 | Addresses and presidential messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904 |  |
PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGES
MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES
OF CONGRESS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
FIRST SESSION OF THE FIFTY-SEVENTH
CONGRESS
The Congress assembles this year under the shadow of
a great calamity. On the sixth of September, President
McKinley was shot by an anarchist while attending the
Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and died in that
city on the fourteenth of that month.
Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third who
has been murdered, and the bare recital of this fact is
sufficient to justify grave alarm among all loyal American
citizens. Moreover, the circumstances of this, the third
assassination of an American President, have a peculiarly
sinister significance. Both President Lincoln and President
Garfield were killed by assassins of types unfortunately
not uncommon in history; President Lincoln falling
a victim to the terrible passions aroused by four years of
civil war, and President Garfield to the revengeful vanity
of a disappointed office-seeker. President McKinley was
killed by an utterly depraved criminal belonging to that
body of criminals who object to all governments, good
and bad alike, who are against any form of popular liberty
if it is guaranteed by even the most just and liberal laws,
and who are as hostile to the upright exponent of a free
people's sober will as to the tyrannical and irresponsible
despot.
It is not too much to say that at the time of President
all the United States; while we have never had any public
man of his position who has been so wholly free from the
bitter animosities incident to public life. His political
opponents were the first to bear the heartiest and most
generous tribute to the broad kindliness of nature, the
sweetness and gentleness of character which so endeared
him to his close associates. To a standard of lofty integrity
in public life he united the tender affections and
home virtues which are all-important in the make-up of
national character. A gallant soldier in the great war for
the Union, he also shone as an example to all our people
because of his conduct in the most sacred and intimate of
home relations. There could be no personal hatred of
him, for he never acted with aught but consideration for
the welfare of others. No one could fail to respect him
who knew him in public or private life. The defenders
of those murderous criminals who seek to excuse their
criminality by asserting that it is exercised for political
ends, inveigh against wealth and irresponsible power.
But for this assassination even this base apology cannot
be urged.
President McKinley was a man of moderate means, a
man whose stock sprang from the sturdy tillers of the
soil, who had himself belonged among the wage workers,
who had entered the Army as a private soldier. Wealth
was not struck at when the President was assassinated,
but the honest toil which is content with moderate gains
after a lifetime of unremitting labor, largely in the service
of the public. Still less was power struck at in the sense
that power is irresponsible or centred in the hands of any
one individual. The blow was not aimed at tyranny or
wealth. It was aimed at one of the strongest champions
the wage worker has ever had; at one of the most faithful
representatives of the system of public rights and
representative government who has ever risen to public
which the entire people vote, and no President—not even
Lincoln himself—was ever more earnestly anxious to
represent the well-thought-out wishes of the people; his
one anxiety in every crisis was to keep in closest touch
with the people—to find out what they thought and to
endeavor to give expression to their thought, after having
endeavored to guide that thought aright. He had just
been re-elected to the Presidency because the majority of
our citizens, the majority of our farmers and wage workers,
believed that he had faithfully upheld their interests
for four years. They felt themselves in close and intimate
touch with him. They felt that he represented so well
and so honorably all their ideals and aspirations that they
wished him to continue for another four years to represent
them.
And this was the man at whom the assassin struck!
That there might be nothing lacking to complete the
Judas-like infamy of his act, he took advantage of an
occasion when the President was meeting the people
generally; and advancing as if to take the hand outstretched
to him in kindly and brotherly fellowship, he
turned the noble and generous confidence of the victim
into an opportunity to strike the fatal blow. There is no
baser deed in all the annals of crime.
The shock, the grief of the country, are bitter in the
minds of all who saw the dark days, while the President
yet hovered between life and death. At last the light
was stilled in the kindly eyes and the breath went from
the lips that even in mortal agony uttered no words save
of forgiveness to his murderer, of love for his friends, and
of unfaltering trust in the will of the Most High. Such
a death, crowning the glory of such a life, leaves us with
infinite sorrow, but with such pride in what he had accomplished
and in his own personal character, that we
feel the blow not as struck at him, but as struck at the
dead; but while we mourn we are lifted up by the splendid
achievements of his life and the grand heroism with
which he met his death.
When we turn from the man to the Nation, the harm
done is so great as to excite our gravest apprehensions
and to demand our wisest and most resolute action.
This criminal was a professed anarchist, inflamed by the
teachings of professed anarchists, and probably also by
the reckless utterances of those who, on the stump and
in the public press, appeal to the dark and evil spirits of
malice and greed, envy and sullen hatred. The wind is
sowed by the men who preach such doctrines, and they
cannot escape their share of responsibility for the whirlwind
that is reaped. This applies alike to the deliberate
demagogue, to the exploiter of sensationalism, and to the
crude and foolish visionary who, for whatever reason,
apologizes for crime or excites aimless discontent.
The blow was aimed not at this President, but at all
Presidents; at every symbol of government. President
McKinley was as emphatically the embodiment of the
popular will of the Nation expressed through the forms
of law as a New England town meeting is in similar
fashion the embodiment of the law-abiding purpose and
practice of the people of the town. On no conceivable
theory could the murder of the President be accepted as
due to protest against "inequalities in the social order,"
save as the murder of all the freemen engaged in a town
meeting could be accepted as a protest against that social
inequality which puts a malefactor in jail. Anarchy is
no more an expression of "social discontent" than picking
pockets or wife-beating.
The anarchist, and especially the anarchist in the
United States, is merely one type of criminal, more dangerous
than any other because he represents the same
depravity in a greater degree. The man who advocates
the man who apologizes for anarchists and their deeds,
makes himself morally accessory to murder before the
fact. The anarchist is a criminal whose perverted instincts
lead him to prefer confusion and chaos to the most
beneficent form of social order. His protest of concern
for working men is outrageous in its impudent falsity; for
if the political institutions of this country do not afford
opportunity to every honest and intelligent son of toil,
then the door of hope is forever closed against him. The
anarchist is everywhere not merely the enemy of system
and of progress, but the deadly foe of liberty. If ever
anarchy is triumphant, its triumph will last for but one
red moment, to be succeeded for ages by the gloomy
night of despotism.
For the anarchist himself, whether he preaches or practises
his doctrines, we need not have one particle more
concern than for any ordinary murderer. He is not the
victim of social or political injustice. There are no
wrongs to remedy in his case. The cause of his criminality
is to be found in his own evil passions and in the evil
conduct of those who urge him on, not in any failure by
others or by the State to do justice to him or his. He is
a malefactor and nothing else. He is in no sense, in no
shape or way, a "product of social conditions," save as a
highwayman is "produced" by the fact that an unarmed
man happens to have a purse. It is a travesty upon the
great and holy names of liberty and freedom to permit
them to be invoked in such a cause. No man or body
of men preaching anarchistic doctrines should be allowed
at large any more than if preaching the murder of
some specified private individual. Anarchistic speeches,
writings, and meetings are essentially seditious and
treasonable.
I earnestly recommend to the Congress that in the
exercise of its wise discretion it should take into consideration
persons professing principles hostile to all government
and justifying the murder of those placed in authority.
Such individuals as those who not long ago gathered in
open meeting to glorify the murder of King Humbert of
Italy perpetrate a crime, and the law should insure their
rigorous punishment. They and those like them should
be kept out of this country; and if found here they
should be promptly deported to the country whence they
came; and far-reaching provision should be made for the
punishment of those who stay. No matter calls more
urgently for the wisest thought of the Congress.
The Federal courts should be given jurisdiction over
any man who kills or attempts to kill the President or any
man who by the Constitution or by law is in line of succession
for the Presidency, while the punishment for an
unsuccessful attempt should be proportioned to the
enormity of the offence against our institutions.
Anarchy is a crime against the whole human race; and
all mankind should band against the anarchist. His
crime should be made an offence against the law of
nations, like piracy and that form of man-stealing known
as the slave trade; for it is of far blacker infamy than
either. It should be so declared by treaties among all
civilized powers. Such treaties would give to the Federal
Government the power of dealing with the crime.
A grim commentary upon the folly of the anarchist
position was afforded by the attitude of the law toward
this very criminal who had just taken the life of the President.
The people would have torn him limb from limb
if it had not been that the law he defied was at once invoked
in his behalf. So far from his deed being committed
on behalf of the people against the Government,
the Government was obliged at once to exert its full
police power to save him from instant death at the hands
of the people. Moreover, his deed worked not the
danger of a recurrence of such deeds, no matter how great
it might grow, would work only in the direction of
strengthening and giving harshness to the forces of order.
No man will ever be restrained from becoming President
by any fear as to his personal safety. If the risk to the
President's life became great, it would mean that the
office would more and more come to be filled by men of
a spirit which would make them resolute and merciless in
dealing with every friend of disorder. This great country
will not fall into anarchy, and if anarchists should
ever become a serious menace to its institutions, they
would not merely be stamped out, but would involve in
their own ruin every active or passive sympathizer with
their doctrines. The American people are slow to wrath,
but when their wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming
flame.
During the last five years business confidence has been
restored, and the Nation is to be congratulated because
of its present abounding prosperity. Such prosperity
can never be created by law alone, although it is easy
enough to destroy it by mischievous laws. If the hand
of the Lord is heavy upon any country, if flood or
drought comes, human wisdom is powerless to avert the
calamity. Moreover, no law can guard us against the
consequences of our own folly. The men who are idle
or credulous, the men who seek gains not by genuine
work with head or hand but by gambling in any form,
are always a source of menace not only to themselves but
to others. If the business world loses its head, it loses
what legislation cannot supply. Fundamentally the welfare
of each citizen, and therefore the welfare of the
aggregate of citizens which makes the Nation, must rest
upon individual thrift and energy, resolution and intelligence.
Nothing can take the place of this individual
administration can give it the fullest scope, the largest
opportunity to work to good effect.
The tremendous and highly complex industrial development
which went on with ever accelerated rapidity during
the latter half of the nineteenth century brings us face to
face, at the beginning of the twentieth, with very serious
social problems. The old laws, and the old customs
which had almost the binding force of law, were once
quite sufficient to regulate the accumulation and distribution
of wealth. Since the industrial changes which
have so enormously increased the productive power of
mankind, they are no longer sufficient.
The growth of cities has gone on beyond comparison
faster than the growth of the country, and the upbuilding
of the great industrial centres has meant a startling increase,
not merely in the aggregate of wealth, but in the
number of very large individual, and especially of very
large corporate, fortunes. The creation of these great
corporate fortunes has net been due to the tariff nor to
any other governmental action, but to natural causes in
the business world, operating in other countries as they
operate in our own.
The process has aroused much antagonism, a great part
of which is wholly without warrant. It is not true that
as the rich have grown richer the poor have grown poorer.
On the contrary, never before has the average man, the
wage worker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well
off as in this country and at the present time. There
have been abuses connected with the accumulation of
wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune accumulated
in legitimate business can be accumulated by the person
specially benefited only on condition of conferring immense
incidental benefits upon others. Successful enterprise,
of the type which benefits all mankind, can only
the rewards of success.
The captains of industry who have driven the railway
systems across this continent, who have built up our commerce,
who have developed our manufactures, have on
the whole done great good to our people. Without
them the material development of which we are so justly
proud could never have taken place. Moreover, we
should recognize the immense importance to this material
development of leaving as unhampered as is compatible
with the public good the strong and forceful men upon
whom the success of business operations inevitably rests.
The slightest study of business conditions will satisfy any
one capable of forming a judgment that the personal
equation is the most important factor in a business
operation; that the business ability of the man at the
head of any business concern, big or little, is usually the
factor which fixes the gulf between striking success and
hopeless failure.
An additional reason for caution in dealing with corporations
is to be found in the international commercial
conditions of to-day. The same business conditions
which have produced the great aggregations of corporate
and individual wealth have made them very potent factors
in international commercial competition. Business
concerns which have the largest means at their disposal
and are managed by the ablest men are naturally those
which take the lead in the strife for commercial supremacy
among the nations of the world. America has only
just begun to assume that commanding position in the
international business world which we believe will more
and more be hers. It is of the utmost importance that
this position be not jeoparded, especially at a time when
the overflowing abundance of our own natural resources
and the skill, business energy, and mechanical aptitude
of our people make foreign markets essential. Under
fetter the youthful strength of our Nation.
Moreover, it cannot too often be pointed out that to
strike with ignorant violence at the interests of one set
of men almost inevitably endangers the interests of all.
The fundamental rule in our national life—the rule which
underlies all others—is that, on the whole, and in the
long run, we shall go up or down together. There are
exceptions; and in times of prosperity some will prosper
far more, and in times of adversity some will suffer far
more, than others; but speaking generally, a period of
good times means that all share more or less in them, and
in a period of hard times all feel the stress to a greater or
less degree. It surely ought not to be necessary to enter
into any proof of this statement; the memory of the lean
years which began in 1893 is still vivid, and we can contrast
them with the conditions in this very year which is
now closing. Disaster to great business enterprises can
never have its effects limited to the men at the top. It
spreads throughout, and while it is bad for everybody, it
is worst for those farthest down. The capitalist may be
shorn of his luxuries; but the wage worker may be
deprived of even bare necessities.
The mechanism of modern business is so delicate that
extreme care must be taken not to interfere with it in a
spirit of rashness or ignorance. Many of those who have
made it their vocation to denounce the great industrial
combinations which are popularly, although with technical
inaccuracy, known as "trusts," appeal especially to
hatred and fear. These are precisely the two emotions,
particularly when combined with ignorance, which unfit
men for the exercise of cool and steady judgment. In
facing new industrial conditions, the whole history of the
world shows that legislation will generally be both unwise
and ineffective unless undertaken after calm inquiry and
with sober self-restraint. Much of the legislation directed
had it not also been entirely ineffective. In accordance
with a well-known sociological law, the ignorant or reckless
agitator has been the really effective friend of the evils
which he has been nominally opposing. In dealing with
business interests, for the Government to undertake by
crude and ill-considered legislation to do what may turn
out to be bad, would be to incur the risk of such far-reaching
national disaster that it would be preferable to
undertake nothing at all. The men who demand the impossible
or the undesirable serve as the allies of the forces
with which they are nominally at war, for they hamper
those who would endeavor to find out in rational fashion
what the wrongs really are and to what extent and in
what manner it is practicable to apply remedies.
All this is true; and yet it is also true that there are real
and grave evils, one of the chief being over-capitalization
because of its many baleful consequences; and a resolute
and practical effort must be made to correct these evils.
There is a widespread conviction in the minds of the
American people that the great corporations known as
trusts are in certain of their features and tendencies hurtful
to the general welfare. This springs from no spirit
of envy or uncharitableness, nor lack of pride in the great
industrial achievements that have placed this country at
the head of the nations struggling for commercial supremacy.
It does not rest upon a lack of intelligent appreciation
of the necessity of meeting changing and changed
conditions of trade with new methods, nor upon ignorance
of the fact that combination of capital in the effort
to accomplish great things is necessary when the world's
progress demands that great things be done. It is based
upon sincere conviction that combination and concentration
should be, not prohibited, but supervised and within
reasonable limits controlled; and in my judgment this
conviction is right.
It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of
contract to require that when men receive from Government
the privilege of doing business under corporate
form, which frees them from individual responsibility,
and enables them to call into their enterprises the capital
of the public, they shall do so upon absolutely truthful
representations as to the value of the property in which
the capital is to be invested. Corporations engaged in
interstate commerce should be regulated if they are found
to exercise a license working to the public injury. It
should be as much the aim of those who seek for social
betterment to rid the business world of crimes of cunning
as to rid the entire body politic of crimes of violence.
Great corporations exist only because they are created
and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore
our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony
with these institutions.
The first essential in determining how to deal with the
great industrial combinations is knowledge of the facts—
publicity. In the interest of the public, the Government
should have the right to inspect and examine the workings
of the great corporations engaged in interstate business.
Publicity is the only sure remedy which we can
now invoke. What further remedies are needed in the
way of governmental regulation, or taxation, can only be
determined after publicity has been obtained, by process
of law, and in the course of administration. The first
requisite is knowledge, full and complete—knowledge
which may be made public to the world.
Artificial bodies, such as corporations and joint-stock
or other associations, depending upon any statutory law
for their existence or privileges, should be subject to
proper governmental supervision, and full and accurate
information as to their operations should be made public
regularly at reasonable intervals.
The large corporations, commonly called trusts, though
States, often doing very little business in the State where
they are incorporated. There is utter lack of uniformity
in the State laws about them; and as no State has any
exclusive interest in or power over their acts, it has in
practice proved impossible to get adequate regulation
through State action. Therefore, in the interest of the
whole people, the Nation should, without interfering
with the power of the States in the matter itself, also assume
power of supervision and regulation over all corporations
doing an interstate business. This is especially
true where the corporation derives a portion of its wealth
from the existence of some monopolistic element or tendency
in its business. There would be no hardship in
such supervision; banks are subject to it, and in their
case ït is now accepted as a simple matter of course. Indeed,
it is probable that supervision of corporations by
the National Government need not go so far as is now
the case with the supervision exercised over them by so
conservative a State as Massachusetts, in order to produce
excellent results.
When the Constitution was adopted, at the end of the
eighteenth century, no human wisdom could foretell the
sweeping changes, alike in industrial and political conditions,
which were to take place by the beginning of the
twentieth century. At that time it was accepted as a
matter of course that the several States were the proper
authorities to regulate, so far as was then necessary, the
comparatively insignificant and strictly localized corporate
bodies of the day. The conditions are now wholly different
and wholly different action is called for. I believe
that a law can be framed which will enable the National
Government to exercise control along the lines above indicated;
profiting by the experience gained through the
passage and administration of the Interstate-Commerce
Act. If, however, the judgment of the Congress is that
a constitutional amendment should be submitted to confer
the power.
There should be created a Cabinet officer, to be known
as Secretary of Commerce and Industries, as provided in
the bill introduced at the last session of the Congress. It
should be his province to deal with commerce in its
broadest sense; including among many other things
whatever concerns labor and all matters affecting the
great business corporations and our merchant marine.
The course proposed is one phase of what should be
a comprehensive and far-reaching scheme of constructive
statesmanship for the purpose of broadening our markets,
securing our business interests on a safe basis, and making
firm our new position in the international industrial world;
while scrupulously safeguarding the rights of wage worker
and capitalist, of investor and private citizen, so as to
secure equity as between man and man in this Republic.
With the sole exception of the farming interest, no
one matter is of such vital moment to our whole people
as the welfare of the wage workers. If the farmer and
the wage worker are well off, it is absolutely certain that
all others will be well off too. It is therefore a matter
for hearty congratulation that on the whole wages are
higher to-day in the United States than ever before in
our history, and far higher than in any other country.
The standard of living is also higher than ever before.
Every effort of legislator and administrator should be
bent to secure the permanency of this condition of things
and its improvement wherever possible. Not only must
our labor be protected by the tariff, but it should also be
protected so far as it is possible from the presence in this
country of any laborers brought over by contract, or of
those who, coming freely, yet represent a standard of
living so depressed that they can undersell our men in the
labor market and drag them to a lower level. I regard it
the law excluding Chinese laborers and to strengthen
it wherever necessary in order to make its enforcement
entirely effective.
The National Government should demand the highest
quality of service from its employees; and in return it
should be a good employer. If possible legislation should
be passed, in connection with the Interstate-Commerce
Law, which will render effective the efforts of different
States to do away with the competition of convict contract
labor in the open labor market. So far as practicable
under the conditions of Government work, provision
should be made to render the enforcement of the eight-hour
law easy and certain. In all industries carried on
directly or indirectly for the United States Government
women and children should be protected from excessive
hours of labor, from night work, and from work under
unsanitary conditions. The Government should provide
in its contracts that all work should be done under "fair"
conditions, and in addition to setting a high standard
should uphold it by proper inspection, extending if necessary
to the sub-contractors. The Government should
forbid all night work for women and children, as well as
excessive overtime. For the District of Columbia a good
factory law should be passed; and, as a powerful indirect
aid to such laws, provision should be made to turn the
inhabited alleys, the existence of which is a reproach to
our Capital City, into minor streets, where the inhabitants
can live under conditions favorable to health and morals.
American wage workers work with their heads as well
as their hands, Moreover, they take a keen pride in
what they are doing; so that, independent of the reward,
they wish to turn out a perfect job. This is the great
secret of our success in competition with the labor of
foreign countries.
The most vital problem with which this country, and
the problem which has for one side the betterment of
social conditions, moral and physical, in large cities, and
for another side the effort to deal with that tangle of far-reaching
questions which we group together when we
speak of "labor." The chief factor in the success of
each man—wage worker, farmer, and capitalist alike—
must ever be the sum total of his own individual qualities
and abilities. Second only to this comes the power of
acting in combination or association with others. Very
great good has been and will be accomplished by associations
or unions of wage workers, when managed with
forethought, and when they combine insistence upon their
own rights with law-abiding respect for the rights of
others. The display of these qualities in such bodies is
a duty to the Nation no less than to the associations
themselves. Finally, there must also in many cases be
action by the Government in order to safeguard the rights
and interests of all. Under our Constitution there is
much more scope for such action by the State and the
municipality than by the Nation. But on points such as
those touched on above the National Government can act.
When all is said and done, the rule of brotherhood
remains as the indispensable prerequisite to success in the
kind of national life for which we strive. Each man must
work for himself, and unless he so works no outside help
can avail him; but each man must remember also that
he is indeed his brother's keeper, and that while no man
who refuses to walk can be carried with advantage to
himself or any one else, yet that each at times stumbles
or halts, that each at times needs to have the helping
hand outstretched to him. To be permanently effective,
aid must always take the form of helping a man to help
himself; and we can all best help ourselves by joining
together in the work that is of common interest to
all.
Our present immigration laws are unsatisfactory. We
need every honest and efficient immigrant fitted to become
an American citizen, every immigrant who comes
here to stay, who brings here a strong body, a stout
heart, a good head, and a resolute purpose to do his duty
well in every way and to bring up his children as law-abiding
and God-fearing members of the community.
But there should be a comprehensive law enacted with
the object of working a threefold improvement over our
present system. First, we should aim to exclude absolutely
not only all persons who are known to be believers
in anarchistic principles or members of anarchistic societies,
but also all persons who are of a low moral tendency
or of unsavory reputation. This means that we
should require a more thorough system of inspection
abroad and a more rigid system of examination at our
immigration ports, the former being especially necessary.
The second object of a proper immigration law ought
to be to secure by a careful and not merely perfunctory
educational test some intelligent capacity to appreciate
American institutions and act sanely as American citizens.
This would not keep out all anarchists, for many of them
belong to the intelligent criminal class. But it would do
what is also in point, that is, tend to decrease the sum of
ignorance, so potent in producing the envy, suspicion,
malignant passion, and hatred of order, out of which
anarchistic sentiment inevitably springs. Finally, all persons
should be excluded who are below a certain standard
of economic fitness to enter our industrial field as competitors
with American labor. There should be proper
proof of personal capacity to earn an American living and
enough money to insure a decent start under American
conditions. This would stop the influx of cheap labor,
and the resulting competition which give rise to so much
of bitterness in American industrial life; and it would dry
up the springs of the pestilential social conditions in our
greatest possibility of growth.
Both the educational and economic tests in a wise immigration
law should be designed to protect and elevate
the general body politic and social. A very close supervision
should be exercised over the steamship companies
which mainly bring over the immigrants, and they should
be held to a strict accountability for any infraction of the
law.
There is general acquiescence in our present tariff system
as a national policy. The first requisite to our
prosperity is the continuity and stability of this economic
policy. Nothing could be more unwise than to disturb
the business interests of the country by any general tariff
change at this time. Doubt, apprehension, uncertainty
are exactly what we most wish to avoid in the interest of
our commercial and material well-being. Our experience
in the past has shown that sweeping revisions of the
tariff are apt to produce conditions closely approaching
panic in the business world. Yet it is not only possible,
but eminently desirable, to combine with the stability of
our economic system a supplementary system of reciprocal
benefit and obligation with other nations. Such
reciprocity is an incident and result of the firm establishment
and preservation of our present economic policy.
It was specially provided for in the present tariff law.
Reciprocity must be treated as the handmaiden of protection.
Our first duty is to see that the protection
granted by the tariff in every case where it is needed is
maintained, and that reciprocity be sought for so far as it
can safely be done without injury to our home industries.
Just how far this is must be determined according to the
individual case, remembering always that every application
of our tariff policy to meet our shifting national
needs must be conditioned upon the cardinal fact that the
cover the difference between the labor cost here and
abroad. The well-being of the wage worker is a prime
consideration of our entire policy of economic legislation.
Subject to this proviso of the proper protection necessary
to our industrial well-being at home, the principle
of reciprocity must command our hearty support. The
phenomenal growth of our export trade emphasizes the
urgency of the need for wider markets and for a liberal
policy in dealing with foreign nations. Whatever is
merely petty and vexatious in the way of trade restrictions
should be avoided, The customers to whom we
dispose of our surplus products, in the long run, directly
or indirectly, purchase those surplus products by giving
us something in return. Their ability to purchase our
products should as far as possible be secured by so arranging
our tariff as to enable us to take from them those
products which we can use without harm to our own industries
and labor, or the use of which will be of marked
benefit to us.
It is most important that we should maintain the high
level of our present prosperity. We have now reached
the point in the development of our interests where we
are not only able to supply our own markets but to produce
a constantly growing surplus for which we must find
markets abroad. To secure these markets we can utilize
existing duties in any case where they are no longer
needed for the purpose of protection, or in any case
where the article is not produced here and the duty is no
longer necessary for revenue, as giving us something to
offer in exchange for what we ask. The cordial relations
with other nations which are so desirable will naturally
be promoted by the course thus required by our own
interests.
The natural line of development for a policy of reciprocity
will be in connection with those of our productions
establish them upon a sound basis, and with those others
where either because of natural or of economic causes we
are beyond the reach of successful competition.
I ask the attention of the Senate to the reciprocity
treaties laid before it by my predecessor.
The condition of the American merchant marine is such
as to call for immediate remedial action by the Congress.
It is discreditable to us as a Nation that our merchant
marine should be utterly insignificant in comparison to
that of other nations which we overtop in other forms of
business. We should not longer submit to conditions
under which only a trifling portion of our great commerce
is carried in our own ships. To remedy this state of
things would not merely serve to build up our shipping
interests, but it would also result in benefit to all who
are interested in the permanent establishment of a wider
market for American products, and would provide an
auxiliary force for the Navy. Ships work for their own
countries just as railroads work for their terminal points.
Shipping lines, if established to the principal countries
with which we have dealings, would be of political as well
as commercial benefit. From every standpoint it is unwise
for the United States to continue to rely upon the
ships of competing nations for the distribution of our
goods. It should be made advantageous to carry American
goods in American-built ships.
At present American shipping is under certain great
disadvantages when put in competition with the shipping
of foreign countries. Many of the fast foreign steamships,
at a speed of fourteen knots or above, are subsidized;
and all our ships, sailing vessels and steamers
alike, cargo carriers of slow speed and mail carriers of
high speed, have to meet the fact that the original cost
of building American ships is greater than is the case
are very much higher than those paid the officers
and seamen of foreign competing countries; and that the
standard of living on our ships is far superior to the
standard of living on the ships of our commercial rivals.
Our Government should take such action as will
remedy these inequalities. The American merchant
marine should be restored to the ocean.
The Act of March 14, 1900, intended unequivocally to
establish gold as the standard money and to maintain at
a parity therewith all forms of money medium in use with
us, has been shown to be timely and judicious. The
price of our Government bonds in the world's market,
when compared with the price of similar obligations
issued by other nations, is a flattering tribute to our public
credit. This condition it is evidently desirable to
maintain.
In many respects the National Banking Law furnishes
sufficient liberty for the proper exercise of the banking
function; but there seems to be need of better safeguards
against the deranging influence of commercial crises and
financial panics. Moreover, the currency of the country
should be made responsive to the demands of our domestic
trade and commerce.
The collections from duties on imports and internal
taxes continue to exceed the ordinary expenditures of
the Government, thanks mainly to the reduced army expenditures.
The utmost care should be taken not to
reduce the revenues so that there will be any possibility
of a deficit; but, after providing against any such contingency,
means should be adopted which will bring the
revenues more nearly within the limit of our actual needs.
In his report to the Congress the Secretary of the Treasury
considers all these questions at length, and I ask your
attention to the report and recommendations.
I call special attention to the need of strict economy in
expenditures. The fact that our national needs forbid
us to be niggardly in providing whatever is actually
necessary to our well-being, should make us doubly careful
to husband our national resources, as each of us
husbands his private resources, by scrupulous avoidance
of anything like wasteful or reckless expenditure. Only
by avoidance of spending money on what is needless or
unjustifiable can we legitimately keep our income to the
point required to meet our needs that are genuine.
In 1887 a measure was enacted for the regulation of
interstate railways, commonly known as the Interstate-Commerce
Act. The cardinal provisions of that act were
that railway rates should be just and reasonable and that
all shippers, localities, and commodities should be accorded
equal treatment, A commission was created and
endowed with what were supposed to be the necessary
powers to execute the provisions of this act.
That law was largely an experiment. Experience has
shown the wisdom of its purposes, but has also shown,
possibly, that some of its requirements are wrong, certainly
that the means devised for the enforcement of its
provisions are defective. Those who complain of the
management of the railways allege that established rates
are not maintained; that rebates and similar devices are
habitually resorted to; that these preferences are usually
in favor of the large shipper; that they drive out of business
the smaller competitor; that while many rates are
too low, many others are excessive; and that gross preferences
are made, affecting both localities and commodities.
Upon the other hand, the railways assert that
the law by its very terms tends to produce many of
these illegal practices by depriving carriers of that right
of concerted action which they claim is necessary to
establish and maintain non-discriminating rates.
The act should be amended. The railway is a public
servant. Its rates should be just to and open to all
shippers alike. The Government should see to it that
within its jurisdiction this is so and should provide a
speedy, inexpensive, and effective remedy to that end.
At the same time it must not be forgotten that our railways
are the arteries through which the commercial lifeblood
of this Nation flows. Nothing could be more
foolish than the enactment of legislation which would
unnecessarily interfere with the development and operation
of these commercial agencies. The subject is one of
great importance and calls for the earnest attention of the
Congress.
The Department of Agriculture during the past fifteen
years has steadily broadened its work on economic lines,
and has accomplished results of real value in upbuilding
domestic and foreign trade. It has gone into new fields
until it is now in touch with all sections of our country
and with two of the island groups that have lately come
under our jurisdiction, whose people must look to agriculture
as a livelihood. It is searching the world for
grains, grasses, fruits, and vegetables specially fitted for
introduction into localities in the several States and Territories
where they may add materially to our resources.
