_Cardinal Gibbons, Father Stafford, and you, my Fellow-Americans_:
It is a great pleasure to me to be present with you to-day to assist
at the dedication of the school, hall, and rectory of this Parish, a
Parish whose one hundred and tenth anniversary we also now celebrate;
for this Parish was founded six years before the national capital was
placed in the present District of Columbia. I am glad indeed to have
been introduced, Cardinal Gibbons, by you, the spiritual representative
in a peculiar sense of that Bishop Carroll who played so illustrious
a part in the affairs of the Church, and whose kinsfolk played as
illustrious a part in the affairs of the Nation at the dawning of this
Government. In greeting all of you I wish to say that I am especially
glad to see the children present. You know I believe in children. I
want to see enough of them and of the right kind.
I wish to-day, in the very brief remarks that I have to make, to
dwell upon this thought—the thought that ought to be in the mind of
every man and woman here, the thought that while in this country we
need wise laws honestly and fearlessly executed, and while we can not
afford to tolerate anything but the highest standard in the public
service of the Government, yet that in the last analysis the future of
the country must depend upon the quality of the individual home, of
the individual man or woman in that home. The future of this country
depends upon the way in which the average man and the average woman in
it does his or her duty, and that very largely depends upon the way
in which the average boy or girl is brought up. Therefore, a peculiar
responsibility rests upon those whose lifework it is to see to the
spiritual welfare of our people and upon those who make it their
lifework to try to train the citizens of the future so that they shall
be worthy of that future. In wishing you well to-day, I wish you well
in doing the most important work which is allotted to any of our people
to do. The rules of good citizenship are tolerably simple. The trouble
is not in finding them out; the trouble is in living up to them after
they have been found out. I think we all of us know fairly well what
qualities they are which in their sum make up the type of character
we like to see in man or wife, son or daughter; but I am afraid we do
not always see them as well developed as we would like to. I wish to
see in the average American citizen the development of the two sets of
qualities which we can roughly indicate as sweetness and strength—the
qualities on the one hand which make the man able to hold his own,
and those which on the other hand make him jealous for the rights of
others just as much as for his own rights. We must have both sets of
qualities. In the first place, the man must have the power to hold his
own. You probably know that I do not care very much for the coward
or the moral weakling. I want each of you boys, and the girls just as
much, and each of you young men and young women, to have the qualities
without which people may be amiable and pleasant while things go well,
but without which they can not succeed in times of stern trial. I wish
to see in the man manliness, in the woman womanliness. I wish to see
courage, perseverance, the willingness to face work, to face, you men,
if it is necessary, danger, the determination not to shrink back when
temporarily beaten in life, as each one will be now and then, but to
come up again and wrest triumph from defeat. I want to see you men
strong men and brave men, and in addition I wish to see each man of you
feel that his strength and his courage but make him the worse unless to
that strength and courage are joined the qualities of tenderness toward
those he loves, who are dependent upon him, and of right dealing with
all his neighbors.
Finally, I want to congratulate all of us here on certain successes
that we have achieved in the century and a quarter that has gone by
of our American life. We have difficulties enough, and we are a long
ways short of perfection. I do not see any immediate danger of our
growing too good; there is ample room for effort yet left. But we have
achieved certain results, we have succeeded in measurably realizing
certain ideals. We have grown to accept it as an axiomatic truth of
our American life that the man is to be treated on his worth as a
man, without regard to the accidents of his position; that this is not
a Government designed to favor the rich man as such, or the poor man
as such, but that it is designed to favor every man, rich or poor, if
he is a decent man who acts fairly by his fellows. We have grown to
realize that part of the foundations upon which our liberty rests is
the right of each man to worship his Creator according to the dictates
of his conscience, and the duty of each man to respect his fellow who
so worships Him. And, oh! my countrymen, one of the best auguries for
the future of this country, for the future of this mighty and majestic
Nation of ours, lies in the fact that we have grown to regard one
another, that we brothers have grown to regard one another, with a
broad and kindly charity, and to realize the field for human endeavor
is wide, that the field for charitable, philanthropic, religious
work is wide, and that while a corner of it remains untilled we do a
dreadful wrong if we fail to welcome the work done in that field by
every man, no matter what his creed, provided only he works with a
lofty sense of his duty to God and his duty to his neighbor.
REMARKS INTRODUCING REV. CHARLES WAGNER, AT THE LAFAYETTE OPERA HOUSE,
WASHINGTON, D. C., NOV. 22, 1904
_Mr. Macfarland, Mr. Wagner, Men and Women of Washington_:
This is the first and will be the only time during my Presidency that
I shall ever introduce a speaker to an audience; and I am more than
glad to do it in this instance, because if there is one book which I
should like to have read as a tract, and also, what is not invariably
true of tracts, as an interesting tract, by all our people, it is “The
Simple Life,” written by Mr. Wagner. There are other books which he
has written from which we can gain great good, but I know of no other
book written of recent years anywhere, here or abroad, which contains
so much that we of America ought to take to our hearts as is contained
in “The Simple Life.” I like the book because it does not merely preach
to the rich, and does not merely preach to the poor. It is a very easy
thing to address a section of the community in reprobation of the forms
of vice to which it is not prone. What we need to have impressed upon
us is that it is not usually the root principle of the vice that varies
with variation in social conditions, but that it is the manifestation
of the vice that varies; and Mr. Wagner has well brought out the great
fundamental truth that the brutal arrogance of a rich man who looks
down upon a poor man because he is poor, and the brutal envy and
hatred felt by a poor man toward a rich man merely because he is rich,
are at bottom twin manifestations of the same vice. They are simply
different sides of the same shield. The arrogance that looks down in
the one case, the envy that hates in the other, are really exhibitions
of the same mean, base, and unlovely spirit which happens in one case
to be in different surroundings from what it is in the other case. The
kind of man who would be arrogant in one case is precisely the kind
of man who would be envious and filled with hatred in the other. The
ideal should be the just, the generous, the broad-minded man who is as
incapable of arrogance if rich as he is of malignant envy and hatred if
poor.
