PART III. [Concerning the Work of the Departments of the Post Office,

Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce and Labor and District of Columbia.]

THE WHITE HOUSE, December 19, 1912.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

This is the third of a series of messages in which I have brought to the

attention of the Congress the important transactions of the Government

in each of its departments during the last year and have discussed

needed reforms.

HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS SHOULD HAVE SEATS ON THE FLOOR OF CONGRESS

I recommend the adoption of legislation which shall make it the duty of

heads of departments--the members of the President’s Cabinet--at

convenient times to attend the session of the House and the Senate,

which shall provide seats for them in each House, and give them the

opportunity to take part in all discussions and to answer questions of

which they have had due notice. The rigid holding apart of the executive

and the legislative branches of this Government has not worked for the

great advantage of either. There has been much lost motion in the

machinery, due to the lack of cooperation and interchange of views face

to face between the representatives of the Executive and the Members of

the two legislative branches of the Government. It was never intended

that they should be separated in the sense of not being in constant

effective touch and relationship to each other. The legislative and the

executive each performs its own appropriate function, but these

functions must be coordinated. Time and time again debates have arisen

in each House upon issues which the information of a particular

department head would have enabled him, if present, to end at once by a

simple explanation or statement. Time and time again a forceful and

earnest presentation of facts and arguments by the representative of the

Executive whose duty it is to enforce the law would have brought about a

useful reform by amendment, which in the absence of such a statement has

failed of passage. I do not think I am mistaken in saying that the

presence of the members of the Cabinet on the floor of each House would

greatly contribute to the enactment of beneficial legislation. Nor would

this in any degree deprive either the legislative or the executive of

the independence which separation of the two branches has been intended

to promote. It would only facilitate their cooperation in the public

interest.

On the other hand, I am sure that the necessity and duty imposed upon

department heads of appearing in each house and in answer to searching

questions, of rendering upon their feet an account of what they have

done, or what has been done by the administration, will spur each member

of the Cabinet to closer attention to the details of his department, to

greater familiarity with its needs, and to greater care to avoid the

just criticism which the answers brought out in questions put and

discussions arising between the Members of either House and the members

of the Cabinet may properly evoke.

Objection is made that the members of the administration having no vote

could exercise no power on the floor of the House, and could not assume

that attitude of authority and control which the English parliamentary

Government have and which enables them to meet the responsibilities the

English system thrusts upon them. I agree that in certain respects it

would be more satisfactory if members of the Cabinet could at the same

time be Members of both Houses, with voting power, but this is

impossible under our system; and while a lack of this feature may

detract from the influence of the department chiefs, it will not prevent

the good results which I have described above both in the matter of

legislation and in the matter of administration. The enactment of such a

law would be quite within the power of Congress without constitutional

amendment, and it has such possibilities of usefulness that we might

well make the experiment, and if we are disappointed the misstep can be

easily retraced by a repeal of the enabling legislation.

This is not a new proposition. In the House of Representatives, in the

Thirty-eighth Congress, the proposition was referred to a select

committee of seven Members. The committee made an extensive report, and

urged the adoption of the reform. The report showed that our history had

not been without illustration of the necessity and the examples of the

practice by pointing out that in early days Secretaries were repeatedly

called to the presence of either Rouse for consultation, advice, and

information. It also referred to remarks of Mr. justice Story in his

Commentaries on the Constitution, in which he urgently presented the

wisdom of such a change. This report is to be found in Volume I of the

Reports of Committees of the First Session of the Thirty-eighth

Congress, April 6, 1864.

Again, on February 4, 1881, a select committee of the Senate recommended

the passage of a similar bill, and made a report, In which, while

approving the separation of the three branches, the executive,

legislative, and judicial, they point out as a reason for the proposed

change that, although having a separate existence, the branches are “to

cooperate, each with the other, as the different members of the human

body must cooperate, with each other in order to form the figure and

perform the duties of a perfect man.”

The report concluded as follows: This system will require the selection

of the strongest men to be heads of departments and will require them to

be well equipped with the knowledge of their offices. It will also

require the strongest men to be the leaders of Congress and participate

in debate. It will bring these strong men in contact, perhaps into

conflict, to advance the public weal, and thus stimulate their abilities

and their efforts, and will thus assuredly result to the good of the

country.

If it should appear by actual experience that the heads of departments

in fact have not time to perform the additional duty imposed on them by

this bill, the force in their offices should be increased or the duties

devolving on them personally should be diminished. An undersecretary

should be appointed to whom could be confided that routine of

administration which requires only order and accuracy. The principal

officers could then confine their attention to those duties which

require wise discretion and intellectual activity. Thus they would have

abundance of time for their duties under this bill. Indeed, your

committee believes that the public interest would be subserved if the

Secretaries were relieved of the harassing cares of distributing

clerkships and closely supervising the mere machinery of the

departments. Your committee believes that the adoption of this bill and

the effective execution of its provisions will be the first step toward

a sound civil-service reform which will secure a larger wisdom in the

adoption of policies and a better system in their execution.(Signed)

GEO. H. PENDLETON. W. B. ALLISON. D. W. VOORHEES. J. G. BLAINE. M. C.

BUTLER. JOHN J. INGALLS. O. H. PLATT. J. T. FARLEY. It would be

difficult to mention the names of higher authority in the practical

knowledge of our Government than those which are appended to this

report.

POSTAL SAVINGS BANK SYSTEM

The Postal Savings Bank System has been extended so that it now includes

4,004 fourth-class post offices’, as well as 645 branch offices and

stations in the larger cities. There are now 12,812 depositories at

which patrons of the system may open accounts. The number of depositors

is 300,000 and the amount of their deposits is approximately

$28,000,000, not including $1,314,140 which has been with drawn by

depositors for the purpose of buying postal savings bonds. Experience

demonstrates the value of dispensing with the pass-book and introducing

in its place a certificate of deposit. The gross income of the postal

savings system for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1913, will amount to

$700,000 and the interest payable to depositors to $300,000. The cost of

supplies, equipment, and salaries is $700,000. It thus appears that the

system lacks $300,000 a year of paying interest and expenses. It is

estimated, however, that when the deposits have reached the sum Of

$50,000,000, which at the present rate they soon will do, the system

will be self-sustaining. By law the postal savings funds deposited at

each post office are required to be redeposited in local banks. State

and national banks to the number of 7,357 have qualified as depositories

for these funds. Such deposits are secured by bonds aggregating

$54,000,000. Of this amount, $37,000,000 represent municipal bonds.

PARCEL POST

In several messages I have favored and recommended the adoption of a

system of parcel post. In the postal appropriation act of last year a

general system was provided and its installation was directed by the 1st

of January. This has entailed upon the Post Office Department a great

deal of very heavy labor, but the Postmaster General informs me that on

the date selected, to wit, the 1st of January, near at hand, the

department will be in readiness to meet successfully the requirements of

the public.

CLASSIFICATION OF POSTMASTERS

A trial, during the past three years, of the system of classifying

fourth-class postmasters in that part of the country lying between the

Mississippi River on the west, Canada on the north, the Atlantic Ocean

on the east, and Mason and Dixon’s line on the south has been

sufficiently satisfactory to justify the postal authorities in

recommending the extension of the order to include all the fourth-class

postmasters in the country. In September, 1912, upon the suggestion of

the Postmaster General, I directed him to prepare an order which should

put the system in effect, except in Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, Porto Rico,

and Samoa. Under date of October 15 I issued such an order which

affected 36,000 postmasters. By the order the post offices were divided

into groups A and B. Group A includes all postmasters whose compensation

is $500 or more, and group B those whose compensation is less than that

sum. Different methods are pursued in the selection of the postmasters

for group A and group, B. Criticism has been made of this order on the

ground that the motive for it was political. Nothing could be further

from the truth. The order was made before the election and in the

interest of efficient public service. I have several times requested

Congress to give me authority to put first-, second-, and third-class

postmasters, and all other local officers, including internal-revenue

officers, customs officers, United States marshals, and the local agents

of the other departments under the classification of the civil-service

law by taking away the necessity for confirming such appointments by the

Senate. I deeply regret the failure of Congress to follow these

recommendations. The change would have taken out of politics practically

every local officer and would have entirely cured the evils growing out

of what under the present law must always remain a remnant of the spoils

system.

COMPENSATION TO RAILWAYS FOR CARRYING MAILS

It is expected that the establishment of a parcel post on January 1st

will largely increase the amount of mail matter to be transported by the

railways, and Congress should be prompt to provide a way by which they

may receive the additional compensation to which they will be entitled.

The Postmaster General urges that the department’s plan for a complete

readjustment of the system of paying the railways for carrying the mails

be adopted, substituting space for weight as the principal factor in

fixing compensation. Under this plan it will be possible to determine

without delay what additional payment should be made on account of the

parcel post. The Postmaster General’s recommendation is based on the

results of a far-reaching investigation begun early in the

administration with the object of determining what it costs the railways

to carry the mails. The statistics obtained during the course of the

inquiry show that while many of the railways, and particularly the large

systems, were making profits from mail transportations, certain of the

lines were actually carrying the mails at a loss. As a result of the

investigation the department, after giving the subject careful

consideration, decided to urge the abandonment of the present plan of

fixing compensation on the basis of the weight of the mails carried, a

plan that has proved to be exceedingly expensive and in other respects

unsatisfactory. Under the method proposed the railway companies will

annually submit to the department reports showing what it costs them to

carry the mails, and this cost will be apportioned on the basis of the

car space engaged, payment to be allowed at the rate thus determined in

amounts that will cover the cost and a reasonable profit. If a railway

is not satisfied with the manner in which the department apportions the

cost in fixing compensation, it is to have the right, tinder the new

plan, of appealing to the Interstate Commerce Commission. This feature

of the proposed law would seem to insure a fair treatment of the

railways. It is hoped that Congress will give the matter immediate

attention and that the method of compensation recommended by the

department or some other suitable plan will be promptly authorized.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

The Interior Department, in the problems of administration included

within its jurisdiction, presents more difficult questions than any

other. This has been due perhaps to temporary causes of a political

character, but more especially to the inherent difficulty in the

performance of some of the functions which are assigned to it. Its chief

duty is the guardianship of the public domain and the disposition of

that domain to private ownership under homestead, mining, and other

laws, by which patents from the Government to the individual are

authorized on certain conditions. During the last decade the public

seemed to become suddenly aware that a very large part of its domain had

passed from its control into private ownership, under laws not well

adapted to modern conditions, and also that in the doing of this the

provisions of existing law and regulations adopted in accordance with

law had not been strictly observed, and that in the transfer of title

much fraud had intervened, to the pecuniary benefit of dishonest

persons. There arose thereupon a demand for conservation of the public

domain, its protection against fraudulent diminution, and the

preservation of that part of it from private acquisition which it seemed

necessary to keep for future public use. The movement, excellent in the

intention which prompted it, and useful in its results, has nevertheless

had some bad effects, which the western country has recently been

feeling and in respect of which there is danger of a reaction toward

older abuses unless we can attain the golden mean, which consists in the

prevention of the mere exploitation of the public domain for private

purposes while at the same, time facilitating its development for the

benefit of the local public.

The land laws need complete revision to secure proper conservation on

the one hand of land that ought to be kept in public use and, on the

other hand, prompt disposition of those lands which ought to be disposed

in private ownership or turned over to private use by properly guarded

leases. In addition to this there are not enough officials in our Land

Department with legal knowledge sufficient promptly to make the

decisions which are called for. The whole land-laws system should be

reorganized, and not until it is reorganized, will decisions be made as

promptly as they ought, or will men who have earned title to public land

under the statute receive their patents within a reasonably short

period. The present administration has done what it could in this

regard, but the necessity for reform and change by a revision of the

laws and an increase and reorganization of the force remains, and I

submit to Congress the wisdom of a full examination of this subject, in

order that a very large and important part of our people in the West may

be relieved from a just cause of irritation.

I invite your attention to the discussion by the Secretary of the

Interior of the need for legislation with respect to mining claims,

leases of coal lands in this country and in Alaska, and for similar

disposition of oil, phosphate, and potash lands, and also to his

discussion of the proper use to be made of water-power sites held by the

Government. Many of these lands are now being withheld from use by the

public under the general withdrawal act which was passed by the last

Congress. That act was not for the purpose of disposing of the question,

but it was for the purpose of preserving the lands until the question

could be solved. I earnestly urge that the matter is of the highest

importance to our western fellow citizens and ought to command the

immediate attention of the legislative branch of the Government.

