To the Senate and House of Representatives:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In every possible way we should help the wageworker who toils with his
hands and who must (we hope in a constantly increasing measure) also
toil with his brain. Under the Constitution the National Legislature
can do but little of direct importance for his welfare save where he is
engaged in work which permits it to act under the interstate commerce
clause of the Constitution; and this is one reason why I so earnestly
hope that both the legislative and judicial branches of the Government
will construe this clause of the Constitution in the broadest possible
manner. We can, however, in such a matter as industrial training, in
such a matter as child labor and factory laws, set an example to the
States by enacting the most advanced legislation that can wisely be
enacted for the District of Columbia.

The only other persons whose welfare is as vital to the welfare of the
whole country as is the welfare of the wageworkers are the tillers of
the soil, the farmers. It is a mere truism to say that no growth of
cities, no growth of wealth, no industrial development can atone for
any falling off in the character and standing of the farming
population. During the last few decades this fact has been recognized
with ever-increasing clearness. There is no longer any failure to
realize that farming, at least in certain branches, must become a
technical and scientific profession. This means that there must be open
to farmers the chance for technical and scientific training, not
theoretical merely but of the most severely practical type. The farmer
represents a peculiarly high type of American citizenship, and he must
have the same chance to rise and develop as other American citizens
have. Moreover, it is exactly as true of the farmer, as it is of the
business man and the wageworker, that the ultimate success of the
Nation of which he forms a part must be founded not alone on material
prosperity but upon high moral, mental, and physical development. This
education of the farmer--self-education by preference but also
education from the outside, as with all other men--is peculiarly
necessary here in the United States, where the frontier conditions even
in the newest States have now nearly vanished, where there must be a
substitution of a more intensive system of cultivation for the old
wasteful farm management, and where there must be a better business
organization among the farmers themselves.

Several factors must cooperate in the improvement of the farmer's
condition. He must have the chance to be educated in the widest
possible sense--in the sense which keeps ever in view the intimate
relationship between the theory of education and the facts of life. In
all education we should widen our aims. It is a good thing to produce a
certain number of trained scholars and students; but the education
superintended by the State must seek rather to produce a hundred good
citizens than merely one scholar, and it must be turned now and then
from the class book to the study of the great book of nature itself.
This is especially true of the farmer, as has been pointed out again
and again by all observers most competent to pass practical judgment on
the problems of our country life. All students now realize that
education must seek to train the executive powers of young people and
to confer more real significance upon the phrase "dignity of labor,"
and to prepare the pupils so that, in addition to each developing in
the highest degree his individual capacity for work, they may together
help create a right public opinion, and show in many ways social and
cooperative spirit. Organization has become necessary in the business
world; and it has accomplished much for good in the world of labor. It
is no less necessary for farmers. Such a movement as the grange
movement is good in itself and is capable of a well-nigh infinite
further extension for good so long as it is kept to its own legitimate
business. The benefits to be derived by the association of farmers for
mutual advantage are partly economic and partly sociological.

Moreover, while in the long run voluntary efforts will prove more
efficacious than government assistance, while the farmers must
primarily do most for themselves, yet the Government can also do much.
The Department of Agriculture has broken new ground in many directions,
and year by year it finds how it can improve its methods and develop
fresh usefulness. Its constant effort is to give the governmental
assistance in the most effective way; that is, through associations of
farmers rather than to or through individual farmers. It is also
striving to coordinate its work with the agricultural departments of
the several States, and so far as its own work is educational to
coordinate it with the work of other educational authorities.
Agricultural education is necessarily based upon general education, but
our agricultural educational institutions are wisely specializing
themselves, making their courses relate to the actual teaching of the
agricultural and kindred sciences to young country people or young city
people who wish to live in the country.

Great progress has already been made among farmers by the creation of
farmers' institutes, of dairy associations, of breeders' associations,
horticultural associations, and the like. A striking example of how the
Government and the farmers can cooperate is shown in connection with
the menace offered to the cotton growers of the Southern States by the
advance of the boll weevil. The Department is doing all it can to
organize the farmers in the threatened districts, just as it has been
doing all it can to organize them in aid of its work to eradicate the
cattle fever tick in the South. The Department can and will cooperate
with all such associations, and it must have their help if its own work
is to be done in the most efficient style.

Much is now being done for the States of the Rocky Mountains and Great
Plains through the development of the national policy of irrigation and
forest preservation; no Government policy for the betterment of our
internal conditions has been more fruitful of good than this. The
forests of the White Mountains and Southern Appalachian regions should
also be preserved; and they can not be unless the people of the States
in which they lie, through their representatives in the Congress,
secure vigorous action by the National Government.

I invite the attention of the Congress to the estimate of the Secretary
of War for an appropriation to enable him to begin the preliminary work
for the construction of a memorial amphitheater at Arlington. The Grand
Army of the Republic in its national encampment has urged the erection
of such an amphitheater as necessary for the proper observance Of
Memorial Day and as a fitting monument to the soldier and sailor dead
buried there. In this I heartily concur and commend the matter to the
favorable consideration of the Congress.

I am well aware of how difficult it is to pass a constitutional
amendment. Nevertheless in my judgment the whole question of marriage
and divorce should be relegated to the authority of the National
Congress. At present the wide differences in the laws of the different
States on this subject result in scandals and abuses; and surely there
is nothing so vitally essential to the welfare of the nation, nothing
around which the nation should so bend itself to throw every safeguard,
as the home life of the average citizen. The change would be good from
every standpoint. In particular it would be good because it would
confer on the Congress the power at once to deal radically and
efficiently with polygamy; and this should be done whether or not
marriage and divorce are dealt with. It is neither safe nor proper to
leave the question of polygamy to be dealt with by the several States.
Power to deal with it should be conferred on the National Government.

When home ties are loosened; when men and women cease to regard a
worthy family life, with all its duties fully performed, and all its
responsibilities lived up to, as the life best worth living; then evil
days for the commonwealth are at hand. There are regions in our land,
and classes of our population, where the birth rate has sunk below the
death rate. Surely it should need no demonstration to show that wilful
sterility is, from the standpoint of the nation, from the standpoint of
the human race, the one sin for which the penalty is national death,
race death; a sin for which there is no atonement; a sin which is the
more dreadful exactly in proportion as the men and women guilty thereof
are in other respects, in character, and bodily and mental powers,
those whom for the sake of the state it would be well to see the
fathers and mothers of many healthy children, well brought up in homes
made happy by their presence. No man, no woman, can shirk the primary
duties of life, whether for love of ease and pleasure, or for any other
cause, and retain his or her self-respect.

