Speech Transcript:

 To the Senate and House of Representatives:

The Nation continues to enjoy noteworthy prosperity. Such prosperity
is of course primarily due to the high individual average of our
citizenship, taken together with our great natural resources; but an
important factor therein is the working of our long-continued
governmental policies. The people have emphatically expressed their
approval of the principles underlying these policies, and their
desire that these principles be kept substantially unchanged,
although of course applied in a progressive spirit to meet changing
conditions.

The enlargement of scope of the functions of the National Government
required by our development as a nation involves, of course, increase
of expense; and the period of prosperity through which the country is
passing justifies expenditures for permanent improvements far greater
than would be wise in hard times. Battle ships and forts, public
buildings, and improved waterways are investments which should be
made when we have the money; but abundant revenues and a large
surplus always invite extravagance, and constant care should be taken
to guard against unnecessary increase of the ordinary expenses of
government. The cost of doing Government business should be regulated
with the same rigid scrutiny as the cost of doing a private business.

In the vast and complicated mechanism of our modern civilized life
the dominant note is the note of industrialism; and the relations of
capital and labor, and especially of organized capital and organized
labor, to each other and to the public at large come second in
importance only to the intimate questions of family life. Our
peculiar form of government, with its sharp division of authority
between the Nation and the several States, has been on the whole far
more advantageous to our development than a more strongly centralized
government. But it is undoubtedly responsible for much of the
difficulty of meeting with adequate legislation the new problems
presented by the total change in industrial conditions on this
continent during the last half century. In actual practice it has
proved exceedingly difficult, and in many cases impossible, to get
unanimity of wise action among the various States on these subjects.
From the very nature of the case this is especially true of the laws
affecting the employment of capital in huge masses.

With regard to labor the problem is no less important, but it is
simpler. As long as the States retain the primary control of the
police power the circumstances must be altogether extreme which
require interference by the Federal authorities, whether in the way
of safeguarding the rights of labor or in the way of seeing that
wrong is not done by unruly persons who shield themselves behind the
name of labor. If there is resistance to the Federal courts,
interference with the mails, or interstate commerce, or molestation
of Federal property, or if the State authorities in some crisis which
they are unable to face call for help, then the Federal Government may
interfere; but though such interference may be caused by a condition
of things arising out of trouble connected with some question of
labor, the interference itself simply takes the form of restoring
order without regard to the questions which have caused the breach of
order--for to keep order is a primary duty and in a time of disorder
and violence all other questions sink into abeyance until order has
been restored. In the District of Columbia and in the Territories the
Federal law covers the entire field of government; but the labor
question is only acute in populous centers of commerce, manufactures,
or mining. Nevertheless, both in the enactment and in the enforcement
of law the Federal Government within its restricted sphere should set
an example to the State governments, especially in a matter so vital
as this affecting labor. I believe that under modern industrial
conditions it is often necessary, and even where not necessary it is
yet often wise, that there should be organization of labor in order
better to secure the rights of the individual wage-worker. All
encouragement should be given to any such organization so long as it
is conducted with a due and decent regard for the rights of others.
There are in this country some labor unions which have habitually,
and other labor unions which have often, been among the most
effective agents in working for good citizenship and for uplifting
the condition of those whose welfare should be closest to our hearts.
But when any labor union seeks improper ends, or seeks to achieve
proper ends by improper means, all good citizens and more especially
all honorable public servants must oppose the wrongdoing as
resolutely as they would oppose the wrongdoing of any great
corporation. Of course any violence, brutality, or corruption, should
not for one moment be tolerated. Wage-workers have an entire right to
organize and by all peaceful and honorable means to endeavor to
persuade their fellows to join with them in organizations. They have
a legal right, which, according to circumstances, may or may not be a
moral right, to refuse to work in company with men who decline to join
their organizations. They have under no circumstances the right to
commit violence upon these, whether capitalists or wage-workers, who
refuse to support their organizations, or who side with those with
whom they are at odds; for mob rule is intolerable in any form.

The wage-workers are peculiarly entitled to the protection and the
encouragement of the law. From the very nature of their occupation
railroad men, for instance, are liable to be maimed in doing the
legitimate work of their profession, unless the railroad companies
are required by law to make ample provision for their safety. The
Administration has been zealous in enforcing the existing law for
this purpose. That law should be amended and strengthened. Wherever
the National Government has power there should be a stringent
employer's liability law, which should apply to the Government itself
where the Government is an employer of labor.

In my Message to the Fifty-seventh Congress, at its second session, I
urged the passage of an employer's liability law for the District of
Columbia. I now renew that recommendation, and further recommend that
the Congress appoint a commission to make a comprehensive study of
employer's liability with the view of extending the provisions of a
great and constitutional law to all employments within the scope of
Federal power.

The Government has recognized heroism upon the water, and bestows
medals of honor upon those persons who by extreme and heroic daring
have endangered their lives in saving, or endeavoring to save, lives
from the perils of the sea in the waters over which the United States
has jurisdiction, or upon an American vessel. This recognition should
be extended to cover cases of conspicuous bravery and self-sacrifice
in the saving of life in private employments under the jurisdiction
of the United States, and particularly in the land commerce of the
Nation.

The ever-increasing casualty list upon our railroads is a matter of
grave public concern, and urgently calls for action by the Congress.
In the matter of speed and comfort of railway travel our railroads
give at least as good service as those of any other nation, and there
is no reason why this service should not also be as safe as human
ingenuity can make it. Many of our leading roads have been foremost
in the adoption of the most approved safeguards for the protection of
travelers and employees, yet the list of clearly avoidable accidents
continues unduly large. The passage of a law requiring the adoption
of a block-signal system has been proposed to the Congress. I
earnestly concur in that recommendation, and would also point out to
the Congress the urgent need of legislation in the interest of the
public safety limiting the hours of labor for railroad employees in
train service upon railroads engaged in interstate commerce, and
providing that only trained and experienced persons be employed in
positions of responsibility connected with the operation of trains.
Of course nothing can ever prevent accidents caused by human weakness
or misconduct; and there should be drastic punishment for any railroad
employee, whether officer or man, who by issuance of wrong orders or
by disobedience of orders causes disaster. The law of 1901, requiring
interstate railroads to make monthly reports of all accidents to
passengers and employees on duty, should also be amended so as to
empower the Government to make a personal investigation, through
proper officers, of all accidents involving loss of life which seem
to require investigation, with a requirement that the results of such
investigation be made public.