Another function which the Interior Department has to perform is that of

the guardianship of Indians. In spite of everything which has been said

in criticism of the policy of our Government toward the Indians, the

amount of wealth which is now held by it for these wards per capita

shows that the Government has been generous; but the management of so

large an estate, with the great variety of circumstances that surround

each tribe and each case, calls for the exercise of the highest business

discretion, and the machinery provided in the Indian Bureau for the

discharge of this function is entirely inadequate. The position of

Indian commissioner demands the exercise of business ability of the

first order, and it is difficult to secure such talent for the salary

provided.

The condition of health of the Indian and the prevalence in the tribes

of curable diseases has been exploited recently in the press. In a

message to Congress at its last session I brought this subject to its

attention and invited a special appropriation, in order that our

facilities for overcoming diseases among the Indians might be properly

increased, but no action was then taken by Congress on the subject, nor

has such appropriation been made since.

The commission appointed by authority of the Congress to report on

proper method of securing railroad development in Alaska is formulating

its report, and I expect to have an opportunity before the end of this

session to submit its recommendations.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

The far-reaching utility of the educational system carried on by the

Department of Agriculture for the benefit of the farmers of our country

calls for no elaboration. Each year there is a growth in the variety of

facts which it brings out for the benefit of the farmer, and each year

confirms the wisdom of the expenditure of the appropriations made for

that department.

PURE-FOOD LAW

The Department of Agriculture is charged with the execution of the

pure-food law. The passage of this encountered much opposition from

manufacturers and others who feared the effect upon their business of

the enforcement of its provisions. The opposition aroused the just

indignation of the public, and led to an intense sympathy with the

severe and rigid enforcement of the provisions of the new law. It had to

deal in many instances with the question whether or not products of

large business enterprises, in the form of food preparations, were

deleterious to the public health; and while in a great majority of

instances this issue was easily determinable, there were not a few cases

in which it was hard to draw the line between a useful and a harmful

food preparation. In cases like this when a decision involved the

destruction of great business enterprises representing the investment of

large capital and the expenditure of great energy and ability, the

danger of serious injustice was very considerable in the enforcement of

a new law under the spur of great public indignation. The public

officials charged with executing the law might do injustice in heated

controversy through unconscious pride of opinion and obstinacy of

conclusion. For this reason President Roosevelt felt justified in

creating a board of experts, known as the Remsen Board, to whom in cases

of much importance an appeal might be taken and a review had of a

decision of the Bureau of Chemistry in the Agricultural Department. I

heartily agree that it was wise to create this board in order that

injustice might not be done. The questions which arise are not generally

those involving palpable injury to health, but they are upon the narrow

and doubtful line in respect of which it is better to be in some error

not dangerous than to be radically destructive. I think that the time

has come for Congress to recognize the necessity for some such tribunal

of appeal and to make specific statutory provision for it. While we are

struggling to suppress an evil of great proportions like that of impure

food, we must provide machinery in the law itself to prevent its

becoming an instrument of oppression, and we ought to enable those whose

business is threatened with annihilation to have some tribunal and some

form of appeal in which they have a complete day in court.

AGRICULTURAL CREDITS

I referred in my first message to the question of improving the system

of agricultural credits. The Secretary of Agriculture has made an

investigation into the matter of credits in this country, and I commend

a consideration of the information which through his agents he has been

able to collect. It does not in any way minimize the importance of the

proposal, but it gives more accurate information upon some of the phases

of the question than we have heretofore had.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR

I commend to Congress an examination of the report of the Secretary of

Commerce and Labor, and especially that part in which he discusses the

office of the Bureau of Corporations, the value to commerce of a

proposed trade commission, and the steps which he has taken to secure

the organization of a national chamber of commerce. I heartily commend

his view that the plan of a trade commission which looks to the fixing

of prices is altogether impractical and ought not for a moment to be

considered as a possible solution of the trust question.

The trust question in the enforcement of the Sherman antitrust law is

gradually solving itself, is maintaining the principle and restoring the

practice of competition, and if the law is quietly but firmly enforced,

business will adjust itself to the statutory requirements, and the

unrest in commercial circles provoked by the trust discussion will

disappear.

PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION

In conformity with a joint resolution of Congress, an Executive

proclamation was issued last February, inviting the nations of the world

to participate in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition to be held

at San Francisco to celebrate the construction of the Panama, Canal. A

sympathetic response was immediately forthcoming, and several nations

have already selected the sites for their buildings. In furtherance of

my invitation, a special commission visited European countries during

the past summer, and received assurance of hearty cooperation in the

task of bringing together a universal industrial, military, and naval

display on an unprecedented scale. It is evident that the exposition

will be an accurate mirror of the world’s activities as they appear 400

years after the date of the discovery of the Pacific Ocean.

It is the duty of the United States to make the nations welcome at San

Francisco and to facilitate such acquaintance between them and ourselves

as will promote the expansion of commerce and familiarize the world with

the new trade route through the Panama Canal. The action of the State

governments and individuals assures a comprehensive exhibit of the

resources of this country and of the progress of the people. This

participation by State and individuals should be supplemented by an

adequate showing of the varied and unique activities of the National

Government. The United States can not with good grace invite foreign

governments to erect buildings and make expensive exhibits while itself

refusing to participate. Nor would it be wise to forego the opportunity

to join with other nations in the inspiring interchange of ideas tending

to promote intercourse, friendship, and commerce. It is the duty of the

Government to foster and build up commerce through the canal, just as it

was the duty of the Government to construct it.

I earnestly recommend the appropriation at this session of such a sum as

will enable the United States to construct a suitable building, install

a governmental exhibit, and otherwise participate in the Panama-Pacific

International Exposition in a manner commensurate with the dignity of a

nation whose guests are to be the people of the world. I recommend also

such legislation as will facilitate the entry of material intended for

exhibition and protect foreign exhibitors against infringement of

patents and the unauthorized copying of patterns and designs. All aliens

sent to San Francisco to construct and care for foreign buildings and

exhibits should be admitted without restraint or embarrassment.

THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND THE CITY OF WASHINGTON

The city of Washington is a beautiful city, with a population of

352,936, of whom 98,667 are colored. The annual municipal budget is

about $14,000,000. The presence of the National Capital and other

governmental structures constitutes the chief beauty and interest of the

city. The public grounds are extensive, and the opportunities for

improving the city and making it still more attractive are very great.

Under a plan adopted some years ago, one half the cost of running the

city is paid by taxation upon the property, real and personal, of the

citizens and residents, and the other half is borne by the General

Government. The city is expanding at a remarkable rate, and this can

only be accounted for by the coming here from other parts of the country

of well-to-do people who, having finished their business careers

elsewhere, build and make this their permanent place of residence.

On the whole, the city as a municipality is very well governed. It is

well lighted, the water supply is good, the streets are well paved, the

police force is well disciplined, crime is not flagrant, and while it

has purlieus and centers of vice, like other large cities, they are not

exploited, they do not exercise any influence or control in the

government of the city, and they are suppressed in as far as it has been

found practicable. Municipal graft is inconsiderable. There are interior

courts in the city that are noisome and centers of disease and the

refuge of criminals, but Congress has begun to clean these out, and

progress has been made in the case of the most notorious of these, which

is known as “Willow Tree Alley.” This movement should continue.

The mortality for the past year was at the rate Of 17.80 per 1,000 of

both races; among the whites it was 14.61 per thousand, and among the

blacks 26.12 per thousand. These are the lowest mortality rates ever

recorded in the District.

One of the most crying needs in the government of the District is a

tribunal or public authority for the purpose of supervising the

corporations engaged in the operation of public utilities. Such a bill

is pending in Congress and ought to pass. Washington should show itself

under the direction of Congress to be a city with a model form of

government, but as long as such authority over public utilities is

withheld from the municipal government, it must always be defective.

Without undue criticism of the present street railway accommodations, it

can be truly said that under the spur of a public utilities commission

they might be substantially improved.

While the school system of Washington perhaps might be bettered in the

economy of its management and the distribution of its buildings, its

usefulness has nevertheless greatly increased in recent years, and it

now offers excellent facilities for primary and secondary education.

From time to time there is considerable agitation in Washington in favor

of granting the citizens of the city the franchise and constituting an

elective government. I am strongly opposed to this change. The history

of Washington discloses a number of experiments of this kind, which have

always been abandoned as unsatisfactory. The truth is this is a city

governed by a popular body, to wit, the Congress of the United States,

selected from the people of the United States, who own Washington. The

people who come here to live do so with the knowledge of the origin of

the city and the restrictions, and therefore voluntarily give up the

privilege of living in a municipality governed by popular vote.

Washington is so unique in its origin and in its use for housing and

localizing the sovereignty of the Nation that the people who live here

must regard its peculiar character and must be content to subject

themselves to the control of a body selected by all the people of the

Nation. I agree that there are certain inconveniences growing out of the

government of a city by a national legislature like Congress, and it

would perhaps be possible to lessen these by the delegation by Congress

to the District Commissioners of greater legislative power for the

enactment of local laws than they now possess, especially those of a

police character.

Every loyal American has a personal pride in the beauty of Washington

and in its development and growth. There is no one with a proper

appreciation of our Capital City who would favor a niggardly policy in

respect to expenditures from the National Treasury to add to the

attractiveness of this city, which belongs to every citizen of the

entire country, and which no citizen visits without a sense of pride of

ownership. We have had restored by a Commission of Fine Arts, at the

instance of a committee of the Senate, the original plan of the French

engineer L’Enfant for the city of Washington, and we know with great

certainty the course which the improvement of Washington should take.

Why should there be delay in making this improvement in so far as it

involves the extension of the parking system and the construction of

greatly needed public buildings? Appropriate buildings for the State

Department, the Department of justice, and the Department of Commerce

and Labor have been projected, plans have been approved, and nothing is

wanting but the appropriations for the beginning and completion of the

structures. A hall of archives is also badly needed, but nothing has

been done toward its construction, although the land for it has long

been bought and paid for. Plans have been made for the union of Potomac

Park with the valley of Rock Creek and Rock Creek Park, and the

necessity for the connection between the Soldiers’ Home and Rock Creek

Park calls for no comment. I ask again why there should be delay in

carrying out these plans We have the money in the Treasury, the plans

are national in their scope, and the improvement should be treated as a

national project. The plan will find a hearty approval throughout the

country. I am quite sure, from the information which I have, that, at

comparatively small expense, from that part of the District of Columbia

which was retroceded to Virginia, the portion including the Arlington

estate, Fort Myer, and the palisades of the Potomac can be acquired by

purchase and the jurisdiction of the State of Virginia over this land

ceded to the Nation. This ought to be done.

The construction of the Lincoln Memorial and of a memorial bridge from

the base of the Lincoln Monument to Arlington would be an appropriate

and symbolic expression of the union of the North and the South at the

Capital of the Nation. I urge upon Congress the appointment of a

commission to undertake these national improvements, and to submit a

plan for their execution; and when the plan has been submitted and

approved, and the work carried out, Washington will really become what

it ought to be--the most beautiful city in the world.

***

State of the Union Address

Woodrow Wilson

December 2, 1913

Gentlemen of the Congress:

In pursuance of my constitutional duty to “give to the Congress

information of the state of the Union,” I take the liberty of addressing

you on several matters which ought, as it seems to me, particularly to

engage the attention of your honorable bodies, as of all who study the

welfare and progress of the Nation.

I shall ask your indulgence if I venture to depart in some degree from

the usual custom of setting before you in formal review the many matters

which have engaged the attention and called for the action of the

several departments of the Government or which look to them for early

treatment in the future, because the list is long, very long, and would

suffer in the abbreviation to which I should have to subject it. I shall

submit to you the reports of the heads of the several departments, in

which these subjects are set forth in careful detail, and beg that they

may receive the thoughtful attention of your committees and of all

Members of the Congress who may have the leisure to study them. Their

obvious importance, as constituting the very substance of the business

of the Government, makes comment and emphasis on my part unnecessary.

The country, I am thankful to say, is at peace with all the world, and

many happy manifestations multiply about us of a growing cordiality and

sense of community of interest among the nations, foreshadowing an age

of settled peace and good will. More and more readily each decade do the

nations manifest their willingness to bind themselves by solemn treaty

to the processes of peace, the processes of frankness and fair

concession. So far the United States has stood at the front of such

negotiations. She will, I earnestly hope and confidently believe, give

fresh proof of her sincere adherence to the cause of international

friendship by ratifying the several treaties of arbitration awaiting

renewal by the Senate. In addition to these, it has been the privilege

of the Department of State to gain the assent, in principle, of no less

than 31 nations, representing four-fifths of the population of the

world, to the negotiation of treaties by which it shall be agreed that

whenever differences of interest or of policy arise which can not be

resolved by the ordinary processes of diplomacy they shall be publicly

analyzed, discussed, and reported upon by a tribunal chosen by the

parties before either nation determines its course of action.

