To the Senate and House of Representatives:

FINANCES.

The financial standing of the Nation at the present time is excellent,
and the financial management of the Nation's interests by the
Government during the last seven years has shown the most satisfactory
results. But our currency system is imperfect, and it is earnestly to
be hoped that the Currency Commission will be able to propose a
thoroughly good system which will do away with the existing defects.

During the period from July 1, 1901, to September 30, 1908, there was
an increase in the amount of money in circulation of $902,991,399. The
increase in the per capita during this period was $7.06. Within this
time there were several occasions when it was necessary for the
Treasury Department to come to the relief of the money market by
purchases or redemptions of United States bonds; by increasing deposits
in national banks; by stimulating additional issues of national bank
notes, and by facilitating importations from abroad of gold. Our
imperfect currency system has made these proceedings necessary, and
they were effective until the monetary disturbance in the fall of 1907
immensely increased the difficulty of ordinary methods of relief. By
the middle of November the available working balance in the Treasury
had been reduced to approximately $5,000,000. Clearing house
associations throughout the country had been obliged to resort to the
expedient of issuing clearing house certificates, to be used as money.
In this emergency it was determined to invite subscriptions for
$50,000,000 Panama Canal bonds, and $100,000,000 three per cent
certificates of indebtedness authorized by the act of June 13, 1898. It
was proposed to re-deposit in the national banks the proceeds of these
issues, and to permit their use as a basis for additional circulating
notes of national banks. The moral effect of this procedure was so
great that it was necessary to issue only $24,631,980 of the Panama
Canal bonds and $15,436,500 of the certificates of indebtedness.

During the period from July 1, 1901, to September 30, 1908, the balance
between the net ordinary receipts and the net ordinary expenses of the
Government showed a surplus in the four years 1902, 1903, 1906 and
1907, and a deficit in the years 1904, 1905, 1908 and a fractional part
of the fiscal year 1909. The net result was a surplus of
$99,283,413.54. The financial operations of the Government during this
period, based upon these differences between receipts and expenditures,
resulted in a net reduction of the interest-bearing debt of the United
States from $987,141,040 to $897,253,990, notwithstanding that there
had been two sales of Panama Canal bonds amounting in the aggregate to
$54,631,980, and an issue of three per cent certificates of
indebtedness under the act of June 13, 1998, amounting to $15,436,500.
Refunding operations of the Treasury Department under the act of March
14, 1900, resulted in the conversion into two per cent consols of 1930
of $200,309,400 bonds bearing higher rates of interest. A decrease of
$8,687,956 in the annual interest charge resulted from these
operations.

In short, during the seven years and three months there has been a net
surplus of nearly one hundred millions of receipts over expenditures, a
reduction of the interest-bearing debt by ninety millions, in spite of
the extraordinary expense of the Panama Canal, and a saving of nearly
nine millions on the annual interest charge. This is an exceedingly
satisfactory showing, especially in view of the fact that during this
period the Nation has never hesitated to undertake any expenditure that
it regarded as necessary. There have been no new taxes and no increase
of taxes; on the contrary, some taxes have been taken off; there has
been a reduction of taxation.

CORPORATIONS.

As regards the great corporations engaged in interstate business, and
especially the railroad, I can only repeat what I have already again
and again said in my messages to the Congress, I believe that under the
interstate clause of the Constitution the United States has complete
and paramount right to control all agencies of interstate commerce, and
I believe that the National Government alone can exercise this right
with wisdom and effectiveness so as both to secure justice from, and to
do justice to, the great corporations which are the most important
factors in modern business. I believe that it is worse than folly to
attempt to prohibit all combinations as is done by the Sherman
anti-trust law, because such a law can be enforced only imperfectly and
unequally, and its enforcement works almost as much hardship as good. I
strongly advocate that instead of an unwise effort to prohibit all
combinations there shall be substituted a law which shall expressly
permit combinations which are in the interest of the public, but shall
at the same time give to some agency of the National Government full
power of control and supervision over them. One of the chief features
of this control should be securing entire publicity in all matters
which the public has a right to know, and furthermore, the power, not
by judicial but by executive action, to prevent or put a stop to every
form of improper favoritism or other wrongdoing.

The railways of the country should be put completely under the
Interstate Commerce Commission and removed from the domain of the
anti-trust law. The power of the Commission should be made
thoroughgoing, so that it could exercise complete supervision and
control over the issue of securities as well as over the raising and
lowering of rates. As regards rates, at least, this power should be
summary. The power to investigate the financial operations and accounts
of the railways has been one of the most valuable features in recent
legislation. Power to make combinations and traffic agreements should
be explicitly conferred upon the railroads, the permission of the
Commission being first gained and the combination or agreement being
published in all its details. In the interest of the public the
representatives of the public should have complete power to see that
the railroads do their duty by the public, and as a matter of course
this power should also be exercised so as to see that no injustice is
done to the railroads. The shareholders, the employees and the shippers
all have interests that must be guarded. It is to the interest of all
of them that no swindling stock speculation should be allowed, and that
there should be no improper issuance of securities. The guiding
intelligences necessary for the successful building and successful
management of railroads should receive ample remuneration; but no man
should be allowed to make money in connection with railroads out of
fraudulent over-capitalization and kindred stock-gambling performances;
there must be no defrauding of investors, oppression of the farmers and
business men who ship freight, or callous disregard of the rights and
needs of the employees. In addition to this the interests of the
shareholders, of the employees, and of the shippers should all be
guarded as against one another. To give any one of them undue and
improper consideration is to do injustice to the others. Rates must be
made as low as is compatible with giving proper returns to all the
employees of the railroad, from the highest to the lowest, and proper
returns to the shareholders; but they must not, for instance, be
reduced in such fashion as to necessitate a cut in the wages of the
employees or the abolition of the proper and legitimate profits of
honest shareholders.

Telegraph and telephone companies engaged in interstate business should
be put under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

It is very earnestly to be wished that our people, through their
representatives, should act in this matter. It is hard to say whether
most damage to the country at large would come from entire failure on
the part of the public to supervise and control the actions of the
great corporations, or from the exercise of the necessary governmental
power in a way which would do injustice and wrong to the corporations.
Both the preachers of an unrestricted individualism, and the preachers
of an oppression which would deny to able men of business the just
reward of their initiative and business sagacity, are advocating
policies that would be fraught with the gravest harm to the whole
country. To permit every lawless capitalist, every law-defying
corporation, to take any action, no matter how iniquitous, in the
effort to secure an improper profit and to build up privilege, would be
ruinous to the Republic and would mark the abandonment of the effort to
secure in the industrial world the spirit of democratic fair dealing.
On the other hand, to attack these wrongs in that spirit of demagogy
which can see wrong only when committed by the man of wealth, and is
dumb and blind in the presence of wrong committed against men of
property or by men of no property, is exactly as evil as corruptly to
defend the wrongdoing of men of wealth. The war we wage must be waged
against misconduct, against wrongdoing wherever it is found; and we
must stand heartily for the rights of every decent man, whether he be a
man of great wealth or a man who earns his livelihood as a wage-worker
or a tiller of the soil.

It is to the interest of all of us that there should be a premium put
upon individual initiative and individual capacity, and an ample reward
for the great directing intelligences alone competent to manage the
great business operations of to-day. It is well to keep in mind that
exactly as the anarchist is the worst enemy of liberty and the
reactionary the worst enemy of order, so the men who defend the rights
of property have most to fear from the wrongdoers of great wealth, and
the men who are championing popular rights have most to fear from the
demagogues who in the name of popular rights would do wrong to and
oppress honest business men, honest men of wealth; for the success of
either type of wrongdoer necessarily invites a violent reaction against
the cause the wrongdoer nominally upholds. In point of danger to the
Nation there is nothing to choose between on the one hand the
corruptionist, the bribe-giver, the bribe-taker, the man who employs
his great talent to swindle his fellow-citizens on a large scale, and,
on the other hand, the preacher of class hatred, the man who, whether
from ignorance or from willingness to sacrifice his country to his
ambition, persuades well-meaning but wrong-headed men to try to destroy
the instruments upon which our prosperity mainly rests. Let each group
of men beware of and guard against the shortcomings to which that group
is itself most liable. Too often we see the business community in a
spirit of unhealthy class consciousness deplore the effort to hold to
account under the law the wealthy men who in their management of great
corporations, whether railroads, street railways, or other industrial
enterprises, have behaved in a way that revolts the conscience of the
plain, decent people. Such an attitude can not be condemned too
severely, for men of property should recognize that they jeopardize the
rights of property when they fail heartily to join in the effort to do
away with the abuses of wealth. On the other hand, those who advocate
proper control on behalf of the public, through the State, of these
great corporations, and of the wealth engaged on a giant scale in
business operations, must ever keep in mind that unless they do
scrupulous justice to the corporation, unless they permit ample profit,
and cordially encourage capable men of business so long as they act
with honesty, they are striking at the root of our national well-being;
for in the long run, under the mere pressure of material distress, the
people as a whole would probably go back to the reign of an
unrestricted individualism rather than submit to a control by the State
so drastic and so foolish, conceived in a spirit of such unreasonable
and narrow hostility to wealth, as to prevent business operations from
being profitable, and therefore to bring ruin upon the entire business
community, and ultimately upon the entire body of citizens.

The opposition to Government control of these great corporations makes
its most effective effort in the shape of an appeal to the old doctrine
of State's rights. Of course there are many sincere men who now believe
in unrestricted individualism in business, just as there were formerly
many sincere men who believed in slavery--that is, in the unrestricted
right of an individual to own another individual. These men do not by
themselves have great weight, however. The effective fight against
adequate Government control and supervision of individual, and
especially of corporate, wealth engaged in interstate business is
chiefly done under cover; and especially under cover of an appeal to
State's rights. It is not at all infrequent to read in the same speech
a denunciation of predatory wealth fostered by special privilege and
defiant of both the public welfare and law of the land, and a
denunciation of centralization in the Central Government of the power
to deal with this centralized and organized wealth. Of course the
policy set forth in such twin denunciations amounts to absolutely
nothing, for the first half is nullified by the second half. The chief
reason, among the many sound and compelling reasons, that led to the
formation of the National Government was the absolute need that the
Union, and not the several States, should deal with interstate and
foreign commerce; and the power to deal with interstate commerce was
granted absolutely and plenarily to the Central Government and was
exercised completely as regards the only instruments of interstate
commerce known in those days--the waterways, the highroads, as well as
the partnerships of individuals who then conducted all of what business
there was. Interstate commerce is now chiefly conducted by railroads;
and the great corporation has supplanted the mass of small partnerships
or individuals. The proposal to make the National Government supreme
over, and therefore to give it complete control over, the railroads and
other instruments of interstate commerce is merely a proposal to carry
out to the letter one of the prime purposes, if not the prime purpose,
for which the Constitution was rounded. It does not represent
centralization. It represents merely the acknowledgment of the patent
fact that centralization has already come in business. If this
irresponsible outside business power is to be controlled in the
interest of the general public it can only be controlled in one way--by
giving adequate power of control to the one sovereignty capable of
exercising such power--the National Government. Forty or fifty separate
state governments can not exercise that power over corporations doing
business in most or all of them; first, because they absolutely lack
the authority to deal with interstate business in any form; and second,
because of the inevitable conflict of authority sure to arise in the
effort to enforce different kinds of state regulation, often
inconsistent with one another and sometimes oppressive in themselves.
Such divided authority can not regulate commerce with wisdom and
effect. The Central Government is the only power which, without
oppression, can nevertheless thoroughly and adequately control and
supervise the large corporations. To abandon the effort for National
control means to abandon the effort for all adequate control and yet to
render likely continual bursts of action by State legislatures, which
can not achieve the purpose sought for, but which can do a great deal
of damage to the corporation without conferring any real benefit on the
public.

