MAKING A PUBLIC SPEECH

"Our interests are as great in the Pacific as in the Atlantic, in the Hawaiian

Islands and in the Philippines as in the West Indies, and we

mast jealously protect those interests"

nus.c

THE WORKS OF

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

IN FOURTEEN VOLUMES

Illustrated

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
AND STATE PAPERS

PART ONE

Executive Jgdition

PUBLISHED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE
PRESIDENT THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
WITH THE CENTURY CO., MESSRS. CHARLES
SCRIBNER'S SONS, AND G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK

P. F. COLLIER & SON, PUBLISHERS

'3

The Publishers desire to make clear to the readers that President Roosevelt

retains no pecuniary interest in the sale of the volumes containing these

speeches. He feels that the material contained in these addresses

has been dedicated to the public, and that it is, therefore,

not to be handled as copyrighted material from which

the President should receive any pecuniary return.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES
AND STATE PAPERS

PART ONE

INTRODUCTION

BY ALBERT SHAW

THE materials contained in the Addresses and
State Papers of President Roosevelt, here col
lected for the first time, possess far more than a tran
sitory interest and value. It is obvious indeed that
for the future student of American politics and his
tory their preservation in convenient and authentic
form is not merely an important service, but an in
dispensable one; for it would have been impossible
to collate them in any accurate or complete way from
the scattered files of newspapers, especially since
many of the addresses were delivered at points re
mote from news centres, and some of these were very
inadequately reported by the press. This observa
tion, it is needless to say, does not apply to the formal
State Papers, — chiefly messages to Congress, — in
cluded in the second of these two volumes ; for such
official deliverances are duly preserved and published
by the Government itself. It is, however, suitable
as well as convenient to include these State Papers

in a collection of the recent utterances of President
i— VOL. XIII. (i)

ii Introduction

Roosevelt, for reasons so nearly obvious as to need
little comment.

The palpable fact is that President Roosevelt's
messages to Congress and a large number of his
speeches, delivered in various parts of the country in
his capacity as President, pertain to the same topics
and serve a like public purpose. The messages must,
of course, deal with matters affecting the welfare of
the nation, and with various questions of public busi
ness or policy, in those aspects that bear upon the
work of Congress. It is the President's Constitu
tional right and duty to present information upon
such topics, or to expound them from the standpoint
of the Administration. In the long series of Presi
dential messages one may, indeed, read the history of
this country for more than a hundred years. To
that official narrative these messages by Mr. Roose
velt add the latest and some of the most fascinating
chapters.

The speeches here collected, on the other hand,
have a much wider range. Nevertheless, a great
number of the addresses and speeches do in fact deal
with precisely the same topics as those presented in
the messages to Congress, and were intended not
merely for a particular audience but for the whole
country through the medium of the press. And for
the President's full disclosure of his views and poli
cies touching some of the recent questions of large
public concern, it is necessary to read his speeches

Introduction i"

in connection with his general or special messages to
Congress. Since a number of his speeches here
printed, like his general messages, deal with a variety
of matters, the reader who wishes to compare and
collate the President's utterances upon a given sub
ject, as, for example, the regulation of the trusts, the
reorganization of the army, the relations of the
United States to Cuba, or our methods and policies
of administration in the Philippines, will find it de
sirable to consult the index, which is intended to
make these volumes available for ready reference.

Quite apart from their obvious value for reference
purposes to the student of our contemporary history
and politics, or to the campaign speaker of the one
party or the other — who may wish to know authori
tatively what the President has really said about the
various public issues that are still pending — this col
lection of addresses has several other distinct merits
and advantages that must give it a place among
works relating to the national life and character.
Mr. Roosevelt, as an exponent of the aims and ideals
of a very great portion of his own generation of men
and women in the United States, stands unquestion
ably first. In two volumes of his previously collected
essays and papers, one entitled American Ideals
and the other The Strenuous Life, both of which
are included in the present edition of his works, of
which these latest speeches form a part, Mr. Roose
velt has expressed with remarkable vigor, — as well

