Speech Transcript:

MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS:

It is a very gratifying privilege to come to the Congress with the
Republic at peace with all the nations of the world. More, it is
equally gratifying to report that our country is not only free from
every impending, menace of war, but there are growing assurances of
the permanency of the peace which we so deeply cherish.

For approximately ten years we have dwelt amid menaces of war or as
participants in war's actualities, and the inevitable aftermath, with
its disordered conditions, bits added to the difficulties of
government which adequately can not be appraised except by, those who
are in immediate contact and know the responsibilities. Our tasks
would be less difficult if we had only ourselves to consider, but so
much of the world was involved, the disordered conditions are so
well-nigh universal, even among nations not engaged in actual
warfare, that no permanent readjustments can be effected without
consideration of our inescapable relationship to world affairs in
finance and trade. Indeed, we should be unworthy of our best
traditions if we were unmindful of social, moral, and political
conditions which are not of direct concern to us, but which do appeal
to the human sympathies and the very becoming interest of a people
blest with our national good fortune.

It is not my purpose to bring to you a program of world restoration.
In the main such a program must be worked out by the nations more
directly concerned. They must themselves turn to the heroic remedies
for the menacing conditions under which they are struggling, then we
can help, and we mean to help. We shall do so unselfishly because
there is compensation in the consciousness of assisting, selfishly
because the commerce and international exchanges in trade, which
marked our high tide of fortunate advancement, are possible only when
the nations of all continents are restored to stable order and normal
relationship.

In the main the contribution of this Republic to restored normalcy in
the world must come through the initiative of the executive branch of
the Government, but the best of intentions and most carefully
considered purposes would fail utterly if the sanction and the
cooperation of Congress were not cheerfully accorded.

I am very sure we shall have no conflict of opinion about
constitutional duties or authority. During the anxieties of war, when
necessity seemed compelling there were excessive grants of authority
and all extraordinary concentration of powers in the Chief Executive.
The repeal of war-time legislation and the automatic expirations which
attended the peace proclamations have put an end to these emergency
excesses but I have the wish to go further than that. I want to join
you ill restoring-, ill the most cordial way, the spirit of
coordination and cooperation, and that mutuality of confidence and
respect which is necessary ill representative popular government.

Encroachment upon the functions of Congress or attempted dictation of
its policy are not to be thought of, much less attempted, but there is
all insistent call for harmony of purpose and concord of action to
speed the solution of the difficult problems confronting both the
legislative and executive branches of the Government.

It is worth while to make allusion here to the character of our Clove
Government, mindful as one must be that an address to you is no less
it message to all our people, for whom you speak most intimately.
Ours is it popular Government through political parties. We divide
along political lines, and I would ever have it so. I do not mean
that partisan preferences should hinder any public servant in the
performance of a conscientious and patriotic official duty. We saw
partisan lines utterly obliterated when war imperiled, and our faith
in the Republic was riveted anew. We ought not to find these partisan
lines obstructing the expeditious solution of the urgent problems of
peace.

Granting that we are fundamentally a representative popular
Government, with political parties the governing agencies, I believe
the political party in power should assume responsibility, determine
upon policies ill the conference which supplements conventions and
election campaigns, and then strive for achievement through adherence
to the accepted policy.

There is vastly greater security, immensely more of the national
viewpoint, much larger and prompter accomplishment where our
divisions are along party lines, in the broader and loftier sense,
than to divide geographically, or according to pursuits, or personal
following. For a century and a third, parties have been charged with
responsibility and held to strict accounting. When they fail, they
are relieved of authority; and the system has brought its to a
national eminence no less than a world example.

Necessarily legislation is a matter of compromise. The full ideal is
seldom attained. In that meeting of minds necessary to insure
results, there must and will be accommodations and compromises, but
in the estimate of convictions and sincere put-poses the supreme
responsibility to national interest must not be ignored. The shield
to the high-minded public servant who adheres to party policy is
manifest, but the higher purpose is the good of the Republic as a
whole.