I believe that the more farsighted corporations are themselves coming
to recognize the unwisdom of the violent hostility they have displayed
during the last few years to regulation and control by the National
Government of combinations engaged in interstate business. The truth is
that we who believe in this movement of asserting and exercising a
genuine control, in the public interest, over these great corporations
have to contend against two sets of enemies, who, though nominally
opposed to one another, are really allies in preventing a proper
solution of the problem. There are, first, the big corporation men, and
the extreme individualists among business men, who genuinely believe in
utterly unregulated business that is, in the reign of plutocracy; and,
second, the men who, being blind to the economic movements of the day,
believe in a movement of repression rather than of regulation of
corporations, and who denounce both the power of the railroads and the
exercise of the Federal power which alone can really control the
railroads. Those who believe in efficient national control, on the
other hand, do not in the least object to combinations; do not in the
least object to concentration in business administration. On the
contrary, they favor both, with the all important proviso that there
shall be such publicity about their workings, and such thoroughgoing
control over them, as to insure their being in the interest, and not
against the interest, of the general public. We do not object to the
concentration of wealth and administration; but we do believe in the
distribution of the wealth in profits to the real owners, and in
securing to the public the full benefit of the concentrated
administration. We believe that with concentration in administration
there can come both be advantage of a larger ownership and of a more
equitable distribution of profits, and at the same time a better
service to the commonwealth. We believe that the administration should
be for the benefit of the many; and that greed and rascality, practiced
on a large scale, should be punished as relentlessly as if practiced on
a small scale.

We do not for a moment believe that the problem will be solved by any
short and easy method. The solution will come only by pressing various
concurrent remedies. Some of these remedies must lie outside the domain
of all government. Some must lie outside the domain of the Federal
Government. But there is legislation which the Federal Government alone
can enact and which is absolutely vital in order to secure the
attainment of our purpose. Many laws are needed. There should be
regulation by the National Government of the great interstate
corporations, including a simple method of account keeping, publicity,
supervision of the issue securities, abolition of rebates, and of
special privileges. There should be short time franchises for all
corporations engaged in public business; including the corporations
which get power from water rights. There should be National as well as
State guardianship of mines and forests. The labor legislation
hereinafter referred to should concurrently be enacted into law.

To accomplish this, means of course a certain increase in the use
of--not the creation of--power, by the Central Government. The power
already exists; it does not have to be created; the only question is
whether it shall be used or left idle--and meanwhile the corporations
over which the power ought to be exercised will not remain idle. Let
those who object to this increase in the use of the only power
available, the national power, be frank, and admit openly that they
propose to abandon any effort to control the great business
corporations and to exercise supervision over the accumulation and
distribution of wealth; for such supervision and control can only come
through this particular kind of increase of power. We no more believe
in that empiricism which demand, absolutely unrestrained individualism
than we do in that empiricism which clamors for a deadening socialism
which would destroy all individual initiative and would ruin the
country with a completeness that not even an unrestrained individualism
itself could achieve. The danger to American democracy lies not in the
least in the concentration of administrative power in responsible and
accountable hands. It lies in having the power insufficiently
concentrated, so that no one can be held responsible to the people for
its use. Concentrated power is palpable, visible, responsible, easily
reached, quickly held to account. Power scattered through many
administrators, many legislators, many men who work behind and through
legislators and administrators, is impalpable, is unseen, is
irresponsible, can not be reached, can not be held to account.
Democracy is in peril wherever the administration of political power is
scattered among a variety of men who work in secret, whose very names
are unknown to the common people. It is not in peril from any man who
derives authority from the people, who exercises it in sight of the
people, and who is from time to time compelled to give an account of
its exercise to the people.

LABOR.

There are many matters affecting labor and the status of the
wage-worker to which I should like to draw your attention, but an
exhaustive discussion of the problem in all its aspects is not now
necessary. This administration is nearing its end; and, moreover, under
our form of government the solution of the problem depends upon the
action of the States as much as upon the action of the Nation.
Nevertheless, there are certain considerations which I wish to set
before you, because I hope that our people will more and more keep them
in mind. A blind and ignorant resistance to every effort for the reform
of abuses and for the readjustment of society to modern industrial
conditions represents not true conservatism, but an incitement to the
wildest radicalism; for wise radicalism and wise conservatism go hand
in hand, one bent on progress, the other bent on seeing that no change
is made unless in the right direction. I believe in a steady effort, or
perhaps it would be more accurate to say in steady efforts in many
different directions, to bring about a condition of affairs under which
the men who work with hand or with brain, the laborers, the
superintendents, the men who produce for the market and the men who
find a market for the articles produced, shall own a far greater share
than at present of the wealth they produce, and be enabled to invest it
in the tools and instruments by which all work is carried on. As far as
possible I hope to see a frank recognition of the advantages conferred
by machinery, organization, and division of labor, accompanied by an
effort to bring about a larger share in the ownership by wage-worker of
railway, mill and factory. In farming, this simply means that we wish
to see the farmer own his own land; we do not wish to see the farms so
large that they become the property of absentee landlords who farm them
by tenants, nor yet so small that the farmer becomes like a European
peasant. Again, the depositors in our savings banks now number over
one-tenth of our entire population. These are all capitalists, who
through the savings banks loan their money to the workers--that is, in
many cases to themselves--to carry on their various industries. The
more we increase their number, the more we introduce the principles of
cooperation into our industry. Every increase in the number of small
stockholders in corporations is a good thing, for the same reasons; and
where the employees are the stockholders the result is particularly
good. Very much of this movement must be outside of anything that can
be accomplished by legislation; but legislation can do a good deal.
Postal savings banks will make it easy for the poorest to keep their
savings in absolute safety. The regulation of the national highways
must be such that they shall serve all people with equal justice.
Corporate finances must be supervised so as to make it far safer than
at present for the man of small means to invest his money in stocks.
There must be prohibition of child labor, diminution of woman labor,
shortening of hours of all mechanical labor; stock watering should be
prohibited, and stock gambling so far as is possible discouraged. There
should be a progressive inheritance tax on large fortunes. Industrial
education should be encouraged. As far as possible we should lighten
the burden of taxation on the small man. We should put a premium upon
thrift, hard work, and business energy; but these qualities cease to be
the main factors in accumulating a fortune long before that fortune
reaches a point where it would be seriously affected by any inheritance
tax such as I propose. It is eminently right that the Nation should fix
the terms upon which the great fortunes are inherited. They rarely do
good and they often do harm to those who inherit them in their
entirety.

PROTECTION FOR WAGEWORKERS.

The above is the merest sketch, hardly even a sketch in outline, of the
reforms for which we should work. But there is one matter with which
the Congress should deal at this session. There should no longer be any
paltering with the question of taking care of the wage-workers who,
under our present industrial system, become killed, crippled, or worn
out as part of the regular incidents of a given business. The majority
of wageworkers must have their rights secured for them by State action;
but the National Government should legislate in thoroughgoing and
far-reaching fashion not only for all employees of the National
Government, but for all persons engaged in interstate commerce. The
object sought for could be achieved to a measurable degree, as far as
those killed or crippled are concerned, by proper employers' liability
laws. As far as concerns those who have been worn out, I call your
attention to the fact that definite steps toward providing old-age
pensions have been taken in many of our private industries. These may
be indefinitely extended through voluntary association and contributory
schemes, or through the agency of savings banks, as under the recent
Massachusetts plan. To strengthen these practical measures should be
our immediate duty; it is not at present necessary to consider the
larger and more general governmental schemes that most European
governments have found themselves obliged to adopt.

Our present system, or rather no system, works dreadful wrong, and is
of benefit to only one class of people--the lawyers. When a workman is
injured what he needs is not an expensive and doubtful lawsuit, but the
certainty of relief through immediate administrative action. The number
of accidents which result in the death or crippling of wageworkers, in
the Union at large, is simply appalling; in a very few years it runs up
a total far in excess of the aggregate of the dead and wounded in any
modern war. No academic theory about "freedom of contract" or
"constitutional liberty to contract" should be permitted to interfere
with this and similar movements. Progress in civilization has
everywhere meant a limitation and regulation of contract. I call your
especial attention to the bulletin of the Bureau of Labor which gives a
statement of the methods of treating the unemployed in European
countries, as this is a subject which in Germany, for instance, is
treated in connection with making provision for worn-out and crippled
workmen.

Pending a thoroughgoing investigation and action there is certain
legislation which should be enacted at once. The law, passed at the
last session of the Congress, granting compensation to certain classes
of employees of the Government, should be extended to include all
employees of the Government and should be made more liberal in its
terms. There is no good ground for the distinction made in the law
between those engaged in hazardous occupations and those not so
engaged. If a man is injured or killed in any line of work, it was
hazardous in his case. Whether 1 per cent or 10 per cent of those
following a given occupation actually suffer injury or death ought not
to have any bearing on the question of their receiving compensation. It
is a grim logic which says to an injured employee or to the dependents
of one killed that he or they are entitled to no compensation because
very few people other than he have been injured or killed in that
occupation. Perhaps one of the most striking omissions in the law is
that it does not embrace peace officers and others whose lives may be
sacrificed in enforcing the laws of the United States. The terms of the
act providing compensation should be made more liberal than in the
present act. A year's compensation is not adequate for a wage-earner's
family in the event of his death by accident in the course of his
employment. And in the event of death occurring, say, ten or eleven
months after the accident, the family would only receive as
compensation the equivalent of one or two months' earnings. In this
respect the generosity of the United States towards its employees
compares most unfavorably with that of every country in Europe--even
the poorest.