iv Introduction

as with an unwavering conviction and a wholesome
philosophy of work and courage, — those views of
politics, citizenship, and organized social and eco
nomic life to which the best conscience and intelli
gence of his fellow-countrymen have made sympa
thetic response. These essays, it is true, set forth
no abstract scheme of political or social philosophy.
Yet out of them there might be evolved a systematic
body of doctrine relating to the duties of citizenship
in a democracy, and to the ethics of administration
and government. The explanation is that the doc
trines and principles have come to be embodied in
the character and convictions of the man himself;
and thus the essays and addresses have not been the
mere intellectual products of a man addicted to the
use of the pen or to the phrasing of sentences, but
rather the direct and wellnigh spontaneous expres
sion of the man himself in relation to topics rendered
timely by events and occasions.

In like manner, and in an even higher sense, these
later speeches here collected, made under the sober
ing sense of responsibility that must come with the
holding of so great an office as the Presidency,
express Mr. Roosevelt's convictions respecting our
American life and citizenship in such manner as to
form a sort of record for the study of the psychology
of the nation at the beginning of the twentieth cen
tury.

Furthermore, these addresses and public papers,

Introduction v

while to some extent homely, unstudied and uncon
ventional in their phraseology, have the quality of
permanent literature in a much higher measure than
the utterances of almost any other American public
man of our time. The traditional American political
oratory is highly stilted and artificial — overloaded
with rhetoric and figures of speech, lacking vernacu
lar force and directness. While the orotund and rhe
torical method of the past has largely disappeared,
there has followed it another method almost equally
artificial, in which the stately periods of the old-fash
ioned orator have been succeeded by the illustrative
amusing anecdote, the highly burnished witticism,
and the pointed phrase or apothegm. President
Roosevelt's method is wholly different from either
of these. Except for being at times a trifle more
earnest and hortatory, it is the method of some of
the best contemporary English speakers who do not
posture, and who do not attempt to be either orators
or mere platform entertainers, but who prefer to
state in a direct, conversational manner certain
things that they wish to say, and whose language is
that which they habitually use in conversation, and
which naturally and without conscious effort clothes
their thoughts as men of culture and mature intellec
tual life. President Roosevelt being a man of trained
mind, strong conviction, historical knowledge, and
wide public experience, combined with great practical
energy and executive force, and buoyant physical

vi Introduction

health, has both his own opinions and his own ready
and forcible way of expressing them.

Thus many of the speeches contained in this col
lection are as nearly extemporaneous utterances as
perhaps any which have ever been put into similarly
permanent form. Here are addresses made in al
most every State and Territory of the Union; and
they have been prepared and delivered within a very
short range of time, during which a far greater num
ber of smaller and more casual speeches have been
delivered, thousands of letters written, and innumer
able statements upon matters of a public character
made to the Cabinet (collectively and individually),
to Senators and members of Congress, to various
executive officials, to public men and citizens from
every part of every State of the Union, to commit
tees and deputations representing all classes and in
terests, and to representatives and visitors from all
countries — whether a royal prince from Germany,
or a defeated Boer general from South Africa. And
when one considers all these demands upon the
President's time and knows something of the pro
digious industry with which he devotes himself un
flinchingly to the almost innumerable duties that
present themselves daily in connection with his ex
ecutive work, it becomes plain that the President's
speeches and addresses have been in the main the
spontaneous utterances of a richly stored mind in
spired by firm conviction and resolute will, and

Introduction vii

supported by extraordinary physical strength and
vigor.

