Speech Transcript:

 To the Senate and House of Representatives:

As a nation we still continue to enjoy a literally unprecedented
prosperity; and it is probable that only reckless speculation and
disregard of legitimate business methods on the part of the business
world can materially mar this prosperity.

No Congress in our time has done more good work of importance than
the present Congress. There were several matters left unfinished at
your last session, however, which I most earnestly hope you will
complete before your adjournment.

I again recommend a law prohibiting all corporations from
contributing to the campaign expenses of any party. Such a bill has
already past one House of Congress. Let individuals contribute as
they desire; but let us prohibit in effective fashion all
corporations from making contributions for any political purpose,
directly or indirectly.

Another bill which has just past one House of the Congress and which
it is urgently necessary should be enacted into law is that
conferring upon the Government the right of appeal in criminal cases
on questions of law. This right exists in many of the States; it
exists in the District of Columbia by act of the Congress. It is of
course not proposed that in any case a verdict for the defendant on
the merits should be set aside. Recently in one district where the
Government had indicted certain persons for conspiracy in connection
with rebates, the court sustained the defendant's demurrer; while in
another jurisdiction an indictment for conspiracy to obtain rebates
has been sustained by the court, convictions obtained under it, and
two defendants sentenced to imprisonment. The two cases referred to
may not be in real conflict with each other, but it is unfortunate
that there should even be an apparent conflict. At present there is
no way by which the Government can cause such a conflict, when it
occurs, to be solved by an appeal to a higher court; and the wheels
of justice are blocked without any real decision of the question. I
can not too strongly urge the passage of the bill in question. A
failure to pass it will result in seriously hampering the Government
in its effort to obtain justice, especially against wealthy
individuals or corporations who do wrong; and may also prevent the
Government from obtaining justice for wage-workers who are not
themselves able effectively to contest a case where the judgment of
an inferior court has been against them. I have specifically in view
a recent decision by a district judge leaving railway employees
without remedy for violation of a certain so-called labor statute. It
seems an absurdity to permit a single district judge, against what may
be the judgment of the immense majority of his colleagues on the
bench, to declare a law solemnly enacted by the Congress to be
"unconstitutional," and then to deny to the Government the right to
have the Supreme Court definitely decide the question.

It is well to recollect that the real efficiency of the law often
depends not upon the passage of acts as to which there is great
public excitement, but upon the passage of acts of this nature as to
which there is not much public excitement, because there is little
public understanding of their importance, while the interested
parties are keenly alive to the desirability of defeating them. The
importance of enacting into law the particular bill in question is
further increased by the fact that the Government has now definitely
begun a policy of resorting to the criminal law in those trust and
interstate commerce cases where such a course offers a reasonable
chance of success. At first, as was proper, every effort was made to
enforce these laws by civil proceedings; but it has become
increasingly evident that the action of the Government in finally
deciding, in certain cases, to undertake criminal proceedings was
justifiable; and though there have been some conspicuous failures in
these cases, we have had many successes, which have undoubtedly had a
deterrent effect upon evil-doers, whether the penalty inflicted was in
the shape of fine or imprisonment--and penalties of both kinds have
already been inflicted by the courts. Of course, where the judge can
see his way to inflict the penalty of imprisonment the deterrent
effect of the punishment on other offenders is increased; but
sufficiently heavy fines accomplish much. Judge Holt, of the New York
district court, in a recent decision admirably stated the need for
treating with just severity offenders of this kind. His opinion runs
in part as follows:

'The Government's evidence to establish the defendant's guilt was
clear, conclusive, and undisputed. The case was a flagrant one. The
transactions which took place under this illegal contract were very
large; the amounts of rebates returned were considerable; and the
amount of the rebate itself was large, amounting to more than
one-fifth of the entire tariff charge for the transportation of
merchandise from this city to Detroit. It is not too much to say, in
my opinion, that if this business was carried on for a considerable
time on that basis--that is, if this discrimination in favor of this
particular shipper was made with an 18 instead of a 23 cent rate and
the tariff rate was maintained as against their competitors--the
result might be and not improbably would be that their competitors
would be driven out of business. This crime is one which in its
nature is deliberate and premeditated. I think over a fortnight
elapsed between the date of Palmer's letter requesting the reduced
rate and the answer of the railroad company deciding to grant it, and
then for months afterwards this business was carried on and these
claims for rebates submitted month after month and checks in payment
of them drawn month after month. Such a violation of the law, in my
opinion, in its essential nature, is a very much more heinous act
than the ordinary common, vulgar crimes which come before criminal
courts constantly for punishment and which arise from sudden passion
or temptation. This crime in this case was committed by men of
education and of large business experience, whose standing in the
community was such that they might have been expected to set an
example of obedience to law upon the maintenance of which alone in
this country the security of their property depends. It was committed
on behalf of a great railroad corporation, which, like other railroad
corporations, has received gratuitously from the State large and
valuable privileges for the public's convenience and its own, which
performs quasi public functions and which is charged with the highest
obligation in the transaction of its business to treat the citizens of
this country alike, and not to carry on its business with unjust
discriminations between different citizens or different classes of
citizens. This crime in its nature is one usually done with secrecy,
and proof of which it is very difficult to obtain. The interstate
commerce act was past in 1887, nearly twenty years ago. Ever since
that time complaints of the granting of rebates by railroads have
been common, urgent, and insistent, and although the Congress has
repeatedly past legislation endeavoring to put a stop to this evil,
the difficulty of obtaining proof upon which to bring prosecution in
these cases is so great that this is the first case that has ever
been brought in this court, and, as I am formed, this case and one
recently brought in Philadelphia are the only cases that have ever
been brought in the eastern part of this country. In fact, but few
cases of this kind have ever been brought in this country, East or
West. Now, under these circumstances, I am forced to the conclusion,
in a case in which the proof is so clear and the facts are so
flagrant, it is the duty of the court to fix a penalty which shall in
some degree be commensurate with the gravity of the offense. As
between the two defendants, in my opinion, the principal penalty
should be imposed on the corporation. The traffic manager in this
case, presumably, acted without any advantage to himself and without
any interest in the transaction, either by the direct authority or in
accordance with what he understood to be the policy or the wishes of
his employer.