The terms of the act are also a hardship in prohibiting payment in
cases where the accident is in any way due to the negligence of the
employee. It is inevitable that daily familiarity with danger will lead
men to take chances that can be construed into negligence. So well is
this recognized that in practically all countries in the civilized
world, except the United States, only a great degree of negligence acts
as a bar to securing compensation. Probably in no other respect is our
legislation, both State and National, so far behind practically the
entire civilized world as in the matter of liability and compensation
for accidents in industry. It is humiliating that at European
international congresses on accidents the United States should be
singled out as the most belated among the nations in respect to
employers' liability legislation. This Government is itself a large
employer of labor, and in its dealings with its employees it should set
a standard in this country which would place it on a par with the most
progressive countries in Europe. The laws of the United States in this
respect and the laws of European countries have been summarized in a
recent Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, and no American who reads this
summary can fail to be struck by the great contrast between our
practices and theirs--a contrast not in any sense to our credit.

The Congress should without further delay pass a model employers'
liability law for the District of Columbia. The employers' liability
act recently declared unconstitutional, on account of apparently
including in its provisions employees engaged in intrastate commerce as
well as those engaged in interstate commerce, has been held by the
local courts to be still in effect so far as its provisions apply to
District of Columbia. There should be no ambiguity on this point. If
there is any doubt on the subject, the law should be reenacted with
special reference to the District of Columbia. This act, however,
applies only to employees of common carriers. In all other occupations
the liability law of the District is the old common law. The severity
and injustice of the common law in this matter has been in some degree
or another modified in the majority of our States, and the only
jurisdiction under the exclusive control of the Congress should be
ahead and not behind the States of the Union in this respect. A
comprehensive employers' liability law should be passed for the
District of Columbia.

I renew my recommendation made in a previous message that half-holidays
be granted during summer to all wageworkers in Government employ.

I also renew my recommendation that the principle of the eight-hour day
should as rapidly and as far as practicable be extended to the entire
work being carried on by the Government; the present law should be
amended to embrace contracts on those public works which the present
wording of the act seems to exclude.

THE COURTS.

I most earnestly urge upon the Congress the duty of increasing the
totally inadequate salaries now given to our Judges. On the whole there
is no body of public servants who do as valuable work, nor whose
moneyed reward is so inadequate compared to their work. Beginning with
the Supreme Court, the Judges should have their salaries doubled. It is
not befitting the dignity of the Nation that its most honored public
servants should be paid sums so small compared to what they would earn
in private life that the performance of public service by them implies
an exceedingly heavy pecuniary sacrifice.

It is earnestly to be desired that some method should be devised for
doing away with the long delays which now obtain in the administration
of justice, and which operate with peculiar severity against persons of
small means, and favor only the very criminals whom it is most
desirable to punish. These long delays in the final decisions of cases
make in the aggregate a crying evil; and a remedy should be devised.
Much of this intolerable delay is due to improper regard paid to
technicalities which are a mere hindrance to justice. In some noted
recent cases this over-regard for technicalities has resulted in a
striking denial of justice, and flagrant wrong to the body politic.

At the last election certain leaders of organized labor made a violent
and sweeping attack upon the entire judiciary of the country, an attack
couched in such terms as to include the most upright, honest and
broad-minded judges, no less than those of narrower mind and more
restricted outlook. It was the kind of attack admirably fitted to
prevent any successful attempt to reform abuses of the judiciary,
because it gave the champions of the unjust judge their eagerly desired
opportunity to shift their ground into a championship of just judges
who were unjustly assailed. Last year, before the House Committee on
the Judiciary, these same labor leaders formulated their demands,
specifying the bill that contained them, refusing all compromise,
stating they wished the principle of that bill or nothing. They
insisted on a provision that in a labor dispute no injunction should
issue except to protect a property right, and specifically provided
that the right to carry on business should not be construed as a
property right; and in a second provision their bill made legal in a
labor dispute any act or agreement by or between two or more persons
that would not have been unlawful if done by a single person. In other
words, this bill legalized blacklisting and boycotting in every form,
legalizing, for instance, those forms of the secondary boycott which
the anthracite coal strike commission so unreservedly condemned; while
the right to carry on a business was explicitly taken out from under
that protection which the law throws over property. The demand was made
that there should be trial by jury in contempt cases, thereby most
seriously impairing the authority of the courts. All this represented a
course of policy which, if carried out, would mean the enthronement of
class privilege in its crudest and most brutal form, and the
destruction of one of the most essential functions of the judiciary in
all civilized lands.

The violence of the crusade for this legislation, and its complete
failure, illustrate two truths which it is essential our people should
learn. In the first place, they ought to teach the workingman, the
laborer, the wageworker, that by demanding what is improper and
impossible he plays into the hands of his foes. Such a crude and
vicious attack upon the courts, even if it were temporarily successful,
would inevitably in the end cause a violent reaction and would band the
great mass of citizens together, forcing them to stand by all the
judges, competent and incompetent alike, rather than to see the wheels
of justice stopped. A movement of this kind can ultimately result in
nothing but damage to those in whose behalf it is nominally undertaken.
This is a most healthy truth, which it is wise for all our people to
learn. Any movement based on that class hatred which at times assumes
the name of "class consciousness" is certain ultimately to fail, and if
it temporarily succeeds, to do far-reaching damage. "Class
consciousness," where it is merely another name for the odious vice of
class selfishness, is equally noxious whether in an employer's
association or in a workingman's association. The movement in question
was one in which the appeal was made to all workingmen to vote
primarily, not as American citizens, but as individuals of a certain
class in society. Such an appeal in the first place revolts the more
high-minded and far-sighted among the persons to whom it is addressed,
and in the second place tends to arouse a strong antagonism among all
other classes of citizens, whom it therefore tends to unite against the
very organization on whose behalf it is issued. The result is therefore
unfortunate from every standpoint. This healthy truth, by the way, will
be learned by the socialists if they ever succeed in establishing in
this country an important national party based on such class
consciousness and selfish class interest.

The wageworkers, the workingmen, the laboring men of the country, by
the way in which they repudiated the effort to get them to cast their
votes in response to an appeal to class hatred, have emphasized their
sound patriotism and Americanism. The whole country has cause to fell
pride in this attitude of sturdy independence, in this uncompromising
insistence upon acting simply as good citizens, as good Americans,
without regard to fancied--and improper--class interests. Such an
attitude is an object-lesson in good citizenship to the entire nation.

But the extreme reactionaries, the persons who blind themselves to the
wrongs now and then committed by the courts on laboring men, should
also think seriously as to what such a movement as this portends. The
judges who have shown themselves able and willing effectively to check
the dishonest activity of the very rich man who works iniquity by the
mismanagement of corporations, who have shown themselves alert to do
justice to the wageworker, and sympathetic with the needs of the mass
of our people, so that the dweller in the tenement houses, the man who
practices a dangerous trade, the man who is crushed by excessive hours
of labor, feel that their needs are understood by the courts--these
judges are the real bulwark of the courts; these judges, the judges of
the stamp of the president-elect, who have been fearless in opposing
labor when it has gone wrong, but fearless also in holding to strict
account corporations that work iniquity, and far-sighted in seeing that
the workingman gets his rights, are the men of all others to whom we
owe it that the appeal for such violent and mistaken legislation has
fallen on deaf ears, that the agitation for its passage proved to be
without substantial basis. The courts are jeopardized primarily by the
action of those Federal and State judges who show inability or
unwillingness to put a stop to the wrongdoing of very rich men under
modern industrial conditions, and inability or unwillingness to give
relief to men of small means or wageworkers who are crushed down by
these modern industrial conditions; who, in other words, fail to
understand and apply the needed remedies for the new wrongs produced by
the new and highly complex social and industrial civilization which has
grown up in the last half century.

The rapid changes in our social and industrial life which have attended
this rapid growth have made it necessary that, in applying to concrete
cases the great rule of right laid down in our Constitution, there
should be a full understanding and appreciation of the new conditions
to which the rules are to be applied. What would have been an
infringement upon liberty half a century ago may be the necessary
safeguard of liberty to-day. What would have been an injury to property
then may be necessary to the enjoyment of property now. Every judicial
decision involves two terms--one, as interpretation of the law; the
other, the understanding of the facts to which it is to be applied. The
great mass of our judicial officers are, I believe, alive to those
changes of conditions which so materially affect the performance of
their judicial duties. Our judicial system is sound and effective at
core, and it remains, and must ever be maintained, as the safeguard of
those principles of liberty and justice which stand at the foundation
of American institutions; for, as Burke finely said, when liberty and
justice are separated, neither is safe. There are, however, some
members of the judicial body who have lagged behind in their
understanding of these great and vital changes in the body politic,
whose minds have never been opened to the new applications of the old
principles made necessary by the new conditions. Judges of this stamp
do lasting harm by their decisions, because they convince poor men in
need of protection that the courts of the land are profoundly ignorant
of and out of sympathy with their needs, and profoundly indifferent or
hostile to any proposed remedy. To such men it seems a cruel mockery to
have any court decide against them on the ground that it desires to
preserve "liberty" in a purely technical form, by withholding liberty
in any real and constructive sense. It is desirable that the
legislative body should possess, and wherever necessary exercise, the
power to determine whether in a given case employers and employees are
not on an equal footing, so that the necessities of the latter compel
them to submit to such exactions as to hours and conditions of labor as
unduly to tax their strength; and only mischief can result when such
determination is upset on the ground that there must be no
"interference with the liberty to contract"--often a merely academic
"liberty," the exercise of which is the negation of real liberty.

There are certain decisions by various courts which have been
exceedingly detrimental to the rights of wageworkers. This is true of
all the decisions that decide that men and women are, by the
Constitution, "guaranteed their liberty" to contract to enter a
dangerous occupation, or to work an undesirable or improper number of
hours, or to work in unhealthy surroundings; and therefore can not
recover damages when maimed in that occupation and can not be forbidden
to work what the legislature decides is an excessive number of hours,
or to carry on the work under conditions which the legislature decides
to be unhealthy. The most dangerous occupations are often the poorest
paid and those where the hours of work are longest; and in many cases
those who go into them are driven by necessity so great that they have
practically no alternative. Decisions such as those alluded to above
nullify the legislative effort to protect the wage-workers who most
need protection from those employers who take advantage of their
grinding need. They halt or hamper the movement for securing better and
more equitable conditions of labor. The talk about preserving to the
misery-hunted beings who make contracts for such service their
"liberty" to make them, is either to speak in a spirit of heartless
irony or else to show an utter lack of knowledge of the conditions of
life among the great masses of our fellow-countrymen, a lack which
unfits a judge to do good service just as it would unfit any executive
or legislative officer.