No republic can permanently exist when it becomes a republic of
classes, where the man feels not the interest of the whole people, but
the interest of the particular class to which he belongs, or fancies
that he belongs, as being of prime importance. In antiquity, republics
failed as they did because they tended to become either a republic of
the few who exploited the many, or a republic of the many who plundered
the few, and in either case the end of the republic was inevitable;
just as much so in one case as in the other, and no more so in one case
than in the other. We can keep this Republic true to the principles of
those who founded, and of those who afterward preserved it, we can keep
it a Republic at all, only by remembering that we must live up to the
theory of its founders, to the theory, of treating each man on his
worth as a man; neither holding it for nor against him that he occupies
any particular station in life, so long as he does his duty fairly and
well by his fellows and by the Nation as a whole.
So much for the general philosophy taught so admirably in Mr.
Wagner’s book—I might say books, but I am thinking especially of “The
Simple Life,” because that has been the book that has appealed to me
particularly. Now, a word with special reference to his address to
this audience, to the Young Men’s Christian Association: The profound
regard which I have always felt for those responsible for the work of
the Young Men’s Christian Association and the Young Women’s Christian
Association, is largely because they have practically realized, or at
least have striven practically to realize, the ideal of adherence to
the text which reads, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.”
If you here to-day came here only with the idea of passing a pleasant
afternoon and then go home and do not actually practice somewhat of
what Mr. Wagner preaches and practices, then small will be the use of
your coming. It is not of the slightest use to hear the word if you
do not try to put it into effect afterward. The Young Men’s Christian
Associations have accomplished so much because those who have managed
them have tried practically to do their part in bringing about what is
expressed in the phrase “the fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood
of men.” We can act individually or we can act by associations. I
intend this afternoon to illustrate by a couple of examples what I
mean by a man acting individually, and what I mean by a man acting in
associations with his fellows. I hesitated whether I would use, as I
shall use, the names of the people whom I meant, but I came to the
conclusion that I would, because the worth of an example consists very
largely in the knowledge that the example is a real one.
I have been immensely interested for a number of years in the working
of the Civic Club in New York, which has been started and superintended
by Mr. Norton Goddard. It is a club on the East Side of New York City,
the range of whose membership includes a big district of the city,
extending from about Lexington Avenue to the East River. Mr. Goddard
realized that such work can be done to best advantage only upon
condition of there being genuine and hearty sympathy among those doing
it. There are a great many people so made in this world (I think most
of us come under the category) that they would resent being patronized
about as much as being wronged. Great good can never be done if it
is attempted in a patronizing spirit. Mr. Goddard realized that the
work could be done efficiently only on condition of getting into close
and hearty touch with the people through whom and with whom he was to
work. In consequence, this Civic Club was founded, and it has gradually
extended its operations until now the entire club membership of three
or four thousand men practically form a committee of betterment in
social and civic life; a committee spread throughout that district,
each member keeping a sharp lookout over the fortunes of all his
immediate neighbors, of all of those of his neighborhood who do not
come within the ken of some other member of the club. Therefore, any
case of great destitution, of great suffering, in the district, almost
inevitably comes to the attention of some member of the club, who then
reports it at headquarters, so that steps can be taken to alleviate the
misery; and I have reason to believe that there has been in consequence
a very sensible general uplifting, a general increase of happiness,
throughout the district. If we had a sufficient number of clubs of this
kind throughout our great cities, while we would not by any means have
solved all of the terrible problems that press upon us for solution
in connection with municipal misgovernment and with the overcrowding,
misery, vice, disease, and poverty of great cities, yet we would
have taken a long stride forward in the right direction toward their
solution. So much for the example that I use to illustrate what I mean
by work in combination.
As an example of what can be done, and should be done, by the
individual citizen, I shall mention something that recently occurred
in this city of Washington, a thing that doubtless many of you know
about, but which was unknown to me until recently. A few weeks ago
when I was walking back from church one Sunday I noticed a great fire
and found that it was Downey’s livery stable—you recollect it, three
or four weeks ago when the livery stable burned. Through a train of
circumstances that I need not mention, my attention was particularly
called to the case, and I looked into it. I had long known of the very
admirable work done with singular modesty and self-effacement by Mr.
Downey in trying to give homes to the homeless, and to be himself a
friend of those in a peculiar sense friendless in this community; and
I now by accident found out what had happened in connection with this
particular incident. It appears that last spring Mr. Downey started
to build a new livery stable; his stable is next door to a colored
Baptist church. Mr. Downey is a white man and a Catholic and these
neighbors of his are colored men and Baptists, and their kinship was
simply the kinship of that broad humanity that should underlie all our
feelings toward one another. Mr. Downey started to build his stable,
and naturally wanted to have it as big a stable as possible and build
it right up to the limits of his land. That brought the wall close up
against the back of the colored Baptists’ church, cutting out the light
and air. The preacher called upon him and told him that they would like
to purchase a strip six feet broad of the ground of Mr. Downey, upon
which he was intending to build, as it would be a great inconvenience
to them to lose the light and the air; that they were aware that it
was asking a good deal of him to cramp the building out of which he
intended to make his livelihood, but that they hoped he would do it
because of their need. After a good deal of thought, Mr. Downey
came to the conclusion that he ought to grant the request, and so he
notified them that he would change his plans, make a somewhat smaller
building, and sell them the six feet of land in the strip adjoining
their church. After a little while the preacher came around with the
trustees of his church and said that they very much appreciated Mr.