"The sentence of this court in this case is, that the defendant
Pomeroy, for each of the six offenses upon which he has been
convicted, be fined the sum of $1,000, making six fines, amounting in
all to the sum of $6,000; and the defendant, The New York Central and
Hudson River Railroad Company, for each of the six crimes of which it
has been convicted, be fined the sum of $18,000, making six fines
amounting in the aggregate to the sum of $108,000, and judgment to
that effect will be entered in this case."

In connection with this matter, I would like to call attention to the
very unsatisfactory state of our criminal law, resulting in large part
from the habit of setting aside the judgments of inferior courts on
technicalities absolutely unconnected with the merits of the case,
and where there is no attempt to show that there has been any failure
of substantial justice. It would be well to enact a law providing
something to the effect that:

No judgment shall be set aside or new trial granted in any cause,
civil or criminal, on the ground of misdirection of the jury or the
improper admission or rejection of evidence, or for error as to any
matter of pleading or procedure unless, in the opinion of the court
to which the application is made, after an examination of the entire
cause, it shall affirmatively appear that the error complained of has
resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

In my last message I suggested the enactment of a law in connection
with the issuance of injunctions, attention having been sharply drawn
to the matter by the demand that the right of applying injunctions in
labor cases should be wholly abolished. It is at least doubtful
whether a law abolishing altogether the use of injunctions in such
cases would stand the test of the courts; in which case of course the
legislation would be ineffective. Moreover, I believe it would be
wrong altogether to prohibit the use of injunctions. It is criminal
to permit sympathy for criminals to weaken our hands in upholding the
law; and if men seek to destroy life or property by mob violence there
should be no impairment of the power of the courts to deal with them
in the most summary and effective way possible. But so far as
possible the abuse of the power should be provided against by some
such law as I advocated last year.

In this matter of injunctions there is lodged in the hands of the
judiciary a necessary power which is nevertheless subject to the
possibility of grave abuse. It is a power that should be exercised
with extreme care and should be subject to the jealous scrutiny of
all men, and condemnation should be meted out as much to the judge
who fails to use it boldly when necessary as to the judge who uses it
wantonly or oppressively. Of course a judge strong enough to be fit
for his office will enjoin any resort to violence or intimidation,
especially by conspiracy, no matter what his opinion may be of the
rights of the original quarrel. There must be no hesitation in
dealing with disorder. But there must likewise be no such abuse of
the injunctive power as is implied in forbidding laboring men to
strive for their own betterment in peaceful and lawful ways; nor must
the injunction be used merely to aid some big corporation in carrying
out schemes for its own aggrandizement. It must be remembered that a
preliminary injunction in a labor case, if granted without adequate
proof (even when authority can be found to support the conclusions of
law on which it is founded), may often settle the dispute between the
parties; and therefore if improperly granted may do irreparable
wrong. Yet there are many judges who assume a matter-of-course
granting of a preliminary injunction to be the ordinary and proper
judicial disposition of such cases; and there have undoubtedly been
flagrant wrongs committed by judges in connection with labor disputes
even within the last few years, although I think much less often than
in former years. Such judges by their unwise action immensely
strengthen the hands of those who are striving entirely to do away
with the power of injunction; and therefore such careless use of the
injunctive process tends to threaten its very existence, for if the
American people ever become convinced that this process is habitually
abused, whether in matters affecting labor or in matters affecting
corporations, it will be well-nigh impossible to prevent its
abolition.

It may be the highest duty of a judge at any given moment to
disregard, not merely the wishes of individuals of great political or
financial power, but the overwhelming tide of public sentiment; and
the judge who does thus disregard public sentiment when it is wrong,
who brushes aside the plea of any special interest when the pleading
is not rounded on righteousness, performs the highest service to the
country. Such a judge is deserving of all honor; and all honor can
not be paid to this wise and fearless judge if we permit the growth
of an absurd convention which would forbid any criticism of the judge
of another type, who shows himself timid in the presence of arrogant
disorder, or who on insufficient grounds grants an injunction that
does grave injustice, or who in his capacity as a construer, and
therefore in part a maker, of the law, in flagrant fashion thwarts
the cause of decent government. The judge has a power over which no
review can be exercised; he himself sits in review upon the acts of
both the executive and legislative branches of the Government; save
in the most extraordinary cases he is amenable only at the bar of
public opinion; and it is unwise to maintain that public opinion in
reference to a man with such power shall neither be exprest nor led.

The best judges have ever been foremost to disclaim any immunity from
criticism. This has been true since the days of the great English Lord
Chancellor Parker, who said: "Let all people be at liberty to know
what I found my judgment upon; that, so when I have given it in any
cause, others may be at liberty to judge of me." The proprieties of
the case were set forth with singular clearness and good temper by
Judge W. H. Taft, when a United States circuit judge, eleven years
ago, in 1895:

"The opportunity freely and publicly to criticize judicial action is
of vastly more importance to the body politic than the immunity of
courts and judges from unjust aspersions and attack. Nothing tends
more to render judges careful in their decisions and anxiously
solicitous to do exact justice than the consciousness that every act
of theirs is to be subjected to the intelligent scrutiny and candid
criticism of their fellow-men. Such criticism is beneficial in
proportion as it is fair, dispassionate, discriminating, and based on
a knowledge of sound legal principles. The comments made by learned
text writers and by the acute editors of the various law reviews upon
judicial decisions are therefore highly useful. Such critics
constitute more or less impartial tribunals of professional opinion
before which each judgment is made to stand or fall on its merits,
and thus exert a strong influence to secure uniformity of decision.
But non-professional criticism also is by no means without its uses,
even if accompanied, as it often is, by a direct attack upon the
judicial fairness and motives of the occupants of the bench; for if
the law is but the essence of common sense, the protest of many
average men may evidence a defect in a judicial conclusion, though
based on the nicest legal reasoning and profoundest learning. The two
important elements of moral character in a judge are an earnest desire
to reach a just conclusion and courage to enforce it. In so far as
fear of public comment does not affect the courage of a judge, but
only spurs him on to search his conscience and to reach the result
which approves itself to his inmost heart such comment serves a
useful purpose. There are few men, whether they are judges for life
or for a shorter term, who do not prefer to earn and hold the respect
of all, and who can not be reached and made to pause and deliberate by
hostile public criticism. In the case of judges having a life tenure,
indeed their very independence makes the right freely to comment on
their decisions of greater importance, because it is the only
practical and available instrument in the hands of a free people to
keep such judges alive to the reasonable demands of those they
serve.