It would be ungracious to withhold acknowledgment of the really large
volume and excellent quality of work accomplished by the extraordinary
session of Congress which so recently adjourned. I am not unmindful of
the very difficult tasks with which you were called to deal, and no
one can ignore the insistent conditions which, during recent years,
have called for the continued and almost exclusive attention of your
membership to public work. It would suggest insincerity if I
expressed complete accord with every expression recorded in your roll
calls, but we are all agreed about the difficulties and the inevitable
divergence of opinion in seeking the reduction, amelioration and
readjustment of the burdens of taxation. Later on, when other
problems are solved, I shall make some recommendations about renewed
consideration of our tax program, but for the immediate time before
us we must be content with the billion dollar reduction in the tax
draft upon the people, and diminished irritations, banished
uncertainty and improved methods of collection. By your sustainment
of the rigid economies already inaugurated, with hoped-for extension
of these economies and added efficiencies in administration, I
believe further reductions may be enacted and hindering burdens
abolished.

In these urgent economies we shall be immensely assisted by the
budget system for which you made provision in the extraordinary
session. The first budget is before you. Its preparation is a signal
achievement, and the perfection of the system, a thing impossible in
the few months available for its initial trial, will mark its
enactment as the beginning of the greatest reformation in
governmental practices since the beginning of the Republic.

There is pending a grant of authority to the administrative branch of
the Government for the funding and settlement of our vast foreign
loans growing out of our grant of war credits. With the hands of the
executive branch held impotent to deal with these debts we are
hindering urgent readjustments among our debtors and accomplishing
nothing for ourselves. I think it is fair for the Congress to assume
that the executive branch of the Government would adopt no major
policy in dealing with these matters which would conflict with the
purpose of Congress in authorizing the loans, certainly not without
asking congressional approval, but there are minor problems incident
to prudent loan transactions and the safeguarding of our interests
which can not even be attempted without this authorization. It will
be helpful to ourselves and it will improve conditions among our
debtors if funding and the settlement of defaulted interest may be
negotiated.

The previous Congress, deeply concerned in behalf of our merchant
marine, in 1920 enacted the existing shipping law, designed for the
upbuilding of the American merchant marine. Among other things
provided to encourage our shipping on the world's seas, the Executive
was directed to give notice of the termination of all existing
commercial treaties in order to admit of reduced duties on imports
carried in American bottoms. During the life of the act no Executive
has complied with this order of the Congress. When the present
administration came into responsibility it began an early inquiry
into the failure to execute the expressed purpose of the Jones Act.
Only one conclusion has been possible. Frankly, Members of House and
Senate, eager its I am to join you in the making of an American
merchant marine commensurate with our commerce, the denouncement of
our commercial treaties would involve us in a chaos of trade
relationships and add indescribably to the confusion of the already
disordered commercial world. Our power to do so is not disputed, but
power and ships, without comity of relationship, will not give us the
expanded trade which is inseparably linked with a great merchant
marine. Moreover, the applied reduction of duty, for which the treaty
denouncements were necessary, encouraged only the carrying of dutiable
imports to our shores, while the tonnage which unfurls the flag on the
seas is both free and dutiable, and the cargoes which make it nation
eminent in trade are outgoing, rather than incoming.

It is not my thought to lay the problem before you in detail today.
It is desired only to say to you that the executive branch of the
Government, uninfluenced by the protest of any nation, for none has
been made, is well convinced that your proposal, highly intended and
heartily supported here, is so fraught with difficulties and so
marked by tendencies to discourage trade expansion, that I invite
your tolerance of noncompliance for only a few weeks until a plan may
be presented which contemplates no greater draft upon the Public
Treasury, and which, though yet too crude to offer it to-day, gives
such promise of expanding our merchant marine, that it will argue its
own approval. It is enough to say to-day that we are so possessed of
ships, and the American intention to establish it merchant marine is
so unalterable, that a plain of reimbursement, at no other cost than
is contemplated in the existing act, will appeal to the pride and
encourage the hope of all the American people.

There is before you the completion of the enactment of what has been
termed a "permanent" tariff law, the word "permanent" being used to
distinguish it from the emergency act which the Congress expedited
early in the extraordinary session, and which is the law today. I can
not too strongly urge in early completion of this necessary
legislation It is needed to stabilize our industry at home; it is
essential to make more definite our trade relations abroad. More, it
is vital to the preservation of many of our own industries which
contribute so notably to the very lifeblood of our Nation.

There is now, and there always will be, a storm of conflicting
opinion about any tariff revision. We can not go far wrong when we
base our tariffs on the policy of preserving the productive
activities which enhance employment and add to our national
prosperity.