Downey’s courtesy, and were sorry they had bothered him as they had,
because, on looking into the affairs of the church, they found that
as they were already in debt they did not feel warranted in incurring
any further financial obligations, and so they had to withdraw their
request. They thanked him for his kindly purpose, and said good-by. But
Mr. Downey found he could not get to sleep that night until finally
he made up his mind that as they could not buy it he would give it
to them anyway; which he did. But, unfortunately, we know that the
tower of Siloam often falls upon the just and the unjust alike, and
Mr. Downey’s livery stable caught fire, and burned down. It was Sunday
morning, and the Baptist church was in session next door to him; and
the clergyman stopped and said, “Now, you women stay here and pray,
and you men go straight out and help our benefactor, Mr. Downey”; and
go out they did, and got his horses all out, so that none of them was
burned, although he suffered otherwise a total loss. Now, I call that a
practical application of Mr. Wagner’s teachings. Here in Washington we
have a right to be proud of a citizen like Mr. Downey; and if only we
can develop enough such citizens, we shall turn out just the kind of
community that does not need to, but will always be glad to, study “The
Simple Life,” the author of which I now introduce to you.
MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, COMMUNICATED TO THE
TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE THIRD SESSION OF THE
FIFTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
The Nation continues to enjoy noteworthy prosperity. Such prosperity
is of course primarily due to the high individual average of our
citizenship, taken together with our great natural resources; but
an important factor therein is the working of our long-continued
governmental policies. The people have emphatically expressed their
approval of the principles underlying these policies, and their desire
that these principles be kept substantially unchanged, although of
course applied in a progressive spirit to meet changing conditions.
* * * * *
The enlargement of scope of the functions of the National Government
required by our development as a nation involves, of course, increase
of expense; and the period of prosperity through which the country is
passing justifies expenditures for permanent improvements far greater
than would be wise in hard times. Battleships and forts, public
buildings, and improved waterways are investments which should be made
when we have the money; but abundant revenues and a large surplus
always invite extravagance, and constant care should be taken to guard
against unnecessary increase of the ordinary expenses of government.
The cost of doing Government business should be regulated with the same
rigid scrutiny as the cost of doing a private business.
* * * * *
In the vast and complicated mechanism of our modern civilized life
the dominant note is the note of industrialism; and the relations of
capital and labor, and especially of organized capital and organized
labor, to each other and to the public at large come second in
importance only to the intimate questions of family life. Our peculiar
form of government, with its sharp division of authority between
the Nation and the several States, has been on the whole far more
advantageous to our development than a more strongly centralized
government. But it is undoubtedly responsible for much of the
difficulty of meeting with adequate legislation the new problems
presented by the total change in industrial conditions on this
continent during the last half century. In actual practice it has
proved exceedingly difficult, and in many cases impossible, to get
unanimity of wise action among the various States on these subjects.
From the very nature of the case this is especially true of the laws
affecting the employment of capital in huge masses.
With regard to labor the problem is no less important, but it is
simpler. As long as the States retain the primary control of the
police power the circumstances must be altogether extreme which
require interference by the Federal authorities, whether in the way of
safeguarding the rights of labor or in the way of seeing that wrong is
not done by unruly persons who shield themselves behind the name of
labor. If there is resistance to the Federal courts, interference with
the mails or interstate commerce, or molestation of Federal property,
or if the State authorities in some crisis which they are unable to
face call for help, then the Federal Government may interfere; but
though such interference may be caused by a condition of things arising
out of trouble connected with some question of labor, the interference
itself simply takes the form of restoring order without regard to the
questions which have caused the breach of order—for to keep order is a
primary duty and in a time of disorder and violence all other questions
sink into abeyance until order has been restored. In the District of
Columbia and in the Territories the Federal law covers the entire
field of government; but the labor question is only acute in populous
centres of commerce, manufactures, or mining. Nevertheless, both in the
enactment and in the enforcement of law the Federal Government within
its restricted sphere should set an example to the State Governments,
especially in a matter so vital as this affecting labor. I believe
that under modern industrial conditions it is often necessary, and
even where not necessary it is yet often wise, that there should be
organization of labor in order better to secure the rights of the
individual wage-worker. All encouragement should be given to any such
organization, so long as it is conducted with a due and decent regard
for the rights of others. There are in this country some labor unions
which have habitually, and other labor unions which have often, been
among the most effective agents in working for good citizenship and
for uplifting the condition of those whose welfare should be closest
to our hearts. But when any labor union seeks improper ends, or seeks
to achieve proper ends by improper means, all good citizens and more
especially all honorable public servants must oppose the wrongdoing
as resolutely as they would oppose the wrongdoing of any great
corporation. Of course any violence, brutality, or corruption should
not for one moment be tolerated. Wage-workers have an entire right
to organize and by all peaceful and honorable means to endeavor to
persuade their fellows to join with them in organizations. They have
a legal right, which, according to circumstances, may or may not be a
moral right, to refuse to work in company with men who decline to join
their organizations. They have under no circumstances the right to
commit violence upon those, whether capitalists or wage-workers, who
refuse to support their organizations, or who side with those with whom
they are at odds; for mob rule is intolerable in any form.
* * * * *
The wage-workers are peculiarly entitled to the protection and the
encouragement of the law. From the very nature of their occupation
railroad men, for instance, are liable to be maimed in doing the
legitimate work of their profession, unless the railroad companies
are required by law to make ample provision for their safety. The
Administration has been zealous in enforcing the existing law for this
purpose. That law should be amended and strengthened. Wherever the
National Government has power there should be a stringent employers’
liability law, which should apply to the Government itself where the
Government is an employer of labor.