The safety-appliance law, as amended by the act of March 2, 1903, has
proved beneficial to railway employees, and in order that its
provisions may be properly carried out, the force of inspectors
provided for by appropriation should be largely increased. This
service is analogous to the Steamboat-Inspection Service, and deals
with even more important interests. It has passed the experimental
stage and demonstrated its utility, and should receive generous
recognition by the Congress.

There is no objection to employees of the Government forming or
belonging to unions; but the Government can neither discriminate for
nor discriminate against nonunion men who are in its employment, or
who seek to be employed under it. Moreover, it is a very grave
impropriety for Government employees to band themselves together for
the purpose of extorting improperly high salaries from the
Government. Especially is this true of those within the classified
service. The letter carriers, both municipal and rural, are as a
whole an excellent body of public servants. They should be amply
paid. But their payment must be obtained by arguing their claims
fairly and honorably before the Congress, and not by banding together
for the defeat of those Congressmen who refuse to give promises which
they can not in conscience give. The Administration has already taken
steps to prevent and punish abuses of this nature; but it will be wise
for the Congress to supplement this action by legislation.

Much can be done by the Government in labor matters merely by giving
publicity to certain conditions. The Bureau of Labor has done
excellent work of this kind in many different directions. I shall
shortly lay before you in a special message the full report of the
investigation of the Bureau of Labor into the Colorado mining strike,
as this was a strike in which certain very evil forces, which are more
or less at work everywhere under the conditions of modern
industrialism, became startlingly prominent. It is greatly to be
wished that the Department of Commerce and Labor, through the Labor
Bureau, should compile and arrange for the Congress a list of the
labor laws of the various States, and should be given the means to
investigate and report to the Congress upon the labor conditions in
the manufacturing and mining regions throughout the country, both as
to wages, as to hours of labor, as to the labor of women and
children, and as to the effect in the various labor centers of
immigration from abroad. In this investigation especial attention
should be paid to the conditions of child labor and child-labor
legislation in the several States. Such an investigation must
necessarily take into account many of the problems with which this
question of child labor is connected. These problems can be actually
met, in most cases, only by the States themselves; but the lack of
proper legislation in one State in such a matter as child labor often
renders it excessively difficult to establish protective restriction
upon the work in another State having the same industries, so that
the worst tends to drag down the better. For this reason, it would be
well for the Nation at least to endeavor to secure comprehensive
information as to the conditions of labor of children in the
different States. Such investigation and publication by the National
Government would tend toward the securing of approximately uniform
legislation of the proper character among the several States.

When we come to deal with great corporations the need for the
Government to act directly is far greater than in the case of labor,
because great corporations can become such only by engaging in
interstate commerce, and interstate commerce is peculiarly the field
of the General Government. It is an absurdity to expect to eliminate
the abuses in great corporations by State action. It is difficult to
be patient with an argument that such matters should be left to the
States because more than one State pursues the policy of creating on
easy terms corporations which are never operated within that State at
all, but in other States whose laws they ignore. The National
Government alone can deal adequately with these great corporations.
To try to deal with them in an intemperate, destructive, or demagogic
spirit would, in all probability, mean that nothing whatever would be
accomplished, and, with absolute certainty, that if anything were
accomplished it would be of a harmful nature. The American people
need to continue to show the very qualities that they have
shown--that is, moderation, good sense, the earnest desire to avoid
doing any damage, and yet the quiet determination to proceed, step by
step, without halt and without hurry, in eliminating or at least in
minimizing whatever of mischief or evil there is to interstate
commerce in the conduct of great corporations. They are acting in no
spirit of hostility to wealth, either individual or corporate. They
are not against the rich man any more than against the poor man. On
the contrary, they are friendly alike toward rich man and toward poor
man, provided only that each acts in a spirit of justice and decency
toward his fellows. Great corporations are necessary, and only men of
great and singular mental power can manage such corporations
successfully, and such men must have great rewards. But these
corporations should be managed with due regard to the interest of the
public as a whole. Where this can be done under the present laws it
must be done. Where these laws come short others should be enacted to
supplement them.

Yet we must never forget the determining factor in every kind of
work, of head or hand, must be the man's own good sense, courage, and
kindliness. More important than any legislation is the gradual growth
of a feeling of responsibility and forbearance among capitalists, and
wage-workers alike; a feeling of respect on the part of each man for
the rights of others; a feeling of broad community of interest, not
merely of capitalists among themselves, and of wage-workers among
themselves, but of capitalists and wage-workers in their relations to
each other, and of both in their relations to their fellows who with
them make up the body politic. There are many captains of industry,
many labor leaders, who realize this. A recent speech by the
president of one of our great railroad systems to the employees of
that system contains sound common sense. It rims in part as follows:

"It is my belief we can better serve each other, better understand
the man as well as his business, when meeting face to face,
exchanging views, and realizing from personal contact we serve but
one interest, that of our mutual prosperity.

"Serious misunderstandings can not occur where personal good will
exists and opportunity for personal explanation is present.

"In my early business life I had experience with men of affairs of a
character to make me desire to avoid creating a like feeling of
resentment to myself and the interests in my charge, should fortune
ever place me in authority, and I am solicitous of a measure of
confidence on the part of the public and our employees that I shall
hope may be warranted by the fairness and good fellowship I intend
shall prevail in our relationship.

"But do not feel I am disposed to grant unreasonable requests, spend
the money of our company unnecessarily or without value received, nor
expect the days of mistakes are disappearing, or that cause for
complaint will not continually occur; simply to correct such abuses
as may be discovered, to better conditions as fast as reasonably may
be expected, constantly striving, with varying success, for that
improvement we all desire, to convince you there is a force at work
in the right direction, all the time making progress--is the
disposition with which I have come among you, asking your good will
and encouragement.

