Speech Transcript:

Anyone who has taken the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy
weight of responsibility. If not, he has no conception of the powers
and duties of the office upon which he is about to enter, or he is
lacking in a proper sense of the obligation which the oath imposes.

The office of an inaugural address is to give a summary outline of
the main policies of the new administration, so far as they can be
anticipated. I have had the honor to be one of the advisers of my
distinguished predecessor, and, as such, to hold up his hands in the
reforms he has initiated. I should be untrue to myself, to my
promises, and to the declarations of the party platform upon which I
was elected to office, if I did not make the maintenance and
enforcement of those reforms a most important feature of my
administration. They were directed to the suppression of the
lawlessness and abuses of power of the great combinations of capital
invested in railroads and in industrial enterprises carrying on
interstate commerce. The steps which my predecessor took and the
legislation passed on his recommendation have accomplished much, have
caused a general halt in the vicious policies which created popular
alarm, and have brought about in the business affected a much higher
regard for existing law. 

To render the reforms lasting, however, and to secure at the same
time freedom from alarm on the part of those pursuing proper and
progressive business methods, further legislative and executive
action are needed. Relief of the railroads from certain restrictions
of the antitrust law have been urged by my predecessor and will be
urged by me. On the other hand, the administration is pledged to
legislation looking to a proper federal supervision and restriction
to prevent excessive issues of bonds and stock by companies owning
and operating interstate commerce railroads.

Then, too, a reorganization of the Department of Justice, of the
Bureau of Corporations in the Department of Commerce and Labor, and
of the Interstate Commerce Commission, looking to effective
cooperation of these agencies, is needed to secure a more rapid and
certain enforcement of the laws affecting interstate railroads and
industrial combinations.

I hope to be able to submit at the first regular session of the
incoming Congress, in December next, definite suggestions in respect
to the needed amendments to the antitrust and the interstate commerce
law and the changes required in the executive departments concerned in
their enforcement.

It is believed that with the changes to be recommended American
business can be assured of that measure of stability and certainty in
respect to those things that may be done and those that are prohibited
which is essential to the life and growth of all business. Such a plan
must include the right of the people to avail themselves of those
methods of combining capital and effort deemed necessary to reach the
highest degree of economic efficiency, at the same time
differentiating between combinations based upon legitimate economic
reasons and those formed with the intent of creating monopolies and
artificially controlling prices.

The work of formulating into practical shape such changes is creative
word of the highest order, and requires all the deliberation possible
in the interval. I believe that the amendments to be proposed are
just as necessary in the protection of legitimate business as in the
clinching of the reforms which properly bear the name of my
predecessor.

A matter of most pressing importance is the revision of the tariff.
In accordance with the promises of the platform upon which I was
elected, I shall call Congress into extra session to meet on the 15th
day of March, in order that consideration may be at once given to a
bill revising the Dingley Act. This should secure an adequate revenue
and adjust the duties in such a manner as to afford to labor and to
all industries in this country, whether of the farm, mine or factory,
protection by tariff equal to the difference between the cost of
production abroad and the cost of production here, and have a
provision which shall put into force, upon executive determination of
certain facts, a higher or maximum tariff against those countries
whose trade policy toward us equitably requires such discrimination.
It is thought that there has been such a change in conditions since
the enactment of the Dingley Act, drafted on a similarly protective
principle, that the measure of the tariff above stated will permit
the reduction of rates in certain schedules and will require the
advancement of few, if any.

The proposal to revise the tariff made in such an authoritative way
as to lead the business community to count upon it necessarily halts
all those branches of business directly affected; and as these are
most important, it disturbs the whole business of the country. It is
imperatively necessary, therefore, that a tariff bill be drawn in
good faith in accordance with promises made before the election by
the party in power, and as promptly passed as due consideration will
permit. It is not that the tariff is more important in the long run
than the perfecting of the reforms in respect to antitrust
legislation and interstate commerce regulation, but the need for
action when the revision of the tariff has been determined upon is
more immediate to avoid embarrassment of business. To secure the
needed speed in the passage of the tariff bill, it would seem wise to
attempt no other legislation at the extra session. I venture this as a
suggestion only, for the course to be taken by Congress, upon the call
of the Executive, is wholly within its discretion.