In my Message to the Fifty-seventh Congress, at its second session,
I urged the passage of an employers’ liability law for the District
of Columbia. I now renew that recommendation, and further recommend
that the Congress appoint a commission to make a comprehensive study
of employers’ liability with the view of extending the provisions of
a great and constitutional law to all employments within the scope of
Federal power.
* * * * *
The Government has recognized heroism upon the water, and bestows
medals of honor upon those persons who by extreme and heroic daring
have endangered their lives in saving, or endeavoring to save, lives
from the perils of the sea in the waters over which the United States
has jurisdiction, or upon an American vessel. This recognition should
be extended to cover cases of conspicuous bravery and self-sacrifice in
the saving of life in private employments under the jurisdiction of the
United States, and particularly in the land commerce of the Nation.
* * * * *
The ever-increasing casualty list upon our railroads is a matter of
grave public concern, and urgently calls for action by the Congress.
In the matter of speed and comfort of railway travel our railroads
give at least as good service as those of any other nation, and there
is no reason why this service should not also be as safe as human
ingenuity can make it. Many of our leading roads have been foremost
in the adoption of the most approved safeguards for the protection
of travelers and employees, yet the list of clearly avoidable
accidents continues unduly large. The passage of a law requiring the
adoption of a block-signal system has been proposed to the Congress.
I earnestly concur in that recommendation, and would also point out
to the Congress the urgent need of legislation in the interest of
the public safety limiting the hours of labor for railroad employees
in train service upon railroads engaged in interstate commerce, and
providing that only trained and experienced persons be employed in
positions of responsibility connected with the operation of trains. Of
course, nothing can ever prevent accidents caused by human weakness or
misconduct; and there should be drastic punishment for any railroad
employee, whether officer or man, who by issuance of wrong orders or
by disobedience of orders causes disaster. The law of 1901, requiring
interstate railroads to make monthly reports of all accidents to
passengers and employees on duty, should also be amended so as to
empower the Government to make a personal investigation, through
proper officers, of all accidents involving loss of life which seem
to require investigation, with a requirement that the results of such
investigation be made public.
The safety-appliance law, as amended by the Act of March 2, 1903,
has proved beneficial to railway employees, and in order that its
provisions may be properly carried out, the force of inspectors
provided for by appropriation should be largely increased. This service
is analogous to the Steamboat-Inspection Service, and deals with even
more important interests. It has passed the experimental stage and
demonstrated its utility, and should receive generous recognition by
the Congress.
* * * * *
There is no objection to employees of the Government forming or
belonging to unions; but the Government can neither discriminate for
nor discriminate against non-union men who are in its employment,
or who seek to be employed under it. Moreover, it is a very grave
impropriety for Government employees to band themselves together for
the purpose of extorting improperly high salaries from the Government.
Especially is this true of those within the classified service. The
letter carriers, both municipal and rural, are as a whole an excellent
body of public servants. They should be amply paid. But their payment
must be obtained by arguing their claims fairly and honorably
before the Congress, and not by banding together for the defeat of
those Congressmen who refuse to give promises which they can not in
conscience give. The Administration has already taken steps to prevent
and punish abuses of this nature; but it will be wise for the Congress
to supplement this action by legislation.
* * * * *
Much can be done by the Government in labor matters merely by giving
publicity to certain conditions. The Bureau of Labor has done excellent
work of this kind in many different directions. I shall shortly lay
before you in a special message the full report of the investigation
of the Bureau of Labor into the Colorado mining strike, as this is a
strike in which certain very evil forces, which are more or less at
work everywhere under the conditions of modern industrialism, became
startlingly prominent. It is greatly to be wished that the Department
of Commerce and Labor, through the Labor Bureau, should compile and
arrange for the Congress a list of the labor laws of the various
States, and should be given the means to investigate and report to the
Congress upon the labor conditions in the manufacturing and mining
regions throughout the country, both as to wages, as to hours of labor,
as to the labor of women and children, and as to the effect in the
various labor centres of immigration from abroad. In this investigation
especial attention should be paid to the conditions of child labor and
child-labor legislation in the several States. Such an investigation
must necessarily take into account many of the problems with which this
question of child labor is connected. These problems can be actually
met, in most cases, only by the States themselves; but the lack of
proper legislation in one State in such a matter as child labor often
renders it excessively difficult to establish protective restriction
upon the work in another State having the same industries, so that the
worst tends to drag down the better. For this reason, it would be well
for the Nation at least to endeavor to secure comprehensive information
as to the conditions of labor of children in the different States. Such
investigation and publication by the National Government would tend
toward the securing of approximately uniform legislation of the proper
character among the several States.
* * * * *
When we come to deal with great corporations the need for the
Government to act directly is far greater than in the case of labor,
because great corporations can become such only by engaging in
interstate commerce, and interstate commerce is peculiarly the field
of the General Government. It is an absurdity to expect to eliminate
the abuses in great corporations by State action. It is difficult to
be patient with an argument that such matters should be left to the
States, because more than one State pursues the policy of creating on
easy terms corporations which are never operated within that State
at all, but in other States whose laws they ignore. The National
Government alone can deal adequately with these great corporations.
To try to deal with them in an intemperate, destructive, or demagogic
spirit would, in all probability, mean that nothing whatever would
be accomplished, and, with absolute certainty, that if anything were
accomplished it would be of a harmful nature. The American people need
to continue to show the very qualities that they have shown—that is,
moderation, good sense, the earnest desire to avoid doing any damage,
and yet the quiet determination to proceed, step by step, without halt
and without hurry, in eliminating or at least in minimizing whatever
of mischief or of evil there is to interstate commerce in the conduct
of great corporations. They are acting in no spirit of hostility to
wealth, either individual or corporate. They are not against the rich
man any more than against the poor man. On the contrary, they are
friendly alike toward rich man and toward poor man, provided only that
each acts in a spirit of justice and decency toward his fellows. Great
corporations are necessary, and only men of great and singular mental
power can manage such corporations successfully, and such men must have
great rewards. But these corporations should be managed with due regard
to the interests of the public as a whole. Where this can be done under
the present laws it must be done. Where these laws come short others
should be enacted to supplement them.
