Speech Transcript:

Gentlemen of the Congress:

In pursuance of my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress
information of the state of the Union," I take the liberty of
addressing you on several matters which ought, as it seems to me,
particularly to engage the attention of your honorable bodies, as of
all who study the welfare and progress of the Nation.

I shall ask your indulgence if I venture to depart in some degree
from the usual custom of setting before you in formal review the many
matters which have engaged the attention and called for the action of
the several departments of the Government or which look to them for
early treatment in the future, because the list is long, very long,
and would suffer in the abbreviation to which I should have to
subject it. I shall submit to you the reports of the heads of the
several departments, in which these subjects are set forth in careful
detail, and beg that they may receive the thoughtful attention of your
committees and of all Members of the Congress who may have the leisure
to study them. Their obvious importance, as constituting the very
substance of the business of the Government, makes comment and
emphasis on my part unnecessary.

The country, I am thankful to say, is at peace with all the world,
and many happy manifestations multiply about us of a growing
cordiality and sense of community of interest among the nations,
foreshadowing an age of settled peace and good will. More and more
readily each decade do the nations manifest their willingness to bind
themselves by solemn treaty to the processes of peace, the processes
of frankness and fair concession. So far the United States has stood
at the front of such negotiations. She will, I earnestly hope and
confidently believe, give fresh proof of her sincere adherence to the
cause of international friendship by ratifying the several treaties of
arbitration awaiting renewal by the Senate. In addition to these, it
has been the privilege of the Department of State to gain the assent,
in principle, of no less than 31 nations, representing four-fifths of
the population of the world, to the negotiation of treaties by which
it shall be agreed that whenever differences of interest or of policy
arise which can not be resolved by the ordinary processes of diplomacy
they shall be publicly analyzed, discussed, and reported upon by a
tribunal chosen by the parties before either nation determines its
course of action.

There is only one possible standard by which to determine
controversies between the United States and other nations, and that
is compounded of these two elements: Our own honor and our
obligations to the peace of the world. A test so compounded ought
easily to be made to govern both the establishment of new treaty
obligations and the interpretation of those already assumed.

There is but one cloud upon our horizon. That has shown itself to the
south of us, and hangs over Mexico. There can be no certain prospect
of peace in America until Gen. Huerta has surrendered his usurped
authority in Mexico; until it is understood on all hands, indeed,
that such pretended governments will not be countenanced or dealt
with by-the Government of the United States. We are the friends of
constitutional government in America; we are more than its friends,
we are its champions; because in no other way can our neighbors, to
whom we would wish in every way to make proof of our friendship, work
out their own development in peace and liberty. Mexico has no
Government. The attempt to maintain one at the City of Mexico has
broken down, and a mere military despotism has been set up which has
hardly more than the semblance of national authority. It originated
in the usurpation of Victoriano Huerta, who, after a brief attempt to
play the part of constitutional President, has at last cast aside even
the pretense of legal right and declared himself dictator. As a
consequence, a condition of affairs now exists in Mexico which has
made it doubtful whether even the most elementary and fundamental
rights either of her own people or of the citizens of other countries
resident within her territory can long be successfully safeguarded,
and which threatens, if long continued, to imperil the interests of
peace, order, and tolerable life in the lands immediately to the
south of us. Even if the usurper had succeeded in his purposes, in
despite of the constitution of the Republic and the rights of its
people, he would have set up nothing but a precarious and hateful
power, which could have lasted but a little while, and whose eventual
downfall would have left the country in a more deplorable condition
than ever. But he has not succeeded. He has forfeited the respect and
the moral support even of those who were at one time willing to see
him succeed. Little by little he has been completely isolated. By a
little every day his power and prestige are crumbling and the
collapse is not far away. We shall not, I believe, be obliged to
alter our policy of watchful waiting. And then, when the end comes,
we shall hope to see constitutional order restored in distressed
Mexico by the concert and energy of such of her leaders as prefer the
liberty of their people to their own ambitions.

I turn to matters of domestic concern. You already have under
consideration a bill for the reform of our system of banking and
currency, for which the country waits with impatience, as for
something fundamental to its whole business life and necessary to set
credit free from arbitrary and artificial restraints. I need not say
how earnestly I hope for its early enactment into law. I take leave
to beg that the whole energy and attention of the Senate be
concentrated upon it till the matter is successfully disposed of. And
yet I feel that the request is not needed-that the Members of that
great House need no urging in this service to the country.

I present to you, in addition, the urgent necessity that special
provision be made also for facilitating the credits needed by the
farmers of the country. The pending currency bill does the farmers a
great service. It puts them upon an equal footing with other business
men and masters of enterprise, as it should; and upon its passage they
will find themselves quit of many of the difficulties which now hamper
them in the field of credit. The farmers, of course, ask and should be
given no special privilege, such as extending to them the credit of
the Government itself. What they need and should obtain is
legislation which will make their own abundant and substantial credit
resources available as a foundation for joint, concerted local action
in their own behalf in getting the capital they must use. It is to
this we should now address ourselves.