Let me once again call the attention of the Congress to two subjects
concerning which I have frequently before communicated with them. One
is the question of developing American shipping. I trust that a law
embodying in substance the views, or a major part of the views, exprest
in the report on this subject laid before the House at its last session
will be past. I am well aware that in former years objectionable
measures have been proposed in reference to the encouragement of
American shipping; but it seems to me that the proposed measure is as
nearly unobjectionable as any can be. It will of course benefit
primarily our seaboard States, such as Maine, Louisiana, and
Washington; but what benefits part of our people in the end benefits
all; just as Government aid to irrigation and forestry in the West is
really of benefit, not only to the Rocky Mountain States, but to all
our country. If it prove impracticable to enact a law for the
encouragement of shipping generally, then at least provision should be
made for better communication with South America, notably for fast mail
lines to the chief South American ports. It is discreditable to us that
our business people, for lack of direct communication in the shape of
lines of steamers with South America, should in that great sister
continent be at a disadvantage compared to the business people of
Europe.

I especially call your attention to the second subject, the condition
of our currency laws. The national bank act has ably served a great
purpose in aiding the enormous business development of the country; and
within ten years there has been an increase in circulation per capita
from $21.41 to $33.08. For several years evidence has been accumulating
that additional legislation is needed. The recurrence of each crop
season emphasizes the defects of the present laws. There must soon be a
revision of them, because to leave them as they are means to incur
liability of business disaster. Since your body adjourned there has
been a fluctuation in the interest on call money from 2 per cent to 30
per cent; and the fluctuation was even greater during the preceding six
months. The Secretary of the Treasury had to step in and by wise action
put a stop to the most violent period of oscillation. Even worse than
such fluctuation is the advance in commercial rates and the uncertainty
felt in the sufficiency of credit even at high rates. All commercial
interests suffer during each crop period. Excessive rates for call
money in New York attract money from the interior banks into the
speculative field; this depletes the fund that would otherwise be
available for commercial uses, and commercial borrowers are forced to
pay abnormal rates; so that each fall a tax, in the shape of increased
interest charges, is placed on the whole commerce of the country.

The mere statement of these has shows that our present system is
seriously defective. There is need of a change. Unfortunately, however,
many of the proposed changes must be ruled from consideration because
they are complicated, are not easy of comprehension, and tend to,
disturb existing rights and interests. We must also rule out any plan
which would materially impair the value of the United States 2 per cent
bonds now pledged to secure circulations, the issue of which was made
under conditions peculiarly creditable to the Treasury. I do not press
any especial plan. Various plans have recently been proposed by expert
committees of bankers. Among the plans which are possibly feasible and
which certainly should receive your consideration is that repeatedly
brought to your attention by the present Secretary of the Treasury, the
essential features of which have been approved by many prominent
bankers and business men. According to this plan national banks should
be permitted to issue a specified proportion of their capital in notes
of a given kind, the issue to be taxed at so high a rate as to drive
the notes back when not wanted in legitimate trade. This plan would not
permit the issue of currency to give banks additional profits, but to
meet the emergency presented by times of stringency.

I do not say that this is the right system. I only advance it to
emphasize my belief that there is need for the adoption of some system
which shall be automatic and open to all sound banks, so as to avoid
all possibility of discrimination and favoritism. Such a plan would
tend to prevent the spasms of high money and speculation which now
obtain in the New York market; for at present there is too much
currency at certain seasons of the year, and its accumulation at New
York tempts bankers to lend it at low rates for speculative purposes;
whereas at other times when the crops are being moved there is urgent
need for a large but temporary increase in the currency supply. It must
never be forgotten that this question concerns business men generally
quite as much as bankers; especially is this true of stockmen, farmers,
and business men in the West; for at present at certain seasons of the
year the difference in interest rates between the East and the West is
from 6 to 10 per cent, whereas in Canada the corresponding difference
is but 2 per cent. Any plan must, of course, guard the interests of
western and southern bankers as carefully as it guards the interests of
New York or Chicago bankers; and must be drawn from the standpoints of
the farmer and the merchant no less than from the standpoints of the
city banker and the country banker.

The law should be amended so as specifically to provide that the funds
derived from customs duties may be treated by the Secretary of the
Treasury as he treats funds obtained under the internal-revenue laws.
There should be a considerable increase in bills of small
denominations. Permission should be given banks, if necessary under
settled restrictions, to retire their circulation to a larger amount
than three millions a month.

I most earnestly hope that the bill to provide a lower tariff for or
else absolute free trade in Philippine products will become a law. No
harm will come to any American industry; and while there will be some
small but real material benefit to the Filipinos, the main benefit will
come by the showing made as to our purpose to do all in our power for
their welfare. So far our action in the Philippines has been abundantly
justified, not mainly and indeed not primarily because of the added
dignity it has given us as a nation by proving that we are capable
honorably and efficiently to bear the international burdens which a
mighty people should bear, but even more because of the immense benefit
that has come to the people of the Philippine Islands. In these islands
we are steadily introducing both liberty and order, to a greater degree
than their people have ever before known. We have secured justice. We
have provided an efficient police force, and have put down ladronism.
Only in the islands of Leyte and Samar is the authority of our
Government resisted and this by wild mountain tribes under the
superstitious inspiration of fakirs and pseudo-religions leaders. We
are constantly increasing the measure of liberty accorded the
islanders, and next spring, if conditions warrant, we shall take a
great stride forward in testing their capacity for self-government by
summoning the first Filipino legislative assembly; and the way in which
they stand this test will largely determine whether the self-government
thus granted will be increased or decreased; for if we have erred at
all in the Philippines it has been in proceeding too rapidly in the
direction of granting a large measure of self-government. We are
building roads. We have, for the immeasurable good of the people,
arranged for the building of railroads. Let us also see to it that they
are given free access to our markets. This nation owes no more
imperative duty to itself and mankind than the duty of managing the
affairs of all the islands under the American flag--the Philippines,
Porto Rico, and Hawaii--so as to make it evident that it is in every
way to their advantage that the flag should fly over them.

American citizenship should be conferred on the citizens of Porto Rico.
The harbor of San Juan in Porto Rico should be dredged and improved.
The expenses of the federal court of Porto Rico should be met from the
Federal Treasury. The administration of the affairs of Porto Rico,
together with those of the Philippines, Hawaii, and our other insular
possessions, should all be directed under one executive department; by
preference the Department of State or the Department of War.

The needs of Hawaii are peculiar; every aid should be given the
islands; and our efforts should be unceasing to develop them along the
lines of a community of small freeholders, not of great planters with
coolie-tilled estates. Situated as this Territory is, in the middle of
the Pacific, there are duties imposed upon this small community which
do not fall in like degree or manner upon any other American community.
This warrants our treating it differently from the way in which we
treat Territories contiguous to or surrounded by sister Territories or
other States, and justifies the setting aside of a portion of our
revenues to be expended for educational and internal improvements
therein. Hawaii is now making an effort to secure immigration fit in
the end to assume the duties and burdens of full American citizenship,
and whenever the leaders in the various industries of those islands
finally adopt our ideals and heartily join our administration in
endeavoring to develop a middle class of substantial citizens, a way
will then be found to deal with the commercial and industrial problems
which now appear to them so serious. The best Americanism is that which
aims for stability and permanency of prosperous citizenship, rather
than immediate returns on large masses of capital.