"The day has gone by when a corporation can be handled successfully
in defiance of the public will, even though that will be unreasonable
and wrong. A public may be led, but not driven, and I prefer to go
with it and shape or modify, in a measure, its opinion, rather than
be swept from my bearings, with loss to myself and the interests in
my charge.

"Violent prejudice exists towards corporate activity and capital
today, much of it founded in reason, more in apprehension, and a
large measure is due to the personal traits of arbitrary,
unreasonable, incompetent, and offensive men in positions of
authority. The accomplishment of results by indirection, the endeavor
to thwart the intention, if not the expressed letter of the law (the
will of the people), a disregard of the rights of others, a
disposition to withhold what is due, to force by main strength or
inactivity a result not justified, depending upon the weakness of the
claimant and his indisposition to become involved in litigation, has
created a sentiment harmful in the extreme and a disposition to
consider anything fair that gives gain to the individual at the
expense of the company.

"If corporations are to continue to do the world's work, as they are
best fitted to, these qualities in their representatives that have
resulted in the present prejudice against them must be relegated to
the background. The corporations must come out into the open and see
and be seen. They must take the public into their confidence and ask
for what they want, and no more, and be prepared to explain
satisfactorily what advantage will accrue to the public if they are
given their desires; for they are permitted to exist not that they
may make money solely, but that they may effectively serve those from
whom they derive their power.

"Publicity, and not secrecy, will win hereafter, and laws be
construed by their intent and not by their letter, otherwise public
utilities will be owned and operated by the public which created
them, even though the service be less efficient and the result less
satisfactory from a financial standpoint."

The Bureau of Corporations has made careful preliminary investigation
of many important corporations. It will make a special report on the
beef industry.

The policy of the Bureau is to accomplish the purposes of its
creation by co-operation, not antagonism; by making constructive
legislation, not destructive prosecution, the immediate object of its
inquiries; by conservative investigation of law and fact, and by
refusal to issue incomplete and hence necessarily inaccurate reports.
Its policy being thus one of open inquiry into, and not attack upon,
business, the Bureau has been able to gain not only the confidence,
but, better still, the cooperation of men engaged in legitimate
business.

The Bureau offers to the Congress the means of getting at the cost of
production of our various great staples of commerce.

Of necessity the careful investigation of special corporations will
afford the Commissioner knowledge of certain business facts, the
publication of which might be an improper infringement of private
rights. The method of making public the results of these
investigations affords, under the law, a means for the protection of
private rights. The Congress will have all facts except such as would
give to another corporation information which would injure the
legitimate business of a competitor and destroy the incentive for
individual superiority and thrift.

The Bureau has also made exhaustive examinations into the legal
condition under which corporate business is carried on in the various
States; into all judicial decisions on the subject; and into the
various systems of corporate taxation in use. I call special
attention to the report of the chief of the Bureau; and I earnestly
ask that the Congress carefully consider the report and
recommendations of the Commissioner on this subject.

The business of insurance vitally affects the great mass of the
people of the United States and is national and not local in its
application. It involves a multitude of transactions among the people
of the different States and between American companies and foreign
governments. I urge that the Congress carefully consider whether the
power of the Bureau of Corporations can not constitutionally be
extended to cover interstate transactions in insurance.

Above all else, we must strive to keep the highways of commerce open
to all on equal terms; and to do this it is necessary to put a
complete stop to all rebates. Whether the shipper or the railroad is
to blame makes no difference; the rebate must be stopped, the abuses
of the private car and private terminal-track and side-track systems
must be stopped, and the legislation of the Fifty-eighth Congress
which declares it to be unlawful for any person or corporation to
offer, grant, give, solicit, accept, or receive any rebate,
concession, or discrimination in respect of the transportation of any
property in interstate or foreign commerce whereby such property shall
by any device whatever be transported at a less rate than that named
in the tariffs published by the carrier must be enforced. For some
time after the enactment of the Act to Regulate Commerce it remained
a mooted question whether that act conferred upon the Interstate
Commerce Commission the power, after it had found a challenged rate
to be unreasonable, to declare what thereafter should, prima facie,
be the reasonable maximum rate for the transportation in dispute. The
Supreme Court finally resolved that question in the negative, so that
as the law now stands the Commission simply possess the bare power to
denounce a particular rate as unreasonable. While I am of the opinion
that at present it would be undesirable, if it were not
impracticable, finally to clothe the Commission with general
authority to fix railroad rates, I do believe that, as a fair
security to shippers, the Commission should be vested with the power,
where a given rate has been challenged and after full hearing found to
be unreasonable, to decide, subject to judicial review, what shall be
a reasonable rate to take its place; the ruling of the Commission to
take effect immediately, and to obtain unless and until it is
reversed by the court of review. The Government must in increasing
degree supervise and regulate the workings of the railways engaged in
interstate commerce; and such increased supervision is the only
alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one hand or a
still more radical policy on the other. In my judgment the most
important legislative act now needed as regards the regulation of
corporations is this act to confer on the Interstate Commerce
Commission the power to revise rates and regulations, the revised
rate to at once go into effect, and stay in effect unless and until
the court of review reverses it.

Steamship companies engaged in interstate commerce and protected in
our coastwise trade should be held to a strict observance of the
interstate commerce act.