By scientific attention to soil survey and possible new
crops, to breeding of new varieties of plants, to experimental
shipments, to animal industry and applied chemistry,
very practical aid has been given our farming and
stock-growing interests. The products of the farm have
taken an unprecedented place in our export trade during
the year that has just closed.
Public opinion throughout the United States has moved
steadily toward a just appreciation of the value of forests,
whether planted or of natural growth. The great part
national wealth is now more fully realized than ever
before.
Wise forest protection does not mean the withdrawal
of forest resources, whether of wood, water, or grass,
from contributing their full share to the welfare of the
people, but, on the contrary, gives the assurance of
larger and more certain supplies. The fundamental idea
of forestry is the perpetuation of forests by use. Forest
protection is not an end of itself; it is a means to increase
and sustain the resources of our country and the industries
which depend upon them. The preservation of our
forests is an imperative business necessity. We have
come to see clearly that whatever destroys the forest,
except to make way for agriculture, threatens our wellbeing.
The practical usefulness of the national forest reserves to
the mining, grazing, irrigation, and other interests of the
regions in which the reserves lie has led to a widespread
demand by the people of the West for their protection
and extension. The forest reserves will inevitably be of
still greater use in the future than in the past. Additions
should be made to them whenever practicable, and their
usefulness should be increased by a thoroughly businesslike
management.
At present the protection of the forest reserves rests
with the General Land Office, the mapping and description
of their timber with the United States Geological
Survey, and the preparation of plans for their conservative
use with the Bureau of Forestry, which is also charged
with the general advancement of practical forestry in the
United States. These various functions should be united
in the Bureau of Forestry, to which they properly belong.
The present diffusion of responsibility is bad from every
standpoint. It prevents that effective co-operation between
the Government and the men who utilize the resources
both must suffer. The scientific bureaus generally should
be put under the Department of Agriculture. The President
should have by law the power of transferring lands
for use as forest reserves to the Department of Agriculture.
He already has such power in the case of lands
needed by the Departments of War and the Navy.
The wise administration of the forest reserves will be
not less helpful to the interests which depend on water
than to those which depend on wood and grass. The
water supply itself depends upon the forest. In the arid
region it is water, not land, which measures production.
The western half of the United States would sustain a
population greater than that of our whole country to-day
if the waters that now run to waste were saved and used
for irrigation. The forest and water problems are perhaps
the most vital internal questions of the United
States.
Certain of the forest reserves should also be made preserves
for the wild forest creatures. All of the reserves
should be better protected from fires. Many of them
need special protection because of the great injury done
by live stock, above all by sheep. The increase in deer,
elk, and other animals in the Yellowstone Park shows
what may be expected when other mountain forests are
properly protected by law and properly guarded. Some
of these areas have been so denuded of surface vegetation
by overgrazing that the ground-breeding birds, including
grouse and quail, and many mammals, including
deer, have been exterminated or driven away. At the
same time the water-storing capacity of the surface has
been decreased or destroyed, thus promoting floods in
times of rain and diminishing the flow of streams between
rains.
In cases where natural conditions have been restored
for a few years, vegetation has again carpeted the ground,
especially from the immediate neighborhood, come each
summer to enjoy the privilege of camping. Some at least
of the forest reserves should afford perpetual protection
to the native fauna and flora, safe havens of refuge to our
rapidly diminishing wild animals of the larger kinds, and
free camping grounds for the ever-increasing numbers of
men and women who have learned to find rest, health,
and recreation in the splendid forests and flower-clad
meadows of our mountains. The forest reserves should
be set apart forever for the use and benefit of our people
as a whole and not sacrificed to the short-sighted greed of
a few.
The forests are natural reservoirs. By restraining the
streams in flood and replenishing them in drought they
make possible the use of waters otherwise wasted. They
prevent the soil from washing, and so protect the storage
reservoirs from filling up with silt. Forest conservation
is therefore an essential condition of water conservation.
The forests alone cannot, however, fully regulate and
conserve the waters of the arid region. Great storage
works are necessary to equalize the flow of streams and
to save the flood waters. Their construction has been
conclusively shown to be an undertaking too vast for
private effort. Nor can it be best accomplished by the
individual States acting alone. Far-reaching interstate
problems are involved; and the resources of single States
would often be inadequate. It is properly a national
function, at least in some of its features. It is as right
for the National Government to make the streams and
rivers of the arid region useful by engineering works for
water storage as to make useful the rivers and harbors of
the humid region by engineering works of another kind.
The storing of the floods in reservoirs at the headwaters
of our rivers is but an enlargement of our present policy
reaches of the same streams.
The Government should construct and maintain these
reservoirs as it does other public works. Where their
purpose is to regulate the flow of streams, the water
should be turned freely into the channels in the dry season
to take the same course under the same laws as the natural
flow.
The reclamation of the unsettled arid public lands presents
a different problem. Here it is not enough to
regulate the flow of streams. The object of the Government
is to dispose of the land to settlers who will build
homes upon it. To accomplish this object water must
be brought within their reach.
The pioneer settlers on the arid public domain chose
their homes along streams from which they could themselves
divert the water to reclaim their holdings. Such
opportunities are practically gone. There remain, however,
vast areas of public land which can be made available
for homestead settlement, but only by reservoirs and
main-line canals impracticable for private enterprise.
These irrigation works should be built by the National
Government. The lands reclaimed by them should be
reserved by the Government for actual settlers, and the
cost of construction should so far as possible be repaid by
the land reclaimed. The distribution of the water, the
division of the streams among irrigators, should be left to
the settlers themselves in conformity with State laws and
without interference with those laws or with vested rights.
The policy of the National Government should be to aid
irrigation in the several States and Territories in such
manner as will enable the people in the local communities
to help themselves, and as will stimulate needed reforms
in the State laws and regulations governing irrigation.
The reclamation and settlement of the arid lands will
enrich every portion of our country, just as the settlement
the Atlantic States. The increased demand for manufactured
articles will stimulate industrial production, while
wider home markets and the trade of Asia will consume
the larger food supplies and effectually prevent Western
competition with Eastern agriculture. Indeed, the products
of irrigation will be consumed chiefly in upbuilding
local centres of mining and other industries, which would
otherwise not come into existence at all. Our people as
a whole will profit, for successful home-making is but
another name for the upbuilding of the Nation.
The necessary foundation has already been laid for the
inauguration of the policy just described. It would be
unwise to begin by doing too much, for a great deal will
doubtless be learned, both as to what can and what cannot
be safely attempted, by the early efforts, which must of
necessity be partly experimental in character. At the
very beginning the Government should make clear, beyond
shadow of doubt, its intention to pursue this policy
on lines of the broadest public interest. No reservoir or
canal should ever be built to satisfy selfish personal or
local interests; but only in accordance with the advice
of trained experts, after long investigation has shown the
locality where all the conditions combine to make the
work most needed and fraught with the greatest usefulness
to the community as a whole. There should be no
extravagance, and the believers in the need of irrigation
will most benefit their cause by seeing to it that it is free
from the least taint of excessive or reckless expenditure
of the public moneys.
Whatever the Nation does for the extension of irrigation
should harmonize with, and tend to improve, the
condition of those now living on irrigated land. We are
not at the starting-point of this development. Over two
hundred millions of private capital has already been expended
in the construction of irrigation works, and many
enterprise and ability has been shown in the work itself;
but as much cannot be said in reference to the laws relating
thereto. The security and value of the homes
created depend largely on the stability of titles to water;
but the majority of these rest on the uncertain foundation
of court decisions rendered in ordinary suits at law.
With a few creditable exceptions, the arid States have
failed to provide for the certain and just division of
streams in times of scarcity. Lax and uncertain laws
have made it possible to establish rights to water in excess
of actual uses or necessities, and many streams have
already passed into private ownership, or a control equivalent
to ownership.
Whoever controls a stream practically controls the land
it renders productive, and the doctrine of private ownership
of water apart from land cannot prevail without
causing enduring wrong. The recognition of such ownership,
which has been permitted to grow up in the arid
regions, should give way to a more enlightened and larger
recognition of the rights of the public in the control and
disposal of the public water supplies. Laws founded
upon conditions obtaining in humid regions, where water
is too abundant to justify hoarding it, have no proper
application in a dry country.
In the arid States the only right to water which should
be recognized is that of use. In irrigation this right
should attach to the land reclaimed and be inseparable
therefrom. Granting perpetual water rights to others
than users, without compensation to the public, is open
to all the objections which apply to giving away perpetual
franchises to the public utilities of cities. A few of the
Western States have already recognized this, and have
incorporated in their constitutions the doctrine of perpetual
State ownership of water.
The benefits which have followed the unaided development
in the more difficult and important work yet to be accomplished.
Laws so vitally affecting homes as those which
control the water supply will only be effective when they
have the sanction of the irrigators; reforms can only be
final and satisfactory when they come through the enlightenment
of the people most concerned. The larger
development which national aid insures should, however,
awaken in every arid State the determination to make its
irrigation system equal in justice and effectiveness that of
any country in the civilized world. Nothing could be
more unwise than for isolated communities to continue
to learn everything experimentally, instead of profiting
by what is already known elsewhere. We are dealing
with a new and momentous question, in the pregnant
years while institutions are forming, and what we do will
affect not only the present but future generations.
Our aim should be not simply to reclaim the largest
area of land and provide homes for the largest number of
people, but to create for this new industry the best possible
social and industrial conditions; and this requires
that we not only understand the existing situation, but
avail ourselves of the best experience of the time in the
solution of its problems. A careful study should be
made, by both the Nation and the States, of the irrigation
laws and conditions here and abroad. Ultimately it
will probably be necessary for the Nation to co-operate
with the several arid States in proportion as these States
by their legislation and administration show themselves
fit to receive it.
In Hawaii our aim must be to develop the Territory on
the traditional American lines. We do not wish a region
of large estates tilled by cheap labor; we wish a healthy
American community of men who themselves till the
farms they own. All our legislation for the islands should
average home-maker must afford the true test of the
healthy development of the islands. The land policy
should as nearly as possible be modelled on our homestead
system.
It is a pleasure to say that it is hardly more necessary
to report as to Porto Rico than as to any State or Territory
within our continental limits. The island is thriving
as never before, and it is being administered efficiently and
honestly. Its people are now enjoying liberty and order
under the protection of the United States, and upon this
fact we congratulate them and ourselves. Their material
welfare must be as carefully and jealously considered as
the welfare of any other portion of our country. We
have given them the great gift of free access for their products
to the markets of the United States. I ask the
attention of the Congress to the need of legislation concerning
the public lands of Porto Rico.
In Cuba such progress has been made toward putting
the independent government of the island upon a firm
footing that before the present session of the Congress
closes this will be an accomplished fact, Cuba will then
start as her own mistress; and to the beautiful Queen of
the Antilles, as she unfolds this new page of her destiny,
we extend our heartiest greetings and good wishes. Elsewhere
I have discussed the question of reciprocity. In
the case of Cuba, however, there are weighty reasons of
morality and of national interest why the policy should
be held to have a peculiar application, and I most earnestly
ask your attention to the wisdom, indeed to the
vital need, of providing for a substantial reduction in the
tariff duties on Cuban imports into the United States.
Cuba has in her constitution affirmed what we desired,
that she should stand, in international matters, in closer
and more friendly relations with us than with any other
power; and we are bound by every consideration of honor
interest of her material well-being.
In the Philippines our problem is larger. They are
very rich tropical islands, inhabited by many varying
tribes, representing widely different stages of progress
toward civilization. Our earnest effort is to help these
people upward along the stony and difficult path that
leads to self-government. We hope to make our administration
of the islands honorable to our Nation by making
it of the highest benefit to the Filipinos themselves; and
as an earnest of what we intend to do, we point to what
we have done. Already a greater measure of material
prosperity and of governmental honesty and efficiency
has been attained in the Philippines than ever before in
their history.
It is no light task for a nation to achieve the temperamental
qualities without which the institutions of free
government are but an empty mockery. Our people are
now successfully governing themselves, because for more
than a thousand years they have been slowly fitting themselves,
sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously,
toward this end. What has taken us thirty generations
to achieve, we cannot expect to see another race accomplish
out of hand, especially when large portions of that
race start very far behind the point which our ancestors
had reached even thirty generations ago. In dealing
with the Philippine people we must show both patience
and strength, forbearance and steadfast resolution. Our
aim is high. We do not desire to do for the islanders
merely what has elsewhere been done for tropic peoples
by even the best foreign governments. We hope to do
for them what has never before been done for any people
of the tropics—to make them fit for self-government after
the fashion of the really free nations.
History may safely be challenged to show a single instance
in which a masterful race such as ours, having been
alien land, has behaved to its inhabitants with the disinterested
zeal for their progress that our people have shown
in the Philippines. To leave the islands at this time
would mean that they would fall into a welter of murderous
anarchy. Such desertion of duty on our part would
be a crime against humanity. The character of Governor
Taft and of his associates and subordinates is a proof, if
such be needed, of the sincerity of our effort to give the
islanders a constantly increasing measure of self-government,
exactly as fast as they show themselves fit to exercise
it. Since the civil government was established not
an appointment has been made in the islands with any
reference to considerations of political influence, or to
aught else save the fitness of the man and the needs of
the service.
In our anxiety for the welfare and progress of the
Philippines, it may be that here and there we have gone
too rapidly in giving them local self-government. It is
on this side that our error, if any, has been committed.
No competent observer, sincerely desirous of finding out
the facts and influenced only by a desire for the welfare
of the natives, can assert that we have not gone far
enough. We have gone to the very verge of safety in
hastening the process. To have taken a single step
farther or faster in advance would have been folly and
weakness, and might well have been crime. We are extremely
anxious that the natives shall show the power of
governing themselves. We are anxious, first for their
sakes, and next, because it relieves us of a great burden.
There need not be the slightest fear of our not continuing
to give them all the liberty for which they are fit.
The only fear is lest in our over-anxiety we give them a
degree of independence for which they are unfit, thereby
inviting reaction and disaster. As fast as there is any
reasonable hope that in a given district the people can
that district. There is not a locality fitted for self-government
which has not received it. But it may well
be that in certain cases it will have to be withdrawn because
the inhabitants show themselves unfit to exercise
it; such instances have already occurred. In other
words, there is not the slightest chance of our failing
to show a sufficiently humanitarian spirit. The danger
comes in the opposite direction.
There are still troubles ahead in the islands. The
insurrection has become an affair of local banditti and
marauders, who deserve no higher regard than the brigands
of portions of the Old World. Encouragement,
direct or indirect, to these insurrectos stands on the same
footing as encouragement to hostile Indians in the days
when we still had Indian wars. Exactly as our aim is to
give to the Indian who remains peaceful the fullest and
amplest consideration, but to have it understood that we
will show no weakness if he goes on the warpath, so we
must make it evident, unless we are false to our own
traditions and to the demands of civilization and humanity,
that while we will do everything in our power for the
Filipino who is peaceful, we will take the sternest measures
with the Filipino who follows the path of the insurrecto
and the ladrone.
The heartiest praise is due to large numbers of the
natives of the islands for their steadfast loyalty. The
Macabebes have been conspicuous for their courage and
devotion to the flag. I recommend that the Secretary of
War be empowered to take some systematic action in the
way of aiding those of these men who are crippled in the
service and the families of those who are killed.
The time has come when there should be additional
legislation for the Philippines. Nothing better can be
done for the islands than to introduce industrial enterprises.
Nothing would benefit them so much as throwing
between idleness and mischief is proverbial, and the opportunity
to do remunerative work is one of the surest preventives
of war. Of course no business man will go into
the Philippines unless it is to his interest to do so; and it
is immensely to the interest of the islands that he should
go in. It is therefore necessary that the Congress should
pass laws by which the resources of the islands can be
developed; so that franchises (for limited terms of years)
can be granted to companies doing business in them, and
every encouragement be given to the incoming of business
men of every kind.
Not to permit this is to do a wrong to the Philippines.
The franchises must be granted and the business permitted
only under regulations which will guarantee the
islands against any kind of improper exploitation. But
the vast natural wealth of the islands must be developed,
and the capital willing to develop it must be given the
opportunity. The field must be thrown open to individual
enterprise, which has been the real factor in the
development of every region over which our flag has
flown. It is urgently necessary to enact suitable laws
dealing with general transportation, mining, banking,
currency, homesteads, and the use and ownership of the
lands and timber. These laws will give free play to industrial
enterprise; and the commercial development
which will surely follow will afford to the people of the
islands the best proofs of the sincerity of our desire to aid
them.
I call your attention most earnestly to the crying need
of a cable to Hawaii and the Philippines, to be continued
from the Philippines to points in Asia. We should not
defer a day longer than necessary the construction of
such a cable. It is demanded not merely for commercial
but for political and military considerations.
Either the Congress should immediately provide for the
construction of a Government cable, or else an arrangement
should be made by which like advantages to those
accruing from a Government cable may be secured to the
Government by contract with a private cable company.
No single great material work which remains to be
undertaken on this continent is of such consequence to
the American people as the building of a canal across the
Isthmus connecting North and South America. Its importance
to the Nation is by no means limited merely to
its material effects upon our business prosperity; and yet
with view to these effects alone it would be to the last
degree important for us immediately to begin it. While
its beneficial effects would perhaps be most marked upon
the Pacific Coast and the Gulf and South Atlantic States,
it would also greatly benefit other sections. It is emphatically
a work which it is for the interest of the entire
country to begin and complete as soon as possible; it is
one of those great works which only a great nation can
undertake with prospects of success, and which when
done are not only permanent assets in the nation's material
interests, but standing monuments to its constructive
ability.
I am glad to be able to announce to you that our
negotiations on this subject with Great Britain, conducted
on both sides in a spirit of friendliness and mutual good
will and respect, have resulted in my being able to lay
before the Senate a treaty which if ratified will enable us
to begin preparations for an Isthmian canal at any time,
and which guarantees to this Nation every right that it
has ever asked in connection with the canal. In this
treaty, the old Clayton-Bulwer treaty, so long recognized
as inadequate to supply the base for the construction and
maintenance of a necessarily American ship canal, is
abrogated. It specifically provides that the United
the responsibility of safeguarding the canal and shall
regulate its neutral use by all nations on terms of equality
without the guaranty or interference of any outside nation
from any quarter. The signed treaty will at once be laid
before the Senate, and if approved the Congress can then
proceed to give effect to the advantages it secures us by
providing for the building of the canal.
The true end of every great and free people should be
self-respecting peace; and this Nation most earnestly desires
sincere and cordial friendship with all others. Over
the entire world, of recent years, wars between the great
civilized powers have become less and less frequent.
Wars with barbarous or semi-barbarous peoples come in
an entirely different category, being merely a most regrettable
but necessary international police duty which
must be performed for the sake of the welfare of mankind.
Peace can only be kept with certainty where both
sides wish to keep it; but more and more the civilized
peoples are realizing the wicked folly of war and are attaining
that condition of just and intelligent regard for
the rights of others which will in the end, as we hope
and believe, make world-wide peace possible. The peace
conference at The Hague gave definite expression to
this hope and belief and marked a stride toward their
attainment.
This same peace conference acquiesced in our statement
of the Monroe Doctrine as compatible with the
purposes and aims of the conference.
The Monroe Doctrine should be the cardinal feature of
the foreign policy of all the nations of the two Americas,
as it is of the United States. Just seventy-eight years
have passed since President Monroe in his Annual Message
announced that "The American continents are
henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future
the Monroe Doctrine is a declaration that there must be
no territorial aggrandizement by any non-American power
at the expense of any American power on American soil.
It is in no wise intended as hostile to any nation in the
Old World. Still less is it intended to give cover to any
aggression by one New World power at the expense of
any other. It is simply a step, and a long step, toward
assuring the universal peace of the world by securing the
possibility of permanent peace on this hemisphere.
During the past century other influences have established
the permanence and independence of the smaller
states of Europe. Through the Monroe Doctrine we
hope to be able to safeguard like independence and secure
like permanence for the lesser among the New World
nations.
This doctrine has nothing to do with the commercial
relations of any American power, save that it in truth
allows each of them to form such as it desires. In other
words, it is really a guaranty of the commercial independence
of the Americas. We do not ask under this doctrine
for any exclusive commercial dealings with any other
American state. We do not guarantee any state against
punishment if it misconducts itself, provided that punishment
does not take the form of the acquisition of territory
by any non-American power.
Our attitude in Cuba is a sufficient guaranty of our own
good faith. We have not the slightest desire to secure
any territory at the expense of any of our neighbors.
We wish to work with them hand in hand, so that all of
us may be uplifted together, and we rejoice over the good
fortune of any of them, we gladly hail their material
prosperity and political stability, and are concerned and
alarmed if any of them fall into industrial or political
chaos. We do not wish to see any Old World military
power grow up on this continent, or to be compelled to
Americas can prosper best if left to work out their own
salvation in their own way.
The work of upbuilding the Navy must be steadily continued.
No one point of our policy, foreign or domestic,
is more important than this to the honor and material
welfare, and above all to the peace, of our Nation in the
future. Whether we desire it or not, we must henceforth
recognize that we have international duties no less than
international rights. Even if our flag were hauled down
in the Philippines and Porto Rico, even if we decided not
to build the Isthmian Canal, we should need a thoroughly
trained Navy of adequate size, or else be prepared definitely
and for all time to abandon the idea that our
Nation is among, those whose sons go down to the sea in
ships. Unless our commerce is always to be carried in
foreign bottoms, we must have war craft to protect it.
Inasmuch, however, as the American people have no
thought of abandoning the path upon which they have
entered, and especially in view of the fact that the building
of the Isthmian Canal is fast becoming one of the
matters which the whole people are united in demanding,
it is imperative that our Navy should be put and kept in
the highest state of efficiency, and should be made to
answer to our growing needs. So far from being in any
way a provocation to war, an adequate and highly trained
Navy is the best guaranty against war, the cheapest and
most effective peace insurance. The cost of building and
maintaining such a Navy represents the very lightest
premium for insuring peace which this Nation can possibly
pay.
Probably no other great nation in the world is so
anxious for peace as we are. There is not a single civilized
power which has anything whatever to fear from
aggressiveness on our part. All we want is peace; and
respect for our rights from others which we are eager and
anxious to extend to their rights in return, to insure fair
treatment to us commercially, and to guarantee the safety
of the American people.
Our people intend to abide by the Monroe Doctrine
and to insist upon it as the one sure means of securing
the peace of the Western Hemisphere. The Navy offers
us the only means of making our insistence upon the
Monroe Doctrine anything but a subject of derision to
whatever nation chooses to disregard it. We desire the
peace which comes as of right to the just man armed;
not the peace granted on terms of ignominy to the craven
and the weakling.
It is not possible to improvise a Navy after war breaks
out. The ships must be built and the men trained long
in advance. Some auxiliary vessels can be turned into
makeshifts which will do in default of any better for the
minor work, and a proportion of raw men can be mixed
with the highly trained, their shortcomings being made
good by the skill of their fellows; but the efficient fighting
force of the Navy when pitted against an equal
opponent will be found almost exclusively in the warships
that have been regularly built and in the officers
and men who through years of faithful performance of
sea duty have been trained to handle their formidable but
complex and delicate weapons with the highest efficiency.
In the late war with Spain the ships that dealt the decisive
blows at Manila and Santiago had been launched from
two to fourteen years, and they were able to do as they
did because the men in the conning towers, the gun
turrets, and the engine-rooms had through long years of
practice at sea learned how to do their duty.
Our present Navy was begun in 1882. At that period
our Navy consisted of a collection of antiquated wooden
ships, already almost as out of place against modern war
as the ships of Tromp and Blake. Nor at that
time did we have men fit to handle a modern man-of-war.
Under the wise legislation of the Congress and the successful
administration of a succession of patriotic Secretaries
of the Navy, belonging to both political parties, the
work of upbuilding the Navy went on, and ships equal to
any in the world of their kind were continually added;
and what was even more important, these ships were
exercised at sea singly and in squadrons until the men
aboard them were able to get the best possible service
out of them. The result was seen in the short war with
Spain, which was decided with such rapidity because of
the infinitely greater preparedness of our Navy than of
the Spanish Navy.
While awarding the fullest honor to the men who actually
commanded and manned the ships which destroyed
the Spanish sea forces in the Philippines and in Cuba, we
must not forget that an equal meed of praise belongs to
those without whom neither blow could have been struck.
The Congressmen who voted years in advance the money
to lay down the ships, to build the guns, to buy the
armor-plate; the Department officials and the business
men and wage workers who furnished what the Congress
had authorized; the Secretaries of the Navy who asked
for and expended the appropriations; and finally the
officers who, in fair weather and foul, on actual sea service,
trained and disciplined the crews of the ships when
there was no war in sight—all are entitled to a full share
in the glory of Manila and Santiago, and the respect accorded
by every true American to those who wrought
such signal triumph for our country. It was forethought
and preparation which secured us the overwhelming
triumph of 1898. If we fail to show forethought and
preparation now, there may come a time when disaster
will befall us instead of triumph; and should this time
the accident of events puts in supreme command at the
moment, but upon those who have failed to prepare in
advance.
There should be no cessation in the work of completing
our Navy. So far ingenuity has been wholly unable to devise
a substitute for the great war craft whose hammering
guns beat out the mastery of the high seas. It is unsafe
and unwise not to provide this year for several additional
battleships and heavy armored cruisers, with auxiliary
and lighter craft in proportion; for the exact numbers and
character I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the
Navy. But there is something we need even more than
additional ships, and this is additional officers and men.
To provide battleships and cruisers and then lay them
up, with the expectation of leaving them unmanned until
they are needed in actual war, would be worse than folly;
it would be a crime against the Nation.
To send any warship against a competent enemy unless
those aboard it have been trained by years of actual sea
service, including incessant gunnery practice, would be
to invite not merely disaster, but the bitterest shame and
humiliation. Four thousand additional seamen and one
thousand additional marines should be provided; and an
increase in the officers should be provided by making a
large addition to the classes at Annapolis. There is one
small matter which should be mentioned in connection
with Annapolis. The pretentious and unmeaning title
of "naval cadet" should be abolished; the title of "midshipman,"
full of historic association, should be restored.
Even in time of peace a warship should be used until
it wears out, for only so can it be kept fit to respond to
any emergency. The officers and men alike should be
kept as much as possible on blue water, for it is there only
they can learn their duties as they should be learned.
The big vessels should be manœuvred in squadrons containing
of cruisers and scouts. The torpedo boats should
be handled by the younger officers in such manner as will
best fit the latter to take responsibility and meet the
emergencies of actual warfare.
Every detail ashore which can be performed by a civilian
should be so performed, the officer being kept for his
special duty in the sea service. Above all, gunnery practice
should be unceasing. It is important to have our
Navy of adequate size, but it is even more important
that ship for ship it should equal in efficiency any navy
in the world. This is possible only with highly drilled
crews and officers, and this in turn imperatively demands
continuous and progressive instruction in target practice,
ship handling, squadron tactics, and general discipline.
Our ships must be assembled in squadrons actively cruising
away from harbors and never long at anchor. The
resulting wear upon engines and hulls must be endured;
a battleship worn out in long training of officers and men
is well paid for by the results, while, on the other hand,
no matter in how excellent condition, it is useless if the
crew be not expert.
We now have seventeen battleships appropriated for,
of which nine are completed and have been commissioned
for actual service. The remaining eight will be ready in
from two to four years, but it will take at least that time
to recruit and train the men to fight them. It is of vast
concern that we have trained crews ready for the vessels
by the time they are commissioned. Good ships and
good guns are simply good weapons, and the best weapons
are useless save in the hands of men who know how to
fight with them. The men must be trained and drilled
under a thorough and well-planned system of progressive
instruction, while the recruiting must be carried on with
still greater vigor. Every effort must be made to exalt
the main function of the officer—the command of men.
be assigned to the combatant branches, the line and
marines.
Many of the essentials of success are already recognized
by the General Board, which, as the central office of a
growing staff, is moving steadily toward a proper war
efficiency and a proper efficiency of the whole Navy,
under the Secretary. This General Board, by fostering
the creation of a general staff, is providing for the official
and then the general recognition of our altered conditions
as a Nation and of the true meaning of a great war fleet,
which meaning is, first, the best men, and, second, the
best ships.
The Naval Militia forces are State organizations, and
are trained for coast service, and in event of war they will
constitute the inner line of defence. They should receive
hearty encouragement from the General Government.
But in addition we should at once provide for a National
Naval Reserve, organized and trained under the direction
of the Navy Department, and subject to the call of the
Chief Executive whenever war becomes imminent. It
should be a real auxiliary to the naval sea-going peace
establishment, and offer material to be drawn on at once
for manning our ships in time of war. It should be composed
of graduates of the Naval Academy, graduates of
the Naval Militia, officers and crews of coast-line steamers,
longshore schooners, fishing vessels, and steam yachts,
together with the coast population about such centres as
life-saving stations and lighthouses.
The American people must either build and maintain
an adequate Navy or else make up their minds definitely
to accept a secondary position in international affairs, not
merely in political, but in commercial, matters. It has
been well said that there is no surer way of courting
national disaster than to be "opulent, aggressive, and
unarmed."
It is not necessary to increase our Army beyond its
present size at this time. But it is necessary to keep it
at the highest point of efficiency. The individual units
who as officers and enlisted men compose this Army, are,
we have good reason to believe, at least as efficient as
those of any other army in the entire world. It is our
duty to see that their training is of a kind to insure the
highest possible expression of power to these units when
acting in combination.
The conditions of modern war are such as to make an
infinitely heavier demand than ever before upon the individual
character and capacity of the officer and the enlisted
man, and to make it far more difficult for men to act
together with effect. At present the fighting must be
done in extended order, which means that each man must
act for himself and at the same time act in combination
with others with whom he is no longer in the old-fashioned
elbow-to-elbow touch. Under such conditions a few men
of the highest excellence are worth more than many men
without the special skill which is only found as the result
of special training applied to men of exceptional physique
and morale. But nowadays the most valuable fighting
man and the most difficult to perfect is the rifleman who
is also a skilful and daring rider.
The proportion of our cavalry regiments has wisely
been increased. The American cavalryman, trained to
manœuvre and fight with equal facility on foot and on
horseback, is the best type of soldier for general purposes
now to be found in the world. The ideal cavalryman of
the present day is a man who can fight on foot as effectively
as the best infantryman, and who is in addition
unsurpassed in the care and management of his horse and
in his ability to fight on horseback.
A general staff should be created. As for the present
staff and supply departments, they should be filled by
details from the line, the men so detailed returning after
have the senior grades of the Army composed of men
who have come to fill the positions by the mere fact of
seniority. A system should be adopted by which there
shall be an elimination grade by grade of those who seem
unfit to render the best service in the next grade. Justice
to the veterans of the Civil War who are still in the Army
would seem to require that in the matter of retirements
they be given by law the same privileges accorded to
their comrades in the Navy.
