Speech Transcript:

 To the Senate and House of Representatives:

The Congress assembles this year under the shadow of a great
calamity. On the sixth of September, President McKinley was shot by
an anarchist while attending the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo,
and died in that city on the fourteenth of that month.

Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third who has been
murdered, and the bare recital of this fact is sufficient to justify
grave alarm among all loyal American citizens. Moreover, the
circumstances of this, the third assassination of an American
President, have a peculiarly sinister significance. Both President
Lincoln and President Garfield were killed by assassins of types
unfortunately not uncommon in history; President Lincoln falling a
victim to the terrible passions aroused by four years of civil war,
and President Garfield to the revengeful vanity of a disappointed
office-seeker. President McKinley was killed by an utterly depraved
criminal belonging to that body of criminals who object to all
governments, good and bad alike, who are against any form of popular
liberty if it is guaranteed by even the most just and liberal laws,
and who are as hostile to the upright exponent of a free people's
sober will as to the tyrannical and irresponsible despot.

It is not too much to say that at the time of President McKinley's
death he was the most widely loved man in all the United States;
while we have never had any public man of his position who has been
so wholly free from the bitter animosities incident to public life.
His political opponents were the first to bear the heartiest and most
generous tribute to the broad kindliness of nature, the sweetness and
gentleness of character which so endeared him to his close
associates. To a standard of lofty integrity in public life he united
the tender affections and home virtues which are all-important in the
make-up of national character. A gallant soldier in the great war for
the Union, he also shone as an example to all our people because of
his conduct in the most sacred and intimate of home relations. There
could be no personal hatred of him, for he never acted with aught but
consideration for the welfare of others. No one could fail to respect
him who knew him in public or private life. The defenders of those
murderous criminals who seek to excuse their criminality by asserting
that it is exercised for political ends, inveigh against wealth and
irresponsible power. But for this assassination even this base
apology cannot be urged.

President McKinley was a man of moderate means, a man whose stock
sprang from the sturdy tillers of the soil, who had himself belonged
among the wage-workers, who had entered the Army as a private
soldier. Wealth was not struck at when the President was
assassinated, but the honest toil which is content with moderate
gains after a lifetime of unremitting labor, largely in the service
of the public. Still less was power struck at in the sense that power
is irresponsible or centered in the hands of any one individual. The
blow was not aimed at tyranny or wealth. It was aimed at one of the
strongest champions the wage-worker has ever had; at one of the most
faithful representatives of the system of public rights and
representative government who has ever risen to public office.
President McKinley filled that political office for which the entire
people vote, and no President not even Lincoln himself--was ever more
earnestly anxious to represent the well thought-out wishes of the
people; his one anxiety in every crisis was to keep in closest touch
with the people--to find out what they thought and to endeavor to
give expression to their thought, after having endeavored to guide
that thought aright. He had just been reelected to the Presidency
because the majority of our citizens, the majority of our farmers and
wage-workers, believed that he had faithfully upheld their interests
for four years. They felt themselves in close and intimate touch with
him. They felt that he represented so well and so honorably all their
ideals and aspirations that they wished him to continue for another
four years to represent them.

And this was the man at whom the assassin struck That there might be
nothing lacking to complete the Judas-like infamy of his act, he took
advantage of an occasion when the President was meeting the people
generally; and advancing as if to take the hand out-stretched to him
in kindly and brotherly fellowship, he turned the noble and generous
confidence of the victim into an opportunity to strike the fatal
blow. There is no baser deed in all the annals of crime.

The shock, the grief of the country, are bitter in the minds of all
who saw the dark days, while the President yet hovered between life
and death. At last the light was stilled in the kindly eyes and the
breath went from the lips that even in mortal agony uttered no words
save of forgiveness to his murderer, of love for his friends, and of
faltering trust in the will of the Most High. Such a death, crowning
the glory of such a life, leaves us with infinite sorrow, but with
such pride in what he had accomplished and in his own personal
character, that we feel the blow not as struck at him, but as struck
at the Nation We mourn a good and great President who is dead; but
while we mourn we are lifted up by the splendid achievements of his
life and the grand heroism with which he met his death.

When we turn from the man to the Nation, the harm done is so great as
to excite our gravest apprehensions and to demand our wisest and most
resolute action. This criminal was a professed anarchist, inflamed by
the teachings of professed anarchists, and probably also by the
reckless utterances of those who, on the stump and in the public
press, appeal to the dark and evil spirits of malice and greed, envy
and sullen hatred. The wind is sowed by the men who preach such
doctrines, and they cannot escape their share of responsibility for
the whirlwind that is reaped. This applies alike to the deliberate
demagogue, to the exploiter of sensationalism, and to the crude and
foolish visionary who, for whatever reason, apologizes for crime or
excites aimless discontent.

The blow was aimed not at this President, but at all Presidents; at
every symbol of government. President McKinley was as emphatically
the embodiment of the popular will of the Nation expressed through
the forms of law as a New England town meeting is in similar fashion
the embodiment of the law-abiding purpose and practice of the people
of the town. On no conceivable theory could the murder of the
President be accepted as due to protest against "inequalities in the
social order," save as the murder of all the freemen engaged in a
town meeting could be accepted as a protest against that social
inequality which puts a malefactor in jail. Anarchy is no more an
expression of "social discontent" than picking pockets or
wife-beating.

The anarchist, and especially the anarchist in the United States, is
merely one type of criminal, more dangerous than any other because he
represents the same depravity in a greater degree. The man who
advocates anarchy directly or indirectly, in any shape or fashion, or
the man who apologizes for anarchists and their deeds, makes himself
morally accessory to murder before the fact. The anarchist is a
criminal whose perverted instincts lead him to prefer confusion and
chaos to the most beneficent form of social order. His protest of
concern for workingmen is outrageous in its impudent falsity; for if
the political institutions of this country do not afford opportunity
to every honest and intelligent son of toil, then the door of hope is
forever closed against him. The anarchist is everywhere not merely the
enemy of system and of progress, but the deadly foe of liberty. If
ever anarchy is triumphant, its triumph will last for but one red
moment, to be succeeded, for ages by the gloomy night of despotism.