Alaska's needs have been partially met, but there must be a complete
reorganization of the governmental system, as I have before indicated
to you. I ask your especial attention to this. Our fellow-citizens who
dwell on the shores of Puget Sound with characteristic energy are
arranging to hold in Seattle the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition. Its
special aims include the upbuilding of Alaska and the development of
American commerce on the Pacific Ocean. This exposition, in its
purposes and scope, should appeal not only to the people of the Pacific
slope, but to the people of the United States at large. Alaska since it
was bought has yielded to the Government eleven millions of dollars of
revenue, and has produced nearly three hundred millions of dollars in
gold, furs, and fish. When properly developed it will become in large
degree a land of homes. The countries bordering the Pacific Ocean have
a population more numerous than that of all the countries of Europe;
their annual foreign commerce amounts to over three billions of
dollars, of which the share of the United States is some seven hundred
millions of dollars. If this trade were thoroughly understood and
pushed by our manufacturers and producers, the industries not only of
the Pacific slope, but of all our country, and particularly of our
cotton-growing States, would be greatly benefited. Of course, in order
to get these benefits, we must treat fairly the countries with which we
trade.

It is a mistake, and it betrays a spirit of foolish cynicism, to
maintain that all international governmental action is, and must ever
be, based upon mere selfishness, and that to advance ethical reasons
for such action is always a sign of hypocrisy. This is no more
necessarily true of the action of governments than of the action of
individuals. It is a sure sign of a base nature always to ascribe base
motives for the actions of others. Unquestionably no nation can afford
to disregard proper considerations of self-interest, any more than a
private individual can so do. But it is equally true that the average
private individual in any really decent community does many actions
with reference to other men in which he is guided, not by
self-interest, but by public spirit, by regard for the rights of
others, by a disinterested purpose to do good to others, and to raise
the tone of the community as a whole. Similarly, a really great nation
must often act, and as a matter of fact often does act, toward other
nations in a spirit not in the least of mere self-interest, but paying
heed chiefly to ethical reasons; and as the centuries go by this
disinterestedness in international action, this tendency of the
individuals comprising a nation to require that nation to act with
justice toward its neighbors, steadily grows and strengthens. It is
neither wise nor right for a nation to disregard its own needs, and it
is foolish--and may be wicked--to think that other nations will
disregard theirs. But it is wicked for a nation only to regard its own
interest, and foolish to believe that such is the sole motive that
actuates any other nation. It should be our steady aim to raise the
ethical standard of national action just as we strive to raise the
ethical standard of individual action.

Not only must we treat all nations fairly, but we must treat with
justice and good will all immigrants who come here under the law.
Whether they are Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile; whether they
come from England or Germany, Russia, Japan, or Italy, matters nothing.
All we have a right to question is the man's conduct. If he is honest
and upright in his dealings with his neighbor and with the State, then
he is entitled to respect and good treatment. Especially do we need to
remember our duty to the stranger within our gates. It is the sure mark
of a low civilization, a low morality, to abuse or discriminate against
or in any way humiliate such stranger who has come here lawfully and
who is conducting himself properly. To remember this is incumbent on
every American citizen, and it is of course peculiarly incumbent on
every Government official, whether of the nation or of the several
States.

I am prompted to say this by the attitude of hostility here and there
assumed toward the Japanese in this country. This hostility is sporadic
and is limited to a very few places. Nevertheless, it is most
discreditable to us as a people, and it may be fraught with the gravest
consequences to the nation. The friendship between the United States
and Japan has been continuous since the time, over half a century ago,
when Commodore Perry, by his expedition to Japan, first opened the
islands to western civilization. Since then the growth of Japan has
been literally astounding. There is not only nothing to parallel it,
but nothing to approach it in the history of civilized mankind. Japan
has a glorious and ancient past. Her civilization is older than that of
the nations of northern Europe--the nations from whom the people of the
United States have chiefly sprung. But fifty years ago Japan's
development was still that of the Middle Ages. During that fifty years
the progress of the country in every walk in life has been a marvel to
mankind, and she now stands as one of the greatest of civilized
nations; great in the arts of war and in the arts of peace; great in
military, in industrial, in artistic development and achievement.
Japanese soldiers and sailors have shown themselves equal in combat to
any of whom history makes note. She has produced great generals and
mighty admirals; her fighting men, afloat and ashore, show all the
heroic courage, the unquestioning, unfaltering loyalty, the splendid
indifference to hardship and death, which marked the Loyal Ronins; and
they show also that they possess the highest ideal of patriotism.
Japanese artists of every kind see their products eagerly sought for in
all lands. The industrial and commercial development of Japan has been
phenomenal; greater than that of any other country during the same
period. At the same time the advance in science and philosophy is no
less marked. The admirable management of the Japanese Red Cross during
the late war, the efficiency and humanity of the Japanese officials,
nurses, and doctors, won the respectful admiration of all acquainted
with the facts. Through the Red Cross the Japanese people sent over
$100,000 to the sufferers of San Francisco, and the gift was accepted
with gratitude by our people. The courtesy of the Japanese, nationally
and individually, has become proverbial. To no other country has there
been such an increasing number of visitors from this land as to Japan.
In return, Japanese have come here in great numbers. They are welcome,
socially and intellectually, in all our colleges and institutions of
higher learning, in all our professional and social bodies. The
Japanese have won in a single generation the right to stand abreast of
the foremost and most enlightened peoples of Europe and America; they
have won on their own merits and by their own exertions the right to
treatment on a basis of full and frank equality. The overwhelming mass
of our people cherish a lively regard and respect for the people of
Japan, and in almost every quarter of the Union the stranger from Japan
is treated as he deserves; that is, he is treated as the stranger from
any part of civilized Europe is and deserves to be treated. But here
and there a most unworthy feeling has manifested itself toward the
Japanese--the feeling that has been shown in shutting them out from the
common schools in San Francisco, and in mutterings against them in one
or two other places, because of their efficiency as workers. To shut
them out from the public schools is a wicked absurdity, when there are
no first-class colleges in the land, including the universities and
colleges of California, which do not gladly welcome Japanese students
and on which Japanese students do not reflect credit. We have as much
to learn from Japan as Japan has to learn from us; and no nation is fit
to teach unless it is also willing to learn. Throughout Japan Americans
are well treated, and any failure on the part of Americans at home to
treat the Japanese with a like courtesy and consideration is by just so
much a confession of inferiority in our civilization.