Yet the President's speeches have not been care
lessly prepared, nor have they ever been left — as
some speakers profess to leave theirs — to the "in
spiration of the moment/' Mr. Roosevelt has un
usual powers of concentration ; and his achievement
of so much work is due to his ability to turn prompt
ly from one thing to another and to give each suc
cessive task his whole undivided attention. With an
excellent memory and a disciplined mind, he is able
to summon to his aid at a given moment all his past
resources of reading, study, and thought upon a
given topic. Thus, before going on several of the
long trips in connection with which a great number
of addresses in these volumes were made, the more
important of the speeches for which dates had been
fixed were dictated one after another to his sten
ographers late in the evening when the day's work
was cleared away, social or official guests had de
parted, and an hour or two of uninterrupted time
was at the President's disposal.

This, indeed, is the same method by which a num
ber of the essays and addresses which have become
familiar in the collected volumes entitled American
Ideals, and The Strenuous Life, had been pre
pared at former periods when Mr. Roosevelt was un
der stress of much occupation. There has been no at
tempt to polish sentences or to make fine phrases, yet

viii Introduction

there is the orderly and the deliberate expression that
results from orderly processes of thinking, and there
is the assured and confident tone that reveals a stead
fast mind seldom tormented by doubts or misgivings.

Again, it is to be noted that these addresses are
patriotic rather than partisan, and that where they
deal with matters of controversy they show a spirit
as little contentious or polemic as possible. While
the President believes in the utility of the party sys
tem, he speaks always as President of the whole
country and not merely as the chief of a party. His
speeches, in short, are the utterances of a man who
embodies the national spirit more broadly and fully
than almost any other man of his day; and he ex
presses himself upon a wide range of topics with a
larger fund of experience and direct knowledge than
is possessed by any other conspicuous public man
of either party.

It is only through some understanding of the ca
reer that led up to his assumption of the Presidency
that the richness, the fulness, and the authoritative
quality of his observations on many varied themes
can be appreciated. Mr. Roosevelt's life has, amid
much variety, possessed great unity. While still in
college at Harvard, his mind became centred upon
the study of American life, American history, and
American government and policy. Whatever he
undertook after leaving college added steadily to his
understanding of the people of his own country and

Introduction ix

their institutions. Almost at once he threw him
self into the politics of the great State of New York,
served several terms in the Legislature, and made
himself known throughout the country by the vigor
and courage with which he applied himself to current
problems of State and municipal reform. At a time
when the so-called "spoils system" was powerfully
rooted in the practical government of nation, State,
and city, he became a civil service reformer.

Everything that was worth while was of interest
to him and everything that he undertook to do was
done whole-heartedly and thus made its contribution
to his own development. He was an officer in the
militia, and learned lessons which became, years
afterward, valuable to him as a colonel in the Span
ish-American war and later as commander-in-chief
of the army by virtue of the Presidential office.

Meanwhile his first literary undertaking was the
history of the naval war of 1812, which appeared
in 1882, and which will always remain a vital and a
standard account of our last war with Great Britain,
especially from the standpoint of naval strategy and
actual operations. Whether taking part himself in
the current life of his country and in the making of
its history, or whether studying or writing about the
part that others have taken in the development of the
nation, there has been on Mr. Roosevelt's part al
ways a singleness of purpose and a harmony of ef
fort. Thus, when he wrote about the War of 1812,

x Introduction

as when in later years he wrote the graphic yet ac
curate and well-poised studies of those Western
movements, military and civil, that created the Mis
sissippi Valley (comprised in the series of volumes
entitled The Winning of the West), there was on his
part just as much a sense of dealing with realities as
when in 1899 he wrote out the story of the part
played by his regiment of Rough Riders in the Span
ish-American war of the year before.

The circumstances which took him to the West in
1884 to become for some years a cattle ranchman, a
resident of the great plains, and an exponent of hunt
ing and frontier life, involved in no manner an in
terruption of the career upon which he had made so
propitious an entrance. On the contrary, this was
the best possible step that could have been taken for
the rounding out and development of the career of a
man destined, either in letters or in action, to spend
his life in dealing with American affairs from a
broad standpoint.