For the anarchist himself, whether he preaches or practices his
doctrines, we need not have one particle more concern than for any
ordinary murderer. He is not the victim of social or political
injustice. There are no wrongs to remedy in his case. The cause of
his criminality is to be found in his own evil passions and in the
evil conduct of those who urge him on, not in any failure by others
or by the State to do justice to him or his. He is a malefactor and
nothing else. He is in no sense, in no shape or way, a "product of
social conditions," save as a highwayman is "produced" by the fact
than an unarmed man happens to have a purse. It is a travesty upon
the great and holy names of liberty and freedom to permit them to be
invoked in such a cause. No man or body of men preaching anarchistic
doctrines should be allowed at large any more than if preaching the
murder of some specified private individual. Anarchistic speeches,
writings, and meetings are essentially seditious and treasonable.

I earnestly recommend to the Congress that in the exercise of its
wise discretion it should take into consideration the coming to this
country of anarchists or persons professing principles hostile to all
government and justifying the murder of those placed in authority.
Such individuals as those who not long ago gathered in open meeting
to glorify the murder of King Humbert of Italy perpetrate a crime,
and the law should ensure their rigorous punishment. They and those
like them should be kept out of this country; and if found here they
should be promptly deported to the country whence they came; and
far-reaching provision should be made for the punishment of those who
stay. No matter calls more urgently for the wisest thought of the
Congress.

The Federal courts should be given jurisdiction over any man who
kills or attempts to kill the President or any man who by the
Constitution or by law is in line of succession for the Presidency,
while the punishment for an unsuccessful attempt should be
proportioned to the enormity of the offense against our
institutions.

Anarchy is a crime against the whole human race; and all mankind
should band against the anarchist. His crime should be made an
offense against the law of nations, like piracy and that form of
man-stealing known as the slave trade; for it is of far blacker
infamy than either. It should be so declared by treaties among all
civilized powers. Such treaties would give to the Federal Government
the power of dealing with the crime.

A grim commentary upon the folly of the anarchist position was
afforded by the attitude of the law toward this very criminal who had
just taken the life of the President. The people would have torn him
limb from limb if it had not been that the law he defied was at once
invoked in his behalf. So far from his deed being committed on behalf
of the people against the Government, the Government was obliged at
once to exert its full police power to save him from instant death at
the hands of the people. Moreover, his deed worked not the slightest
dislocation in our governmental system, and the danger of a
recurrence of such deeds, no matter how great it might grow, would
work only in the direction of strengthening and giving harshness to
the forces of order. No man will ever be restrained from becoming
President by any fear as to his personal safety. If the risk to the
President's life became great, it would mean that the office would
more and more come to be filled by men of a spirit which would make
them resolute and merciless in dealing with every friend of disorder.
This great country will not fall into anarchy, and if anarchists
should ever become a serious menace to its institutions, they would
not merely be stamped out, but would involve in their own ruin every
active or passive sympathizer with their doctrines. The American
people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it
burns like a consuming flame.

During the last five years business confidence has been restored, and
the nation is to be congratulated because of its present abounding
prosperity. Such prosperity can never be created by law alone,
although it is easy enough to destroy it by mischievous laws. If the
hand of the Lord is heavy upon any country, if flood or drought
comes, human wisdom is powerless to avert the calamity. Moreover, no
law can guard us against the consequences of our own folly. The men
who are idle or credulous, the men who seek gains not by genuine work
with head or hand but by gambling in any form, are always a source of
menace not only to themselves but to others. If the business world
loses its head, it loses what legislation cannot supply.
Fundamentally the welfare of each citizen, and therefore the welfare
of the aggregate of citizens which makes the nation, must rest upon
individual thrift and energy, resolution, and intelligence. Nothing
can take the place of this individual capacity; but wise legislation
and honest and intelligent administration can give it the fullest
scope, the largest opportunity to work to good effect.

The tremendous and highly complex industrial development which went
on with ever accelerated rapidity during the latter half of the
nineteenth century brings us face to face, at the beginning of the
twentieth, with very serious social problems. The old laws, and the
old customs which had almost the binding force of law, were once
quite sufficient to regulate the accumulation and distribution of
wealth. Since the industrial changes which have so enormously
increased the productive power of mankind, they are no longer
sufficient.

The growth of cities has gone on beyond comparison faster than the
growth of the country, and the upbuilding of the great industrial
centers has meant a startling increase, not merely in the aggregate
of wealth, but in the number of very large individual, and especially
of very large corporate, fortunes. The creation of these great
corporate fortunes has not been due to the tariff nor to any other
governmental action, but to natural causes in the business world,
operating in other countries as they operate in our own.

The process has aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is
wholly without warrant. It is not true that as the rich have grown
richer the poor have grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has
the average man, the wage-worker, the farmer, the small trader, been
so well off as in this country and at the present time. There have
been abuses connected with the accumulation of wealth; yet it remains
true that a fortune accumulated in legitimate business can be
accumulated by the person specially benefited only on condition of
conferring immense incidental benefits upon others. Successful
enterprise, of the type which benefits all mankind, can only exist if
the conditions are such as to offer great prizes as the rewards of
success.

The captains of industry who have driven the railway systems across
this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed
our manufactures, have on the whole done great good to our people.
Without them the material development of which we are so justly proud
could never have taken place. Moreover, we should recognize the
immense importance of this material development of leaving as
unhampered as is compatible with the public good the strong and
forceful men upon whom the success of business operations inevitably
rests. The slightest study of business conditions will satisfy anyone
capable of forming a judgment that the personal equation is the most
important factor in a business operation; that the business ability
of the man at the head of any business concern, big or little, is
usually the factor which fixes the gulf between striking success and
hopeless failure.