Again comes the reminder that we must not be unmindful of world
conditions, that peoples are struggling for industrial rehabilitation
and that we can not dwell in industrial and commercial exclusion and
at the same time do the just thing in aiding world reconstruction and
readjustment. We do not seek a selfish aloofness, and we could not
profit by it, were it possible. We recognize the necessity of buying
wherever we sell, and the permanency of trade lies in its acceptable
exchanges. In our pursuit of markets we must give as well as receive.
We can not sell to others who do not produce, nor can we buy unless we
produce at home. Sensible of every obligation of humanity, commerce
and finance, linked as they are in the present world condition, it is
not to be argued that we need destroy ourselves to be helpful to
others. With all my heart I wish restoration to the peoples blighted
by the awful World War, but the process of restoration does not lie
in our acceptance of like conditions. It were better to, remain on
firm ground, strive for ample employment and high standards of wage
at home, and point the way to balanced budgets, rigid economies, and
resolute, efficient work as the necessary remedies to cure disaster.

Everything relating to trade, among ourselves and among nations, has
been expanded, excessive, inflated, abnormal, and there is a madness
in finance which no American policy alone will cure. We are a
creditor Nation, not by normal processes, but made so by war. It is
not an unworthy selfishness to seek to save ourselves, when the
processes of that salvation are not only not denied to others, but
commended to them. We seek to undermine for others no industry by
which they subsist; we are obligated to permit the undermining of
none of our own which make for employment and maintained activities.

Every contemplation, it little matters in which direction one turns,
magnifies the difficulty of tariff legislation, but the necessity of
the revision is magnified with it. Doubtless we are justified in
seeking it. More flexible policy than we have provided heretofore. I
hope a way will be found to make for flexibility and elasticity, so
that rates may be adjusted to meet unusual and changing conditions
which can not be accurately anticipated. There are problems incident
to unfair practices, and to exchanges which madness in money have
made almost unsolvable. I know of no manner in which to effect this
flexibility other than the extension of the powers of the Tariff
Commission so that it can adapt itself to it scientific and wholly
just administration of the law.

I am not unmindful of the constitutional difficulties. These can be
met by giving authority to the Chief Executive, who could
proclaim-additional duties to meet conditions which the Congress may
designate.

At this point I must disavow any desire to enlarge the Executive's
powers or add to the responsibilities of the office. They are already
too large. If there were any other plan I would prefer it.

The grant of authority to proclaim would necessarily bring the Tariff
Commission into new and enlarged activities, because no Executive
could discharge such a duty except upon the information acquired and
recommendations made by this commission. But the plan is feasible,
and the proper functioning of the board would give its it better
administration of a defined policy than ever can be made possible by
tariff duties prescribed without flexibility.

There is a manifest difference of opinion about the merits of
American valuation. Many nations have adopted delivery valuation as
the basis for collecting duties; that is, they take the cost of the
imports delivered at the port of entry as the basis for levying duty.
It is no radical departure, in view of varying conditions and the
disordered state of money values, to provide for American valuation,
but there can not be ignored the danger of such a valuation, brought
to the level of our own production costs, making our tariffs
prohibitive. It might do so in many instances where imports ought to
be encouraged. I believe Congress ought well consider the
desirability of the only promising alternative, namely, a provision
authorizing proclaimed American valuation, under prescribed
conditions, on any given list of articles imported.

In this proposed flexibility, authorizing increases to meet
conditions so likely to change, there should also be provision for
decreases. A rate may be just to-day, and entirely out of proportion
six months from to-day. If our tariffs are to be made equitable, and
not necessarily burden our imports and hinder our trade abroad,
frequent adjustment will be necessary for years to come. Knowing the
impossibility of modification by act of Congress for any one or a
score of lines without involving a long array of schedules, I think
we shall go a long ways toward stabilization, if there is recognition
of the Tariff Commission's fitness to recommend urgent changes by
proclamation.

I am sure about public opinion favoring the early determination of
our tariff policy. There have been reassuring signs of a business
revival from the deep slump which all the world has been
experiencing. Our unemployment, which gave its deep concern only a
few weeks ago, has grown encouragingly less, and new assurances and
renewed confidence will attend the congressional declaration that
American industry will be held secure.