The process of elimination of the least fit should be conducted
in a manner that would render it practically impossible
to apply political or social pressure on behalf of
any candidate, so that each man may be judged purely
on his own merits. Pressure for the promotion of civil
officials for political reasons is bad enough, but it is tenfold
worse where applied on behalf of officers of the Army
or Navy. Every promotion and every detail under the
War Department must be made solely with regard to
the good of the service and to the capacity and merit of
the man himself. No pressure, political, social, or personal,
of any kind, will be permitted to exercise the least
effect in any question of promotion or detail; and if
there is reason to believe that such pressure is exercised
at the instigation of the officer concerned, it will be held
to militate against him. In our Army we cannot afford
to have rewards or duties distributed save on the simple
ground that those who by their own merits are entitled
to the rewards get them, and that those who are peculiarly
fit to do the duties are chosen to perform them.
Every effort should be made to bring the Army to a
constantly increasing state of efficiency. When on actual
service no work save that directly in the line of such service
should be required. The paper work in the Army,
as in the Navy, should be greatly reduced. What is
needed is proved power of command and capacity to
prevent dry rot in the transportation and commissary
departments.
Our Army is so small and so much scattered that it is
very difficult to give the higher officers (as well as the
lower officers and the enlisted men) a chance to practice
manœuvres in mass and on a comparatively large scale.
In time of need no amount of individual excellence would
avail against the paralysis which would follow inability to
work as a coherent whole, under skilful and daring leadership.
The Congress should provide means whereby it
will be possible to have field exercises by at least a division
of regulars, and if possible also a division of national
guardsmen, once a year. These exercises might take the
form of field manœuvres; or, if on the Gulf coast or the
Pacific or Atlantic seaboard, or in the region of the Great
Lakes, the army corps when assembled could be marched
from some inland point to some point on the water, there
embarked, disembarked after a couple of days' journey at
some other point, and again marched inland. Only by
actual handling and providing for men in masses while
they are marching, camping, embarking, and disembarking,
will it be possible to train the higher officers to perform
their duties well and smoothly.
A great debt is owing from the public to the men of
the Army and Navy. They should be so treated as to
enable them to reach the highest point of efficiency, so
that they may be able to respond instantly to any
demand made upon them to sustain the interests of the
Nation and the honor of the flag. The individual American
enlisted man is probably on the whole a more formidable
fighting man than the regular of any other army.
Every consideration should be shown him, and in return
the highest standard of usefulness should be exacted
from him. It is well worth while for the Congress to
consider whether the pay of enlisted men upon second
correspond with the increased value of the veteran soldier.
Much good has already come from the act reorganizing
the Army, passed early in the present year. The three
prime reforms, all of them of literally inestimable value,
are, first, the substitution of four-year details from the
line for permanent appointments in the so-called staff
divisions; second, the establishment of a corps of artillery
with a chief at the head; third, the establishment of
a maximum and minimum limit for the Army. It would
be difficult to overestimate the improvement in the efficiency
of our Army which these three reforms are making,
and have in part already effected.
The reorganization provided for by the act has been
substantially accomplished. The improved conditions in
the Philippines have enabled the War Department materially
to reduce the military charge upon our revenue
and to arrange the number of soldiers so as to bring this
number much nearer to the minimum than to the maximum
limit established by law. There is, however, need
of supplementary legislation. Thorough military education
must be provided, and in addition to the regulars the
advantages of this education should be given to the officers
of the National Guard and others in civil life who
desire intelligently to fit themselves for possible military
duty. The officers should be given the chance to perfect
themselves by study in the higher branches of this art.
At West Point the education should be of the kind most
apt to turn out men who are good in actual field service;
too much stress should not be laid on mathematics, nor
should proficiency therein be held to establish the right
of entry to a corps d' élite. The typical American officer
of the best kind need not be a good mathematician; but
he must be able to master himself, to control others,
and to show boldness and fertility of resource in every
emergency.
Action should be taken in reference to the militia and
to the raising of volunteer forces. Our militia law is
obsolete and worthless. The organization and armament
of the National Guard of the several States, which are
treated as militia in the appropriations by the Congress,
should be made identical with those provided for the
regular forces. The obligations and duties of the Guard
in time of war should be carefully defined, and a system
established by law under which the method of procedure
of raising volunteer forces should be prescribed in advance.
It is utterly impossible in the excitement and
haste of impending war to do this satisfactorily if the
arrangements have not been made long beforehand.
Provision should be made for utilizing in the first volunteer
organizations called out the training of those citizens
who have already had experience under arms, and especially
for the selection in advance of the officers of any
force which may be raised; for careful selection of the
kind necessary is impossible after the outbreak of war.
That the Army is not at all a mere instrument of destruction
has been shown during the last three years. In
the Philippines, Cuba, and Porto Rico it has proved itself
a great constructive force, a most potent implement for
the upbuilding of a peaceful civilization.
No other citizens deserve so well of the Republic as the
veterans, the survivors of those who saved the Union.
They did the one deed which if left undone would have
meant that all else in our history went for nothing. But
for their steadfast prowess in the greatest crisis of our
history, all our annals would be meaningless, and our
great experiment in popular freedom and self-government
a gloomy failure. Moreover, they not only left us a
united Nation, but they left us also as a heritage the
memory of the mighty deeds by which the Nation was
kept united. We are now indeed one Nation, one in fact
flag which is the symbol of national greatness and unity;
and the very completeness of our union enables us all, in
every part of the country, to glory in the valor shown
alike by the sons of the North and the sons of the South
in the times that tried men's souls.
The men who in the last three years have done so well
in the East and the West Indies and on the mainland of
Asia have shown that this remembrance is not lost. In
any serious crisis the United States must rely for the
great mass of its fighting men upon the volunteer soldiery
who do not make a permanent profession of the military
career; and whenever such a crisis arises the deathless
memories of the Civil War will give to Americans the lift
of lofty purpose which comes to those whose fathers have
stood valiantly in the forefront of the battle.
The merit system of making appointments is in its
essence as democratic and American as the common-school
system itself. It simply means that in clerical
and other positions where the duties are entirely nonpolitical,
all applicants should have a fair field and no
favor, each standing on his merits as he is able to show
them by practical test. Written competitive examinations
offer the only available means in many cases for
applying this system. In other cases, as where laborers
are employed, a system of registration undoubtedly can
be widely extended. There are, of course, places where
the written competitive examination cannot be applied,
and others where it offers by no means an ideal solution,
but where under existing political conditions it is, though
an imperfect means, yet the best present means of getting
satisfactory results.
Wherever the conditions have permitted the application
of the merit system in its fullest and widest sense, the
gain to the Government has been immense. The navy-yards
any other branches of the Government, the great gain in
economy, efficiency, and honesty due to the enforcement
of this principle.
I recommend the passage of a law which will extend
the classified service to the District of Columbia, or will
at least enable the President thus to extend it. In my
judgment all laws providing for the temporary employment
of clerks should hereafter contain a provision that
they be selected under the Civil Service Law.
It is important to have this system obtain at home, but
it is even more important to have it applied rigidly in
our insular possessions. Not an office should be filled
in the Philippines or Porto Rico with any regard to the
man's partisan affiliations or services, with any regard to
the political, social, or personal influence which he may
have at his command; in short, heed should be paid to
absolutely nothing save the man's own character and
capacity and the needs of the service.
The administration of these islands should be as wholly
free from the suspicion of partisan politics as the administration
of the Army and Navy. All that we ask from
the public servant in the Philippines or Porto Rico is that
he reflect honor on his country by the way in which he
makes that country's rule a benefit to the peoples who
have come under it. This is all that we should ask, and
we cannot afford to be content with less.
The merit system is simply one method of securing
honest and efficient administration of the Government;
and in the long run the sole justification of any type of
government lies in its proving itself both honest and
efficient.
The consular service is now organized under the provisions
of a law passed in 1856, which is entirely inadequate
to existing conditions. The interest shown by so
reorganization of the service is heartily commended to
your attention. Several bills providing for a new consular
service have in recent years been submitted to the
Congress. They are based upon the just principle that
appointments to the service should be made only after a
practical test of the applicant's fitness, that promotions
should be governed by trustworthiness, adaptability, and
zeal in the performance of duty, and that the tenure of
office should be unaffected by partisan considerations.
The guardianship and fostering of our rapidly expanding
foreign commerce, the protection of American citizens
resorting to foreign countries in lawful pursuit of their
affairs, and the maintenance of the dignity of the Nation
abroad, combine to make it essential that our consuls
should be men of character, knowledge, and enterprise.
It is true that the service is now, in the main, efficient,
but a standard of excellence cannot be permanently maintained
until the principles set forth in the bills heretofore
submitted to the Congress on this subject are enacted
into law.
In my judgment the time has arrived when we should
definitely make up our minds to recognize the Indian as
an individual and not as a member of a tribe. The General
Allotment Act is a mighty pulverizing engine to
break up the tribal mass. It acts directly upon the
family and the individual. Under its provisions some
sixty thousand Indians have already become citizens of
the United States. We should now break up the tribal
funds, doing for them what allotment does for the tribal
lands; that is, they should be divided into individual
holdings. There will be a transition period during which
the funds will in many cases have to be held in trust.
This is the case also with the lands. A stop should be
put upon the indiscriminate permission to Indians to
make the Indian work like any other man on his own
ground. The marriage laws of the Indians should be
made the same as those of the whites.
In the schools the education should be elementary and
largely industrial. The need of higher education among
the Indians is very, very limited. On the reservation
care should be taken to try to suit the teaching to the
needs of the particular Indian. There is no use in attempting
to induce agriculture in a country suited only
for cattle raising, where the Indian should be made a
stock grower. The ration system, which is merely the
corral and the reservation system, is highly detrimental
to the Indians. It promotes beggary, perpetuates pauperism,
and stifles industry. It is an effectual barrier to progress.
It must continue to a greater or less degree as
long as tribes are herded on reservations and have everything
in common. The Indian should be treated as an
individual—like the white man. During the change of
treatment inevitable hardships will occur; every effort
should be made to minimize these hardships; but we
should not because of them hesitate to make the change.
There should be a continuous reduction in the number
of agencies.
In dealing with the aboriginal races few things are more
important than to preserve them from the terrible physical
and moral degradation resulting from the liquor traffic.
We are doing all we can to save our own Indian tribes
from this evil. Wherever by international agreement
this same end can be attained as regards races where we
do not possess exclusive control, every effort should be
made to bring it about.
I bespeak the most cordial support from the Congress
and the people for the St. Louis Exposition to
Louisiana Purchase. This purchase was the greatest instance
of expansion in our history. It definitely decided
that we were to become a great continental republic, by
far the foremost power in the Western Hemisphere. It
is one of three or four great landmarks in our history—the
great turning-points in our development. It is eminently
fitting that all our people should join with heartiest goodwill
in commemorating it, and the citizens of St. Louis,
of Missouri, of all the adjacent region, are entitled to
every aid in making the celebration a noteworthy event
in our annals. We earnestly hope that foreign nations
will appreciate the deep interest our country takes in this
Exposition, and our view of its importance from every
standpoint, and that they will participate in securing its
success. The National Government should be represented
by a full and complete set of exhibits.
The people of Charleston, with great energy and civic
spirit, are carrying on an Exposition which will continue
throughout most of the present session of the Congress.
I heartily commend this Exposition to the good will of
the people. It deserves all the encouragement that can
be given it. The managers of the Charleston Exposition
have requested the Cabinet officers to place thereat the
Government exhibits which have been at Buffalo, promising
to pay the necessary expenses. I have taken the responsibility
of directing that this be done, for I feel that
it is due to Charleston to help her in her praiseworthy
effort. In my opinion the management should not be
required to pay all these expenses. I earnestly recommend
that the Congress appropriate at once the small
sum necessary for this purpose.
The Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo has just
closed. Both from the industrial and the artistic standpoint
and useful, not merely to Buffalo but to the United
States. The terrible tragedy of the President's assassination
interfered materially with its being a financial success.
The Exposition was peculiarly in harmony with the trend
of our public policy, because it represented an effort to
bring into closer touch all the peoples of the Western
Hemisphere, and give them an increasing sense of unity.
Such an effort was a genuine service to the entire American
public.
The advancement of the highest interests of national
science and learning and the custody of objects of art
and of the valuable results of scientific expeditions conducted
by the United States have been committed to the
Smithsonian Institution. In furtherance of its declared
purpose—for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge
among men "—the Congress has from time to time given
it other important functions. Such trusts have been
executed by the Institution with notable fidelity. There
should be no halt in the work of the Institution, in accordance
with the plans which its Secretary has presented,
for the preservation of the vanishing races of
great North American animals in the National Zoölogical
Park. The urgent needs of the National Museum are
recommended to the favorable consideration of the
Congress.
Perhaps the most characteristic educational movement
of the past fifty years is that which has created the modern
public library and developed it into broad and active service.
There are now over five thousand public libraries
in the United States, the product of this period. In
addition to accumulating material, they are also striving
by organization, by improvement in method, and by cooperation,
to give greater efficiency to the material they
unnecessary duplication in process to reduce the cost of
its administration.
In these efforts they naturally look for assistance to the
Federal library, which, though still the Library of Congress,
and so entitled, is the one national library of the
United States. Already the largest single collection of
books on the Western Hemisphere, and certain to increase
more rapidly than any other through purchase,
exchange, and the operation of the copyright law, this
library has a unique opportunity to render to the libraries
of this country—to American scholarship—service of the
highest importance. It is housed in a building which is
the largest and most magnificent yet erected for library
uses. Resources are now being provided which will develop
the collection properly, equip it with the apparatus
and service necessary to its effective use, render its bibliographic
work widely available, and enable it to become,
not merely a centre of research, but the chief factor in
great co-operative efforts for the diffusion of knowledge
and the advancement of learning.
For the sake of good administration, sound economy,
and the advancement of science, the Census Office as now
constituted should be made a permanent Government
bureau. This would insure better, cheaper, and more
satisfactory work, in the interest not only of our business
but of statistic, economic, and social science.
The remarkable growth of the postal service is shown
in the fact that its revenues have doubled and its expenditures
have nearly doubled within twelve years. Its
progressive development compels constantly increasing
outlay, but in this period of business energy and prosperity
its receipts grow so much faster than its expenses
that the annual deficit has been steadily reduced from
postal advances the success of rural free delivery wherever
established has been so marked, and actual experience has
made its benefits so plain, that the demand for its extension
is general and urgent.
It is just that the great agricultural population should
share in the improvement of the service. The number
of rural routes now in operation is 6009, practically all
established within three years, and there are 6000 applications
awaiting action. It is expected that the number
in operation at the close of the current fiscal year will
reach 8600. The mail will then be daily carried to the
doors of 5,700,000 of our people who have heretofore
been dependent upon distant offices, and one-third of all
that portion of the country which is adapted to it will be
covered by this kind of service.
The full measure of postal progress which might be
realized has long been hampered and obstructed by the
heavy burden imposed on the Government through the
intrenched and well-understood abuses which have grown
up in connection with second-class mail matter. The
extent of this burden appears when it is stated that while
the second-class matter makes nearly three-fifths of the
weight of all the mail, it paid for the last fiscal year only
$4,294,445 of the aggregate postal revenue of $111,631,193.
If the pound rate of postage, which produces the
large loss thus entailed, and which was fixed by the Congress
with the purpose of encouraging the dissemination
of public information, were limited to the legitimate newspapers
and periodicals actually contemplated by the law,
no just exception could be taken. That expense would
be the recognized and accepted cost of a liberal public
policy deliberately adopted for a justifiable end. But
much of the matter which enjoys the privileged rate is
wholly outside of the intent of the law, and has secured
admission only through an evasion of its requirements or
included matter is estimated by postal experts to be one-half
of the whole volume of second-class mail. If it be
only one-third or one-quarter, the magnitude of the burden
is apparent. The Post-Office Department has now
undertaken to remove the abuses so far as is possible by
a stricter application of the law; and it should be sustained
in its effort.
Owing to the rapid growth of our power and our interests
on the Pacific, whatever happens in China must be
of the keenest national concern to us.
The general terms of the settlement of the questions
growing out of the anti-foreign uprisings in China of 1900,
having been formulated in a joint note addressed to China
by the representatives of the injured powers in December
last, were promptly accepted by the Chinese Government.
After protracted conferences the plenipotentiaries of the
several powers were able to sign a final protocol with the
Chinese plenipotentiaries on the 7th of last September,
setting forth the measures taken by China in compliance
with the demands of the joint note, and expressing their
satisfaction therewith. It will be laid before the Congress,
with a report of the plenipotentiary on behalf of
the United States, Mr. William Woodville Rockhill, to
whom high praise is due for the tact, good judgment, and
energy he has displayed in performing an exceptionally
difficult and delicate task.
The agreement reached disposes in a manner satisfactory
to the powers of the various grounds of complaint, and
will contribute materially to better future relations between
China and the powers. Reparation has been made
by China for the murder of foreigners during the uprising,
and punishment has been inflicted on the officials, however
high in rank, recognized as responsible for or having
participated in the outbreak. Official examinations have
which foreigners have been murdered or cruelly treated,
and edicts have been issued making all officials directly
responsible for the future safety of foreigners and for the
suppression of violence against them.
Provisions have been made for insuring the future safety
of the foreign representatives in Peking by setting aside
for their exclusive use a quarter of the city which the
powers can make defensible and in which they can if
necessary maintain permanent military guards by dismantling
the military works between the capital and the
sea; and by allowing the temporary maintenance of foreign
military posts along this line. An edict has been issued
by the Emperor of China prohibiting for two years the
importation of arms and ammunition into China. China
has agreed to pay adequate indemnities to the states,
societies, and individuals for the losses sustained by them,
and for the expenses of the military expeditions sent by
the various powers to protect life and restore order.
Under the provisions of the joint note of December,
1900, China has agreed to revise the treaties of commerce
and navigation and to take such other steps for the purpose
of facilitating foreign trade as the foreign powers
may decide to be needed.
The Chinese Government has agreed to participate
financially in the work of bettering the water approaches
to Shanghai and to Tientsin, the centres of foreign trade
m central and northern China, and an international conservancy
board, in which the Chinese Government is
largely represented, has been provided for the improvement
of the Shanghai River and the control of its navigation.
In the same line of commercial advantages a
revision of the present tariff on imports has been assented
to for the purpose of substituting specific for ad valorem
duties, and an expert has been sent abroad on the part
of the United States to assist in this work. A list of
and rice, gold and silver coin and bullion, has also been
agreed upon in the settlement.
During these troubles our Government has unswervingly
advocated moderation, and has materially aided in
bringing about an adjustment which tends to enhance the
welfare of China and to lead to a more beneficial intercourse
between the Empire and the modern world; while
in the critical period of revolt and massacre we did our
full share in safeguarding life and property, restoring
order, and vindicating the national interest and honor.
It behooves us to continue in these paths, doing what
lies in our power to foster feelings of good will, and leaving
no effort untried to work out the great policy of full
and fair intercourse between China and the nations, on a
footing of equal rights and advantages to all. We advocate
the "open door "with all that it implies; not merely
the procurement of enlarged commercial opportunities on
the coasts, but access to the interior by the waterways with
which China has been so extraordinarily favored. Only
by bringing the people of China into peaceful and friendly
community of trade with all the peoples of the earth can
the work now auspiciously begun be carried to fruition.
In the attainment of this purpose we necessarily claim
parity of treatment, under the conventions, throughout
the Empire for our trade and our citizens with those of
all other powers.
We view with lively interest and keen hopes of beneficial
results the proceedings of the Pan-American Congress,
convoked at the invitation of Mexico, and now
sitting at the Mexican capital. The delegates of the
United States are under the most liberal instructions to
co-operate with their colleagues in all matters promising
advantage to the great family of American commonwealths,
as well in their relations among themselves as in
the world at large.
My predecessor communicated to the Congress the fact
that the Weil and La Abra awards against Mexico have
been adjudged by the highest courts of our country to
have been obtained through fraud and perjury on the
part of the claimants, and that in accordance with the
acts of the Congress the money remaining in the hands
of the Secretary of State on these awards has been returned
to Mexico. A considerable portion of the money
received from Mexico on these awards had been paid by
this Government to the claimants before the decision of
the courts was rendered. My judgment is that the Congress
should return to Mexico an amount equal to the
sums thus already paid to the claimants.
The death of Queen Victoria caused the people of the
United States deep and heartfelt sorrow, to which the
Government gave full expression. When President
McKinley died, our Nation in turn received from every
quarter of the British Empire expressions of grief and
sympathy no less sincere. The death of the Empress
Dowager Frederick of Germany also aroused the genuine
sympathy of the American people; and this sympathy
was cordially reciprocated by Germany when the President
was assassinated. Indeed, from every quarter of
the civilized world we received, at the time of the President's
death, assurances of such grief and regard as to
touch the hearts of our people. In the midst of our
affliction we reverently thank the Almighty that we are
at peace with the nations of mankind; and we firmly intend
that our policy shall be such as to continue unbroken
these international relations of mutual respect and good
will.
MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES
OF CONGRESS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
SECOND SESSION OF THE FIFTY-SEVENTH
CONGRESS
We still continue in a period of unbounded prosperity.
This prosperity is not the creature of law, but undoubtedly
the laws under which we work have been instrumental
in creating the conditions which made it possible, and by
unwise legislation it would be easy enough to destroy it.
There will undoubtedly be periods of depression. The
wave will recede; but the tide will advance. This Nation
is seated on a continent flanked by two great oceans. It
is composed of men the descendants of pioneers, or, in a
sense, pioneers themselves; of men winnowed out from
among the nations of the Old World by the energy, boldness,
and love of adventure found in their own eager
hearts. Such a nation, so placed, will surely wrest success
from fortune.
As a people we have played a large part in the world,
and we are bent upon making our future even larger than
the past. In particular, the events of the last four years
have definitely decided that, for woe or for weal, our
place must be great among the nations. We may either
fail greatly or succeed greatly; but we can not avoid the
endeavor from which either great failure or great success
must come. Even if we would, we can not play a small
part. If we should try, all that would follow would be
that we should play a large part ignobly and shamefully.
the sons of the men who had iron in their blood, rejoice
in the present and face the future high of heart and resolute
of will. Ours is not the creed of the weakling and
the coward; ours is the gospel of hope and of triumphant
endeavor. We do not shrink from the struggle before us.
There are many problems for us to face at the outset of
the twentieth century—grave problems abroad and still
graver at home; but we know that we can solve them
and solve them well, provided only that we bring to the
solution the qualities of head and heart which were shown
by the men who, in the days of Washington, founded
this Government, and, in the days of Lincoln, preserved
it.
No country has ever occupied a higher plane of material
well-being than ours at the present moment. This
well-being is due to no sudden or accidental causes, but
to the play of the economic forces in this country for
over a century; to our laws, our sustained and continuous
policies; above all, to the high individual average of our
citizenship. Great fortunes have been won by those who
have taken the lead in this phenomenal industrial development,
and most of these fortunes have been won not
by doing evil, but as an incident to action which has
benefited the community as a whole. Never before has
material well-being been so widely diffused among our
people. Great fortunes have been accumulated, and yet
in the aggregate these fortunes are small indeed when
compared to the wealth of the people as a whole. The
plain people are better off than they have ever been
before. The insurance companies, which are practically
mutual-benefit societies—especially helpful to men of
moderate means—represent accumulations of capital
which are among the largest in this country. There
are more deposits in the savings banks, more owners of
farms, more well-paid wage workers in this country now
conditions have favored the growth of so much that was
good, they have also favored somewhat the growth of
what was evil. It is eminently necessary that we should
endeavor to cut out this evil, but let us keep a due sense
of proportion; let us not in fixing our gaze upon the lesser
evil forget the greater good. The evils are real and some
of them are menacing, but they are the outgrowth, not of
misery or decadence, but of prosperity—of the progress of
our gigantic industrial development. This industrial development
must not be checked, but side by side with it
should go such progressive regulation as will diminish the
evils. We should fail in our duty if we did not try to
remedy the evils, but we shall succeed only if we proceed
patiently, with practical common-sense as well as
resolution, separating the good from the bad and holding
on to the former while endeavoring to get rid of the latter.
In my Message to the present Congress at its first session
I discussed at length the question of the regulation
of those big corporations commonly doing an interstate
business, often with some tendency to monopoly, which
are popularly known as trusts. The experience of the
past year has emphasized, in my opinion, the desirability
of the steps I then proposed. A fundamental requisite
of social efficiency is a high standard of individual energy
and excellence; but this is in no wise inconsistent with
power to act in combination for aims which can not so
well be achieved by the individual acting alone. A fundamental
base of civilization is the inviolability of property;
but this is in no wise inconsistent with the right of society
to regulate the exercise of the artificial powers which it
confers upon the owners of property, under the name of
corporate franchises, in such a way as to prevent the
misuse of these powers, Corporations, and especially
combinations of corporations, should be managed under
system of government the necessary supervision can not
be obtained by State action. It must therefore be
achieved by National action. Our aim is not to do away
with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations
are an inevitable development of modern industrialism,
and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless
accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief
to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of
good in the way of regulating and supervising these
corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are
not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do
away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them;
we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as
to subserve the public good. We draw the line against
misconduct, not against wealth. The capitalist who,
alone or in conjunction with his fellows, performs some
great industrial feat by which he wins money is a well-doer,
not a wrongdoer, provided only he works in proper
and legitimate lines. We wish to favor such a man when
he does well. We wish to supervise and control his
actions only to prevent him from doing ill. Publicity can
do no harm to the honest corporation; and we need not
be over-tender about sparing the dishonest corporation.
In curbing and regulating the combinations of capital
which are or may become injurious to the public, we must
be careful not to stop the great enterprises which have
legitimately reduced the cost of production, not to abandon
the place which our country has won in the leadership
of the international industrial world, not to strike
down wealth with the result of closing factories and
mines, of turning the wage worker idle in the streets, and
leaving the farmer without a market for what he grows.
Insistence upon the impossible means delay in achieving
the possible, exactly as, on the other hand, the stubborn
defence alike of what is good and what is bad in the
at betterment, betrays blindness to the historic truth that
wise evolution is the sure safeguard against revolution.
No more important subject can come before the Congress
than this of the regulation of interstate business.
This country can not afford to sit supine on the plea that
under our peculiar system of government we are helpless
in the presence of the new conditions, and unable to
grapple with them or to cut out whatever of evil has arisen
in connection with them. The power of the Congress
to regulate interstate commerce is an absolute and unqualified
grant, and without limitations other than those
prescribed by the Constitution. The Congress has constitutional
authority to make all laws necessary and proper
for executing this power, and I am satisfied that this
power has not been exhausted by any legislation now on
the statute books. It is evident, therefore, that evils restrictive
of commercial freedom and entailing restraint
upon national commerce fall within the regulative power
of the Congress, and that a wise and reasonable law
would be a necessary and proper exercise of Congressional
authority, to the end that such evils should be eradicated.
I believe that monopolies, unjust discriminations, which
prevent or cripple competition, fraudulent over-capitalization,
and other evils in trust organizations and practices
which injuriously affect interstate trade can be prevented,
under the power of the Congress to "regulate commerce
with foreign nations and among the several States,"
through regulations and requirements operating directly
upon such commerce, the instrumentalities thereof, and
those engaged therein.
I earnestly recommend this subject to the consideration
of the Congress with a view to the passage of a law reasonable
in its provisions and effective in its operations, upon
which the questions can be finally adjudicated that now
raise doubts as to the necessity of constitutional amendment.
above set forth by such a law, then, assuredly, we should
not shrink from amending the Constitution so as to
secure beyond peradventure the power sought.
The Congress has not heretofore made any appropriation
for the better enforcement of the anti-trust law as it
now stands. Very much has been done by the Department
of Justice in securing the enforcement of this law,
but much more could be done if the Congress would
make a special appropriation for this purpose, to be expended
under the direction of the Attorney-General.
One proposition advocated has been the reduction of
the tariff as a means of reaching the evils of the trusts
which fall within the category I have described. Not
merely would this be wholly ineffective, but the diversion
of our efforts in such a direction would mean the abandonment
of all intelligent attempt to do away with these
evils. Many of the largest corporations, many of those
which should certainly be included in any proper scheme
of regulation, would not be affected in the slightest degree
by a change in the tariff, save as such change interfered
with the general prosperity of the country. The only
relation of the tariff to big corporations as a whole is that
the tariff makes manufactures profitable, and the tariff
remedy proposed would be in effect simply to make
manufactures unprofitable. To remove the tariff as a
punitive measure directed against trusts would inevitably
result in ruin to the weaker competitors who are struggling
against them. Our aim should be not by unwise
tariff changes to give foreign products the advantage over
domestic products, but by proper regulation to give
domestic competition a fair chance; and this end can
not be reached by any tariff changes which would affect
unfavorably all domestic competitors, good and bad alike.
The question of regulation of the trusts stands apart from
the question of tariff revision.
Stability of economic policy must always be the prime
economic need of this country. This stability should not
be fossilization. The country has acquiesced in the wisdom
of the protective-tariff principle. It is exceedingly
undesirable that this system should be destroyed or that
there should be violent and radical changes therein. Our
past experience shows that great prosperity in this country
has always come under a protective tariff; and that
the country can not prosper under fitful tariff changes at
short intervals. Moreover, if the tariff laws as a whole
work well, and if business has prospered under them and
is prospering, it is better to endure for a time slight inconveniences
and inequalities in some schedules than to
upset business by too quick and too radical changes. It
is most earnestly to be wished that we could treat the
tariff from the standpoint solely of our business needs.
It is, perhaps, too much to hope that partisanship may
be entirely excluded from consideration of the subject,
but at least it can be made secondary to the business interests
of the country—that is, to the interests of our
people as a whole. Unquestionably these business interests
will best be served if together with fixity of principle
as regards the tariff we combine a system which will permit
us from time to time to make the necessary reapplication
of the principle to the shifting national needs. We
must take scrupulous care that the reapplication shall be
made in such a way that it will not amount to a dislocation
of our system, the mere threat of which (not to speak
of the performance) would produce paralysis in the business
energies of the community. The first consideration
in making these changes would, of course, be to preserve
the principle which underlies our whole tariff system—
that is, the principle of putting American business interests
at least on a full equality with interests abroad, and
of always allowing a sufficient rate of duty to more than
cover the difference between the labor cost here and
well-being of the tiller of the soil, should be treated as an
essential in shaping our whole economic policy. There
must never be any change which will jeopardize the
standard of comfort, the standard of wages of the American
wage worker.