An additional reason for caution in dealing with corporations is to
be found in the international commercial conditions of to-day. The
same business conditions which have produced the great aggregations
of corporate and individual wealth have made them very potent factors
in international Commercial competition. Business concerns which have
the largest means at their disposal and are managed by the ablest men
are naturally those which take the lead in the strife for commercial
supremacy among the nations of the world. America has only just begun
to assume that commanding position in the international business world
which we believe will more and more be hers. It is of the utmost
importance that this position be not jeoparded, especially at a time
when the overflowing abundance of our own natural resources and the
skill, business energy, and mechanical aptitude of our people make
foreign markets essential. Under such conditions it would be most
unwise to cramp or to fetter the youthful strength of our Nation.

Moreover, it cannot too often be pointed out that to strike with
ignorant violence at the interests of one set of men almost
inevitably endangers the interests of all. The fundamental rule in
our national life--the rule which underlies all others--is that, on
the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up or down together.
There are exceptions; and in times of prosperity some will prosper
far more, and in times of adversity, some will suffer far more, than
others; but speaking generally, a period of good times means that all
share more or less in them, and in a period of hard times all feel the
stress to a greater or less degree. It surely ought not to be
necessary to enter into any proof of this statement; the memory of
the lean years which began in 1893 is still vivid, and we can
contrast them with the conditions in this very year which is now
closing. Disaster to great business enterprises can never have its
effects limited to the men at the top. It spreads throughout, and
while it is bad for everybody, it is worst for those farthest down.
The capitalist may be shorn of his luxuries; but the wage-worker may
be deprived of even bare necessities.

The mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care
must be taken not to interfere with it in a spirit of rashness or
ignorance. Many of those who have made it their vocation to denounce
the great industrial combinations which are popularly, although with
technical inaccuracy, known as "trusts," appeal especially to hatred
and fear. These are precisely the two emotions, particularly when
combined with ignorance, which unfit men for the exercise of cool and
steady judgment. In facing new industrial conditions, the whole
history of the world shows that legislation will generally be both
unwise and ineffective unless undertaken after calm inquiry and with
sober self-restraint. Much of the legislation directed at the trusts
would have been exceedingly mischievous had it not also been entirely
ineffective. In accordance with a well-known sociological law, the
ignorant or reckless agitator has been the really effective friend of
the evils which he has been nominally opposing. In dealing with
business interests, for the Government to undertake by crude and
ill-considered legislation to do what may turn out to be bad, would
be to incur the risk of such far-reaching national disaster that it
would be preferable to undertake nothing at all. The men who demand
the impossible or the undesirable serve as the allies of the forces
with which they are nominally at war, for they hamper those who would
endeavor to find out in rational fashion what the wrongs really are
and to what extent and in what manner it is practicable to apply
remedies.

All this is true; and yet it is also true that there are real and
grave evils, one of the chief being over-capitalization because of
its many baleful consequences; and a resolute and practical effort
must be made to correct these evils.

There is a widespread conviction in the minds of the American people
that the great corporations known as trusts are in certain of their
features and tendencies hurtful to the general welfare. This springs
from no spirit of envy or uncharitableness, nor lack of pride in the
great industrial achievements that have placed this country at the
head of the nations struggling for commercial supremacy. It does not
rest upon a lack of intelligent appreciation of the necessity of
meeting changing and changed conditions of trade with new methods,
nor upon ignorance of the fact that combination of capital in the
effort to accomplish great things is necessary when the world's
progress demands that great things be done. It is based upon sincere
conviction that combination and concentration should be, not
prohibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits controlled;
and in my judgment this conviction is right.

It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to
require that when men receive from Government the privilege of doing
business under corporate form, which frees them from individual
responsibility, and enables them to call into their enterprises the
capital of the public, they shall do so upon absolutely truthful
representations as to the value of the property in which the capital
is to be invested. Corporations engaged in interstate commerce should
be regulated if they are found to exercise a license working to the
public injury. It should be as much the aim of those who seek for
social betterment to rid the business world of crimes of cunning as
to rid the entire body politic of crimes of violence. Great
corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by
our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see
that they work in harmony with these institutions.

The first essential in determining how to deal with the great
industrial combinations is knowledge of the facts--publicity. In the
interest of the public, the Government should have the right to
inspect and examine the workings of the great corporations engaged in
interstate business. Publicity is the only sure remedy which we can
now invoke. What further remedies are needed in the way of
governmental regulation, or taxation, can only be determined after
publicity has been obtained, by process of law, and in the course of
administration. The first requisite is knowledge, full and
complete--knowledge which may be made public to the world.

Artificial bodies, such as corporations and joint stock or other
associations, depending upon any statutory law for their existence or
privileges, should be subject to proper governmental supervision, and
full and accurate information as to their operations should be made
public regularly at reasonable intervals.

The large corporations, commonly called trusts, though organized in
one State, always do business in many States, often doing very little
business in the State where they are incorporated. There is utter lack
of uniformity in the State laws about them; and as no State has any
exclusive interest in or power over their acts, it has in practice
proved impossible to get adequate regulation through State action.
Therefore, in the interest of the whole people, the Nation should,
without interfering with the power of the States in the matter
itself, also assume power of supervision and regulation over all
corporations doing an interstate business. This is especially true
where the corporation derives a portion of its wealth from the
existence of some monopolistic element or tendency in its business.
There would be no hardship in such supervision; banks are subject to
it, and in their case it is now accepted as a simple matter of
course. Indeed, it is probable that supervision of corporations by
the National Government need not go so far as is now the case with
the supervision exercised over them by so conservative a State as
Massachusetts, in order to produce excellent results.

When the Constitution was adopted, at the end of the eighteenth
century, no human wisdom could foretell the sweeping changes, alike
in industrial and political conditions, which were to take place by
the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time it was accepted
as a matter of course that the several States were the proper
authorities to regulate, so far as was then necessary, the
comparatively insignificant and strictly localized corporate bodies
of the day. The conditions are now wholly different and wholly
different action is called for. I believe that a law can be framed
which will enable the National Government to exercise control along
the lines above indicated; profiting by the experience gained through
the passage and administration of the Interstate-Commerce Act. If,
however, the judgment of the Congress is that it lacks the
constitutional power to pass such an act, then a constitutional
amendment should be submitted to confer the power.