There is only one possible standard by which to determine controversies

between the United States and other nations, and that is compounded of

these two elements: Our own honor and our obligations to the peace of

the world. A test so compounded ought easily to be made to govern both

the establishment of new treaty obligations and the interpretation of

those already assumed.

There is but one cloud upon our horizon. That has shown itself to the

south of us, and hangs over Mexico. There can be no certain prospect of

peace in America until Gen. Huerta has surrendered his usurped authority

in Mexico; until it is understood on all hands, indeed, that such

pretended governments will not be countenanced or dealt with by-the

Government of the United States. We are the friends of constitutional

government in America; we are more than its friends, we are its

champions; because in no other way can our neighbors, to whom we would

wish in every way to make proof of our friendship, work out their own

development in peace and liberty. Mexico has no Government. The attempt

to maintain one at the City of Mexico has broken down, and a mere

military despotism has been set up which has hardly more than the

semblance of national authority. It originated in the usurpation of

Victoriano Huerta, who, after a brief attempt to play the part of

constitutional President, has at last cast aside even the pretense of

legal right and declared himself dictator. As a consequence, a condition

of affairs now exists in Mexico which has made it doubtful whether even

the most elementary and fundamental rights either of her own people or

of the citizens of other countries resident within her territory can

long be successfully safeguarded, and which threatens, if long

continued, to imperil the interests of peace, order, and tolerable life

in the lands immediately to the south of us. Even if the usurper had

succeeded in his purposes, in despite of the constitution of the

Republic and the rights of its people, he would have set up nothing but

a precarious and hateful power, which could have lasted but a little

while, and whose eventual downfall would have left the country in a more

deplorable condition than ever. But he has not succeeded. He has

forfeited the respect and the moral support even of those who were at

one time willing to see him succeed. Little by little he has been

completely isolated. By a little every day his power and prestige are

crumbling and the collapse is not far away. We shall not, I believe, be

obliged to alter our policy of watchful waiting. And then, when the end

comes, we shall hope to see constitutional order restored in distressed

Mexico by the concert and energy of such of her leaders as prefer the

liberty of their people to their own ambitions.

I turn to matters of domestic concern. You already have under

consideration a bill for the reform of our system of banking and

currency, for which the country waits with impatience, as for something

fundamental to its whole business life and necessary to set credit free

from arbitrary and artificial restraints. I need not say how earnestly I

hope for its early enactment into law. I take leave to beg that the

whole energy and attention of the Senate be concentrated upon it till

the matter is successfully disposed of. And yet I feel that the request

is not needed-that the Members of that great House need no urging in

this service to the country.

I present to you, in addition, the urgent necessity that special

provision be made also for facilitating the credits needed by the

farmers of the country. The pending currency bill does the farmers a

great service. It puts them upon an equal footing with other business

men and masters of enterprise, as it should; and upon its passage they

will find themselves quit of many of the difficulties which now hamper

them in the field of credit. The farmers, of course, ask and should be

given no special privilege, such as extending to them the credit of the

Government itself. What they need and should obtain is legislation which

will make their own abundant and substantial credit resources available

as a foundation for joint, concerted local action in their own behalf in

getting the capital they must use. It is to this we should now address

ourselves.

It has, singularly enough, come to pass that we have allowed the

industry of our farms to lag behind the other activities of the country

in its development. I need not stop to tell you how fundamental to the

life of the Nation is the production of its food. Our thoughts may

ordinarily be concentrated upon the cities and the hives of industry,

upon the cries of the crowded market place and the clangor of the

factory, but it is from the quiet interspaces of the open valleys and

the free hillsides that we draw the sources of life and of prosperity,

from the farm and the ranch, from the forest and the mine. Without these

every street would be silent, every office deserted, every factory

fallen into disrepair. And yet the farmer does not stand upon the same

footing with the forester and the miner in the market of credit. He is

the servant of the seasons. Nature determines how long he must wait for

his crops, and will not be hurried in her processes. He may give his

note, but the season of its maturity depends upon the season when his

crop matures, lies at the gates of the market where his products are

sold. And the security he gives is of a character not known in the

broker’s office or as familiarly as it might be on the counter of the

banker.

The Agricultural Department of the Government is seeking to assist as

never before to make farming an efficient business, of wide co-operative

effort, in quick touch with the markets for foodstuffs. The farmers and

the Government will henceforth work together as real partners in this

field, where we now begin to see our way very clearly and where many

intelligent plans are already being put into execution. The Treasury of

the United States has, by a timely and well-considered distribution of

its deposits, facilitated the moving of the crops in the present season

and prevented the scarcity of available funds too often experienced at

such times. But we must not allow ourselves to depend upon extraordinary

expedients. We must add the means by which the, farmer may make his

credit constantly and easily available and command when he will the

capital by which to support and expand his business. We lag behind many

other great countries of the modern world in attempting to do this.

Systems of rural credit have been studied and developed on the other

side of the water while we left our farmers to shift for themselves in

the ordinary money market. You have but to look about you in any rural

district to see the result, the handicap and embarrassment which have

been put upon those who produce our food.

Conscious of this backwardness and neglect on our part, the Congress

recently authorized the creation of a special commission to study the

various systems of rural credit which have been put into operation in

Europe, and this commission is already prepared to report. Its report

ought to make it easier for us to determine what methods will be best

suited to our own farmers. I hope and believe that the committees of the

Senate and House will address themselves to this matter with the most

fruitful results, and I believe that the studies and recently formed

plans of the Department of Agriculture may be made to serve them very

greatly in their work of framing appropriate and adequate legislation.

It would be indiscreet and presumptuous in anyone to dogmatize upon so

great and many-sided a question, but I feel confident that common

counsel will produce the results we must all desire.

Turn from the farm to the world of business which centers in the city

and in the factory, and I think that all thoughtful observers will agree

that the immediate service we owe the business communities of the

country is to prevent private monopoly more effectually than it has yet

been prevented. I think it will be easily agreed that we should let the

Sherman anti-trust law stand, unaltered, as it is, with its debatable

ground about it, but that we should as much as possible reduce the area

of that debatable ground by further and more explicit legislation; and

should also supplement that great act by legislation which will not only

clarify it but also facilitate its administration and make it fairer to

all concerned. No doubt we shall all wish, and the country will expect,

this to be the central subject of our deliberations during the present

session; but it is a subject so many-sided and so deserving of careful

and discriminating discussion that I shall take the liberty of

addressing you upon it in a special message at a later date than this.

It is of capital importance that the business men of this country should

be relieved of all uncertainties of law with regard to their enterprises

and investments and a clear path indicated which they can travel without

anxiety. It is as important that they should be relieved of

embarrassment and set free to prosper as that private monopoly should be

destroyed. The ways of action should be thrown wide open.

I turn to a subject which I hope can be handled promptly and without

serious controversy of any kind. I mean the method of selecting nominees

for the Presidency of the United States. I feel confident that I do not

misinterpret the wishes or the expectations of the country when I urge

the prompt enactment of legislation which will provide for primary

elections throughout the country at which the voters of the several

parties may choose their nominees for the Presidency without the

intervention of nominating conventions. I venture the suggestion that

this legislation should provide for the retention of party conventions,

but only for the purpose of declaring and accepting the verdict of the

primaries and formulating the platforms of the parties; and I suggest

that these conventions should consist not of delegates chosen for this

single purpose, but of the nominees for Congress, the nominees for

vacant seats in the Senate of the United States, the Senators whose

terms have not yet closed, the national committees, and the candidates

for the Presidency themselves, in order that platforms may be framed by

those responsible to the people for carrying them into effect.

These are all matters of vital domestic concern, and besides them,

outside the charmed circle of our own national life in which our

affections command us, as well as our consciences, there stand out our

obligations toward our territories over sea. Here we are trustees. Porto

Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines, are ours, indeed, but not ours to do what

we please with. Such territories, once regarded as mere possessions, are

no longer to be selfishly exploited; they are part of the domain of

public conscience and of serviceable and enlightened statesmanship. We

must administer them for the people who live in them and with the same

sense of responsibility to them as toward our own people in our domestic

affairs. No doubt we shall successfully enough bind Porto Rico and the

Hawaiian Islands to ourselves by ties of justice and interest and

affection, but the performance of our duty toward the Philippines is a

more difficult and debatable matter. We can satisfy the obligations of

generous justice toward the people of Porto Rico by giving them the

ample and familiar rights and privileges accorded our own citizens in

our own territories and our obligations toward the people of Hawaii by

perfecting the provisions for self-government already granted them, but

in the Philippines we must go further. We must hold steadily in view

their ultimate independence, and we must move toward the time of that

independence as steadily as the way can be cleared and the foundations

thoughtfully and permanently laid.

Acting under the authority conferred upon the President by Congress, I

have already accorded the people of the islands a majority in both

houses of their legislative body by appointing five instead of four

native citizens to the membership of the commission. I believe that in

this way we shall make proof of their capacity in counsel and their

sense of responsibility in the exercise of political power, and that the

success of this step will be sure to clear our view for the steps which

are to follow. Step by step we should extend and perfect the system of

self-government in the islands, making test of them and modifying them

as experience discloses their successes and their failures; that we

should more and more put under the control of the native citizens of the

archipelago the essential instruments of their life, their local

instrumentalities of government, their schools, all the common interests

of their communities, and so by counsel and experience set up a

government which all the world will see to be suitable to a people whose

affairs are under their own control. At last, I hope and believe, we are

beginning to gain the confidence of the Filipino peoples. By their

counsel and experience, rather than by our own, we shall learn how best

to serve them and how soon it will be possible and wise to withdraw our

supervision. Let us once find the path and set out with firm and

confident tread upon it and we shall not wander from it or linger upon

it.

A duty faces us with regard to Alaska which seems to me very pressing

and very imperative; perhaps I should say a double duty, for it concerns

both the political and the material development of the Territory. The

people of Alaska should be given the full Territorial form of

government, and Alaska, as a storehouse, should be unlocked. One key to

it is a system of railways. These the Government should itself build and

administer, and the ports and terminals it should itself control in the

interest of all who wish to use them for the service and development of

the country and its people.

But the construction of railways is only the first step; is only

thrusting in the key to the storehouse and throwing back the lock and

opening the door. How the tempting resources of the country are to be

exploited is another matter, to which I shall take the liberty of from

time to time calling your attention, for it is a policy which must be

worked out by well-considered stages, not upon theory, but upon lines of

practical expediency. It is part of our general problem of conservation.

We have a freer hand in working out the problem in Alaska than in the

States of the Union; and yet the principle and object are the same,

wherever we touch it. We must use the resources of the country, not lock

them up. There need be no conflict or jealousy as between State and

Federal authorities, for there can be no essential difference of purpose

between them. The resources in question must be used, but not destroyed

or wasted; used, but not monopolized upon any narrow idea of individual

rights as against the abiding interests of communities. That a policy

can be worked out by conference and concession which will release these

resources and yet not jeopard or dissipate them, I for one have no

doubt; and it can be done on lines of regulation which need be no less

acceptable to the people and governments of the States concerned than to

the people and Government of the Nation at large, whose heritage these

resources are. We must bend our counsels to this end. A common purpose

ought to make agreement easy.

Three or four matters of special importance and significance I beg, that

you will permit me to mention in closing.

Our Bureau of Mines ought to be equipped and empowered to render even

more effectual service than it renders now in improving the conditions

of mine labor and making the mines more economically productive as well

as more safe. This is an all-important part of the work of conservation;

and the conservation of human life and energy lies even nearer to our

interests than the preservation from waste of our material resources.

We owe it, in mere justice to the railway employees of the country, to

provide for them a fair and effective employers’ liability act; and a

law that we can stand by in this matter will be no less to the advantage

of those who administer the railroads of the country than to the

advantage of those whom they employ. The experience of a large number of

the States abundantly proves that.

We ought to devote ourselves to meeting pressing demands of plain

justice like this as earnestly as to the accomplishment of political and

economic reforms. Social justice comes first. Law is the machinery for

its realization and is vital only as it expresses and embodies it.