One way in which the readjustment sought can be
reached is by reciprocity treaties. It is greatly to be desired
that such treaties may be adopted. They can be
used to widen our markets and to give a greater field for
the activities of our producers on the one hand, and on
the other hand to secure in practical shape the lowering
of duties when they are no longer needed for protection
among our own people, or when the minimum of damage
done may be disregarded for the sake of the maximum of
good accomplished. If it prove impossible to ratify the
pending treaties, and if there seem to be no warrant for
the endeavor to execute others, or to amend the pending
treaties so that they can be ratified, then the same end—
to secure reciprocity—should be met by direct legislation.
Wherever the tariff conditions are such that a needed
change can not with advantage be made by the application
of the reciprocity idea, then it can be made outright
by a lowering of duties on a given product. If possible,
such change should be made only after the fullest consideration
by practical experts, who should approach the
subject from a business standpoint, having in view both
the particular interests affected and the commercial wellbeing
of the people as a whole. The machinery for providing
such careful investigation can readily be supplied.
The executive department has already at its disposal
methods of collecting facts and figures; and if the Congress
desires additional consideration to that which will
be given the subject by its own committees, then a commission
of business experts can be appointed whose duty
it should be to recommend action by the Congress after
schedules as they are affected by the changed and changing
conditions. The unhurried and unbiased report of
this commission would show what changes should be
made in the various schedules, and how far these changes
could go without also changing the great prosperity which
this country is now enjoying, or upsetting its fixed economic
policy.
The cases in which the tariff can produce a monopoly
are so few as to constitute an inconsiderable factor in the
question; but of course if in any case it be found that a
given rate of duty does promote a monopoly which works
ill, no protectionist would object to such reduction of
the duty as would equalize competition.
In my judgment, the tariff on anthracite coal should be
removed, and anthracite put actually, where it now is
nominally, on the free list. This would have no effect at
all save in crises; but in crises it might be of service to
the people.
Interest rates are a potent factor in business activity,
and in order that these rates may be equalized to meet
the varying needs of the seasons and of widely separated
communities, and to prevent the recurrence of financial
stringencies which injuriously affect legitimate business,
it is necessary that there should be an element of elasticity
in our monetary system. Banks are the natural
servants of commerce, and upon them should be placed,
as far as practicable, the burden of furnishing and maintaining
a circulation adequate to supply the needs of our
diversified industries and of our domestic and foreign
commerce; and the issue of this should be so regulated
that a sufficient supply should be always available for the
business interests of the country.
It would be both unwise and unnecessary at this time
to attempt to reconstruct our financial system, which has
is, I think, desirable. The mere outline of any plan
sufficiently comprehensive to meet these requirements
would transgress the appropriate limits of this communication.
It is suggested, however, that all future legislation
on the subject should be with the view of encouraging
the use of such instrumentalities as will automatically
supply every legitimate demand of productive industries
and of commerce, not only in the amount, but in the
character of circulation; and of making all kinds of money
interchangeable, and, at the will of the holder, convertible
into the established gold standard.
I again call your attention to the need of passing a
proper immigration law, covering the points outlined in
my Message to you at the first session of the present
Congress; substantially such a bill has already passed the
House.
How to secure fair treatment alike for labor and for
capital, how to hold in check the unscrupulous man,
whether employer or employee, without weakening individual
initiative, without hampering and cramping the industrial
development of the country, is a problem fraught
with great difficulties and one which it is of the highest
importance to solve on lines of sanity and far-sighted
common-sense as well as of devotion to the right. This
is an era of federation and combination. Exactly as
business men find they must often work through corporations,
and as it is a constant tendency of these corporations
to grow larger, so it is often necessary for laboring
men to work in federations, and these have become important
factors of modern industrial life. Both kinds of
federation, capitalistic and labor, can do much good, and
as a necessary corollary they can both do evil. Opposition
to each kind of organization should take the form of
opposition to whatever is bad in the conduct of any given
as such nor upon unions as such; for some of the most
far-reaching beneficent work for our people has been accomplished
through both corporations and unions. Each
must refrain from arbitrary or tyrannous interference with
the rights of others. Organized capital and organized
labor alike should remember that in the long run the interest
of each must be brought into harmony with the
interest of the general public; and the conduct of each
must conform to the fundamental rules of obedience to
the law, of individual freedom, and of justice and fair dealing
toward all. Each should remember that in addition
to power it must strive after the realization of healthy,
lofty, and generous ideals. Every employer, every wage
worker, must be guaranteed his liberty and his right to
do as he likes with his property or his labor so long as he
does not infringe upon the rights of others. It is of the
highest importance that employer and employee alike
should endeavor to appreciate each the viewpoint of the
other and the sure disaster that will come upon both in
the long run if either grows to take as habitual an attitude
of sour hostility and distrust toward the other. Few
people deserve better of the country than those representatives
both of capital and labor—and there are many
such—who work continually to bring about a good understanding
of this kind, based upon wisdom and upon broad
and kindly sympathy between employers and employed.
Above all, we need to remember that any kind of class
animosity in the political world is, if possible, even more
wicked, even more destructive to national welfare, than
sectional, race, or religious animosity. We can get good
government only upon condition that we keep true to the
principles upon which this Nation was founded, and judge
each man not as a part of a class, but upon his individual
merits. All that we have a right to ask of any man, rich
or poor, whatever his creed, his occupation, his birthplace,
his neighbor and by his country. We are neither for the
rich man as such nor for the poor man as such; we are
for the upright man, rich or poor. So far as the constitutional
powers of the National Government touch these
matters of general and vital moment to the Nation, they
should be exercised in conformity with the principles
above set forth.
It is earnestly hoped that a secretary of commerce may
be created, with a seat in the Cabinet. The rapid multiplication
of questions affecting labor and capital, the
growth and complexity of the organizations through
which both labor and capital now find expression, the
steady tendency toward the employment of capital in
huge corporations, and the wonderful strides of this
country toward leadership in the international business
world justify an urgent demand for the creation of such
a position. Substantially all the leading commercial
bodies in this country have united in requesting its creation.
It is desirable that some such measure as that
which has already passed the Senate be enacted into law.
The creation of such a department would in itself be an
advance toward dealing with and exercising supervision
over the whole subject of the great corporations doing an
interstate business; and with this end in view, the Congress
should endow the department with large powers,
which could be increased as experience might show the
need.
I hope soon to submit to the Senate a reciprocity
treaty with Cuba. On May 20th last the United States
kept its promise to the island by formally vacating Cuban
soil and turning Cuba over to those whom her own people
had chosen as the first officials of the new Republic.
Cuba lies at our doors, and whatever affects her for
felt this that in the Platt amendment we definitely took
the ground that Cuba must hereafter have closer political
relations with us than with any other power. Thus in a
sense Cuba has become a part of our international political
system. This makes it necessary that in return she
should be given some of the benefits of becoming part of
our economic system. It is, from our own standpoint, a
short-sighted and mischievous policy to fail to recognize
this need. Moreover, it is unworthy of a mighty and
generous nation, itself the greatest and most successful
republic in history, to refuse to stretch out a helping
hand to a young and weak sister republic just entering
upon its career of independence. We should always fearlessly
insist upon our rights in the face of the strong, and
we should with ungrudging hand do our generous duty
by the weak. I urge the adoption of reciprocity with
Cuba not only because it is eminently for our own interests
to control the Cuban market and by every means to foster
our supremacy in the tropical lands and waters south of
us, but also because we, of the giant republic of the north,
should make all our sister nations of the American continent
feel that whenever they will permit it we desire to
show ourselves disinterestedly and effectively their friend.
A convention with Great Britain has been concluded,
which will be at once laid before the Senate for ratification,
providing for reciprocal trade arrangements between
the United States and Newfoundland on substantially the
lines of the convention formerly negotiated by the Secretary
of State, Mr. Blaine. I believe reciprocal trade relations
will be greatly to the advantage of both countries.
As civilization grows, warfare becomes less and less the
normal condition of foreign relations. The last century
has seen a marked diminution of wars between civilized
matters of international police duty, essential for the
welfare of the world. Wherever possible, arbitration or
some similar method should be employed in lieu of war
to settle difficulties between civilized nations, although as
yet the world has not progressed sufficiently to render it
possible, or necessarily desirable, to invoke arbitration in
every case. The formation of the international tribunal
which sits at The Hague is an event of good omen from
which great consequences for the welfare of all mankind
may flow. It is far better, where possible, to invoke such
a permanent tribunal than to create special arbitrators for
a given purpose.
It is a matter of sincere congratulation to our country
that the United States and Mexico should have been the
first to use the good offices of The Hague Court. This
was done last summer with most satisfactory results in
the case of a claim at issue between us and our sister Republic.
It is earnestly to be hoped that this first case
will serve as a precedent for others, in which not only the
United States but foreign nations may take advantage of
the machinery already in existence at The Hague.
I commend to the favorable consideration of the Congress
the Hawaiian fire claims, which were the subject of
careful investigation during the last session.
The Congress has wisely provided that we shall build
at once an isthmian canal, if possible at Panama. The
Attorney-General reports that we can undoubtedly acquire
good title from the French Panama Canal Company.
Negotiations are now pending with Colombia to secure
her assent to our building the canal. This canal will be
one of the greatest engineering feats of the twentieth
century; a greater engineering feat than has yet been
accomplished during the history of mankind. The work
to change of Administration; and it should be begun
under circumstances which will make it a matter of pride
for all Administrations to continue the policy.
The canal will be of great benefit to America, and of
importance to all the world. It will be of advantage to
us industrially and also as improving our military position.
It will be of advantage to the countries of tropical America.
It is earnestly to be hoped that all of these countries
will do as some of them have already done with signal
success, and will invite to their shores commerce and
improve their material conditions by recognizing that
stability and order are the prerequisites of successful development.
No independent nation in America need
have the slightest fear of aggression from the United
States, It behooves each one to maintain order within
its own borders and to discharge its just obligations to
foreigners. When this is done, they can rest assured
that, be they strong or weak, they have nothing to dread
from outside interference. More and more the increasing
interdependence and complexity of international political
and economic relations render it incumbent on all civilized
and orderly powers to insist on the proper policing of the
world.
During the fall of 1901 a communication was addressed
to the Secretary of State, asking whether permission
would be granted by the President to a corporation to
lay a cable from a point on the California coast to the
Philippine Islands by way of Hawaii. A statement of
conditions or terms upon which such corporation would
undertake to lay and operate a cable was volunteered.
Inasmuch as the Congress was shortly to convene, and
Pacific-cable legislation had been the subject of consideration
by the Congress for several years, it seemed to me
wise to defer action upon the application until the Congress
without taking any action, leaving the matter in
exactly the same condition in which it stood when the
Congress convened.
Meanwhile it appears that the Commercial Pacific Cable
Company had promptly proceeded with preparations for
laying its cable. It also made application to the President
for access to and use of soundings taken by the U.
S. S. Nero, for the purpose of discovering a practicable
route for a trans-Pacific cable, the company urging that
with access to these soundings it could complete its cable
much sooner than if it were required to take soundings
upon its own account. Pending consideration of this
subject, it appeared important and desirable to attach
certain conditions to the permission to examine and use
the soundings, if it should be granted.
In consequence of this solicitation of the cable company,
certain conditions were formulated, upon which the
President was willing to allow access to these soundings
and to consent to the landing and laying of the cable,
subject to any alterations or additions thereto imposed by
the Congress. This was deemed proper, especially as it
was clear that a cable connection of some kind with
China, a foreign country, was a part of the company's
plan. This course was, moreover, in accordance with a
line of precedents, including President Grant's action in
the case of the first French cable, explained to the Congress
in his Annual Message of December, 1875, and the
instance occurring in 1879 of the second French cable
from Brest to St. Pierre, with a branch to Cape Cod.
These conditions prescribed, among other things, a
maximum rate for commercial messages and that the
company should construct a line from the Philippine
Islands to China, there being at present, as is well known,
a British line from Manila to Hongkong.
The representatives of the cable company kept these
meantime, to prepare for laying the cable. They have,
however, at length acceded to them, and an all-American
line between our Pacific coast and the Chinese Empire,
by way of Honolulu and the Philippine Islands, is thus
provided for, and is expected within a few months to be
ready for business.
Among the conditions is one reserving the power of the
Congress to modify or repeal any or all of them. A copy
of the conditions is herewith transmitted.
Of Porto Rico, it is only necessary to say that the
prosperity of the island and the wisdom with which it has
been governed have been such as to make it serve as an
example of all that is best in insular administration.
On July 4th last, on the one hundred and twenty-sixth
anniversary of the declaration of our independence, peace
and amnesty were promulgated in the Philippine Islands.
Some trouble has since from time to time threatened with
the Mohammedan Moros, but with the late insurrectionary
Filipinos the war has entirely ceased. Civil government
has now been introduced. Not only does each Filipino
enjoy such rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
as he has never before known during the recorded
history of the islands, but the people taken as a whole
now enjoy a measure of self-government greater than
that enjoyed by any other Orientals under their own
governments, save the Japanese alone. We have not
gone too far in granting these rights of liberty and self-government;
but we have certainly gone to the limit that
in the interests of the Philippine people themselves it was
wise or just to go. To hurry matters, to go faster than
we are now going, would entail calamity on the people of
the islands. No policy ever entered into by the American
people has vindicated itself in more signal manner
of our arms—above all, the triumph of our laws and principles—has
come sooner than we had any right to expect.
Too much praise can not be given to the Army for what
it has done in the Philippines both in warfare and from
an administrative standpoint in preparing the way for civil
government; and similar credit belongs to the civil authorities
for the way in which they have planted the
seeds of self-government in the ground thus made ready
for them. The courage, the unflinching endurance, the
high soldierly efficiency, and the general kind-heartedness
and humanity of our troops have been strikingly manifested.
There now remain only some fifteen thousand
troops in the islands. All told, over one hundred thousand
have been sent there. Of course, there have been
individual instances of wrongdoing among them. They
warred under fearful difficulties of climate and surroundings;
and under the strain of the terrible provocations
which they continually received from their foes, occasional
instances of cruel retaliation occurred. Every
effort has been made to prevent such cruelties, and finally
these efforts have been completely successful. Every
effort has also been made to detect and punish the
wrongdoers. After making all allowance for these misdeeds,
it remains true that few indeed have been the instances
in which war has been waged by a civilized power
against semi-civilized or barbarous forces where there has
been so little wrongdoing by the victors as in the Philippine
Islands. On the other hand, the amount of difficult,
important, and beneficent work which has been done is
well-nigh incalculable.
Taking the work of the Army and the civil authorities
together, it may be questioned whether anywhere else in
modern times the world has seen a better example of real
constructive statesmanship than our people have given in
the Philippine Islands. High praise should also be given
have accepted the new conditions and joined with our
representatives to work with hearty good-will for the
welfare of the islands.
The Army has been reduced to the minimum allowed
by law. It is very small for the size of the Nation, and
most certainly should be kept at the highest point of
efficiency. The senior officers are given scant chance
under ordinary conditions to exercise commands commensurate
with their rank, under circumstances which
would fit them to do their duty in time of actual war. A
system of manoeuvring our Army in bodies of some little
size has been begun and should be steadily continued.
Without such manoeuvres it is folly to expect that in the
event of hostilities with any serious foe even a small army
corps could be handled to advantage. Both our officers
and enlisted men are such that we can take hearty pride
in them. No better material can be found. But they
must be thoroughly trained, both as individuals and in
the mass. The marksmanship of the men must receive
special attention. In the circumstances of modern warfare
the man must act far more on his own individual
responsibility than ever before, and the high individual
efficiency of the unit is of the utmost importance. Formerly
this unit was the regiment; it is now not the regiment,
not even the troop or company; it is the individual
soldier. Every effort must be made to develop every
workmanlike and soldierly quality in both the officer and
the enlisted man.
I urgently call your attention to the need of passing a
bill providing for a general staff and for the reorganization
of the supply departments on the lines of the bill proposed
by the Secretary of War last year. When the
young officers enter the Army from West Point they
probably stand above their compeers in any other military
service. Every effort should be made, by training,
to keep them of the same high relative excellence
throughout their careers.
The measure providing for the reorganization of the
militia system and for securing the highest efficiency in
the National Guard, which has already passed the House,
should receive prompt attention and action. It is of
great importance that the relation of the National Guard
to the militia and volunteer forces of the United States
should be defined, and that in place of our present obsolete
laws a practical and efficient system should be adopted.
Provision should be made to enable the Secretary of
War to keep cavalry and artillery horses, worn-out in
long performance of duty. Such horses fetch but a
trifle when sold; and rather than turn them out to the
misery awaiting them when thus disposed of, it would be
better to employ them at light work around the posts,
and when necessary to put them painlessly to death.
For the first time in our history naval manoeuvres on a
large scale are being held under the immediate command
of the Admiral of the Navy. Constantly increasing attention
is being paid to the gunnery of the Navy, but it
is yet far from what it should be. I earnestly urge that
the increase asked for by the Secretary of the Navy in
the appropriation for improving the marksmanship be
granted. In battle the only shots that count are the
shots that hit. It is necessary to provide ample funds
for practice with the great guns in time of peace. These
funds must provide not only for the purchase of projectiles,
but for allowances for prizes to encourage the
gun crews, and especially the gun pointers, and for perfecting
an intelligent system under which alone it is
possible to get good practice.
There should be no halt in the work of building up the
Navy, providing every year additional fighting craft.
and great in population; a country, moreover, which has
an Army diminutive indeed when compared with that of
any other first-class power. We have deliberately made
our own certain foreign policies which demand the possession
of a first-class navy. The Isthmian Canal will
greatly increase the efficiency of our Navy if the Navy is
of sufficient size; but if we have an inadequate Navy,
then the building of the canal would be merely giving a
hostage to any power of superior strength. The Monroe
Doctrine should be treated as the cardinal feature of
American foreign policy; but it would be worse than idle
to assert it unless we intended to back it up, and it can
be backed up only by a thoroughly good navy. A good
navy is not a provocative of war. It is the surest guaranty
of peace.
Each individual unit of our Navy should be the most
efficient of its kind as regards both material and personnel
that is to be found in the world. I call your special attention
to the need of providing for the manning of the
ships. Serious trouble threatens us if we can not do
better than we are now doing as regards securing the services
of a sufficient number of the highest type of sailor-men,
of sea mechanics. The veteran seamen of our
warships are of as high a type as can be found in any navy
which rides the waters of the world; they are unsurpassed
in daring, in resolution, in readiness, in thorough knowledge
of their profession. They deserve every consideration
that can be shown them. But there are not enough
of them. It is no more possible to improvise a crew than
it is possible to improvise a warship. To build the finest
ship, with the deadliest battery, and to send it afloat with
a raw crew, no matter how brave they were individually,
would be to insure disaster if a foe of average capacity
were encountered. Neither ships nor men can be improvised
when war has begun.
We need a thousand additional officers in order to
properly man the ships now provided for and under construction.
The classes at the Naval School should be
greatly enlarged. At the same time that we thus add
the officers where we need them, we should facilitate the
retirement of those at the head of the list whose usefulness
has become impaired. Promotion must be fostered
if the service is to be kept efficient.
The lamentable scarcity of officers, and the large number
of recruits and of unskilled men necessarily put aboard
the new vessels as they have been commissioned, have
thrown upon our officers, and especially on the lieutenants
and junior grades, unusual labor and fatigue and have
gravely strained their powers of endurance. Nor is there
sign of any immediate let-up in this strain. It must continue
for some time longer, until more officers are graduated
from Annapolis, and until the recruits become trained
and skilful in their duties. In these difficulties incident
upon the development of our war fleet the conduct of all
our officers has been creditable to the service, and the
lieutenants and junior grades in particular have displayed
an ability and a steadfast cheerfulness which entitles them
to the ungrudging thanks of all who realize the disheartening
trials and fatigues to which they are of necessity
subjected.
There is not a cloud on the horizon at present. There
seems not the slightest chance of trouble with a foreign
power. We most earnestly hope that this state of things
may continue; and the way to insure its continuance is
to provide for a thoroughly efficient navy. The refusal
to maintain such a navy would invite trouble, and if
trouble came would insure disaster. Fatuous self-complacency
or vanity, or short-sightedness in refusing to
prepare for danger, is both foolish and wicked in such a
nation as ours; and past experience has shown that such
fatuity in refusing to recognize or prepare for any crisis
fear, once the crisis has actually arrived.
The striking increase in the revenues of the Post-Office
Department shows clearly the prosperity of our people
and the increasing activity of the business of the country.
The receipts of the Post-Office Department for the
fiscal year ending June 30th last amounted to $121,848,047.26,
an increase of $10,216,853.87 over the preceding
year, the largest increase known in the history of the
postal service. The magnitude of this increase will best
appear from the fact that the entire postal receipts for
the year 1860 amounted to but $8,518,067.
Rural free-delivery service is no longer in the experimental
stage; it has become a fixed policy. The results
following its introduction have fully justified the Congress
in the large appropriations made for its establishment and
extension. The average yearly increase in post-office receipts
in the rural districts of the country is about two
per cent. We are now able, by actual results, to show
that where rural free-delivery service has been established
to such an extent as to enable us to make comparisons
the yearly increase has been upward of ten per cent.
On November 1, 1902, 11,650 rural free-delivery routes
had been established and were in operation, covering
about one-third of the territory of the United States
available for rural free-delivery service. There are now
awaiting the action of the Department petitions and
applications for the establishment of 10,748 additional
routes. This shows conclusively the want which the
establishment of the service has met and the need of
further extending it as rapidly as possible. It is justified
both by the financial results and by the practical benefits
to our rural population; it brings the men who live on
the soil into close relations with the active business world;
it keeps the farmer in daily touch with the markets; it is
farm property, makes farm life far pleasanter and less
isolated, and will do much to check the undesirable current
from country to city.
It is to be hoped that the Congress will make liberal
appropriations for the continuance of the service already
established and for its further extension.
Few subjects of more importance have been taken up
by the Congress in recent years than the inauguration of
the system of nationally-aided irrigation for the arid
regions of the far West. A good beginning therein has
been made. Now that this policy of national irrigation
has been adopted, the need of thorough and scientific
forest protection will grow more rapidly than ever
throughout the public-land States.
Legislation should be provided for the protection of
the game, and the wild creatures generally, on the forest
reserves. The senseless slaughter of game, which can
by judicious protection be permanently preserved on our
national reserves for the people as a whole, should be
stopped at once. It is, for instance, a serious count
against our national good sense to permit the present
practice of butchering off such a stately and beautiful
creature as the elk for its antlers or tusks.
So far as they are available for agriculture, and to
whatever extent they may be reclaimed under the national
irrigation law, the remaining public lands should be held
rigidly for the home builder, the settler who lives on his
land, and for no one else. In their actual use the desert-land
law, the timber and stone law, and the commutation
clause of the homestead law have been so perverted from
the intention with which they were enacted as to permit
the acquisition of large areas of the public domain for
other than actual settlers and the consequent prevention
of settlement. Moreover, the approaching exhaustion of
the best manner of using these public lands in the West
which are suitable chiefly or only for grazing. The sound
and steady development of the West depends upon the
building up of homes therein. Much of our prosperity
as a nation has been due to the operation of the homestead
law. On the other hand, we should recognize the
fact that in the grazing region the man who corresponds
to the homesteader may be unable to settle permanently
if only allowed to use the same amount of pasture land
that his brother, the homesteader, is allowed to use of
arable land. One hundred and sixty acres of fairly rich
and well-watered soil, or a much smaller amount of irrigated
land, may keep a family in plenty, whereas no one
could get a living from one hundred and sixty acres of
dry pasture land capable of supporting at the outside only
one head of cattle to every ten acres. In the past great
tracts of the public domain have been fenced in by persons
having no title thereto, in direct defiance of the law
forbidding the maintenance or construction of any such
unlawful inclosure of public land. For various reasons
there has been little interference with such inclosures in
the past, but ample notice has now been given the trespassers,
and all the resources at the command of the
Government will hereafter be used to put a stop to such
trespassing.
In view of the capital importance of these matters, I
commend them to the earnest consideration of the Congress,
and if the Congress finds difficulty in dealing with
them from lack of thorough knowledge of the subject, I
recommend that provision be made for a commission of
experts specially to investigate and report upon the complicated
questions involved.
I especially urge upon the Congress the need of wise
legislation for Alaska. It is not to our credit as a nation
should still have as poor a system of laws as is the case.
No country has a more valuable possession—in mineral
wealth, in fisheries, furs, forests, and also in land available
for certain kinds of farming and stock-growing. It is a
territory of great size and varied resources, well fitted to
support a large permanent population. Alaska needs a
good land law and such provisions for homesteads and
pre-emptions as will encourage permanent settlement.
We should shape legislation with a view not to the exploiting
and abandoning of the territory, but to the
building up of homes therein. The land laws should be
liberal in type, so as to hold out inducements to the
actual settler whom we most desire to see take possession
of the country. The forests of Alaska should be protected,
and, as a secondary but still important matter,
the game also, and at the same time it is imperative that
the settlers should be allowed to cut timber, under proper
regulations, for their own use. Laws should be enacted
to protect the Alaskan salmon fisheries against the greed
which would destroy them. They should be preserved
as a permanent industry and food supply. Their management
and control should be turned over to the Commission
of Fish and Fisheries. Alaska should have a
delegate in the Congress. It would be well if a Congressional
committee could visit Alaska and investigate
its needs on the ground.
In dealing with the Indians our aim should be their
ultimate absorption into the body of our people. But in
many cases this absorption must and should be very
slow. In portions of the Indian Territory the mixture
of blood has gone on at the same time with progress in
wealth and education, so that there are plenty of men
with varying degrees of purity of Indian blood who are
absolutely indistinguishable in point of social, political,
are other tribes which have as yet made no perceptible
advance toward such equality. To try to force such
tribes too fast is to prevent their going forward at all.
Moreover, the tribes live under widely different conditions.
Where a tribe has made considerable advance
and lives on fertile farming soil it is possible to allot the
members lands in severalty much as is the case with
white settlers. There are other tribes where such a course
is not desirable. On the arid prairie lands the effort
should be to induce the Indians to lead pastoral rather
than agricultural lives, and to permit them to settle in
villages rather than to force them into isolation.
The large Indian schools situated remote from any Indian
reservation do a special and peculiar work of great
importance. But, excellent though these are, an immense
amount of additional work must be done on the
reservations themselves among the old, and above all
among the young, Indians.
The first and most important step toward the absorption
of the Indian is to teach him to earn his living; yet
it is not necessarily to be assumed that in each community
all Indians must become either tillers of the soil
or stock-raisers. Their industries may properly be diversified,
and those who show special desire or adaptability
for industrial or even commercial pursuits should be encouraged
so far as practicable to follow out each his own
bent.
Every effort should be made to develop the Indian
along the lines of natural aptitude, and to encourage the
existing native industries peculiar to certain tribes, such
as the various kinds of basket-weaving, canoe-building,
smithwork, and blanket-work. Above all, the Indian
boys and girls should be given confident command of
colloquial English, and should ordinarily be prepared for
a vigorous struggle with the conditions under which their
some more highly developed community.
The officials who represent the Government in dealing
with the Indians work under hard conditions, and also
under conditions which render it easy to do wrong and
very difficult to detect wrong. Consequently they should
be amply paid on the one hand, and on the other hand a
particularly high standard of conduct should be demanded
from them, and where misconduct can be proved the
punishment should be exemplary.
In no department of governmental work in recent
years has there been greater success than in that of giving
scientific aid to the farming population, thereby showing
them how most efficiently to help themselves. There is
no need of insisting upon its importance, for the welfare
of the farmer is fundamentally necessary to the welfare
of the Republic as a whole. In addition to such work as
quarantine against animal and vegetable plagues, and
warring against them when here introduced, much efficient
help has been rendered to the farmer by the introduction
of new plants specially fitted for cultivation under the
peculiar conditions existing in different portions of the
country. New cereals have been established in the semiarid
West. For instance, the practicability of producing
the best types of macaroni wheats in regions of an annual
rainfall of only ten inches or thereabouts has been conclusively
demonstrated. Through the introduction of
new rices in Louisiana and Texas the production of rice
in this country has been made to about equal the home
demand. In the Southwest the possibility of regrassing
overstocked range lands has been demonstrated; in the
North many new forage crops have been introduced;
while in the East it has been shown that some of our
choicest fruits can be stored and shipped in such a way
as to find a profitable market abroad.
I again recommend to the favorable consideration of
the Congress the plans of the Smithsonian Institution for
making the Museum under its charge worthy of the Nation,
and for preserving at the national capital not only
records of the vanishing races of men but of the animals
of this continent which, like the buffalo, will soon become
extinct unless specimens from which their representatives
may be renewed are sought in their native regions and
maintained there in safety.
The District of Columbia is the only part of our territory
in which the National Government exercises local or
municipal functions, and where in consequence the Government
has a free hand in reference to certain types of
social and economic legislation which must be essentially
local or municipal in their character. The Government
should see to it, for instance, that the hygienic and sanitary
legislation affecting Washington is of a high character.
The evils of slum dwellings, whether in the shape
of crowded and congested tenement-house districts or of
the back-alley type, should never be permitted to grow
up in Washington. The city should be a model in every
respect for all the cities of the country. The charitable
and correctional systems of the District should receive
consideration at the hands of the Congress to the end that
they may embody the results of the most advanced
thought in these fields. Moreover, while Washington is
not a great industrial city, there is some industrialism
here, and our labor legislation, while it would not be important
in itself, might be made a model for the rest of
the Nation. We should pass, for instance, a wise employer's-liability
act for the District of Columbia, and we
need such an act in our navy-yards. Railroad companies
in the District ought to be required by law to block their
frogs.
The safety-appliance law, for the better protection of
passed in 1893, went into full effect on August 1, 1901.
It has resulted in averting thousands of casualties. Experience
shows, however, the necessity of additional legislation
to perfect this law. A bill to provide for this
passed the Senate at the last session. It is to be hoped
that some such measure may now be enacted into law.
There is a growing tendency to provide for the publication
of masses of documents for which there is no public
demand and for the printing of which there is no real
necessity. Large numbers of volumes are turned out by
the Government printing-presses for which there is no
justification. Nothing should be printed by any of the
Departments unless it contains something of permanent
value, and the Congress could with advantage cut down
very materially on all the printing which it has now become
customary to provide. The excessive cost of Government
printing is a strong argument against the position
of those who are inclined on abstract grounds to advocate
the Government's doing any work which can with propriety
be left in private hands.
Gratifying progress has been made during the year in
the extension of the merit system of making appointments
in the Government service. It should be extended
by law to the District of Columbia. It is much to be desired
that our consular system be established by law on a
basis providing for appointment and promotion only in
consequence of proved fitness.