There should be created a Cabinet officer, to be known as Secretary
of Commerce and Industries, as provided in the bill introduced at the
last session of the Congress. It should be his province to deal with
commerce in its broadest sense; including among many other things
whatever concerns labor and all matters affecting the great business
corporations and our merchant marine.

The course proposed is one phase of what should be a comprehensive
and far-reaching scheme of constructive statesmanship for the purpose
of broadening our markets, securing our business interests on a safe
basis, and making firm our new position in the international
industrial world; while scrupulously safeguarding the rights of
wage-worker and capitalist, of investor and private citizen, so as to
secure equity as between man and man in this Republic.

With the sole exception of the farming interest, no one matter is of
such vital moment to our whole people as the welfare of the
wage-workers. If the farmer and the wage-worker are well off, it is
absolutely certain that all others will be well off too. It is
therefore a matter for hearty congratulation that on the whole wages
are higher to-day in the United States than ever before in our
history, and far higher than in any other country. The standard of
living is also higher than ever before. Every effort of legislator
and administrator should be bent to secure the permanency of this
condition of things and its improvement wherever possible. Not only
must our labor be protected by the tariff, but it should also be
protected so far as it is possible from the presence in this country
of any laborers brought over by contract, or of those who, coming
freely, yet represent a standard of living so depressed that they can
undersell our men in the labor market and drag them to a lower level.
I regard it as necessary, with this end in view, to re-enact
immediately the law excluding Chinese laborers and to strengthen it
wherever necessary in order to make its enforcement entirely
effective.

The National Government should demand the highest quality of service
from its employees; and in return it should be a good employer. If
possible legislation should be passed, in connection with the
Interstate Commerce Law, which will render effective the efforts of
different States to do away with the competition of convict contract
labor in the open labor market. So far as practicable under the
conditions of Government work, provision should be made to render the
enforcement of the eight-hour law easy and certain. In all industries
carried on directly or indirectly for the United States Government
women and children should be protected from excessive hours of labor,
from night work, and from work under unsanitary conditions. The
Government should provide in its contracts that all work should be
done under "fair" conditions, and in addition to setting a high
standard should uphold it by proper inspection, extending if
necessary to the subcontractors. The Government should forbid all
night work for women and children, as well as excessive overtime. For
the District of Columbia a good factory law should be passed; and, as
a powerful indirect aid to such laws, provision should be made to
turn the inhabited alleys, the existence of which is a reproach to
our Capital city, into minor streets, where the inhabitants can live
under conditions favorable to health and morals.

American wage-workers work with their heads as well as their hands.
Moreover, they take a keen pride in what they are doing; so that,
independent of the reward, they wish to turn out a perfect job. This
is the great secret of our success in competition with the labor of
foreign countries.

The most vital problem with which this country, and for that matter
the whole civilized world, has to deal, is the problem which has for
one side the betterment of social conditions, moral and physical, in
large cities, and for another side the effort to deal with that
tangle of far-reaching questions which we group together when we
speak of "labor." The chief factor in the success of each
man--wage-worker, farmer, and capitalist alike--must ever be the sum
total of his own individual qualities and abilities. Second only to
this comes the power of acting in combination or association with
others. Very great good has been and will be accomplished by
associations or unions of wage-workers, when managed with
forethought, and when they combine insistence upon their own rights
with law-abiding respect for the rights of others. The display of
these qualities in such bodies is a duty to the nation no less than
to the associations themselves. Finally, there must also in many
cases be action by the Government in order to safeguard the rights
and interests of all. Under our Constitution there is much more scope
for such action by the State and the municipality than by the nation.
But on points such as those touched on above the National Government
can act.

When all is said and done, the rule of brotherhood remains as the
indispensable prerequisite to success in the kind of national life
for which we strive. Each man must work for himself, and unless he so
works no outside help can avail him; but each man must remember also
that he is indeed his brother's keeper, and that while no man who
refuses to walk can be carried with advantage to himself or anyone
else, yet that each at times stumbles or halts, that each at times
needs to have the helping hand outstretched to him. To be permanently
effective, aid must always take the form of helping a man to help
himself; and we can all best help ourselves by joining together in
the work that is of common interest to all.

Our present immigration laws are unsatisfactory. We need every honest
and efficient immigrant fitted to become an American citizen, every
immigrant who comes here to stay, who brings here a strong body, a
stout heart, a good head, and a resolute purpose to do his duty well
in every way and to bring up his children as law-abiding and
God-fearing members of the community. But there should be a
comprehensive law enacted with the object of working a threefold
improvement over our present system. First, we should aim to exclude
absolutely not only all persons who are known to be believers in
anarchistic principles or members of anarchistic societies, but also
all persons who are of a low moral tendency or of unsavory
reputation. This means that we should require a more thorough system
of inspection abroad and a more rigid system of examination at our
immigration ports, the former being especially necessary.

The second object of a proper immigration law ought to be to secure
by a careful and not merely perfunctory educational test some
intelligent capacity to appreciate American institutions and act
sanely as American citizens. This would not keep out all anarchists,
for many of them belong to the intelligent criminal class. But it
would do what is also in point, that is, tend to decrease the sum of
ignorance, so potent in producing the envy, suspicion, malignant
passion, and hatred of order, out of which anarchistic sentiment
inevitably springs. Finally, all persons should be excluded who are
below a certain standard of economic fitness to enter our industrial
field as competitors with American labor. There should be proper
proof of personal capacity to earn an American living and enough
money to insure a decent start under American conditions. This would
stop the influx of cheap labor, and the resulting competition which
gives rise to so much of bitterness in American industrial life; and
it would dry up the springs of the pestilential social conditions in
our great cities, where anarchistic organizations have their greatest
possibility of growth.

Both the educational and economic tests in a wise immigration law
should be designed to protect and elevate the general body politic
and social. A very close supervision should be exercised over the
steamship companies which mainly bring over the immigrants, and they
should be held to a strict accountability for any infraction of the
law.