In the mailing of a tariff bill the prime motive is taxation and the
securing thereby of a revenue. Due largely to the business depression
which followed the financial panic of 1907, the revenue from customs
and other sources has decreased to such an extent that the
expenditures for the current fiscal year will exceed the receipts by
$100,000,000. It is imperative that such a deficit shall not
continue, and the framers of the tariff bill must, of course, have in
mind the total revenues likely to be produced by it and so arrange the
duties as to secure an adequate income. Should it be impossible to do
so by import duties, new kinds of taxation must be adopted, and among
these I recommend a graduated inheritance tax as correct in principle
and as certain and easy of collection.

The obligation on the part of those responsible for the expenditures
made to carry on the Government, to be as economical as possible, and
to make the burden of taxation as light as possible, is plain, and
should be affirmed in every declaration of government policy. This is
especially true when we are face to face with a heavy deficit. But
when the desire to win the popular approval leads to the cutting off
of expenditures really needed to make the Government effective and to
enable it to accomplish its proper objects, the result is as much to
be condemned as the waste of government funds in unnecessary
expenditure. The scope of a modern government in what it can and
ought to accomplish for its people has been widened far beyond the
principles laid down by the old "laissez faire" school of political
writers, and this widening has met popular approval.

In the Department of Agriculture the use of scientific experiments on
a large scale and the spread of information derived from them for the
improvement of general agriculture must go on.

The importance of supervising business of great railways and
industrial combinations and the necessary investigation and
prosecution of unlawful business methods are another necessary tax
upon Government which did not exist half a century ago.

The putting into force of laws which shall secure the conservation of
our resources, so far as they may be within the jurisdiction of the
Federal Government, including the most important work of saving and
restoring our forests and the great improvement of waterways, are all
proper government functions which must involve large expenditure if
properly performed. While some of them, like the reclamation of arid
lands, are made to pay for themselves, others are of such an indirect
benefit that this cannot be expected of them. A permanent improvement,
like the Panama Canal, should be treated as a distinct enterprise, and
should be paid for by the proceeds of bonds, the issue of which will
distribute its cost between the present and future generations in
accordance with the benefits derived. It may well be submitted to the
serious consideration of Congress whether the deepening and control of
the channel of a great river system, like that of the Ohio or of the
Mississippi, when definite and practical plans for the enterprise
have been approved and determined upon, should not be provided for in
the same way.

Then, too, there are expenditures of Government absolutely necessary
if our country is to maintain its proper place among the nations of
the world, and is to exercise its proper influence in defense of its
own trade interests in the maintenance of traditional American policy
against the colonization of European monarchies in this hemisphere,
and in the promotion of peace and international morality. I refer to
the cost of maintaining a proper army, a proper navy, and suitable
fortifications upon the mainland of the United States and in its
dependencies.

We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable
in time of emergency, in cooperation with the national militia and
under the provisions of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to
expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from
abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary
in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the
name of President Monroe.

Our fortifications are yet in a state of only partial completeness,
and the number of men to man them is insufficient. In a few years
however, the usual annual appropriations for our coast defenses, both
on the mainland and in the dependencies, will make them sufficient to
resist all direct attack, and by that time we may hope that the men
to man them will be provided as a necessary adjunct. The distance of
our shores from Europe and Asia of course reduces the necessity for
maintaining under arms a great army, but it does not take away the
requirement of mere prudence--that we should have an army
sufficiently large and so constituted as to form a nucleus out of
which a suitable force can quickly grow.

