of the very fibre of
the country, is not now accepted as definitely established. Surely we
have a right to say that it has passed beyond the domain of theory, and
a right to expect that not only its original advocates but those who
at one time distrusted it on theoretic grounds should now acquiesce
in the results that have been proved over and over again by actual
experience. These forty-odd years have been the most prosperous years
this Nation has ever seen; more prosperous years than any other nation
has ever seen. Beyond question this prosperity could not have come if
the American people had not possessed the necessary thrift, energy, and
business intelligence to turn their vast material resources to account.
But it is no less true that it is our economic policy as regards the
tariff and finance which has enabled us as a nation to make such good
use of the individual capacities of our citizens, and the natural
resources of our country. Every class of our people is benefited by
the protective tariff. During the last few years the merchant has seen
the export trade of this country grow faster than ever in our previous
history. The manufacturer could not keep his factory running if it
were not for the protective tariff. The wage-worker would do well
to remember that if protection is “robbery,” and is to be punished
accordingly, he will be the first to pay the penalty; for either he
will be turned adrift entirely, or his wages will be cut down to the
starvation point. As conclusively shown by the bulletins of the Bureau
of Labor, the purchasing power of the average wage received by the
wage-worker has grown faster than the cost of living, and this in
spite of the continual shortening of working hours. The accumulated
savings of the workingmen of the country, as shown by the deposits
in the savings banks, have increased by leaps and bounds. At no time
in the history of this or any other country has there been an era so
productive of material benefit alike to workingman and employer as
during the seven years that have just passed.
* * * * *
The farmer has benefited quite as much as the manufacturer, the
merchant, and the wage-worker. The most welcome and impressive fact
established by the last census is the wide and even distribution
of wealth among all classes of our countrymen. The chief agencies
in producing this distribution are shown by the census to be the
development of manufactures, and the application of new inventions
to universal use. The result has been an increasing interdependence
of agriculture and manufactures. Agriculture is now, as it always
has been, the basis of civilization. The six million farms of the
United States, operated by men who, as a class, are steadfast,
single-minded, and industrious, form the basis of all the other
achievements of the American people and are more fruitful than all
their other resources. The men on those six million farms receive
from the protective tariff what they most need, and that is the best
of all possible markets. All other classes depend upon the farmer,
but the farmer in turn depends upon the market they furnish him for
his produce. The annual output of our agricultural products is nearly
four billions of dollars. Their increase in value has been prodigious,
although agriculture has languished in most other countries; and the
main factor in this increase is the corresponding increase of our
manufacturing industries. American farmers have prospered because the
growth of their market has kept pace with the growth of their farms.
The additional market continually furnished for agricultural products
by domestic manufacturers has been far in excess of the outlet to
other lands. An export trade in farm products is necessary to dispose
of our surplus; and the export trade of our farmers, both in animal
products and in plant products, has very largely increased. Without
the enlarged home market to keep this surplus down, we should have
to reduce production or else feed the world at less than the cost
of production. In the forty years ending in 1900 the total value of
farm property increased twelve and a half billions of dollars; the
farmer gaining even more during this period than the manufacturer.
Long ago overproduction would have checked the marvelous development
of our national agriculture, but for the steadily increasing demand
of American manufacturers for farm products required as raw materials
for steadily expanding industries. The farmer has become dependent
upon the manufacturer to utilize that portion of his produce which
does not go directly to food supply. In 1900 fifty-two per cent, or
a little over half, of the total value of the farm products of the
Nation was consumed in manufacturing industries as the raw materials
of the factories. Evidently the manufacturer is the farmer’s best and
most direct customer. Moreover, the American manufacturer purchases
his farm supplies almost exclusively in his own country. Nine-tenths
of all the raw materials of every kind and description consumed in
American manufactories are of American production. The manufacturing
establishments tend steadily to migrate into the heart of the great
agricultural districts. The centre of the manufacturing industry in
1900 was near the middle of Ohio, and it is moving westward at the rate
of about thirty miles in every decade; and this movement is invariably
accompanied by a marked increase in the value of farm lands. Local
causes, notably the competition between new farm lands and old farm
lands, tend here and there to obscure what is happening; but it is as
certain as the operation of any economic law that in the country as a
whole farm values will continue to increase as the partnership between
manufacturer and farmer grows more intimate through further advance of
industrial science. The American manufacturer never could have placed
this Nation at the head of the manufacturing nations of the world if
he had not had behind him, securing him every variety of raw material,
the exhaustless resources of the American farm, developed by the skill
and the enterprise of intelligent and educated American farmers. On the
other hand, the debt of the farmers to the manufacturers is equally
heavy, and the future of American agriculture is bound up in the future
of American manufactures. The two industries have become, under the
economic policy of our Government, so closely interwoven, so mutually
interdependent, that neither can hope to maintain itself at the
high-water mark of progress without the other. Whatever makes to the
advantage of one is equally to the advantage of the other.