There is general acquiescence in our present tariff system as a
national policy. The first requisite to our prosperity is the
continuity and stability of this economic policy. Nothing could be
more unwise than to disturb the business interests of the country by
any general tariff change at this time. Doubt, apprehension,
uncertainty are exactly what we most wish to avoid in the interest of
our commercial and material well-being. Our experience in the past has
shown that sweeping revisions of the tariff are apt to produce
conditions closely approaching panic in the business world. Yet it is
not only possible, but eminently desirable, to combine with the
stability of our economic system a supplementary system of reciprocal
benefit and obligation with other nations. Such reciprocity is an
incident and result of the firm establishment and preservation of our
present economic policy. It was specially provided for in the present
tariff law.

Reciprocity must be treated as the handmaiden of protection. Our
first duty is to see that the protection granted by the tariff in
every case where it is needed is maintained, and that reciprocity be
sought for so far as it can safely be done without injury to our home
industries. Just how far this is must be determined according to the
individual case, remembering always that every application of our
tariff policy to meet our shifting national needs must be conditioned
upon the cardinal fact that the duties must never be reduced below the
point that will cover the difference between the labor cost here and
abroad. The well-being of the wage-worker is a prime consideration of
our entire policy of economic legislation.

Subject to this proviso of the proper protection necessary to our
industrial well-being at home, the principle of reciprocity must
command our hearty support. The phenomenal growth of our export trade
emphasizes the urgency of the need for wider markets and for a liberal
policy in dealing with foreign nations. Whatever is merely petty and
vexatious in the way of trade restrictions should be avoided. The
customers to whom we dispose of our surplus products in the long run,
directly or indirectly, purchase those surplus products by giving us
something in return. Their ability to purchase our products should as
far as possible be secured by so arranging our tariff as to enable us
to take from them those products which we can use without harm to our
own industries and labor, or the use of which will be of marked
benefit to us.

It is most important that we should maintain the high level of our
present prosperity. We have now reached the point in the development
of our interests where we are not only able to supply our own markets
but to produce a constantly growing surplus for which we must find
markets abroad. To secure these markets we can utilize existing
duties in any case where they are no longer needed for the purpose of
protection, or in any case where the article is not produced here and
the duty is no longer necessary for revenue, as giving us something
to offer in exchange for what we ask. The cordial relations with
other nations which are so desirable will naturally be promoted by
the course thus required by our own interests.

The natural line of development for a policy of reciprocity will be
in connection with those of our productions which no longer require
all of the support once needed to establish them upon a sound basis,
and with those others where either because of natural or of economic
causes we are beyond the reach of successful competition.

I ask the attention of the Senate to the reciprocity treaties laid
before it by my predecessor.

The condition of the American merchant marine is such as to call for
immediate remedial action by the Congress. It is discreditable to us
as a Nation that our merchant marine should be utterly insignificant
in comparison to that of other nations which we overtop in other
forms of business. We should not longer submit to conditions under
which only a trifling portion of our great commerce is carried in our
own ships. To remedy this state of things would not .merely serve to
build up our shipping interests, but it would also result in benefit
to all who are interested in the permanent establishment of a wider
market for American products, and would provide an auxiliary force
for the Navy. Ships work for their own countries just as railroads
work for their terminal points. Shipping lines, if established to the
principal countries with which we have dealings, would be of political
as well as commercial benefit. From every standpoint it is unwise for
the United States to continue to rely upon the ships of competing
nations for the distribution of our goods. It should be made
advantageous to carry American goods in American-built ships.

At present American shipping is under certain great disadvantages
when put in competition with the shipping of foreign countries. Many
of the fast foreign steamships, at a speed of fourteen knots or
above, are subsidized; and all our ships, sailing vessels and
steamers alike, cargo carriers of slow speed and mail carriers of
high speed, have to meet the fact that the original cost of building
American ships is greater than is the case abroad; that the wages
paid American officers and seamen are very much higher than those
paid the officers and seamen of foreign competing countries; and that
the standard of living on our ships is far superior to the standard of
living on the ships of our commercial rivals.

Our Government should take such action as will remedy these
inequalities. The American merchant marine should be restored to the
ocean.

The Act of March 14, 1900, intended unequivocally to establish gold
as the standard money and to maintain at a parity therewith all forms
of money medium in use with us, has been shown to be timely and
judicious. The price of our Government bonds in the world's market,
when compared with the price of similar obligations issued by other
nations, is a flattering tribute to our public credit. This condition
it is evidently desirable to maintain.

In many respects the National Banking Law furnishes sufficient
liberty for the proper exercise of the banking function; but there
seems to be need of better safeguards against the deranging influence
of commercial crises and financial panics. Moreover, the currency of
the country should be made responsive to the demands of our domestic
trade and commerce.

The collections from duties on imports and internal taxes continue to
exceed the ordinary expenditures of the Government, thanks mainly to
the reduced army expenditures. The utmost care should be taken not to
reduce the revenues so that there will be any possibility of a
deficit; but, after providing against any such contingency, means
should be adopted which will bring the revenues more nearly within
the limit of our actual needs. In his report to the Congress the
Secretary of the Treasury considers all these questions at length,
and I ask your attention to the report and recommendations.

I call special attention to the need of strict economy in
expenditures. The fact that our national needs forbid us to be
niggardly in providing whatever is actually necessary to our
well-being, should make us doubly careful to husband our national
resources, as each of us husbands his private resources, by
scrupulous avoidance of anything like wasteful or reckless
expenditure. Only by avoidance of spending money on what is needless
or unjustifiable can we legitimately keep our income to the point
required to meet our needs that are genuine.