It has, singularly enough, come to pass that we have allowed the
industry of our farms to lag behind the other activities of the
country in its development. I need not stop to tell you how
fundamental to the life of the Nation is the production of its food.
Our thoughts may ordinarily be concentrated upon the cities and the
hives of industry, upon the cries of the crowded market place and the
clangor of the factory, but it is from the quiet interspaces of the
open valleys and the free hillsides that we draw the sources of life
and of prosperity, from the farm and the ranch, from the forest and
the mine. Without these every street would be silent, every office
deserted, every factory fallen into disrepair. And yet the farmer
does not stand upon the same footing with the forester and the miner
in the market of credit. He is the servant of the seasons. Nature
determines how long he must wait for his crops, and will not be
hurried in her processes. He may give his note, but the season of its
maturity depends upon the season when his crop matures, lies at the
gates of the market where his products are sold. And the security he
gives is of a character not known in the broker's office or as
familiarly as it might be on the counter of the banker.

The Agricultural Department of the Government is seeking to assist as
never before to make farming an efficient business, of wide
co-operative effort, in quick touch with the markets for foodstuffs.
The farmers and the Government will henceforth work together as real
partners in this field, where we now begin to see our way very
clearly and where many intelligent plans are already being put into
execution. The Treasury of the United States has, by a timely and
well-considered distribution of its deposits, facilitated the moving
of the crops in the present season and prevented the scarcity of
available funds too often experienced at such times. But we must not
allow ourselves to depend upon extraordinary expedients. We must add
the means by which the, farmer may make his credit constantly and
easily available and command when he will the capital by which to
support and expand his business. We lag behind many other great
countries of the modern world in attempting to do this. Systems of
rural credit have been studied and developed on the other side of the
water while we left our farmers to shift for themselves in the
ordinary money market. You have but to look about you in any rural
district to see the result, the handicap and embarrassment which have
been put upon those who produce our food.

Conscious of this backwardness and neglect on our part, the Congress
recently authorized the creation of a special commission to study the
various systems of rural credit which have been put into operation in
Europe, and this commission is already prepared to report. Its report
ought to make it easier for us to determine what methods will be best
suited to our own farmers. I hope and believe that the committees of
the Senate and House will address themselves to this matter with the
most fruitful results, and I believe that the studies and recently
formed plans of the Department of Agriculture may be made to serve
them very greatly in their work of framing appropriate and adequate
legislation. It would be indiscreet and presumptuous in anyone to
dogmatize upon so great and many-sided a question, but I feel
confident that common counsel will produce the results we must all
desire.

Turn from the farm to the world of business which centers in the city
and in the factory, and I think that all thoughtful observers will
agree that the immediate service we owe the business communities of
the country is to prevent private monopoly more effectually than it
has yet been prevented. I think it will be easily agreed that we
should let the Sherman anti-trust law stand, unaltered, as it is,
with its debatable ground about it, but that we should as much as
possible reduce the area of that debatable ground by further and more
explicit legislation; and should also supplement that great act by
legislation which will not only clarify it but also facilitate its
administration and make it fairer to all concerned. No doubt we shall
all wish, and the country will expect, this to be the central subject
of our deliberations during the present session; but it is a subject
so many-sided and so deserving of careful and discriminating
discussion that I shall take the liberty of addressing you upon it in
a special message at a later date than this. It is of capital
importance that the business men of this country should be relieved
of all uncertainties of law with regard to their enterprises and
investments and a clear path indicated which they can travel without
anxiety. It is as important that they should be relieved of
embarrassment and set free to prosper as that private monopoly should
be destroyed. The ways of action should be thrown wide open.

I turn to a subject which I hope can be handled promptly and without
serious controversy of any kind. I mean the method of selecting
nominees for the Presidency of the United States. I feel confident
that I do not misinterpret the wishes or the expectations of the
country when I urge the prompt enactment of legislation which will
provide for primary elections throughout the country at which the
voters of the several parties may choose their nominees for the
Presidency without the intervention of nominating conventions. I
venture the suggestion that this legislation should provide for the
retention of party conventions, but only for the purpose of declaring
and accepting the verdict of the primaries and formulating the
platforms of the parties; and I suggest that these conventions should
consist not of delegates chosen for this single purpose, but of the
nominees for Congress, the nominees for vacant seats in the Senate of
the United States, the Senators whose terms have not yet closed, the
national committees, and the candidates for the Presidency
themselves, in order that platforms may be framed by those
responsible to the people for carrying them into effect.