* * * * *
So it is as between the capitalist and the wage-worker. Here and there
there may be an unequal sharing as between the two in the benefits that
have come by protection; but benefits have come to both; and a reversal
in policy would mean damage to both; and while the damage would be
heavy to all, it would be heaviest, and it would fall soonest, upon
those who are paid in the form of wages each week or each month for
that week’s or that month’s work.
Conditions change and the laws must be modified from time to time
to fit new exigencies. But the genuine underlying principle of
protection, as it has been embodied in all but one of the American
tariff laws for the last forty years, has worked out results so
beneficent, so evenly and widely spread, so advantageous alike to
farmers and capitalists and workingmen, to commerce and trade of every
kind, that the American people, if they show their usual practical
business sense, will insist that when these laws are modified they
shall be modified with the utmost care and conservatism, and by the
friends and not the enemies of the protective system. They can not
afford to trust the modification to those who treat protection and
robbery as synonymous terms.
In closing what I have to say about the system of promoting American
industry let me add a word of cordial agreement with the policy of in
some way including within its benefits, by appropriate legislation, the
American merchant marine. It is not creditable to us as a nation that
our great export and import trade should be wellnigh exclusively in the
hands of foreigners.
* * * * *
It is difficult to know if our opponents are really sincere in their
demand for the reduction of the Army. If insincere, there is no need
for comment, and if sincere, what shall we say in speaking to rational
persons of an appeal to reduce an Army of sixty thousand men which is
taking care of the interests of over eighty million people? The Army
is now relatively smaller than it was in the days of Washington, when
on the peace establishment there were thirty-six hundred soldiers,
while there were a little less than four millions of population;
smaller than it was in the peaceful days of Jefferson, when there were
fifty-one hundred soldiers to five million three hundred thousand
population. There is now one soldier to every fourteen hundred people
in this country—less than one-tenth of one per cent. We can not be
asked seriously to argue as to the amount of possible tyranny contained
in these figures. The Army as it is now is as small as it can possibly
be and serve its purpose as an effective nucleus for the organization,
equipment, and supply of a volunteer army in time of need. It is now
used, as never before, for aiding in the upbuilding of the organized
militia of the country. The War Department is engaged in a systematic
effort to strengthen and develop the National Guard in the several
States; as witness, among many other instances, the great field
manœuvres at Manassas, which have just closed. If our opponents should
come into power they could not reduce our Army below its present size
without greatly impairing its efficiency and abandoning part of the
national duty. In short, in this matter, if our opponents should come
into power they would either have to treat this particular promise of
the year 1904 as they now treat the promises they made in 1896 and
1900, that is, as possessing no binding force; or else they would have
to embark on a policy which would be ludicrous at the moment, and
fraught with grave danger to the national honor in the future.
Our opponents contend that the Government is now administered
extravagantly, and that whereas there was “a surplus of $80,000,000 in
1900” there is “a deficit of more than $40,000,000” in the year that
has just closed.
* * * * *
This deficit is imaginary, and is obtained by including in the ordinary
current expenses the sum of fifty millions, which was paid for the
right of way of the Panama Canal out of the accumulated surplus in
the Treasury. Comparing the current or ordinary expenditures for the
two years, there was a surplus of nearly eighty millions for the year
1900, and of only a little more than eight millions for the year
that has just closed. But this diminution of the annual surplus was
brought about designedly by the abolition of the war taxes in the
interval between the two dates. The acts of March 2, 1901, and April
12, 1902, cut down the internal revenue taxes to an amount estimated
at one hundred and five millions a year. In other words, the reduction
of taxation has been considerably greater than the reduction in the
annual surplus. Since the close of the war with Spain there has been
no substantial change in the rate of annual expenditures. As compared
with the fiscal year ending in June, 1901, for example, the fiscal year
that has just closed showed a relatively small increase in expenditure
(excluding the canal payment already referred to), while the year
previous showed a relatively small decrease.