In pursuing the set plan to make the city of Washington an example to
other American municipalities several points should be kept in mind by
the legislators. In the first place, the people of this country should
clearly understand that no amount of industrial prosperity, and above
all no leadership in international industrial competition, can in any
way atone for the sapping of the vitality of those who are usually
spoken of as the working classes. The farmers, the mechanics, the
skilled and unskilled laborers, the small shop keepers, make up the
bulk of the population of any country; and upon their well-being,
generation after generation, the well-being of the country and the
race depends. Rapid development in wealth and industrial leadership
is a good thing, but only if it goes hand in hand with improvement,
and not deterioration, physical and moral. The over-crowding of
cities and the draining of country districts are unhealthy and even
dangerous symptoms in our modern life. We should not permit
overcrowding in cities. In certain European cities it is provided by
law that the population of towns shall not be allowed to exceed a
very limited density for a given area, so that the increase in
density must be continually pushed back into a broad zone around the
center of the town, this zone having great avenues or parks within
it. The death-rate statistics show a terrible increase in mortality,
and especially in infant mortality, in overcrowded tenements. The
poorest families in tenement houses live in one room, and it appears
that in these one-room tenements the average death rate for a number
of given cities at home and abroad is about twice what it is in a
two-room tenement, four times what it is in a three-room tenement,
and eight times what it is in a tenement consisting of four rooms or
over. These figures vary somewhat for different cities, but they
approximate in each city those given above; and in all cases the
increase of mortality, and especially of infant mortality, with the
decrease in the number of rooms used by the family and with the
consequent overcrowding is startling. The slum exacts a heavy total
of death from those who dwell therein; and this is the case not
merely in the great crowded slums of high buildings in New York and
Chicago, but in the alley slums of Washington. In Washington people
can not afford to ignore the harm that this causes. No Christian and
civilized community can afford to show a happy-go-lucky lack of
concern for the youth of to-day; for, if so, the community will have
to pay a terrible penalty of financial burden and social degradation
in the to-morrow. There should be severe child-labor and
factory-inspection laws. It is very desirable that married women
should not work in factories. The prime duty of the man is to work,
to be the breadwinner; the prime duty of the woman is to be the
mother, the housewife. All questions of tariff and finance sink into
utter insignificance when compared with the tremendous, the vital
importance of trying to shape conditions so that these two duties of
the man and of the woman can be fulfilled under reasonably favorable
circumstances. If a race does not have plenty of children, or if the
children do not grow up, or if when they grow up they are unhealthy
in body and stunted or vicious in mind, then that race is decadent,
and no heaping up of wealth, no splendor of momentary material
prosperity, can avail in any degree as offsets. The Congress has the
same power of legislation for the District of Columbia which the
State legislatures have for the various States. The problems incident
to our highly complex modern industrial civilization, with its
manifold and perplexing tendencies both for good and for evil, are
far less sharply accentuated in the city of Washington than in most
other cities. For this very reason it is easier to deal with the
various phases of these problems in Washington, and the District of
Columbia government should be a model for the other municipal
governments of the Nation, in all such matters as supervision of the
housing of the poor, the creation of small parks in the districts
inhabited by the poor, in laws affecting labor, in laws providing for
the taking care of the children, in truant laws, and in providing
schools.

In the vital matter of taking care of children, much advantage could
be gained by a careful study of what has been accomplished in such
States as Illinois and Colorado by the juvenile courts. The work of
the juvenile court is really a work of character building. It is now
generally recognized that young boys and young girls who go wrong
should not be treated as criminals, not even necessarily as needing
reformation, but rather as needing to have their characters formed,
and for this end to have them tested and developed by a system of
probation. Much admirable work has been done in many of our
Commonwealths by earnest men and women who have made a special study
of the needs of those classes of children which furnish the greatest
number of juvenile offenders, and therefore the greatest number of
adult offenders; and by their aid, and by profiting by the
experiences of the different States and cities in these matters, it
would be easy to provide a good code for the District of Columbia.

Several considerations suggest the need for a systematic
investigation into and improvement of housing conditions in
Washington. The hidden residential alleys are breeding grounds of
vice and disease, and should be opened into minor streets. For a
number of years influential citizens have joined with the District
Commissioners in the vain endeavor to secure laws permitting the
condemnation of insanitary dwellings. The local death rates,
especially from preventable diseases, are so unduly high as to
suggest that the exceptional wholesomeness of Washington's better
sections is offset by bad conditions in her poorer neighborhoods. A
special "Commission on Housing and Health Conditions in the National
Capital" would not only bring about the reformation of existing
evils, but would also formulate an appropriate building code to
protect the city from mammoth brick tenements and other evils which
threaten to develop here as they have in other cities. That the
Nation's Capital should be made a model for other municipalities is
an ideal which appeals to all patriotic citizens everywhere, and such
a special Commission might map out and organize the city's future
development in lines of civic social service, just as Major L'Enfant
and the recent Park Commission planned the arrangement of her streets
and parks.

It is mortifying to remember that Washington has no compulsory school
attendance law and that careful inquiries indicate the habitual
absence from school of some twenty per cent of all children between
the ages of eight and fourteen. It must be evident to all who
consider the problems of neglected child life or the benefits of
compulsory education in other cities that one of the most urgent
needs of the National Capital is a law requiring the school
attendance of all children, this law to be enforced by attendance
agents directed by the board of education.

Public play grounds are necessary means for the development of
wholesome citizenship in modern cities. It is important that the work
inaugurated here through voluntary efforts should be taken up and
extended through Congressional appropriation of funds sufficient to
equip and maintain numerous convenient small play grounds upon land
which can be secured without purchase or rental. It is also desirable
that small vacant places be purchased and reserved as small-park play
grounds in densely settled sections of the city which now have no
public open spaces and are destined soon to be built up solidly. All
these needs should be met immediately. To meet them would entail
expenses; but a corresponding saving could be made by stopping the
building of streets and levelling of ground for purposes largely
speculative in outlying parts of the city.

There are certain offenders, whose criminality takes the shape of
brutality and cruelty towards the weak, who need a special type of
punishment. The wife-beater, for example, is inadequately punished by
imprisonment; for imprisonment may often mean nothing to him, while it
may cause hunger and want to the wife and children who have been the
victims of his brutality. Probably some form of corporal punishment
would be the most adequate way of meeting this kind of crime.

The Department of Agriculture has grown into an educational
institution with a faculty of two thousand specialists making
research into all the sciences of production. The Congress
appropriates, directly and indirectly, six millions of dollars
annually to carry on this work. It reaches every State and Territory
in the Union and the islands of the sea lately come under our flag.
Co-operation is had with the State experiment stations, and with many
other institutions and individuals. The world is carefully searched
for new varieties of grains, fruits, grasses, vegetables, trees, and
shrubs, suitable to various localities in our country; and marked
benefit to our producers has resulted.