"On the other hand, the danger of destroying the proper influence of
judicial decisions by creating unfounded prejudices against the
courts justifies and requires that unjust attacks shall be met and
answered. Courts must ultimately rest their defense upon the inherent
strength of the opinions they deliver as the ground for their
conclusions and must trust to the calm and deliberate judgment of all
the people as their best vindication."

There is one consideration which should be taken into account by the
good people who carry a sound proposition to an excess in objecting
to any criticism of a judge's decision. The instinct of the American
people as a whole is sound in this matter. They will not subscribe to
the doctrine that any public servant is to be above all criticism. If
the best citizens, those most competent to express their judgment in
such matters, and above all those belonging to the great and
honorable profession of the bar, so profoundly influential in
American life, take the position that there shall be no criticism of
a judge under any circumstances, their view will not be accepted by
the American people as a whole. In such event the people will turn
to, and tend to accept as justifiable, the intemperate and improper
criticism uttered by unworthy agitators. Surely it is a misfortune to
leave to such critics a function, right, in itself, which they are
certain to abuse. Just and temperate criticism, when necessary, is a
safeguard against the acceptance by the people as a whole of that
intemperate antagonism towards the judiciary which must be combated
by every right-thinking man, and which, if it became widespread among
the people at large, would constitute a dire menace to the Republic.

In connection with the delays of the law, I call your attention and
the attention of the Nation to the prevalence of crime among us, and
above all to the epidemic of lynching and mob violence that springs
up, now in one part of our country, now in another. Each section,
North, South, East, or West, has its own faults; no section can with
wisdom spend its time jeering at the faults of another section; it
should be busy trying to amend its own shortcomings. To deal with the
crime of corruption It is necessary to have an awakened public
conscience, and to supplement this by whatever legislation will add
speed and certainty in the execution of the law. When we deal with
lynching even mote is necessary. A great many white men are lynched,
but the crime is peculiarly frequent in respect to black men. The
greatest existing cause of lynching is the perpetration, especially
by black men, of the hideous crime of rape--the most abominable in
all the category of crimes, even worse than murder. Mobs frequently
avenge the commission of this crime by themselves torturing to death
the man committing it; thus avenging in bestial fashion a bestial
deed, and reducing themselves to a level with the criminal.

Lawlessness grows by what it feeds upon; and when mobs begin to lynch
for rape they speedily extend the sphere of their operations and lynch
for many other kinds of crimes, so that two-thirds of the lynchings
are not for rape at all; while a considerable proportion of the
individuals lynched are innocent of all crime. Governor Candler, of
Georgia, stated on one occasion some years ago: "I can say of a
verity that I have, within the last month, saved the lives of half a
dozen innocent Negroes who were pursued by the mob, and brought them
to trial in a court of law in which they were acquitted." As Bishop
Galloway, of Mississippi, has finely said: "When the rule of a mob
obtains, that which distinguishes a high civilization is surrendered.
The mob which lynches a negro charged with rape will in a little while
lynch a white man suspected of crime. Every Christian patriot in
America needs to lift up his voice in loud and eternal protest
against the mob spirit that is threatening the integrity of this
Republic." Governor Jelks, of Alabama, has recently spoken as
follows: "The lynching of any person for whatever crime is
inexcusable anywhere--it is a defiance of orderly government; but the
killing of innocent people under any provocation is infinitely more
horrible; and yet innocent people are likely to die when a mob's
terrible lust is once aroused. The lesson is this: No good citizen
can afford to countenance a defiance of the statutes, no matter what
the provocation. The innocent frequently suffer, and, it is my
observation, more usually suffer than the guilty. The white people of
the South indict the whole colored race on the ground that even the
better elements lend no assistance whatever in ferreting out
criminals of their own color. The respectable colored people must
learn not to harbor their criminals, but to assist the officers in
bringing them to justice. This is the larger crime, and it provokes
such atrocious offenses as the one at Atlanta. The two races can
never get on until there is an understanding on the part of both to
make common cause with the law-abiding against criminals of any
color."

Moreover, where any crime committed by a member of one race against a
member of another race is avenged in such fashion that it seems as if
not the individual criminal, but the whole race, is attacked, the
result is to exasperate to the highest degree race feeling. There is
but one safe rule in dealing with black men as with white men; it is
the same rule that must be applied in dealing with rich men and poor
men; that is, to treat each man, whatever his color, his creed, or
his social position, with even-handed justice on his real worth as a
man. White people owe it quite as much to themselves as to the
colored race to treat well the colored man who shows by his life that
he deserves such treatment; for it is surely the highest wisdom to
encourage in the colored race all those individuals who are honest,
industrious, law-abiding, and who therefore make good and safe
neighbors and citizens. Reward or punish the individual on his merits
as an individual. Evil will surely come in the end to both races if we
substitute for this just rule the habit of treating all the members of
the race, good and bad, alike. There is no question of "social
equality" or "negro domination" involved; only the question of
relentlessly punishing bad men, and of securing to the good man the
right to his life, his liberty, and the pursuit of his happiness as
his own qualities of heart, head, and hand enable him to achieve it.

Every colored man should realize that the worst enemy of his race is
the negro criminal, and above all the negro criminal who commits the
dreadful crime of rape; and it should be felt as in the highest
degree an offense against the whole country, and against the colored
race in particular, for a colored man to fail to help the officers of
the law in hunting down with all possible earnestness and zeal every
such infamous offender. Moreover, in my judgment, the crime of rape
should always be punished with death, as is the case with murder;
assault with intent to commit rape should be made a capital crime, at
least in the discretion of the court; and provision should be made by
which the punishment may follow immediately upon the heels of the
offense; while the trial should be so conducted that the victim need
not be wantonly shamed while giving testimony, and that the least
possible publicity shall be given to the details.