The expenditures of the Nation have been managed in a spirit of economy
as far removed from waste as from niggardliness; and in the future
every effort will be continued to secure an economy as strict as is
consistent with efficiency. Once more our opponents have promised what
they can not or should not perform. The prime reason why the expenses
of the Government have increased of recent years is to be found in the
fact that the people, after mature thought, have deemed it wise to have
certain new forms of work for the public undertaken by the public.
This necessitates such expenditures, for instance, as those for rural
free delivery, or for the inspection of meats under the Department
of Agriculture, or for irrigation. But these new expenditures are
necessary; no one would seriously propose to abandon them; and yet it
is idle to declaim against the increased expense of the Government
unless it is intended to cut down the very expenditures which cause the
increase. The pensions to the veterans of the Civil War are demanded
by every sentiment of regard and gratitude. The rural free-delivery
is of the greatest use and convenience to the farmers, a body of men
who live under conditions which make them ordinarily receive little
direct return for what they pay toward the support of the Government.
The irrigation policy in the arid and semi-arid regions of the West
is one fraught with the most beneficent and far-reaching good to the
actual settlers, the homemakers, whose encouragement is a traditional
feature in America’s National policy. Do our opponents grudge the fifty
millions paid for the Panama Canal? Do they intend to cut down on the
pensions to the veterans of the Civil War? Do they intend to put a stop
to the irrigation policy? or to the permanent census bureau? or to
immigration inspection? Do they intend to abolish rural free-delivery?
Do they intend to cut down the Navy? or the Alaskan telegraph system?
Do they intend to dismantle our coast fortifications? If there is to
be a real and substantial cutting down in national expenditures it
must be in such matters as these. The Department of Agriculture has
done service of incalculable value to the farmers of this country in
many different lines. Do our opponents wish to cut down the money for
this service? They can do it only by destroying the usefulness of the
service itself.
* * * * *
The public work of the United States has never been conducted with a
higher degree of honesty and efficiency than at the present time; and a
special meed of praise belongs to those officials responsible for the
Philippines and Porto Rico, where the administrations have been models
of their kind. Of course, wrong has occasionally occurred, but it has
been relentlessly stamped out. We have known no party in dealing with
offenders, and have hunted down without mercy every wrong-doer in the
service of the Nation whom it was possible by the utmost vigilance to
detect; for the public servant who betrays his trust and the private
individual who debauches him stand as the worst of criminals, because
their crimes are crimes against the entire community, and not only
against this generation, but against the generations that are yet to be.
* * * * *
Our opponents promise independence to the Philippine Islands. Here
again we are confronted by the fact that their irreconcilable
differences of opinion among themselves, their proved inability to
create a constructive policy when in power, and their readiness, for
the sake of momentary political expediency, to abandon the principles
upon which they have insisted as essential, conspire to puzzle us
as to whether they do or do not intend in good faith to carry out
this promise if they are given control of the Government. In their
platform they declare for independence, apparently—for their language
is a little obscure—without qualification as to time; and indeed a
qualification as to time is an absurdity, for we have neither right
nor power to bind our successors when it is impossible to foretell the
conditions which may confront them; while if there is any principle
involved in the matter, it is just as wrong to deny independence for
a few years as to deny it for an indefinite period. But in later and
equally official utterances by our opponents the term self-government
was substituted for independence; the words used being so chosen that
in their natural construction they described precisely the policy now
being carried on. The language of the platform indicated a radical
change of policy; the later utterances indicated a continuance of the
present policy. But this caused trouble in their own ranks; and in
a still later, although less formal, utterance, the self-government
promise was recanted, and independence at some future time was promised
in its place. They have occupied three entirely different positions
within fifty days. Which is the promise they really intend to keep?
They do not know their own minds; and no one can tell how long they
would keep of the same mind, should they by any chance come to a
working agreement among themselves. If such ambiguity affected only
the American people it would not so greatly matter; for the American
people can take care of themselves. But the Filipinos are in no such
condition. Confidence is with them a plant of slow growth. They
have been taught to trust the word of this Government because this
Government has promised nothing which it did not perform. If promised
independence they will expect independence; not in the remote future,
for their descendants, but immediately, for themselves. If the promise
thus made is not immediately fulfilled they will regard it as broken,
and will not again trust to American faith; and it would be indeed
a wicked thing to deceive them in such fashion. Moreover, even if
the promise were made to take effect only in the distant future, the
Filipinos would be thrown into confusion thereby. Instead of continuing
to endeavor to fit themselves for moral and material advancement in the
present, they would abandon all effort at progress and begin factional
intrigues for future power.