The activities of our age in lines of research have reached the
tillers of the soil and inspired them with ambition to know more of
the principles that govern the forces of nature with which they have
to deal. Nearly half of the people of this country devote their
energies to growing things from the soil. Until a recent date little
has been done to prepare these millions for their life work. In most
lines of human activity college-trained men are the leaders. The
farmer had no opportunity for special training until the Congress
made provision for it forty years ago. During these years progress
has been made and teachers have been prepared. Over five thousand
students are in attendance at our State agricultural colleges. The
Federal Government expends ten millions of dollars annually toward
this education and for research in Washington and in the several
States and Territories. The Department of Agriculture has given
facilities for post-graduate work to five hundred young men during
the last seven years, preparing them for advance lines of work in the
Department and in the State institutions.

The facts concerning meteorology and its relations to plant and
animal life are being systematically inquired into. Temperature and
moisture are controlling factors in all agricultural operations. The
seasons of the cyclones of the Caribbean Sea and their paths are
being forecasted with increasing accuracy. The cold winds that come
from the north are anticipated and their times and intensity told to
farmers, gardeners, and fruiterers in all southern localities.

We sell two hundred and fifty million dollars' worth of animals and
animal products to foreign countries every year, in addition to
supplying our own people more cheaply and abundantly than any other
nation is able to provide for its people. Successful manufacturing
depends primarily on cheap food, which accounts to a considerable
extent for our growth in this direction. The Department of
Agriculture, by careful inspection of meats, guards the health of our
people and gives clean bills of health to deserving exports; it is
prepared to deal promptly with imported diseases of animals, and
maintain the excellence of our flocks and herds in this respect.
There should be an annual census of the live stock of the Nation.

We sell abroad about six hundred million dollars' worth of plants and
their products every year. Strenuous efforts are being made to import
from foreign countries such grains as are suitable to our varying
localities. Seven years ago we bought three-fourths of our rice; by
helping the rice growers on the Gulf coast to secure seeds from the
Orient suited to their conditions, and by giving them adequate
protection, they now supply home demand and export to the islands of
the Caribbean Sea and to other rice-growing countries. Wheat and
other grains have been imported from light-rainfall countries to our
lands in the West and Southwest that have not grown crops because of
light precipitation, resulting in an extensive addition to our
cropping area and our home-making territory that can not be
irrigated. Ten million bushels of first-class macaroni wheat were
grown from these experimental importations last year. Fruits suitable
to our soils and climates are being imported from all the countries of
the Old World--the fig from Turkey, the almond from Spain, the date
from Algeria, the mango from India. We are helping our fruit growers
to get their crops into European markets by studying methods of
preservation through refrigeration, packing, and handling, which have
been quite successful. We are helping our hop growers by importing
varieties that ripen earlier and later than the kinds they have been
raising, thereby lengthening the harvesting season. The cotton crop
of the country is threatened with root rot, the bollworm, and the
boll weevil. Our pathologists will find immune varieties that will
resist the root disease, and the bollworm can be dealt with, but the
boll weevil is a serious menace to the cotton crop. It is a Central
American insect that has become acclimated in Texas and has done
great damage. A scientist of the Department of Agriculture has found
the weevil at home in Guatemala being kept in check by an ant, which
has been brought to our cotton fields for observation. It is hoped
that it may serve a good purpose.

The soils of the country are getting attention from the farmer's
standpoint, and interesting results are following. We have duplicates
of the soils that grow the wrapper tobacco in Sumatra and the filler
tobacco in Cuba. It will be only a question of time when the large
amounts paid to these countries will be paid to our own people. The
reclamation of alkali lands is progressing, to give object lessons to
our people in methods by which worthless lands may be made
productive.

The insect friends and enemies of the farmer are getting attention.
The enemy of the San Jose scale was found near the Great Wall of
China, and is now cleaning up all our orchards. The fig-fertilizing
insect imported from Turkey has helped to establish an industry in
California that amounts to from fifty to one hundred tons of dried
figs annually, and is extending over the Pacific coast. A parasitic
fly from South Africa is keeping in subjection the black scale, the
worst pest of the orange and lemon industry in California.

Careful preliminary work is being done towards producing our own
silk. The mulberry is being distributed in large numbers, eggs are
being imported and distributed, improved reels were imported from
Europe last year, and two expert reelers were brought to Washington
to reel the crop of cocoons and teach the art to our own people.

The crop-reporting system of the Department of Agriculture is being
brought closer to accuracy every year. It has two hundred and fifty
thousand reporters selected from people in eight vocations in life.
It has arrangements with most European countries for interchange of
estimates, so that our people may know as nearly as possible with
what they must compete.

During the two and a half years that have elapsed since the passage
of the reclamation act rapid progress has been made in the surveys
and examinations of the opportunities for reclamation in the thirteen
States and three Territories of the arid West. Construction has
already been begun on the largest and most important of the
irrigation works, and plans are being completed for works which will
utilize the funds now available. The operations are being carried on
by the Reclamation Service, a corps of engineers selected through
competitive civil-service examinations. This corps includes
experienced consulting and constructing engineers as well as various
experts in mechanical and legal matters, and is composed largely of
men who have spent most of their lives in practical affairs connected
with irrigation. The larger problems have been solved and it now
remains to execute with care, economy, and thoroughness the work
which has been laid out. All important details are being carefully
considered by boards of consulting engineers, selected for their
thorough knowledge and practical experience. Each project is taken up
on the ground by competent men and viewed from the standpoint of the
creation of prosperous homes, and of promptly refunding to the
Treasury the cost of construction. The reclamation act has been found
to be remarkably complete and effective, and so broad in its
provisions that a wide range of undertakings has been possible under
it. At the same time, economy is guaranteed by the fact that the
funds must ultimately be returned to be used over again.

It is the cardinal principle of the forest-reserve policy of this
Administration that the reserves are for use. Whatever interferes
with the use of their resources is to be avoided by every possible
means. But these resources must be used in such a way as to make them
permanent.