There is also, I think, ground for the belief that substantial
injustice is often suffered by employees in consequence of the custom
of courts issuing temporary injunctions without notice to them, and
punishing them for contempt of court in instances where, as a matter of
fact, they have no knowledge of any proceedings. Outside of organized
labor there is a widespread feeling that this system often works great
injustice to wageworkers when their efforts to better their working
condition result in industrial disputes. A temporary injunction
procured ex parte may as a matter of fact have all the effect of a
permanent injunction in causing disaster to the wageworkers' side in
such a dispute. Organized labor is chafing under the unjust restraint
which comes from repeated resort to this plan of procedure. Its
discontent has been unwisely expressed, and often improperly expressed,
but there is a sound basis for it, and the orderly and law-abiding
people of a community would be in a far stronger position for upholding
the courts if the undoubtedly existing abuses could be provided
against.

Such proposals as those mentioned above as advocated by the extreme
labor leaders contain the vital error of being class legislation of the
most offensive kind, and even if enacted into law I believe that the
law would rightly be held unconstitutional. Moreover, the labor people
are themselves now beginning to invoke the use of the power of
injunction. During the last ten years, and within my own knowledge, at
least fifty injunctions have been obtained by labor unions in New York
City alone, most of them being to protect the union label (a "property
right"), but some being obtained for other reasons against employers.
The power of injunction is a great equitable remedy, which should on no
account be destroyed. But safeguards should be erected against its
abuse. I believe that some such provisions as those I advocated a year
ago for checking the abuse of the issuance of temporary injunctions
should be adopted. In substance, provision should be made that no
injunction or temporary restraining order issue otherwise than on
notice, except where irreparable injury would otherwise result; and in
such case a hearing on the merits of the order should be had within a
short fixed period, and, if not then continued after hearing, it should
forthwith lapse. Decisions should be rendered immediately, and the
chance of delay minimized in every way. Moreover, I believe that the
procedure should be sharply defined, and the judge required minutely to
state the particulars both of his action and of his reasons therefor,
so that the Congress can, if it desires, examine and investigate the
same.

The chief lawmakers in our country may be, and often are, the judges,
because they are the final seat of authority. Every time they interpret
contract, property, vested rights, due process of law, liberty, they
necessarily enact into law parts of a system of social philosophy, and
as such interpretation is fundamental, they give direction to all
law-making. The decisions of the courts on economic and social
questions depend upon their economic and social philosophy; and for the
peaceful progress of our people during the twentieth century we shall
owe most to those judges who hold to a twentieth century economic and
social philosophy and not to a long outgrown philosophy, which was
itself the product of primitive economic conditions. Of course a
judge's views on progressive social philosophy are entirely second in
importance to his possession of a high and fine character; which means
the possession of such elementary virtues as honesty, courage, and
fair-mindedness. The judge who owes his election to pandering to
demagogic sentiments or class hatreds and prejudices, and the judge who
owes either his election or his appointment to the money or the favor
of a great corporation, are alike unworthy to sit on the bench, are
alike traitors to the people; and no profundity of legal learning, or
correctness of abstract conviction on questions of public policy, can
serve as an offset to such shortcomings. But it is also true that
judges, like executives and legislators, should hold sound views on the
questions of public policy which are of vital interest to the people.

The legislators and executives are chosen to represent the people in
enacting and administering the laws. The judges are not chosen to
represent the people in this sense. Their function is to interpret the
laws. The legislators are responsible for the laws; the judges for the
spirit in which they interpret and enforce the laws. We stand aloof
from the reckless agitators who would make the judges mere pliant tools
of popular prejudice and passion; and we stand aloof from those equally
unwise partisans of reaction and privilege who deny the proposition
that, inasmuch as judges are chosen to serve the interests of the whole
people, they should strive to find out what those interests are, and,
so far as they conscientiously can, should strive to give effect to
popular conviction when deliberately and duly expressed by the
lawmaking body. The courts are to be highly commended and staunchly
upheld when they set their faces against wrongdoing or tyranny by a
majority; but they are to be blamed when they fail to recognize under a
government like ours the deliberate judgment of the majority as to a
matter of legitimate policy, when duly expressed by the legislature.
Such lawfully expressed and deliberate judgment should be given effect
by the courts, save in the extreme and exceptional cases where there
has been a clear violation of a constitutional provision. Anything like
frivolity or wantonness in upsetting such clearly taken governmental
action is a grave offense against the Republic. To protest against
tyranny, to protect minorities from oppression, to nullify an act
committed in a spasm of popular fury, is to render a service to the
Republic. But for the courts to arrogate to themselves functions which
properly belong to the legislative bodies is all wrong, and in the end
works mischief. The people should not be permitted to pardon evil and
slipshod legislation on the theory that the court will set it right;
they should be taught that the right way to get rid of a bad law is to
have the legislature repeal it, and not to have the courts by ingenious
hair-splitting nullify it. A law may be unwise and improper; but it
should not for these reasons be declared unconstitutional by a strained
interpretation, for the result of such action is to take away from the
people at large their sense of responsibility and ultimately to destroy
their capacity for orderly self restraint and self government. Under
such a popular government as ours, rounded on the theory that in the
long run the will of the people is supreme, the ultimate safety of the
Nation can only rest in training and guiding the people so that what
they will shall be right, and not in devising means to defeat their
will by the technicalities of strained construction.

For many of the shortcomings of justice in our country our people as a
whole are themselves to blame, and the judges and juries merely bear
their share together with the public as a whole. It is discreditable to
us as a people that there should be difficulty in convicting murderers,
or in bringing to justice men who as public servants have been guilty
of corruption, or who have profited by the corruption of public
servants. The result is equally unfortunate, whether due to
hairsplitting technicalities in the interpretation of law by judges, to
sentimentality and class consciousness on the part of juries, or to
hysteria and sensationalism in the daily press. For much of this
failure of justice no responsibility whatever lies on rich men as such.
We who make up the mass of the people can not shift the responsibility
from our own shoulders. But there is an important part of the failure
which has specially to do with inability to hold to proper account men
of wealth who behave badly.

The chief breakdown is in dealing with the new relations that arise
from the mutualism, the interdependence of our time. Every new social
relation begets a new type of wrongdoing--of sin, to use an
old-fashioned word--and many years always elapse before society is able
to turn this sin into crime which can be effectively punished at law.
During the lifetime of the older men now alive the social relations
have changed far more rapidly than in the preceding two centuries. The
immense growth of corporations, of business done by associations, and
the extreme strain and pressure of modern life, have produced
conditions which render the public confused as to who its really
dangerous foes are; and among the public servants who have not only
shared this confusion, but by some of their acts have increased it, are
certain judges. Marked inefficiency has been shown in dealing with
corporations and in re-settling the proper attitude to be taken by the
public not only towards corporations, but towards labor and towards the
social questions arising out of the factory system and the enormous
growth of our great cities.

The huge wealth that has been accumulated by a few individuals of
recent years, in what has amounted to a social and industrial
revolution, has been as regards some of these individuals made possible
only by the improper use of the modern corporation. A certain type of
modern corporation, with its officers and agents, its many issues of
securities, and its constant consolidation with allied undertakings,
finally becomes an instrument so complex as to contain a greater number
of elements that, under various judicial decisions, lend themselves to
fraud and oppression than any device yet evolved in the human brain.
Corporations are necessary instruments of modern business. They have
been permitted to become a menace largely because the governmental
representatives of the people have worked slowly in providing for
adequate control over them.

The chief offender in any given case may be an executive, a
legislature, or a judge. Every executive head who advises violent,
instead of gradual, action, or who advocates ill-considered and
sweeping measures of reform (especially if they are tainted with
vindictiveness and disregard for the rights of the minority) is
particularly blameworthy. The several legislatures are responsible for
the fact that our laws are often prepared with slovenly haste and lack
of consideration. Moreover, they are often prepared, and still more
frequently amended during passage, at the suggestion of the very
parties against whom they are afterwards enforced. Our great clusters
of corporations, huge trusts and fabulously wealthy multi-millionaires,
employ the very best lawyers they can obtain to pick flaws in these
statutes after their passage; but they also employ a class of secret
agents who seek, under the advice of experts, to render hostile
legislation innocuous by making it unconstitutional, often through the
insertion of what appear on their face to be drastic and sweeping
provisions against the interests of the parties inspiring them; while
the demagogues, the corrupt creatures who introduce blackmailing
schemes to "strike" corporations, and all who demand extreme, and
undesirably radical, measures, show themselves to be the worst enemies
of the very public whose loud-mouthed champions they profess to be. A
very striking illustration of the consequences of carelessness in the
preparation of a statute was the employers' liability law of 1906. In
the cases arising under that law, four out of six courts of first
instance held it unconstitutional; six out of nine justices of the
Supreme Court held that its subject-matter was within the province of
congressional action; and four of the nine justices held it valid. It
was, however, adjudged unconstitutional by a bare majority of the
court--five to four. It was surely a very slovenly piece of work to
frame the legislation in such shape as to leave the question open at
all.

Real damage has been done by the manifold and conflicting
interpretations of the interstate commerce law. Control over the great
corporations doing interstate business can be effective only if it is
vested with full power in an administrative department, a branch of the
Federal executive, carrying out a Federal law; it can never be
effective if a divided responsibility is left in both the States and
the Nation; it can never be effective if left in the hands of the
courts to be decided by lawsuits.

The courts hold a place of peculiar and deserved sanctity under our
form of government. Respect for the law is essential to the permanence
of our institutions; and respect for the law is largely conditioned
upon respect for the courts. It is an offense against the Republic to
say anything which can weaken this respect, save for the gravest reason
and in the most carefully guarded manner. Our judges should be held in
peculiar honor; and the duty of respectful and truthful comment and
criticism, which should be binding when we speak of anybody, should be
especially binding when we speak of them. On an average they stand
above any other servants of the community, and the greatest judges have
reached the high level held by those few greatest patriots whom the
whole country delights to honor. But we must face the fact that there
are wise and unwise judges, just as there are wise and unwise
executives and legislators. When a president or a governor behaves
improperly or unwisely, the remedy is easy, for his term is short; the
same is true with the legislator, although not to the same degree, for
he is one of many who belong to some given legislative body, and it is
therefore less easy to fix his personal responsibility and hold him
accountable therefor. With a judge, who, being human, is also likely to
err, but whose tenure is for life, there is no similar way of holding
him to responsibility. Under ordinary conditions the only forms of
pressure to which he is in any way amenable are public opinion and the
action of his fellow judges. It is the last which is most immediately
effective, and to which we should look for the reform of abuses. Any
remedy applied from without is fraught with risk. It is far better,
from every standpoint, that the remedy should come from within. In no
other nation in the world do the courts wield such vast and
far-reaching power as in the United States. All that is necessary is
that the courts as a whole should exercise this power with the
farsighted wisdom already shown by those judges who scan the future
while they act in the present. Let them exercise this great power not
only honestly and bravely, but with wise insight into the needs and
fixed purposes of the people, so that they may do justice and work
equity, so that they may protect all persons in their rights, and yet
break down the barriers of privilege, which is the foe of right.