An international congress for the discussion of all questions that

affect safety at sea is now sitting in London at the suggestion of our

own Government. So soon as the conclusions of that congress can be

learned and considered we ought to address ourselves, among other

things, to the prompt alleviation of the very unsafe, unjust, and

burdensome conditions which now surround the employment of sailors and

render it extremely difficult to obtain the services of spirited and

competent men such as every ship needs if it is to be safely handled and

brought to port.

May I not express the very real pleas-are I have experienced in

co-operating with this Congress and sharing with it the labors of common

service to which it has devoted itself so unreservedly during the past

seven months of uncomplaining concentration upon the business of

legislation? Surely it is a proper and pertinent part of my report on

“the state of the Union” to express my admiration for the diligence, the

good temper, and the full comprehension of public duty which has already

been manifested by both the Houses; and I hope that it may not be deemed

an impertinent intrusion of myself into the picture if I say with how

much and how constant satisfaction I have availed myself of the

privilege of putting my time and energy at their disposal alike in

counsel and in action.

***

State of the Union Address

Woodrow Wilson

December 8, 1914

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

The session upon which you are now entering will be the closing session

of the Sixty-third Congress, a Congress, I venture to say, which will

long be remembered for the great body of thoughtful and constructive

work which it has done, in loyal response to the thought and needs of

the country. I should like in this address to review the notable record

and try to make adequate assessment of it; but no doubt we stand too

near the work that has been done and are ourselves too much part of it

to play the part of historians toward it.

Our program of legislation with regard to the regulation of business is

now virtually complete. It has been put forth, as we intended, as a

whole, and leaves no conjecture as to what is to follow. The road at

last lies clear and firm before business. It is a road which it can

travel without fear or embarrassment. It is the road to ungrudged,

unclouded success. In it every honest man, every man who believes that

the public interest is part of his own interest, may walk with perfect

confidence.

Moreover, our thoughts are now more of the future than of the past.

While we have worked at our tasks of peace the circumstances of the

whole age have been altered by war. What we have done for our own land

and our own people we did with the best that was in us, whether of

character or of intelligence, with sober enthusiasm and a confidence in

the principles upon which we were acting which sustained us at every

step of the difficult undertaking; but it is done. It has passed from

our hands. It is now an established part of the legislation of the

country. Its usefulness, its effects will disclose themselves in

experience. What chiefly strikes us now, as we look about us during

these closing days of a year which will be forever memorable in the

history of the world, is that we face new tasks, have been facing them

these six months, must face them in the months to come,-face them

without partisan feeling, like men who have forgotten everything but a

common duty and the fact that we are representatives of a great people

whose thought is not of us but of what America owes to herself and to

all mankind in such circumstances as these upon which we look amazed and

anxious.

War has interrupted the means of trade not only but also the processes

of production. In Europe it is destroying men and resources wholesale

and upon a scale unprecedented and appalling, There is reason to fear

that the time is near, if it be not already at hand, when several of the

countries of Europe will find it difficult to do for their people what

they have hitherto been always easily able to do,--many essential and

fundamental things. At any rate, they will need our help and our

manifold services as they have never needed them before; and we should

be ready, more fit and ready than we have ever been.

It is of equal consequence that the nations whom Europe has usually

supplied with innumerable articles of manufacture and commerce of which

they are in constant need and without which their economic development

halts and stands still can now get only a small part of what they

formerly imported and eagerly look to us to supply their all but empty

markets. This is particularly true of our own neighbors, the States,

great and small, of Central and South America. Their lines of trade have

hitherto run chiefly athwart the seas, not to our ports but to the ports

of Great Britain and of the older continent of Europe. I do not stop to

inquire why, or to make any comment on probable causes. What interests

us just now is not the explanation but the fact, and our duty and

opportunity in the presence of it. Here are markets which we must

supply, and we must find the means of action. The United States, this

great people for whom we speak and act, should be ready, as never

before, to serve itself and to serve mankind; ready with its resources,

its energies, its forces of production, and its means of distribution.

It is a very practical matter, a matter of ways and means. We have the

resources, but are we fully ready to use them? And, if we can make ready

what we have, have we the means at hand to distribute it? We are not

fully ready; neither have we the means of distribution. We are willing,

but we are not fully able. We have the wish to serve and to serve

greatly, generously; but we are not prepared as we should be. We are not

ready to mobilize our resources at once. We are not prepared to use them

immediately and at their best, without delay and without waste.

To speak plainly, we have grossly erred in the way in which we have

stunted and hindered the development of our merchant marine. And now,

when we need ships, we have not got them. We have year after year

debated, without end or conclusion, the best policy to pursue with

regard to the use of the ores and forests and water powers of our

national domain in the rich States of the West, when we should have

acted; and they are still locked up. The key is still turned upon them,

the door shut fast at which thousands of vigorous men, full of

initiative, knock clamorously for admittance. The water power of our

navigable streams outside the national domain also, even in the eastern

States, where we have worked and planned for generations, is still not

used as it might be, because we will and we won’t; because the laws we

have made do not intelligently balance encouragement against restraint.

We withhold by regulation.

I have come to ask you to remedy and correct these mistakes and

omissions, even at this short session of a Congress which would

certainly seem to have done all the work that could reasonably be

expected of it. The time and the circumstances are extraordinary, and so

must our efforts be also.

Fortunately, two great measures, finely conceived, the one to unlock,

with proper safeguards, the resources of the national domain, the other

to encourage the use of the navigable waters outside that domain for the

generation of power, have already passed the House of Representatives

and are ready for immediate consideration and action by the Senate. With

the deepest earnestness I urge their prompt passage. In them both we

turn our backs upon hesitation and makeshift and formulate a genuine

policy of use and conservation, in the best sense of those words. We owe

the one measure not only to the people of that great western country for

whose free and systematic development, as it seems to me, our

legislation has done so little, but also to the people of the Nation as

a whole; and we as clearly owe the other fulfillment of our repeated

promises that the water power of the country should in fact as well as

in name be put at the disposal of great industries which can make

economical and profitable use of it, the rights of the public being

adequately guarded the while, and monopoly in the use prevented. To have

begun such measures and not completed them would indeed mar the record

of this great Congress very seriously. I hope and confidently believe

that they will be completed.

And there is another great piece of legislation which awaits and should

receive the sanction of the Senate: I mean the bill which gives a larger

measure of self-government to the people of the Philippines. How better,

in this time of anxious questioning and perplexed policy, could we show

our confidence in the principles of liberty, as the source as well as

the expression of life, how better could we demonstrate our own

self-possession and steadfastness in the courses of justice and

disinterestedness than by thus going calmly forward to fulfill our

promises to a dependent people, who will now look more anxiously than

ever to see whether we have indeed the liberality, the unselfishness,

the courage, the faith we have boasted and professed. I can not believe

that the Senate will let this great measure of constructive justice

await the action of another Congress. Its passage would nobly crown the

record of these two years of memorable labor.

But I think that you will agree with me that this does not complete the

toll of our duty. How are we to carry our goods to the empty markets of

which I have spoken if we have not the ships? How are we to build up a

great trade if we have not the certain and constant means of

transportation upon which all profitable and useful commerce depends?

And how are we to get the ships if we wait for the trade to develop

without them? To correct the many mistakes by which we have discouraged

and all but destroyed the merchant marine of the country, to retrace the

steps by which we have.. it seems almost deliberately, withdrawn our

flag from the seas.. except where, here and there, a ship of war is

bidden carry it or some wandering yacht displays it, would take a long

time and involve many detailed items of legislation, and the trade which

we ought immediately to handle would disappear or find other channels

while we debated the items.

The case is not unlike that which confronted us when our own continent

was to be opened up to settlement and industry, and we needed long lines

of railway, extended means of transportation prepared beforehand, if

development was not to lag intolerably and wait interminably. We

lavishly subsidized the building of transcontinental railroads. We look

back upon that with regret now, because the subsidies led to many

scandals of which we are ashamed; but we know that the railroads had to

be built, and if we had it to do over again we should of course build

them, but in another way. Therefore I propose another way of providing

the means of transportation, which must precede, not tardily follow, the

development of our trade with our neighbor states of America. It may

seem a reversal of the natural order of things, but it is true, that the

routes of trade must be actually opened-by many ships and regular

sailings and moderate charges-before streams of merchandise will flow

freely and profitably through them.

Hence the pending shipping bill, discussed at the last session but as

yet passed by neither House. In my judgment such legislation is

imperatively needed and can not wisely be postponed. The Government must

open these gates of trade, and open them wide; open them before it is

altogether profitable to open them, or altogether reasonable to ask

private capital to open them at a venture. It is not a question of the

Government monopolizing the field. It should take action to make it

certain that transportation at reasonable rates will be promptly

provided, even where the carriage is not at first profitable; and then,

when the carriage has become sufficiently profitable to attract and

engage private capital, and engage it in abundance, the Government ought

to withdraw. I very earnestly hope that the Congress will be of this

opinion, and that both Houses will adopt this exceedingly important

bill.

The great subject of rural credits still remains to be dealt with, and

it is a matter of deep regret that the difficulties of the subject have

seemed to render it impossible to complete a bill for passage at this

session. But it can not be perfected yet, and therefore there are no

other constructive measures the necessity for which I will at this time

call your attention to; but I would be negligent of a very manifest duty

were I not to call the attention of the Senate to the fact that the

proposed convention for safety at sea awaits its confirmation and that

the limit fixed in the convention itself for its acceptance is the last

day of the present month. The conference in which this convention

originated was called by the United States; the representatives of the

United States played a very influential part indeed in framing the

provisions of the proposed convention; and those provisions are in

themselves for the most part admirable. It would hardly be consistent

with the part we have played in the whole matter to let it drop and go

by the board as if forgotten and neglected. It was ratified in May by

the German Government and in August by the Parliament of Great Britain.

It marks a most hopeful and decided advance in international

civilization. We should show our earnest good faith in a great matter by

adding our own acceptance of it.

There is another matter of which I must make special mention, if I am to

discharge my conscience, lest it should escape your attention. It may

seem a very small thing. It affects only a single item of appropriation.

But many human lives and many great enterprises hang upon it. It is the

matter of making adequate provision for the survey and charting of our

coasts. It is immediately pressing and exigent in connection with the

immense coast line of Alaska, a coast line greater than that of the

United States themselves, though it is also very important indeed with

regard to the older coasts of the continent. We can not use our great

Alaskan domain, ships will not ply thither, if those coasts and their

many hidden dangers are not thoroughly surveyed and charted. The work is

incomplete at almost every point. Ships and lives have been lost in

threading what were supposed to be well-known main channels. We have not

provided adequate vessels or adequate machinery for the survey and

charting. We have used old vessels that were not big enough or strong

enough and which were so nearly unseaworthy that our inspectors would

not have allowed private owners to send them to sea. This is a matter

which, as I have said, seems small, but is in reality very great. Its

importance has only to be looked into to be appreciated.

Before I close may I say a few words upon two topics, much discussed out

of doors, upon which it is highly important that our judgment should be

clear, definite, and steadfast?

One of these is economy in government expenditures. The duty of economy

is not debatable. It is manifest and imperative. In the appropriations

we pass we are spending the money of the great people whose servants we

are,-not our own. We are trustees and responsible stewards in the

spending. The only thing debatable and upon which we should be careful

to make our thought and purpose clear is the kind of economy demanded of

us. I assert with the greatest confidence that the people of the United

States are not jealous of the amount their Government costs if they are

sure that they get what they need and desire for the outlay, that the

money is being spent for objects of which they approve, and that it is

being applied with good business sense and management.

Governments grow, piecemeal, both in their tasks and in the means by

which those tasks are to be performed, and very few Governments are

organized, I venture to say, as wise and experienced business men would

organize them if they had a clean sheet of paper to write upon.

Certainly the Government of the United States is not. I think that it is

generally agreed that there should be a systematic reorganization and

reassembling of its parts so as to secure greater efficiency and effect

considerable savings in expense. But the amount of money saved in that

way would, I believe, though no doubt considerable in itself, running,

it may be, into the millions, be relatively small,-small, I mean, in

proportion to the total necessary outlays of the Government. It would be

thoroughly worth effecting, as every saving would, great or small. Our

duty is not altered by the scale of the saving. But my point is that the

people of the United States do not wish to curtail the activities of

this Government; they wish, rather, to enlarge them; and with every

enlargement, with the mere growth, indeed, of the country itself, there

must come, of course, the inevitable increase of expense. The sort of

economy we ought to practice may be effected, and ought to be effected,

by a careful study and assessment of the tasks to be performed; and the

money spent ought to be made to yield the best possible returns in

efficiency and achievement. And, like good stewards, we should so

account for every dollar of our appropriations as to make it perfectly

evident what it was spent for and in what way it was spent.