The forest policy of the Government is just now a subject of vivid
public interest throughout the West and to the people of the United
States in general. The forest reserves themselves are of extreme
value to the present as well as to the future welfare of all the
western public-land States. They powerfully affect the use and
disposal of the public lands. They are of special importance because
they preserve the water supply and the supply of timber for domestic
purposes, and so promote settlement under the reclamation act.
Indeed, they are essential to the welfare of every one of the great
interests of the West.

Forest reserves are created for two principal purposes. The first is
to preserve the water supply. This is their most important use. The
principal users of the water thus preserved are irrigation ranchers
and settlers, cities and towns to whom their municipal water supplies
are of the very first importance, users and furnishers of water power,
and the users of water for domestic, manufacturing, mining, and other
purposes. All these are directly dependent upon the forest reserves.

The second reason for which forest reserves are created is to
preserve the timber supply for various classes of wood users. Among
the more important of these are settlers under the reclamation act
and other acts, for whom a cheap and accessible supply of timber for
domestic uses is absolutely necessary; miners and prospectors, who
are in serious danger of losing their timber supply by fire or
through export by lumber companies when timber lands adjacent to
their mines pass into private ownership; lumbermen, transportation
companies, builders, and commercial interests in general.

Although the wisdom of creating forest reserves is nearly everywhere
heartily recognized, yet in a few localities there has been
misunderstanding and complaint. The following statement is therefore
desirable:

The forest reserve policy can be successful only when it has the full
support of the people of the West. It can not safely, and should not
in any case, be imposed upon them against their will. But neither can
we accept the views of those whose only interest in the forest is
temporary; who are anxious to reap what they have not sown and then
move away, leaving desolation behind them. On the contrary, it is
everywhere and always the interest of the permanent settler and the
permanent business man, the man with a stake in the country, which
must be considered and which must decide.

The making of forest reserves within railroad and wagon-road
land-grant limits will hereafter, as for the past three years, be so
managed as to prevent the issue, under the act of June 4, 1897, of
base for exchange or lieu selection (usually called scrip). In all
cases where forest reserves within areas covered by land grants
appear to be essential to the prosperity of settlers, miners, or
others, the Government lands within such proposed forest reserves
will, as in the recent past, be withdrawn from sale or entry pending
the completion of such negotiations with the owners of the land
grants as will prevent the creation of so-called scrip.

It was formerly the custom to make forest reserves without first
getting definite and detailed information as to the character of land
and timber within their boundaries. This method of action often
resulted in badly chosen boundaries and consequent injustice to
settlers and others. Therefore this Administration adopted the
present method of first withdrawing the land from disposal, followed
by careful examination on the ground and the preparation of detailed
maps and descriptions, before any forest reserve is created.

I have repeatedly called attention to the confusion which exists in
Government forest matters because the work is scattered among three
independent organizations. The United States is the only one of the
great nations in which the forest work of the Government is not
concentrated under one department, in consonance with the plainest
dictates of good administration and common sense. The present
arrangement is bad from every point of view. Merely to mention it is
to prove that it should be terminated at once. As I have repeatedly
recommended, all the forest work of the Government should be
concentrated in the Department of Agriculture, where the larger part
of that work is already done, where practically all of the trained
foresters of the Government are employed, where chiefly in Washington
there is comprehensive first-class knowledge of the problems of the
reserves acquired on the ground, where all problems relating to
growth from the soil are already gathered, and where all the sciences
auxiliary to forestry are at hand for prompt and effective
co-operation. These reasons are decisive in themselves, but it should
be added that the great organizations of citizens whose interests are
affected by the forest-reserves, such as the National Live Stock
Association, the National Wool Growers' Association, the American
Mining Congress, the national Irrigation Congress, and the National
Board of Trade, have uniformly, emphatically, and most of them
repeatedly, expressed themselves in favor of placing all Government
forest work in the Department of Agriculture because of the peculiar
adaptation of that Department for it. It is true, also, that the
forest services of nearly all the great nations of the world are
under the respective departments of agriculture, while in but two of
the smaller nations and in one colony are they under the department
of the interior. This is the result of long and varied experience and
it agrees fully with the requirements of good administration in our
own case.

The creation of a forest service in the Department of Agriculture
will have for its important results:

First. A better handling of all forest work; because it will be under
a single head, and because the vast and indispensable experience of
the Department in all matters pertaining to the forest reserves, to
forestry in general, and to other forms of production from the soil,
will be easily and rapidly accessible.

Second. The reserves themselves, being handled from the point of view
of the man in the field, instead of the man in the office, will be
more easily and more widely useful to the people of the West than has
been the case hitherto.

Third. Within a comparatively short time the reserves will become
self-supporting. This is important, because continually and rapidly
increasing appropriations will be necessary for the proper care of
this exceedingly important interest of the Nation, and they can and
should he offset by returns from the National forests. Under similar
circumstances the forest possessions of other great nations form an
important source of revenue to their governments.

Every administrative officer concerned is convinced of the necessity
for the proposed consolidation of forest work in the Department of
Agriculture, and I myself have urged it more than once in former
messages. Again I commend it to the early and favorable consideration
of the Congress. The interests of the Nation at large and of the West
in particular have suffered greatly because of the delay.

I call the attention of the Congress again to the report and
recommendation of the Commission on the Public Lands forwarded by me
to the second session of the present Congress. The Commission has
prosecuted its investigations actively during the past season, and a
second report is now in an advanced stage of preparation.

In connection with the work of the forest reserves I desire again to
urge upon the Congress the importance of authorizing the President to
set aside certain portions of these reserves or other public lands as
game refuges for the preservation of the bison, the wapiti, and other
large beasts once so abundant in our woods and mountains and on our
great plains, and now tending toward extinction. Every support should
be given to the authorities of the Yellowstone Park in their
successful efforts at preserving the large creatures therein; and at
very little expense portions of the public domain in other regions
which are wholly unsuited to agricultural settlement could be
similarly utilized. We owe it to future generations to keep alive the
noble and beautiful creatures which by their presence add such
distinctive character to the American wilderness. The limits of the
Yellowstone Park should be extended southwards. The Canyon of the
Colorado should be made a national park; and the national-park system
should include the Yosemite and as many as possible of the groves of
giant trees in California.