What has been said of the army may be affirmed in even a more
emphatic way of the navy. A modern navy can not be improvised. It
must be built and in existence when the emergency arises which calls
for its use and operation. My distinguished predecessor has in many
speeches and messages set out with great force and striking language
the necessity for maintaining a strong navy commensurate with the
coast line, the governmental resources, and the foreign trade of our
Nation; and I wish to reiterate all the reasons which he has
presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the
best conservator of our peace with other nations, and the best means
of securing respect for the assertion of our rights, the defense of
our interests, and the exercise of our influence in international
matters.

Our international policy is always to promote peace. We shall enter
into any war with a full consciousness of the awful consequences that
it always entails, whether successful or not, and we, of course, shall
make every effort consistent with national honor and the highest
national interest to avoid a resort to arms. We favor every
instrumentality, like that of the Hague Tribunal and arbitration
treaties made with a view to its use in all international
controversies, in order to maintain peace and to avoid war. But we
should be blind to existing conditions and should allow ourselves to
become foolish idealists if we did not realize that, with all the
nations of the world armed and prepared for war, we must be ourselves
in a similar condition, in order to prevent other nations from taking
advantage of us and of our inability to defend our interests and
assert our rights with a strong hand.

In the international controversies that are likely to arise in the
Orient growing out of the question of the open door and other issues
the United States can maintain her interests intact and can secure
respect for her just demands. She will not be able to do so, however,
if it is understood that she never intends to back up her assertion of
right and her defense of her interest by anything but mere verbal
protest and diplomatic note. For these reasons the expenses of the
army and navy and of coast defenses should always be considered as
something which the Government must pay for, and they should not be
cut off through mere consideration of economy. Our Government is able
to afford a suitable army and a suitable navy. It may maintain them
without the slightest danger to the Republic or the cause of free
institutions, and fear of additional taxation ought not to change a
proper policy in this regard.

The policy of the United States in the Spanish war and since has
given it a position of influence among the nations that it never had
before, and should be constantly exerted to securing to its bona fide
citizens, whether native or naturalized, respect for them as such in
foreign countries. We should make every effort to prevent humiliating
and degrading prohibition against any of our citizens wishing
temporarily to sojourn in foreign countries because of race or
religion.

The admission of Asiatic immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with
our population has been made the subject either of prohibitory
clauses in our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative
regulation secured by diplomatic negotiation. I sincerely hope that
we may continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such
immigration without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions
between self-respecting governments. Meantime we must take every
precaution to prevent, or failing that, to punish outbursts of race
feeling among our people against foreigners of whatever nationality
who have by our grant a treaty right to pursue lawful business here
and to be protected against lawless assault or injury.

This leads me to point out a serious defect in the present federal
jurisdiction, which ought to be remedied at once. Having assured to
other countries by treaty the protection of our laws for such of
their subjects or citizens as we permit to come within our
jurisdiction, we now leave to a state or a city, not under the
control of the Federal Government, the duty of performing our
international obligations in this respect. By proper legislation we
may, and ought to, place in the hands of the Federal Executive the
means of enforcing the treaty rights of such aliens in the courts of
the Federal Government. It puts our Government in a pusillanimous
position to make definite engagements to protect aliens and then to
excuse the failure to perform those engagements by an explanation
that the duty to keep them is in States or cities, not within our
control. If we would promise we must put ourselves in a position to
perform our promise. We cannot permit the possible failure of
justice, due to local prejudice in any State or municipal government,
to expose us to the risk of a war which might be avoided if federal
jurisdiction was asserted by suitable legislation by Congress and
carried out by proper proceedings instituted by the Executive in the
courts of the National Government.

One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming
administration is a change of our monetary and banking laws, so as to
secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade
and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the
embarrassment of a financial panic. The monetary commission, lately
appointed, is giving full consideration to existing conditions and to
all proposed remedies, and will doubtless suggest one that will meet
the requirements of business and of public interest.