Through a wise provision of the Congress at its last
session the White House, which had become disfigured
by incongruous additions and changes, has now been restored
to what it was planned to be by Washington. In
making the restorations the utmost care has been exercised
to come as near as possible to the early plans and to
as that of the University of Virginia, which was built
by Jefferson. The White House is the property of the
Nation, and so far as is compatible with living therein it
should be kept as it originally was, for the same reasons
that we keep Mount Vernon as it originally was. The
stately simplicity of its architecture is an expression of
the character of the period in which it was built, and is in
accord with the purposes it was designed to serve. It is a
good thing to preserve such buildings as historic monuments
which keep alive our sense of continuity with the
Nation's past.
The reports of the several Executive Departments are
submitted to the Congress with this communication.
MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES
OF CONGRESS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
FIRST SESSION OF THE FIFTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS
I have convened the Congress that it may consider the
legislation necessary to put into operation the commercial
treaty with Cuba, which was ratified by the Senate at its
last session, and subsequently by the Cuban Government.
I deem such legislation demanded not only by our interest
but by our honor. We can not with propriety abandon the
course upon which we have so wisely embarked. When
the acceptance of the Platt amendment was required from
Cuba by the action of the Congress of the United States,
this Government thereby definitely committed itself to
the policy of treating Cuba as occupying a unique position
as regards this country. It was provided that when
the island became a free and independent republic she
should stand in such close relations with us as in certain
respects to come within our system of international policy;
and it necessarily followed that she must also to a certain
degree become included within the lines of our economic
policy. Situated as Cuba is, it would not be possible for
this country to permit the strategic abuse of the island
by any foreign military power. It is for this reason that
certain limitations have been imposed upon her financial
policy, and that naval stations have been conceded by her
to the United States. The negotiations as to the details
of these naval stations are on the eve of completion.
the intention ever to use them against Cuba, or otherwise
than for the protection of Cuba from the assaults of foreign
foes, and for the better safeguarding of American
interests in the waters south of us.
These interests have been largely increased by the consequences
of the war with Spain, and will be still further
increased by the building of the isthmian canal. They
are both military and economic. The granting to us by
Cuba of the naval stations above alluded to is of the utmost
importance from a military standpoint, and is proof
of the good faith with which Cuba is treating us. Cuba
has made great progress since her independence was
established. She has advanced steadily in every way.
She already stands high among her sister republics of the
New World. She is loyally observing her obligations to
us; and she is entitled to like treatment by us.
The treaty submitted to you for approval secures to
the United States economic advantages as great as those
given to Cuba. Not an American interest is sacrificed.
By the treaty a large Cuban market is secured to our producers.
It is a market which lies at our doors, which is
already large, which is capable of great expansion, and
which is especially important to the development of our
export trade. It would be indeed short-sighted for us to
refuse to take advantage of such an opportunity, and to
force Cuba into making arrangements with other countries
to our disadvantage.
This reciprocity treaty stands by itself. It is demanded
on considerations of broad national policy as well as by
our economic interest. It will do harm to no industry.
It will benefit many industries. It is in the interest of
our people as a whole, both because of its importance
from the broad standpoint of international policy, and
because economically it intimately concerns us to develop
and secure the rich Cuban market for our farmers, artisans,
as a guaranty of the good faith of our Nation
towards her young sister Republic to the south, whose
welfare must ever be closely bound with ours. We gave
her liberty. We are knit to her by the memories of the
blood and courage of our soldiers who fought for her in
war; by the memories of the wisdom and integrity of our
administrators who served her in peace and who started
her so well on the difficult path of self-government. We
must help her onward and upward; and in helping her we
shall help ourselves.
The foregoing considerations caused the negotiation of
the treaty with Cuba and its ratification by the Senate.
They now with equal force support the legislation by the
Congress which by the terms of the treaty is necessary to
render it operative. A failure to enact such legislation
would come perilously near a repudiation of the pledged
faith of the Nation.
I transmit herewith the treaty, as amended by the
Senate and ratified by the Cuban Government.
MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES
OF CONGRESS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
SECOND SESSION OF THE FIFTY-EIGHTH
CONGRESS
The country is to be congratulated on the amount of
substantial achievement which has marked the past year
both as regards our foreign and as regards our domestic
policy.
With a nation as with a man the most important things
are those of the household, and therefore the country is
especially to be congratulated on what has been accomplished
in the direction of providing for the exercise of
supervision over the great corporations and combinations
of corporations engaged in interstate commerce. The
Congress has created the Department of Commerce and
Labor, including the Bureau of Corporations, with for
the first time authority to secure proper publicity of such
proceedings of these great corporations as the public has
the right to know. It has provided for the expediting of
suits for the enforcement of the Federal anti-trust law;
and by another law it has secured equal treatment to all
producers in the transportation of their goods, thus taking
a long stride forward in making effective the work of the
Interstate Commerce Commission.
The establishment of the Department of Commerce
and Labor, with the Bureau of Corporations thereunder,
marks a real advance in the direction of doing all that is
possible for the solution of the questions vitally affecting
was approved on February 14, 1903, and two
days later the head of the Department was nominated,
and confirmed by the Senate. Since then the work of
organization has been pushed as rapidly as the initial appropriations
permitted, and with due regard to thoroughness
and the broad purposes which the Department is
designed to serve. After the transfer of the various
bureaus and branches to the Department at the beginning
of the current fiscal year, as provided for in the act, the
personnel comprised 1289 employees in Washington and
8836 in the country at large. The scope of the Department's
duty and authority embraces the commercial and
industrial interests of the Nation. It is not designed to
restrict or control the fullest liberty of legitimate business
action, but to secure exact and authentic information
which will aid the Executive in enforcing existing laws,
and which will enable the Congress to enact additional
legislation, if any should be found necessary, in order to
prevent the few from obtaining privileges at the expense
of diminished opportunities for the many.
The preliminary work of the Bureau of Corporations in
the Department has shown the wisdom of its creation.
Publicity in corporate affairs will tend to do away with
ignorance, and will afford facts upon which intelligent
action may be taken. Systematic, intelligent investigation
is already developing facts the knowledge of which is
essential to a right understanding of the needs and duties
of the business world. The corporation which is honestly
and fairly organized, whose managers in the conduct of
its business recognize their obligation to deal squarely
with their stockholders, their competitors, and the public,
has nothing to fear from such supervision. The purpose of
this Bureau is not to embarrass or assail legitimate business,
but to aid in bringing about a better industrial condition—a
condition under which there shall be obedience
great or small. The Department of Commerce
and Labor will be not only the clearing house for
information regarding the business transactions of the
Nation, but the executive arm of the Government to aid
in strengthening our domestic and foreign markets, in
perfecting our transportation facilities, in building up our
merchant marine, in preventing the entrance of undesirable
immigrants, in improving commercial and industrial
conditions, and in bringing together on common ground
those necessary partners in industrial progress—capital
and labor. Commerce between the nations is steadily
growing in volume, and the tendency of the times is
toward closer trade relations. Constant watchfulness is
needed to secure to Americans the chance to participate
to the best advantage in foreign trade; and we may confidently
expect that the new Department will justify the
expectation of its creators by the exercise of this watchfulness,
as well as by the businesslike administration of
such laws relating to our internal affairs as are intrusted
to its care.
In enacting the laws above enumerated the Congress
proceeded on sane and conservative lines. Nothing revolutionary
was attempted; but a common-sense and successful
effort was made in the direction of seeing that
corporations are so handled as to subserve the public
good. The legislation was moderate. It was characterized
throughout by the idea that we were not attacking
corporations, but endeavoring to provide for doing away
with any evil in them; that we drew the line against misconduct,
not against wealth; gladly recognizing the great
good done by the capitalist who alone, or in conjunction
with his fellows, does his work along proper and legitimate
lines. The purpose of the legislation, which purpose will
undoubtedly be fulfilled, was to favor such a man when
he does well, and to supervise his action only to prevent
honest corporation. The only corporation that has cause
to dread it is the corporation which shrinks from the light,
and about the welfare of such corporations we need not
be over-sensitive. The work of the Department of Commerce
and Labor has been conditioned upon this theory,
of securing fair treatment alike for labor and for capital.
The consistent policy of the National Government, so
far as it has the power, is to hold in check the unscrupulous
man, whether employer or employee; but to refuse
to weaken individual initiative or to hamper or cramp the
industrial development of the country. We recognize
that this is an era of federation and combination, in
which great capitalistic corporations and labor unions
have become factors of tremendous importance in all
industrial centres. Hearty recognition is given the far-reaching,
beneficent work which has been accomplished
through both corporations and unions, and the line as between
different corporations, as between different unions,
is drawn as it is between different individuals—that is, it
is drawn on conduct, the effort being to treat both organized
capital and organized labor alike; asking nothing
save that the interest of each shall be brought into harmony
with the interest of the general public, and that the
conduct of each shall conform to the fundamental rules
of obedience to law, of individual freedom, and of justice
and fair dealing towards all. Whenever either corporation,
labor union, or individual disregards the law or acts
in a spirit of arbitrary and tyrannous interference with
the rights of others, whether corporations or individuals,
then, where the Federal Government has jurisdiction, it
will see to it that the misconduct is stopped, paying not
the slightest heed to the position or power of the corporation,
the union, or the individual, but only to one vital
fact—that is, the question whether or not the conduct of
the individual or aggregate of individuals is in accordance
his liberty and his right to do as he likes with his property
or his labor, so long as he does not infringe the rights of
others. No man is above the law and no man is below
it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require
him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a
right; not asked as a favor.
We have cause as a nation to be thankful for the steps
that have been so successfully taken to put these principles
into effect. The progress has been by evolution, not
by revolution. Nothing radical has been done; the action
has been both moderate and resolute. Therefore the
work will stand. There shall be no backward step. If
in the working of the laws it proves desirable that they
shall at any point be expanded or amplified, the amendment
can be made as its desirability is shown. Meanwhile
they are being administered with judgment, but
with insistence upon obedience to them; and their need
has been emphasized in signal fashion by the events of
the past year.
From all sources, exclusive of the postal service, the
receipts of the Government for the last fiscal year aggregated
$560,396,674. The expenditures for the same period
were $506,099,007, the surplus for the fiscal year being
$54,297,667. The indications are that the surplus for the
present fiscal year will be very small, if indeed there be
any surplus. From July to November the receipts from
customs were, approximately, nine million dollars less
than the receipts from the same source for a corresponding
portion of last year. Should this decrease continue
at the same ratio throughout the fiscal year, the surplus
would be reduced by, approximately, thirty million dollars.
Should the revenue from customs suffer much
further decrease during the fiscal year, the surplus would
vanish A large surplus is certainly undesirable. Two
years ago the war taxes were taken off with the express
expenditures, and though the first year thereafter still
showed a surplus, it now seems likely that a substantial
equality of revenue and expenditure will be attained.
Such being the case it is of great moment both to exercise
care and economy in appropriations, and to scan sharply
any change in our fiscal revenue system which may reduce
our income. The need of strict economy in our expenditures
is emphasized by the fact that we can not afford to
be parsimonious in providing for what is essential to our
national well-being. Careful economy wherever possible
will alone prevent our income from falling below the point
required in order to meet our genuine needs.
The integrity of our currency is beyond question, and
under present conditions it would be unwise and unnecessary
to attempt a reconstruction of our entire monetary
system. The same liberty should be granted the Secretary
of the Treasury to deposit customs receipts as is
granted him in the deposit of receipts from other sources.
In my Message of December 2, 1902, I called attention
to certain needs of the financial situation, and I again ask
the consideration of the Congress for these questions.
During the last session of the Congress, at the suggestion
of a joint note from the Republic of Mexico and the
Imperial Government of China, and in harmony with an
act of the Congress appropriating $25,000 to pay the expenses
thereof, a commission was appointed to confer
with the principal European countries in the hope that
some plan might be devised whereby a fixed rate of exchange
could be assured between the gold-standard countries
and the silver-standard countries. This commission
has filed its preliminary report, which has been made
public. I deem it important that the commission be continued,
and that a sum of money be appropriated sufficient
to pay the expenses of its further labors.
A majority of our people desire that steps be taken in
more resume our former position in the ocean carrying
trade. But hitherto the differences of opinion as to the
proper method of reaching this end have been so wide
that it has proved impossible to secure the adoption of
any particular scheme. Having in view these facts, I
recommend that the Congress direct the Secretary of the
Navy, the Postmaster-General, and the Secretary of Commerce
and Labor, associated with such a representation
from the Senate and House of Representatives as the
Congress in its wisdom may designate, to serve as a commission
for the purpose of investigating and reporting to
the Congress at its next session what legislation is desirable
or necessary for the development of the American
merchant marine and American commerce, and incidentally
of a national ocean mail service of adequate auxiliary
naval cruisers and naval reserves. While such a measure
is desirable in any event, it is especially desirable at this
time, in view of the fact that our present governmental
contract for ocean mail with the American Line will expire
in 1905. Our ocean mail act was passed in 1891. In
1895 our 20-knot transatlantic mail line was equal to any
foreign line. Since then the Germans have put on 23-knot
steamers, and the British have contracted for 24-knot
steamers. Our service should equal the best. If it does
not, the commercial public will abandon it. If we are to
stay in the business it ought to be with a full understanding
of the advantages to the country on one hand, and on
the other with exact knowledge of the cost and proper
methods of carrying it on. Moreover, lines of cargo ships
are of even more importance than fast mail lines; save so
far as the latter can be depended upon to furnish swift
auxiliary cruisers in time of war. The establishment of
new lines of cargo ships to South America, to Asia, and
elsewhere would be much in the interest of our commercial
expansion.
We can not have too much immigration of the right
kind, and we should have none at all of the wrong kind.
The need is to devise some system by which undesirable
immigrants shall be kept out entirely, while desirable immigrants
are properly distributed throughout the country.
At present some districts which need immigrants have
none; and in others, where the population is already congested,
immigrants come in such numbers as to depress
the conditions of life for those already there. During
the last two years the immigration service at New York
has been greatly improved, and the corruption and inefficiency
which formerly obtained there have been eradicated.
This service has just been investigated by a
committee of New York citizens of high standing, Messrs.
Arthur v. Briesen, Lee K. Frankel, Eugene A. Philbin,
Thomas W. Hynes, and Ralph Trautmann. Their report
deals with the whole situation at length, and concludes
with certain recommendations for administrative and legislative
action. It is now receiving the attention of the
Secretary of Commerce and Labor.
The special investigation of the subject of naturalization
under the direction of the Attorney-General, and
the consequent prosecutions, reveal a condition of affairs
calling for the immediate attention of the Congress.
Forgeries and perjuries of shameless and flagrant character
have been perpetrated, not only in the dense centres of
population, but throughout the country; and it is established
beyond doubt that very many so-called citizens of
the United States have no title whatever to that right,
and are asserting and enjoying the benefits of the same
through the grossest frauds. It is never to be forgotten
that citizenship is, to quote the words recently used by
the Supreme Court of the United States, an "inestimable
heritage," whether it proceeds from birth within the
country or is obtained by naturalization; and we poison
the sources of our national character and strength at the
right, and by means of fraud and corruption. The body
politic can not be sound and healthy if many of its constituent
members claim their standing through the prostitution
of the high right and calling of citizenship. It
should mean something to become a citizen of the United
States; and in the process no loophole whatever should
be left open to fraud.
The methods by which these frauds—now under full
investigation with a view to meting out punishment and
providing adequate remedies—are perpetrated, include
many variations of procedure by which false certificates
of citizenship are forged in their entirety; or genuine certificates
fraudulently or collusively obtained in blank
are filled in by the criminal conspirators; or certificates
are obtained on fraudulent statements as to the time
of arrival and residence in this country; or imposition
and substitution of another party for the real petitioner
occur in court; or certificates are made the subject
of barter and sale and transferred from the rightful holder
to those not entitled to them; or certificates are forged by
erasure of the original names and the insertion of the
names of other persons not entitled to the same.
It is not necessary for me to refer here at large to the
causes leading to this state of affairs. The desire for
naturalization is heartily to be commended where it
springs from a sincere and permanent intention to become
citizens, and a real appreciation of the privilege. But it
is a source of untold evil and trouble where it is traceable
to selfish and dishonest motives, such as the effort by
artificial and improper means, in wholesale fashion to
create voters who are ready-made tools of corrupt politicians,
or the desire to evade certain labor laws creating
discriminations against alien labor. All good citizens,
whether naturalized or native-born, are equally interested
in protecting our citizenship against fraud in any form,
naturalization to those who in good faith desire to share
alike our privileges and our responsibilities.
The Federal grand jury lately in session in New York
City dealt with this subject and made a presentment
which states the situation briefly and forcibly and contains
important suggestions for the consideration of the
Congress. This presentment is included as an appendix
to the report of the Attorney-General.
In my last annual Message, in connection with the
subject of the due regulation of combinations of capital
which are or may become injurious to the public, I recommended
a special appropriation for the better enforcement
of the anti-trust law as it now stands, to be expended
under the direction of the Attorney-General. Accordingly
(by the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation
act of February 25, 1903, 32 Stat., 854, 904), the
Congress appropriated, for the purpose of enforcing
the various Federal trust and interstate-commerce laws,
the sum of five hundred thousand dollars, to be expended
under the direction of the Attorney-General in the employment
of special counsel and agents in the Department
of Justice to conduct proceedings and prosecutions under
said laws in the courts of the United States. I now
recommend, as a matter of the utmost importance and
urgency, the extension of the purposes of this appropriation,
so that it may be available, under the direction of
the Attorney-General, and until used, for the due enforcement
of the laws of the United States in general and
especially of the civil and criminal laws relating to public
lands and the laws relating to postal crimes and offences
and the subject of naturalization. Recent investigations
have shown a deplorable state of affairs in these three
matters of vital concern. By various frauds and by
forgeries and perjuries, thousands of acres of the public
domain, embracing lands of different character and extending
been dishonestly acquired. It is hardly necessary to urge
the importance of recovering these dishonest acquisitions,
stolen from the people, and of promptly and duly punishing
the offenders. I speak in another part of this Message
of the widespread crimes by which the sacred right of
citizenship is falsely asserted and that "inestimable heritage
"perverted to base ends. By similar means—that is,
through frauds, forgeries, and perjuries, and by shameless
briberies—the laws relating to the proper conduct of the
public service in general and to the due administration of
the Post-Office Department have been notoriously violated,
and many indictments have been found, and the
consequent prosecutions are in course of hearing or on the
eve thereof. For the reasons thus indicated, and so that
the Government may be prepared to enforce promptly
and with the greatest effect the due penalties for such
violations of law, and to this end may be furnished with
sufficient instrumentalities and competent legal assistance
for the investigations and trials which will be necessary
at many different points of the country, I urge upon the
Congress the necessity of making the said appropriation
available for immediate use for all such purposes, to be
expended under the direction of the Attorney-General.
Steps have been taken by the State Department looking
to the making of bribery an extraditable offence with
foreign powers. The need of more effective treaties
covering this crime is manifest. The exposures and
prosecutions of official corruption in St. Louis, Mo., and
other cities and States have resulted in a number of givers
and takers of bribes becoming fugitives in foreign lands.
Bribery has not been included in extradition treaties
heretofore, as the necessity for it has not arisen. While
there may have been as much official corruption in former
years, there has been more developed and brought to
light in the immediate past than in the preceding century
of the United States to leave no place on earth where
a corrupt man fleeing from this country can rest in peace.
There is no reason why bribery should not be included
in all treaties as extraditable. The recent amended treaty
with Mexico, whereby this crime was put in the list of
extraditable offences, has established a salutary precedent
in this regard. Under this treaty the State Department
has asked, and Mexico has granted, the extradition of one
of the St. Louis bribe-givers.
There can be no crime more serious than bribery.
Other offences violate one law, while corruption strikes
at the foundation of all law. Under our form of government
all authority is vested in the people and by them
delegated to those who represent them in official capacity.
There can be no offence heavier than that of him in whom
such a sacred trust has been reposed, who sells it for his
own gain and enrichment; and no less heavy is the offence
of the bribe-giver. He is worse than the thief, for the
thief robs the individual, while the corrupt official plunders
an entire city or State. He is as wicked as the murderer,
for the murderer may only take one life against the law,
while the corrupt official and the man who corrupts the
official alike aim at the assassination of the commonwealth
itself. Government of the people, by the people, for the
people will perish from the face of the earth if bribery is
tolerated. The givers and takers of bribes stand on an
evil pre-eminence of infamy. The exposure and punishment
of public corruption is an honor to a nation, not a
disgrace. The shame lies in toleration, not in correction.
No city or State, still less the Nation, can be injured by
the enforcement of law. As long as public plunderers
when detected can find a haven of refuge in any foreign
land and avoid punishment, just so long encouragement is
given them to continue their practices. If we fail to do
all that in us lies to stamp out corruption we cannot
first requisite of successful self-government is unflinching
enforcement of the law and the cutting out of
corruption.
For several years past the rapid development of Alaska
and the establishment of growing American interests in
regions theretofore unsurveyed and imperfectly known
brought into prominence the urgent necessity of a practical
demarcation of the boundaries between the jurisdictions
of the United States and Great Britain. Although
the treaty of 1825 between Great Britain and Russia, the
provisions of which were copied in the treaty of 1867,
whereby Russia conveyed Alaska to the United States,
was positive as to the control, first by Russia and later
by the United States, of a strip of territory along the
continental mainland from the western shore of Portland
Canal to Mount St. Elias, following and surrounding the
indentations of the coast and including the islands to
the westward, its description of the landward margin of the
strip was indefinite, resting on the supposed existence of a
continuous ridge or range of mountains skirting the coast,
as figured in the charts of the early navigators. It had
at no time been possible for either party in interest to lay
down, under the authority of the treaty, a line so obviously
exact according to its provisions as to command the
assent of the other. For nearly three-fourths of a century
the absence of tangible local interests demanding
the exercise of positive jurisdiction on either side of the
border left the question dormant. In 1878 questions of
revenue administration on the Stikine River led to the
establishment of a provisional demarcation, crossing the
channel between two high peaks on either side about
twenty-four miles above the river mouth. In 1899 similar
questions growing out of the extraordinary development
of mining interests in the region about the head of Lynn
Canal brought about a temporary modus vivendi, by which
of the White and Chilkoot Passes and to the north of
Klukwan, on the Klehini River. These partial and tentative
adjustments could not, in the very nature of things,
be satisfactory or lasting. A permanent disposition of
the matter became imperative.
After unavailing attempts to reach an understanding
through a Joint High Commission, followed by prolonged
negotiations, conducted in an amicable spirit, a
convention between the United States and Great Britain
was signed, January 24, 1903, providing for an examination
of the subject by a mixed tribunal of six members,
three on a side, with a view to its final disposition. Ratifications
were exchanged on March 3d last whereupon
the two Governments appointed their respective members.
Those on behalf of the United States were Elihu Root,
Secretary of War, Henry Cabot Lodge, a Senator of the
United States, and George Turner, an ex-Senator of the
United States, while Great Britain named the Right
Honorable Lord Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice of England,
Sir Louis Amable Jetté, K. C. M. G., retired judge
of the Supreme Court of Quebec, and A. B. Aylesworth,
K. C., of Toronto. This tribunal met in London on
September 3d, under the presidency of Lord Alverstone.
The proceedings were expeditious, and marked by a
friendly and conscientious spirit. The respective cases,
counter cases, and arguments presented the issues clearly
and fully. On the 20th of October a majority of the
tribunal reached and signed an agreement on all the
questions submitted by the terms of the convention. By
this award the right of the United States to the control
of a continuous strip or border of the mainland shore,
skirting all the tide-water inlets and sinuosities of the
coast, is confirmed; the entrance to Portland Canal (concerning
which legitimate doubt appeared) is defined as
passing by Tongass Inlet and to the northwestward of
of Portland Canal to the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude;
and the interior border-line of the strip is fixed by
lines connecting certain mountain summits lying between
Portland Canal and Mount St. Elias, and running along
the crest of the divide separating the coast slope from the
inland watershed at the only part of the frontier where
the drainage ridge approaches the coast within the distance
of ten marine leagues stipulated by the treaty as
the extreme width of the strip around the heads of Lynn
Canal and its branches.
While the line so traced follows the provisional demarcation
of 1878 at the crossing of the Stikine River, and
that of 1899 at the summits of the White and Chilkoot
Passes, it runs much farther inland from the Klehini than
the temporary line of the later modus vivendi, and leaves
the entire mining district of the Porcupine River and
Glacier Creek within the jurisdiction of the United States.
The result is satisfactory in every way. It is of great
material advantage to our people in the far Northwest.
It has removed from the field of discussion and possible
danger a question liable to become more acutely accentuated
with each passing year. Finally, it has furnished a
signal proof of the fairness and good-will with which two
friendly nations can approach and determine issues involving
national sovereignty and by their nature incapable
of submission to a third power for adjudication.
The award is self-executing on the vital points. To
make it effective as regards the others it only remains
for the two Governments to appoint, each on its own
behalf, one or more scientific experts, who shall, with
all convenient speed, proceed together to lay down
the boundary line in accordance with the decision of
the majority of the tribunal. I recommend that the
Congress make adequate provision for the appointment,
compensation, and expenses of the members to serve
United States.
It will be remembered that during the second session
of the last Congress Great Britain, Germany, and Italy
formed an alliance for the purpose of blockading the ports
of Venezuela and using such other means of pressure as
would secure a settlement of claims due, as they alleged,
to certain of their subjects. Their employment of force
for the collection of those claims was terminated by an
agreement brought about through the offices of the diplomatic
representatives of the United States at Caracas and
the Government at Washington, thereby ending a situation
which was bound to cause increasing friction, and
which jeoparded the peace of the continent. Under this
agreement Venezuela agreed to set apart a certain percentage
of the customs receipts of two of her ports to be
applied to the payment of whatever obligations might be
ascertained by mixed commissions appointed for that
purpose to be due from her, not only to the three powers
already mentioned, whose proceedings against her had
resulted in a state of war, but also to the United States,
France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and
Norway, and Mexico, who had not employed force for
the collection of the claims alleged to be due to certain
of their citizens.
A demand was then made by the so-called blockading
powers that the sums ascertained to be due to their citizens
by such mixed commissions should be accorded payment
in full before anything was paid upon the claims of
any of the so-called peace powers. Venezuela, on the
other hand, insisted that all her creditors should be paid
upon a basis of exact equality. During the efforts to
adjust this dispute it was suggested by the powers in
interest that it should be referred to me for decision, but
I was clearly of the opinion that a far wiser course would
be to submit the question to the Permanent Court of
an admirable opportunity to advance the practice of
the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations
and to secure for The Hague Tribunal a memorable
increase of its practical importance. The nations interested
in the controversy were so numerous and in
many instances so powerful as to make it evident that
beneficent results would follow from their appearance
at the same time before the bar of that august tribunal
of peace.
Our hopes in that regard have been realized. Russia
and Austria are represented in the persons of the learned
and distinguished jurists who compose the Tribunal,
while Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium,
the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, Mexico,
the United States, and Venezuela are represented by
their respective agents and counsel. Such an imposing
concourse of nations presenting their arguments to and
invoking the decision of that high court of international
justice and international peace can hardly fail to secure a
like submission of many future controversies. The nations
now appearing there will find it far easier to appear
there a second time, while no nation can imagine its just
pride will be lessened by following the example now presented.
This triumph of the principle of international
arbitration is a subject of warm congratulation and offers
a happy augury for the peace of the world.
There seems good ground for the belief that there has
been a real growth among the civilized nations of a sentiment
which will permit a gradual substitution of other
methods than the method of war in the settlement of disputes.
It is not pretended that as yet we are near a position
in which it will be possible wholly to prevent war,
or that a just regard for national interest and honor will
in all cases permit of the settlement of international disputes
by arbitration; but by a mixture of prudence and
with much of the provocation and excuse for war, and at
least in many cases to substitute some other and more
rational method for the settlement of disputes. The
Hague Court offers so good an example of what can be
done in the direction of such settlement that it should be
encouraged in every way.
Further steps should be taken. In President McKinley's
annual Message of December 5, 1898, he made the
following recommendation:
The experiences of the last year bring forcibly home to us a
sense of the burdens and the waste of war. We desire, in
common with most civilized nations, to reduce to the lowest
possible point the damage sustained in time of war by peaceable
trade and commerce. It is true we may suffer in such
cases less than other communities, but all nations are damaged
more or less by the state of uneasiness and apprehension into
which an outbreak of hostilities throws the entire commercial
world. It should be our object, therefore, to minimize, so
far as practicable, this inevitable loss and disturbance. This
purpose can probably best be accomplished by an international
agreement to regard all private property at sea as exempt from
capture or destruction by the forces of belligerent powers.
The United States Government has for many years advocated
this humane and beneficent principle, and is now in a position
to recommend it to other powers without the imputation of
selfish motives. I therefore suggest for your consideration
that the Executive be authorized to correspond with the governments
of the principal maritime powers with a view of
incorporating into the permanent law of civilized nations the
principle of the exemption of all private property at sea, not
contraband of war, from capture or destruction by belligerent
powers.
I cordially renew this recommendation.
The Supreme Court, speaking on December 11, 1899,
through Peckham, J., said:
It is, we think, historically accurate to say that this Government
has always been, in its views, among the most advanced
of the governments of the world in favor of mitigating, as to
all non combatants, the hardships and horrors of war To
accomplish that object it has always advocated those rules
which would in most cases do away with the right to capture
the private property of an enemy on the high seas.
I advocate this as a matter of humanity and morals.
It is anachronistic when private property is respected on
land that it should not be respected at sea. Moreover,
it should be borne in mind that shipping represents, internationally
speaking, a much more generalized species of
private property than is the case with ordinary property
on land—that is, property found at sea is much less apt
than is the case with property found on land really to
belong to any one nation. Under the modern system of
corporate ownership the flag of a vessel often differs from
the flag which would mark the nationality of the real
ownership and money control of the vessel; and the cargo
may belong to individuals of yet a different nationality.
Much American capital is now invested in foreign ships;
and among foreign nations it often happens that the
capital of one is largely invested in the shipping of another.
Furthermore, as a practical matter, it may be
mentioned that while commerce destroying may cause
serious loss and great annoyance, it can never be more
than a subsidiary factor in bringing to terms a resolute
foe. This is now well recognized by all of our naval experts.
The fighting ship, not the commerce destroyer, is
the vessel whose feats add renown to a nation's history,
and establish her place among the great powers of the
world.
Last year the Interparliamentary Union for International
Arbitration met at Vienna, six hundred members
of the different legislatures of civilized countries attending.
1904 at St. Louis, subject to our Congress extending an
invitation. Like The Hague Tribunal, this Interparliamentary
Union is one of the forces tending towards peace
among the nations of the earth, and it is entitled to our
support. I trust the invitation can be extended.
