 | Addresses and presidential messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904 |  |
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.
| Addresses and presidential messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904 | |