We may hope that the report will embody neither the narrow dew of
those who believe that the sole purpose of the new system should be
to secure a large return on banking capital or of those who would
have greater expansion of currency with little regard to provisions
for its immediate redemption or ultimate security. There is no
subject of economic discussion so intricate and so likely to evoke
differing views and dogmatic statements as this one. The commission,
in studying the general influence of currency on business and of
business on currency, have wisely extended their investigations in
European banking and monetary methods. The information that they have
derived from such experts as they have found abroad will undoubtedly
be found helpful in the solution of the difficult problem they have
in hand.

The incoming Congress should promptly fulfill the promise of the
Republican platform and pass a proper postal savings bank bill. It
will not be unwise or excessive paternalism. The promise to repay by
the Government will furnish an inducement to savings deposits which
private enterprise can not supply and at such a low rate of interest
as not to withdraw custom from existing banks. It will substantially
increase the funds available for investment as capital in useful
enterprises. It will furnish absolute security which makes the
proposed scheme of government guaranty of deposits so alluring,
without its pernicious results.

I sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive, as it
should be, to the importance of our foreign trade and of encouraging
it in every way feasible. The possibility of increasing this trade in
the Orient, in the Philippines, and in South America are known to
everyone who has given the matter attention. The direct effect of
free trade between this country and the Philippines will be marked
upon our sales of cottons, agricultural machinery, and other
manufactures. The necessity of the establishment of direct lines of
steamers between North and South America has been brought to the
attention of Congress by my predecessor and by Mr. Root before and
after his noteworthy visit to that continent, and I sincerely hope
that Congress may be induced to see the wisdom of a tentative effort
to establish such lines by the use of mail subsidies.

The importance of the part which the Departments of Agriculture and
of Commerce and Labor may play in ridding the markets of Europe of
prohibitions and discriminations against the importation of our
products is fully understood, and it is hoped that the use of the
maximum and minimum feature of our tariff law to be soon passed will
be effective to remove many of those restrictions.

The Panama Canal will have a most important bearing upon the trade
between the eastern and far western sections of our country, and will
greatly increase the facilities for transportation between the eastern
and the western seaboard, and may possibly revolutionize the
transcontinental rates with respect to bulky merchandise. It will
also have a most beneficial effect to increase the trade between the
eastern seaboard of the United States and the western coast of South
America, and, indeed, with some of the important ports on the east
coast of South America reached by rail from the west coast.

The work on the canal is making most satisfactory progress. The type
of the canal as a lock canal was fixed by Congress after a full
consideration of the conflicting reports of the majority and minority
of the consulting board, and after the recommendation of the War
Department and the Executive upon those reports. Recent suggestion
that something had occurred on the Isthmus to make the lock type of
the canal less feasible than it was supposed to be when the reports
were made and the policy determined on led to a visit to the Isthmus
of a board of competent engineers to examine the Gatun dam and locks,
which are the key of the lock type. The report of that board shows
nothing has occurred in the nature of newly revealed evidence which
should change the views once formed in the original discussion. The
construction will go on under a most effective organization
controlled by Colonel Goethals and his fellow army engineers
associated with him, and will certainly be completed early in the
next administration, if not before.

Some type of canal must be constructed. The lock type has been
selected. We are all in favor of having it built as promptly as
possible. We must not now, therefore, keep up a fire in the rear of
the agents whom we have authorized to do our work on the Isthmus. We
must hold up their hands, and speaking for the incoming
administration I wish to say that I propose to devote all the energy
possible and under my control to pushing of this work on the plans
which have been adopted, and to stand behind the men who are doing
faithful, hard work to bring about the early completion of this, the
greatest constructive enterprise of modern times.