FORESTS.

If there is any one duty which more than another we owe it to our
children and our children's children to perform at once, it is to save
the forests of this country, for they constitute the first and most
important element in the conservation of the natural resources of the
country. There are of course two kinds of natural resources, One is the
kind which can only be used as part of a process of exhaustion; this is
true of mines, natural oil and gas wells, and the like. The other, and
of course ultimately by far the most important, includes the resources
which can be improved in the process of wise use; the soil, the rivers,
and the forests come under this head. Any really civilized nation will
so use all of these three great national assets that the nation will
have their benefit in the future. Just as a farmer, after all his life
making his living from his farm, will, if he is an expert farmer, leave
it as an asset of increased value to his son, so we should leave our
national domain to our children, increased in value and not worn out.
There are small sections of our own country, in the East and the West,
in the Adriondacks, the White Mountains, and the Appalachians, and in
the Rocky Mountains, where we can already see for ourselves the damage
in the shape of permanent injury to the soil and the river systems
which comes from reckless deforestation. It matters not whether this
deforestation is due to the actual reckless cutting of timber, to the
fires that inevitably follow such reckless cutting of timber, or to
reckless and uncontrolled grazing, especially by the great migratory
bands of sheep, the unchecked wandering of which over the country means
destruction to forests and disaster to the small home makers, the
settlers of limited means.

Shortsighted persons, or persons blinded to the future by desire to
make money in every way out of the present, sometimes speak as if no
great damage would be done by the reckless destruction of our forests.
It is difficult to have patience with the arguments of these persons.
Thanks to our own recklessness in the use of our splendid forests, we
have already crossed the verge of a timber famine in this country, and
no measures that we now take can, at least for many years, undo the
mischief that has already been done. But we can prevent further
mischief being done; and it would be in the highest degree
reprehensible to let any consideration of temporary convenience or
temporary cost interfere with such action, especially as regards the
National Forests which the nation can now, at this very moment,
control.

All serious students of the question are aware of the great damage that
has been done in the Mediterranean countries of Europe, Asia, and
Africa by deforestation. The similar damage that has been done in
Eastern Asia is less well known. A recent investigation into conditions
in North China by Mr. Frank N. Meyer, of the Bureau of Plant Industry
of the United States Department of Agriculture, has incidentally
furnished in very striking fashion proof of the ruin that comes from
reckless deforestation of mountains, and of the further fact that the
damage once done may prove practically irreparable. So important are
these investigations that I herewith attach as an appendix to my
message certain photographs showing present conditions in China. They
show in vivid fashion the appalling desolation, taking the shape of
barren mountains and gravel and sand-covered plains, which immediately
follows and depends upon the deforestation of the mountains. Not many
centuries ago the country of northern China was one of the most fertile
and beautiful spots in the entire world, and was heavily forested. We
know this not only from the old Chinese records, but from the accounts
given by the traveler, Marco Polo. He, for instance, mentions that in
visiting the provinces of Shansi and Shensi he observed many
plantations of mulberry trees. Now there is hardly a single mulberry
tree in either of these provinces, and the culture of the silkworm has
moved farther south, to regions of atmospheric moisture. As an
illustration of the complete change in the rivers, we may take Polo's
statement that a certain river, the Hun Ho, was so large and deep that
merchants ascended it from the sea with heavily laden boats; today this
river is simply a broad sandy bed, with shallow, rapid currents
wandering hither and thither across it, absolutely unnavigable. But we
do not have to depend upon written records. The dry wells, and the
wells with water far below the former watermark, bear testimony to the
good days of the past and the evil days of the present. Wherever the
native vegetation has been allowed to remain, as, for instance, here
and there around a sacred temple or imperial burying ground, there are
still huge trees and tangled jungle, fragments of the glorious ancient
forests. The thick, matted forest growth formerly covered the mountains
to their summits. All natural factors favored this dense forest growth,
and as long as it was permitted to exist the plains at the foot of the
mountains were among the most fertile on the globe, and the whole
country was a garden. Not the slightest effort was made, however, to
prevent the unchecked cutting of the trees, or to secure reforestation.
Doubtless for many centuries the tree-cutting by the inhabitants of the
mountains worked but slowly in bringing about the changes that have now
come to pass; doubtless for generations the inroads were scarcely
noticeable. But there came a time when the forest had shrunk
sufficiently to make each year's cutting a serious matter, and from
that time on the destruction proceeded with appalling rapidity; for of
course each year of destruction rendered the forest less able to
recuperate, less able to resist next year's inroad. Mr. Meyer describes
the ceaseless progress of the destruction even now, when there is so
little left to destroy. Every morning men and boys go out armed with
mattox or axe, scale the steepest mountain sides, and cut down and grub
out, root and branch, the small trees and shrubs still to be found. The
big trees disappeared centuries ago, so that now one of these is never
seen save in the neighborhood of temples, where they are artificially
protected; and even here it takes all the watch and care of the
tree-loving priests to prevent their destruction. Each family, each
community, where there is no common care exercised in the interest of
all of them to prevent deforestation, finds its profit in the immediate
use of the fuel which would otherwise be used by some other family or
some other community. In the total absence of regulation of the matter
in the interest of the whole people, each small group is inevitably
pushed into a policy of destruction which can not afford to take
thought for the morrow. This is just one of those matters which it is
fatal to leave to unsupervised individual control. The forest can only
be protected by the State, by the Nation; and the liberty of action of
individuals must be conditioned upon what the State or Nation
determines to be necessary for the common safety.

The lesson of deforestation in China is a lesson which mankind should
have learned many times already from what has occurred in other places.
Denudation leaves naked soil; then gullying cuts down to the bare rock;
and meanwhile the rock-waste buries the bottomlands. When the soil is
gone, men must go; and the process does not take long.

This ruthless destruction of the forests in northern China has brought
about, or has aided in bringing about, desolation, just as the
destruction of the forests in central Asia aid in bringing ruin to the
once rich central Asian cities; just as the destruction of the forest
in northern Africa helped towards the ruin of a region that was a
fertile granary in Roman days. Shortsighted man, whether barbaric,
semi-civilized, or what he mistakenly regards as fully civilized, when
he has destroyed the forests, has rendered certain the ultimate
destruction of the land itself. In northern China the mountains are now
such as are shown by the accompanying photographs, absolutely barren
peaks. Not only have the forests been destroyed, but because of their
destruction the soil has been washed off the naked rock. The terrible
consequence is that it is impossible now to undo the damage that has
been done. Many centuries would have to pass before soil would again
collect, or could be made to collect, in sufficient quantity once more
to support the old-time forest growth. In consequence the Mongol Desert
is practically extending eastward over northern China. The climate has
changed and is still changing. It has changed even within the last half
century, as the work of tree destruction has been consummated. The
great masses of arboreal vegetation on the mountains formerly absorbed
the heat of the sun and sent up currents of cool air which brought the
moisture-laden clouds lower and forced them to precipitate in rain a
part of their burden of water. Now that there is no vegetation, the
barren mountains, scorched by the sun, send up currents of heated air
which drive away instead of attracting the rain clouds, and cause their
moisture to be disseminated. In consequence, instead of the regular and
plentiful rains which existed in these regions of China when the
forests were still in evidence, the unfortunate inhabitants of the
deforested lands now see their crops wither for lack of rainfall, while
the seasons grow more and more irregular; and as the air becomes dryer
certain crops refuse longer to grow at all. That everything dries out
faster than formerly is shown by the fact that the level of the wells
all over the land has sunk perceptibly, many of them having become
totally dry. In addition to the resulting agricultural distress, the
watercourses have changed. Formerly they were narrow and deep, with an
abundance of clear water the year around; for the roots and humus of
the forests caught the rainwater and let it escape by slow, regular
seepage. They have now become broad, shallow stream beds, in which
muddy water trickles in slender currents during the dry seasons, while
when it rains there are freshets, and roaring muddy torrents come
tearing down, bringing disaster and destruction everywhere. Moreover,
these floods and freshets, which diversify the general dryness, wash
away from the mountain sides, and either wash away or cover in the
valleys, the rich fertile soil which it took tens of thousands of years
for Nature to form; and it is lost forever, and until the forests grow
again it can not be replaced. The sand and stones from the mountain
sides are washed loose and come rolling down to cover the arable lands,
and in consequence, throughout this part of China, many formerly rich
districts are now sandy wastes, useless for human cultivation and even
for pasture. The cities have been of course seriously affected, for the
streams have gradually ceased to be navigable. There is testimony that
even within the memory of men now living there has been a serious
diminution of the rainfall of northeastern China. The level of the
Sungari River in northern Manchuria has been sensibly lowered during
the last fifty years, at least partly as the result of the
indiscriminate rutting of the forests forming its watershed. Almost all
the rivers of northern China have become uncontrollable, and very
dangerous to the dwellers along their banks, as a direct result of the
destruction of the forests. The journey from Pekin to Jehol shows in
melancholy fashion how the soil has been washed away from whole
valleys, so that they have been converted into deserts.

In northern China this disastrous process has gone on so long and has
proceeded so far that no complete remedy could be applied. There are
certain mountains in China from which the soil is gone so utterly that
only the slow action of the ages could again restore it; although of
course much could be done to prevent the still further eastward
extension of the Mongolian Desert if the Chinese Government would act
at once. The accompanying cuts from photographs show the inconceivable
desolation of the barren mountains in which certain of these rivers
rise--mountains, be it remembered, which formerly supported dense
forests of larches and firs, now unable to produce any wood, and
because of their condition a source of danger to the whole country. The
photographs also show the same rivers after they have passed through
the mountains, the beds having become broad and sandy because of the
deforestation of the mountains. One of the photographs shows a caravan
passing through a valley. Formerly, when the mountains were forested,
it was thickly peopled by prosperous peasants. Now the floods have
carried destruction all over the land and the valley is a stony desert.
Another photograph shows a mountain road covered with the stones and
rocks that are brought down in the rainy season from the mountains
which have already been deforested by human hands. Another shows a
pebbly river-bed in southern Manchuria where what was once a great
stream has dried up owing to the deforestation in the mountains. Only
some scrub wood is left, which will disappear within a half century.
Yet another shows the effect of one of the washouts, destroying an
arable mountain side, these washouts being due to the removal of all
vegetation; yet in this photograph the foreground shows that
reforestation is still a possibility in places.