Our nation fronts on the Pacific, just as it fronts on the Atlantic. We
hope to play a constantly growing part in the great ocean of the
Orient. We wish, as we ought to wish, for a great commercial
development in our dealings with Asia; and it is out of the question
that we should permanently have such development unless we freely and
gladly extend to other nations the same measure of justice and good
treatment which we expect to receive in return. It is only a very small
body of our citizens that act badly. Where the Federal Government has
power it will deal summarily with any such. Where the several States
have power I earnestly ask that they also deal wisely and promptly with
such conduct, or else this small body of wrongdoers may bring shame
upon the great mass of their innocent and right-thinking fellows--that
is, upon our nation as a whole. Good manners should be an international
no less than an individual attribute. I ask fair treatment for the
Japanese as I would ask fair treatment for Germans or Englishmen,
Frenchmen, Russians, or Italians. I ask it as due to humanity and
civilization. I ask it as due to ourselves because we must act
uprightly toward all men.

I recommend to the Congress that an act be past specifically providing
for the naturalization of Japanese who come here intending to become
American citizens. One of the great embarrassments attending the
performance of our international obligations is the fact that the
Statutes of the United States are entirely inadequate. They fail to
give to the National Government sufficiently ample power, through
United States courts and by the use of the Army and Navy, to protect
aliens in the rights secured to them under solemn treaties which are
the law of the land. I therefore earnestly recommend that the criminal
and civil statutes of the United States be so amended and added to as
to enable the President, acting for the United States Government, which
is responsible in our international relations, to enforce the rights of
aliens under treaties. Even as the law now is something can be done by
the Federal Government toward this end, and in the matter now before me
affecting the Japanese everything that it is in my power to do will be
done, and all of the forces, military and civil, of the United States
which I may lawfully employ will be so employed. There should, however,
be no particle of doubt as to the power of the National Government
completely to perform and enforce its own obligations to other nations.
The mob of a single city may at any time perform acts of lawless
violence against some class of foreigners which would plunge us into
war. That city by itself would be powerless to make defense against the
foreign power thus assaulted, and if independent of this Government it
would never venture to perform or permit the performance of the acts
complained of. The entire power and the whole duty to protect the
offending city or the offending community lies in the hands of the
United States Government. It is unthinkable that we should continue a
policy under which a given locality may be allowed to commit a crime
against a friendly nation, and the United States Government limited,
not to preventing the commission of the crime, but, in the last resort,
to defending the people who have committed it against the consequences
of their own wrongdoing.

Last August an insurrection broke out in Cuba which it speedily grew
evident that the existing Cuban Government was powerless to quell. This
Government was repeatedly asked by the then Cuban Government to
intervene, and finally was notified by the President of Cuba that he
intended to resign; that his decision was irrevocable; that none of the
other constitutional officers would consent to carry on the Government,
and that he was powerless to maintain order. It was evident that chaos
was impending, and there was every probability that if steps were not
immediately taken by this Government to try to restore order the
representatives of various European nations in the island would apply
to their respective governments for armed intervention in order to
protect the lives and property of their citizens. Thanks to the
preparedness of our Navy, I was able immediately to send enough ships
to Cuba to prevent the situation from becoming hopeless; and I
furthermore dispatched to Cuba the Secretary of War and the Assistant
Secretary of State, in order that they might grapple with the situation
on the ground. All efforts to secure an agreement between the
contending factions, by which they should themselves come to an
amicable understanding and settle upon some modus vivendi--some
provisional government of their own--failed. Finally the President of
the Republic resigned. The quorum of Congress assembled failed by
deliberate purpose of its members, so that there was no power to act on
his resignation, and the Government came to a halt. In accordance with
the so-called Platt amendment, which was embodied in the constitution
of Cuba, I thereupon proclaimed a provisional government for the
island, the Secretary of War acting as provisional governor until he
could be replaced by Mr. Magoon, the late minister to Panama and
governor of the Canal Zone on the Isthmus; troops were sent to support
them and to relieve the Navy, the expedition being handled with most
satisfactory speed and efficiency. The insurgent chiefs immediately
agreed that their troops should lay down their arms and disband; and
the agreement was carried out. The provisional government has left the
personnel of the old government and the old laws, so far as might be,
unchanged, and will thus administer the island for a few months until
tranquillity can be restored, a new election properly held, and a new
government inaugurated. Peace has come in the island; and the
harvesting of the sugar-cane crop, the great crop of the island, is
about to proceed.

When the election has been held and the new government inaugurated in
peaceful and orderly fashion the provisional government will come to an
end. I take this opportunity of expressing upon behalf of the American
people, with all possible solemnity, our most earnest hope that the
people of Cuba will realize the imperative need of preserving justice
and keeping order in the Island. The United States wishes nothing of
Cuba except that it shall prosper morally and materially, and wishes
nothing of the Cubans save that they shall be able to preserve order
among themselves and therefore to preserve their independence. If the
elections become a farce, and if the insurrectionary habit becomes
confirmed in the Island, it is absolutely out of the question that the
Island should continue independent; and the United States, which has
assumed the sponsorship before the civilized world for Cuba's career as
a nation, would again have to intervene and to see that the government
was managed in such orderly fashion as to secure the safety of life and
property. The path to be trodden by those who exercise self-government
is always hard, and we should have every charity and patience with the
Cubans as they tread this difficult path. I have the utmost sympathy
with, and regard for, them; but I most earnestly adjure them solemnly
to weigh their responsibilities and to see that when their new
government is started it shall run smoothly, and with freedom from
flagrant denial of right on the one hand, and from insurrectionary
disturbances on the other.

The Second International Conference of American Republics, held in
Mexico in the years 1901-2, provided for the holding of the third
conference within five years, and committed the fixing of the time and
place and the arrangements for the conference to the governing board of
the Bureau of American Republics, composed of the representatives of
all the American nations in Washington. That board discharged the duty
imposed upon it with marked fidelity and painstaking care, and upon the
courteous invitation of the United States of Brazil the conference was
held at Rio de Janeiro, continuing from the 23d of July to the 29th of
August last. Many subjects of common interest to all the American
nations were discust by the conference, and the conclusions reached,
embodied in a series of resolutions and proposed conventions, will be
laid before you upon the coming in of the final report of the American
delegates. They contain many matters of importance relating to the
extension of trade, the increase of communication, the smoothing away
of barriers to free intercourse, and the promotion of a better
knowledge and good understanding between the different countries
represented. The meetings of the conference were harmonious and the
conclusions were reached with substantial unanimity. It is interesting
to observe that in the successive conferences which have been held the
representatives of the different American nations have been learning to
work together effectively, for, while the First Conference in
Washington in 1889, and the Second Conference in Mexico in 1901-2,
occupied many months, with much time wasted in an unregulated and
fruitless discussion, the Third Conference at Rio exhibited much of the
facility in the practical dispatch of business which characterizes
permanent deliberative bodies, and completed its labors within the
period of six weeks originally allotted for its sessions.