Yet we must never forget the determining factor in every kind of
work, of head or hand, must be the man’s own good sense, courage, and
kindliness. More important than any legislation is the gradual growth
of a feeling of responsibility and forbearance among capitalists and
wage-workers alike; a feeling of respect on the part of each man for
the rights of others; a feeling of broad community of interest, not
merely of capitalists among themselves, and of wage-workers among
themselves, but of capitalists and wage-workers in their relations to
each other, and of both in their relations to their fellows who with
them make up the body politic. There are many captains of industry,
many labor leaders, who realize this. A recent speech by the president
of one of our great railroad systems to the employees of that system
contains sound common-sense. It runs in part as follows:
“It is my belief we can better serve each other, better understand the
man as well as his business, when meeting face to face, exchanging
views, and realizing from personal contact we serve but one interest,
that of our mutual prosperity.
“Serious misunderstandings can not occur where personal goodwill exists
and opportunity for personal explanation is present.
“In my early business life I had experience with men of affairs of
a character to make me desire to avoid creating a like feeling of
resentment to myself and the interests in my charge, should fortune
ever place me in authority, and I am solicitous of a measure of
confidence on the part of the public and our employees that I shall
hope may be warranted by the fairness and good-fellowship I intend
shall prevail in our relationship.
“But do not feel I am disposed to grant unreasonable requests, spend
the money of our company unnecessarily or without value received,
nor expect the days of mistakes are disappearing, or that cause for
complaint will not continually occur; simply to correct such abuses
as may be discovered, to better conditions as fast as reasonably
may be expected, constantly striving, with varying success, for
that improvement we all desire, to convince you there is a force at
work in the right direction, all the time making progress—is the
disposition with which I have come among you, asking your goodwill and
encouragement.
“The day has gone by when a corporation can be handled successfully in
defiance of the public will, even though that will be unreasonable and
wrong. A public may be led, but not driven, and I prefer to go with it
and shape or modify, in a measure, its opinion, rather than be swept
from my bearings, with loss to myself and the interests in my charge.
“Violent prejudice exists toward corporate activity and capital to-day,
much of it founded in reason, more in apprehension, and a large measure
is due to the personal traits of arbitrary, unreasonable, incompetent,
and offensive men in positions of authority. The accomplishment of
results by indirection, the endeavor to thwart the intention, if not
the expressed letter of the law (the will of the people), a disregard
of the rights of others, a disposition to withhold what is due, to
force by main strength or inactivity a result not justified, depending
upon the weakness of the claimant and his indisposition to become
involved in litigation, has created a sentiment harmful in the extreme
and a disposition to consider anything fair that gives gain to the
individual at the expense of the company.
“If corporations are to continue to do the world’s work, as they are
best fitted to, these qualities in their representatives that have
resulted in the present prejudice against them must be relegated to the
background. The corporations must come out into the open and see and be
seen. They must take the public into their confidence and ask for what
they want, and no more, and be prepared to explain satisfactorily what
advantage will accrue to the public if they are given their desires;
for they are permitted to exist not that they may make money solely,
but that they may effectively serve those from whom they derive their
power.
“Publicity, and not secrecy, will win hereafter, and laws be construed
by their intent and not by their letter, otherwise public utilities
will be owned and operated by the public which created them, even
though the service be less efficient and the result less satisfactory
from a financial standpoint.”
* * * * *
The Bureau of Corporations has made careful preliminary investigation
of many important corporations. It will make a special report on the
beef industry.
The policy of the Bureau is to accomplish the purposes of its creation
by co-operation, not antagonism; by making constructive legislation,
not destructive prosecution, the immediate object of its inquiries;
by conservative investigation of law and fact, and by refusal to
issue incomplete and hence necessarily inaccurate reports. Its policy
being thus one of open inquiry into, and not attack upon, business,
the Bureau has been able to gain not only the confidence, but, better
still, the co-operation of men engaged in legitimate business.
The Bureau offers to the Congress the means of getting at the cost of
production of our various great staples of commerce.
Of necessity the careful investigation of special corporations will
afford the Commissioner knowledge of certain business facts, the
publication of which might be an improper infringement of private
rights. The method of making public the results of these investigations
affords, under the law, a means for the protection of private rights.
The Congress will have all facts except such as would give to another
corporation information which would injure the legitimate business of
a competitor and destroy the incentive for individual superiority and
thrift.
The Bureau has also made exhaustive examinations into the legal
condition under which corporate business is carried on in the various
States; into all judicial decisions on the subject; and into the
various systems of corporate taxation in use. I call special attention
to the report of the chief of the Bureau; and I earnestly ask that
the Congress carefully consider the report and recommendations of the
Commissioner on this subject.
* * * * *
The business of insurance vitally affects the great mass of the
people of the United States and is national and not local in its
application. It involves a multitude of transactions among the people
of the different States and between American companies and foreign
Governments. I urge that the Congress carefully consider whether
the power of the Bureau of Corporations can not constitutionally be
extended to cover interstate transactions in insurance.