Much has been said about the protective policy for ourselves making
it impossible for our debtors to discharge their obligations to us.
This is a contention not now pressing for decision. If we must choose
between a people in idleness pressing for the payment of indebtedness,
or a people resuming the normal ways of employment and carrying the
credit, let us choose the latter. Sometimes we appraise largest the
human ill most vivid in our minds. We have been giving, and are
giving now, of our influence and appeals to minimize the likelihood
of war and throw off the crushing burdens of armament. It is all very
earnest, with a national soul impelling. But a people unemployed, and
gaunt with hunger, face a situation quite as disheartening as war,
and our greater obligation to-day is to do the Government's part
toward resuming productivity and promoting fortunate and remunerative
employment.

Something more than tariff protection is required by American
agriculture. To the farmer has come the earlier and the heavier
burdens of readjustment. There is actual depression in our
agricultural industry, while agricultural prosperity is absolutely
essential to the general prosperity of the country.

Congress has sought very earnestly to provide relief. It has promptly
given such temporary relief as has been possible, but the call is
insistent for the permanent solution. It is inevitable that large
crops lower the prices and short crops advance them. No legislation
can cure that fundamental law. But there must be some economic
solution for the excessive variation in returns for agricultural
production.

It is rather shocking to be told, and to have the statement strongly
supported, that 9,000,000 bales of cotton, raised on American
plantations in a given year, will actually be worth more to the
producers than 13,000,000 bales would have been. Equally shocking is
the statement that 700,000,000 bushels of wheat, raised by American
farmers, would bring them more money than a billion bushels. Yet
these are not exaggerated statements. In a world where there are tens
of millions who need food and clothing which they can not get, such a
condition is sure to indict the social system which makes it
possible.

In the main the remedy lies in distribution and marketing. Every
proper encouragement should be given to the cooperative marketing
programs. These have proven very helpful to the cooperating
communities in Europe. In Russia the cooperative community has become
the recognized bulwark of law and order, and saved individualism from
engulfment in social paralysis. Ultimately they will be accredited
with the salvation of the Russian State.

There is the appeal for this experiment. Why not try it? No one
challenges the right of the farmer to a larger share of the
consumer's pay for his product, no one disputes that we can not live
without the farmer. He is justified in rebelling against the
transportation cost. Given a fair return for his labor, he will have
less occasion to appeal for financial aid; and given assurance that
his labors shall not be in vain, we reassure all the people of a
production sufficient to meet our National requirement and guard
against disaster.

The base of the pyramid of civilization which rests upon the soil is
shrinking through the drift of population from farm to city. For a
generation we have been expressing more or less concern about this
tendency. Economists have warned and statesmen have deplored. We
thought for at time that modern conveniences and the more intimate
contact would halt the movement, but it has gone steadily on. Perhaps
only grim necessity will correct it, but we ought to find a less
drastic remedy.

The existing scheme of adjusting freight rates hits been favoring the
basing points, until industries are attracted to some centers and
repelled from others. A great volume of uneconomic and wasteful
transportation has attended, and the cost increased accordingly. The
grain-milling and meat-packing industries afford ample illustration,
and the attending concentration is readily apparent. The menaces in
concentration are not limited to the retardingly influences on
agriculture. Manifestly the. conditions and terms of railway
transportation ought not be permitted to increase this undesirable
tendency. We have a just pride in our great cities, but we shall find
a greater pride in the Nation, which has it larger distribution of its
population into the country, where comparatively self-sufficient
smaller communities may blend agricultural and manufacturing
interests in harmonious helpfulness and enhanced good fortune. Such a
movement contemplates no destruction of things wrought, of investments
made, or wealth involved. It only looks to a general policy of
transportation of distributed industry, and of highway construction,
to encourage the spread of our population and restore the proper
balance between city and country. The problem may well have your
earnest attention.

It has been perhaps the proudest claim of our American civilization
that in dealing with human relationships it has constantly moved
toward such justice in distributing the product of human energy that
it has improved continuously the economic status of the mass of
people. Ours has been a highly productive social organization. On the
way up from the elemental stages of society we have eliminated slavery
and serfdom and are now far on the way to the elimination of poverty.

Through the eradication of illiteracy and the diffusion of education
mankind has reached a stage where we may fairly say that in the
United States equality of opportunity has been attained, though all
are not prepared to embrace it. There is, indeed, a too great
divergence between the economic conditions of the most and the least
favored classes in the community. But even that divergence has now
come to the point where we bracket the very poor and the very rich
together as the least fortunate classes. Our efforts may well be
directed to improving the status of both.