Early in July, having received intelligence, which happily
turned out to be erroneous, of the assassination of
our vice-consul at Beirut, I dispatched a small squadron
to that port for such service as might be found necessary
on arrival. Although the attempt on the life of our vice-consul
had not been successful, yet the outrage was
symptomatic of a state of excitement and disorder which
demanded immediate attention. The arrival of the vessels
had the happiest result. A feeling of security at
once took the place of the former alarm and disquiet;
our officers were cordially welcomed by the consular body
and the leading merchants, and ordinary business resumed
its activity. The Government of the Sultan gave a considerate
hearing to the representatives of our minister;
the official who was regarded as responsible for the disturbed
condition of affairs was removed. Our relations
with the Turkish Government remain friendly; our claims
founded on inequitable treatment of some of our schools
and missions appear to be in process of amicable adjustment.
The signing of a new commercial treaty with China,
which took place at Shanghai on the 8th of October, is a
cause for satisfaction. This act, the result of long discussion
and negotiation, places our commercial relations
with the great Oriental Empire on a more satisfactory
footing than they have ever heretofore enjoyed. It provides
not only for the ordinary rights and privileges of
diplomatic and consular officers, but also for an important
extension of our commerce by increased facility of access
to Chinese ports, and for the relief of trade by the
it in the past. The Chinese Government engages, on fair
and equitable conditions, which will probably be accepted
by the principal commercial nations, to abandon the levy
of "liken" and other transit dues throughout the Empire,
and to introduce other desirable administrative reforms.
Larger facilities are to be given to our citizens who desire
to carry on mining enterprises in China. We have secured
for our missionaries a valuable privilege, the recognition
of their right to rent and lease in perpetuity such property
as their religious societies may need in all parts of the
Empire. And, what was an indispensable condition for
the advance and development of our commerce in Manchuria,
China, by treaty with us, has opened to foreign
commerce the cities of Mukden, the capital of the province
of Manchuria, and Antung, an important port on
the Yalu River, on the road to Korea. The full measure
of development which our commerce may rightfully expect
can hardly be looked for until the settlement of the
present abnormal state of things in the Empire; but the
foundation for such development has at last been laid.
I call your attention to the reduced cost in maintaining
the consular service for the fiscal year ending June 30,
1903, as shown in the annual report of the Auditor for the
State and other Departments, as compared with the year
previous. For the year under consideration the excess
of expenditures over receipts on account of the consular
service amounted to $26,125.12, as against $96,972.50, for
the year ending June 30, 1902, and $147,040.16 for the
year ending June 30, 1901. This is the best showing
in this respect for the consular service for the past fourteen
years, and the reduction in the cost of the service
to the Government has been made in spite of the fact
that the expenditures for the year in question were more
than $20,000 greater than for the previous year.
The rural free-delivery service has been steadily extended.
question of the compensation of the letter-carriers and
clerks engaged in the postal service, especially on the
new rural free-delivery routes. More routes have been installed
since the first of July last than in any like period in
the Department's history. While a due regard to economy
must be kept in mind in the establishment of new
routes, yet the extension of the rural free-delivery system
must be continued, for reasons of sound public policy.
No governmental movement of recent years has resulted
in greater immediate benefit to the people of the country
districts. Rural free delivery, taken in connection with
the telephone, the bicycle, and the trolley, accomplishes
much toward lessening the isolation of farm life and making
it brighter and more attractive. In the immediate
past the lack of just such facilities as these has driven
many of the more active and restless young men and
women from the farms to the cities; for they rebelled at
loneliness and lack of mental companionship. It is unhealthy
and undesirable for the cities to grow at the expense
of the country; and rural free delivery is not only
a good thing in itself, but is good because it is one of the
causes which check this unwholesome tendency towards
the urban concentration of our population at the expense
of the country districts. It is for the same reason that
we sympathize with and approve of the policy of building
good roads. The movement for good roads is one
fraught with the greatest benefit to the country districts.
I trust that the Congress will continue to favor in all
proper ways the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. This
Exposition commemorates the Louisiana purchase, which
was the first great step in the expansion which made us a
continental nation. The expedition of Lewis and Clark
across the continent followed thereon, and marked the
beginning of the process of exploration and colonization
which thrust our national boundaries to the Pacific. The
States of Oregon and Washington, was a fact of immense
importance in our history; first giving us our place on
the Pacific seaboard, and making ready the way for our
ascendency in the commerce of the greatest of the oceans.
The centennial of our establishment upon the western
coast by the expedition of Lewis and Clark is to be celebrated
at Portland, Oregon, by an exposition in the summer
of 1905, and this event should receive recognition and
support from the National Government.
I call your special attention to the Territory of Alaska.
The country is developing rapidly, and it has an assured
future. The mineral wealth is great, and has as yet hardly
been tapped. The fisheries, if wisely handled and kept
under national control, will be a business as permanent
as any other, and of the utmost importance to the people.
The forests if properly guarded will form another great
source of wealth. Portions of Alaska are fitted for farming
and stock raising, although the methods must be
adapted to the peculiar conditions of the country.
Alaska is situated in the far north; but so are Norway
and Sweden and Finland; and Alaska can prosper and
play its part in the New World just as those nations have
prospered and played their parts in the Old World.
Proper land laws should be enacted, and the survey of
the public lands immediately begun. Coal-land laws
should be provided whereby the coal-land entryman may
make his location and secure patent under methods kindred
to those now prescribed for homestead and mineral
entrymen. Salmon hatcheries, exclusively under Government
control, should be established. The cable should
be extended from Sitka westward. Wagon roads and
trails should be built, and the building of railroads promoted
in all legitimate ways. Light-houses should be
built along the coast. Attention should be paid to the
needs of the Alaska Indians; provision should be made
their immediate wants, and help them adapt themselves
to the new conditions.
The commission appointed to investigate, during the
season of 1903, the condition and needs of the Alaskan
salmon fisheries, has finished its work in the field, and is
preparing a detailed report thereon. A preliminary report
reciting the measures immediately required for the
protection and preservation of the salmon industry has
already been submitted to the Secretary of Commerce
and Labor for his attention and for the needed action.
I recommend that an appropriation be made for building
light-houses in Hawaii, and taking possession of those
already built. The Territory should be reimbursed for
whatever amounts it has already expended for lighthouses.
The governor should be empowered to suspend
or remove any official appointed by him, without submitting
the matter to the legislature.
Of our insular possessions, the Philippines and Porto
Rico, it is gratifying to say that their steady progress has
been such as to make it unnecessary to spend much time
in discussing them. Yet the Congress should ever keep
in mind that a peculiar obligation rests upon us to further
in every way the welfare of these communities. The
Philippines should be knit closer to us by tariff arrangements.
It would, of course, be impossible suddenly to
raise the people of the islands to the high pitch of industrial
prosperity and of governmental efficiency to which
they will in the end by degrees attain; and the caution
and moderation shown in developing them have been
among the main reasons why this development has
hitherto gone on so smoothly. Scrupulous care has been
taken in the choice of governmental agents and the entire
elimination of partisan politics from the public service.
The condition of the islanders is in material things
far better than ever before, while their governmental,
material advance. No one people ever benefited another
people more than we have benefited the Filipinos by
taking possession of the islands.
The cash receipts of the General Land Office for the
last fiscal year were $11,024,743.65, an increase of $4,762,816.47
over the preceding year. Of this sum, approximately,
$8,461,493 will go to the credit of the fund for
the reclamation of arid land, making the total of this
fund, up to the 30th of June, 1903, approximately,
$16,191,836.
A gratifying disposition has been evinced by those
having unlawful inclosures of public land to remove their
fences. Nearly two million acres so inclosed have been
thrown open on demand. In but comparatively few
cases has it been necessary to go into court to accomplish
this purpose. This work will be vigorously prosecuted
until all unlawful inclosures have been removed.
Experience has shown that in the Western States themselves,
as well as in the rest of the country, there is widespread
conviction that certain of the public-land laws and
the resulting administrative practice no longer meet the
present needs. The character and uses of the remaining
public lands differ widely from those of the public lands
which Congress had especially in view when these laws
were passed. The rapidly increasing rate of disposal of
the public lands is not followed by a corresponding increase
in home building. There is a tendency to mass in
large holdings public lands, especially timber and grazing
lands, and thereby to retard settlement. I renew and
emphasize my recommendation of last year that so far as
they are available for agriculture in its broadest sense,
and to whatever extent they may be reclaimed under the
national irrigation law, the remaining public lands should
be held rigidly for the home builder. The attention of
the Congress is especially directed to the timber and
clause of the homestead law, which in their operation
have in many respects conflicted with wise public-land
policy. The discussions in the Congress and elsewhere
have made it evident that there is a wide divergence of
opinions between those holding opposite views on these
subjects; and that the opposing sides have strong and
convinced representatives of weight both within and
without the Congress; the differences being not only as
to matters of opinion but as to matters of fact. In order
that definite information may be available for the use of
the Congress, I have appointed a commission composed
of W. A. Richards, Commissioner of the General Land
Office; Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the Bureau of Forestry
of the Department of Agriculture, and F. H. Newell,
Chief Hydrographer of the Geological Survey, to report
at the earliest practicable moment upon the condition,
operation, and effect of the present land laws and on
the use, condition, disposal, and settlement of the public
lands. The commission will report especially what changes
in organization, laws, regulations, and practice affecting
the public lands are needed to effect the largest practicable
disposition of the public lands to actual settlers who will
build permanent homes upon them, and to secure in permanence
the fullest and most effective use of the resources
of the public lands; and it will make such other reports
and recommendations as its study of these questions may
suggest. The commission is to report immediately upon
those points concerning which its judgment is clear; on
any point upon which it has doubt it will take the time
necessary to make investigation and reach a final judgment.
The work of reclamation of the arid lands of the West
is progressing steadily and satisfactorily under the terms
of the law setting aside the proceeds from the disposal
of public lands. The corps of engineers known as the
examinations, has been thoroughly organized, especial
pains being taken to secure under the civil-service rules a
body of skilled, experienced, and efficient men. Surveys
and examinations are progressing throughout the arid
States and Territories, plans for reclaiming works being
prepared and passed upon by boards of engineers before
approval by the Secretary of the Interior. In Arizona
and Nevada, in localities where such work is pre-eminently
needed, construction has already been begun. In other
parts of the arid West various projects are well advanced
towards the drawing up of contracts, these being delayed
in part by necessities of reaching agreements or understanding
as regards rights of way or acquisition of real
estate. Most of the works contemplated for construction
are of national importance, involving interstate questions
or the securing of stable, self-supporting communities in
the midst of vast tracts of vacant land. The Nation as a
whole is of course the gainer by the creation of these
homes, adding as they do to the wealth and stability of
the country, and furnishing a home market for the products
of the East and South. The reclamation law, while
perhaps not ideal, appears at present to answer the larger
needs for which it is designed. Further legislation is not
recommended until the necessities of change are more
apparent.
The study of the opportunities of reclamation of the
vast extent of arid land shows that whether this reclamation
is done by individuals, corporations, or the State,
the sources of water supply must be effectively protected
and the reservoirs guarded by the preservation of the
forests at the headwaters of the streams. The engineers
making the preliminary examinations continually emphasize
this need and urge that the remaining public lands at
the headwaters of the important streams of the West be
reserved to insure permanency of water supply for irrigation.
the past year. The necessity for perpetuating our forest
resources, whether in public or private hands, is recognized
now as never before. The demand for forest reserves
has become insistent in the West, because the West
must use the water, wood, and summer range which only
such reserves can supply. Progressive lumbermen are
striving, through forestry, to give their business permanence.
Other great business interests are awakening to
the need of forest preservation as a business matter. The
Government's forest work should receive from the Congress
hearty support, and especially support adequate for
the protection of the forest reserves against fire. The
forest-reserve policy of the Government has passed beyond
the experimental stage and has reached a condition
where scientific methods are essential to its successful
prosecution. The administrative features of forest reserves
are at present unsatisfactory, being divided between
three Bureaus of two Departments. It is therefore
recommended that all matters pertaining to forest reserves
except those involving or pertaining to land titles,
be consolidated in the Bureau of Forestry of the Department
of Agriculture.
The cotton-growing States have recently been invaded
by a weevil that has done much damage and threatens
the entire cotton industry. I suggest to the Congress
the prompt enactment of such remedial legislation as its
judgment may approve.
In granting patents to foreigners the proper course for
this country to follow is to give the same advantages to
foreigners here that the countries in which these foreigners
dwell extend in return to our citizens; that is, to
extend the benefits of our patent laws on inventions and
the like where in return the articles would be patentable
in the foreign countries concerned—where an American
could get a corresponding patent in such countries.
The Indian agents should not be dependent for their
appointment or tenure of office upon considerations of
partisan politics; the practice of appointing, when possible,
ex-army officers or bonded superintendents to the
vacancies that occur is working well. Attention is invited
to the widespread illiteracy due to lack of public
schools in the Indian Territory. Prompt heed should
be paid to the need of education for the children in this
Territory.
In my last annual Message the attention of the Congress
was called to the necessity of enlarging the safety-appliance
law, and it is gratifying to note that this law
was amended in important respects. With the increasing
railway mileage of the country, the greater number of
men employed, and the use of larger and heavier equipment
the urgency for renewed effort to prevent the loss
of life and limb upon the railroads of the country, particularly
to employees, is apparent. For the inspection
of water craft and the Life-Saving Service upon the water
the Congress has built up an elaborate body of protective
legislation and a thorough method of inspection and is
annually spending large sums of money. It is encouraging
to observe that the Congress is alive to the interests
of those who are employed upon our wonderful arteries
of commerce—the railroads—who so safely transport
millions of passengers and billions of tons of freight.
The Federal inspection of safety appliances, for which
the Congress is now making appropriations, is a service
analogous to that which the Government has upheld for
generations in regard to vessels, and it is believed will
prove of great practical benefit, both to railroad employees
and the travelling public. As the greater part of commerce
is interstate and exclusively under the control of
the Congress, the needed safety and uniformity must be
secured by national legislation.
No other class of our citizens deserves so well of the
the veterans of the Civil War. Special attention is asked
to the excellent work of the Pension Bureau in expediting
and disposing of pension claims. During the fiscal year
ending July 1, 1903, the Bureau settled 251,982 claims,
an average of 825 claims for each working day of the
year. The number of settlements since July 1, 1903, has
been in excess of last year's average, approaching 1000
claims for each working day, and it is believed that the
work of the Bureau will be current at the close of the
present fiscal year.
During the year ended June 30th last 25,566 persons
were appointed through competitive examinations under
the civil-service rules. This was 12,672 more than during
the preceding year, and forty per cent. of those who
passed the examinations. This abnormal growth was
largely occasioned by the extension of classification to
the rural free-delivery service and the appointment last
year of over nine thousand rural carriers. A revision of
the civil-service rules took effect on April 15th last, which
has greatly improved their operation. The completion of
the reform of the civil service is recognized by good citizens
everywhere as a matter of the highest public importance,
and the success of the merit system largely depends
upon the effectiveness of the rules and the machinery
provided for their enforcement. A very gratifying spirit
of friendly co-operation exists in all the Departments of
the Government in the enforcement and uniform observance
of both the letter and spirit of the civil-service act.
Executive orders of July 3, 1902; March 26, 1903, and
July 8, 1903, require that appointments of all unclassified
laborers, both in the Departments at Washington and in
the field service, shall be made with the assistance of the
United States Civil Service Commission, under a system of
registration to test the relative fitness of applicants for appointment
or employment. This system is competitive,
in respect to age, physical ability, moral character,
industry, and adaptability for manual labor; except that
in case of veterans of the Civil War the element of age is
omitted. This system of appointment is distinct from
the classified service and does not classify positions of
mere laborer under the civil-service act and rules. Regulations
in aid thereof have been put in operation in
several of the departments and are being gradually extended
in other parts of the service. The results have
been very satisfactory, as extravagance has been checked
by decreasing the number of unnecessary positions and
by increasing the efficiency of the employees remaining.
The Congress, as a result of a thorough investigation
of the charities and reformatory institutions in the District
of Columbia, by a joint select committee of the two
Houses which made its report in March, 1898, created
in the act approved June 6, 1900, a board of charities for
the District of Columbia, to consist of five residents of
the District, appointed by the President of the United
States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,
each for a term of three years, to serve without compensation.
President McKinley appointed five men who
had been active and prominent in the public charities of
Washington, all of whom upon taking office July 1, 1900,
resigned from the different charities with which they had
been connected. The members of the board have been
reappointed in successive years. The board serves under
the Commissioners of the District of Columbia. The
board gave its first year to a careful and impartial study
of the special problems before it, and has continued that
study every year in the light of the best practice in public
charities elsewhere. Its recommendations in its annual
reports to the Congress through the Commissioners of the
District of Columbia "for the economical and efficient administration
of the charities and reformatories of the District
been based upon the principles commended by the joint
select committee of the Congress in its report of March,
1898, and approved by the best administrators of public
charities, and make for the desired systematization and
improvement of the affairs under its supervision. They
are worthy of favorable consideration by the Congress.
The effect of the laws providing a General Staff for the
Army and for the more effective use of the National
Guard has been excellent. Great improvement has been
made in the efficiency of our Army in recent years. Such
schools as those erected at Fort Leavenworth and Fort
Riley and the institution of fall manœuvre work accomplish
satisfactory results. The good effect of these
manœuvres upon the National Guard is marked, and
ample appropriation should be made to enable the guardsmen
of the several States to share in the benefit. The
Government should as soon as possible secure suitable
permanent camp sites for military manœuvres in the
various sections of the country. The service thereby
rendered not only to the Regular Army, but to the National
Guard of the several States, will be so great as to
repay many times over the relatively small expense. We
should not rest satisfied with what has been done, however,
The only people who are contented with a system
of promotion by mere seniority are those who are contented
with the triumph of mediocrity over excellence.
On the other hand, a system which encouraged the exercise
of social or political favoritism in promotions would
be even worse. But it would surely be easy to devise a
method of promotion from grade to grade in which the
opinion of the higher officers of the service upon the candidates
should be decisive upon the standing and promotion
of the latter. Just such a system now obtains at
West Point. The quality of each year's work determines
the standing of that year's class, the man being dropped
which his military superiors decide to be warranted by
his merit. In other words, ability, energy, fidelity, and
all other similar qualities determine the rank of a man
year after year in West Point, and his standing in the
army when he graduates from West Point; but from
that time on, all effort to find which man is best or worst,
and reward or punish him accordingly, is abandoned; no
brilliancy, no amount of hard work, no eagerness in the
performance of duty, can advance him, and no slackness
or indifference that falls short of a court-martial offence
can retard him. Until this system is changed we cannot
hope that our officers will be of as high grade as we have
a right to expect, considering the material upon which we
draw. Moreover, when a man renders such service as
Captain Pershing rendered last spring in the Moro campaign,
it ought to be possible to reward him without at
once jumping him to the grade of brigadier-general.
Shortly after the enunciation of that famous principle
of American foreign policy now known as the "Monroe
Doctrine," President Monroe, in a special Message to
Congress on January 30, 1824, spoke as follows: "The
Navy is the arm from which our Government will always
derive most aid in support of our . . . rights. Every
power engaged in war will know the strength of our naval
power, the number of our ships of each class, their condition,
and the promptitude with which we may bring
them into service, and will pay due consideration to that
argument."
I heartily congratulate the Congress upon the steady
progress in building up the American Navy. We cannot
afford a let-up in this great work. To stand still means
to go back. There should be no cessation in adding to
the effective units of the fighting strength of the fleet.
Meanwhile the Navy Department and the officers of the
Navy are doing well their part by providing constant
warfare. Our officers and enlisted men are learning to
handle the battleships, cruisers, and torpedo boats with
high efficiency in fleet and squadron formations, and the
standard of marksmanship is being steadily raised. The
best work ashore is indispensable, but the highest duty
of a naval officer is to exercise command at sea.
The establishment of a naval base in the Philippines
ought not to be longer postponed. Such a base is desirable
in time of peace; in time of war it would be indispensable,
and its lack would be ruinous. Without it our
fleet would be helpless. Our naval experts are agreed
that Subig Bay is the proper place for the purpose. The
national interests require that the work of fortification
and development of a naval station at Subig Bay be begun
at an early date; for under the best conditions it is a
work which will consume much time.
It is eminently desirable, however, that there should
be provided a naval general staff on lines similar to those
of the General Staff lately created for the Army. Within
the Navy Department itself the needs of the service have
brought about a system under which the duties of a general
staff are partially performed; for the Bureau of Navigation
has under its direction the War College, the Office
of Naval Intelligence, and the Board of Inspection, and
has been in close touch with the General Board of the
Navy. But though under the excellent officers at their
head, these boards and bureaus do good work, they have
not the authority of a general staff, and have not sufficient
scope to insure a proper readiness for emergencies. We
need the establishment by law of a body of trained
officers, who shall exercise a systematic control of the
military affairs of the Navy, and be authorized advisers
of the Secretary concerning it.
By the act of June 28, 1902, the Congress authorized
the President to enter into treaty with Colombia for the
being provided that in the event of failure to secure such
treaty after the lapse of a reasonable time, recourse should
be had to building a canal through Nicaragua. It has
not been necessary to consider this alternative, as I am
enabled to lay before the Senate a treaty providing for
the building of the canal across the Isthmus of Panama.
This was the route which commended itself to the deliberate
judgment of the Congress, and we can now
acquire by treaty the right to construct the canal over
this route. The question now, therefore, is not by which
route the isthmian canal shall be built, for that question
has been definitely and irrevocably decided. The question
is simply whether or not we shall have an isthmian canal.
When the Congress directed that we should take the
Panama route under treaty with Colombia, the essence of
the condition, of course, referred not to the Government
which controlled that route, but to the route itself; to
the territory across which the route lay, not to the name
which for the moment the territory bore on the map.
The purpose of the law was to authorize the President to
make a treaty with the power in actual control of the
Isthmus of Panama. This purpose has been fulfilled.
In the year 1846 this Government entered into a treaty
with New Granada, the predecessor upon the Isthmus of
the Republic of Colombia and of the present Republic of
Panama, by which treaty it was provided that the Government
and citizens of the United States should always
have free and open right of way or transit across the
Isthmus of Panama by any modes of communication that
might be constructed, while in return our Government
guaranteed the perfect neutrality of the above-mentioned
Isthmus with the view that the free transit from the one
to the other sea might not be interrupted or embarrassed.
The treaty vested in the United States a substantial
property right carved out of the rights of sovereignty and
over the said territory. The name of New Granada has
passed away and its territory has been divided. Its successor,
the Government of Colombia, has ceased to own
any property in the Isthmus. A new Republic, that of
Panama, which was at one time a sovereign state, and at
another time a mere department of the successive confederations
known as New Granada and Colombia, has
now succeeded to the rights which first one and then the
other formerly exercised over the Isthmus. But as long
as the Isthmus endures, the mere geographical fact of its
existence, and the peculiar interest therein which is required
by our position, perpetuate the solemn contract
which binds the holders of the territory to respect our
right to freedom of transit across it, and binds us in return
to safeguard for the Isthmus and the world the exercise
of that inestimable privilege. The true interpretation of
the obligations upon which the United States entered in
this treaty of 1846 has been given repeatedly in the utterances
of Presidents and Secretaries of State. Secretary
Cass in 1858 officially stated the position of this Government
as follows:
The progress of events has rendered the interoceanic route
across the narrow portion of Central America vastly important
to the commercial world, and especially to the United States,
whose possessions extend along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts,
and demand the speediest and easiest modes of communication.
While the rights of sovereignty of the states occupying this
region should always be respected, we shall expect that these
rights be exercised in a spirit befitting the occasion and the
wants and circumstances that have arisen. Sovereignty has
its duties as well as its rights, and none of these local governments,
even if administered with more regard to the just
demands of other nations than they have been, would be permitted,
in a spirit of Eastern isolation, to close the gates of
intercourse on the great highways of the world, and justify the
belong to them and that they choose to shut them, or, what is
almost equivalent, to encumber them with such unjust relations
as would prevent their general use.
Seven years later, in 1865, Mr. Seward in different
communications took the following position:
The United States have taken and will take no interest in
any question of internal revolution in the State of Panama, or
any State of the United States of Colombia, but will maintain
a perfect neutrality in connection with such domestic altercations.
The United States will, nevertheless, hold themselves
ready to protect the transit trade across the Isthmus against
invasion of either domestic or foreign disturbers of the peace
of the State of Panama. . . . Neither the text nor the
spirit of the stipulation in that article by which the United
States engages to preserve the neutrality of the Isthmus of
Panama, imposes an obligation on this Government to comply
with the requisition [of the President of the United States of
Colombia for a force to protect the Isthmus of Panama from
a body of insurgents of that country]. The purpose of the
stipulation was to guarantee the Isthmus against seizure or
invasion by a foreign power only.
Attorney-General Speed, under date of November 7,
1865, advised Secretary Seward as follows:
From this treaty it cannot be supposed that New Granada
invited the United States to become a party to the intestine
troubles of that Government, nor did the United States become
bound to take sides in the domestic broils of New
Granada. The United States did guarantee New Granada in
the sovereignty and property over the territory. This was as
against other and foreign governments.
For four hundred years, ever since shortly after the discovery
of this hemisphere, the canal across the Isthmus
worked at. When made it is to last for the ages. It is
to alter the geography of a continent and the trade routes
of the world. We have shown by every treaty we have
negotiated or attempted to negotiate with the peoples in
control of the Isthmus and with foreign nations in reference
thereto our consistent good faith in observing our
obligations; on the one hand to the peoples of the
Isthmus, and on the other hand to the civilized world
whose commercial rights we are safeguarding and guaranteeing
by our action. We have done our duty to others
in letter and in spirit, and we have shown the utmost
forbearance in exacting our own rights.
Last spring, under the act above referred to, a treaty
concluded between the representatives of the Republic of
Colombia and of our Government was ratified by the Senate.
This treaty was entered into at the urgent solicitation
of the people of Colombia and after a body of experts
appointed by our Government especially to go into the
matter of the routes across the Isthmus had pronounced
unanimously in favor of the Panama route. In drawing
up this treaty every concession was made to the people
and to the Government of Colombia. We were more
than just in dealing with them. Our generosity was such
as to make it a serious question whether we had not gone
too far in their interest at the expense of our own; for in
our scrupulous desire to pay all possible heed, not merely
to the real but even to the fancied rights of our weaker
neighbor, who already owed so much to our protection
and forbearance, we yielded in all possible ways to her
desires in drawing up the treaty. Nevertheless the Government
of Colombia not merely repudiated the treaty,
but repudiated it in such manner as to make it evident
by the time the Colombian Congress adjourned that not
the scantiest hope remained of ever getting a satisfactory
treaty from them. The Government of Colombia made
called to ratify it the vote against ratification was unanimous.
It does not appear that the Government made
any real effort to secure ratification.
Immediately after the adjournment of the Congress a
revolution broke out in Panama. The people of Panama
had long been discontented with the Republic of Colombia,
and they had been kept quiet only by the prospect of
the conclusion of the treaty, which was to them a matter
of vital concern. When it became evident that the treaty
was hopelessly lost, the people of Panama rose literally as
one man. Not a shot was fired by a single man on the
Isthmus in the interest of the Colombian Government.
Not a life was lost in the accomplishment of the revolution.
The Colombian troops stationed on the Isthmus,
who had long been unpaid, made common cause with the
people of Panama, and with astonishing unanimity the
new Republic was started. The duty of the United
States in the premises was clear. In strict accordance
with the principles laid down by Secretaries Cass and
Seward in the official documents above quoted, the
United States gave notice that it would permit the landing
of no expeditionary force, the arrival of which would
mean chaos and destruction along the line of the railroad
and of the proposed canal, and an interruption of transit
as an inevitable consequence. The de facto Government
of Panama was recognized in the following telegram to
Mr. Ehrman:
The people of Panama have, by apparently unanimous movement,
dissolved their political connection with the Republic of
Colombia and resumed their independence. When you are
satisfied that a de facto government, republican in form and
without substantial opposition from its own people, has been
established in the State of Panama, you will enter into relations
with it as the responsible government of the territory and look
to it for all due action to protect the persons and property of
transit, in accordance with the obligations of existing treaties
governing the relations of the United States to that territory.
The Government of Colombia was notified of our action
by the following telegram to Mr. Beaupré:
The people of Panama having, by an apparently unanimous
movement, dissolved their political connection with the Republic
of Colombia and resumed their independence, and
having adopted a Government of their own, republican in
form, with which the Government of the United States of
America has entered into relations, the President of the United
States, in accordance with the ties of friendship which have
so long and so happily existed between the respective nations,
most earnestly commends to the Governments of Colombia
and of Panama the peaceful and equitable settlement of all
questions at issue between them. He holds that he is bound
not merely by treaty obligations, but by the interests of civilization,
to see that the peaceful traffic of the world across the
Isthmus of Panama shall not longer be disturbed by a constant
succession of unnecessary and wasteful civil wars.
When these events happened, fifty-seven years had
elapsed since the United States had entered into its treaty
with New Granada. During that time the Governments
of New Granada and of its successor, Colombia, have been
in a constant state of flux. The following is a partial list
of the disturbances on the Isthmus of Panama during the
period in question as reported to us by our consuls. It is
not possible to give a complete list, and some of the reports
that speak of "revolutions" must mean unsuccessful
revolutions.
- May 22, 1850.—Outbreak; two Americans killed.
War vessel demanded to quell outbreak. - October, 1850.—Revolutionary plot to bring about
independence of the Isthmus. - July 22, 1851.—Revolution in four southern provinces.
- November 14, 1851.—Outbreak at Chagres. Man-of-war
requested for Chagres. - June 27, 1853.—Insurrection at Bogota, and consequent
disturbance on Isthmus. War vessel demanded. - May 23, 1854.—Political disturbances; war vessel requested.
- June 28, 1854.—Attempted revolution.
- October 24, 1854.—Independence of Isthmus demanded
by provincial legislature. - April, 1856.—Riot, and massacre of Americans.
- May 4, 1856.—Riot.
- May 18, 1856.—Riot.
- June 3, 1856.—Riot.
- October 2, 1856.—Conflict between two native parties.
United States forces landed. - December 18, 1858.—Attempted secession of Panama.
- April, 1859.—Riots.
- September, 1860.—Outbreak.
- October 4, 1860.—Landing of United States forces in
consequence. - May 23, 1861.—Intervention of the United States
forces required by intendente. - October 2, 1861.—Insurrection and civil war.
- April 4, 1862.—Measures to prevent rebels crossing
Isthmus. - June 13, 1862.—Mosquera's troops refused admittance
to Panama. - March, 1865.—Revolution, and United States troops
landed. - August, 1865.—Riots; unsuccessful attempt to invade
Panama. - March, 1866.—Unsuccessful revolution.
- April, 1867.—Attempt to overthrow Government.
- August, 1867.—Attempt at revolution.