To promise to give them independence when it is “prudent” to do so, or
when they are “fit” for it, of course implies that they are not fit
for it now, and that it would be imprudent to give it to them now. But
as we must ourselves be the judges as to when they become “fit,” and
when it would be “prudent” to keep such a promise if it were made, it
necessarily follows that to make such a promise now would amount to a
deception upon the Filipinos.
* * * * *
It may well be that our opponents have no real intention of putting
their promise into effect. If this is the case, if, in other words,
they are insincere in the promise they make, it is only necessary to
say again that it is unwise to trust men who are false in one thing to
deal with anything. The mere consciousness of broken faith would hamper
them in continuing our policy in the islands; and only by continuing
unchanged this policy can the honor of the country be maintained, or
the interests of the islands subserved. If, on the other hand, our
opponents came into power and attempted to carry out their promises to
the Filipinos by giving them independence, and withdrawing American
control from the islands, the result would be a frightful calamity to
the Filipinos themselves, and in its larger aspect would amount to
an international crime. Anarchy would follow; and the most violent
anarchic forces would be directed partly against the civil government,
partly against all forms of religious and educational civilization.
Bloody conflicts would inevitably ensue in the archipelago, and just as
inevitably the islands would become the prey of the first Power which
in its own selfish interest took up the task we had cravenly abandoned.
Of course, the practical difficulty in adopting any such course of
action—such a “policy of scuttle,” as President McKinley called
it—would be found wellnigh insuperable. If it is morally indefensible
to hold the archipelago as a whole under our tutelage in the interest
of its own people, then it is morally indefensible to hold any part of
it. In such case, what right have we to keep a coaling station? What
right to keep control over the Moro peoples? What right to protect the
Igorrotes from their oppressors? What right to protect the law-abiding
friends of America in the islands from treachery, robbery, and murder?
Yet, to abandon the islands completely, without even retaining a
coaling station, would mean to abandon the position in the competition
for the trade of the Orient which we have acquired during the last
six years; and what is far more important, it would mean irreparable
damage to those who have become the wards of the Nation. To abandon
all control over the Moros would amount to releasing these Moros to
prey upon the Christian Filipinos, civilized or semi-civilized, as well
as upon the commerce of other peoples. The Moros are in large part
still in the stage of culture where the occupations of the bandit and
the pirate are those most highly regarded; and it has not been found
practical to give them self-government in the sense that we have been
giving it to the Christian inhabitants. To abandon the Moro country
as our opponents propose in their platform, would be precisely as if
twenty-five years ago we had withdrawn the Army and the civil agents
from within and around the Indian reservations in the West, at a time
when the Sioux and the Apache were still the terror of our settlers.
It would be a criminal absurdity; and yet our opponents have pledged
themselves thereto. If successful in the coming election they would
either have to break faith, or else to do an act which would leave
an indelible stain upon our national reputation for courage, and for
good sense. During the last five years more has been done for the
material and moral well-being of the Filipinos than ever before since
the islands first came within the ken of civilized man. We have opened
before them a vista of orderly development in their own interest, and
not a policy of exploitation. Every effort is being made to fit the
islanders for self-government, and they have already in large measure
received it, while for the first time in their history their personal
rights and civil liberties have been guaranteed. They are being
educated; they have been given schools; they have been given libraries;
roads are being built for their use; their health is being cared for;
they have been given courts in which they receive justice as absolute
as it is in our power to guarantee. Their individual rights to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are now by act of Congress
jealously safeguarded under the American flag; and if the protection
of the flag were withdrawn their rights would be lost, and the islands
would be plunged back under some form of vicious tyranny. We have given
them more self-government than they have ever before had; we are taking
steps to increase it still further by providing them with an elected
legislative assembly; and surely we had better await the results of
this experiment—for it is a wholly new experiment in Asia—before we
make promises which as a Nation we might be forced to break, or which
they might interpret one way and we another. It may be asserted without
fear of successful contradiction that nowhere else in recent years has
there been as fine an example of constructive statesmanship and wise
and upright Administration as has been given by the civil authorities,
aided by the Army, in the Philippine Islands. We have administered them
in the interest of their own people; and the Filipinos themselves have
profited most by our presence in the islands; but they have also been
of very great advantage to us as a nation.