In 1887 a measure was enacted for the regulation of interstate
railways, commonly known as the Interstate Commerce Act. The cardinal
provisions of that act were that railway rates should be just and
reasonable and that all shippers, localities, and commodities should
be accorded equal treatment. A commission was created and endowed
with what were supposed to be the necessary powers to execute the
provisions of this act. That law was largely an experiment.
Experience has shown the wisdom of its purposes, but has also shown,
possibly that some of its requirements are wrong, certainly that the
means devised for the enforcement of its provisions are defective.
Those who complain of the management of the railways allege that
established rates are not maintained; that rebates and similar
devices are habitually resorted to; that these preferences are
usually in favor of the large shipper; that they drive out of
business the smaller competitor; that while many rates are too low,
many others are excessive; and that gross preferences are made,
affecting both localities and commodities. Upon the other hand, the
railways assert that the law by its very terms tends to produce many
of these illegal practices by depriving carriers of that right of
concerted action which they claim is necessary to establish and
maintain non-discriminating rates.

The act should be amended. The railway is a public servant. Its rates
should be just to and open to all shippers alike. The Government
should see to it that within its jurisdiction this is so and should
provide a speedy, inexpensive, and effective remedy to that end. At
the same time it must not be forgotten that our railways are the
arteries through which the commercial lifeblood of this Nation flows.
Nothing could be more foolish than the enactment of legislation which
would unnecessarily interfere with the development and operation of
these commercial agencies. The subject is one of great importance and
calls for the earnest attention of the Congress.

The Department of Agriculture during the past fifteen years has
steadily broadened its work on economic lines, and has accomplished
results of real value in upbuilding domestic and foreign trade. It
has gone into new fields until it is now in touch with all sections
of our country and with two of the island groups that have lately
come under our jurisdiction, whose people must look to agriculture as
a livelihood. It is searching the world for grains, grasses, fruits,
and vegetables specially fitted for introduction into localities in
the several States and Territories where they may add materially to
our resources. By scientific attention to soil survey and possible
new crops, to breeding of new varieties of plants, to experimental
shipments, to animal industry and applied chemistry, very practical
aid has been given our farming and stock-growing interests. The
products of the farm have taken an unprecedented place in our export
trade during the year that has just closed.

Public opinion throughout the United States has moved steadily toward
a just appreciation of the value of forests, whether planted or of
natural growth. The great part played by them in the creation and
maintenance of the national wealth is now more fully realized than
ever before.

Wise forest protection does not mean the withdrawal of forest
resources, whether of wood, water, or grass, from contributing their
full share to the welfare of the people, but, on the contrary, gives
the assurance of larger and more certain supplies. The fundamental
idea of forestry is the perpetuation of forests by use. Forest
protection is not an end of itself; it is a means to increase and
sustain the resources of our country and the industries which depend
upon them. The preservation of our forests is an imperative business
necessity. We have come to see clearly that whatever destroys the
forest, except to make way for agriculture, threatens our well
being.

The practical usefulness of the national forest reserves to the
mining, grazing, irrigation, and other interests of the regions in
which the reserves lie has led to a widespread demand by the people
of the West for their protection and extension. The forest reserves
will inevitably be of still greater use in the future than in the
past. Additions should be made to them whenever practicable, and
their usefulness should be increased by a thoroughly business-like
management.

At present the protection of the forest reserves rests with the
General Land Office, the mapping and description of their timber with
the United States Geological Survey, and the preparation of plans for
their conservative use with the Bureau of Forestry, which is also
charged with the general advancement of practical forestry in the
United States. These various functions should be united in the Bureau
of Forestry, to which they properly belong. The present diffusion of
responsibility is bad from every standpoint. It prevents that
effective co-operation between the Government and the men who utilize
the resources of the reserves, without which the interests of both
must suffer. The scientific bureaus generally should be put under the
Department of Agriculture. The President should have by law the power
of transferring lands for use as forest reserves to the Department of
Agriculture. He already has such power in the case of lands needed by
the Departments of War and the Navy.

The wise administration of the forest reserves will be not less
helpful to the interests which depend on water than to those which
depend on wood and grass. The water supply itself depends upon the
forest. In the arid region it is water, not land, which measures
production. The western half of the United States would sustain a
population greater than that of our whole country to-day if the
waters that now run to waste were saved and used for irrigation. The
forest and water problems are perhaps the most vital internal
questions of the United States.

Certain of the forest reserves should also be made preserves for the
wild forest creatures. All of the reserves should be better protected
from fires. Many of them need special protection because of the great
injury done by live stock, above all by sheep. The increase in deer,
elk, and other animals in the Yellowstone Park shows what may be
expected when other mountain forests are properly protected by law
and properly guarded. Some of these areas have been so denuded of
surface vegetation by overgrazing that the ground breeding birds,
including grouse and quail, and many mammals, including deer, have
been exterminated or driven away. At the same time the water-storing
capacity of the surface has been decreased or destroyed, thus
promoting floods in times of rain and diminishing the flow of streams
between rains.

In cases where natural conditions have been restored for a few years,
vegetation has again carpeted the ground, birds and deer are coming
back, and hundreds of persons, especially from the immediate
neighborhood, come each summer to enjoy the privilege of camping.
Some at least of the forest reserves should afford perpetual
protection to the native fauna and flora, safe havens of refuge to
our rapidly diminishing wild animals of the larger kinds, and free
camping grounds for the ever-increasing numbers of men and women who
have learned to find rest, health, and recreation in the splendid
forests and flower-clad meadows of our mountains. The forest reserves
should be set apart forever for the use and benefit of our people as a
whole and not sacrificed to the shortsighted greed of a few.

The forests are natural reservoirs. By restraining the streams in
flood and replenishing them in drought they make possible the use of
waters otherwise wasted. They prevent the soil from washing, and so
protect the storage reservoirs from filling up with silt. Forest
conservation is therefore an essential condition of water
conservation.

The forests alone cannot, however, fully regulate and conserve the
waters of the arid region. Great storage works are necessary to
equalize the flow of streams and to save the flood waters. Their
construction has been conclusively shown to be an undertaking too
vast for private effort. Nor can it be best accomplished by the
individual States acting alone. Far-reaching interstate problems are
involved; and the resources of single States would often be
inadequate. It is properly a national function, at least in some of
its features. It is as right for the National Government to make the
streams and rivers of the arid region useful by engineering works for
water storage as to make useful the rivers and harbors of the humid
region by engineering works of another kind. The storing of the
floods in reservoirs at the headwaters of our rivers is but an
enlargement of our present policy of river control, under which
levees are built on the lower reaches of the same streams.