Quite apart from the specific value of the conclusions reached by the
conference, the example of the representatives of all the American
nations engaging in harmonious and kindly consideration and discussion
of subjects of common interest is itself of great and substantial value
for the promotion of reasonable and considerate treatment of all
international questions. The thanks of this country are due to the
Government of Brazil and to the people of Rio de Janeiro for the
generous hospitality with which our delegates, in common with the
others, were received, entertained, and facilitated in their work.

Incidentally to the meeting of the conference, the Secretary of State
visited the city of Rio de Janeiro and was cordially received by the
conference, of which he was made an honorary president. The
announcement of his intention to make this visit was followed by most
courteous and urgent invitations from nearly all the countries of South
America to visit them as the guest of their Governments. It was deemed
that by the acceptance of these invitations we might appropriately
express the real respect and friendship in which we hold our sister
Republics of the southern continent, and the Secretary, accordingly,
visited Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Panama, and Colombia.
He refrained from visiting Paraguay, Bolivia, and Ecuador only because
the distance of their capitals from the seaboard made it impracticable
with the time at his disposal. He carried with him a message of peace
and friendship, and of strong desire for good understanding and mutual
helpfulness; and he was everywhere received in the spirit of his
message. The members of government, the press, the learned professions,
the men of business, and the great masses of the people united
everywhere in emphatic response to his friendly expressions and in
doing honor to the country and cause which he represented.

In many parts of South America there has been much misunderstanding of
the attitude and purposes of the United States towards the other
American Republics. An idea had become prevalent that our assertion of
the Monroe Doctrine implied, or carried with it, an assumption of
superiority, and of a right to exercise some kind of protectorate over
the countries to whose territory that doctrine applies. Nothing could
be farther from the truth. Yet that impression continued to be a
serious barrier to good understanding, to friendly intercourse, to the
introduction of American capital and the extension of American trade.
The impression was so widespread that apparently it could not be
reached by any ordinary means.

It was part of Secretary Root's mission to dispel this unfounded
impression, and there is just cause to believe that he has succeeded.
In an address to the Third Conference at Rio on the 31st of July--an
address of such note that I send it in, together with this message--he
said:

"We wish for no victories but those of peace; for no territory except
our own; for no sovereignty except the sovereignty over ourselves. We
deem the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest
member of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of
the greatest empire, and we deem the observance of that respect the
chief guaranty of the weak against the oppression of the strong. We
neither claim nor desire any rights or privileges or powers that we do
not freely concede to every American Republic. We wish to increase our
prosperity, to extend our trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom, and in
spirit, but our conception of the true way to accomplish this is not to
pull down others and profit by their ruin, but to help all friends to a
common prosperity and a common growth, that we may all become greater
and stronger together. Within a few months for the first time the
recognized possessors of every foot of soil upon the American
continents can be and I hope will be represented with the acknowledged
rights of equal sovereign states in the great World Congress at The
Hague. This will be the world's formal and final acceptance of the
declaration that no part of the American continents is to be deemed
subject to colonization. Let us pledge ourselves to aid each other in
the full performance of the duty to humanity which that accepted
declaration implies, so that in time the weakest and most unfortunate
of our Republics may come to march with equal step by the side of the
stronger and more fortunate. Let us help each other to show that for
all the races of men the liberty for which we have fought and labored
is the twin sister of justice and peace. Let us unite in creating and
maintaining and making effective an all-American public opinion, whose
power shall influence international conduct and prevent international
wrong, and narrow the causes of war, and forever preserve our free
lands from the burden of such armaments as are massed behind the
frontiers of Europe, and bring us ever nearer to the perfection of
ordered liberty. So shall come security and prosperity, production and
trade, wealth, learning, the arts, and happiness for us all."

These words appear to have been received with acclaim in every part of
South America. They have my hearty approval, as I am sure they will
have yours, and I can not be wrong in the conviction that they
correctly represent the sentiments of the whole American people. I can
not better characterize the true attitude of the United States in its
assertion of the Monroe Doctrine than in the words of the distinguished
former minister of foreign affairs of Argentina, Doctor Drago, in his
speech welcoming Mr. Root at Buenos Ayres. He spoke of--

"The traditional policy of the United States (which) without
accentuating superiority or seeking preponderance, condemned the
oppression of the nations of this part of the world and the control of
their destinies by the great Powers of Europe."

It is gratifying to know that in the great city of Buenos Ayres, upon
the arches which spanned the streets, entwined with Argentine and
American flags for the reception of our representative, there were
emblazoned not' only the names of Washington and Jefferson and
Marshall, but also, in appreciative recognition of their services to
the cause of South American independence, the names of James Monroe,
John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Richard Rush. We take especial
pleasure in the graceful courtesy of the Government of Brazil, which 
has given to the beautiful and stately building first used for the
meeting of the conference the name of "Palacio Monroe." Our grateful
acknowledgments are due to the Governments and the people of all the
countries visited by the Secretary of State for the courtesy, the
friendship, and the honor shown to our country in their generous
hospitality to him.

In my message to you on the 5th of December, 1905, I called your
attention to the embarrassment that might be caused to this Government
by the assertion by foreign nations of the right to collect by force of
arms contract debts due by American republics to citizens of the
collecting nation, and to the danger that the process of compulsory
collection might result in the occupation of territory tending to
become permanent. I then said:

"Our own Government has always refused to enforce such contractual
obligations on behalf of its citizens by an appeal to arms. It is much
to be wisht that all foreign governments would take the same view."

This subject was one of the topics of consideration at the conference
at Rio and a resolution was adopted by that conference recommending to
the respective governments represented "to consider the advisability of
asking the Second Peace Conference at The Hague to examine the question
of the compulsory collection of public debts, and, in general, means
tending to diminish among nations conflicts of purely pecuniary
origin."

This resolution was supported by the representatives of the United
States in accordance with the following instructions:

"It has long been the established policy of the United States not to
use its armed forces for the collection of ordinary contract debts due
to its citizens by other governments. We have not considered the use of
force for such a purpose consistent with that respect for the
independent sovereignty of other members of the family of nations which
is the most important principle of international law and the chief
protection of weak nations against the oppression of the strong. It
seems to us that the practise is injurious in its general effect upon
the relations of nations and upon the welfare of weak and disordered
states, whose development ought to be encouraged in the interests of
civilization; that it offers frequent temptation to bullying and
oppression and to unnecessary and unjustifiable warfare. We regret that
other powers, whose opinions and sense of justice we esteem highly,
have at times taken a different view and have permitted themselves,
though we believe with reluctance, to collect such debts by force. It
is doubtless true that the non-payment of public debts may be
accompanied by such circumstances of fraud and wrongdoing or violation
of treaties as to justify the use of force. This Government would be
glad to see an international consideration of the subject which shall
discriminate between such cases and the simple nonperformance of a
contract with a private person, and a resolution in favor of reliance
upon peaceful means in cases of the latter class.