Many of the most marked traits of the American
people have been evolved through the process of pio
neering. For three centuries our people have been
engaged in subduing a continent that they had found
a pathless wilderness. No man who has lacked con
tact with some concrete phases of our pioneering life
can ever wholly enter into the spirit of the nation's
historical development, or perfectly understand the
inherited qualities of our present-day citizenship.

Introduction xi

Mr. Roosevelt's Western life supplied that needful
element of understanding, while it gave him physical
hardihood and a continental breadth of view. It
gave him, furthermore, that traditional American
readiness with a horse and a gun, and that adapta
bility to the free life of field and of woods which is
the heritage of the average young American, and
which made the greater part of the Northern and
Southern armies in the Civil War so unequaled, for
effectiveness, in all military history.

Through these years of practical life in the West
Mr. Roosevelt never lost the studious and literary
habit, nor did he lose any of his zest for the public
affairs of the country. In due time he returned to
the East, took an active part in New York politics
again, and was nominated for Mayor. Then he
went to Washington, where for a number of years
he served as Chairman of the Board of Civil Service
Commissioners and became an expert in the field of
national administration. After that came his two
years as President of the Police Commissioners of
New York City — a truly strenuous period that tested
every quality of his mind and character. The navy
had been at low ebb when Mr. Roosevelt in 1882
wrote his Naval War of 1812, and that book fairly
contributed toward the revival of interest which
soon set on foot the movement for the creation of
our modern fleet. The author of that book had
ever afterward been regarded both at home and

xii Introduction

abroad as an expert student of naval history and of
sea power, and he had retained an enthusiastic in
terest in the whole subject. He was well fitted, there
fore, for the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
to which President McKinley appointed him at the
very time when, more clearly than most others, he
foresaw the probability of a war with Spain.

He threw his whole intense energy into the work
of fitting our navy for such a test, devoting himself
especially to the questions of readiness and efficiency
in practical detail. And then came the outbreak of
war. With the feeling that he was no longer needed
in the naval department, and that it was his duty
to respond to the call for volunteer soldiers, he en
tered the army. The history of that service he has
himself told in a fascinating way in the volume en
titled The Rough Riders, included in this edition of
his works.

The war being ended, he returned to his own
State of New York at a moment when his party was
casting about for a candidate for Governor. The
outlook was not propitious ; but Mr. Roosevelt's re
cent career had given him a great personal popu
larity, and he was accordingly nominated and
elected. Great questions of administration are al
ways pending in the State of New York, and there
are few governmental offices in any country better
adapted to train the incumbent for the tasks of prac
tical statesmanship. ' Mr. Roosevelt took up the work

Introduction xiii

of the Governorship with characteristic industry, and
with results that were successful and valuable in
many directions. So well had he satisfied the ex
pectations of his party and of the State that his re-
nomination as Governor was assured ; and the whole
country had its attention fixed upon him as the
probable nominee of his party for the Presidency in
the year 1904.

A variety of circumstances, however, most of
them unexpected and some of them dramatic, led to
an overwhelming demand by the Republican Na
tional Convention at Philadelphia in 1900 that he
forego his prospect of a second term as Governor of
New York in order to take the nomination for the
Vice-Presidency on the ticket with Mr. McKinley.
He was put forward by his party in that summer of
1900 as its most effective campaigner. But it has
not been thought by him desirable that any of the
speeches made in a hotly contested Presidential elec
toral campaign should be included in a collection of
his public addresses. The tragic death of President
McKinley, in September, 1901, occurred only six
months after his entrance upon a second term, and
thus it happened that Mr. Roosevelt had only a short
time to serve in the office of Vice-President.

So remarkable and so rapid a succession of valu
able public experiences, all of a kind to give training
for the duties of the Presidency, is probably un
paralleled in our history. He had been the chief

xiv Introduction

Civil Service Commissioner of this great nation, the
head of the police administration of our chief me
tropolis, the active official of the naval department,
the most energetic volunteer officer in the Spanish-
American war, the Governor of New York, and the
Vice-President of the United States; and the man
who had succeeded brilliantly in all these positions,
and who had treated every one of them in turn as
if it furnished the one great opportunity for render
ing public service, could but bring to the Presidency
an accumulated knowledge and experience that
would make itself felt in every part of the work of
that supreme office.