What has thus happened in northern China, what has happened in Central
Asia, in Palestine, in North Africa, in parts of the Mediterranean
countries of Europe, will surely happen in our country if we do not
exercise that wise forethought which should be one of the chief marks
of any people calling itself civilized. Nothing should be permitted to
stand in the way of the preservation of the forests, and it is criminal
to permit individuals to purchase a little gain for themselves through
the destruction of forests when this destruction is fatal to the
well-being of the whole country in the future.

INLAND WATERWAYS.

Action should be begun forthwith, during the present session of the
Congress, for the improvement of our inland waterways--action which
will result in giving us not only navigable but navigated rivers. We
have spent hundreds of millions of dollars upon these waterways, yet
the traffic on nearly all of them is steadily declining. This condition
is the direct result of the absence of any comprehensive and far-seeing
plan of waterway improvement, Obviously we can not continue thus to
expend the revenues of the Government without return. It is poor
business to spend money for inland navigation unless we get it.

Inquiry into the condition of the Mississippi and its principal
tributaries reveals very many instances of the utter waste caused by
the methods which have hitherto obtained for the so-called
"improvement" of navigation. A striking instance is supplied by the
"improvement" of the Ohio, which, begun in 1824, was continued under a
single plan for half a century. In 1875 a new plan was adopted and
followed for a quarter of a century. In 1902 still a different plan was
adopted and has since been pursued at a rate which only promises a
navigable river in from twenty to one hundred years longer.

Such shortsighted, vacillating, and futile methods are accompanied by
decreasing water-borne commerce and increasing traffic congestion on
land, by increasing floods, and by the waste of public money. The
remedy lies in abandoning the methods which have so signally failed and
adopting new ones in keeping with the needs and demands of our people.

In a report on a measure introduced at the first session of the present
Congress, the Secretary of War said: "The chief defect in the methods
hitherto pursued lies in the absence of executive authority for
originating comprehensive plans covering the country or natural
divisions thereof." In this opinion I heartily concur. The present
methods not only fail to give us inland navigation, but they are
injurious to the army as well. What is virtually a permanent detail of
the corps of engineers to civilian duty necessarily impairs the
efficiency of our military establishment. The military engineers have
undoubtedly done efficient work in actual construction, but they are
necessarily unsuited by their training and traditions to take the broad
view, and to gather and transmit to the Congress the commercial and
industrial information and forecasts, upon which waterway improvement
must always so largely rest. Furthermore, they have failed to grasp the
great underlying fact that every stream is a unit from its source to
its mouth, and that all its uses are interdependent. Prominent officers
of the Engineer Corps have recently even gone so far as to assert in
print that waterways are not dependent upon the conservation of the
forests about their headwaters. This position is opposed to all the
recent work of the scientific bureaus of the Government and to the
general experience of mankind. A physician who disbelieved in
vaccination would not be the right man to handle an epidemic of
smallpox, nor should we leave a doctor skeptical about the transmission
of yellow fever by the Stegomyia mosquito in charge of sanitation at
Havana or Panama. So with the improvement of our rivers; it is no
longer wise or safe to leave this great work in the hands of men who
fail to grasp the essential relations between navigation and general
development and to assimilate and use the central facts about our
streams.

Until the work of river improvement is undertaken in a modern way it
can not have results that will meet the needs of this modern nation.
These needs should be met without further dilly-dallying or delay. The
plan which promises the best and quickest results is that of a
permanent commission authorized to coordinate the work of all the
Government departments relating to waterways, and to frame and
supervise the execution of a comprehensive plan. Under such a
commission the actual work of construction might be entrusted to the
reclamation service; or to the military engineers acting with a
sufficient number of civilians to continue the work in time of war; or
it might be divided between the reclamation service and the corps of
engineers. Funds should be provided from current revenues if it is
deemed wise--otherwise from the sale of bonds. The essential thing is
that the work should go forward under the best possible plan, and with
the least possible delay. We should have a new type of work and a new
organization for planning and directing it. The time for playing with
our waterways is past. The country demands results.

NATIONAL PARKS.

I urge that all our National parks adjacent to National forests be
placed completely under the control of the forest service of the
Agricultural Department, instead of leaving them as they now are, under
the Interior Department and policed by the army. The Congress should
provide for superintendents with adequate corps of first-class civilian
scouts, or rangers, and, further, place the road construction under the
superintendent instead of leaving it with the War Department. Such a
change in park management would result in economy and avoid the
difficulties of administration which now arise from having the
responsibility of care and protection divided between different
departments. The need for this course is peculiarly great in the
Yellowstone Park. This, like the Yosemite, is a great wonderland, and
should be kept as a national playground. In both, all wild things
should be protected and the scenery kept wholly unmarred.

I am happy to say that I have been able to set aside in various parts
of the country small, well-chosen tracts of ground to serve as
sanctuaries and nurseries for wild creatures.

DENATURED ALCOHOL.

I had occasion in my message of May 4, 1906, to urge the passage of
some law putting alcohol, used in the arts, industries, and
manufactures, upon the free list--that is, to provide for the
withdrawal free of tax of alcohol which is to be denatured for those
purposes. The law of June 7, 1906, and its amendment of March 2, 1907,
accomplished what was desired in that respect, and the use of denatured
alcohol, as intended, is making a fair degree of progress and is
entitled to further encouragement and support from the Congress.

PURE FOOD.

The pure food legislation has already worked a benefit difficult to
overestimate.

INDIAN SERVICE.

It has been my purpose from the beginning of my administration to take
the Indian Service completely out of the atmosphere of political
activity, and there has been steady progress toward that end. The last
remaining stronghold of politics in that service was the agency system,
which had seen its best days and was gradually falling to pieces from
natural or purely evolutionary causes, but, like all such survivals,
was decaying slowly in its later stages. It seems clear that its
extinction had better be made final now, so that the ground can be
cleared for larger constructive work on behalf of the Indians,
preparatory to their induction into the full measure of responsible
citizenship. On November 1 only eighteen agencies were left on the
roster; with two exceptions, where some legal questions seemed to stand
temporarily in the way, these have been changed to superintendencies,
and their heads brought into the classified civil service.

SECRET SERVICE.

Last year an amendment was incorporated in the measure providing for
the Secret Service, which provided that there should be no detail from
the Secret Service and no transfer therefrom. It is not too much to say
that this amendment has been of benefit only, and could be of benefit
only, to the criminal classes. If deliberately introduced for the
purpose of diminishing the effectiveness of war against crime it could
not have been better devised to this end. It forbade the practices that
had been followed to a greater or less extent by the executive heads of
various departments for twenty years. To these practices we owe the
securing of the evidence which enabled us to drive great lotteries out
of business and secure a quarter of a million of dollars in fines from
their promoters. These practices have enabled us to get some of the
evidence indispensable in order in connection with the theft of
government land and government timber by great corporations and by
individuals. These practices have enabled us to get some of the
evidence indispensable in order to secure the conviction of the
wealthiest and most formidable criminals with whom the Government has
to deal, both those operating in violation of the anti-trust law and
others. The amendment in question was of benefit to no one excepting to
these criminals, and it seriously hampers the Government in the
detection of crime and the securing of justice. Moreover, it not only
affects departments outside of the Treasury, but it tends to hamper the
Secretary of the Treasury himself in the effort to utilize the
employees of his department so as to best meet the requirements of the
public service. It forbids him from preventing frauds upon the customs
service, from investigating irregularities in branch mints and assay
offices, and has seriously crippled him. It prevents the promotion of
employees in the Secret Service, and this further discourages good
effort. In its present form the restriction operates only to the
advantage of the criminal, of the wrongdoer. The chief argument in
favor of the provision was that the Congressmen did not themselves wish
to be investigated by Secret Service men. Very little of such
investigation has been done in the past; but it is true that the work
of the Secret Service agents was partly responsible for the indictment
and conviction of a Senator and a Congressman for land frauds in
Oregon. I do not believe that it is in the public interest to protect
criminally in any branch of the public service, and exactly as we have
again and again during the past seven years prosecuted and convicted
such criminals who were in the executive branch of the Government, so
in my belief we should be given ample means to prosecute them if found
in the legislative branch. But if this is not considered desirable a
special exception could be made in the law prohibiting the use of the
Secret Service force in investigating members of the Congress. It would
be far better to do this than to do what actually was done, and strive
to prevent or at least to hamper effective action against criminals by
the executive branch of the Government.

POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS.

I again renew my recommendation for postal savings hanks, for
depositing savings with the security of the Government behind them. The
object is to encourage thrift and economy in the wage-earner and person
of moderate means. In 14 States the deposits in savings banks as
reported to the Comptroller of the Currency amount to $3,590,245,402,
or 98.4 per cent of the entire deposits, while in the remaining 32
States there are only $70,308,543, or 1.6 per cent, showing
conclusively that there are many localities in the United States where
sufficient opportunity is not given to the people to deposit their
savings. The result is that money is kept in hiding and unemployed. It
is believed that in the aggregate vast sums of money would be brought
into circulation through the instrumentality of the postal savings
banks. While there are only 1,453 savings banks reporting to the
Comptroller there are more than 61,000 post-offices, 40,000 of which
are money order offices. Postal savings banks are now in operation in
practically all of the great civilized countries with the exception of
the United States.

PARCEL POST.

In my last annual message I commended the Postmaster-General's
recommendation for an extension of the parcel post on the rural routes.
The establishment of a local parcel post on rural routes would be to
the mutual benefit of the farmer and the country storekeeper, and it is
desirable that the routes, serving more than 15,000,000 people, should
be utilized to the fullest practicable extent. An amendment was
proposed in the Senate at the last session, at the suggestion of the
Postmaster-General, providing that, for the purpose of ascertaining the
practicability of establishing a special local parcel post system on
the rural routes throughout the United States, the Postmaster-General
be authorized and directed to experiment and report to the Congress the
result of such experiment by establishing a special local parcel post
system on rural delivery routes in not to exceed four counties in the
United States for packages of fourth-class matter originating on a
rural route or at the distributing post office for delivery by rural
carriers. It would seem only proper that such an experiment should be
tried in order to demonstrate the practicability of the proposition,
especially as the Postmaster-General estimates that the revenue derived
from the operation of such a system on all the rural routes would
amount to many million dollars.

EDUCATION.

The share that the National Government should take in the broad work of
education has not received the attention and the care it rightly
deserves. The immediate responsibility for the support and improvement
of our educational systems and institutions rests and should always
rest with the people of the several States acting through their state
and local governments, but the Nation has an opportunity in educational
work which must not be lost and a duty which should no longer be
neglected.

