one of expansion, the expansion being of different kinds at different
times. This expansion is not a matter of regret, but of pride. It
is vain to tell a people as masterful as ours that the spirit of
enterprise is not safe. The true American has never feared to run risks
when the prize to be won was of sufficient value. No nation capable
of self-government, and of developing by its own efforts a sane and
orderly civilization, no matter how small it may be, has anything to
fear from us. Our dealings with Cuba illustrate this, and should be
forever a subject of just national pride. We speak in no spirit of
arrogance when we state as a simple historic fact that never in recent
times has any great nation acted with such disinterestedness as we
have shown in Cuba. We freed the island from the Spanish yoke. We then
earnestly did our best to help the Cubans in the establishment of free
education, of law and order, of material prosperity, of the cleanliness
necessary to sanitary well-being in their great cities. We did all
this at great expense of treasure, at some expense of life; and now
we are establishing them in a free and independent commonwealth, and
have asked in return nothing whatever save that at no time shall their
independence be prostituted to the advantage of some foreign rival of
ours, or so as to menace our well-being. To have failed to ask this
would have amounted to national stultification on our part.
In the Philippines we have brought peace, and we are at this moment
giving them such freedom and self-government as they could never under
any conceivable conditions have obtained had we turned them loose to
sink into a welter of blood and confusion, or to become the prey of
some strong tyranny without or within. The bare recital of the facts
is sufficient to show that we did our duty; and what prouder title
to honor can a nation have than to have done its duty? We have done
our duty ourselves, and we have done the higher duty of promoting
the civilization of mankind. The first essential of civilization is
law. Anarchy is simply the handmaiden and forerunner of tyranny and
despotism. Law and order enforced with justice and by strength lie
at the foundations of civilization. Law must be based upon justice,
else it can not stand, and it must be enforced with resolute firmness,
because weakness in enforcing it means in the end that there is no
justice and no law, nothing but the rule of disorderly and unscrupulous
strength. Without the habit of orderly obedience to the law, without
the stern enforcement of the laws at the expense of those who defiantly
resist them, there can be no possible progress, moral or material,
in civilization. There can be no weakening of the law-abiding spirit
here at home, if we are permanently to succeed; and just as little can
we afford to show weakness abroad. Lawlessness and anarchy were put
down in the Philippines as a prerequisite to introducing the reign of
justice.
Barbarism has, and can have, no place in a civilized world. It is our
duty toward the people living in barbarism to see that they are freed
from their chains, and we can free them only by destroying barbarism
itself. The missionary, the merchant, and the soldier may each have
to play a part in this destruction, and in the consequent uplifting
of the people. Exactly as it is the duty of a civilized power
scrupulously to respect the rights of all weaker civilized powers and
gladly to help those who are struggling toward civilization, so it is
its duty to put down savagery and barbarism. As in such a work human
instruments must be used, and as human instruments are imperfect, this
means that at times there will be injustice; that at times merchant or
soldier, or even missionary, may do wrong. Let us instantly condemn
and rectify such wrong when it occurs, and if possible punish the
wrongdoer. But shame, thrice shame to us, if we are so foolish as to
make such occasional wrongdoing an excuse for failing to perform a
great and righteous task. Not only in our own land, but throughout the
world, throughout all history, the advance of civilization has been of
incalculable benefit to mankind, and those through whom it has advanced
deserve the highest honor. All honor to the missionary, all honor to
the soldier, all honor to the merchant who now in our own day have done
so much to bring light into the world’s dark places.
Let me insist again, for fear of possible misconstruction, upon the
fact that our duty is twofold, and that we must raise others while
we are benefiting ourselves. In bringing order to the Philippines,
our soldiers added a new page to the honor-roll of American history,
and they incalculably benefited the islanders themselves. Under the
wise administration of Governor Taft the islands now enjoy a peace
and liberty of which they have hitherto never even dreamed. But this
peace and liberty under the law must be supplemented by material, by
industrial development. Every encouragement should be given to their
commercial development, to the introduction of American industries and
products; not merely because this will be a good thing for our people,
but infinitely more because it will be of incalculable benefit to the
people in the Philippines.
We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mistakes frighten us
from our work we shall show ourselves weaklings. Half a century
ago Minnesota and the two Dakotas were Indian hunting-grounds. We
committed plenty of blunders, and now and then worse than blunders, in
our dealings with the Indians. But who does not admit at the present
day that we were right in wresting from barbarism and adding to
civilization the territory out of which we have made these beautiful
States? And now we are civilizing the Indian and putting him on a level
to which he could never have attained under the old conditions.