"It is not felt, however, that the conference at Rio should undertake
to make such a discrimination or to resolve upon such a rule. Most of
the American countries are still debtor nations, while the countries of
Europe are the creditors. If the Rio conference, therefore, were to
take such action it would have the appearance of a meeting of debtors
resolving how their creditors should act, and this would not inspire
respect. The true course is indicated by the terms of the program,
which proposes to request the Second Hague Conference, where both
creditors and debtors will be assembled, to consider the subject."

Last June trouble which had existed for some time between the Republics
of Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras culminated in war--a war which
threatened to be ruinous to the countries involved and very destructive
to the commercial interests of Americans, Mexicans, and other
foreigners who are taking an important part in the development of these
countries. The thoroughly good understanding which exists between the
United States and Mexico enabled this Government and that of Mexico to
unite in effective mediation between the warring Republics; which
mediation resulted, not without long-continued and patient effort, in
bringing about a meeting of the representatives of the hostile powers
on board a United States warship as neutral territory, and peace was
there concluded; a peace which resulted in the saving of thousands of
lives and in the prevention of an incalculable amount of misery and the
destruction of property and of the means of livelihood. The Rio
Conference past the following resolution in reference to this action:

"That the Third International American Conference shall address to the
Presidents of the United States of America and of the United States of
Mexico a note in which the conference which is being held at Rio
expresses its satisfaction at the happy results of their mediation for
the celebration of peace between the Republics of Guatemala, Honduras,
and Salvador."

This affords an excellent example of one way in which the influence of
the United States can properly be exercised for the benefit of the
peoples of the Western Hemisphere; that is, by action taken in concert
with other American republics and therefore free from those suspicions
and prejudices which might attach if the action were taken by one
alone. In this way it is possible to exercise a powerful influence
toward the substitution of considerate action in the spirit of justice
for the insurrectionary or international violence which has hitherto
been so great a hindrance to the development of many of our neighbors.
Repeated examples of united action by several or many American
republics in favor of peace, by urging cool and reasonable, instead of
excited and belligerent, treatment of international controversies, can
not fail to promote the growth of a general public opinion among the
American nations which will elevate the standards of international
action, strengthen the sense of international duty among governments,
and tell in favor of the peace of mankind.

I have just returned from a trip to Panama and shall report to you at
length later on the whole subject of the Panama Canal.

The Algeciras Convention, which was signed by the United States as well
as by most of the powers of Europe, supersedes the previous convention
of 1880, which was also signed both by the United States and a majority
of the European powers. This treaty confers upon us equal commercial
rights with all European countries and does not entail a single
obligation of any kind upon us, and I earnestly hope it may be speedily
ratified. To refuse to ratify it would merely mean that we forfeited
our commercial rights in Morocco and would not achieve another object
of any kind. In the event of such refusal we would be left for the
first time in a hundred and twenty years without any commercial treaty
with Morocco; and this at a time when we are everywhere seeking new
markets and outlets for trade.

The destruction of the Pribilof Islands fur seals by pelagic sealing
still continues. The herd which, according to the surveys made in 1874
by direction of the Congress, numbered 4,700,000, and which, according
to the survey of both American and Canadian commissioners in 1891,
amounted to 1,000,000, has now been reduced to about 180,000. This
result has been brought about by Canadian and some other sealing
vessels killing the female seals while in the water during their annual
pilgrimage to and from the south, or in search of food. As a rule the
female seal when killed is pregnant, and also has an unweaned pup on
land, so that, for each skin taken by pelagic sealing, as a rule, three
lives are destroyed--the mother, the unborn offspring, and the nursing
pup, which is left to starve to death. No damage whatever is done to
the herd by the carefully regulated killing on land; the custom of
pelagic sealing is solely responsible for all of the present evil, and
is alike indefensible from the economic standpoint and from the
standpoint of humanity.

In 1896 over 16,000 young seals were found dead from starvation on the
Pribilof Islands. In 1897 it was estimated that since pelagic sealing
began upward of 400,000 adult female seals had been killed at sea, and
over 300,000 young seals had died of starvation as the result. The
revolting barbarity of such a practise, as well as the wasteful
destruction which it involves, needs no demonstration and is its own
condemnation. The Bering Sea Tribunal, which sat in Paris in 1893, and
which decided against the claims of the United States to exclusive
jurisdiction in the waters of Bering Sea and to a property right in the
fur seals when outside of the three-mile limit, determined also upon
certain regulations which the Tribunal considered sufficient for the
proper protection and preservation of the fur seal in, or habitually
resorting to, the Bering Sea. The Tribunal by its regulations
established a close season, from the 1st of May to the 31st of July,
and excluded all killing in the waters within 60 miles around the
Pribilof Islands. They also provided that the regulations which they
had determined upon, with a view to the protection and preservation of
the seals, should be submitted every five years to new examination, so
as to enable both interested Governments to consider whether, in the
light of past experience, there was occasion for any modification
thereof.

The regulations have proved plainly inadequate to accomplish the object
of protection and preservation of the fur seals, and for a long time
this Government has been trying in vain to secure from Great Britain
such revision and modification of the regulations as were contemplated
and provided for by the award of the Tribunal of Paris.

The process of destruction has been accelerated during recent years by
the appearance of a number of Japanese vessels engaged in pelagic
sealing. As these vessels have not been bound even by the inadequate
limitations prescribed by the Tribunal of Paris, they have paid no
attention either to the close season or to the sixty-mile limit imposed
upon the Canadians, and have prosecuted their work up to the very
islands themselves. On July 16 and 17 the crews from several Japanese
vessels made raids upon the island of St. Paul, and before they were
beaten off by the very meager and insufficiently armed guard, they
succeeded in killing several hundred seals and carrying off the skins
of most of them. Nearly all the seals killed were females and the work
was done with frightful barbarity. Many of the seals appear to have
been skinned alive and many were found half skinned and still alive.
The raids were repelled only by the use of firearms, and five of the
raiders were killed, two were wounded, and twelve captured, including
the two wounded. Those captured have since been tried and sentenced to
imprisonment. An attack of this kind had been wholly unlookt for, but
such provision of vessels, arms, and ammunition will now be made that
its repetition will not be found profitable.