The governments of our dependencies in Porto Rico and the Philippines
are progressing as favorably as could be desired. The prosperity of
Porto Rico continues unabated. The business conditions in the
Philippines are not all that we could wish them to be, but with the
passage of the new tariff bill permitting free trade between the
United States and the archipelago, with such limitations on sugar and
tobacco as shall prevent injury to domestic interests in those
products, we can count on an improvement in business conditions in
the Philippines and the development of a mutually profitable trade
between this country and the islands. Meantime our Government in each
dependency is upholding the traditions of civil liberty and increasing
popular control which might be expected under American auspices. The
work which we are doing there redounds to our credit as a nation.

I look forward with hope to increasing the already good feeling
between the South and the other sections of the country. My chief
purpose is not to effect a change in the electoral vote of the
Southern States. That is a secondary consideration. What I look
forward to is an increase in the tolerance of political views of all
kinds and their advocacy throughout the South, and the existence of a
respectable political opposition in every State; even more than this,
to an increased feeling on the part of all the people in the South
that this Government is their Government, and that its officers in
their states are their officers.

The consideration of this question can not, however, be complete and
full without reference to the negro race, its progress and its
present condition. The thirteenth amendment secured them freedom; the
fourteenth amendment due process of law, protection of property, and
the pursuit of happiness; and the fifteenth amendment attempted to
secure the negro against any deprivation of the privilege to vote
because he was a negro. The thirteenth and fourteenth amendments have
been generally enforced and have secured the objects for which they
are intended. While the fifteenth amendment has not been generally
observed in the past, it ought to be observed, and the tendency of
Southern legislation today is toward the enactment of electoral
qualifications which shall square with that amendment. Of course, the
mere adoption of a constitutional law is only one step in the right
direction. It must be fairly and justly enforced as well. In time
both will come. Hence it is clear to all that the domination of an
ignorant, irresponsible element can be prevented by constitutional
laws which shall exclude from voting both negroes and whites not
having education or other qualifications thought to be necessary for
a proper electorate. The danger of the control of an ignorant
electorate has therefore passed. With this change, the interest which
many of the Southern white citizens take in the welfare of the negroes
has increased. The colored men must base their hope on the results of
their own industry, self-restraint, thrift, and business success, as
well as upon the aid and comfort and sympathy which they may receive
from their white neighbors of the South.

There was a time when Northerners who sympathized with the negro in
his necessary struggle for better conditions sought to give him the
suffrage as a protection to enforce its exercise against the
prevailing sentiment of the South. The movement proved to be a
failure. What remains is the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution
and the right to have statutes of States specifying qualifications
for electors subjected to the test of compliance with that amendment.
This is a great protection to the negro. It never will be repealed,
and it never ought to be repealed. If it had not passed, it might be
difficult now to adopt it; but with it in our fundamental law, the
policy of Southern legislation must and will tend to obey it, and so
long as the statutes of the States meet the test of this amendment
and are not otherwise in conflict with the Constitution and laws of
the United States, it is not the disposition or within the province
of the Federal Government to interfere with the regulation by
Southern States of their domestic affairs. There is in the South a
stronger feeling than ever among the intelligent well-to-do, and
influential element in favor of the industrial education of the negro
and the encouragement of the race to make themselves useful members of
the community. The progress which the negro has made in the last fifty
years, from slavery, when its statistics are reviewed, is marvelous,
and it furnishes every reason to hope that in the next twenty-five
years a still greater improvement in his condition as a productive
member of society, on the farm, and in the shop, and in other
occupations may come.

The negroes are now Americans. Their ancestors came here years ago
against their will, and this is their only country and their only
flag. They have shown themselves anxious to live for it and to die
for it. Encountering the race feeling against them, subjected at
times to cruel injustice growing out of it, they may well have our
profound sympathy and aid in the struggle they are making. We are
charged with the sacred duty of making their path as smooth and easy
as we can. Any recognition of their distinguished men, any
appointment to office from among their number, is properly taken as
an encouragement and an appreciation of their progress, and this just
policy should be pursued when suitable occasion offers.