* * * * *
Above all else, we must strive to keep the highways of commerce open to
all on equal terms; and to do this it is necessary to put a complete
stop to all rebates. Whether the shipper or the railroad is to blame
makes no difference; the rebate must be stopped, the abuses of the
private car and private terminal-track and side-track systems must
be stopped, and the legislation of the Fifty-eighth Congress which
declares it to be unlawful for any person or corporation to offer,
grant, give, solicit, accept, or receive any rebate, concession, or
discrimination in respect of the transportation of any property in
interstate or foreign commerce whereby such property shall by any
device whatever be transported at a less rate than that named in the
tariffs published by the carrier must be enforced. For some time after
the enactment of the Act to Regulate Commerce it remained a mooted
question whether that act conferred upon the Interstate Commerce
Commission the power, after it had found a challenged rate to be
unreasonable, to declare what thereafter should, prima facie, be the
reasonable maximum rate for the transportation in dispute. The Supreme
Court finally resolved that question in the negative, so that as the
law now stands the Commission simply possess the bare power to denounce
a particular rate as unreasonable. While I am of the opinion that at
present it would be undesirable, if it were not impracticable, finally
to clothe the Commission with general authority to fix railroad rates,
I do believe that, as a fair security to shippers, the Commission
should be vested with the power, where a given rate has been challenged
and after full hearing found to be unreasonable, to decide, subject to
judicial review, what shall be a reasonable rate to take its place;
the ruling of the Commission to take effect immediately, and to obtain
unless and until it is reversed by the court of review. The Government
must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the
railways engaged in interstate commerce; and such increased supervision
is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one
hand or a still more radical policy on the other. In my judgment the
most important legislative act now needed as regards the regulation
of corporations is this act to confer on the Interstate Commerce
Commission the power to revise rates and regulations, the revised rate
to at once go into effect, and to stay in effect unless and until the
court of review reverses it.
Steamship companies engaged in interstate commerce and protected in
our coastwise trade, should be held to a strict observance of the
interstate commerce act.
* * * * *
In pursuing the set plan to make the city of Washington an example to
other American municipalities several points should be kept in mind
by the legislators. In the first place, the people of this country
should clearly understand that no amount of industrial prosperity,
and above all no leadership in international industrial competition,
can in any way atone for the sapping of the vitality of those who are
usually spoken of as the working classes. The farmers, the mechanics,
the skilled and unskilled laborers, the small shopkeepers, make up
the bulk of the population of any country; and upon their well-being,
generation after generation, the well-being of the country and the
race depends. Rapid development in wealth and industrial leadership
is a good thing, but only if it goes hand in hand with improvement,
and not deterioration, physical and moral. The overcrowding of cities
and the draining of country districts are unhealthy and even dangerous
symptoms in our modern life. We should not permit overcrowding in
cities. In certain European cities it is provided by law that the
population of towns shall not be allowed to exceed a very limited
density for a given area, so that the increase in density must be
continually pushed back into a broad zone around the centre of the
town, this zone having great avenues or parks within it. The death-rate
statistics show a terrible increase in mortality, and especially in
infant mortality, in overcrowded tenements. The poorest families
in tenement houses live in one room, and it appears that in these
one-room tenements the average death-rate for a number of given cities
at home and abroad is about twice what it is in a two-room tenement,
four times what it is in a three-room tenement, and eight times what
it is in a tenement consisting of four rooms or over. These figures
vary somewhat for different cities, but they approximate in each
city those given above; and in all cases the increase of mortality,
and especially of infant mortality, with the decrease in the number
of rooms used by the family and with the consequent overcrowding is
startling. The slum exacts a heavy total of deaths from those who dwell
therein; and this is the case not merely in the great crowded slums
of high buildings in New York and Chicago, but in the alley slums of
Washington. In Washington people can not afford to ignore the harm that
this causes. No Christian and civilized community can afford to show a
happy-go-lucky lack of concern for the youth of to-day; for, if so, the
community will have to pay a terrible penalty of financial burden and
social degradation in the to-morrow. There should be severe child-labor
and factory-inspection laws. It is very desirable that married women
should not work in factories. The prime duty of the man is to work, to
be the breadwinner; the prime duty of the woman is to be the mother,
the housewife. All questions of tariff and finance sink into utter
insignificance when compared with the tremendous, the vital importance
of trying to shape conditions so that these two duties of the man and
of the woman can be fulfilled under reasonably favorable circumstances.
If a race does not have plenty of children, or if the children do not
grow up, or if when they grow up they are unhealthy in body and stunted
or vicious in mind, then that race is decadent, and no heaping up of
wealth, no splendor of momentary material prosperity, can avail in any
degree as offsets.
The Congress has the same power of legislation for the District of
Columbia which the State Legislatures have for the various States. The
problems incident to our highly complex modern industrial civilization,
with its manifold and perplexing tendencies both for good and for
evil, are far less sharply accentuated in the city of Washington than
in most other cities. For this very reason it is easier to deal with
the various phases of these problems in Washington, and the District
of Columbia government should be a model for the other municipal
governments of the Nation, in all such matters as supervision of the
housing of the poor, the creation of small parks in the districts
inhabited by the poor, in laws affecting labor, in laws providing for
the taking care of the children, in truant laws, and in providing
schools.
In the vital matter of taking care of children, much advantage could
be gained by a careful study of what has been accomplished in such
States as Illinois and Colorado by the juvenile courts. The work
of the juvenile court is really a work of character building. It
is now generally recognized that young boys and young girls who go
wrong should not be treated as criminals, not even necessarily as
needing reformation, but rather as needing to have their characters
formed, and for this end to have them tested and developed by a
system of probation. Much admirable work has been done in many of our
Commonwealths by earnest men and women who have made a special study
of the needs of those classes of children which furnish the greatest
number of juvenile offenders, and therefore the greatest number of
adult offenders; and by their aid, and by profiting by the experiences
of the different States and cities in these matters, it would be easy
to provide a good code for the District of Columbia.