The members of the white race on the other hand should understand
that every lynching represents by just so much a loosening of the
bands of civilization; that the spirit of lynching inevitably throws
into prominence in the community all the foul and evil creatures who
dwell therein. No man can take part in the torture of a human being
without having his own moral nature permanently lowered. Every
lynching means just so much moral deterioration in all the children
who have any knowledge of it, and therefore just so much additional
trouble for the next generation of Americans.

Let justice be both sure and swift; but let it be justice under the
law, and not the wild and crooked savagery of a mob.

There is another matter which has a direct bearing upon this matter
of lynching and of the brutal crime which sometimes calls it forth
and at other times merely furnishes the excuse for its existence. It
is out of the question for our people as a whole permanently to rise
by treading down any of their own number. Even those who themselves
for the moment profit by such maltreatment of their fellows will in
the long run also suffer. No more shortsighted policy can be imagined
than, in the fancied interest of one class, to prevent the education
of another class. The free public school, the chance for each boy or
girl to get a good elementary education, lies at the foundation of
our whole political situation. In every community the poorest
citizens, those who need the schools most, would be deprived of them
if they only received school facilities proportioned to the taxes
they paid. This is as true of one portion of our country as of
another. It is as true for the negro as for the white man. The white
man, if he is wise, will decline to allow the Negroes in a mass to
grow to manhood and womanhood without education. Unquestionably
education such as is obtained in our public schools does not do
everything towards making a man a good citizen; but it does much. The
lowest and most brutal criminals, those for instance who commit the
crime of rape, are in the great majority men who have had either no
education or very little; just as they are almost invariably men who
own no property; for the man who puts money by out of his earnings,
like the man who acquires education, is usually lifted above mere
brutal criminality. Of course the best type of education for the
colored man, taken as a whole, is such education as is conferred in
schools like Hampton and Tuskegee; where the boys and girls, the
young men and young women, are trained industrially as well as in the
ordinary public school branches. The graduates of these schools turn
out well in the great majority of cases, and hardly any of them
become criminals, while what little criminality there is never takes
the form of that brutal violence which invites lynch law. Every
graduate of these schools--and for the matter of that every other
colored man or woman--who leads a life so useful and honorable as to
win the good will and respect of those whites whose neighbor he or
she is, thereby helps the whole colored race as it can be helped in
no other way; for next to the negro himself, the man who can do most
to help the negro is his white neighbor who lives near him; and our
steady effort should be to better the relations between the two.
Great though the benefit of these schools has been to their colored
pupils and to the colored people, it may well be questioned whether
the benefit, has not been at least as great to the white people among
whom these colored pupils live after they graduate.

Be it remembered, furthermore, that the individuals who, whether from
folly, from evil temper, from greed for office, or in a spirit of mere
base demagogy, indulge in the inflammatory and incendiary speeches and
writings which tend to arouse mobs and to bring about lynching, not
only thus excite the mob, but also tend by what criminologists call
"suggestion," greatly to increase the likelihood of a repetition of
the very crime against which they are inveighing. When the mob is
composed of the people of one race and the man lynched is of another
race, the men who in their speeches and writings either excite or
justify the action tend, of course, to excite a bitter race feeling
and to cause the people of the opposite race to lose sight of the
abominable act of the criminal himself; and in addition, by the
prominence they give to the hideous deed they undoubtedly tend to
excite in other brutal and depraved natures thoughts of committing
it. Swift, relentless, and orderly punishment under the law is the
only way by which criminality of this type can permanently be
supprest.

In dealing with both labor and capital, with the questions affecting
both corporations and trades unions, there is one matter more
important to remember than aught else, and that is the infinite harm
done by preachers of mere discontent. These are the men who seek to
excite a violent class hatred against all men of wealth. They seek to
turn wise and proper movements for the better control of corporations
and for doing away with the abuses connected with wealth, into a
campaign of hysterical excitement and falsehood in which the aim is
to inflame to madness the brutal passions of mankind. The sinister
demagogs and foolish visionaries who are always eager to undertake
such a campaign of destruction sometimes seek to associate themselves
with those working for a genuine reform in governmental and social
methods, and sometimes masquerade as such reformers. In reality they
are the worst enemies of the cause they profess to advocate, just as
the purveyors of sensational slander in newspaper or magazine are the
worst enemies of all men who are engaged in an honest effort to better
what is bad in our social and governmental conditions. To preach
hatred of the rich man as such, to carry on a campaign of slander and
invective against him, to seek to mislead and inflame to madness
honest men whose lives are hard and who have not the kind of mental
training which will permit them to appreciate the danger in the
doctrines preached--all this is to commit a crime against the body
politic and to be false to every worthy principle and tradition of
American national life. Moreover, while such preaching and such
agitation may give a livelihood and a certain notoriety to some of
those who take part in it, and may result in the temporary political
success of others, in the long run every such movement will either
fail or else will provoke a violent reaction, which will itself
result not merely in undoing the mischief wrought by the demagog and
the agitator, but also in undoing the good that the honest reformer,
the true upholder of popular rights, has painfully and laboriously
achieved. Corruption is never so rife as in communities where the
demagog and the agitator bear full sway, because in such communities
all moral bands become loosened, and hysteria and sensationalism
replace the spirit of sound judgment and fair dealing as between man
and man. In sheer revolt against the squalid anarchy thus produced
men are sure in the end to turn toward any leader who can restore
order, and then their relief at being free from the intolerable
burdens of class hatred, violence, and demagogy is such that they can
not for some time be aroused to indignation against misdeeds by men of
wealth; so that they permit a new growth of the very abuses which were
in part responsible for the original outbreak. The one hope for
success for our people lies in a resolute and fearless, but sane and
cool-headed, advance along the path marked out last year by this very
Congress. There must be a stern refusal to be misled into following
either that base creature who appeals and panders to the lowest
instincts and passions in order to arouse one set of Americans
against their fellows, or that other creature, equally base but no
baser, who in a spirit of greed, or to accumulate or add to an
already huge fortune, seeks to exploit his fellow Americans with
callous disregard to their welfare of soul and body. The man who
debauches others in order to obtain a high office stands on an evil
equality of corruption with the man who debauches others for
financial profit; and when hatred is sown the crop which springs up
can only be evil.