- July 5, 1868.—Revolution; provisional government
inaugurated. - August 29, 1868.—Revolution; provisional government
overthrown. - April, 1871.—Revolution; followed apparently by
counter–revolution. - April, 1873.—Revolution and civil war which lasted to
October, 1875. - August, 1876.—Civil war which lasted until April, 1877.
- July, 1878.—Rebellion.
- December, 1878.—Revolt.
- April, 1879.—Revolution.
- June, 1879.—Revolution.
- March, 1883.—Riot.
- May, 1883.—Riot.
- June, 1884.—Revolutionary attempt.
- December, 1884.—Revolutionary attempt.
- January, 1885.—Revolutionary disturbances.
- March, 1885.—Revolution.
- April, 1887.—Disturbance on Panama Railroad.
- November, 1887.—Disturbance on line of canal.
- January, 1889.—Riot.
- January, 1895.—Revolution which lasted until April.
- March, 1895.—Incendiary attempt.
- October, 1899.—Revolution.
- February, 1900, to July, 1900.—Revolution.
- January, 1901.—Revolution.
- July, 1901.—Revolutionary disturbances.
- September, 1901.—City of Colon taken by rebels.
- March, 1902.—Revolutionary disturbances.
- July, 1902.—Revolution.
The above is only a partial list of the revolutions, rebellions,
insurrections, riots, and other outbreaks that have
occurred during the period in question; yet they number
fifty-three for the fifty-seven years. It will be noted
that one of them lasted for nearly three years before it
was quelled; another for nearly a year. In short, the
be utterly incapable of keeping order on the Isthmus.
Only the active interference of the United States has enabled
her to preserve so much as a semblance of sovereignty.
Had it not been for the exercise by the United
States of the police power in her interest, her connection
with the Isthmus would have been sundered long ago. In
1856, in 1860, in 1873, in 1885, in 1901, and again in 1902,
sailors and marines from United States warships were
forced to land in order to patrol the Isthmus, to protect
life and property, and to see that the transit across the
Isthmus was kept open. In 1861, in 1862, in 1885, and in
1900, the Colombian Government asked that the United
States Government would land troops to protect its interests
and maintain order on the Isthmus. Perhaps the
most extraordinary request is that which has just been
received and which runs as follows:
Knowing that revolution has already commenced in Panama
[an eminent Colombian] says that if the Government of the
United States will land troops to preserve Colombian sovereignty,
and the transit, if requested by Colombian chargé
d'affaires, this Government will declare martial law; and, by
virtue of vested constitutional authority, when public order is
disturbed, will approve by decree the ratification of the canal
treaty as signed; or, if the Government of the United States
prefers, will call extra session of the Congress—with new and
friendly members—next May to approve the treaty. [An
eminent Colombian] has the perfect confidence of vice-president,
he says, and if it became necessary will go to the Isthmus
or send representative there to adjust matters along above lines
to the satisfaction of the people there.
This dispatch is noteworthy from two standpoints. Its
offer of immediately guaranteeing the treaty to us is in
sharp contrast with the positive and contemptuous refusal
of the Congress which has just closed its sessions to
which made the treaty really had absolute control
over the situation, but did not choose to exercise this
control. The dispatch further calls on us to restore order
and secure Colombian supremacy in the Isthmus from
which the Colombian Government has just by its action
decided to bar us by preventing the construction of the
canal.
The control, iathe interest of the commerce and traffic
of the whole civilized world, of the means of undisturbed
transitacrossthe Isthmus of Panama has become of
transcendent importance to the United States. We have
repeatedly exercised this control by intervening in the
course of domestic dissension, and by protecting the territory
from foreign invasion. In 1853 Mr. Everett assured
the Peruvian minister that we should not hesitate to maintain
the neutrality of the Isthmus in the case of war between
Peru and Colombia. In 1864 Colombia, which has
always been vigilant to avail itself of its privileges conferred
by the treaty, expressed its expectation that in the
event of war between Peru and Spain the United States
would carry into effect the guaranty of neutrality. There
have been few administrations of the State Department
in which this treaty has not, either by the one side or the
other, been used as a basis of more or less important demands.
It was said by Mr. Fish in 1871 that the Department
of State had reason to believe that an attack upon
Colombian sovereignty on the Isthmus had, on several
occasions, been averted by warning from this Government.
In 1886, when Colombia was under the menace of
hostilities from Italy in the Cerruti case, Mr. Bayard expressed
the serious concern that the United States could
not but feel, that a European power should resort to
force against a sister republic of this hemisphere, as to the
sovereign and uninterrupted use of a part of whose territory
we are guarantors under the solemn faith of a treaty.
The above recital of facts establishes beyond question:
First, that the United States has for over half a century
patiently and in good faith carried out its obligations
under the treaty of 1846; second, that when for the first
time it became possible for Colombia to do anything in
requital of the services thus repeatedly rendered to it for
fifty-seven years by the United States, the Colombian
Government peremptorily and offensively refused thus to
do its part, even though to do so would have been to
its advantage and immeasurably to the advantage of the
State of Panama, at that time under its jurisdiction;
third, that throughout this period revolutions, riots, and
factional disturbances of every kind have occurred one
after the other in almost uninterrupted succession, some
of them lasting for months and even for years, while the
central government was unable to put them down or to
make peace with the rebels; fourth, that these disturbances
instead of showing any sign of abating have tended
to grow more numerous and more serious in the immediate
past; fifth, that the control of Colombia over the
Isthmus of Panama could not be maintained without the
armed intervention and assistance of the United States.
In other words, the Government of Colombia, though
wholly unable to maintain order on the Isthmus, has
nevertheless declined to ratify a treaty the conclusion of
which opened the only chance to secure its own stability
and to guarantee permanent peace on, and the construction
of a canal across, the Isthmus.
Under such circumstances the Government of the
United States would have been guilty of folly and weakness,
amounting in their sum to a crime against the
Nation, had it acted otherwise than it did when the
revolution of November 3d last took place in Panama.
This great enterprise of building the interoceanic canal
cannot be held up to gratify the whims, or out of respect
to the governmental impotence, or to the even more sinister
they dwell afar off, yet, against the wish of the actual
dwellers on the Isthmus, assert an unreal supremacy over
the territory. The possession of a territory fraught with
such peculiar capacities as the Isthmus in question carries
with it obligations to mankind. The course of events
has shown that this canal cannot be built by private
enterprise, or by any other nation than our own; therefore
it must be built by the United States.
Every effort has been made by the Government of the
United States to persuade Colombia to follow a course
which was essentially not only to our interests and to the
interests of the world, but to the interests of Colombia
itself. These efforts have failed; and Colombia, by her
persistence in repulsing the advances that have been made,
has forced us, for the sake of our own honor, and of the
interest and well-being, not merely of our own people,
but of the people of the Isthmus of Panama arid the people
of the civilized countries of the world, to take decisive
steps to bring to an end a condition of affairs which had
become intolerable. The new Republic of Panama immediately
offered to negotiate a treaty with us. This
treaty I herewith submit. By it our interests are better
safeguarded than in the treaty with Colombia which was
ratified by the Senate at its last session. It is better in
its terms than the treaties offered to us by the Republics
of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. At last the right to begin
this great undertaking is made available. Panama has
done her part. All that remains is for the American
Congress to do its part and forthwith this Republic will
enter upon the execution of a project colossal in its size
and of well-nigh incalculable possibilities for the good of
this country and the nations of mankind.
By the provisions of the treaty the United States guarantees
and will maintain the independence of the Republic
of Panama. There is granted to the United States in
miles wide and extending three nautical miles into the sea
at either terminal, with all lands lying outside of the zone
necessary for the construction of the canal or for its
auxiliary works, and with the islands in the Bay of Panama.
The cities of Panama and Colon are not embraced
in the canal zone, but the United States assumes their
sanitation and, in case of need, the maintenance of order
therein; the United States enjoys within the granted
limits all the rights, power, and authority which it would
possess were it the sovereign of the territory to the exclusion
of the exercise of sovereign rights by the Republic.
All railway and canal property rights belonging to
Panama and needed for the canal pass to the United
States, including any property of the respective companies
in the cities of Panama and Colon; the works,
property, and personnel of the canal and railways are
exempted from taxation as well in the cities of Panama
and Colon as in the canal zone and its dependencies.
Free immigration of the personnel and importation of
supplies for the construction and operation of the canal
are granted. Provision is made for the use of military
force and the building of fortifications by the United
States for the protection of the transit. In other details,
particularly as to the acquisition of the interests of the
New Panama Canal Company and the Panama Railway
by the United States and the condemnation of private
property for the uses of the canal, the stipulations of the
Hay-Herran treaty are closely followed, while the compensation
to be given for these enlarged grants remains
the same, being ten millions of dollars payable on exchange
of ratification; and, beginning nine years from
that date, an annual payment of $250,000 during the life
of the convention.
MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES
OF CONGRESS ON JANUARY 4, 1904
I lay before the Congress for its information a statement
of my action up to this time in executing the act entitled
"An act to provide for the construction of a canal connecting
the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans,"
approved June 28, 1902.
By the said act the President was authorized to secure
for the United States the property of the Panama Canal
Company and the perpetual control of a strip six miles
wide across the Isthmus of Panama. It was further provided
that "should the President be unable to obtain for
the United States a satisfactory title to the property of
the New Panama Canal Company and the control of the
necessary territory of the Republic of Colombia . . .
within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms, then
the President" should endeavor to provide for a canal by
the Nicaragua route. The language quoted defines with
exactness and precision what was to be done, and what
as a matter of fact has been done. The President was
authorized to go to the Nicaragua route only if within a
reasonable time he could not obtain "control of the
necessary territory of the Republic of Colombia." This
control has now been obtained; the provision of the act
has been complied with; it is no longer possible under
existing legislation to go to the Nicaragua route as an
alternative.
This act marked the climax of the effort on the part of
an interoceanic canal across the Isthmus. The
effort to secure a treaty for this purpose with one of the
Central American republics did not stand on the same
footing with the effort to secure a treaty under any ordinary
conditions. The proper position for the United
States to assume in reference to this canal, and therefore
to the governments of the Isthmus, had been clearly set
forth by Secretary Cass in 1858. In my annual Message
I have already quoted what Secretary Cass said; but I
repeat the quotation here, because the principle it states
is fundamental:
While the rights of sovereignty of the states occupying this
region (Central America) should always be respected, we shall
expect that these rights be exercised in a spirit befitting the
occasion and the wants and circumstances that have arisen.
Sovereignty has its duties as well as its rights, and none of
these local governments, even if administered with more regard
to the just demands of other nations than they have been,
would be permitted, in a spirit of Eastern isolation, to close
the gates of intercourse on the great highways of the world,
and justify the act by the pretension that these avenues of
trade and travel belong to them and that they choose to shut
them, or, what is almost equivalent, to encumber them with
such unjust relations as would prevent their general use.
The principle thus enunciated by Secretary Cass was
sound then and it is sound now. The United States has
taken the position that no other Government is to build
the canal. In 1889, when France proposed to come to
the aid of the French Panama Company by guaranteeing
their bonds, the Senate of the United States in executive
session, with only some three votes dissenting, passed a
resolution as follows:
That the Government of the United States will look with
serious concern and disapproval upon any connection of any
ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien or across Central
America, and must regard any such connection or control as
injurious to the just rights and interests of the United States
and as a menace to their welfare.
Under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty it was explicitly provided
that the United States should control, police, and
protect the canal which was to be built, keeping it open
for the vessels of all nations on equal terms. The United
States thus assumed the position of guarantor of the canal
and of its peaceful use by all the world. The guaranty
included as a matter of course the building of the canal.
The enterprise was recognized as responding to an international
need; and it would be the veriest travesty on
right and justice to treat the governments in possession
of the Isthmus as having the right, in the language of Mr.
Cass, "to close the gates of intercourse on the great highways
of the world, and justify the act by the pretension
that these avenues of trade and travel belong to them and
that they choose to shut them."
When this Government submitted to Colombia the
Hay-Herran treaty three things were, therefore, already
settled.
One was that the canal should be built. The time for
delay, the time for permitting the attempt to be made by
private enterprise, the time for permitting any government
of anti-social spirit and of imperfect development to
bar the work, was past. The United States had assumed
in connection with the canal certain responsibilities, not
only to its own people but to the civilized world, which
imperatively demanded that there should no longer be
delay in beginning the work.
Second. While it was settled that the canal should be
built without unnecessary or improper delay, it was no
less clearly shown to be our purpose to deal not merely
people through whose land we might build it. The Hay-Herran
treaty, if it erred at all, erred in the direction of
an over-generosity towards the Colombian Government.
In our anxiety to be fair we had gone to the very verge
in yielding to a weak nation's demands what that nation
was helplessly unable to enforce from us against our will.
The only criticisms made upon the Administration for
the terms of the Hay-Herran treaty were for having
granted too much to Colombia, not for failure to grant
enough. Neither in the Congress nor in the public press,
at the time that this treaty was formulated, was there
complaint that it did not in the fullest and amplest manner
guarantee to Colombia everything that she could by
any color of title demand.
Nor is the fact to be lost sight of that the rejected
treaty, while generously responding to the pecuniary demands
of Colombia, in other respects merely provided for
the construction of the canal in conformity with the express
requirements of the act of the Congress of June 28,
1902. By that act, as heretofore quoted, the President
was authorized to acquire from Colombia, for the purposes
of the canal, "perpetual control" of a certain strip
of land; and it was expressly required that the "control"
thus to be obtained should include "jurisdiction" to
make police and sanitary regulations and to establish such
judicial tribunals as might be agreed on for their enforcement.
These were conditions precedent prescibed by the
Congress; and for their fulfilment suitable stipulations
were embodied in the treaty. It has been stated in public
prints that Colombia objected to these stipulations, on
the ground that they involved a relinquishment of her
"sovereignty"; but in the light of what has taken place,
this alleged objection must be considered as an afterthought.
In reality, the treaty, instead of requiring a
cession of Colombia's sovereignty over the canal strip,
sovereignty over it. The treaty in this respect simply
proceeded on the lines on which all the negotiations leading
up to the present situation have been conducted. In
those negotiations the exercise by the United States, subject
to the paramount rights of the local sovereign, of a
substantial control over the canal and the immediately
adjacent territory, has been treated as a fundamental part
of any arrangement that might be made. It has formed
an essential feature of all our plans, and its necessity is
fully recognized in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. The
Congress, in providing that such control should be
secured, adopted no new principle, but only incorporated
in its legislation a condition the importance and propriety
of which were universally recognized. During all the
years of negotiation and discussion that preceded the
conclusion of the Hay-Herran treaty, Colombia never intimated
that the requirement by the United States of
control over the canal strip would render unattainable
the construction of a canal by way of the Isthmus of Panama;
nor were we advised, during the months when legislation
of 1902 was pending before the Congress, that the
terms which it embodied would render negotiations with
Colombia impracticable. It is plain that no nation could
construct and guarantee the neutrality of the canal with a
less degree of control than was stipulated for in the Hay-Herran
treaty. A refusal to grant such degree of control
was necessarily a refusal to make any practicable treaty
at all. Such refusal therefore squarely raised the question
whether Colombia was entitled to bar the transit of the
world's traffic across the Isthmus.
That the canal itself was eagerly demanded by the people
of the locality through which it was to pass, and that
the people of this locality no less eagerly longed for its
construction under American control, are shown by the
unanimity of action in the new Panama Republic.
in spite of our protests and warnings when it was in her
power to accept it, has since shown the utmost eagerness
to accept the same treaty if only the status quo could be
restored. One of the men standing highest in the official
circles of Colombia, on November 6th, addressed the
American Minister at Bogota, saying that if the Government
of the United States would land troops to preserve
Colombian sovereignty and the transit, the Colombian
Government would "declare martial law; and, by virtue
of vested constitutional authority, when public order is
disturbed, [would] approve by decree the ratification of
the canal treaty as signed; or, if the Government of the
United States prefers, [would] call extra session of
the Congress—with new and friendly members—next
May to approve the treaty." Having these facts in view,
there is no shadow of question that the Government of
the United States proposed a treaty which was not
merely just but generous to Colombia; which our people
regarded as erring, if at all, on the side of over-generosity;
which was hailed with delight by the people of the immediate
locality through which the canal was to pass, who
were most concerned as to the new order of things, and
which the Colombian authorities now recognize as being
so good that they are willing to promise its unconditional
ratification if only we will desert those who have shown
themselves our friends and restore to those who have
shown themselves unfriendly the power to undo what
they did. I pass by the question as to what assurance
we have that they would now keep their pledge and not
again refuse to ratify the treaty if they had the power;
for, of course, I will not for one moment discuss the possibility
of the United States committing an act of such
baseness as to abandon the new Republic of Panama.
Third. Finally the Congress definitely settled where
the canal was to be built. It was provided that a treaty
of Panama; and if, after reasonable time, it proved impossible
to secure such treaty, that then we should go to
Nicaragua. The treaty has been made; for it needs no
argument to show that the intent of the Congress was to
insure a canal across Panama, and that whether the republic
granting the title was called New Granada, Colombia,
or Panama mattered not one whit. As events turned out,
the question of "reasonable time" did not enter into the
matter at all. Although, as the months went by, it became
increasingly improbable that the Colombian Congress
would ratify the treaty or take steps which would
be equivalent thereto, yet all chance for such action on
their part did not vanish until the Congress closed at the
end of October; and within three days thereafter the
revolution in Panama had broken out. Panama became
an independent state, and the control of the territory
necessary for building the canal then became obtainable.
The condition under which alone we could have gone to
Nicaragua thereby became impossible of fulfilment. If
the pending treaty with Panama should not be ratified by
the Senate this would not alter the fact that we could
not go to Nicaragua. The Congress has decided the route,
and there is no alternative under existing legislation.
When in August it began to appear probable that the
Colombian Legislature would not ratify the treaty it became
incumbent upon me to consider well what the situation
was and to be ready to advise the Congress as to
what were the various alternatives of action open to us.
There were several possibilities. One was that Colombia
would at the last moment see the unwisdom of her position.
That there might be nothing omitted, Secretary
Hay, through the Minister at Bogota, repeatedly warned
Colombia that grave consequences might follow from her
rejection of the treaty. Although it was a constantly
diminishing chance, yet the possibility of ratification did
Colombian Congress.
A second alternative was that by the close of the session
on the last day of October, without the ratification of the
treaty by Colombia and without any steps taken by Panama,
the American Congress on assembling early in November
would be confronted with a situation in which
there had been a failure to come to terms as to building
the canal along the Panama route, and yet there had not
been a lapse of a reasonable time—using the word reasonable
in any proper sense—such as would justify the
Administration going to the Nicaragua route. This
situation seemed on the whole the most likely, and as a
matter of fact I had made the original draft of my Message
to the Congress with a view to its existence.
It was the opinion of eminent international jurists that
in view of the fact that the great design of our guaranty
under the treaty of 1846 was to dedicate the Isthmus to
the purposes of interoceanic transit, and above all to
secure the construction of an interoceanic canal, Colombia
could not under existing conditions refuse to enter into a
proper arrangement with the United States to that end,
without violating the spirit and substantially repudiating
the obligations of a treaty the full benefits of which she
had enjoyed for over fifty years. My intention was to
consult the Congress as to whether under such circumstances
it would not be proper to announce that the canal
was to be dug forthwith; that we would give the terms
that we had offered and no others; and that if such terms
were not agreed to we would enter into an arrangement
with Panama direct, or take what other steps were needful
in order to begin the enterprise.
A third possibility was that the people of the Isthmus,
who had formerly constituted an independent state, and
who until recently were united to Colombia only by a
loose tie of federal relationship, might take the protection
their former rights, declare their independence upon just
grounds, and establish a government competent and willing
to do its share in this great work for civilization.
This third possibility is what actually occurred. Every
one knew that it was a possibility, but it was not until
towards the end of October that it appeared to be an
imminent probability. Although the Administration, of
course, had special means of knowledge, no such means
were necessary in order to appreciate the possibility, and
toward the end the likelihood, of such a revolutionary
outbreak and of its success. It was a matter of common
notoriety. Quotations from the daily papers could be
indefinitely multiplied to show this state of affairs; a very
few will suffice. From Costa Rica on August 31st a
special was sent to the Washington Post, running as
follows:
Travellers from Panama report the Isthmus alive with fires
of a new revolution. It is inspired, it is believed, by men
who, in Panama and Colon, have systematically engendered
the pro-American feeling to secure the building of the Isthmian
Canal by the United States.
The Indians have risen, and the late followers of Gen. Benjamin
Herrera are mustering in the mountain villages, preparatory
to joining in an organized revolt, caused by the rejection
of the canal treaty.
Hundreds of stacks of arms, confiscated by the Colombian
Government at the close of the late revolution, have reappeared
from some mysterious source, and thousands of rifles that look
suspiciously like the Mausers the United States captured in
Cuba are issuing to the gathering forces from central points of
distribution. With the arms goes ammunition, fresh from
factories, showing the movement is not spasmodic, but is carefully
planned.
. . . . . . .
The Government forces in Panama and Colon, numbering
friendly to the revolutionary spirit. They have been ill paid
since the revolution closed and their only hope of prompt payment
is another war.
General Huertes, commander of the forces, who is ostensibly
loyal to the Bogota Government, is said to be secretly
friendly to the proposed revolution. At least, all his personal
friends are open in denunciation of the Bogota Government
and the failure of the Colombian Congress to ratify the canal
treaty.
The consensus of opinion gathered from late arrivals from
the Isthmus is that the revolution is coming, and that it will
succeed.
A special dispatch to the Washington Post, under date
of New York, September 1st, runs as follows:
B. G. Duque, editor and proprietor of the Panama Star and
Herald, a resident of the Isthmus during the past twenty-seven
years, who arrived to-day in New York, declared that if
the canal treaty fell through a revolution would be likely to
follow.
"There is a very strong feeling in Panama," said Mr.
Duque, "that Colombia, in negotiating the sale of a canal
concession in Panama, is looking for profits that might just as
well go to Panama herself.
"The Colombian Government, only the other day, suppressed
a newspaper that dared to speak of independence for
Panama. A while ago there was a secret plan afoot to cut
loose from Colombia and seek the protection of the United
States."
In the New York Herald of September roth the following
statement appeared:
Representatives of strong interests on the Isthmus of Panama,
who make their headquarters in this city, are considering
a plan of action to be undertaken in co-operation with men of
and form an independent government in Panama opposed
to that in Bogota.
There is much indignation on the Isthmus on account of the
failure of the canal treaty, which is ascribed to the authorities
at Bogota. This opinion is believed to be shared by a majority
of the Isthmians of all shades of political belief, and they
think it is to their best interest for a new republic to be formed
on the Isthmus, which may negotiate directly with the United
States a new treaty which will permit the digging of the
Panama Canal under favorable conditions.
In the New York Times, under date of September 13th,
there appeared from Bogota the following statement:
A proposal made by Señor Perez y Sotos to ask the Executive
to appoint an anti-secessionist governor in Panama has been
approved by the Senate. Speakers in the Senate said that
Señor Obaldía, who was recently appointed governor of Panama,
and who is favorable to a canal treaty, was a menace to
the national integrity. Senator Marroquín protested against
the action of the Senate.
President Marroquin succeeded later in calming the Congressmen.
It appears that he was able to give them satisfacítory
reasons for Governor Obaldia's appointment. He appears
to realize the imminent peril of the Isthmus of Panama
declaring its independence.
Señor Deroux, representative for a Panama constituency,
recently delivered a sensational speech in the House. Among
other things he said:
"In Panama the bishops, governors, magistrates, military
chiefs, and their subordinates have been and are foreign to the
department. It seems that the Government, with surprising
tenacity, wishes to exclude the Isthmus from all participation
in public affairs. As regards 'international dangers in the
Isthmus, all I can say is that if these dangers exist they are
due to the conduct of the National Government, which is in
the direction of reaction.
"If the Colombian Government will not take action with a
view to preventing disaster, the responsibility will rest with
it alone."
In the New York Herald of October 26th it was reported
that a revolutionary expedition of about seventy
men had actually landed on the Isthmus. In the Washington
Post of October 29th it was reported from Panama
that in view of the impending trouble on the Isthmus the
Bogota Government had gathered troops in sufficient
numbers to at once put down an attempt at secession.
In the New York Herald of October 30th it was announced
from Panama that Bogota was hurrying troops
to the Isthmus to put down the projected revolt. In
the New York Herald of November 2d it was announced
that in Bogota the Congress had indorsed the energetic
measures taken to meet the situation on the Isthmus and
that six thousand men were about to be sent thither.
Quotations like the above could be multiplied indefinitely.
Suffice it to say that it was notorious that revolutionary
trouble of a serious nature was impending upon
the Isthmus. But it was not necessary to rely exclusively
upon such general means of information. On October
15th Commander Hubbard, of the Navy, notified the
Navy Department that though things were quiet on the
Isthmus a revolution had broken out in the State of
Cauca. On October i6th, at the request of Lieutenant-General
Young, I saw Capt. C. B. Humphrey and Lieut.
Grayson Mallet-Prevost Murphy, who had just returned
from a four months' tour through the northern portions
of Venezuela and Colombia. They stopped in Panama
on their return in the latter part of September. At the
time they were sent down there had been no thought of
their going to Panama, and their visit to the Isthmus was
but an unpremeditated incident of their return journey;
nor had they been spoken to by any one at Washington
at Colon they had no knowledge that a revolution was
impending, save what they had gained from the newspapers.
What they saw in Panama so impressed them
that they reported thereon to Lieutenant-General Young,
according to his memorandum—
that while on the Isthmus they became satisfied beyond question
that, owing largely to the dissatisfaction because of the
failure of Colombia to ratify the Hay-Herran treaty, a revolutionary
party was in course of organization having for its
object the separation of the State of Panama from Colombia,
the leader being Dr. Richard Arango, a former governor of
Panama; that when they were on the Isthmus arms and ammunition
were being smuggled into the city of Colon in piano
boxes, merchandise crates, etc., the small arms received being
principally the Gras French rifle, the Remington, and the
Mauser; that nearly every citizen in Panama had some sort
of rifle or gun in his possession, with ammunition therefor;
that in the city of Panama there had been organized a fire
brigade which was really intended for a revolutionary military
organization; that there were representatives of the revolutionary
organization at all important points on the Isthmus; that
in Panama, Colon, and the other principal places of the
Isthmus police forces had been organized which were in reality
revolutionary forces; that the people on the Isthmus seemed
to be unanimous in their sentiment against the Bogota Government,
and their disgust over the failure of that Government
to ratify the treaty providing for the construction of the
canal, and that a revolution might be expected immediately
upon the adjournment of the Colombian Congress without
ratification of the treaty.
Lieutenant-General Young regarded their report as of
such importance as to make it advisable that I should
personally see these officers. They told me what they
had already reported to the Lieutenant-General, adding
that the Colombian troops were reported to be disaffected.
In response to a question of mine they informed me that
it was the general belief that the revolution might break
out at any moment, and if it did not happen before,
would doubtless take place immediately after the closing
of the Colombian Congress (at the end of October) if the
canal treaty were not ratified. They were certain that
the revolution would occur, and before leaving the
Isthmus had made their own reckoning as to the time,
which they had set down as being probably from three to
four weeks after their leaving. The reason they set this
as the probable inside limit of time was that they reckoned
that it would be at least three or four weeks—say
not until October 20th—before a sufficient quantity of
arms and munitions would have been landed.
In view of all these facts I directed the Navy Department
to issue instructions such as would insure our having
ships within easy reach of the Isthmus in the event of
need arising. Orders were given on October iQth to the
Boston to proceed to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua; to
the Dixie to prepare to sail from League Island; and to
the Atlanta to proceed to Guantanamo. On October
30th the Nashville was ordered to proceed to Colon. On
November 2d when, the Colombian Congress having adjourned,
it was evident that the outbreak was imminent,
and when it was announced that both sides were making
ready forces whose meeting would mean bloodshed and
disorder, the Colombian troops having been embarked
on vessels, the following instructions were sent to the
commanders of the Boston, Nashville, and Dixie:
Maintain free and uninterrupted transit. If interruption
is threatened by armed force, occupy the line of railroad.
Prevent landing of any armed force with hostile intent, either
Government or insurgent, at any point within 50 miles of
in vessels. Prevent their landing if, in your judgment, the
landing would precipitate a conflict.
These orders were delivered in pursuance of the policy
on which our Government had repeatedly acted. This
policy was exhibited in the following orders, given under
somewhat similar circumstances last year, and the year
before, and the year before that. The first two telegrams
are from the Department of State to the consul at Panama:
You are directed to protest against any act of hostility
which may involve or imperil the safe and peaceful transit
of persons or property across the Isthmus of Panama. The
bombardment of Panama would have this effect, and the
United States must insist upon the neutrality of the Isthmus
as guaranteed by the treaty.
Notify all parties molesting or interfering with free transit
across the Isthmus that such interference must cease and that
the United States will prevent the interruption of traffic upon
the railroad. Consult with captain of the Iowa, who will be
instructed to land marines, if necessary, for the protection of
the railroad, in accordance with the treaty rights and obligations
of the United States. Desirable to avoid bloodshed, if
possible.
The next three telegrams are from and to the Secretary
of the Navy:
"Ranger," Panama:
United States guarantees perfect neutrality of Isthmus and
that a free transit from sea to sea be not interrupted or embarrassed.
. . . Any transportation of troops which might
contravene these provisions of treaty should not be sanctioned
the line of transit into theatre of hostility.
Everything is conceded. The United States guards and
guarantees traffic and the line of transit. To-day I permitted
the exchange of Colombia troops from Panama to Colon,
about 1000 men each way, the troops without arms in train
guarded by American naval force in the same manner as other
passengers; arms and ammunition in separate train, guarded
also by naval force in the same manner as other freight.
Have sent this communication to the American consul at
Panama:
"Inform governor while trains running under United States
protection I must decline transportation any combatants, ammunition,
arms, which might cause interruption traffic or convert
line of transit into theatre hostilities."
On November 3d Commander Hubbard responded to
the above-quoted telegram of November 2, 1903, saying
that before the telegram had been received four hundred
Colombian troops from Cartagena had landed at Colon;
that there had been no revolution on the Isthmus, but
that the situation was most critical if the revolutionary
leaders should act. On this same date the Associated
Press in Washington received a bulletin stating that a
revolutionary outbreak had occurred. When this was
brought to the attention of the Assistant Secretary of
State, Mr. Loomis, he prepared the following cablegram
to the consul-general at Panama and the consul at Colon:
Uprising on Isthmus reported. Keep Department promptly
and fully informed.
Before this telegram was sent, however, one was received
from Consul Malmros at Colon, running as follows:
Revolution imminent. Government force on the Isthmus
about 500 men. Their official promised support revolution.