It is not expenditure but extravagance that we should fear being

criticized for; not paying for the legitimate enterprise and

undertakings of a great Government whose people command what it should

do, but adding what will benefit only a few or pouring money out for

what need not have been undertaken at all or might have been postponed

or better and more economically conceived and carried out. The Nation is

not niggardly; it is very generous. It will chide us only if we forget

for whom we pay money out and whose money it is we pay. These are large

and general standards, but they are not very difficult of application to

particular cases.

The other topic I shall take leave to mention goes deeper into the

principles of our national life and policy. It is the subject of

national defense.

It can not be discussed without first answering some very searching

questions. It is said in some quarters that we are not prepared for war.

What is meant by being prepared? Is it meant that we are not ready upon

brief notice to put a nation in the field, a nation of men trained to

arms? Of course we are not ready to do that; and we shall never be in

time of peace so long as we retain our present political principles and

institutions. And what is it that it is suggested we should be prepared

to do? To defend ourselves against attack? We have always found means to

do that, and shall find them whenever it is necessary without calling

our people away from their necessary tasks to render compulsory military

service in times of peace.

Allow me to speak with great plainness and directness upon this great

matter and to avow my convictions with deep earnestness. I have tried to

know what America is, what her people think, what they are, what they

most cherish and hold dear. I hope that some of their finer passions are

in my own heart,--some of the great conceptions and desires which gave

birth to this Government and which have made the voice of this people a

voice of peace and hope and liberty among the peoples of the world, and

that, speaking my own thoughts, I shall, at least in part, speak theirs

also, however faintly and inadequately, upon this vital matter.

We are at peace with all the world. No one who speaks counsel based on

fact or drawn from a just and candid interpretation of realities can say

that there is reason to fear that from any quarter our independence or

the integrity of our territory is threatened. Dread of the power of any

other nation we are incapable of. We are not jealous of rivalry in the

fields of commerce or of any other peaceful achievement. We mean to live

our own lives as we will; but we mean also to let live. We are, indeed,

a true friend to all the nations of the world, because we threaten none,

covet the possessions of none, desire the overthrow of none. Our

friendship can be accepted and is accepted without reservation, because

it is offered in a spirit and for a purpose which no one need ever

question or suspect. Therein lies our greatness. We are the champions of

peace and of concord. And we should be very jealous of this distinction

which we have sought to earn. Just now we should be particularly jealous

of it because it is our dearest present hope that this character and

reputation may presently, in God’s providence, bring us an opportunity

such as has seldom been vouchsafed any nation, the opportunity to

counsel and obtain peace in the world and reconciliation and a healing

settlement of many a matter that has cooled and interrupted the

friendship of nations. This is the time above all others when we should

wish and resolve to keep our strength by self-possession, our influence

by preserving our ancient principles of action.

From the first we have had a clear and settled policy with regard to

military establishments. We never have had, and while we retain our

present principles and ideals we never shall have, a large standing

army. If asked, Are you ready to defend yourselves? we reply, Most

assuredly, to the utmost; and yet we shall not turn America into a

military camp. We will not ask our young men to spend the best years of

their lives making soldiers of themselves. There is another sort of

energy in us. It will know how to declare itself and make itself

effective should occasion arise. And especially when half the world is

on fire we shall be careful to make our moral insurance against the

spread of the conflagration very definite and certain and adequate

indeed.

Let us remind ourselves, therefore, of the only thing we can do or will

do. We must depend in every time of national peril, in the future as in

the past, not upon a standing army, nor yet upon a reserve army, but

upon a citizenry trained and accustomed to arms. It will be right

enough, right American policy, based upon our accustomed principles and

practices, to provide a system by which every citizen who will volunteer

for the training may be made familiar with the use of modern arms, the

rudiments of drill and maneuver, and the maintenance and sanitation of

camps. We should encourage such training and make it a means of

discipline which our young men will learn to value. It is right that we

should provide it not only, but that we should make it as attractive as

possible, and so induce our young men to undergo it at such times as

they can command a little freedom and can seek the physical development

they need, for mere health’s sake, if for nothing more. Every means by

which such things can be stimulated is legitimate, and such a method

smacks of true American ideas. It is right, too, that the National Guard

of the States should be developed and strengthened by every means which

is not inconsistent with our obligations to our own people or with the

established policy of our Government. And this, also, not because the

time or occasion specially calls for such measures, but because it

should be our constant policy to make these provisions for our national

peace and safety.

More than this carries with it a reversal of the whole history and

character of our polity. More than this, proposed at this time, permit

me to say, would mean merely that we had lost our self-possession, that

we had been thrown off our balance by a war with which we have nothing

to do, whose causes can not touch us, whose very existence affords us

opportunities of friendship and disinterested service which should make

us ashamed of any thought of hostility or fearful preparation for

trouble. This is assuredly the opportunity for which a people and a

government like ours were raised up, the opportunity not only to speak

but actually to embody and exemplify the counsels of peace and amity and

the lasting concord which is based on justice and fair and generous

dealing.

A powerful navy we have always regarded as our proper and natural means

of defense, and it has always been of defense that we have thought,

never of aggression or of conquest. But who shall tell us now what sort

of navy to build? We shall take leave to be strong upon the seas, in the

future as in the past; and there will be no thought of offense or of

provocation in that. Our ships are our natural bulwarks. When will the

experts tell us just what kind we should construct-and when will they be

right for ten years together, if the relative efficiency of craft of

different kinds and uses continues to change as we have seen it change

under our very eyes in these last few months?

But I turn away from the subject. It is not new. There is no new need to

discuss it. We shall not alter our attitude toward it because some

amongst us are nervous and excited. We shall easily and sensibly agree

upon a policy of defense. The question has not changed its aspects

because the times are not normal. Our policy will not be for an

occasion. It will be conceived as a permanent and settled thing, which

we will pursue at all seasons, without haste and after a fashion

perfectly consistent with the peace of the world, the abiding friendship

of states, and the unhampered freedom of all with whom we deal. Let

there be no misconception. The country has been misinformed. We have not

been negligent of national defense. We are not unmindful of the great

responsibility resting upon us. We shall learn and profit by the lesson

of every experience and every new circumstance; and what is needed will

be adequately done.

I close, as I began, by reminding you of the great tasks and duties of

peace which challenge our best powers and invite us to build what will

last, the tasks to which we can address ourselves now and at all times

with free-hearted zest and with all the finest gifts of constructive

wisdom we possess. To develop our life and our resources; to supply our

own people, and the people of the world as their need arises, from the

abundant plenty of our fields and our marts of trade to enrich the

commerce of our own States and of the world with the products of our

mines, our farms, and our factories, with the creations of our thought

and the fruits of our character,-this is what will hold our attention

and our enthusiasm steadily, now and in the years to come, as we strive

to show in our life as a nation what liberty and the inspirations of an

emancipated spirit may do for men and for societies, for individuals,

for states, and for mankind.

***

State of the Union Address

Woodrow Wilson

December 7, 1915

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

Since I last had the privilege of addressing you on the state of the

Union the war of nations on the other side of the sea, which had then

only begun to disclose its portentous proportions, has extended its

threatening and sinister scope until it has swept within its flame some

portion of every quarter of the globe, not excepting our own hemisphere,

has altered the whole face of international affairs, and now presents a

prospect of reorganization and reconstruction such as statesmen and

peoples have never been called upon to attempt before.

We have stood apart, studiously neutral. It was our manifest duty to do

so. Not only did we have no part or interest in the policies which seem

to have brought the conflict on; it was necessary, if a universal

catastrophe was to be avoided, that a limit should be set to the sweep

of destructive war and that some part of the great family of nations

should keep the processes of peace alive, if only to prevent collective

economic ruin and the breakdown throughout the world of the industries

by which its populations are fed and sustained. It was manifestly the

duty of the self-governed nations of this hemisphere to redress, if

possible, the balance of economic loss and confusion in the other, if

they could do nothing more. In the day of readjustment and recuperation

we earnestly hope and believe that they can be of infinite service.

In this neutrality, to which they were bidden not only by their separate

life and their habitual detachment from the politics of Europe but also

by a clear perception of international duty, the states of America have

become conscious of a new and more vital community of interest and moral

partnership in affairs, more clearly conscious of the many common

sympathies and interests and duties which bid them stand together.

There was a time in the early days of our own great nation and of the

republics fighting their way to independence in Central and South

America when the government of the United States looked upon itself as

in some sort the guardian of the republics to the South of her as

against any encroachments or efforts at political control from the other

side of the water; felt it its duty to play the part even without

invitation from them; and I think that we can claim that the task was

undertaken with a true and disinterested enthusiasm for the freedom of

the Americas and the unmolested Self-government of her independent

peoples. But it was always difficult to maintain such a role without

offense to the pride of the peoples whose freedom of action we sought to

protect, and without provoking serious misconceptions of our motives,

and every thoughtful man of affairs must welcome the altered

circumstances of the new day in whose light we now stand, when there is

no claim of guardianship or thought of wards but, instead, a full and

honorable association as of partners between ourselves and our

neighbors, in the interest of all America, north and south. Our concern

for the independence and prosperity of the states of Central and South

America is not altered. We retain unabated the spirit that has inspired

us throughout the whole life of our government and which was so frankly

put into words by President Monroe. We still mean always to make a

common cause of national independence and of political liberty in

America. But that purpose is now better understood so far as it concerns

ourselves. It is known not to be a selfish purpose. It is known to have

in it no thought of taking advantage of any government in this

hemisphere or playing its political fortunes for our own benefit. All

the governments of America stand, so far as we are concerned, upon a

footing of genuine equality and unquestioned independence.

We have been put to the test in the case of Mexico, and we have stood

the test. Whether we have benefited Mexico by the course we have pursued

remains to be seen. Her fortunes are in her own hands. But we have at

least proved that we will not take advantage of her in her distress and

undertake to impose upon her an order and government of our own

choosing. Liberty is often a fierce and intractable thing, to which no

bounds can be set, and to which no bounds of a few men’s choosing ought

ever to be set. Every American who has drunk at the true fountains of

principle and tradition must subscribe without reservation to the high

doctrine of the Virginia Bill of Rights, which in the great days in

which our government was set up was everywhere amongst us accepted as

the creed of free men. That doctrine is, “That government is, or ought

to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of

the people, nation, or community”; that “of all the various modes and

forms of government, that is the best which is capable of producing the

greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured

against the danger of maladministration; and that, when any government

shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of

the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right

to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most

conducive to the public weal.” We have unhesitatingly applied that

heroic principle to the case of Mexico, and now hopefully await the

rebirth of the troubled Republic, which had so much of which to purge

itself and so little sympathy from any outside quarter in the radical

but necessary process. We will aid and befriend Mexico, but we will not

coerce her; and our course with regard to her ought to be sufficient

proof to all America that we seek no political suzerainty or selfish

control.

The moral is, that the states of America are not hostile rivals but

cooperating friends, and that their growing sense of community or

interest, alike in matters political and in matters economic, is likely

to give them a new significance as factors in international affairs and

in the political history of the world. It presents them as in a very

deep and true sense a unit in world affairs, spiritual partners,

standing together because thinking together, quick with common

sympathies and common ideals. Separated they are subject to all the

cross currents of the confused politics of a world of hostile rivalries;

united in spirit and purpose they cannot be disappointed of their

peaceful destiny.

This is Pan-Americanism. It has none of the spirit of empire in it. It

is the embodiment, the effectual embodiment, of the spirit of law and

independence and liberty and mutual service.

A very notable body of men recently met in the City of Washington, at

the invitation and as the guests of this Government, whose deliberations

are likely to be looked back to as marking a memorable turning point in

the history of America. They were representative spokesmen of the

several independent states of this hemisphere and were assembled to

discuss the financial and commercial relations of the republics of the

two continents which nature and political fortune have so intimately

linked together. I earnestly recommend to your perusal the reports of

their proceedings and of the actions of their committees. You will get

from them, I think, a fresh conception of the ease and intelligence and

advantage with which Americans of both continents may draw together in

practical cooperation and of what the material foundations of this

hopeful partnership of interest must consist,-of how we should build

them and of how necessary it is that we should hasten their building.

There is, I venture to point out, an especial significance just now

attaching to this whole matter of drawing the Americans together in

bonds of honorable partnership and mutual advantage because of the

economic readjustments which the world must inevitably witness within

the next generation, when peace shall have at last resumed its healthful

tasks. In the performance of these tasks I believe the Americas to be

destined to play their parts together. I am interested to fix your

attention on this prospect now because unless you take it within your

view and permit the full significance of it to command your thought I

cannot find the right light in which to set forth the particular matter

that lies at the very font of my whole thought as I address you to-day.