The National Bureau of Education was established more than forty years
ago. Its purpose is to collect and diffuse such information "as shall
aid the people of the United States in the establishment and
maintenance of efficient school systems and otherwise promote the cause
of education throughout the country." This purpose in no way conflicts
with the educational work of the States, but may be made of great
advantage to the States by giving them the fullest, most accurate, and
hence the most helpful information and suggestion regarding the best
educational systems. The Nation, through its broader field of
activities, its wider opportunity for obtaining information from all
the States and from foreign countries, is able to do that which not
even the richest States can do, and with the distinct additional
advantage that the information thus obtained is used for the immediate
benefit of all our people.

With the limited means hitherto provided, the Bureau of Education has
rendered efficient service, but the Congress has neglected to
adequately supply the bureau with means to meet the educational growth
of the country. The appropriations for the general work of the bureau,
outside education in Alaska, for the year 1909 are but $87,500--an
amount less than they were ten years ago, and some of the important
items in these appropriations are less than they were thirty years ago.
It is an inexcusable waste of public money to appropriate an amount
which is so inadequate as to make it impossible properly to do the work
authorized, and it is unfair to the great educational interests of the
country to deprive them of the value of the results which can be
obtained by proper appropriations.

I earnestly recommend that this unfortunate state of affairs as regards
the national educational office be remedied by adequate appropriations.
This recommendation is urged by the representatives of our common
schools and great state universities and the leading educators, who all
unite in requesting favorable consideration and action by the Congress
upon this subject.

CENSUS.

I strongly urge that the request of the Director of the Census in
connection with the decennial work so soon to be begun be complied with
and that the appointments to the census force be placed under the civil
service law, waiving the geographical requirements as requested by the
Director of the Census. The supervisors and enumerators should not be
appointed under the civil service law, for the reasons given by the
Director. I commend to the Congress the careful consideration of the
admirable report of the Director of the Census, and I trust that his
recommendations will be adopted and immediate action thereon taken.

PUBLIC HEALTH.

It is highly advisable that there should be intelligent action on the
part of the Nation on the question of preserving the health of the
country. Through the practical extermination in San Francisco of
disease-bearing rodents our country has thus far escaped the bubonic
plague. This is but one of the many achievements of American health
officers; and it shows what can be accomplished with a better
organization than at present exists. The dangers to public health from
food adulteration and from many other sources, such as the menace to
the physical, mental and moral development of children from child
labor, should be met and overcome. There are numerous diseases, which
are now known to be preventable, which are, nevertheless, not
prevented. The recent International Congress on Tuberculosis has made
us painfully aware of the inadequacy of American public health
legislation. This Nation can not afford to lag behind in the world-wide
battle now being waged by all civilized people with the microscopic
foes of mankind, nor ought we longer to ignore the reproach that this
Government takes more pains to protect the lives of hogs and of cattle
than of human beings.

REDISTRIBUTION OF BUREAUS.

The first legislative step to be taken is that for the concentration of
the proper bureaus into one of the existing departments. I therefore
urgently recommend the passage of a bill which shall authorize a
redistribution of the bureaus which shall best accomplish this end.

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.

I recommend that legislation be enacted placing under the jurisdiction
of the Department of Commerce and Labor the Government Printing Office.
At present this office is under the combined control, supervision, and
administrative direction of the President and of the Joint Committee on
Printing of the two Houses of the Congress. The advantage of having the
4,069 employees in this office and the expenditure of the $5,761,377.57
appropriated therefor supervised by an executive department is obvious,
instead of the present combined supervision.

SOLDIERS' HOMES.

All Soldiers' Homes should be placed under the complete jurisdiction
and control of the War Department.

INDEPENDENT BUREAUS AND COMMISSIONS.

Economy and sound business policy require that all existing independent
bureaus and commissions should be placed under the jurisdiction of
appropriate executive departments. It is unwise from every standpoint,
and results only in mischief, to have any executive work done save by
the purely executive bodies, under the control of the President; and
each such executive body should be under the immediate supervision of a
Cabinet Minister.

STATEHOOD.

I advocate the immediate admission of New Mexico and Arizona as States.
This should be done at the present session of the Congress. The people
of the two Territories have made it evident by their votes that they
will not come in as one State. The only alternative is to admit them as
two, and I trust that this will be done without delay.

INTERSTATE FISHERIES.

I call the attention of the Congress to the importance of the problem
of the fisheries in the interstate waters. On the Great Lakes we are
now, under the very wise treaty of April 11th of this year, endeavoring
to come to an international agreement for the preservation and
satisfactory use of the fisheries of these waters which can not
otherwise be achieved. Lake Erie, for example, has the richest fresh
water fisheries in the world; but it is now controlled by the statutes
of two Nations, four States, and one Province, and in this Province by
different ordinances in different counties. All these political
divisions work at cross purposes, and in no case can they achieve
protection to the fisheries, on the one hand, and justice to the
localities and individuals on the other. The case is similar in Puget
Sound.

But the problem is quite as pressing in the interstate waters of the
United States. The salmon fisheries of the Columbia River are now but a
fraction of what they were twenty-five years ago, and what they would
be now if the United States Government had taken complete charge of
them by intervening between Oregon and Washington. During these
twenty-five years the fishermen of each State have naturally tried to
take all they could get, and the two legislatures have never been able
to agree on joint action of any kind adequate in degree for the
protection of the fisheries. At the moment the fishing on the Oregon
side is practically closed, while there is no limit on the Washington
side of any kind, and no one can tell what the courts will decide as to
the very statutes under which this action and non-action result.
Meanwhile very few salmon reach the spawning grounds, and probably four
years hence the fisheries will amount to nothing; and this comes from a
struggle between the associated, or gill-net, fishermen on the one
hand, and the owners of the fishing wheels up the river. The fisheries
of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Potomac are also in a bad way.
For this there is no remedy except for the United States to control and
legislate for the interstate fisheries as part of the business of
interstate commerce. In this case the machinery for scientific
investigation and for control already exists in the United States
Bureau of Fisheries. In this as in similar problems the obvious and
simple rule should be followed of having those matters which no
particular State can manage taken in hand by the United States;
problems which in the seesaw of conflicting State legislatures are
absolutely unsolvable are easy enough for Congress to control.

FISHERIES AND FUR SEALS.

The federal statute regulating interstate traffic in game should be
extended to include fish. New federal fish hatcheries should be
established. The administration of the Alaskan fur-seal service should
be vested in the Bureau of Fisheries.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

This Nation's foreign policy is based on the theory that right must be
done between nations precisely as between individuals, and in our
actions for the last ten years we have in this matter proven our faith
by our deeds. We have behaved, and are behaving, towards other nations
as in private life an honorable man would behave towards his fellows.

LATIN-AMERICAN REPUBLICS.

The commercial and material progress of the twenty Latin-American
Republics is worthy of the careful attention of the Congress. No other
section of the world has shown a greater proportionate development of
its foreign trade during the last ten years and none other has more
special claims on the interest of the United States. It offers to-day
probably larger opportunities for the legitimate expansion of our
commerce than any other group of countries. These countries will want
our products in greatly increased quantities, and we shall
correspondingly need theirs. The International Bureau of the American
Republics is doing a useful work in making these nations and their
resources better known to us, and in acquainting them not only with us
as a people and with our purposes towards them, but with what we have
to exchange for their goods. It is an international institution
supported by all the governments of the two Americas.

PANAMA CANAL.

The work on the Panama Canal is being done with a speed, efficiency and
entire devotion to duty which make it a model for all work of the kind.
No task of such magnitude has ever before been undertaken by any
nation; and no task of the kind has ever been better performed. The men
on the isthmus, from Colonel Goethals and his fellow commissioners
through the entire list of employees who are faithfully doing their
duty, have won their right to the ungrudging respect and gratitude of
the American people.

OCEAN MAIL LINERS.

I again recommend the extension of the ocean mail act of 1891 so that
satisfactory American ocean mail lines to South America, Asia, the
Philippines, and Australasia may be established. The creation of such
steamship lines should be the natural corollary of the voyage of the
battle fleet. It should precede the opening of the Panama Canal. Even
under favorable conditions several years must elapse before such lines
can be put into operation. Accordingly I urge that the Congress act
promptly where foresight already shows that action sooner or later will
be inevitable.

HAWAII.

I call particular attention to the Territory of Hawaii. The importance
of those islands is apparent, and the need of improving their condition
and developing their resources is urgent. In recent years industrial
conditions upon the islands have radically changed, The importation of
coolie labor has practically ceased, and there is now developing such a
diversity in agricultural products as to make possible a change in the
land conditions of the Territory, so that an opportunity may be given
to the small land owner similar to that on the mainland. To aid these
changes, the National Government must provide the necessary harbor
improvements on each island, so that the agricultural products can be
carried to the markets of the world. The coastwise shipping laws should
be amended to meet the special needs of the islands, and the alien
contract labor law should be so modified in its application to Hawaii
as to enable American and European labor to be brought thither.

We have begun to improve Pearl Harbor for a naval base and to provide
the necessary military fortifications for the protection of the
islands, but I can not too strongly emphasize the need of
appropriations for these purposes of such an amount as will within the
shortest possible time make those islands practically impregnable. It
is useless to develop the industrial conditions of the islands and
establish there bases of supply for our naval and merchant fleets
unless we insure, as far as human ingenuity can, their safety from
foreign seizure.

One thing to be remembered with all our fortifications is that it is
almost useless to make them impregnable from the sea if they are left
open to land attack. This is true even of our own coast, but it is
doubly true of our insular possessions. In Hawaii, for instance, it is
worse than useless to establish a naval station unless we establish it
behind fortifications so strong that no landing force can take them
save by regular and long-continued siege operations.

THE PHILIPPINES.