Several considerations suggest the need for a systematic investigation
into and improvement of housing conditions in Washington. The hidden
residential alleys are breeding grounds of vice and disease, and
should be opened into minor streets. For a number of years influential
citizens have joined with the District Commissioners in the vain
endeavor to secure laws permitting the condemnation of unsanitary
dwellings. The local death-rates, especially from preventable diseases,
are so unduly high as to suggest that the exceptional wholesomeness of
Washington’s better sections is offset by bad conditions in her poorer
neighborhoods. A special “Commission on Housing and Health Conditions
in the National Capital” would not only bring about the reformation
of existing evils, but would also formulate an appropriate building
code to protect the city from mammoth brick tenements and other evils
which threaten to develop here as they have in other cities. That the
Nation’s Capital should be made a model for other municipalities is
an ideal which appeals to all patriotic citizens everywhere, and such
a special Commission might map out and organize the city’s future
development in lines of civic social service, just as Major L’Enfant
and the recent Park Commission planned the arrangement of her streets
and parks.
It is mortifying to remember that Washington has no compulsory school
attendance law and that careful inquiries indicate the habitual absence
from school of some twenty per cent of all children between the ages of
eight and fourteen. It must be evident to all who consider the problems
of neglected child life, or the benefits of compulsory education in
other cities, that one of the most urgent needs of the National Capital
is a law requiring the school attendance of all children, this law to
be enforced by attendance agents directed by the Board of Education.
Public playgrounds are necessary means for the development of wholesome
citizenship in modern cities. It is important that the work inaugurated
here through voluntary efforts should be taken up and extended through
Congressional appropriation of funds sufficient to equip and maintain
numerous convenient small playgrounds upon land which can be secured
without purchase or rental. It is also desirable that small vacant
places be purchased and reserved as small-park playgrounds in densely
settled sections of the city which now have no public open spaces and
are destined soon to be built up solidly. All these needs should be met
immediately. To meet them would entail expenses; but a corresponding
saving could be made by stopping the building of streets and leveling
of ground for purposes largely speculative in outlying parts of the
city.
There are certain offenders, whose criminality takes the shape of
brutality and cruelty toward the weak, who need a special type of
punishment. The wife-beater, for example, is inadequately punished by
imprisonment; for imprisonment may often mean nothing to him, while it
may cause hunger and want to the wife and children who have been the
victims of his brutality. Probably some form of corporal punishment
would be the most adequate way of meeting this kind of crime.
The Department of Agriculture has grown into an educational institution
with a faculty of two thousand specialists making research into all
the sciences of production. The Congress appropriates, directly and
indirectly, six millions of dollars annually to carry on this work.
It reaches every State and Territory in the Union and the islands of
the sea lately come under our flag. Co-operation is had with the State
experiment stations, and with many other institutions and individuals.
The world is carefully searched for new varieties of grains, fruits,
grasses, vegetables, trees, and shrubs, suitable to various localities
in our country; and marked benefit to our producers has resulted.
The activities of our age in lines of research have reached the tillers
of the soil and inspired them with ambition to know more of the
principles that govern the forces of nature with which they have to
deal. Nearly half of the people of this country devote their energies
to growing things from the soil. Until a recent date little has been
done to prepare these millions for their life work. In most lines of
human activity college-trained men are the leaders. The farmer had no
opportunity for special training until the Congress made provision
for it forty years ago. During these years progress has been made
and teachers have been prepared. Over five thousand students are in
attendance at our State agricultural colleges. The Federal Government
expends ten millions of dollars annually toward this education and for
research in Washington and in the several States and Territories.
The Department of Agriculture has given facilities for post-graduate
work to five hundred young men during the last seven years, preparing
them for advanced lines of work in the Department and in the State
institutions.
The facts concerning meteorology and its relations to plant and animal
life are being systematically inquired into. Temperature and moisture
are controlling factors in all agricultural operations. The seasons of
the cyclones of the Caribbean Sea and their paths are being forecasted
with increasing accuracy. The cold winds that come from the north are
anticipated and their times and intensity told to farmers, gardeners,
and fruiterers in all southern localities.
We sell two hundred and fifty million dollars’ worth of animals and
animal products to foreign countries every year, in addition to
supplying our own people more cheaply and abundantly than any other
nation is able to provide for its people. Successful manufacturing
depends primarily on cheap food, which accounts to a considerable
extent for our growth in this direction. The Department of Agriculture,
by careful inspection of meats, guards the health of our people and
gives clean bills of health to deserving exports; it is prepared to
deal promptly with imported diseases of animals, and maintain the
excellence of our flocks and herds in this respect. There should be an
annual census of the live stock of the nation.
We sell abroad about six hundred million dollars’ worth of plants and
their products every year. Strenuous efforts are being made to import
from foreign countries such grains as are suitable to our varying
localities. Seven years ago we bought three-fourths of our rice;
by helping the rice growers on the Gulf Coast to secure seeds from
the Orient suited to their conditions, and by giving them adequate
protection, they now supply home demand and export to the islands
of the Caribbean Sea and to other rice-growing countries. Wheat and
other grains have been imported from light-rainfall countries to our
lands in the West and Southwest that have not grown crops because
of light precipitation, resulting in an extensive addition to our
cropping area and our home-making territory that can not be irrigated.