The plain people who think--the mechanics, farmers, merchants,
workers with head or hand, the men to whom American traditions are
dear, who love their country and try to act decently by their
neighbors, owe it to themselves to remember that the most damaging
blow that can be given popular government is to elect an unworthy and
sinister agitator on a platform of violence and hypocrisy. Whenever
such an issue is raised in this country nothing can be gained by
flinching from it, for in such case democracy is itself on trial,
popular self-government under republican forms is itself on trial.
The triumph of the mob is just as evil a thing as the triumph of the
plutocracy, and to have escaped one danger avails nothing whatever if
we succumb to the other. In the end the honest man, whether rich or
poor, who earns his own living and tries to deal justly by his
fellows, has as much to fear from the insincere and unworthy demagog,
promising much and performing nothing, or else performing nothing but
evil, who would set on the mob to plunder the rich, as from the
crafty corruptionist, who, for his own ends, would permit the common
people to be exploited by the very wealthy. If we ever let this
Government fall into the hands of men of either of these two classes,
we shall show ourselves false to America's past. Moreover, the demagog
and the corruptionist often work hand in hand. There are at this
moment wealthy reactionaries of such obtuse morality that they regard
the public servant who prosecutes them when they violate the law, or
who seeks to make them bear their proper share of the public burdens,
as being even more objectionable than the violent agitator who hounds
on the mob to plunder the rich. There is nothing to choose between
such a reactionary and such an agitator; fundamentally they are alike
in their selfish disregard of the rights of others; and it is natural
that they should join in opposition to any movement of which the aim
is fearlessly to do exact and even justice to all.

I call your attention to the need of passing the bill limiting the
number of hours of employment of railroad employees. The measure is a
very moderate one and I can conceive of no serious objection to it.
Indeed, so far as it is in our power, it should be our aim steadily
to reduce the number of hours of labor, with as a goal the general
introduction of an eight-hour day. There are industries in which it
is not possible that the hours of labor should be reduced; just as
there are communities not far enough advanced for such a movement to
be for their good, or, if in the Tropics, so situated that there is
no analogy between their needs and ours in this matter. On the
Isthmus of Panama, for instance, the conditions are in every way so
different from what they are here that an eight-hour day would be
absurd; just as it is absurd, so far as the Isthmus is concerned,
where white labor can not be employed, to bother as to whether the
necessary work is done by alien black men or by alien yellow men. But
the wageworkers of the United States are of so high a grade that alike
from the merely industrial standpoint and from the civic standpoint it
should be our object to do what we can in the direction of securing
the general observance of an eight-hour day. Until recently the
eight-hour law on our Federal statute books has been very scantily
observed. Now, however, largely through the instrumentality of the
Bureau of Labor, it is being rigidly enforced, and I shall speedily
be able to say whether or not there is need of further legislation in
reference thereto; .for our purpose is to see it obeyed in spirit no
less than in letter. Half holidays during summer should be
established for Government employees; it is as desirable for
wageworkers who toil with their hands as for salaried officials whose
labor is mental that there should be a reasonable amount of holiday.

The Congress at its last session wisely provided for a truant court
for the District of Columbia; a marked step in advance on the path of
properly caring for the children. Let me again urge that the Congress
provide for a thorough investigation of the conditions of child labor
and of the labor of women in the United States. More and more our
people are growing to recognize the fact that the questions which are
not merely of industrial but of social importance outweigh all others;
and these two questions most emphatically come in the category of
those which affect in the most far-reaching way the home life of the
Nation. The horrors incident to the employment of young children in
factories or at work anywhere are a blot on our civilization. It is
true that each. State must ultimately settle the question in its own
way; but a thorough official investigation of the matter, with the
results published broadcast, would greatly help toward arousing the
public conscience and securing unity of State action in the matter.
There is, however, one law on the subject which should be enacted
immediately, because there is no need for an investigation in
reference thereto, and the failure to enact it is discreditable to
the National Government. A drastic and thoroughgoing child-labor law
should be enacted for the District of Columbia and the Territories.

Among the excellent laws which the Congress past at the last session
was an employers' liability law. It was a marked step in advance to
get the recognition of employers' liability on the statute books; but
the law did not go far enough. In spite of all precautions exercised
by employers there are unavoidable accidents and even deaths involved
in nearly every line of business connected with the mechanic arts.
This inevitable sacrifice of life may be reduced to a minimum, but it
can not be completely eliminated. It is a great social injustice to
compel the employee, or rather the family of the killed or disabled
victim, to bear the entire burden of such an inevitable sacrifice. In
other words, society shirks its duty by laying the whole cost on the
victim, whereas the injury comes from what may be called the
legitimate risks of the trade. Compensation for accidents or deaths
due in any line of industry to the actual conditions under which that
industry is carried on, should be paid by that portion of the
community for the benefit of which the industry is carried on--that
is, by those who profit by the industry. If the entire trade risk is
placed upon the employer he will promptly and properly add it to the
legitimate cost of production and assess it proportionately upon the
consumers of his commodity. It is therefore clear to my mind that the
law should place this entire "risk of a trade" upon the employer.
Neither the Federal law, nor, as far as I am informed, the State laws
dealing with the question of employers' liability are sufficiently
thoroughgoing. The Federal law should of course include employees in
navy-yards, arsenals, and the like.

The commission appointed by the President October 16, 1902, at the
request of both the anthracite coal operators and miners, to inquire
into, consider, and pass upon the questions in controversy in
connection with the strike in the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania
and the causes out of which the controversy arose, in their report,
findings, and award exprest the belief "that the State and Federal
governments should provide the machinery for what may be called the
compulsory investigation of controversies between employers and
employees when they arise." This expression of belief is deserving of
the favorable consideration of the Congress and the enactment of its
provisions into law. A bill has already been introduced to this end.