Real progress toward self-government is being made in the Philippine
Islands. The gathering of a Philippine legislative body and Philippine
assembly marks a process absolutely new in Asia, not only as regards
Asiatic colonies of European powers but as regards Asiatic possessions
of other Asiatic powers; and, indeed, always excepting the striking and
wonderful example afforded by the great Empire of Japan, it opens an
entirely new departure when compared with anything which has happened
among Asiatic powers which are their own masters. Hitherto this
Philippine legislature has acted with moderation and self-restraint,
and has seemed in practical fashion to realize the eternal truth that
there must always be government, and that the only way in which any
body of individuals can escape the necessity of being governed by
outsiders is to show that they are able to restrain themselves, to keep
down wrongdoing and disorder. The Filipino people, through their
officials, are therefore making real steps in the direction of
self-government. I hope and believe that these steps mark the beginning
of a course which will continue till the Filipinos become fit to decide
for themselves whether they desire to be an independent nation. But it
is well for them (and well also for those Americans who during the past
decade have done so much damage to the Filipinos by agitation for an
immediate independence for which they were totally unfit) to remember
that self-government depends, and must depend, upon the Filipinos
themselves. All we can do is to give them the opportunity to develop
the capacity for self-government. If we had followed the advice of the
foolish doctrinaires who wished us at any time during the last ten
years to turn the Filipino people adrift, we should have shirked the
plainest possible duty and have inflicted a lasting wrong upon the
Filipino people. We have acted in exactly the opposite spirit. We have
given the Filipinos constitutional government--a government based upon
justice--and we have shown that we have governed them for their good
and not for our aggrandizement. At the present time, as during the past
ten years, the inexorable logic of facts shows that this government
must be supplied by us and not by them. We must be wise and generous;
we must help the Filipinos to master the difficult art of self-control,
which is simply another name for self-government. But we can not give
them self-government save in the sense of governing them so that
gradually they may, if they are able, learn to govern themselves. Under
the present system of just laws and sympathetic administration, we have
every reason to believe that they are gradually acquiring the character
which lies at the basis of self-government, and for which, if it be
lacking, no system of laws, no paper constitution, will in any wise
serve as a substitute. Our people in the Philippines have achieved what
may legitimately be called a marvelous success in giving to them a
government which marks on the part of those in authority both the
necessary understanding of the people and the necessary purpose to
serve them disinterestedly and in good faith. I trust that within a
generation the time will arrive when the Philippines can decide for
themselves whether it is well for them to become independent, or to
continue under the protection of a strong and disinterested power, able
to guarantee to the islands order at home and protection from foreign
invasion. But no one can prophesy the exact date when it will be wise
to consider independence as a fixed and definite policy. It would be
worse than folly to try to set down such a date in advance, for it must
depend upon the way in which the Philippine people themselves develop
the power of self-mastery.

PORTO RICO.

I again recommend that American citizenship be conferred upon the
people of Porto Rico.

CUBA.

In Cuba our occupancy will cease in about two months' time, the Cubans
have in orderly manner elected their own governmental authorities, and
the island will be turned over to them. Our occupation on this occasion
has lasted a little over two years, and Cuba has thriven and prospered
under it. Our earnest hope and one desire is that the people of the
island shall now govern themselves with justice, so that peace and
order may be secure. We will gladly help them to this end; but I would
solemnly warn them to remember the great truth that the only way a
people can permanently avoid being governed from without is to show
that they both can and will govern themselves from within.

JAPANESE EXPOSITION.

The Japanese Government has postponed until 1917 the date of the great
international exposition, the action being taken so as to insure ample
time in which to prepare to make the exposition all that it should be
made. The American commissioners have visited Japan and the
postponement will merely give ampler opportunity for America to be
represented at the exposition. Not since the first international
exposition has there been one of greater importance than this will be,
marking as it does the fiftieth anniversary of the ascension to the
throne of the Emperor of Japan. The extraordinary leap to a foremost
place among the nations of the world made by Japan during this half
century is something unparalleled in all previous history. This
exposition will fitly commemorate and signalize the giant progress that
has been achieved. It is the first exposition of its kind that has ever
been held in Asia. The United States, because of the ancient friendship
between the two peoples, because each of us fronts on the Pacific, and
because of the growing commercial relations between this country and
Asia, takes a peculiar interest in seeing the exposition made a success
in every way.

I take this opportunity publicly to state my appreciation of the way in
which in Japan, in Australia, in New Zealand, and in all the States of
South America, the battle fleet has been received on its practice
voyage around the world. The American Government can not too strongly
express its appreciation of the abounding and generous hospitality
shown our ships in every port they visited.

THE ARMY.

As regards the Army I call attention to the fact that while our junior
officers and enlisted men stand very high, the present system of
promotion by seniority results in bringing into the higher grades many
men of mediocre capacity who have but a short time to serve. No man
should regard it as his vested right to rise to the highest rank in the
Army any more than in any other profession. It is a curious and by no
means creditable fact that there should be so often a failure on the
part of the public and its representatives to understand the great
need, from the standpoint of the service and the Nation, of refusing to
promote respectable, elderly incompetents. The higher places should be
given to the most deserving men without regard to seniority; at least
seniority should be treated as only one consideration. In the stress of
modern industrial competition no business firm could succeed if those
responsible for its management were chosen simply on the ground that
they were the oldest people in its employment; yet this is the course
advocated as regards the Army, and required by law for all grades
except those of general officer. As a matter of fact, all of the best
officers in the highest ranks of the Army are those who have attained
their present position wholly or in part by a process of selection.

The scope of retiring boards should be extended so that they could
consider general unfitness to command for any cause, in order to secure
a far more rigid enforcement than at present in the elimination of
officers for mental, physical or temperamental disabilities. But this
plan is recommended only if the Congress does not see fit to provide
what in my judgment is far better; that is, for selection in promotion,
and for elimination for age. Officers who fail to attain a certain rank
by a certain age should be retired--for instance, if a man should not
attain field rank by the time he is 45 he should of course be placed on
the retired list. General officers should be selected as at present,
and one-third of the other promotions should be made by selection, the
selection to be made by the President or the Secretary of War from a
list of at least two candidates proposed for each vacancy by a board of
officers from the arm of the service from which the promotion is to be
made. A bill is now before the Congress having for its object to secure
the promotion of officers to various grades at reasonable ages through
a process of selection, by boards of officers, of the least efficient
for retirement with a percentage of their pay depending upon length of
service. The bill, although not accomplishing all that should be done,
is a long step in the right direction; and I earnestly recommend its
passage, or that of a more completely effective measure.

The cavalry arm should be reorganized upon modern lines. This is an arm
in which it is peculiarly necessary that the field officers should not
be old. The cavalry is much more difficult to form than infantry, and
it should be kept up to the maximum both in efficiency and in strength,
for it can not be made in a hurry. At present both infantry and
artillery are too few in number for our needs. Especial attention
should be paid to development of the machine gun. A general service
corps should be established. As things are now the average soldier has
far too much labor of a nonmilitary character to perform.

NATIONAL GUARD.

Now that the organized militia, the National Guard, has been
incorporated with the Army as a part of the national forces, it
behooves the Government to do every reasonable thing in its power to
perfect its efficiency. It should be assisted in its instruction and
otherwise aided more liberally than heretofore. The continuous services
of many well-trained regular officers will be essential in this
connection. Such officers must be specially trained at service schools
best to qualify them as instructors of the National Guard. But the
detailing of officers for training at the service schools and for duty
with the National Guard entails detaching them from their regiments
which are already greatly depleted by detachment of officers for
assignment to duties prescribed by acts of the Congress.

A bill is now pending before the Congress creating a number of extra
officers in the Army, which if passed, as it ought to be, will enable
more officers to be trained as instructors of the National Guard and
assigned to that duty. In case of war it will be of the utmost
importance to have a large number of trained officers to use for
turning raw levies into good troops.

There should be legislation to provide a complete plan for organizing
the great body of volunteers behind the Regular Army and National Guard
when war has come. Congressional assistance should be given those who
are endeavoring to promote rifle practice so that our men, in the
services or out of them, may know how to use the rifle. While teams
representing the United States won the rifle and revolver championships
of the world against all comers in England this year, it is
unfortunately true that the great body of our citizens shoot less and
less as time goes on. To meet this we should encourage rifle practice
among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the
military services, by every means in our power. Thus, and not
otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving the peace of the
world. Fit to hold our own against the strong nations of the earth, our
voice for peace will carry to the ends of the earth. Unprepared, and
therefore unfit, we must sit dumb and helpless to defend ourselves,
protect others, or preserve peace. The first step--in the direction of
preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it
should come--is to teach our men to shoot.

THE NAVY.

I approve the recommendations of the General Board for the increase of
the Navy, calling especial attention to the need of additional
destroyers and colliers, and above all, of the four battleships. It is
desirable to complete as soon as possible a squadron of eight
battleships of the best existing type. The North Dakota, Delaware,
Florida, and Utah will form the first division of this squadron. The
four vessels proposed will form the second division. It will be an
improvement on the first, the ships being of the heavy, single caliber,
all big gun type. All the vessels should have the same tactical
qualities--that is, speed and turning circle--and as near as possible
these tactical qualities should be the same as in the four vessels
before named now being built.

I most earnestly recommend that the General Board be by law turned into
a General Staff. There is literally no excuse whatever for continuing
the present bureau organization of the Navy. The Navy should be treated
as a purely military organization, and everything should be
subordinated to the one object of securing military efficiency. Such
military efficiency can only be guaranteed in time of war if there is
the most thorough previous preparation in time of peace--a preparation,
I may add, which will in all probability prevent any need of war. The
Secretary must be supreme, and he should have as his official advisers
a body of line officers who should themselves have the power to pass
upon and coordinate all the work and all the proposals of the several
bureaus. A system of promotion by merit, either by selection or by
exclusion, or by both processes, should be introduced. It is out of the
question, if the present principle of promotion by mere seniority is
kept, to expect to get the best results from the higher officers. Our
men come too old, and stay for too short a time, in the high command
positions.

Two hospital ships should be provided. The actual experience of the
hospital ship with the fleet in the Pacific has shown the invaluable
work which such a ship does, and has also proved that it is well to
have it kept under the command of a medical officer. As was to be
expected, all of the anticipations of trouble from such a command have
proved completely baseless. It is as absurd to put a hospital ship
under a line officer as it would be to put a hospital on shore under
such a command. This ought to have been realized before, and there is
no excuse for failure to realize it now.

Nothing better for the Navy from every standpoint has ever occurred
than the cruise of the battle fleet around the world. The improvement
of the ships in every way has been extraordinary, and they have gained
far more experience in battle tactics than they would have gained if
they had stayed in the Atlantic waters. The American people have cause
for profound gratification, both in view of the excellent condition of
the fleet as shown by this cruise, and in view of the improvement the
cruise has worked in this already high condition. I do not believe that
there is any other service in the world in which the average of
character and efficiency in the enlisted men is as high as is now the
case in our own. I believe that the same statement can be made as to
our officers, taken as a whole; but there must be a reservation made in
regard to those in the highest ranks--as to which I have already
spoken--and in regard to those who have just entered the service;
because we do not now get full benefit from our excellent naval school
at Annapolis. It is absurd not to graduate the midshipmen as ensigns;
to keep them for two years in such an anomalous position as at present
the law requires is detrimental to them and to the service. In the
academy itself, every first classman should be required in turn to
serve as petty officer and officer; his ability to discharge his duties
as such should be a prerequisite to his going into the line, and his
success in commanding should largely determine his standing at
graduation. The Board of Visitors should be appointed in January, and
each member should be required to give at least six days' service, only
from one to three days' to be performed during June week, which is the
least desirable time for the board to be at Annapolis so far as
benefiting the Navy by their observations is concerned.

THE WHITE HOUSE,

Tuesday, December 8, 1908.