The veterans of the Civil War have a claim upon the Nation such as no
other body of our citizens possess. The Pension Bureau has never in
its history been managed in a more satisfactory manner than is now
the case.

The progress of the Indians toward civilization, though not rapid, is
perhaps all that could be hoped for in view of the circumstances.
Within the past year many tribes have shown, in a degree greater than
ever before, an appreciation of the necessity of work. This changed
attitude is in part due to the policy recently pursued of reducing
the amount of subsistence to the Indians, and thus forcing them,
through sheer necessity, to work for a livelihood. The policy, though
severe, is a useful one, but it is to be exercised only with judgment
and with a full understanding of the conditions which exist in each
community for which it is intended. On or near the Indian
reservations there is usually very little demand for labor, and if
the Indians are to earn their living and when work can not be
furnished from outside (which is always preferable), then it must be
furnished by the Government. Practical instruction of this kind would
in a few years result in the forming of habits of regular industry,
which would render the Indian a producer and would effect a great
reduction in the cost of his maintenance.

It is commonly declared that the slow advance of the Indians is due
to the unsatisfactory character of the men appointed to take
immediate charge of them, and to some extent this is true. While the
standard of the employees in the Indian Service shows great
improvement over that of bygone years, and while actual corruption or
flagrant dishonesty is now the rare exception, it is nevertheless the
fact that the salaries paid Indian agents are not large enough to
attract the best men to that field of work. To achieve satisfactory
results the official in charge of an Indian tribe should possess the
high qualifications which are required in the manager of a large
business, but only in exceptional cases is it possible to secure men
of such a type for these positions. Much better service, however,
might be obtained from those now holding the places were it
practicable to get out of them the best that is in them, and this
should be done by bringing them constantly into closer touch with
their superior officers. An agent who has been content to draw his
salary, giving in return the least possible equivalent in effort and
service, may, by proper treatment, by suggestion and encouragement,
or persistent urging, be stimulated to greater effort and induced to
take a more active personal interest in his work.

Under existing conditions an Indian agent in the distant West may be
wholly out of touch with the office of the Indian Bureau. He may very
well feel that no one takes a personal interest in him or his efforts.
Certain routine duties in the way of reports and accounts are required
of him, but there is no one with whom he may intelligently consult on
matters vital to his work, except after long delay. Such a man would
be greatly encouraged and aided by personal contact with some one
whose interest in Indian affairs and whose authority in the Indian
Bureau were greater than his own, and such contact would be certain
to arouse and constantly increase the interest he takes in his work.

The distance which separates the agents--the workers in the
field--from the Indian Office in Washington is a chief obstacle to
Indian progress. Whatever shall more closely unite these two branches
of the Indian Service, and shall enable them to co-operate more
heartily and more effectively, will be for the increased efficiency
of the work and the betterment of the race for whose improvement the
Indian Bureau was established. The appointment of a field assistant
to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs would be certain to insure this
good end. Such an official, if possessed of the requisite energy and
deep interest in the work, would be a most efficient factor in
bringing into closer relationship and a more direct union of effort
the Bureau in Washington and its agents in the field; and with the
co-operation of its branches thus secured the Indian Bureau would, in
measure fuller than ever before, lift up the savage toward that
self-help and self-reliance which constitute the man.

In 1907 there will be held at Hampton Roads the tricentennial
celebration of the settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, with which the
history of what has now become the United States really begins. I
commend this to your favorable consideration. It is an event of prime
historic significance, in which all the people of the United States
should feel, and should show, great and general interest.

In the Post-Office Department the service has increased in
efficiency, and conditions as to revenue and expenditure continue
satisfactory. The increase of revenue during the year was
$9,358,181.10, or 6.9 per cent, the total receipts amounting to
$143,382,624.34. The expenditures were $152,362,116.70, an increase
of about 9 per cent over the previous year, being thus $8,979,492.36
in excess of the current revenue. Included in these expenditures was
a total appropriation of $152,956,637.35 for the continuation and
extension of the rural free-delivery service, which was an increase
of $4,902,237.35 over the amount expended for this purpose in the
preceding fiscal year. Large as this expenditure has been the
beneficent results attained in extending the free distribution of
mails to the residents of rural districts have justified the wisdom
of the outlay. Statistics brought down to the 1st of October, 1904,
show that on that date there were 27,138 rural routes established,
serving approximately 12,000,000 of people in rural districts remote
from post-offices, and that there were pending at that time 3,859
petitions for the establishment of new rural routes. Unquestionably
some part of the general increase in receipts is due to the increased
postal facilities which the rural service has afforded. The revenues
have also been aided greatly by amendments in the classification of
mail matter, and the curtailment of abuses of the second-class
mailing privilege. The average increase in the volume of mail matter
for the period beginning with 1902 and ending June, 1905 (that
portion for 1905 being estimated), is 40.47 per cent, as compared
with 25.46 per cent for the period immediately preceding, and 15.92
for the four-year period immediately preceding that.

Our consular system needs improvement. Salaries should be substituted
for fees, and the proper classification, grading, and transfer of
consular officers should be provided. I am not prepared to say that a
competitive system of examinations for appointment would work well;
but by law it should be provided that consuls should be familiar,
according to places for which they apply, with the French, German, or
Spanish languages, and should possess acquaintance with the resources
of the United States.

The collection of objects of art contemplated in section 5586 of the
Revised Statutes should be designated and established as a National
Gallery of Art; and the Smithsonian Institution should be authorized
to accept any additions to said collection that may be received by
gift, bequest, or devise.

It is desirable to enact a proper National quarantine law. It is most
undesirable that a State should on its own initiative enforce
quarantine regulations which are in effect a restriction upon
interstate and international commerce. The question should properly
be assumed by the Government alone. The Surgeon-General of the
National Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service has repeatedly and
convincingly set forth the need for such legislation.