While this set of problems is commonly comprehended under the general
phrase "Capital and labor," it is really vastly broader. It is a
question of social and economic organization. Labor has become a
large contributor, through its savings, to the stock of capital;
while the people who own the largest individual aggregates of capital
are themselves often hard and earnest laborers. Very often it is
extremely difficult to draw the line of demarcation between the two
groups; to determine whether a particular individual is entitled to
be set down as laborer or as capitalist. In a very large proportion
of cases he is both, and when he is both he is the most useful
citizen.

The right of labor to organize is just as fundamental and necessary
as is the right of capital to organize. The right of labor to
negotiate, to deal with and solve its particular problems in an
organized way, through its chosen agents, is just as essential as is
the right of capital to organize, to maintain corporations, to limit
the liabilities of stockholders. Indeed, we have come to recognize
that the limited liability of the citizen as a member of a labor
organization closely parallels the limitation of liability of the
citizen as a stockholder in a corporation for profit. Along this line
of reasoning we shall make the greatest progress toward solution of
our problem of capital and labor.

In the case of the corporation which enjoys the privilege of limited
liability of stockholders, particularly when engaged in in the public
service, it is recognized that the outside public has a large concern
which must be protected; and so we provide regulations, restrictions,
and in some cases detailed supervision. Likewise in the case of labor
organizations, we might well apply similar and equally well-defined
principles of regulation and supervision in order to conserve the
public's interests as affected by their operations.

Just as it is not desirable that a corporation shall be allowed to
impose undue exactions upon the public, so it is not desirable that a
labor organization shall be permitted to exact unfair terms of
employment or subject the public to actual distresses in order to
enforce its terms. Finally, just as we are earnestly seeking for
procedures whereby to adjust and settle political differences between
nations without resort to war, so we may well look about for means to
settle the differences between organized capital and organized labor
without resort to those forms of warfare which we recognize under the
name of strikes, lockouts, boycotts, and the like.

As we have great bodies of law carefully regulating the organization
and operations of industrial and financial corporations, as we have
treaties and compacts among nations which look to the settlement of
differences without the necessity of conflict in arms, so we might
well have plans of conference, of common counsel, of mediation,
arbitration, and judicial determination in controversies between
labor and capital. To accomplish this would involve the necessity to
develop a thoroughgoing code of practice in dealing with such affairs
It might be well to frankly set forth the superior interest of the
community as a whole to either the labor group or the capital group.
With rights, privileges, immunities, and modes of organization thus
carefully defined, it should be possible to set up judicial or quasi
judicial tribunals for the consideration and determination of all
disputes which menace the public welfare.

In an industrial society such as ours the strike, the lockout, and
the boycott are as much out of place and as disastrous in their
results as is war or armed revolution in the domain of politics. The
same disposition to reasonableness, to conciliation, to recognition
of the other side's point of view, the same provision of fair and
recognized tribunals and processes, ought to make it possible to
solve the one set of questions its easily as the other. I believe the
solution is possible.

The consideration of such a policy would necessitate the exercise of
care and deliberation in the construction of a code and a charter of
elemental rights, dealing with the relations of employer and
employee. This foundation in the law, dealing with the modern
conditions of social and economic life, would hasten the building of
the temple of peace in industry which a rejoicing nation would
acclaim.

After each war, until the last, the Government has been enabled to
give homes to its returned soldiers, and a large part of our
settlement and development has attended this generous provision of
land for the Nation's defenders.

There is yet unreserved approximately 200,000,000 acres in the public
domain, 20,000,000 acres of which are known to be susceptible of
reclamation and made fit for homes by provision for irrigation.

The Government has been assisting in the development of its remaining
lands, until the estimated increase in land values in the irrigated
sections is full $500,000,000 and the crops of 1920 alone on these
lands are estimated to exceed $100,000,000. Under the law
authorization these expenditures for development the advances are to
be returned and it would be good business for the Government to
provide for the reclamation of the remaining 20,000,000 acres, in
addition to expediting the completion of projects long under way.

Under what is known as the coal and gas lease law, applicable also to
deposits of phosphates and other minerals on the public domain, leases
are now being made on the royalty basis, and are producing large
revenues to the Government. Under this legislation, 10 per centum of
all royalties is to be paid directly to the Federal Treasury, and of
the remainder 50 per centum is to be used for reclamation of arid
lands by irrigation, and 40 per centum is to be paid to the States,
in which the operations are located, to be used by them for school
and road purposes.