Ten million bushels of first-class macaroni wheat were grown from
these experimental importations last year. Fruits suitable to our
soils and climates are being imported from all the countries of the
Old World—the fig from Turkey, the almond from Spain, the date from
Algeria, the mango from India. We are helping our fruit growers to
get their crops into European markets by studying their methods of
preservation through refrigeration, packing, and handling, which have
been quite successful. We are helping our hop growers by importing
varieties that ripen earlier and later than the kinds they have been
raising, thereby lengthening the harvesting season. The cotton crop of
the country is threatened with root rot, the bollworm, and the boll
weevil. Our pathologists will find immune varieties that will resist
the root disease, and the bollworm can be dealt with, but the boll
weevil is a serious menace to the cotton crop. It is a Central American
insect that has become acclimated in Texas and has done great damage. A
scientist of the Department of Agriculture has found the weevil at home
in Guatemala being kept in check by an ant, which has been brought to
our cotton fields for observation. It is hoped that it may serve a good
purpose.
The soils of the country are getting attention from the farmer’s
standpoint, and interesting results are following. We have duplicates
of the soils that grow the wrapper tobacco in Sumatra and the filler
tobacco in Cuba. It will be only a question of time when the large
amounts paid to these countries will be paid to our own people. The
reclamation of alkali lands is progressing, to give object lessons to
our people in methods by which worthless lands may be made productive.
The insect friends and enemies of the farmer are getting attention. The
enemy of the San Jose scale was found near the Great Wall of China,
and is now cleaning up all our orchards. The fig-fertilizing insect
imported from Turkey has helped to establish an industry in California
that amounts to from fifty to one hundred tons of dried figs annually,
and is extending over the Pacific Coast. A parasitic fly from South
Africa is keeping in subjection the black scale, the worst pest of the
orange and lemon industry in California.
Careful preliminary work is being done toward producing our own silk.
The mulberry is being distributed in large numbers, eggs are being
imported and distributed, improved reels were imported from Europe last
year, and two expert reelers were brought to Washington to reel the
crop of cocoons and teach the art to our own people.
The crop-reporting system of the Department of Agriculture is being
brought closer to accuracy every year. It has two hundred and fifty
thousand reporters selected from people in eight vocations in life.
It has arrangements with most European countries for interchange of
estimates, so that our people may know as nearly as possible with what
they must compete.
* * * * *
During the two and a half years that have elapsed since the passage
of the reclamation act, rapid progress has been made in the surveys
and examinations of the opportunities for reclamation in the thirteen
States and three Territories of the arid West. Construction has
already been begun on the largest and most important of the irrigation
works, and plans are being completed for works which will utilize
the funds now available. The operations are being carried on by the
Reclamation Service, a corps of engineers selected through competitive
civil-service examinations. This corps includes experienced consulting
and constructing engineers, as well as various experts in mechanical
and legal matters, and is composed largely of men who have spent
most of their lives in practical affairs connected with irrigation.
The larger problems have been solved, and it now remains to execute
with care, economy, and thoroughness the work which has been laid
out. All important details are being carefully considered by boards
of consulting engineers, selected for their thorough knowledge and
practical experience. Each project is taken up on the ground by
competent men and viewed from the standpoint of the creation of
prosperous homes and of promptly refunding to the Treasury the cost
of construction. The reclamation act has been found to be remarkably
complete and effective, and so broad in its provisions that a wide
range of undertakings has been possible under it. At the same time,
economy is guaranteed by the fact that the funds must ultimately be
returned to be used over again.
* * * * *
It is the cardinal principle of the forest-reserve policy of this
Administration that the reserves are for use. Whatever interferes
with the use of their resources is to be avoided by every possible
means. But these resources must be used in such a way as to make them
permanent.
The forest policy of the Government is just now a subject of vivid
public interest throughout the West and to the people of the United
States in general. The forest reserves themselves are of extreme value
to the present as well as to the future welfare of all the Western
public-land States. They powerfully affect the use and disposal of the
public lands. They are of special importance because they preserve
the water supply and the supply of timber for domestic purposes, and
so promote settlement under the reclamation act. Indeed, they are
essential to the welfare of every one of the great interests of the
West.
Forest reserves are created for two principal purposes. The first is
to preserve the water supply. This is their most important use. The
principal users of the water thus preserved are irrigation ranchers
and settlers, cities and towns to whom their municipal water supplies
are of the very first importance, users and furnishers of water power,
and the users of water for domestic, manufacturing, mining, and other
purposes. All these are directly dependent upon the forest reserves.
The second reason for which forest reserves are created is to preserve
the timber supply for various classes of wood users. Among the more
important of these are settlers under the reclamation act and other
acts, for whom a cheap and accessible supply of timber for domestic
uses is absolutely necessary; miners and prospectors, who are in
serious danger of losing their timber supply by fire or through export
by lumber companies when timber lands adjacent to their mines pass into
private ownership; lumbermen, transportation companies, builders, and
commercial interests in general.
Although the wisdom of creating forest reserves is nearly everywhere
heartily recognized, yet in a few localities there has been
misunderstanding and complaint. The following statement is therefore
desirable:
The forest-reserve policy can be successful only when it has the full
support of the people of the West. It can not safely, and should not
in any case, be imposed upon them against their will. But neither can
we accept the views of those whose only interest in the forest is
temporary; who are anxious to reap what they have not sown and then
move away, leaving desolation behind them. On the contrary, it is
everywhere and always the interest of the permanent settler and the
permanent business man, the man with a stake in the country, which must
be considered and which must decide.
The making of forest reserves within railroad and wagon-road land-grant
limits will hereafter, as for the past three years, be so managed as to
prevent the issue, under the act of June 4, 1897, of base for exchange
or lieu selection (usually called scrip). In all cases where forest
reserves within areas covered by land grants appear to be essential
to the prosperity of settlers, miners, or others, the Government
lands within such proposed forest reserves will, as in the recent
past, be withdrawn from sale or entry pending the completion of such
negotiations with the owners of the land grants as will prevent the
creation of so-called scrip.