Suitable representations regarding the incident have been made to the
Government of Japan, and we are assured that all practicable measures
will be taken by that country to prevent any recurrence of the outrage.
On our part, the guard on the island will be increased and better
equipped and organized, and a better revenue-cutter patrol service
about the islands will be established; next season a United States war
vessel will also be sent there.

We have not relaxed our efforts to secure an agreement with Great
Britain for adequate protection of the seal herd, and negotiations with
Japan for the same purpose are in progress.

The laws for the protection of the seals within the jurisdiction of the
United States need revision and amendment. Only the islands of St. Paul
and St. George are now, in terms, included in the Government
reservation, and the other islands are also to be included. The landing
of aliens as well as citizens upon the islands, without a permit from
the Department of Commerce and Labor, for any purpose except in case of
stress of weather or for water, should be prohibited under adequate
penalties. The approach of vessels for the excepted purposes should be
regulated. The authority of the Government agents on the islands should
be enlarged, and the chief agent should have the powers of a committing
magistrate. The entrance of a vessel into the territorial waters
surrounding the islands with intent to take seals should be made a
criminal offense and cause of forfeiture. Authority for seizures in
such cases should be given and the presence on any such vessel of seals
or sealskins, or the paraphernalia for taking them, should be made
prima facie evidence of such intent. I recommend what legislation is
needed to accomplish these ends; and I commend to your attention the
report of Mr. Sims, of the Department of Commerce and Labor, on this
subject.

In case we are compelled to abandon the hope of making arrangements
with other governments to put an end to the hideous cruelty now
incident to pelagic sealing, it will be a question for your serious
consideration how far we should continue to protect and maintain the
seal herd on land with the result of continuing such a practise, and
whether it is not better to end the practice by exterminating the herd
ourselves in the most humane way possible.

In my last message I advised you that the Emperor of Russia had taken
the initiative in bringing about a second peace conference at The
Hague. Under the guidance of Russia the arrangement of the
preliminaries for such a conference has been progressing during the
past year. Progress has necessarily been slow, owing to the great
number of countries to be consulted upon every question that has
arisen. It is a matter of satisfaction that all of the American
Republics have now, for the first time, been invited to join in the
proposed conference.

The close connection between the subjects to be taken up by the Red
Cross Conference held at Geneva last summer and the subjects which
naturally would come before The Hague Conference made it apparent that
it was desirable to have the work of the Red Cross Conference completed
and considered by the different powers before the meeting at The Hague.
The Red Cross Conference ended its labors on the 6th day of July, and
the revised and amended convention, which was signed by the American
delegates, will be promptly laid before the Senate.

By the special and highly appreciated courtesy of the Governments of
Russia and the Netherlands, a proposal to call The Hague Conference
together at a time which would conflict with the Conference of the
American Republics at Rio de Janeiro in August was laid aside. No other
date has yet been suggested. A tentative program for the conference has
been proposed by the Government of Russia, and the subjects which it
enumerates are undergoing careful examination and consideration in
preparation for the conference.

It must ever be kept in mind that war is not merely justifiable, but
imperative, upon honorable men, upon an honorable nation, where peace
can only be obtained by the sacrifice of conscientious conviction or of
national welfare. Peace is normally a great good, and normally it
coincides with righteousness; but it is righteousness and not peace
which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the
conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can
surrender conscience to another's keeping. Neither can a nation, which
is an entity, and which does not die as individuals die, refrain from
taking thought for the interest of the generations that are to come, no
less than for the interest of the generation of to-day; and no public
men have a right, whether from shortsightedness, from selfish
indifference, or from sentimentality, to sacrifice national interests
which are vital in character. A just war is in the long run far better
for a nation's soul than the most prosperous peace obtained by
acquiescence in wrong or injustice. Moreover, though it is criminal for
a nation not to prepare for war, so that it may escape the dreadful
consequences of being defeated in war, yet it must always be remembered
that even to be defeated in war may be far better than not to have
fought at all. As has been well and finely said, a beaten nation is not
necessarily a disgraced nation; but the nation or man is disgraced if
the obligation to defend right is shirked.

We should as a nation do everything in our power for the cause of
honorable peace. It is morally as indefensible for a nation to commit a
wrong upon another nation, strong or weak, as for an individual thus to
wrong his fellows. We should do all in our power to hasten the day when
there shall be peace among the nations--a peace based upon justice and
not upon cowardly submission to wrong. We can accomplish a good deal in
this direction, but we can not accomplish everything, and the penalty
of attempting to do too much would almost inevitably be to do worse
than nothing; for it must be remembered that fantastic extremists are
not in reality leaders of the causes which they espouse, but are
ordinarily those who do most to hamper the real leaders of the cause
and to damage the cause itself. As yet there is no likelihood of
establishing any kind of international power, of whatever sort, which
can effectively check wrongdoing, and in these circumstances it would
be both a foolish and an evil thing for a great and free nation to
deprive itself of the power to protect its own rights and even in
exceptional cases to stand up for the rights of others. Nothing would
more promote iniquity, nothing would further defer the reign upon earth
of peace and righteousness, than for the free and enlightened peoples
which, though with much stumbling and many shortcomings, nevertheless
strive toward justice, deliberately to render themselves powerless
while leaving every despotism and barbarism armed and able to work
their wicked will. The chance for the settlement of disputes
peacefully, by arbitration, now depends mainly upon the possession by
the nations that mean to do right of sufficient armed strength to make
their purpose effective.

The United States Navy is the surest guarantor of peace which this
country possesses. It is earnestly to be wisht that we would profit by
the teachings of history in this matter. A strong and wise people will
study its own failures no less than its triumphs, for there is wisdom
to be learned from the study of both, of the mistake as well as of the
success. For this purpose nothing could be more instructive than a
rational study of the war of 1812, as it is told, for instance, by
Captain Mahan. There was only one way in which that war could have been
avoided. If during the preceding twelve years a navy relatively as
strong as that which this country now has had been built up, and an
army provided relatively as good as that which the country now has,
there never would have been the slightest necessity of fighting the
war; and if the necessity had arisen the war would under such
circumstances have ended with our speedy and overwhelming triumph. But
our people during those twelve years refused to make any preparations
whatever, regarding either the Army or the Navy. They saved a million
or two of dollars by so doing; and in mere money paid a hundredfold for
each million they thus saved during the three years of war which
followed--a war which brought untold suffering upon our people, which
at one time threatened the gravest national disaster, and which, in
spite of the necessity of waging it, resulted merely in what was in
effect a drawn battle, while the balance of defeat and triumph was
almost even.