I mean national defense.

No one who really comprehends the spirit of the great people for whom we

are appointed to speak can fail to perceive that their passion is for

peace, their genius best displayed in the practice of the arts of peace.

Great democracies are not belligerent. They do not seek or desire war.

Their thought is of individual liberty and of the free labor that

supports life and the uncensored thought that quickens it. Conquest and

dominion are not in our reckoning, or agreeable to our principles. But

just because we demand unmolested development and the undisturbed

government of our own lives upon our own principles of right and

liberty, we resent, from whatever quarter it may come, the aggression we

ourselves will not practice. We insist upon security in prosecuting our

self-chosen lines of national development. We do more than that. We

demand it also for others. We do not confine our enthusiasm for

individual liberty and free national development to the incidents and

movements of affairs which affect only ourselves. We feel it wherever

there is a people that tries to walk in these difficult paths of

independence and right. From the first we have made common cause with

all partisans of liberty on this side the sea, and have deemed it as

important that our neighbors should be free from all outside domination

as that we ourselves should be. We have set America aside as a whole for

the uses of independent nations and political freemen.

Out of such thoughts grow all our policies. We regard war merely as a

means of asserting the rights of a people against aggression. And we are

as fiercely jealous of coercive or dictatorial power within our own

nation as of aggression from without. We will not maintain a standing

army except for uses which are as necessary in times of peace as in

times of war; and we shall always see to it that our military peace

establishment is no larger than is actually and continuously needed for

the uses of days in which no enemies move against us. But we do believe

in a body of free citizens ready and sufficient to take care of

themselves and of the governments which they have set up to serve them.

In our constitutions themselves we have commanded that “the right of the

people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” and our confidence

has been that our safety in times of danger would lie in the rising of

the nation to take care of itself, as the farmers rose at Lexington.

But war has never been a mere matter of men and guns. It is a thing of

disciplined might. If our citizens are ever to fight effectively upon a

sudden summons, they must know how modern fighting is done, and what to

do when the summons comes to render themselves immediately available and

immediately effective. And the government must be their servant in this

matter, must supply them with the training they need to take care of

themselves and of it. The military arm of their government, which they

will not allow to direct them, they may properly use to serve them and

make their independence secure,-and not their own independence merely

but the rights also of those with whom they have made common cause,

should they also be put in jeopardy. They must be fitted to play the

great role in the world, and particularly in this hemisphere, for which

they are qualified by principle and by chastened ambition to play.

It is with these ideals in mind that the plans of the Department of War

for more adequate national defense were conceived which will be laid

before you, and which I urge you to sanction and put into effect as soon

as they can be properly scrutinized and discussed. They seem to me the

essential first steps, and they seem to me for the present sufficient.

They contemplate an increase of the standing force of the regular army

from its present strength of five thousand and twenty-three officers and

one hundred and two thousand nine hundred and eighty-five enlisted men

of all services to a strength of seven thousand one hundred and

thirty-six officers and one hundred and thirty-four thousand seven

hundred and seven enlisted men, or 141,843, all told, all services, rank

and file, by the addition of fifty-two companies of coast artillery,

fifteen companies of engineers, ten regiments of infantry, four

regiments of field artillery, and four aero squadrons, besides seven

hundred and fifty officers required for a great variety of extra

service, especially the all important duty of training the citizen force

of which I shall presently speak, seven hundred and ninety-two

noncommissioned officers for service in drill, recruiting and the like,

and the necessary quota of enlisted men for the Quartermaster Corps, the

Hospital Corps, the Ordnance Department, and other similar auxiliary

services. These are the additions necessary to render the army adequate

for its present duties, duties which it has to perform not only upon our

own continental coasts and borders and at our interior army posts, but

also in the Philippines, in the Hawaiian Islands, at the Isthmus, and in

Porto Rico.

By way of making the country ready to assert some part of its real power

promptly and upon a larger scale, should occasion arise, the plan also

contemplates supplementing the army by a force of four hundred thousand

disciplined citizens, raised in increments of one hundred and

thirty-three thousand a year throughout a period of three years. This it

is proposed to do by a process of enlistment under which the serviceable

men of the country would be asked to bind themselves to serve with the

colors for purposes of training for short periods throughout three

years, and to come to the colors at call at any time throughout an

additional “furlough” period of three years. This force of four hundred

thousand men would be provided with personal accoutrements as fast as

enlisted and their equipment for the field made ready to be supplied at

any time. They would be assembled for training at stated intervals at

convenient places in association with suitable units of the regular

army. Their period of annual training would not necessarily exceed two

months in the year.

It would depend upon the patriotic feeling of the younger men of the

country whether they responded to such a call to service or not. It

would depend upon the patriotic spirit of the employers of the country

whether they made it possible for the younger men in their employ to

respond under favorable conditions or not. I, for one, do not doubt the

patriotic devotion either of our young men or of those who give them

employment,--those for whose benefit and protection they would in fact

enlist. I would look forward to the success of such an experiment with

entire confidence.

At least so much by way of preparation for defense seems to me to be

absolutely imperative now. We cannot do less.

The programme which will be laid before you by the Secretary of the Navy

is similarly conceived. It involves only a shortening of the time within

which plans long matured shall be carried out; but it does make definite

and explicit a programme which has heretofore been only implicit, held

in the minds of the Committees on Naval Affairs and disclosed in the

debates of the two Houses but nowhere formulated or formally adopted. It

seems to me very clear that it will be to the advantage of the country

for the Congress to adopt a comprehensive plan for putting the navy upon

a final footing of strength and efficiency and to press that plan to

completion within the next five years. We have always looked to the navy

of the country as our first and chief line of defense; we have always

seen it to be our manifest course of prudence to be strong on the seas.

Year by year we have been creating a navy which now ranks very high

indeed among the navies of the maritime nations. We should now

definitely determine how we shall complete what we have begun, and how

soon.

The programme to be laid before you contemplates the construction within

five years of ten battleships, six battle cruisers, ten scout cruisers,

fifty destroyers, fifteen fleet submarines, eighty-five coast

submarines, four gunboats, one hospital ship, two ammunition ships, two

fuel oil ships, and one repair ship. It is proposed that of this number

we shall the first year provide for the construction of two battleships,

two battle cruisers, three scout cruisers, fifteen destroyers, five

fleet submarines, twenty-five coast submarines, two gunboats, and one

hospital ship; the second year, two battleships, one scout cruiser, ten

destroyers, four fleet submarines, fifteen coast submarines, one

gunboat, and one fuel oil ship; the third year, two battleships, one

battle cruiser, two scout cruisers, five destroyers, two fleet sub

marines, and fifteen coast submarines; the fourth year, two battleships,

two battle cruisers, two scout cruisers, ten destroyers, two fleet

submarines, fifteen coast submarines, one ammunition ship, and one fuel

oil ship; and the fifth year, two battleships, one battle cruiser, two

scout cruisers, ten destroyers, two fleet submarines, fifteen coast

submarines, one gunboat, one ammunition ship, and one repair ship.

The Secretary of the Navy is asking also for the immediate addition to

the personnel of the navy of seven thousand five hundred sailors,

twenty-five hundred apprentice seamen, and fifteen hundred marines. This

increase would be sufficient to care for the ships which are to be

completed within the fiscal year 1917 and also for the number of men

which must be put in training to man the ships which will be completed

early in 1918. It is also necessary that the number of midshipmen at the

Naval academy at Annapolis should be increased by at least three hundred

in order that the force of officers should be more rapidly added to; and

authority is asked to appoint, for engineering duties only, approved

graduates of engineering colleges, and for service in the aviation corps

a certain number of men taken from civil life.

If this full programme should be carried out we should have built or

building in 1921, according to the estimates of survival and standards

of classification followed by the General Board of the Department, an

effective navy consisting of twenty-seven battleships of the first line,

six battle cruisers, twenty-five battleships of the second line, ten

armored cruisers, thirteen scout cruisers, five first class cruisers,

three second class cruisers, ten third class cruisers, one hundred and

eight destroyers, eighteen fleet submarines, one hundred and fifty-seven

coast submarines, six monitors, twenty gunboats, four supply ships,

fifteen fuel ships, four transports, three tenders to torpedo vessels,

eight vessels of special types, and two ammunition ships. This would be

a navy fitted to our needs and worthy of our traditions.

But armies and instruments of war are only part of what has to be

considered if we are to provide for the supreme matter of national

self-sufficiency and security in all its aspects. There are other great

matters which will be thrust upon our attention whether we will or not.

There is, for example, a very pressing question of trade and shipping

involved in this great problem of national adequacy. It is necessary for

many weighty reasons of national efficiency and development that we

should have a great merchant marine. The great merchant fleet we once

used to make us rich, that great body of sturdy sailors who used to

carry our flag into every sea, and who were the pride and often the

bulwark of the nation, we have almost driven out of existence by

inexcusable neglect and indifference and by a hopelessly blind and

provincial policy of so-called economic protection. It is high time we

repaired our mistake and resumed our commercial independence on the

seas.

For it is a question of independence. If other nations go to war or seek

to hamper each other’s commerce, our merchants, it seems, are at their

mercy, to do with as they please. We must use their ships, and use them

as they determine. We have not ships enough of our own. We cannot handle

our own commerce on the seas. Our independence is provincial, and is

only on land and within our own borders. We are not likely to be

permitted to use even the ships of other nations in rivalry of their own

trade, and are without means to extend our commerce even where the doors

are wide open and our goods desired. Such a situation is not to be

endured. It is of capital importance not only that the United States

should be its own carrier on the seas and enjoy the economic

independence which only an adequate merchant marine would give it, but

also that the American hemisphere as a whole should enjoy a like

independence and self-sufficiency, if it is not to be drawn into the

tangle of European affairs. Without such independence the whole question

of our political unity and self-determination is very seriously clouded

and complicated indeed.

Moreover, we can develop no true or effective American policy without

ships of our own,--not ships of war, but ships of peace, carrying goods

and carrying much more: creating friendships and rendering indispensable

services to all interests on this side the water. They must move

constantly back and forth between the Americas. They are the only

shuttles that can weave the delicate fabric of sympathy, comprehension,

confidence, and mutual dependence in which we wish to clothe our policy

of America for Americans.

The task of building up an adequate merchant marine for America private

capital must ultimately undertake and achieve, as it has undertaken and

achieved every other like task amongst us in the past, with admirable

enterprise, intelligence, and vigor; and it seems to me a manifest

dictate of wisdom that we should promptly remove every legal obstacle

that may stand in the way of this much to be desired revival of our old

independence and should facilitate in every possible way the building,

purchase, and American registration of ships. But capital cannot

accomplish this great task of a sudden. It must embark upon it by

degrees, as the opportunities of trade develop. Something must be done

at once; done to open routes and develop opportunities where they are as

yet undeveloped; done to open the arteries of trade where the currents

have not yet learned to run,-especially between the two American

continents, where they are, singularly enough, yet to be created and

quickened; and it is evident that only the government can undertake such

beginnings and assume the initial financial risks. When the risk has

passed and private capital begins to find its way in sufficient

abundance into these new channels, the government may withdraw. But it

cannot omit to begin. It should take the first steps, and should take

them at once. Our goods must not lie piled up at our ports and stored

upon side tracks in freight cars which are daily needed on the roads;

must not be left without means of transport to any foreign quarter. We

must not await the permission of foreign ship-owners and foreign

governments to send them where we will.

With a view to meeting these pressing necessities of our commerce and

availing ourselves at the earliest possible moment of the present

unparalleled opportunity of linking the two Americas together in bonds

of mutual interest and service, an opportunity which may never return

again if we miss it now, proposals will be made to the present Congress

for the purchase or construction of ships to be owned and directed by

the government similar to those made to the last Congress, but modified

in some essential particulars. I recommend these proposals to you for

your prompt acceptance with the more confidence because every month that

has elapsed since the former proposals were made has made the necessity

for such action more and more manifestly imperative. That need was then

foreseen; it is now acutely felt and everywhere realized by those for

whom trade is waiting but who can find no conveyance for their goods. I

am not so much interested in the particulars of the programme as I am in

taking immediate advantage of the great opportunity which awaits us if

we will but act in this emergency. In this matter, as in all others, a

spirit of common counsel should prevail, and out of it should come an

early solution of this pressing problem.