Records show that during the twenty years from January 1, 1881, to,
December 31, 1900, there were strikes affecting 117,509
establishments, and 6,105,694 employees were thrown out of
employment. During the same period there were 1,005 lockouts,
involving nearly 10,000 establishments, throwing over one million
people out of employment. These strikes and lockouts involved an
estimated loss to employees of $307,000,000 and to employers of
$143,000,000, a total of $450,000,000. The public suffered directly
and indirectly probably as great additional loss. But the money loss,
great as it was, did not measure the anguish and suffering endured by
the wives and children of employees whose pay stopt when their work
stopt, or the disastrous effect of the strike or lockout upon the
business of employers, or the increase in the cost of products and
the inconvenience and loss to the public.

Many of these strikes and lockouts would not have occurred had the
parties to the dispute been required to appear before an unprejudiced
body representing the nation and, face to face, state the reasons for
their contention. In most instances the dispute would doubtless be
found to be due to a misunderstanding by each of the other's rights,
aggravated by an unwillingness of either party to accept as true the
statements of the other as to the justice or injustice of the matters
in dispute. The exercise of a judicial spirit by a disinterested body
representing the Federal Government, such as would be provided by a
commission on conciliation and arbitration, would tend to create an
atmosphere of friendliness and conciliation between contending
parties; and the giving each side an equal opportunity to present
fully its case in the presence of the other would prevent many
disputes from developing into serious strikes or lockouts, and, in
other cases, would enable the commission to persuade the opposing
parties to come to terms.

In this age of great corporate and labor combinations, neither
employers nor employees should be left completely at the mercy of the
stronger party to a dispute, regardless of the righteousness of their
respective claims. The proposed measure would be in the line of
securing recognition of the fact that in many strikes the public has
itself an interest which can not wisely be disregarded; an interest
not merely of general convenience, for the question of a just and
proper public policy must also be considered. In all legislation of
this kind it is well to advance cautiously, testing each step by the
actual results; the step proposed can surely be safely taken, for the
decisions of the commission would not bind the parties in legal
fashion, and yet would give a chance for public opinion to
crystallize and thus to exert its full force for the right.

It is not wise that the Nation should alienate its remaining coal
lands. I have temporarily withdrawn from settlement all the lands
which the Geological Survey has indicated as containing, or in all
probability containing, coal. The question, however, can be properly
settled only by legislation, which in my judgment should provide for
the withdrawal of these lands from sale or from entry, save in
certain especial circumstances. The ownership would then remain in
the United States, which should not, however, attempt to work them,
but permit them to be worked by private individuals under a royalty
system, the Government keeping such control as to permit it to see
that no excessive price was charged consumers. It would, of course,
be as necessary to supervise the rates charged by the common carriers
to transport the product as the rates charged by those who mine it;
and the supervision must extend to the conduct of the common
carriers, so that they shall in no way favor one competitor at the
expense of another. The withdrawal of these coal lands would
constitute a policy analogous to that which has been followed in
withdrawing the forest lands from ordinary settlement. The coal, like
the forests, should be treated as the property of the public and its
disposal should be under conditions which would inure to the benefit
of the public as a whole.

The present Congress has taken long strides in the direction of
securing proper supervision and control by the National Government
over corporations engaged in interstate business and the enormous
majority of corporations of any size are engaged in interstate
business. The passage of the railway rate bill, and only to a less
degree the passage of the pure food bill, and the provision for
increasing and rendering more effective national control over the
beef-packing industry, mark an important advance in the proper
direction. In the short session it will perhaps be difficult to do
much further along this line; and it may be best to wait until the
laws have been in operation for a number of months before endeavoring
to increase their scope, because only operation will show with
exactness their merits and their shortcomings and thus give
opportunity to define what further remedial legislation is needed.
Yet in my judgment it will in the end be advisable in connection with
the packing house inspection law to provide for putting a date on the
label and for charging the cost of inspection to the packers. All
these laws have already justified their enactment. The interstate
commerce law, for instance, has rather amusingly falsified the
predictions, both of those who asserted that it would ruin the
railroads and of those who asserted that it did not go far enough and
would accomplish nothing. During the last five months the railroads
have shown increased earnings and some of them unusual dividends;
while during the same period the mere taking effect of the law has
produced an unprecedented, a hitherto unheard of, number of voluntary
reductions in freights and fares by the railroads. Since the founding
of the Commission there has never been a time of equal length in
which anything like so many reduced tariffs have been put into
effect. On August 27, for instance, two days before the new law went
into effect, the Commission received notices of over five thousand
separate tariffs which represented reductions from previous rates.

It must not be supposed, however, that with the passage of these laws
it will be possible to stop progress along the line of increasing the
power of the National Government over the use of capital interstate
commerce. For example, there will ultimately be need of enlarging the
powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission along several different
lines, so as to give it a larger and more efficient control over the
railroads.

It can not too often be repeated that experience has conclusively
shown the impossibility of securing by the actions of nearly half a
hundred different State legislatures anything but ineffective chaos
in the way of dealing with the great corporations which do not
operate exclusively within the limits of any one State. In some
method, whether by a national license law or in other fashion, we
must exercise, and that at an early date, a far more complete control
than at present over these great corporations--a control that will
among other things prevent the evils of excessive overcapitalization,
and that will compel the disclosure by each big corporation of its
stockholders and of its properties and business, whether owned
directly or through subsidiary or affiliated corporations. This will
tend to put a stop to the securing of inordinate profits by favored
individuals at the expense whether of the general public, the
stockholders, or the wageworkers. Our effort should be not so much to
prevent consolidation as such, but so to supervise and control it as
to see that it results in no harm to the people. The reactionary or
ultraconservative apologists for the misuse of wealth assail the
effort to secure such control as a step toward socialism. As a matter
of fact it is these reactionaries and ultraconservatives who are
themselves most potent in increasing socialistic feeling. One of the
most efficient methods of averting the consequences of a dangerous
agitation, which is 80 per cent wrong, is to remedy the 20 per cent
of evil as to which the agitation is well rounded. The best way to
avert the very undesirable move for the government ownership of
railways is to secure by the Government on behalf of the people as a
whole such adequate control and regulation of the great interstate
common carriers as will do away with the evils which give rise to the
agitation against them. So the proper antidote to the dangerous and
wicked agitation against the men of wealth as such is to secure by
proper legislation and executive action the abolition of the grave
abuses which actually do obtain in connection with the business use
of wealth under our present system--or rather no system--of failure
to exercise any adequate control at all. Some persons speak as if the
exercise of such governmental control would do away with the freedom
of individual initiative and dwarf individual effort. This is not a
fact. It would be a veritable calamity to fail to put a premium upon
individual initiative, individual capacity and effort; upon the
energy, character, and foresight which it is so important to
encourage in the individual. But as a matter of fact the deadening
and degrading effect of pure socialism, and especially of its extreme
form communism, and the destruction of individual character which they
would bring about, are in part achieved by the wholly unregulated
competition which results in a single individual or corporation
rising at the expense of all others until his or its rise effectually
checks all competition and reduces former competitors to a position of
utter inferiority and subordination.