The Government should construct and maintain these reservoirs as it
does other public works. Where their purpose is to regulate the flow
of streams, the water should be turned freely into the channels in
the dry season to take the same course under the same laws as the
natural flow.

The reclamation of the unsettled arid public lands presents a
different problem. Here it is not enough to regulate the flow of
streams. The object of the Government is to dispose of the land to
settlers who will build homes upon it. To accomplish this object
water must be brought within their reach.

The pioneer settlers on the arid public domain chose their homes
along streams from which they could themselves divert the water to
reclaim their holdings. Such opportunities are practically gone.
There remain, however, vast areas of public land which can be made
available for homestead settlement, but only by reservoirs and
main-line canals impracticable for private enterprise. These
irrigation works should be built by the National Government. The
lands reclaimed by them should be reserved by the Government for
actual settlers, and the cost of construction should so far as
possible be repaid by the land reclaimed. The distribution of the
water, the division of the streams among irrigators, should be left
to the settlers themselves in conformity with State laws and without
interference with those laws or with vested fights. The policy of the
National Government should be to aid irrigation in the several States
and Territories in such manner as will enable the people in the local
communities to help themselves, and as will stimulate needed reforms
in the State laws and regulations governing irrigation.

The reclamation and settlement of the arid lands will enrich every
portion of our country, just as the settlement of the Ohio and
Mississippi valleys brought prosperity to the Atlantic States. The
increased demand for manufactured articles will stimulate industrial
production, while wider home markets and the trade of Asia will
consume the larger food supplies and effectually prevent Western
competition with Eastern agriculture. Indeed, the products of
irrigation will be consumed chiefly in upbuilding local centers of
mining and other industries, which would otherwise not come into
existence at all. Our people as a whole will profit, for successful
home-making is but another name for the upbuilding of the nation.

The necessary foundation has already been laid for the inauguration
of the policy just described. It would be unwise to begin by doing
too much, for a great deal will doubtless be learned, both as to what
can and what cannot be safely attempted, by the early efforts, which
must of necessity be partly experimental in character. At the very
beginning the Government should make clear, beyond shadow of doubt,
its intention to pursue this policy on lines of the broadest public
interest. No reservoir or canal should ever be built to satisfy
selfish personal or local interests; but only in accordance with the
advice of trained experts, after long investigation has shown the
locality where all the conditions combine to make the work most
needed and fraught with the greatest usefulness to the community as a
whole. There should be no extravagance, and the believers in the need
of irrigation will most benefit their cause by seeing to it that it
is free from the least taint of excessive or reckless expenditure of
the public moneys.

Whatever the nation does for the extension of irrigation should
harmonize with, and tend to improve, the condition of those now
living on irrigated land. We are not at the starting point of this
development. Over two hundred millions of private capital has already
been expended in the construction of irrigation works, and many
million acres of arid land reclaimed. A high degree of enterprise and
ability has been shown in the work itself; but as much cannot be said
in reference to the laws relating thereto. The security and value of
the homes created depend largely on the stability of titles to water;
but the majority of these rest on the uncertain foundation of court
decisions rendered in ordinary suits at law. With a few creditable
exceptions, the arid States have failed to provide for the certain
and just division of streams in times of scarcity. Lax and uncertain
laws have made it possible to establish rights to water in excess of
actual uses or necessities, and many streams have already passed into
private ownership, or a control equivalent to ownership.

Whoever controls a stream practically controls the land it renders
productive, and the doctrine of private ownership of water apart from
land cannot prevail without causing enduring wrong. The recognition of
such ownership, which has been permitted to grow up in the arid
regions, should give way to a more enlightened and larger recognition
of the rights of the public in the control and disposal of the public
water supplies. Laws founded upon conditions obtaining in humid
regions, where water is too abundant to justify hoarding it, have no
proper application in a dry country.

In the arid States the only right to water which should be recognized
is that of use. In irrigation this right should attach to the land
reclaimed and be inseparable therefrom. Granting perpetual water
rights to others than users, without compensation to the public, is
open to all the objections which apply to giving away perpetual
franchises to the public utilities of cities. A few of the Western
States have already recognized this, and have incorporated in their
constitutions the doctrine of perpetual State ownership of water.

The benefits which have followed the unaided development of the past
justify the nation's aid and co-operation in the more difficult and
important work yet to be accomplished. Laws so vitally affecting
homes as those which control the water supply will only be effective
when they have the sanction of the irrigators; reforms can only be
final and satisfactory when they come through the enlightenment of
the people most concerned. The larger development which national aid
insures should, however, awaken in every arid State the determination
to make its irrigation system equal in justice and effectiveness that
of any country in the civilized world. Nothing could be more unwise
than for isolated communities to continue to learn everything
experimentally, instead of profiting by what is already known
elsewhere. We are dealing with a new and momentous question, in the
pregnant years while institutions are forming, and what we do will
affect not only the present but future generations.

Our aim should be not simply to reclaim the largest area of land and
provide homes for the largest number of people, but to create for
this new industry the best possible social and industrial conditions;
and this requires that we not only understand the existing situation,
but avail ourselves of the best experience of the time in the
solution of its problems. A careful study should be made, both by the
Nation and the States, of the irrigation laws and conditions here and
abroad. Ultimately it will probably be necessary for the Nation to
co-operate with the several arid States in proportion as these States
by their legislation and administration show themselves fit to receive
it.

In Hawaii our aim must be to develop the Territory on the traditional
American lines. We do not wish a region of large estates tilled by
cheap labor; we wish a healthy American community of men who
themselves till the farms they own. All our legislation for the
islands should be shaped with this end in view; the well-being of the
average home-maker must afford the true test of the healthy
development of the islands. The land policy should as nearly as
possible be modeled on our homestead system.