In the Philippines let us remember that the spirit and not the
mere form of government is the essential matter. The Tagalogs have
a hundredfold the freedom under us that they would have if we had
abandoned the islands. We are not trying to subjugate a people; we
are trying to develop them and make them a law-abiding, industrious,
and educated people, and we hope ultimately a self-governing people.
In short, in the work we have done we are but carrying out the true
principles of our democracy. We work in a spirit of self-respect for
ourselves and of good-will toward others, in a spirit of love for and
of infinite faith in mankind. We do not blindly refuse to face the
evils that exist, or the shortcomings inherent in humanity; but across
blundering and shirking, across selfishness and meanness of motive,
across short-sightedness and cowardice, we gaze steadfastly toward the
far horizon of golden triumph. If you will study our past history as
a nation you will see we have made many blunders and have been guilty
of many shortcomings, and yet that we have always in the end come
out victorious because we have refused to be daunted by blunders and
defeats, have recognized them, but have persevered in spite of them.
So it must be in the future. We gird up our loins as a nation, with
the stern purpose to play our part manfully in winning the ultimate
triumph; and therefore we turn scornfully aside from the paths of mere
ease and idleness, and with unfaltering steps tread the rough road of
endeavor, smiting down and battling for the right, as Greatheart smote
and battled in Bunyan’s immortal story.
THE LABOR QUESTION
AT THE CHICAGO LABOR DAY PICNIC, SEPT. 3, 1900
By far the greatest problem, the most far-reaching in its stupendous
importance, is that problem, or rather that group of problems, which
we have grown to speak of as the labor question. It must be always a
peculiar privilege for any thoughtful public man to address a body of
men predominantly composed of wage-workers, for the foundation of our
whole social structure rests upon the material and moral well-being,
the intelligence, the foresight, the sanity, the sense of duty, and
the wholesome patriotism of the wage-worker. This is doubly the case
now; for, in addition to each man’s individual action, you have learned
the great lesson of acting in combination. It would be impossible to
overestimate the far-reaching influences of, and, on the whole, the
amount of good done through your associations.
In addressing you, the one thing that I wish to avoid is any mere
glittering generality, any mere high-sounding phraseology, and, above
all, any appeal whatsoever made in a demagogic spirit, or in a spirit
of mere emotionalism. When we come to dealing with our social and
industrial needs, remedies, rights and wrongs, a ton of oratory is not
worth an ounce of hard-headed, kindly common-sense.
The fundamental law of healthy political life in this great Republic
is that each man shall in deed, and not merely in word, be treated
strictly on his worth as a man; that each shall do full justice to his
fellow, and in return shall exact full justice from him. Each group
of men has its special interests; and yet the higher, the broader and
deeper interests are those which apply to all men alike; for the spirit
of brotherhood in American citizenship, when rightly understood and
rightly applied, is more important than aught else. Let us scrupulously
guard the special interests of the wage-worker, the farmer, the
manufacturer, and the merchant, giving to each man his due and also
seeing that he does not wrong his fellows; but let us keep ever clearly
before our minds the great fact that, where the deepest chords are
touched, the interests of all are alike and must be guarded alike.
We must beware of any attempt to make hatred in any form the basis
of action. Most emphatically each of us needs to stand up for his
own rights; all men and all groups of men are bound to retain their
self-respect, and, demanding this same respect from others, to see
that they are not injured and that they have secured to them the
fullest liberty of thought and action. But to feed fat a grudge against
others, while it may or may not harm them, is sure in the long run to
do infinitely greater harm to the man himself.
The more a healthy American sees of his fellow-Americans the greater
grows his conviction that our chief troubles come from mutual
misunderstanding, from failure to appreciate one another’s point of
view. In other words, the great need is fellow-feeling, sympathy,
brotherhood; and all this naturally comes by association. It is,
therefore, of vital importance that there should be such association.
The most serious disadvantage in city life is the tendency of each
man to keep isolated in his own little set, and to look upon the
vast majority of his fellow-citizens indifferently, so that he soon
comes to forget that they have the same red blood, the same loves and
hates, the same likes and dislikes, the same desire for good, and the
same perpetual tendency, ever needing to be checked and corrected, to
lapse from good into evil. If only our people can be thrown together,
where they act on a common ground with the same motives, and have the
same objects, we need not have much fear of their failing to acquire
a genuine respect for one another; and with such respect there must
finally come fair play for all.