In enacting and enforcing such legislation as this Congress already
has to its credit, we are working on a coherent plan, with the steady
endeavor to secure the needed reform by the joint action of the
moderate men, the plain men who do not wish anything hysterical or
dangerous, but who do intend to deal in resolute common-sense fashion
with the real and great evils of the present system. The reactionaries
and the violent extremists show symptoms of joining hands against us.
Both assert, for instance, that, if logical, we should go to
government ownership of railroads and the like; the reactionaries,
because on such an issue they think the people would stand with them,
while the extremists care rather to preach discontent and agitation
than to achieve solid results. As a matter of fact, our position is
as remote from that of the Bourbon reactionary as from that of the
impracticable or sinister visionary. We hold that the Government
should not conduct the business of the nation, but that it should
exercise such supervision as will insure its being conducted in the
interest of the nation. Our aim is, so far as may be, to secure, for
all decent, hard working men, equality of opportunity and equality of
burden.

The actual working of our laws has shown that the effort to prohibit
all combination, good or bad, is noxious where it is not ineffective.
Combination of capital like combination of labor is a necessary
element of our present industrial system. It is not possible
completely to prevent it; and if it were possible, such complete
prevention would do damage to the body politic. What we need is not
vainly to try to prevent all combination, but to secure such rigorous
and adequate control and supervision of the combinations as to prevent
their injuring the public, or existing in such form as inevitably to
threaten injury--for the mere fact that a combination has secured
practically complete control of a necessary of life would under any
circumstances show that such combination was to be presumed to be
adverse to the public interest. It is unfortunate that our present
laws should forbid all combinations, instead of sharply
discriminating between those combinations which do good and those
combinations which do evil. Rebates, for instance, are as often due
to the pressure of big shippers (as was shown in the investigation of
the Standard Oil Company and as has been shown since by the
investigation of the tobacco and sugar trusts) as to the initiative
of big railroads. Often railroads would like to combine for the
purpose of preventing a big shipper from maintaining improper
advantages at the expense of small shippers and of the general
public. Such a combination, instead of being forbidden by law, should
be favored. In other words, it should be permitted to railroads to
make agreements, provided these agreements were sanctioned by the
Interstate Commerce Commission and were published. With these two
conditions complied with it is impossible to see what harm such a
combination could do to the public at large. It is a public evil to
have on the statute books a law incapable of full enforcement because
both judges and juries realize that its full enforcement would destroy
the business of the country; for the result is to make decent railroad
men violators of the law against their will, and to put a premium on
the behavior of the wilful wrongdoers. Such a result in turn tends to
throw the decent man and the wilful wrongdoer into close association,
and in the end to drag down the former to the latter's level; for the
man who becomes a lawbreaker in one way unhappily tends to lose all
respect for law and to be willing to break it in many ways. No more
scathing condemnation could be visited upon a law than is contained
in the words of the Interstate Commerce Commission when, in
commenting upon the fact that the numerous joint traffic associations
do technically violate the law, they say: "The decision of the United
States Supreme Court in the Trans-Missouri case and the Joint Traffic
Association case has produced no practical effect upon the railway
operations of the country. Such associations, in fact, exist now as
they did before these decisions, and with the same general effect. In
justice to all parties, we ought probably to add that it is difficult
to see how our interstate railways could be operated with due regard
to the interest of the shipper and the railway without concerted
action of the kind afforded through these associations."

This means that the law as construed by the Supreme Court is such
that the business of the country can not be conducted without
breaking it. I recommend that you give careful and early
consideration to this subject, and if you find the opinion of the
Interstate Commerce Commission justified, that you amend the law so
as to obviate the evil disclosed.

The question of taxation is difficult in any country, but it is
especially difficult in ours with its Federal system of government.
Some taxes should on every ground be levied in a small district for
use in that district. Thus the taxation of real estate is peculiarly
one for the immediate locality in which the real estate is found.
Again, there is no more legitimate tax for any State than a tax on
the franchises conferred by that State upon street railroads and
similar corporations which operate wholly within the State
boundaries, sometimes in one and sometimes in several municipalities
or other minor divisions of the State. But there are many kinds of
taxes which can only be levied by the General Government so as to
produce the best results, because, among other reasons, the attempt
to impose them in one particular State too often results merely in
driving the corporation or individual affected to some other locality
or other State. The National Government has long derived its chief
revenue from a tariff on imports and from an internal or excise tax.
In addition to these there is every reason why, when next our system
of taxation is revised, the National Government should impose a
graduated inheritance tax, and, if possible, a graduated income tax.
The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the State,
because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of
government. Not only should he recognize this obligation in the way
he leads his daily life and in the way he earns and spends his money,
but it should also be recognized by the way in which he pays for the
protection the State gives him. On the one hand, it is desirable that
he should assume his full and proper share of the burden of taxation;
on the other hand, it is quite as necessary that in this kind of
taxation, where the men who vote the tax pay but little of it, there
should be clear recognition of the danger of inaugurating any such
system save in a spirit of entire justice and moderation. Whenever
we, as a people, undertake to remodel our taxation system along the
lines suggested, we must make it clear beyond peradventure that our
aim is to distribute the burden of supporting the Government more
equitably than at present; that we intend to treat rich man and poor
man on a basis of absolute equality, and that we regard it as equally
fatal to true democracy to do or permit injustice to the one as to do
or permit injustice to the other.