It is a pleasure to say that it is hardly more necessary to report as
to Puerto Rico than as to any State or Territory within our
continental limits. The island is thriving as never before, and it is
being administered efficiently and honestly. Its people are now
enjoying liberty and order under the protection of the United States,
and upon this fact we congratulate them and ourselves. Their material
welfare must be as carefully and jealously considered as the welfare
of any other portion of our country. We have given them the great
gift of free access for their products to the markets of the United
States. I ask the attention of the Congress to the need of
legislation concerning the public lands of Puerto Rico.

In Cuba such progress has been made toward putting the independent
government of the island upon a firm footing that before the present
session of the Congress closes this will be an accomplished fact.
Cuba will then start as her own mistress; and to the beautiful Queen
of the Antilles, as she unfolds this new page of her destiny, we
extend our heartiest greetings and good wishes. Elsewhere I have
discussed the question of reciprocity. In the case of Cuba, however,
there are weighty reasons of morality and of national interest why
the policy should be held to have a peculiar application, and I most
earnestly ask your attention to the wisdom, indeed to the vital need,
of providing for a substantial reduction in the tariff duties on Cuban
imports into the United States. Cuba has in her constitution affirmed
what we desired: that she should stand, in international matters, in
closer and more friendly relations with us than with any other power;
and we are bound by every consideration of honor and expediency to
pass commercial measures in the interest of her material well-being.

In the Philippines our problem is larger. They are very rich tropical
islands, inhabited by many varying tribes, representing widely
different stages of progress toward civilization. Our earnest effort
is to help these people upward along the stony and difficult path
that leads to self-government. We hope to make our administration of
the islands honorable to our Nation by making it of the highest
benefit to the Filipinos themselves; and as an earnest of what we
intend to do, we point to what we have done. Already a greater
measure of material prosperity and of governmental honesty and
efficiency has been attained in the Philippines than ever before in
their history.

It is no light task for a nation to achieve the temperamental
qualities without which the institutions of free government are but
an empty mockery. Our people are now successfully governing
themselves, because for more than a thousand years they have been
slowly fitting themselves, sometimes consciously, sometimes
unconsciously, toward this end. What has taken us thirty generations
to achieve, we cannot expect to have another race accomplish out of
hand, especially when large portions of that race start very far
behind the point which our ancestors had reached even thirty
generations ago. In dealing with the Philippine people we must show
both patience and strength, forbearance and steadfast resolution. Our
aim is high. We do not desire to do for the islanders merely what has
elsewhere been done for tropic peoples by even the best foreign
governments. We hope to do for them what has never before been done
for any people of the tropics--to make them fit for self-government
after the fashion of the really free nations.

History may safely be challenged to show a single instance in which a
masterful race such as ours, having been forced by the exigencies of
war to take possession of an alien land, has behaved to its
inhabitants with the disinterested zeal for their progress that our
people have shown in the Philippines. To leave the islands at this
time would mean that they would fall into a welter of murderous
anarchy. Such desertion of duty on our part would be a crime against
humanity. The character of Governor Taft and of his associates and
subordinates is a proof, if such be needed, of the sincerity of our
effort to give the islanders a constantly increasing measure of
self-government, exactly as fast as they show themselves fit to
exercise it. Since the civil government was established not an
appointment has been made in the islands with any reference to
considerations of political influence, or to aught else Save the
fitness of the man and the needs of the service.

In our anxiety for the welfare and progress of the Philippines, may
be that here and there we have gone too rapidly in giving them local
self-government. It is on this side that our error, if any, has been
committed. No competent observer, sincerely desirous of finding out
the facts and influenced only by a desire for the welfare of the
natives, can assert that we have not gone far enough. We have gone to
the very verge of safety in hastening the process. To have taken a
single step farther or faster in advance would have been folly and
weakness, and might well have been crime. We are extremely anxious
that the natives shall show the power of governing themselves. We are
anxious, first for their sakes, and next, because it relieves us of a
great burden. There need not be the slightest fear of our not
continuing to give them all the liberty for which they are fit.

The only fear is test in our overanxiety we give them a degree of
independence for which they are unfit, thereby inviting reaction and
disaster. As fast as there is any reasonable hope that in a given
district the people can govern themselves, self-government has been
given in that district. There is not a locality fitted for
self-government which has not received it. But it may well be that in
certain cases it will have to be withdrawn because the inhabitants
show themselves unfit to exercise it; such instances have already
occurred. In other words, there is not the slightest chance of our
failing to show a sufficiently humanitarian spirit. The danger comes
in the opposite direction.

There are still troubles ahead in the islands. The insurrection has
become an affair of local banditti and marauders, who deserve no
higher regard than the brigands of portions of the Old World.
Encouragement, direct or indirect, to these insurrectors stands on
the same footing as encouragement to hostile Indians in the days when
we still had Indian wars. Exactly as our aim is to give to the Indian
who remains peaceful the fullest and amplest consideration, but to
have it understood that we will show no weakness if he goes on the
warpath, so we must make it evident, unless we are false to our own
traditions and to the demands of civilization and humanity, that
while we will do everything in our power for the Filipino who is
peaceful, we will take the sternest measures with the Filipino who
follows the path of the insurrecto and the ladrone.

The heartiest praise is due to large numbers of the natives of the
islands for their steadfast loyalty. The Macabebes have been
conspicuous for their courage and devotion to the flag. I recommend
that the Secretary of War be empowered to take some systematic action
in the way of aiding those of these men who are crippled in the
service and the families of those who are killed.

The time has come when there should be additional legislation for the
Philippines. Nothing better can be done for the islands than to
introduce industrial enterprises. Nothing would benefit them so much
as throwing them open to industrial development. The connection
between idleness and mischief is proverbial, and the opportunity to
do remunerative work is one of the surest preventatives of war. Of
course no business man will go into the Philippines unless it is to
his interest to do so; and it is immensely to the interest of the
islands that he should go in. It is therefore necessary that the
Congress should pass laws by which the resources of the islands can
be developed; so that franchises (for limited terms of years) can be
granted to companies doing business in them, and every encour