The first time I ever labored alongside of and got thrown into intimate
companionship with men who were mighty men of their hands was in the
cattle country of the Northwest. I soon grew to have an immense liking
and respect for my associates, and as I knew them, and did not know
similar workers in other parts of the country, it seemed to me that the
ranch-owner was a great deal better than any Eastern business man, and
that the cowpuncher stood on a corresponding altitude compared with any
of his brethren in the East.
Well, after a little while I was thrown into close relations with the
farmers, and it did not take long before I had moved them up alongside
of my beloved cowmen; and I made up my mind that _they_ really formed
the backbone of the land. Then, because of certain circumstances, I was
thrown into intimate contact with railroad men, and I gradually came to
the conclusion that these railroad men were about the finest citizens
there were anywhere around. Then, in the course of some official work,
I was thrown into close contact with a number of the carpenters,
blacksmiths, and men in the building trades, that is, skilled mechanics
of a high order, and it was not long before I had them on the same
pedestal with the others. By that time it began to dawn on me that the
difference was not in the men but in my own point of view, and that
if any man is thrown into close contact with any large body of our
fellow-citizens it is apt to be the man’s own fault if he does not grow
to feel for them a very hearty regard and, moreover, grow to understand
that, on the great questions that lie at the root of human well-being,
he and they feel alike.
Our prime need as a nation is that every American should understand and
work with his fellow-citizens, getting into touch with them, so that
by actual contact he may learn that fundamentally he and they have the
same interests, needs, and aspirations.
Of course different sections of the community have different needs. The
gravest questions that are before us, the questions that are for all
time, affect us all alike. But there are separate needs that affect
separate groups of men, just as there are separate needs that affect
each individual man. It is just as unwise to forget the one fact as it
is to forget the other. The specialization of our modern industrial
life, its high development and complex character, means a corresponding
specialization in needs and interests. While we should, so long as we
can safely do so, give to each individual the largest possible liberty,
a liberty which necessarily includes initiative and responsibility, yet
we must not hesitate to interfere whenever it is clearly seen that harm
comes from excessive individualism. We can not afford to be empirical
one way or the other. In the country districts the surroundings are
such that a man can usually work out his own fate by himself to the
best advantage. In our cities, or where men congregate in masses, it is
often necessary to work in combination, that is, through associations;
and here it is that we can see the great good conferred by labor
organizations, by trade-unions. Of course, if managed unwisely, the
very power of such a union or organization makes it capable of doing
much harm; but, on the whole, it would be hard to overestimate the
good these organizations have done in the past, and still harder to
estimate the good they can do in the future if handled with resolution,
forethought, honesty, and sanity.
It is not possible to lay down a hard-and-fast rule, logically perfect,
as to when the State shall interfere, and when the individual must be
left unhampered and unhelped.
We have exactly the same right to regulate the conditions of life
and work in factories and tenement-houses that we have to regulate
fire-escapes and the like in other houses. In certain communities the
existence of a thoroughly efficient department of factory inspection is
just as essential as the establishment of a fire department. How far
we shall go in regulating the hours of labor, or the liabilities of
employers, is a matter of expediency, and each case must be determined
on its own merits, exactly as it is a matter of expediency to
determine what so-called “public utilities” the community shall itself
own and what ones it shall leave to private or corporate ownership,
securing to itself merely the right to regulate. Sometimes one course
is expedient, sometimes the other.
In my own State during the last half-dozen years we have made a number
of notable strides in labor legislation, and, with very few exceptions,
the laws have worked well. This is, of course, partly because we have
not tried to do too much and have proceeded cautiously, feeling our
way, and, while always advancing, yet taking each step in advance only
when we were satisfied that the step already taken was in the right
direction. To invite reaction by unregulated zeal is never wise, and is
sometimes fatal.
In New York our action has been along two lines. In the first place,
we determined that as an employer of labor the State should set a good
example to other employers. We do not intend to permit the people’s
money to be squandered or to tolerate any work that is not the best.
But we think that, while rigidly insisting upon good work, we should
see that there is fair play in return. Accordingly, we have adopted
an eight-hour law for the State employees and for all contractors
who do State work, and we have also adopted a law requiring that the
fair market rate of wages shall be given. I am glad to say that both
measures have so far, on the whole, worked well. Of course there have
been individual difficulties, mostly where the work is intermittent,
as, for instance, among lock-tenders on the canals, where it is
very difficult to define what eight hours’ work means. But, on the
whole, the result has been good. The practical experiment of working
men for eight hours has been advantageous to the State. Poor work
is always dear, whether poorly paid or not, and good work is always
well worth having; and as a mere question of expediency, aside even
from the question of humanity, we find that we can obtain the best
work by paying fair wages and permitting the work to go on only for a
reasonable time.