I do not ask that we continue to increase our Navy. I ask merely that
it be maintained at its present strength; and this can be done only if
we replace the obsolete and outworn ships by new and good ones, the
equals of any afloat in any navy. To stop building ships for one year
means that for that year the Navy goes back instead of forward. The old
battle ship Texas, for instance, would now be of little service in a
stand-up fight with a powerful adversary. The old double-turret
monitors have outworn their usefulness, while it was a waste of money
to build the modern single-turret monitors. All these ships should be
replaced by others; and this can be done by a well-settled program of
providing for the building each year of at least one first-class battle
ship equal in size and speed to any that any nation is at the same time
building; the armament presumably to consist of as large a number as
possible of very heavy guns of one caliber, together with smaller guns
to repel torpedo attack; while there should be heavy armor, turbine
engines, and in short, every modern device. Of course, from time to
time, cruisers, colliers, torpedo-boat destroyers or torpedo boats,
Will have to be built also. All this, be it remembered, would not
increase our Navy, but would merely keep it at its present strength.
Equally of course, the ships will be absolutely useless if the men
aboard them are not so trained that they can get the best possible
service out of the formidable but delicate and complicated mechanisms
intrusted to their care. The marksmanship of our men has so improved
during the last five years that I deem it within bounds to say that the
Navy is more than twice as efficient, ship for ship, as half a decade
ago. The Navy can only attain proper efficiency if enough officers and
men are provided, and if these officers and men are given the chance
(and required to take advantage of it) to stay continually at sea and
to exercise the fleets singly and above all in squadron, the exercise
to be of every kind and to include unceasing practise at the guns,
conducted under conditions that will test marksmanship in time of war.

In both the Army and the Navy there is urgent need that everything
possible should be done to maintain the highest standard for the
personnel, alike as regards the officers and the enlisted men. I do not
believe that in any service there is a finer body of enlisted men and
of junior officer than we have in both the Army and the Navy, including
the Marine Corps. All possible encouragement to the enlisted men should
be given, in pay and otherwise, and everything practicable done to
render the service attractive to men of the right type. They should be
held to the strictest discharge of their duty, and in them a spirit
should be encouraged which demands not the mere performance of duty,
but the performance of far more than duty, if it conduces to the honor
and the interest of the American nation; and in return the amplest
consideration should be theirs.

West Point and Annapolis already turn out excellent officers. We do not
need to have these schools made more scholastic. On the contrary we
should never lose sight of the fact that the aim of each school is to
turn out a man who shall be above everything else a fighting man. In
the Army in particular it is not necessary that either the cavalry or
infantry officer should have special mathematical ability. Probably in
both schools the best part of the education is the high standard of
character and of professional morale which it confers.

But in both services there is urgent need for the establishment of a
principle of selection which will eliminate men after a certain age if
they can not be promoted from the subordinate ranks, and which will
bring into the higher ranks fewer men, and these at an earlier age.
This principle of selection will be objected to by good men of mediocre
capacity, who are fitted to do well while young in the lower positions,
but who are not fitted to do well when at an advanced age they come
into positions of command and of great responsibility. But the desire
of these men to be promoted to positions which they are not competent
to fill should not weigh against the interest of the Navy and the
country. At present our men, especially in the Navy, are kept far too
long in the junior grades, and then, at much too advanced an age, are
put quickly through the senior grades, often not attaining to these
senior grades until they are too old to be of real use in them; and if
they are of real use, being put through them so quickly that little
benefit to the Navy comes from their having been in them at all.

The Navy has one great advantage over the Army in the fact that the
officers of high rank are actually trained in the continual performance
of their duties; that is, in the management of the battle ships and
armored cruisers gathered into fleets. This is not true of the army
officers, who rarely have corresponding chances to exercise command
over troops under service conditions. The conduct of the Spanish war
showed the lamentable loss of life, the useless extravagance, and the
inefficiency certain to result, if during peace the high officials of
the War and Navy Departments are praised and rewarded only if they save
money at no matter what cost to the efficiency of the service, and if
the higher officers are given no chance whatever to exercise and
practise command. For years prior to the Spanish war the Secretaries of
War were praised chiefly if they practised economy; which economy,
especially in connection with the quartermaster, commissary, and
medical departments, was directly responsible for most of the
mismanagement that occurred in the war itself--and parenthetically be
it observed that the very people who clamored for the misdirected
economy in the first place were foremost to denounce the mismanagement,
loss, and suffering which were primarily due to this same misdirected
economy and to the lack of preparation it involved. There should soon
be an increase in the number of men for our coast defenses; these men
should be of the right type and properly trained; and there should
therefore be an increase of pay for certain skilled grades, especially
in the coast artillery. Money should be appropriated to permit troops
to be massed in body and exercised in maneuvers, particularly in
marching. Such exercise during the summer just past has been of
incalculable benefit to the Army and should under no circumstances be
discontinued. If on these practise marches and in these maneuvers
elderly officers prove unable to bear the strain, they should be
retired at once, for the fact is conclusive as to their unfitness for
war; that is, for the only purpose because of which they should be
allowed to stay in the service. It is a real misfortune to have scores
of small company or regimental posts scattered throughout the country;
the Army should be gathered in a few brigade or division posts; and the
generals should be practised in handling the men in masses. Neglect to
provide for all of this means to incur the risk of future disaster and
disgrace.

The readiness and efficiency of both the Army and Navy in dealing with
the recent sudden crisis in Cuba illustrate afresh their value to the
Nation. This readiness and efficiency would have been very much less
had it not been for the existence of the General Staff in the Army and
the General Board in the Navy; both are essential to the proper
development and use of our military forces afloat and ashore. The
troops that were sent to Cuba were handled flawlessly. It was the
swiftest mobilization and dispatch of troops over sea ever accomplished
by our Government. The expedition landed completely equipped and ready
for immediate service, several of its organizations hardly remaining in
Havana over night before splitting up into detachments and going to
their several posts, It was a fine demonstration of the value and
efficiency of the General Staff. Similarly, it was owing in large part
to the General Board that the Navy was able at the outset to meet the
Cuban crisis with such instant efficiency; ship after ship appearing on
the shortest notice at any threatened point, while the Marine Corps in
particular performed indispensable service. The Army and Navy War
Colleges are of incalculable value to the two services, and they
cooperate with constantly increasing efficiency and importance.

The Congress has most wisely provided for a National Board for the
promotion of rifle practise. Excellent results have already come from
this law, but it does not go far enough. Our Regular Army is so small
that in any great war we should have to trust mainly to volunteers; and
in such event these volunteers should already know how to shoot; for if
a soldier has the fighting edge, and ability to take care of himself in
the open, his efficiency on the line of battle is almost directly
Proportionate to excellence in marksmanship. We should establish
shooting galleries in all the large public and military schools, should
maintain national target ranges in different parts of the country, and
should in every way encourage the formation of rifle clubs throughout
all parts of the land. The little Republic of Switzerland offers us an
excellent example in all matters connected with building up an
efficient citizen soldiery.