There is another matter which seems to me to be very intimately

associated with the question of national safety and preparation for

defense. That is our policy towards the Philippines and the people of

Porto Rico. Our treatment of them and their attitude towards us are

manifestly of the first consequence in the development of our duties in

the world and in getting a free hand to perform those duties. We must be

free from every unnecessary burden or embarrassment; and there is no

better way to be clear of embarrassment than to fulfil our promises and

promote the interests of those dependent on us to the utmost. Bills for

the alteration and reform of the government of the Philippines and for

rendering fuller political justice to the people of Porto Rico were

submitted to the sixty-third Congress. They will be submitted also to

you. I need not particularize their details. You are most of you already

familiar with them. But I do recommend them to your early adoption with

the sincere conviction that there are few measures you could adopt which

would more serviceably clear the way for the great policies by which we

wish to make good, now and always, our right to lead in enterprises of

peace and good will and economic and political freedom.

The plans for the armed forces of the nation which I have outlined, and

for the general policy of adequate preparation for mobilization and

defense, involve of course very large additional expenditures of

money,-expenditures which will considerably exceed the estimated

revenues of the government. It is made my duty by law, whenever the

estimates of expenditure exceed the estimates of revenue, to call the

attention of the Congress to the fact and suggest any means of meeting

the deficiency that it may be wise or possible for me to suggest. I am

ready to believe that it would be my duty to do so in any case; and I

feel particularly bound to speak of the matter when it appears that the

deficiency will arise directly out of the adoption by the Congress of

measures which I myself urge it to adopt. Allow me, therefore, to speak

briefly of the present state of the Treasury and of the fiscal problems

which the next year will probably disclose.

On the thirtieth of June last there was an available balance in the

general fund of the Treasury Of $104,170,105.78. The total estimated

receipts for the year 1916, on the assumption that the emergency revenue

measure passed by the last Congress will not be extended beyond its

present limit, the thirty-first of December, 1915, and that the present

duty of one cent per pound on sugar will be discontinued after the first

of May, 1916, will be $670,365,500. The balance of June last and these

estimated revenues come, therefore, to a grand total of $774,535,605-78.

The total estimated disbursements for the present fiscal year, including

twenty-five millions for the Panama Canal, twelve millions for probable

deficiency appropriations, and fifty thousand dollars for miscellaneous

debt redemptions, will be $753,891,000; and the balance in the general

fund of the Treasury will be reduced to $20,644,605.78. The emergency

revenue act, if continued beyond its present time limitation, would

produce, during the half year then remaining, about forty-one millions.

The duty of one cent per pound on sugar, if continued, would produce

during the two months of the fiscal year remaining after the first of

May, about fifteen millions. These two sums, amounting together to

fifty-six millions, if added to the revenues of the second half of the

fiscal year, would yield the Treasury at the end of the year an

available balance Of $76,644,605-78.

The additional revenues required to carry out the programme of military

and naval preparation of which I have spoken, would, as at present

estimated, be for the fiscal year, 1917, $93,800,000. Those figures,

taken with the figures for the present fiscal year which I have already

given, disclose our financial problem for the year 1917. Assuming that

the taxes imposed by the emergency revenue act and the present duty on

sugar are to be discontinued, and that the balance at the close of the

present fiscal year will be only $20,644,605.78, that the disbursements

for the Panama Canal will again be about twenty-five millions, and that

the additional expenditures for the army and navy are authorized by the

Congress, the deficit in the general fund of the Treasury on the

thirtieth of June, 1917, will be nearly two hundred and thirty-five

millions. To this sum at least fifty millions should be added to

represent a safe working balance for the Treasury, and twelve millions

to include the usual deficiency estimates in 1917; and these additions

would make a total deficit of some two hundred and ninety-seven

millions. If the present taxes should be continued throughout this year

and the next, however, there would be a balance in the Treasury of some

seventy-six and a half millions at the end of the present fiscal year,

and a deficit at the end of the next year of only some fifty millions,

or, reckoning in sixty-two millions for deficiency appropriations and a

safe Treasury balance at the end of the year, a total deficit of some

one hundred and twelve millions. The obvious moral of the figures is

that it is a plain counsel of prudence to continue all of the present

taxes or their equivalents, and confine ourselves to the problem of

providing one hundred and twelve millions of new revenue rather than two

hundred and ninety-seven millions.

How shall we obtain the new revenue? We are frequently reminded that

there are many millions of bonds which the Treasury is authorized under

existing law to sell to reimburse the sums paid out of current revenues

for the construction of the Panama Canal; and it is true that bonds to

the amount of approximately $222,000,000 are now available for that

purpose. Prior to 1913, $134,631,980 of these bonds had actually been

sold to recoup the expenditures at the Isthmus; and now constitute a

considerable item of the public debt. But I, for one, do not believe

that the people of this country approve of postponing the payment of

their bills. Borrowing money is short-sighted finance. It can be

justified only when permanent things are to be accomplished which many

generations will certainly benefit by and which it seems hardly fair

that a single generation should pay for. The objects we are now

proposing to spend money for cannot be so classified, except in the

sense that everything wisely done may be said to be done in the interest

of posterity as well as in our own. It seems to me a clear dictate of

prudent statesmanship and frank finance that in what we are now, I hope,

about to undertake we should pay as we go. The people of the country are

entitled to know just what burdens of taxation they are to carry, and to

know from the outset, now. The new bills should be paid by internal

taxation.

To what sources, then, shall we turn? This is so peculiarly a question

which the gentlemen of the House of Representatives are expected under

the Constitution to propose an answer to that you will hardly expect me

to do more than discuss it in very general terms. We should be following

an almost universal example of modern governments if we were to draw the

greater part or even the whole of the revenues we need from the income

taxes. By somewhat lowering the present limits of exemption and the

figure at which the surtax shall begin to be imposed, and by increasing,

step by step throughout the present graduation, the surtax itself, the

income taxes as at present apportioned would yield sums sufficient to

balance the books of the Treasury at the end of the fiscal year 1917

without anywhere making the burden unreasonably or oppressively heavy.

The precise reckonings are fully and accurately set out in the report of

the Secretary of the Treasury which will be immediately laid before you.

And there are many additional sources of revenue which can justly be

resorted to without hampering the industries of the country or putting

any too great charge upon individual expenditure. A tax of one cent per

gallon on gasoline and naphtha would yield, at the present estimated

production, $10,000,000; a tax of fifty cents per horse power on

automobiles and internal explosion engines, $15,000,000; a stamp tax on

bank cheques, probably $18,000,000; a tax of twenty-five cents per ton

on pig iron, $10,000,000; a tax of twenty-five cents per ton on

fabricated iron and steel, probably $10,000,000. In a country of great

industries like this it ought to be easy to distribute the burdens of

taxation without making them anywhere bear too heavily or too

exclusively upon any one set of persons or undertakings. What is clear

is, that the industry of this generation should pay the bills of this

generation.

I have spoken to you to-day, Gentlemen, upon a single theme, the

thorough preparation of the nation to care for its own security and to

make sure of entire freedom to play the impartial role in this

hemisphere and in the world which we all believe to have been

providentially assigned to it. I have had in my mind no thought of any

immediate or particular danger arising out of our relations with other

nations. We are at peace with all the nations of the world, and there is

reason to hope that no question in controversy between this and other

Governments will lead to any serious breach of amicable relations, grave

as some differences of attitude and policy have been land may yet turn

out to be. I am sorry to say that the gravest threats against our

national peace and safety have been uttered within our own borders.

There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under

other flags but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws to the

full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of

disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought

to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt, to

destroy our industries wherever they thought it effective for their

vindictive purposes to strike at them, and to debase our politics to the

uses of foreign intrigue. Their number is not great as compared with the

whole number of those sturdy hosts by which our nation has been enriched

in recent generations out of virile foreign stock; but it is great

enough to have brought deep disgrace upon us and to have made it

necessary that we should promptly make use of processes of law by which

we may be purged of their corrupt distempers. America never witnessed

anything like this before. It never dreamed it possible that men sworn

into its own citizenship, men drawn out of great free stocks such as

supplied some of the best and strongest elements of that little, but how

heroic, nation that in a high day of old staked its very life to free

itself from every entanglement that had darkened the fortunes of the

older nations and set up a new standard here, that men of such origins

and such free choices of allegiance would ever turn in malign reaction

against the Government and people who had welcomed and nurtured them and

seek to make this proud country once more a hotbed of European passion.

A little while ago such a thing would have seemed incredible. Because it

was incredible we made no preparation for it. We would have been almost

ashamed to prepare for it, as if we were suspicious of ourselves, our

own comrades and neighbors! But the ugly and incredible thing has

actually come about and we are without adequate federal laws to deal

with it. I urge you to enact such laws at the earliest possible moment

and feel that in doing so I am urging you to do nothing less than save

the honor and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of passion,

disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out. They are not many, but they

are infinitely malignant, and the hand of our power should close over

them at once. They have formed plots to destroy property, they have

entered into conspiracies against the neutrality of the Government, they

have sought to pry into every confidential transaction of the Government

in order to serve interests alien to our own. It is possible to deal

with these things very effectually. I need not suggest the terms in

which they may be dealt with.

I wish that it could be said that only a few men, misled by mistaken

sentiments of allegiance to the governments under which they were born,

had been guilty of disturbing the self-possession and misrepresenting

the temper and principles of the country during these days of terrible

war, when it would seem that every man who was truly an American would

instinctively make it his duty and his pride to keep the scales of

judgment even and prove himself a partisan of no nation but his own. But

it cannot. There are some men among us, and many resident abroad who,

though born and bred in the United States and calling themselves

Americans, have so forgotten themselves and their honor as citizens as

to put their passionate sympathy with one or the other side in the great

European conflict above their regard for the peace and dignity of the

United States. They also preach and practice disloyalty. No laws, I

suppose, can reach corruptions of the mind and heart; but I should not

speak of others without also speaking of these and expressing the even

deeper humiliation and scorn which every self-possessed and thoughtfully

patriotic American must feel when he thinks of them and of the discredit

they are daily bringing upon us.

While we speak of the preparation of the nation to make sure of her

security and her effective power we must not fall into the patent error

of supposing that her real strength comes from armaments and mere

safeguards of written law. It comes, of course, from her people, their

energy, their success in their undertakings, their free opportunity to

use the natural resources of our great home land and of the lands

outside our continental borders which look to us for protection, for

encouragement, and for assistance in their development; from the

organization and freedom and vitality of our economic life. The domestic

questions which engaged the attention of the last Congress are more

vital to the nation in this its time of test than at any other time. We

cannot adequately make ready for any trial of our strength unless we

wisely and promptly direct the force of our laws into these

all-important fields of domestic action. A matter which it seems to me

we should have very much at heart is the creation of the right

instrumentalities by which to mobilize our economic resources in any

time of national necessity. I take it for granted that I do not need

your authority to call into systematic consultation with the directing

officers of the army and navy men of recognized leadership and ability

from among our citizens who are thoroughly familiar, for example, with

the transportation facilities of the country and therefore competent to

advise how they may be coordinated when the need arises, those who can

suggest the best way in which to bring about prompt cooperation among

the manufacturers of the country, should it be necessary, and those who

could assist to bring the technical skill of the country to the aid of

the Government in the solution of particular problems of defense. I only

hope that if I should find it feasible to constitute such an advisory

body the Congress would be willing to vote the small sum of money that

would be needed to defray the expenses that would probably be necessary

to give it the clerical and administrative Machinery with which to do

serviceable work.

What is more important is, that the industries and resources of the

country should be available and ready for mobilization. It is the more

imperatively necessary, therefore, that we should promptly devise means

for doing what we have not yet done: that we should give intelligent

federal aid and stimulation to industrial and vocational education, as

we have long done in the large field of our agricultural industry; that,

at the same time that we safeguard and conserve the natural resources of

the country we should put them at the disposal of those who will use

them promptly and intelligently, as was sought to be done in the

admirable bills submitted to the last Congress from its committees on

the public lands, bills which I earnestly recommend in principle to your

consideration; that we should put into early operation some provision

for rural credits which will add to the extensive borrowing facilities

already afforded the farmer by the Reserve Bank Act, adequate

instrumentalities by which long credits may be obtained on land

mortgages; and that we should study more carefully than they have

hitherto been studied the right adaptation of our economic arrangements

to changing conditions.