I am well aware that such a subject as this needs long and careful
study in order that the people may become familiar with what is
proposed to be done, may clearly see the necessity of proceeding with
wisdom and self-restraint, and may make up their minds just how far
they are willing to go in the matter; while only trained legislators
can work out the project in necessary detail. But I feel that in the
near future our national legislators should enact a law providing for
a graduated inheritance tax by which a steadily increasing rate of
duty should be put upon all moneys or other valuables coming by gift,
bequest, or devise to any individual or corporation. It may be well to
make the tax heavy in proportion as the individual benefited is remote
of kin. In any event, in my judgment the pro rata of the tax should
increase very heavily with the increase of the amount left to any one
individual after a certain point has been reached. It is most
desirable to encourage thrift and ambition, and a potent source of
thrift and ambition is the desire on the part of the breadwinner to
leave his children well off. This object can be attained by making
the tax very small on moderate amounts of property left; because the
prime object should be to put a constantly increasing burden on the
inheritance of those swollen fortunes which it is certainly of no
benefit to this country to perpetuate.

There can be no question of the ethical propriety of the Government
thus determining the conditions upon which any gift or inheritance
should be received. Exactly how far the inheritance tax would, as an
incident, have the effect of limiting the transmission by devise or
gift of the enormous fortunes in question it is not necessary at
present to discuss. It is wise that progress in this direction should
be gradual. At first a permanent national inheritance tax, while it
might be more substantial than any such tax has hitherto been, need
not approximate, either in amount or in the extent of the increase by
graduation, to what such a tax should ultimately be.

This species of tax has again and again been imposed, although only
temporarily, by the National Government. It was first imposed by the
act of July 6, 1797, when the makers of the Constitution were alive
and at the head of affairs. It was a graduated tax; though small in
amount, the rate was increased with the amount left to any
individual, exceptions being made in the case of certain close kin. A
similar tax was again imposed by the act of July 1, 1862; a minimum
sum of one thousand dollars in personal property being excepted from
taxation, the tax then becoming progressive according to the
remoteness of kin. The war-revenue act of June 13, 1898, provided for
an inheritance tax on any sum exceeding the value of ten thousand
dollars, the rate of the tax increasing both in accordance with the
amounts left and in accordance with the legatee's remoteness of kin.
The Supreme Court has held that the succession tax imposed at the
time of the Civil War was not a direct tax but an impost or excise
which was both constitutional and valid. More recently the Court, in
an opinion delivered by Mr. Justice White, which contained an
exceedingly able and elaborate discussion of the powers of the
Congress to impose death duties, sustained the constitutionality of
the inheritance-tax feature of the war-revenue act of 1898.

In its incidents, and apart from the main purpose of raising revenue,
an income tax stands on an entirely different footing from an
inheritance tax; because it involves no question of the perpetuation
of fortunes swollen to an unhealthy size. The question is in its
essence a question of the proper adjustment of burdens to benefits.
As the law now stands it is undoubtedly difficult to devise a
national income tax which shall be constitutional. But whether it is
absolutely impossible is another question; and if possible it is most
certainly desirable. The first purely income-tax law was past by the
Congress in 1861, but the most important law dealing with the subject
was that of 1894. This the court held to be unconstitutional.

The question is undoubtedly very intricate, delicate, and
troublesome. The decision of the court was only reached by one
majority. It is the law of the land, and of course is accepted as
such and loyally obeyed by all good citizens. Nevertheless, the
hesitation evidently felt by the court as a whole in coming to a
conclusion, when considered together with the previous decisions on
the subject, may perhaps indicate the possibility of devising a
constitutional income-tax law which shall substantially accomplish
the results aimed at. The difficulty of amending the Constitution is
so great that only real necessity can justify a resort thereto. Every
effort should be made in dealing with this subject, as with the
subject of the proper control by the National Government over the use
of corporate wealth in interstate business, to devise legislation
which without such action shall attain the desired end; but if this
fails, there will ultimately be no alternative to a constitutional
amendment.

It would be impossible to overstate (though it is of course difficult
quantitatively to measure) the effect upon a nation's growth to
greatness of what may be called organized patriotism, which
necessarily includes the substitution of a national feeling for mere
local pride; with as a resultant a high ambition for the whole
country. No country can develop its full strength so long as the
parts which make up the whole each put a feeling of loyalty to the
part above the feeling of loyalty to the whole. This is true of
sections and it is just as true of classes. The industrial and
agricultural classes must work together, capitalists and wageworkers
must work together, if the best work of which the country is capable
is to be done. It is probable that a thoroughly efficient system of
education comes next to the influence of patriotism in bringing about
national success of this kind. Our federal form of government, so
fruitful of advantage to our people in certain ways, in other ways
undoubtedly limits our national effectiveness. It is not possible,
for instance, for the National Government to take the lead in
technical industrial education, to see that the public school system
of this country develops on all its technical, industrial,
scientific, and commercial sides. This must be left primarily to the
several States. Nevertheless, the National Government has control of
the schools of the District of Columbia, and it should see that these
schools promote and encourage the fullest development of the scholars
in both commercial and industrial training. The commercial training
should in one of its branches deal with foreign trade. The industrial
training is even more important. It should be one of our prime objects
as a Nation, so far as feasible, constantly to work toward putting the
mechanic, the wageworker who works with his hands, on a higher plane
of efficiency and reward, so as to increase his effectiveness in the
economic world, and the dignity, the remuneration, and the power of
his position in the social world. Unfortunately, at present the
effect of some of the work in the public schools is in the exactly
opposite direction. If boys and girls are trained merely in literary
accomplishments, to the total exclusion of industrial, manual, and
technical training, the tendency is to unfit them for industrial work
and to make them reluctant to go into it, or unfitted to do well if
they do go into it. This is a tendency which should be strenuously
combated. Our industrial development depends largely upon technical
education, including in this term all industrial education, from that
which fits a man to be a good mechanic, a good carpenter, or
blacksmith, to that which fits a man to do the greatest engineering
feat. The skilled mechanic, the skilled workman, can best become such
by technical industrial education. The far-reaching usefulness of
institutes of technology and schools of mines or of engineering is
now universally acknowledged, and no less far--reaching is the effect
of a good building or mechanical trades school, a texti