Fire department, Panama, 441, are well organized and favor
revolution. Government vessel, Cartagena, with about 400
men, arrived early to-day with new commander in chief,
Tobar. Was not expected until November 10. Tobar's
arrival is not probable to stop revolution.
This cablegram was received at 2.35 P.M., and at 3.40
P.M. Mr. Loomis sent the telegram which he had already
prepared to both Panama and Colon. Apparently, however,
the consul-general at Panama had not received the
information embodied in the Associated Press bulletin,
upon which the Assistant Secretary of State based his
dispatch; for his answer was that there was no uprising,
although the situation was critical, this answer being received
at 8.15 P.M. Immediately afterwards he sent
another dispatch, which was received at 9.50 P.M., saying
that the uprising had occurred, and had been successful,
with no bloodshed. The Colombian gunboat Bogota next
day began to shell the city of Panama, with the result of
killing one Chinaman. The consul-general was directed
to notify her to stop firing. Meanwhile, on November
4th, Commander Hubbard notified the Department that
he had landed a force to protect the lives and property of
American citizens against the threats of the Colombian
soldiery.
Before any step whatever had been taken by the United
States troops to restore order, the commander of the
newly landed Colombian troops had indulged in wanton
and violent threats against American citizens, which
created serious apprehension. As Commander Hubbard
reported in his letter November 5th, this officer and his
and only the forbearance and coolness of our officers and
men prevented bloodshed. The letter of Commander
Hubbard is of such interest that it deserves quotation in
full, and runs as follows:
Colon, U. S. Colombia, November 5, 1903.
Sir: Pending a complete report of the occurrences of the
last three days in Colon, Colombia, I most respectfully invite
the Department's attention to those of the date of Wednesday,
November 4, which amounted to practically the making of war
against the United States by the officer in command of the
Colombian troops in Colon. At i o'clock P.M. on that date
I was summoned on shore by a preconcerted signal, and on
landing met the United States consul, vice-consul, and Colonel
Shaler, the general superintendent of the Panama Railroad.
The consul informed me that he had received notice from, the
officer commanding the Colombian troops, Colonel Torres,
through the prefect of Colon, to the effect that if the Colombian
officers; Generals Tobal and Amaya, who had been seized
in Panama on the evening of the 3d of November by the Independents
and held as prisoners, were not released by 2
o'clock P.M., he, Torres, would open fire on the town of
Colon and kill every United States citizen in the place, and
my advice and action were requested. I advised that all the
United States citizens should take refuge in the shed of the
Panama Railroad Company, a stone building susceptible of
being put into good state for defence, and that I would immediately
land such body of men, with extra arms for arming the
citizens, as the complement of the ship would permit. This
was agreed to and I immediately returned on board, arriving
at 1.15 P.M. The order for landing was immediately given,
and at 1.30 P.M. the boats left the ship with a party of 42 men
under the command of Lieut. Commander H. M. Witzel, with
Midshipman J. P. Jackson as second in command. Time
being pressing I gave verbal orders to Mr. Witzel to take the
possible, and protect the lives of the citizens assembled
there—not firing unless fired upon. The women and children
took refuge on the German steamer Marcomania and Panama
Railroad steamer City of Washington, both ready to haul out
from dock if necessary. The Nashville I got under way and
patrolled with her along the water front close in and ready to
use either small-arm or shrapnel fire. The Colombians surrounded
the building of the railroad company almost immediately
after we had taken possession, and for about one and a
half hours their attitude was most threatening, it being seemingly
their purpose to provoke an attack. Happily our men
were cool and steady, and while the tension was very great no
shot was fired. At about 3.15 P.M. Colonel Torres came into
the building for an interview and expressed himself as most
friendly to Americans, claiming that the whole affair was a
misapprehension and that he would like to send the alcalde of
Colon to Panama to see General Tobal and have him direct
the discontinuance of the show of force. A special train was
furnished and safe-conduct guaranteed. At about 5.30 P.M.
Colonel Torres made the proposition of withdrawing his troops
to Monkey Hill, if I would withdraw the Nashville's force and
leave the town in possession of the police until the return of
the alcalde on the morning of the 5th. After an interview
with the United States consul and Colonel Shaler as to the
probability of good faith in the matter, I decided to accept
the proposition and brought my men on board, the disparity
in numbers between my force and that of the Colombians,
nearly ten to one, making me desirous of avoiding a conflict
so long as the object in view, the protection of American
citizens, was not imperilled.
I am positive that the determined attitude of our men, their
coolness and evident intention of standing their ground, had
a most salutary and decisive effect on the immediate situation
and was the initial step in the ultimate abandoning of Colon
by these troops and their return to Cartagena the following
day. Lieutenant-Commander Witzel is entitled to much
praise for his admirable work in command on the spot.
I feel that I cannot sufficiently strongly represent to the
Department the grossness of this outrage and the insult to our
dignity, even apart from the savagery of the threat.
Commander, U. S. Navy,
Commanding.
Navy Department, Washington, D. C.
In his letter of November 8th Commander Hubbard
sets forth the facts more in detail:
Porto Bello, U. S. Colombia, November 8, 1903.
Sir:
I have the honor to make the following report of the
occurrences which took place at Colon and Panama in the interval
between the arrival of the Nashville at Colon on the
evening of November 2, 1903, and the evening of November
5, 1903, when by the arrival of the U. S. S. Dixie at Colon I
was relieved as senior officer by Commander F. H. Delano,
U. S. Navy.At the time of the arrival of the Nashville at Colon at
5.30 P.M. on November 2 everything on the isthmus was quiet.
There was talk of proclaiming the independence of Panama,
but no definite action had been taken and there had been no
disturbance of peace and order. At daylight on the morning
of November 3 it was found that a vessel which had come in
during the night was the Colombian gunboat Cartagena carrying
between 400 and 500 troops. I had her boarded and
learned that these troops were for the garrison at Panama,
Inasmuch as the Independent party had not acted and the
Government of Colombia was at the time in undisputed control
of the Province of Panama, I did not feel, in the absence
of any instructions, that I was justified in preventing the
landing of these troops, and at 8.30 o'clock they were disembarked.
The commanding officers, Generals Amaya and
Tobal, with four others, immediately went over to Panama to
447make arrangements for receiving and quartering their troops,
leaving the command in charge of an officer whom I later
learned to be Colonel Torres. The Department's message
addressed to the care of the United States consul I received
at 10.30 A.M; it was delivered to one of the ship's boats while
I was at the consul's and not to the consul as addressed. The
message was said to have been received at the cable office at
9.30 A.M. Immediately on deciphering the message I went
on shore to see what arrangements the railroad company had
made for the transportation of these troops to Panama, and
learned that the company would not transport them except on
request of the governor of Panama, and that the prefect at
Colon and the officer left in command of the troops had been
so notified by the general superintendent of the Panama Railroad
Company. I remained at the company's office until it
was sure that no action on my part would be needed to prevent
the transportation of the troops that afternoon, when I returned
on board and cabled the Department the situation of
affairs. At about 5.30 P.M. I again went on shore, and received
notice from the general superintendent of the railroad
that he had received the request for the transportation of the
troops and that they would leave on the 8 A.M. train on the
following day. I immediately went to see the general superintendent,
and learned that it had just been announced that a
provisional government had been established at Panama—
that Generals Amaya and Tobal, the governor of Panama, and
four officers, who had gone to Panama in the morning, had
been seized and were held as prisoners; that they had an
organized force of 1500 troops and wished the Government
troops in Colon to be sent over. This I declined to permit,
and verbally prohibited the general superintendent from giving
transportation to the troops of either party.It being then late in the evening, I sent early in the morning
of November 4 written notification to the general superintendent
of the Panama Railroad, to the prefect of Colon, and to
the officer left in command of the Colombian troops, later
ascertained to be Colonel Torres, that I had prohibited the
transportation of troops in either direction, in order to
448preserve the free and uninterrupted transit of the Isthmus.
Copies of these letters are hereto appended; also copy of my
notification to the consul. Except to a few people, nothing
was known in Colon of the proceedings in Panama until the
arrival of the train at 10.45 on the morning of the 4th. Some
propositions were, I was later told, made to Colonel Torres
by the representatives of the new Government at Colon, with
a view to inducing him to re-embark in the Cartagena and
return to the port of Cartagena, and it was in answer to this
proposition that Colonel Torres made the threat and took the
action reported in my letter No. 96, of November 5, 1903.
The Cartagena left the port just after the threat was made and
I did not deem it expedient to attempt to detain her, as such
action would certainly, in the then state of affairs, have precipitated
a conflict on shore which I was not prepared to meet.
It is my understanding that she returned to Cartagena. After
the withdrawal of the Colombian troops on the evening of
November 4, and the return of the Nashville's force on board,
as reported in my letter No. 96, there was no disturbance on
shore, and the night passed quietly. On the morning of the
5th I discovered that the commander of the Colombian troops
had not withdrawn so far from the town as he had agreed, but
was occupying buildings near the outskirts of the town. I immediately
inquired into the matter and learned that he had
some trivial excuse for not carrying out his agreement, and also
that it was his intention to occupy Colon again on the arrival
of the alcalde due at 10.45 A.M., unless General Tobal sent
word by the alcalde that he, Colonel Torres, should withdraw.
That General Tobal had declined to give any instructions I
was cognizant of, and the situation at once became quite as
serious as on the day previous. I immediately landed an
armed force, reoccupied the same building; also landed two
i-pounders and mounted them on platform cars behind protection
of cotton bales, and then in company with the United
States consul had an interview with Colonel Torres, in the
course of which I informed him that I had relanded my men
because he had not kept his agreement; that I had no interest
in the affairs of either party; that my attitude was strictly
449neutral; that the troops of neither side should be transported;
that my sole purpose in landing was to protect the lives and
property of American citizens if threatened, as they had been
threatened, and to maintain the free and uninterrupted transit
of the Isthmus, and that purpose I should maintain by force
if necessary. I also strongly advised that in the interests of
peace, and to prevent the possibility of a conflict that could
not but be regrettable, he should carry out his agreement of
the previous evening and withdraw to Monkey Hill.Colonel Torres's only reply was that it was unhealthy at
Monkey Hill, a reiteration of his love of Americans, and persistence
in his intention to occupy Colon, should General
Tobal not give him directions to the contrary.On the return of the alcalde at about 11 A.M. the Colombian
troops marched into Colon, but did not assume the threatening
demeanor of the previous day. The American women and
children again went on board the Marcomania and City of
Washington, and through the British vice-consul I offered protection
to British subjects as directed in the Department's
cablegram. A copy of the British vice-consul's acknowledgment
is hereto appended. The Nashville I got under way as
on the previous day and moved close in to protect the water
front. During the afternoon several propositions were made
to Colonel Torres by the representatives of the new Government,
and he was finally persuaded by them to embark on the
Royal Mail steamer Orinoco with all his troops and return to
Cartagena. The Orinoco left her dock with the troops—474 all
told—at 7.35 P.M. The Dixie arrived and anchored at 7.05
P.M., when I went on board and acquainted the commanding
officer with the situation. A portion of the marine battalion
was landed and the Nashville's force withdrawn.On the evening of November 4 Maj. William M. Black
and Lieut. Mark Brooke, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army,
came to Colon from Culebra and volunteered their services,
which were accepted, and they rendered very efficient help on
the following day.I beg to assure the Department that I had no part whatever
in the negotiations that were carried on between Colonel
450Torres and the representatives of the provisional government;
that I landed an armed force only when the lives of American
citizens were threatened, and withdrew this force as soon as
there seemed to be no grounds for further apprehension of injury
to American lives or property; that I relanded an armed
force because of the failure of Colonel Torres to carry out his
agreement to withdraw and announced intention of returning,
and that my attitude throughout was strictly neutral as between
the two parties, my only purpose being to protect the
lives and property of American citizens and to preserve the
free and uninterrupted transit of the Isthmus.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Commander, U. S. Navy,
Commanding.
Bureau of Navigation, Navy
Department, Washington, D. C.
This plain official account of the occurrences of November
4th shows that, instead of there having been too
much prevision by the American Government for the
maintenance of order and the protection of life and property
on the Isthmus, the orders for the movement of the
American warships had been too long delayed; so long,
in fact, that there were but forty-two marines and sailors
available to land and protect the lives of American men
and women. It was only the coolness and gallantry
with which this little band of men wearing the American
uniform faced ten times their number of armed foes, bent
on carrying out the atrocious threat of the Colombian
commander, that prevented a murderous catastrophe.
At Panama, when the revolution broke out, there was
no American man-of-war and no American troops or
sailors. At Colon, Commander Hubbard acted with
entire impartiality towards both sides, preventing any
movement, whether by the Colombians or the Panamans,
9th he prevented a body of the revolutionists from landing
at Colon. Throughout he behaved in the most
creditable manner. In the New York Evening Post,
under date of Panama, December 8th, there is an article
from a special correspondent, which sets forth in detail
the unbearable oppression of the Colombian Government
in Panama. In this article is an interesting interview
with a native Panaman, which runs in part as follows:
. . . We looked upon the building of the canal as a
matter of life or death to us. We wanted that because it
meant, with the United States in control of it, peace and
prosperity for us. President Marroquin appointed an Isthmian
to be governor of Panama; and we looked upon that as of
happy augury. Soon we heard that the canal treaty was not
likely to be approved at Bogota; next we heard that our
Isthmian governor, Obaldia, who had scarcely assumed power,
was to be superseded by a soldier from Bogota. . . .
Notwithstanding all that Colombia has drained us of in the
way of revenues, she did not bridge for us a single river, nor
make a single roadway, nor erect a single college where our
children could be educated, nor do anything at all to advance
our industries. . . . Well, when the new generals came
we seized them, arrested them, and the town of Panama was
in joy. Not a protest was made, except the shots fired from
the Colombian gunboat Bogota, which killed one Chinese lying
in his bed. We were willing to encounter the Colombian
troops at Colon and fight it out; but the commander of the
United States cruiser Nashville forbade Superintendent Shaler
to allow the railroad to transport troops for either party.
That is our story.
I call especial attention to the concluding portion of
this interview which states the willingness of the Panama
people to fight the Colombian troops and the refusal of
Commander Hubbard to permit them to use the railroad
take place. It thus clearly appears that the fact that
there was no bloodshed on the Isthmus was directly due
—and only due—to the prompt and firm enforcement by
the United States of its traditional policy. During the
past forty years revolutions and attempts at revolution
have succeeded one another with monotonous regularity
on the Isthmus, and again and again United States sailors
and marines have been landed as they were landed in this
instance and under similar instructions to protect the
transit. One of these revolutions resulted in three years
of warfare; and the aggregate of bloodshed and misery
caused by them has been incalculable. The fact that in
this last revolution not a life was lost save that of the
man killed by the shells of the Colombian gunboat, and
no property destroyed, was due to the action which I
have described. We, in effect, policed the Isthmus in
the interest of its inhabitants and of our own national
needs, and for the good of the entire civilized world.
Failure to act as the Administration acted would have
meant great waste of life, great suffering, great destruction
of property; all of which was avoided by the firmness
and prudence with which Commander Hubbard
carried out his orders and prevented either party from
attacking the other. Our action was for the peace both
of Colombia and of Panama. It is earnestly to be hoped
that there will be no unwise conduct on our part which
may encourage Colombia to embark on a war which can
not result in her regaining control of the Isthmus, but
which may cause much bloodshed and suffering.
I hesitate to refer to the injurious insinuations which
have been made of complicity by this Government in the
revolutionary movement in Panama. They are as destitute
of foundation as of propriety. The only excuse for
my mentioning them is the fear lest unthinking persons
might mistake for acquiescence the silence of mere self-respect.
connected with this Government had any part in preparing,
inciting, or encouraging the late revolution on the
Isthmus of Panama, and that save from the reports of our
military and naval officers, given above, no one connected
with this Government had any previous knowledge of the
revolution except such as was accessible to any person of
ordinary intelligence who read the newspapers and kept
up a current acquaintance with public affairs.
By the unanimous action of its people, without the
firing of a shot—with a unanimity hardly before recorded
in any similar case—the people of Panama declared themselves
an independent Republic. Their recognition by
this Government was based upon a state of facts in no
way dependent for its justification upon our action in
ordinary cases. I have not denied, nor do I wish to
deny, either the validity or the propriety of the general
rule that a new state should not be recognized as independent
till it has shown its ability to maintain its independence.
This rule is derived from the principle of
non-intervention, and as a corollary of that principle has
generally been observed by the United States. But,
like the principle from which it is deduced, the rule is
subject to exceptions; and there are in my opinion clear
and imperative reasons why a departure from it was justified
and even required in the present instance. These
reasons embrace, first, our treaty rights; second, our
national interests and safety; and, third, the interests of
collective civilization.
I have already adverted to the treaty of 1846, by the
thirty-fifth article of which the United States secured the
right to a free and open transit across the Isthmus of
Panama, and to that end agreed to guarantee to New
Granada her rights of sovereignty and property over that
territory. This article is sometimes discussed as if the
latter guaranty constituted its sole object and bound the
against domestic revolution. Nothing, however, could
be more erroneous than this supposition. That our wise
and patriotic ancestors, with all their dread of entangling
alliances, would have entered into a treaty with New
Granada solely or even primarily for the purpose of enabling
that remnant of the original Republic of Colombia,
then resolved into the States of New Granada, Venezuela,
and Ecuador, to continue from Bogota to rule over the
Isthmus of Panama, is a conception that would in itself
be incredible, even if the contrary did not clearly appear.
It is true that since the treaty was made the United States
has again and again been obliged forcibly to intervene for
the preservation of order and the maintenance of an open
transit, and that this intervention has usually operated
to the advantage of the titular Government of Colombia,
but it is equally true that the United States in intervening,
with or without Colombia's consent, for the protection
of the transit, has disclaimed any duty to defend the
Colombian Government against domestic insurrection or
against the erection of an independent government on the
Isthmus of Panama. The attacks against which the
United States engaged to protect New Granadian sovereignty
were those of foreign powers; but this engagement
was only a means to the accomplishment of a yet
more important end. The great design of the article was
to assure the dedication of the Isthmus to the purposes
of free and unobstructed interoceanic transit, the consummation
of which would be found in an interoceanic
canal. To the accomplishment of this object the Government
of the United States had for years directed its diplomacy.
It occupied a place in the instructions to our
delegates to the Panama Congress during the Administration
of John Quincy Adams. It formed the subject of
a resolution of the Senate in 1835, and of the House of
Representatives in 1839. In l846 its importance had
War. If the treaty of 1846 did not in terms bind New
Granada to grant reasonable concessions for the construction
of means of interoceanic communication, it was only
because it was not imagined that such concessions would
ever be withheld. As it was expressly agreed that the
United States, in consideration of its onerous guaranty
of New Granadian sovereignty, should possess the right
of free and open transit on any modes of communication
that might be constructed, the obvious intent of the
treaty rendered it unnecessary, if not superfluous, in
terms to stipulate that permission for the construction of
such modes of communication should not be denied.
Long before the conclusion of the Hay-Herran treaty
the course of events had shown that a canal to connect
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans must be built by the
United States or not at all. Experience had demonstrated
that private enterprise was utterly inadequate for
the purpose; and a fixed policy, declared by the United
States on many memorable occasions, and supported by
the practically unanimous voice of American opinion, had
rendered it morally impossible that the work should be
undertaken by European powers, either singly or in combination.
Such were the universally recognized conditions
on which the legislation of the Congress was based,
and on which the late negotiations with Colombia were
begun and concluded. Nevertheless, when the well-considered
agreement was rejected by Colombia and the
revolution on the Isthmus ensued, one of Colombia's
first acts was to invoke the intervention of the United
States; nor does her invitation appear to have been confined
to this Government alone. By a telegram from
Mr. Beaupré", our Minister at Bogota, of the 7th of November
last, we were informed that General Reyes would
soon leave Panama invested with full powers; that he
had telegraphed the President of Mexico to ask the
at the Pan-American Conference "to aid Colombia
to preserve her integrity"; and that he had requested
that the Government of the United States should meanwhile
"preserve the neutrality and transit of the Isthmus"
and should "not recognize the new Government." In
another telegram from Mr. Beaupré, which was sent later
in the day, this Government was asked whether it would
take action "to maintain Colombian right and sovereignty
on the Isthmus in accordance with article 35 [of] the
treaty of 1846" in case the Colombian Government should
be "entirely unable to suppress the secession movement
there." Here was a direct solicitation to the United
States to intervene for the purpose of suppression, contrary
to the treaty of 1846 as this Government has uniformly
construed it, a new revolt against Colombia's
authority brought about by her own refusal to permit
the fulfilment of the great design for which that treaty
was made. It was under these circumstances that the
United States, instead of using its forces to destroy those
who sought to make the engagements of the treaty a
reality, recognized them as the proper custodians of the
sovereignty of the Isthmus.
This recognition was, in the second place, further justified
by the highest considerations of our national interests
and safety. In all the range of our international relations,
I do not hesitate to affirm that there is nothing of
greater or more pressing importance than the construction
of an interoceanic canal. Long acknowledged to be
essential to our commercial development, it has become,
as the result of the recent extension of our territorial
dominion, more than ever essential to our national self-defence.
In transmitting to the Senate the treaty of
1846, President Polk pointed out as the principal reason
for its ratification that the passage of the Isthmus, which
it was designed to secure, "would relieve us from a long
miles around Cape Horn, and render our communication
with our own possessions on the northwest coast of
America comparatively easy and speedy." The events
of the past five years have given to this consideration
an importance immeasurably greater than it possessed in
1846. In the light of our present situation, the establishment
of easy and speedy communication by sea between
the Atlantic and the Pacific presents itself not
simply as something to be desired, but as an object
to be positively and promptly attained. Reasons of
convenience have been superseded by reasons of vital
necessity, which do not admit of indefinite delays.
To such delays the rejection by Colombia of the Hay-Herran
treaty directly exposed us. As proof of this fact
I need only refer to the programme outlined in the report
of the majority of the Panama Canal Committee, read in
the Colombian Senate on the I4th of October last. In
this report, which recommended that the discussion of a
law to authorize the Government to enter upon new negotiations
should be indefinitely postponed, it is proposed
that the consideration of the subject should be deferred
till October 31, 1904, when the next Colombian Congress
should have met in ordinary session. By that time, as
the report goes on to say, the extension of time granted
to the New Panama Canal Company by treaty in 1893
would have expired, and the new Congress would be in
a position to take up the question whether the company
had not, in spite of further extensions that had been
granted by legislative acts, forfeited all its property and
rights. "When that time arrives," the report significantly
declares, "the Republic, without any impediment,
will be able to contract, and will be in more clear, more
definite, and more advantageous possession, both legally
and materially." The naked meaning of this report is
that Colombia proposed to wait until, by the enforcement
which obtain in every civilized nation, the property and
rights of the New Panama Canal Company could be
confiscated.
Such is the scheme to which it was proposed that the
United States should be invited to become a party. The
construction of the canal was to be relegated to the indefinite
future, while Colombia was, by reason of her own
delay, to be placed in the "more advantageous" position
of claiming not merely the compensation to be paid by
the United States for the privilege of completing the
canal, but also the forty millions authorized by the act
of 1902 to be paid for the property of the New Panama
Canal Company, That the attempt to carry out this
scheme would have brought Colombia into conflict with
the Government of France cannot be doubted; nor could
the United States have counted upon immunity from the
consequences of the attempt, even apart from the indefinite
delays to which the construction of the canal was
to be subjected. On the first appearance of danger to
Colombia, this Government would have been summoned
to interpose, in order to give effect to the guaranties of
the treaty of 1846; and all this in support of a plan
which, while characterized in its first stage by the wanton
disregard of our own highest interests, was fitly to end in
further injury to the citizens of a friendly nation, whose
enormous losses in their generous efforts to pierce the
Isthmus have become a matter of history.
In the third place, I confidently maintain that the
recognition of the Republic of Panama was an act justified
by the interests of collective civilization. If ever a
Government could be said to have received a mandate
from civilization to effect an object the accomplishment
of which was demanded in the interest of mankind, the
United States holds that position with regard to the interoceanic
canal. Since our purpose to build the canal
quarters assurances of approval and encouragement, in
which even Colombia herself at one time participated;
and to general assurances were added specific acts and
declarations. In order that no obstacle might stand in
our way, Great Britain renounced important rights under
the Clayton-Bulwer treaty and agreed to its abrogation,
receiving in return nothing but our honorable pledge to
build the canal and protect it as an open highway. It
was in view of this pledge, and of the proposed enactment
by the Congress of the United States of legislation to
give it immediate effect, that the second Pan-American
Conference, at the City of Mexico, on January 22, 1902,
adopted the following resolution:
The Republics assembled at the International Conference
of Mexico applaud the purpose of the United States Government
to construct an interoceanic canal, and acknowledge that
this work will not only be worthy of the greatness of the
American people, but also in the highest sense a work of civilization,
and to the greatest degree beneficial to the development
of commerce between the American States and the other
countries of the world.
Among those who signed this resolution on behalf of
their respective Governments was General Reyes, the
delegate of Colombia. Little could it have been foreseen
that two years later the Colombian Government, led astray
by false allurements of selfish advantage, and forgetful
alike of its international obligations and of the duties and
responsibilities of sovereignty, would thwart the efforts
of the United States to enter upon and complete a work
which the nations of America, re-echoing the sentiment
of the nations of Europe, had pronounced to be not only
"worthy of the greatness of the American people," but
also "in the highest sense a work of civilization."
That our position as the mandatary of civilization has
with which the powers have, one after another, followed
our lead in recognizing Panama as an independent
State. Our action in recognizing the new Republic has
been followed by like recognition on the part of France,
Germany, Denmark, Russia, Sweden and Norway, Nicaragua,
Peru, China, Cuba, Great Britain, Italy, Costa
Rica, Japan, and Austria-Hungary.
In view of the manifold considerations of treaty right
and obligation, of national interest and safety, and of
collective civilization, by which our Government was
constrained to act, I am at a loss to comprehend the attitude
of those who can discern in the recognition of the
Republic of Panama only a general approval of the principle
of "revolution" by which a given government is
overturned or one portion of a country separated from
another. Only the amplest justification can warrant a
revolutionary movement of either kind. But there is no
fixed rule which can be applied to all such movements.
Each case must be judged on its own merits. There
have been many revolutionary movements, many movements
for the dismemberment of countries, which were
evil, tried by any standard. But in my opinion no disinterested
and fair-minded observer acquainted with the
circumstances can fail to feel that Panama had the amplest
justification for separation from Colombia under the conditions
existing, and, moreover, that its action was in the
highest degree beneficial to the interests of the entire
civilized world by securing the immediate opportunity for
the building of the interoceanic canal. It would be well
for those who are pessimistic as to our action in peacefully
recognizing the Republic of Panama, while we lawfully
protected the transit from invasion and disturbance, to
recall what has been done in Cuba, where we intervened
even by force on general grounds of national interest and
duty. When we interfered it was freely prophesied that
interests. The result has demonstrated in singularly
conclusive fashion the falsity of these prophecies. Cuba
is now an independent Republic. We governed it in its
own interests for a few years, till it was able to stand
alone, and then started it upon its career of self-government
and independence, granting it all necessary aid.
We have received from Cuba a grant of two naval stations,
so situated that they in no possible way menace
the liberty of the island, and yet serve as important
defences for the Cuban people, as well as for our own
people, against possible foreign attack. The people of
Cuba have been immeasurably benefited by our interference
in their behalf, and our own gain has been great.
So will it be with Panama. The people of the Isthmus,
and as I firmly believe of the adjacent parts of Central
and South America, will be greatly benefited by the
building of the canal and the guaranty of peace and
order along its line; and hand in hand with the benefit to
them will go the benefit to us and to mankind. By our
prompt and decisive action, not only have our interests
and those of the world at large been conserved, but we
have forestalled complications which were likely to be
fruitful in loss to ourselves, and in bloodshed and suffering
to the people of the Isthmus.
Instead of using our forces, as we were invited by
Colombia to do, for the twofold purpose of defeating our
own rights and interests and the interests of the civilized
world, and of compelling the submission of the people of
the Isthmus to those whom they regarded as oppressors,
we shall, as in duty bound, keep the transit open and
prevent its invasion. Meanwhile, the only question now
before us is that of the ratification of the treaty. For it
is to be remembered that a failure to ratify the treaty will
not undo what has been done, will not restore Panama to
Colombia, and will not alter our obligation to keep the
power from menacing this transit.
It seems to have been assumed in certain quarters that
the proposition that the obligations of article 35 of the
treaty of 1846 are to be considered as adhering to and
following the sovereignty of the Isthmus, so long as that
sovereignty is not absorbed by the United States, rests
upon some novel theory. No assumption could be
further from the fact. It is by no means true that a state
in declaring its independence rids itself of all the treaty
obligations entered into by the parent government. It
is a mere coincidence that this question was once raised
in a case involving the obligations of Colombia as an independent
state under a treaty which Spain had made
with the United States many years before Spanish-American
independence. In that case Mr. John Quincy Adams,
Secretary of State, in an instruction to Mr. Anderson,
our Minister to Colombia, of May 27, 1823, said:
By a treaty between the United States and Spain concluded
at a time when Colombia was a part of the Spanish dominions
. . . the principle that free ships make free goods was expressly
recognized and established. It is asserted that by her
declaration of independence Colombia has been entirely released
from all the obligations by which, as a part of the
Spanish nation, she was bound to other nations. This principle
is not tenable. To all the engagement's of Spain with
other nations, affecting their rights and interests, Colombia,
so far as she was affected by them," remains bound in honor
and in justice. The stipulation now referred to is of that
character.
The principle thus asserted by Mr. Adams was afterwards
sustained by an international commission in respect
to the precise stipulation to which he referred; and a
similar position was taken by the United States with
regard to the binding obligation upon the independent
prior treaties between the United States and Mexico
when Texas formed a part of the latter country. But in
the present case it is unnecessary to go so far. Even if
it be admitted that prior treaties of a political and commercial
complexion generally do not bind a new state
formed by separation, it is undeniable that stipulations
having a local application to the territory embraced in
the new state continue in force and are binding upon the
new sovereign. Thus it is on all hands conceded that
treaties relating to boundaries and to rights of navigation
continue in force without regard to changes in government
or in sovereignty. This principle obviously applies
to that part of the treaty of 1846 which relates to the
Isthmus of Panama.
In conclusion let me repeat that the question actually
before this Government is not that of the recognition of
Panama as an independent Republic. That is already an
accomplished fact. The question, and the only question,
is whether or not we shall build an isthmian canal.
I transmit herewith copies of the latest notes from the
Minister of the Republic of Panama to this Government,
and of certain notes which have passed between the
Special Envoy of the Republic of Colombia and this
Government.
| Addresses and presidential messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904 | |