The other side of our labor legislation has been that affecting the
wage-workers who do not work for the State. Here we have acted in
three different ways: through the Bureau of Labor Statistics, through
the Board of Mediation and Arbitration, and through the Department of
Factory Inspection.
During the last two years the Board of Mediation and Arbitration have
been especially successful. Not only have they succeeded in settling
many strikes after they were started, but they have succeeded in
preventing a much larger number of strikes before they got fairly under
way. Where possible it is always better to mediate before the strike
begins than to try to arbitrate when the fight is on and both sides
have grown stubborn and bitter.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has done more than merely gather the
statistics, for by keeping in close touch with all the leading labor
interests it has kept them informed on countless matters that were
really of vital concern to them. Incidentally, one pleasing feature
of the work of this bureau has been the steady upward tendency shown
during the last four, years both in amount of wages received and in the
quantity and steadiness of employment. No other man has benefited so
much as the wage-worker by the growth in prosperity during these years.
The Factory Inspection Department deals chiefly, of course, with
conditions in great cities. One very important phase of its work during
the last two years has been the enforcement of the anti-sweatshop
law, which is primarily designed to do away with the tenement-house
factory. The conditions of life in some of the congested tenement-house
districts, notably in New York City, had become such as to demand
action by the State. As with other reforms, in order to make it stable
and permanent, it had to be gradual. It proceeded by evolution, not
revolution. But progress has been steady, and wherever needed it
has been radical. Much remains to be done, but the condition of the
dwellers in the congested districts has been markedly improved, to the
great benefit not only of themselves, but of the whole community.
A word on the general question. In the first place, in addressing an
audience like this I do not have to say that the law of life is work,
and that work in itself, so far from being a hardship, is a great
blessing, provided, always, it is carried on under conditions which
preserve a man’s self-respect and which allow him to develop his own
character and rear his children so that he and they, as well as the
whole community of which he and they are part, may steadily move
onward and upward. The idler, rich or poor, is at best a useless and
is generally a noxious member of the community. To whom much has been
given, from him much is rightfully expected, and a heavy burden of
responsibility rests upon the man of means to justify by his actions
the social conditions which have rendered it possible for him or his
forefathers to accumulate and to keep the property he enjoys. He is
not to be excused if he does not render full measure of service to the
State and to the community at large. There are many ways in which this
service can be rendered,—in art, in literature, in philanthropy, as
a statesman, as a solider,—but in some way he is in honor bound to
render it, so that benefit may accrue to his brethren who have been
less favored by fortune than he has been. In short, he must work, and
work not only for himself, but for others. If he does not work, he
fails not only in his duty to the rest of the community, but he fails
signally in his duty to himself. There is no need of envying the idle.
Ordinarily, we can afford to treat them with impatient contempt; for
when they fail to do their duty they fail to get from life the highest
and keenest pleasure that life can give.
To do our duty—that is the summing up of the whole matter. We must do
our duty by ourselves and we must do our duty by our neighbors. Every
good citizen, whatever his condition, owes his first service to those
who are nearest to him, who are dependent upon him, to his wife, and
his children; next he owes his duty to his fellow-citizens, and this
duty he must perform both to his individual neighbor and to the State,
which is simply a form of expression for all his neighbors combined.
He must keep his self-respect and exact the respect of others. It is
eminently wise and proper to strive for such leisure in our lives as
will give a chance for self-improvement; but woe to the man who seeks,
or trains up his children to seek, idleness instead of the chance to
do good work. No worse wrong can be done by a man to his children than
to teach them to go through life endeavoring to shirk difficulties
instead of meeting them and overcoming them. You men here in the West
have built up this country not by seeking to avoid work, but by doing
it well; not by flinching from every difficulty, but by triumphing
over each as it arose and making out of it a stepping-stone to further
triumph.
We must all learn the two lessons—the lesson of self-help and the
lesson of giving help to and receiving help from our brother. There is
not a man of us who does not sometimes slip, who does not sometimes
need a helping hand; and woe to him who, when the chance comes, fails
to stretch out that helping hand. Yet, though each man can and ought
thus to be helped at times, he is lost beyond redemption if he becomes
so dependent upon outside help that he feels that his own exertions
are secondary. Any man at times will stumble, and it is then our
duty to lift him up and set him on his feet again; but no man can be
permanently carried, for if he expects to be carried he shows that he
is not worth carrying.