I call your attention to the great extravagance in printing and
binding Government publications, and especially to the fact that
altogether too many of these publications are printed. There is a
constant tendency to increase their number and their volume. It is an
understatement to say that no appreciable harm would be caused by, and
substantial benefit would accrue from, decreasing the amount of
printing now done by at least one-half. Probably the great majority
of the Government reports and the like now printed are never read at
all, and furthermore the printing of much of the material contained
in many of the remaining ones serves no useful purpose whatever.

The attention of the Congress should be especially given to the
currency question, and that the standing committees on the matter in
the two Houses charged with the duty, take up the matter of our
currency and see whether it is not possible to secure an agreement in
the business world for bettering the system; the committees should
consider the question of the retirement of the greenbacks and the
problem of securing in our currency such elasticity as is consistent
with safety. Every silver dollar should be made by law redeemable in
gold at the option of the holder.

I especially commend to your immediate attention the encouragement of
our merchant marine by appropriate legislation.

The growing importance of the Orient as a field for American exports
drew from my predecessor, President McKinley, an urgent request for
its special consideration by the Congress. In his message of 1898 he
stated:

"In this relation, as showing the peculiar volume and value of our
trade with China and the peculiarly favorable conditions which exist
for their expansion in the normal course of trade, I refer to the
communication addressed to the Speaker of the House of
Representatives by the Secretary of the Treasury on the 14th of last
June, with its accompanying letter of the Secretary of State,
recommending an appropriation for a commission to study the
industrial and commercial conditions in the Chinese Empire and to
report as to the opportunities for and the obstacles to the
enlargement of markets in China for the raw products and manufactures
of the United States. Action was not taken thereon during the last
session. I cordially urge that the recommendation receive at your
hands the consideration which its importance and timeliness merit."

In his annual message of 1889 he again called attention to this
recommendation, quoting it, and stated further:

"I now renew this recommendation, as the importance of the subject
has steadily grown since it was first submitted to you, and no time
should be lost in studying for ourselves the resources of this great
field for American trade and enterprise."

The importance of securing proper information and data with a view to
the enlargement of our trade with Asia is undiminished. Our consular
representatives in China have strongly urged a place for permanent
display of American products in some prominent trade center of that
Empire, under Government control and management, as an effective
means of advancing our export trade therein. I call the attention of
the Congress to the desirability of carrying out these suggestions.

In dealing with the questions of immigration and naturalization it is
indispensable to keep certain facts ever before the minds of those who
share in enacting the laws. First and foremost, let us remember that
the question of being a good American has nothing whatever to do with
a man's birthplace any more than it has to do with his creed. In every
generation from the time this Government was founded men of foreign
birth have stood in the very foremost rank of good citizenship, and
that not merely in one but in every field of American activity; while
to try to draw a distinction between the man whose parents came to
this country and the man whose ancestors came to it several
generations back is a mere absurdity. Good Americanism is a matter of
heart, of conscience, of lofty aspiration, of sound common sense, but
not of birthplace or of creed. The medal of honor, the highest prize
to be won by those who serve in the Army and the Navy of the United
States decorates men born here, and it also decorates men born in
Great Britain and Ireland, in Germany, in Scandinavia, in France, and
doubtless in other countries also. In the field of statesmanship, in
the field of business, in the field of philanthropic endeavor, it is
equally true that among the men of whom we are most proud as
Americans no distinction whatever can be drawn between those who
themselves or whose parents came over in sailing ship or steamer from
across the water and those whose ancestors stepped ashore into the
wooded wilderness at Plymouth or at the mouth of the Hudson, the
Delaware, or the James nearly three centuries ago. No fellow-citizen
of ours is entitled to any peculiar regard because of the way in
which he worships his Maker, or because of the birthplace of himself
or his parents, nor should he be in any way discriminated against
therefor. Each must stand on his worth as a man and each is entitled
to be judged solely thereby.

There is no danger of having too many immigrants of the right kind.
It makes no difference from what country they come. If they are sound
in body and in mind, and, above all, if they are of good character, so
that we can rest assured that their children and grandchildren will be
worthy fellow-citizens of our children and grandchildren, then we
should welcome them with cordial hospitality.

But the citizenship of this country should not be debased. It is
vital that we should keep high the standard of well-being among our
wage-workers, and therefore we should not admit masses of men whose
standards of living and whose personal customs and habits are such
that they tend to lower the level of the American wage-worker; and
above all we should not admit any man of an unworthy type, any man
concerning whom we can say that he will himself be a bad citizen, or
that his children and grandchildren will detract from instead of
adding to the sum of the good citizenship of the country. Similarly
we should take the greatest care about naturalization. Fraudulent
naturalization, the naturalization of improper persons, is a curse to
our Government; and it is the affair of every honest voter, wherever
born, to see that no fraudulent voting is allowed, that no fraud in
connection with naturalization is permitted.

In the past year the cases of false, fraudulent, and improper
naturalization of aliens coming to the attention of the executive
branches of the Government have increased to an alarming degree.
Extensive sales of forged certificates of naturalization have been
discovered, as well as many cases of naturalization secured by
perjury and fraud; and in addition, instances have accumulated
showing that many courts issue certificates of naturalization
carelessly and upon insufficient evidence.

Under the Constitution it is in the power of the Congress "to
establish a uniform rule of naturalization," and numerous laws have
from time to time been enacted for that purpose, which have been
supplemented in a few States by State laws having special
application. The Federal statutes permit naturalization by any court
of record in the United States having common-law jurisdiction and a
seal and clerk, except the police court of the District of Columbia,
and nearly all these courts exercise this important function. It
results that where so many courts of such varying grades have
jurisdiction, there is lack of uniformity in the rules applied in
conferring naturalization. Some courts are strict and others lax. An
alien who may secure naturalization in one place might be denied it
in another, and the intent of the constitutional provision is in fact
defeated. Furthermore, the certificates of naturalization issued by
the courts differ widely in wording and appearance, and when they are
brought into use in foreign countries, are frequently subject to
suspicion.

There should b