Many conditions about which we I-lave repeatedly legislated are being

altered from decade to decade, it is evident, under our very eyes, and

are likely to change even more rapidly and more radically in the days

immediately ahead of us, when peace has returned to the world and the

nations of Europe once more take up their tasks of commerce and industry

with the energy of those who must bestir themselves to build anew. Just

what these changes will be no one can certainly foresee or confidently

predict. There are no calculable, because no stable, elements in the

problem. The most we can do is to make certain that we have the

necessary instrumentalities of information constantly at our service so

that we may be sure that we know exactly what we are dealing with when

we come to act, if it should be necessary to act at all. We must first

certainly know what it is that we are seeking to adapt ourselves to. I

may ask the privilege of addressing you more at length on this important

matter a little later in your session.

In the meantime may I make this suggestion? The transportation problem

is an exceedingly serious and pressing one in this country. There has

from time to time of late been reason to fear that our railroads would

not much longer be able to cope with it successfully, as at present

equipped and coordinated I suggest that it would be wise to provide for

a commission of inquiry to ascertain by a thorough canvass of the whole

question whether our laws as at present framed and administered are as

serviceable as they might be in the solution of the problem. It is

obviously a problem that lies at the very foundation of our efficiency

as a people. Such an inquiry ought to draw out every circumstance and

opinion worth considering and we need to know all sides of the matter if

we mean to do anything in the field of federal legislation.

No one, I am sure, would wish to take any backward step. The regulation

of the railways of the country by federal commission has had admirable

results and has fully justified the hopes and expectations of those by

whom the policy of regulation was originally proposed. The question is

not what should we undo? It is, whether there is anything else we can do

that would supply us with effective means, in the very process of

regulation, for bettering the conditions under which the railroads are

operated and for making them more useful servants of the country as a

whole. It seems to me that it might be the part of wisdom, therefore,

before further legislation in this field is attempted, to look at the

whole problem of coordination and efficiency in the full light of a

fresh assessment of circumstance and opinion, as a guide to dealing with

the several parts of it.

For what we are seeking now, what in my mind is the single thought of

this message, is national efficiency and security. We serve a great

nation. We should serve it in the spirit of its peculiar genius. It is

the genius of common men for self-government, industry, justice, liberty

and peace. We should see to it that it lacks no instrument, no facility

or vigor of law, to make it sufficient to play its part with energy,

safety, and assured success. In this we are no partisans but heralds and

prophets of a new age.

***

State of the Union Address

Woodrow Wilson

December 5, 1916

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

In fulfilling at this time the duty laid upon me by the Constitution of

communicating to you from time to time information of the state of the

Union and recommending to your consideration such legislative measures

as may be judged necessary and expedient, I shall continue the practice,

which I hope has been acceptable to you, of leaving to the reports of

the several heads of the executive departments the elaboration of the

detailed needs of the public service and confine myself to those matters

of more general public policy with which it seems necessary and feasible

to deal at the present session of the Congress.

I realize the limitations of time under which you will necessarily act

at this session and shall make my suggestions as few as possible; but

there were some things left undone at the last session which there will

now be time to complete and which it seems necessary in the interest of

the public to do at once.

In the first place, it seems to me imperatively necessary that the

earliest possible consideration and action should be accorded the

remaining measures of the program of settlement and regulation which I

had occasion to recommend to you at the close of your last session in

view of the public dangers disclosed by the unaccommodated difficulties

which then existed, and which still unhappily continue to exist, between

the railroads of the country and their locomotive engineers, conductors

and trainmen.

I then recommended:

First, immediate provision for the enlargement and administrative

reorganization of the Interstate Commerce Commission along the lines

embodied in the bill recently passed by the House of Representatives and

now awaiting action by the Senate; in order that the Commission may be

enabled to deal with the many great and various duties now devolving

upon it with a promptness and thoroughness which are, with its present

constitution and means of action, practically impossible.

Second, the establishment of an eight-hour day as the legal basis alike

of work and wages in the employment of all railway employes who are

actually engaged in the work of operating trains in interstate

transportation.

Third, the authorization of the appointment by the President of a small

body of men to observe actual results in experience of the adoption of

the eight-hour day in railway transportation alike for the men and for

the railroads.

Fourth, explicit approval by the Congress of the consideration by the

Interstate Commerce Commission of an increase of freight rates to meet

such additional expenditures by the railroads as may have been rendered

necessary by the adoption of the eight-hour day and which have not been

offset by administrative readjustments and economies, should the facts

disclosed justify the increase.

Fifth, an amendment of the existing Federal statute which provides for

the mediation, conciliation and arbitration of such controversies as the

present by adding to it a provision that, in case the methods of

accommodation now provided for should fail, a full public investigation

of the merits of every such dispute shall be instituted and completed

before a strike or lockout may lawfully be attempted.

And, sixth, the lodgment in the hands of the Executive of the power, in

case of military necessity, to take control of such portions and such

rolling stock of the railways of the country as may be required for

military use and to operate them for military purposes, with authority

to draft into the military service of the United States such train crews

and administrative officials as the circumstances require for their safe

and efficient use.

The second and third of these recommendations the Congress immediately

acted on: it established the eight-hour day as the legal basis of work

and wages in train service and it authorized the appointment of a

commission to observe and report upon the practical results, deeming

these the measures most immediately needed; but it postponed action upon

the other suggestions until an opportunity should be offered for a more

deliberate consideration of them.

The fourth recommendation I do not deem it necessary to renew. The power

of the Interstate Commerce Commission to grant an increase of rates on

the ground referred to is indisputably clear and a recommendation by the

Congress with regard to such a matter might seem to draw in question the

scope of the commission’s authority or its inclination to do justice

when there is no reason to doubt either.

The other suggestions-the increase in the Interstate Commerce

Commission’s membership and in its facilities for performing its

manifold duties; the provision for full public investigation and

assessment of industrial disputes, and the grant to the Executive of the

power to control and operate the railways when necessary in time of war

or other like public necessity-I now very earnestly renew.

The necessity for such legislation is manifest and pressing. Those who

have entrusted us with the responsibility and duty of serving and

safeguarding them in such matters would find it hard, I believe, to

excuse a failure to act upon these grave matters or any unnecessary

postponement of action upon them.

Not only does the Interstate Commerce Commission now find it practically

impossible, with its present membership and organization, to perform its

great functions promptly and thoroughly, but it is not unlikely that it

may presently be found advisable to add to its duties still others

equally heavy and exacting. It must first be perfected as an

administrative instrument.

The country cannot and should not consent to remain any longer exposed

to profound industrial disturbances for lack of additional means of

arbitration and conciliation which the Congress can easily and promptly

supply.

And all will agree that there must be no doubt as to the power of the

Executive to make immediate and uninterrupted use of the railroads for

the concentration of the military forces of the nation wherever they are

needed and whenever they are needed.

This is a program of regulation, prevention and administrative

efficiency which argues its own case in the mere statement of it. With

regard to one of its items, the increase in the efficiency of the

Interstate Commerce Commission, the House of Representatives has already

acted; its action needs only the concurrence of the Senate.

I would hesitate to recommend, and I dare say the Congress would

hesitate to act upon the suggestion should I make it, that any man in

any I occupation should be obliged by law to continue in an employment

which he desired to leave.

To pass a law which forbade or prevented the individual workman to leave

his work before receiving the approval of society in doing so would be

to adopt a new principle into our jurisprudence, which I take it for

granted we are not prepared to introduce.

But the proposal that the operation of the railways of the country shall

not be stopped or interrupted by the concerted action of organized

bodies of men until a public investigation shall have been instituted,

which shall make the whole question at issue plain for the judgment of

the opinion of the nation, is not to propose any such principle.

It is based upon the very different principle that the concerted action

of powerful bodies of men shall not be permitted to stop the industrial

processes of the nation, at any rate before the nation shall have had an

opportunity to acquaint itself with the merits of the case as between

employe and employer, time to form its opinion upon an impartial

statement of the merits, and opportunity to consider all practicable

means of conciliation or arbitration.

I can see nothing in that proposition but the justifiable safeguarding

by society of the necessary processes of its very life. There is nothing

arbitrary or unjust in it unless it be arbitrarily and unjustly done. It

can and should be done with a full and scrupulous regard for the

interests and liberties of all concerned as well as for the permanent

interests of society itself.

Three matters of capital importance await the action of the Senate which

have already been acted upon by the House of Representatives; the bill

which seeks to extend greater freedom of combination to those engaged in

promoting the foreign commerce of the country than is now thought by

some to be legal under the terms of the laws against monopoly; the bill

amending the present organic law of Porto Rico; and the bill proposing a

more thorough and systematic regulation of the expenditure of money in

elections, commonly called the Corrupt Practices Act.

I need not labor my advice that these measures be enacted into law.

Their urgency lies in the manifest circumstances which render their

adoption at this time not only opportune but necessary. Even delay would

seriously jeopard the interests of the country and of the Government.

Immediate passage of the bill to regulate the expenditure of money in

elections may seem to be less necessary than the immediate enactment of

the other measures to which I refer, because at least two years will

elapse before another election in which Federal offices are to be

filled; but it would greatly relieve the public mind if this important

matter were dealt with while the circumstances and the dangers to the

public morals of the present method of obtaining and spending campaign

funds stand clear under recent observation, and the methods of

expenditure can be frankly studied in the light of present experience;

and a delay would have the further very serious disadvantage of

postponing action until another election was at hand and some special

object connected with it might be thought to be in the mind of those who

urged it. Action can be taken now with facts for guidance and without

suspicion of partisan purpose.

I shall not argue at length the desirability of giving a freer hand in

the matter of combined and concerted effort to those who shall undertake

the essential enterprise of building up our export trade. That

enterprise will presently, will immediately assume, has indeed already

assumed a magnitude unprecedented in our experience. We have not the

necessary instrumentalities for its prosecution; it is deemed to be

doubtful whether they could be created upon an adequate scale under our

present laws.

We should clear away all legal obstacles and create a basis of undoubted

law for it which will give freedom without permitting unregulated

license. The thing must be done now, because the opportunity is here and

may escape us if we hesitate or delay.

The argument for the proposed amendments of the organic law of Porto

Rico is brief and conclusive. The present laws governing the island and

regulating the rights and privileges of its people are not just. We have

created expectations of extended privilege which we have not satisfied.

There is uneasiness among the people of the island and even a suspicious

doubt with regard to our intentions concerning them which the adoption

of the pending measure would happily remove. We do not doubt what we

wish to do in any essential particular. We ought to do it at once.

At the last session of the Congress a bill was passed by the Senate

which provides for the promotion of vocational and industrial education,

which is of vital importance to the whole country because it concerns a

matter, too long neglected, upon which the thorough industrial

preparation of the country for the critical years of economic

development immediately ahead of us in very large measure depends.

May I not urge its early and favorable consideration by the House of

Representatives and its early enactment into law? It contains plans

which affect all interests and all parts of the country, and I am sure

that there is no legislation now pending before the Congress whose

passage the country awaits with more thoughtful approval or greater

impatience to see a great and admirable thing set in the way of being

done.

There are other matters already advanced to the stage of conference

between the two houses of which it is not necessary that I should speak.

Some practicable basis of agreement concerning them will no doubt be

found an action taken upon them.

Inasmuch as this is, gentlemen, probably the last occasion I shall have

to address the Sixty-fourth Congress, I hope that you will permit me to

say with what genuine pleasure and satisfaction I have co-operated with

you in the many measures of constructive policy with which you have

enriched the legislative annals of the country. It has been a privilege

to labor in such company. I take the liberty of congratulating you upon

the completion of a record of rare serviceableness and distinction.

***

State of the Union Address

Woodrow Wilson

December 4, 1917

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

Eight months have elapsed since I last had the honor of addressing you.

They have been months crowded with events of immense and grave

significance for us. I shall not undertake to detail or even to

summarize those events. The practical particulars of the part we have

played in them will be laid before you in the reports of the executive

departments. I shall discuss only our present outlook upon these vast

affairs, our present duties, and the immediate means of accomplishing

the objects we shall hold always in view.

I shall not go back to debate the causes of the war. The intolerable

wrongs done and planned against us by the sinister masters of Germany

have long since become too grossly obvious and odious to every true

American to need to be rehearsed. But I shall ask you to consider again

and with a very grave scrutiny our objectives and the measures by which

we mean to attain them; for the purpose of discussion here in this place

is action, and our action must move straight toward definite ends. Our

object is, of course, to win the war; and we shall not slacken or suffer

ourselves to be diverted until it is won. But it is worth while asking

and answering the question, When shall we consider the war won?

From one point of view it is not necessary to broach this fundamental

matter. I do not doubt that the American people know what the war is

about and what sort of an outcome they will regard as a realization of

their purpose in it.