So far from having “sapped the foundations” of free popular government
at home by the course taken in the Philippines, we have been spreading
its knowledge, and teaching its practice, among peoples to whom it
had never before been more than an empty name. Our action represents
a great stride forward in spreading the principles of orderly liberty
throughout the world. “Our flag has not lost its gift of benediction
in its world-wide journey to their shores.” We have treated the power
we have gained as a solemn obligation, and have used it in the interest
of mankind; and the peoples of the world, and especially the weaker
peoples of the world, are better off because of the position we have
assumed. To retrace our steps would be to give proof of an infirm and
unstable national purpose.
Four years ago, in his speech of acceptance, President McKinley said:
“We have been moving in untried paths, but our steps have been guided
by honor and duty. There will be no turning aside, no wavering, no
retreat. No blow has been struck except for liberty and humanity,
and none will be. We will perform without fear every national and
international obligation. The Republican party was dedicated to freedom
forty-four years ago. It has been the party of liberty and emancipation
from that hour; not of profession, but of performance. It broke the
shackles of four million slaves, and made them free, and to the party
of Lincoln has come another supreme opportunity which it has bravely
met in the liberation of ten millions of the human family from the yoke
of imperialism. In its solution of great problems, in its performance
of high duties, it has had the support of members of all parties in the
past, and it confidently invokes their co-operation in the future.”
This is as true now as four years ago. We did not take the Philippines
at will, and we can not put them aside at will. Any abandonment of the
policy which we have steadily pursued in the islands would be fraught
with dishonor and disaster; and to such dishonor and disaster I do not
believe that the American people will consent.
* * * * *
Alarm has been professed lest the Filipinos should not receive all the
benefits guaranteed to our people at home by the Fourteenth Amendment
to the Constitution. As a matter of fact, the Filipinos have already
secured the substance of these benefits. This Government has been true
to the spirit of the Fourteenth Amendment in the Philippines. Can our
opponents deny that here at home the principles of the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments have been in effect nullified? In this, as in
many other matters, we at home can well profit by the example of those
responsible for the actual management of affairs in the Philippines. In
our several commonwealths here in the United States we, as a people,
now face the complex problem of securing fair treatment to each man
regardless of his race or color. We can do so only if we approach
the problem in the spirit of courage, common-sense, and high-minded
devotion to the right, which has enabled Governor Taft, Governor
Wright, and their associates, to do so noble a work in giving to the
Philippine people the benefit of the true principles of American
liberty.
* * * * *
Our appeal is made to all good citizens who hold the honor and the
interest of the Nation close to their hearts. The great issues
which are at stake, and upon which I have touched, are more than
mere partisan issues, for they involve much that comes home to the
individual pride and individual well-being of our people. Under
conditions as they actually are, good Americans should refuse, for
the sake of the welfare of the Nation, to change the national policy.
We, who are responsible for the administration and legislation under
which this country, during the last seven years, has grown so greatly
in well-being at home and in honorable repute among the nations of the
earth abroad, do not stand inertly upon this record, do not use this
record as an excuse for failure of effort to meet new conditions. On
the contrary, we treat the record of what we have done in the past
as incitement to do even better in the future. We believe that the
progress that we have made may be taken as a measure of the progress
we shall continue to make if the people again intrust the Government
of the Nation to our hands. We do not stand still. We press steadily
forward toward the goal of moral and material well-being for our own
people, of just and fearless dealing toward all other peoples, in the
interest not merely of this country, but of mankind. There is not a
policy, foreign or domestic, which we are now carrying out, which it
would not be disastrous to reverse or abandon. If our opponents should
come in and should not reverse our policies, then they would be branded
with the brand of broken faith, of false promise, of insincerity in
word and deed; and no man can work to the advantage of the Nation with
such a brand clinging to him. If, on the other hand, they should come
in and reverse any or all of our policies, by just so much would the
Nation as a whole be damaged. Alike as lawmakers and as administrators
of the law we have endeavored to do our duty in the interest of the
people as a whole. We make our appeal to no class and to no section,
but to all good citizens, in whatever part of the land they dwell, and
whatever may be their occupation or worldly condition. We have striven
both for civic righteousness and for national greatness; and we have
faith to believe that our hands will be upheld by all who feel love of
country and trust in the uplifting of mankind. We stand for enforcement
of the law and for obedience to the law; our Government is a government
of orderly liberty equally alien to tyranny and to anarchy; and its
foundation-stone is the observance of the law, alike by the people and
by the public servants. We hold ever before us as the all-important end
of policy and administration the reign of peace at home and throughout
the world; of peace, which comes only by doing justice.
Faithfully yours,