These are all matters of vital domestic concern, and besides them,
outside the charmed circle of our own national life in which our
affections command us, as well as our consciences, there stand out
our obligations toward our territories over sea. Here we are
trustees. Porto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines, are ours, indeed, but
not ours to do what we please with. Such territories, once regarded
as mere possessions, are no longer to be selfishly exploited; they
are part of the domain of public conscience and of serviceable and
enlightened statesmanship. We must administer them for the people who
live in them and with the same sense of responsibility to them as
toward our own people in our domestic affairs. No doubt we shall
successfully enough bind Porto Rico and the Hawaiian Islands to
ourselves by ties of justice and interest and affection, but the
performance of our duty toward the Philippines is a more difficult
and debatable matter. We can satisfy the obligations of generous
justice toward the people of Porto Rico by giving them the ample and
familiar rights and privileges accorded our own citizens in our own
territories and our obligations toward the people of Hawaii by
perfecting the provisions for self-government already granted them,
but in the Philippines we must go further. We must hold steadily in
view their ultimate independence, and we must move toward the time of
that independence as steadily as the way can be cleared and the
foundations thoughtfully and permanently laid.

Acting under the authority conferred upon the President by Congress,
I have already accorded the people of the islands a majority in both
houses of their legislative body by appointing five instead of four
native citizens to the membership of the commission. I believe that
in this way we shall make proof of their capacity in counsel and
their sense of responsibility in the exercise of political power, and
that the success of this step will be sure to clear our view for the
steps which are to follow. Step by step we should extend and perfect
the system of self-government in the islands, making test of them and
modifying them as experience discloses their successes and their
failures; that we should more and more put under the control of the
native citizens of the archipelago the essential instruments of their
life, their local instrumentalities of government, their schools, all
the common interests of their communities, and so by counsel and
experience set up a government which all the world will see to be
suitable to a people whose affairs are under their own control. At
last, I hope and believe, we are beginning to gain the confidence of
the Filipino peoples. By their counsel and experience, rather than by
our own, we shall learn how best to serve them and how soon it will be
possible and wise to withdraw our supervision. Let us once find the
path and set out with firm and confident tread upon it and we shall
not wander from it or linger upon it.

A duty faces us with regard to Alaska which seems to me very pressing
and very imperative; perhaps I should say a double duty, for it
concerns both the political and the material development of the
Territory. The people of Alaska should be given the full Territorial
form of government, and Alaska, as a storehouse, should be unlocked.
One key to it is a system of railways. These the Government should
itself build and administer, and the ports and terminals it should
itself control in the interest of all who wish to use them for the
service and development of the country and its people.

But the construction of railways is only the first step; is only
thrusting in the key to the storehouse and throwing back the lock and
opening the door. How the tempting resources of the country are to be
exploited is another matter, to which I shall take the liberty of
from time to time calling your attention, for it is a policy which
must be worked out by well-considered stages, not upon theory, but
upon lines of practical expediency. It is part of our general problem
of conservation. We have a freer hand in working out the problem in
Alaska than in the States of the Union; and yet the principle and
object are the same, wherever we touch it. We must use the resources
of the country, not lock them up. There need be no conflict or
jealousy as between State and Federal authorities, for there can be
no essential difference of purpose between them. The resources in
question must be used, but not destroyed or wasted; used, but not
monopolized upon any narrow idea of individual rights as against the
abiding interests of communities. That a policy can be worked out by
conference and concession which will release these resources and yet
not jeopard or dissipate them, I for one have no doubt; and it can be
done on lines of regulation which need be no less acceptable to the
people and governments of the States concerned than to the people and
Government of the Nation at large, whose heritage these resources are.
We must bend our counsels to this end. A common purpose ought to make
agreement easy.

Three or four matters of special importance and significance I beg,
that you will permit me to mention in closing.

Our Bureau of Mines ought to be equipped and empowered to render even
more effectual service than it renders now in improving the conditions
of mine labor and making the mines more economically productive as
well as more safe. This is an all-important part of the work of
conservation; and the conservation of human life and energy lies even
nearer to our interests than the preservation from waste of our
material resources.

We owe it, in mere justice to the railway employees of the country,
to provide for them a fair and effective employers' liability act;
and a law that we can stand by in this matter will be no less to the
advantage of those who administer the railroads of the country than
to the advantage of those whom they employ. The experience of a large
number of the States abundantly proves that.

We ought to devote ourselves to meeting pressing demands of plain
justice like this as earnestly as to the accomplishment of political
and economic reforms. Social justice comes first. Law is the
machinery for its realization and is vital only as it expresses and
embodies it.

An international congress for the discussion of all questions that
affect safety at sea is now sitting in London at the suggestion of
our own Government. So soon as the conclusions of that congress can
be learned and considered we ought to address ourselves, among other
things, to the prompt alleviation of the very unsafe, unjust, and
burdensome conditions which now surround the employment of sailors
and render it extremely difficult to obtain the services of spirited
and competent men such as every ship needs if it is to be safely
handled and brought to port.

May I not express the very real pleas-are I have experienced in
co-operating with this Congress and sharing with it the labors of
common service to which it has devoted itself so unreservedly during
the past seven months of uncomplaining concentration upon the
business of legislation? Surely it is a proper and pertinent part of
my report on "the state of the Union" to express my admiration for
the diligence, the good temper, and the full comprehension of public
duty which has already been manifested by both the Houses; and I hope
that it may not be deemed an impertinent intrusion of myself into the
picture if I say with how much and how constant satisfaction I have
availed myself of the privilege of putting my time and energy at
their disposal alike in counsel and in action.