But it may well admit of doubt whether, in the case of any race, an
appointment of one of their number to a local office in a community
in which the race feeling is so widespread and acute as to interfere
with the ease and facility with which the local government business
can be done by the appointee is of sufficient benefit by way of
encouragement to the race to outweigh the recurrence and increase of
race feeling which such an appointment is likely to engender.
Therefore the Executive, in recognizing the negro race by
appointments, must exercise a careful discretion not thereby to do it
more harm than good. On the other hand, we must be careful not to
encourage the mere pretense of race feeling manufactured in the
interest of individual political ambition.

Personally, I have not the slightest race prejudice or feeling, and
recognition of its existence only awakens in my heart a deeper
sympathy for those who have to bear it or suffer from it, and I
question the wisdom of a policy which is likely to increase it.
Meantime, if nothing is done to prevent it, a better feeling between
the negroes and the whites in the South will continue to grow, and
more and more of the white people will come to realize that the
future of the South is to be much benefited by the industrial and
intellectual progress of the negro. The exercise of political
franchises by those of this race who are intelligent and well to do
will be acquiesced in, and the right to vote will be withheld only
from the ignorant and irresponsible of both races.

There is one other matter to which I shall refer. It was made the
subject of great controversy during the election and calls for at
least a passing reference now. My distinguished predecessor has given
much attention to the cause of labor, with whose struggle for better
things he has shown the sincerest sympathy. At his instance Congress
has passed the bill fixing the liability of interstate carriers to
their employees for injury sustained in the course of employment,
abolishing the rule of fellow-servant and the common-law rule as to
contributory negligence, and substituting therefor the so-called rule
of "comparative negligence." It has also passed a law fixing the
compensation of government employees for injuries sustained in the
employ of the Government through the negligence of the superior. It
has also passed a model child-labor law for the District of Columbia.
In previous administrations an arbitration law for interstate commerce
railroads and their employees, and laws for the application of safety
devices to save the lives and limbs of employees of interstate
railroads had been passed. Additional legislation of this kind was
passed by the outgoing Congress.

I wish to say that insofar as I can I hope to promote the enactment
of further legislation of this character. I am strongly convinced
that the Government should make itself as responsible to employees
injured in its employ as an interstate-railway corporation is made
responsible by federal law to its employees; and I shall be glad,
whenever any additional reasonable safety device can be invented to
reduce the loss of life and limb among railway employees, to urge
Congress to require its adoption by interstate railways.

Another labor question has arisen which has awakened the most excited
discussion. That is in respect to the power of the federal courts to
issue injunctions in industrial disputes. As to that, my convictions
are fixed. Take away from the courts, if it could be taken away, the
power to issue injunctions in labor disputes, and it would create a
privileged class among the laborers and save the lawless among their
number from a most needful remedy available to all men for the
protection of their business against lawless invasion. The
proposition that business is not a property or pecuniary right which
can be protected by equitable injunction is utterly without
foundation in precedent or reason. The proposition is usually linked
with one to make the secondary boycott lawful. Such a proposition is
at variance with the American instinct, and will find no support, in
my judgment, when submitted to the American people. The secondary
boycott is an instrument of tyranny, and ought not to be made
legitimate.

The issue of a temporary restraining order without notice has in
several instances been abused by its inconsiderate exercise, and to
remedy this the platform upon which I was elected recommends the
formulation in a statute of the conditions under which such a
temporary restraining order ought to issue. A statute can and ought
to be framed to embody the best modern practice, and can bring the
subject so closely to the attention of the court as to make abuses of
the process unlikely in the future. The American people, if I
understand them, insist that the authority of the courts shall be
sustained, and are opposed to any change in the procedure by which
the powers of a court may be weakened and the fearless and effective
administration of justice be interfered with.

Having thus reviewed the questions likely to recur during my
administration, and having expressed in a summary way the position
which I expect to take in recommendations to Congress and in my
conduct as an Executive, I invoke the considerate sympathy and
support of my fellow-citizens and the aid of the Almighty God in the
discharge of my responsible duties.