These resources are so vast, and the development is affording so
reliable a basis of estimate, that the Interior Department expresses
the belief that ultimately the present law will add in royalties and
payments to the treasuries of the Federal Government and the States
containing these public lands a total of $12,000,000,000. This means,
of course, an added wealth of many times that sum. These prospects
seem to afford every justification of Government advances in
reclamation and irrigation.

Contemplating the inevitable and desirable increase of population,
there is another phase of reclamation full worthy of consideration.
There are 79,000,000 acres of swamp and cut-over lands which may be
reclaimed and made as valuable as any farm lands we possess. These
acres are largely located in Southern States, and the greater
proportion is owned by the States or by private citizens. Congress
has a report of the survey of this field for reclamation, and the
feasibility is established. I gladly commend Federal aid, by way of
advances, where State and private participation is assured.

Home making is one of the greater benefits which government can
bestow. Measures are pending embodying this sound policy to which we
may well adhere. It is easily possible to make available permanent
homes which will provide, in turn, for prosperous American families,
without injurious competition with established activities, or
imposition on wealth already acquired.

While we are thinking of promoting the fortunes of our own people I
am sure there is room in the sympathetic thought of America for
fellow human beings who are suffering and dying of starvation in
Russia. A severe drought in the Valley of the Volga has plunged
15,000,000 people into grievous famine. Our voluntary agencies are
exerting themselves to the utmost to save the lives of children in
this area, but it is now evident that unless relief is afforded the
loss of life will extend into many millions. America can not be deaf
to such a call as that.

We do not recognize the government of Russia, nor tolerate the
propaganda which emanates therefrom, but we do not forget the
traditions of Russian friendship. We may put aside our consideration
of all international politics and fundamental differences in
government. The big thing is the call of the suffering and the dying.
Unreservedly I recommend the appropriation necessary to supply the
American Relief Administration with 10,000,000 bushels of corn and
1,000,000 bushels of seed grains, not alone to halt the wave of death
through starvation, but to enable spring planting in areas where the
seed grains have been exhausted temporarily to stem starvation.

The American Relief Administration is directed in Russia by former
officers of our own armies, and has fully demonstrated its ability to
transport and distribute relief through American hands without
hindrance or loss. The time has come to add the Government's support
to the wonderful relief already wrought out of the generosity of the
American private purse.

I am not unaware that we have suffering and privation at home. When
it exceeds the capacity for the relief within the States concerned,
it will have Federal consideration. It seems to me we should be
indifferent to our own heart promptings, and out of accord with the
spirit which acclaims the Christmastide, if we do not give out of our
national abundance to lighten this burden of woe upon a people
blameless and helpless in famine's peril.

There are it full score of topics concerning which it would be
becoming to address you, and on which I hope to make report at a
later time. I have alluded to the things requiring your earlier
attention. However, I can not end this limited address without a
suggested amendment to the organic law.

Many of us belong to that school of thought which is hesitant about
altering the fundamental law. I think our tax problems, the tendency
of wealth to seek nontaxable investment, and the menacing increase of
public debt, Federal, State and municipal-all justify a proposal to
change the Constitution so as to end the issue of nontaxable bonds.
No action can change the status of the many billions outstanding, but
we can guard against future encouragement of capital's paralysis,
while a halt in the growth of public indebtedness would be beneficial
throughout our whole land.

Such a change in the Constitution must be very thoroughly considered
before submission. There ought to be known what influence it will
have on the inevitable refunding of our vast national debt, how it
will operate on the necessary refunding of State and municipal debt,
how the advantages of Nation over State and municipality, or the
contrary, may be avoided. Clearly the States would not ratify to
their own apparent disadvantage. I suggest the consideration because
the drift of wealth into nontaxable securities is hindering the flow
of large capital to our industries, manufacturing, agricultural, and
carrying, until we are discouraging the very activities which make
our wealth.

Agreeable to your expressed desire and in complete accord with the
purposes of the executive branch of the Government, there is in
Washington, as you happily know, an International Conference now most
earnestly at work on plans for the limitation of armament, a naval
holiday, and the just settlement of problems which might develop into
causes of international disagreement.

It is easy to believe a world-hope is centered on this Capital City.
A most gratifying world-accomplishment is not improbable.