It is this wide range of experience and knowledge
that has given Mr. Roosevelt the easy mastery of
many subjects which he has exhibited in the ad
dresses and public papers that make up these two
volumes ; and, further, it is these speeches and mes
sages, far more than anything else contained in the
admirable volumes which make up this edition of
the President's writings, that exhibit him in his ca
pacity as a practical statesman and that afford the
unconscious but inevitable expression of the man
himself in his relation to public affairs. All his ac
cumulated experience has so built itself into the man
that it finds a natural outlet in these varied and
spontaneous utterances on many themes.

To sum up and to conclude: These addresses
reveal the unity and consistency of President Roose-

Introduction xv

velt's character and career. He is indeed a many-
sided and versatile man, but there is nothing mu
tually contradictory about the different phases of
his nature or of his past undertakings. His vital
Americanism is shown equally in his historical
studies of the pioneer movement that built up
our great West and in his accounts of ranching
life and his studies of the big game of America.
In his varied literary work, as in his other ef
forts and activities, there is little or nothing of
an incidental or dilettante nature ; all of it is -the
frank expression of the man himself. The book
on the War of 1812 was written when he was still
very young. It might well have proved to be the
merely boyish effort of a young man who had said
to himself, "Lo, I will go to work and write a book!"
But, on the contrary, it was in fact the outgrowth of
vital interest and of strong conviction regarding his
subject; and so the book lives and will continue to
live. Thus all of his work for about a quarter of a
century, whether literary in its character or active
and official, has been done in the same direct,
straightforward way as simply pertaining to the task
in hand ; and the task, whether great or small, has al
ways been deemed worthy of the whole vital energy
of the man.

This collection opens with a paper which, strictly
speaking, has no place here. It is an essay on the
Presidency written for a family paper, the "Youth's

xvi Introduction

Companion," at an earlier date, but not published
until after Mr. Roosevelt had become President. It
has a certain fitness of a prefatory sort. There fol
lows a series of occasional addresses made in the first
half of 1902. Then we have ten speeches on fore
most public topics delivered on a trip to New Eng
land in August and September of that year. Other
briefer talks were made at that time, but some of
them reiterated points made in the longer ones; and
it may be said here, as respects this entire collection,
that in the process of preparing the material for the
press that which was chiefly or wholly repetition was
authoritatively omitted.

Several brief trips in the autumn of 1902 were
productive of speeches in Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio,
and other States of the Middle West, as well as in
New York and Pennsylvania.

With the beginning of April, 1903, the President
started upon the itinerary that gave occasion for a
majority of these speeches. His first objective point
was the Yellowstone Park; and he made a number
of addresses — beginning at Chicago — on the route.
He sojourned in the Park for about three weeks, and
then started to St. Louis (speaking on the way) to
make a formal address on the Louisiana Purchase at
the dedication of the Exposition. He then started
immediately for California, to visit the Yosemite
Park and to fulfil numerous engagements to speak,
both on the way and also in the Pacific Coast States.

Introduction xvii

He returned to Washington early in June, after an
absence of more than two months. He had spoken
throughout the States and Territories of the farther
West, and had aroused interest on a score of great
questions, — irrigation, forestry, national parks and
great scenery, Alaskan resources, our Oriental trade,
our expansion in the Pacific, and many others.

The remaining addresses in these volumes were
made on occasions requiring no explanation. Sev
eral letters, also included, have permanent interest,
— notably one or two on the race question.

Besides the Presidential messages to Congress, it
has seemed desirable to include portions of guber
natorial messages sent to the New York Legislature,
inasmuch as these contribute especially to an under
standing of the genesis of President Roosevelt's
views upon "trusts" and the public control of cor
porations.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESSES AND
STATE PAPERS

THE PRESIDENCY

EDITOR'S NOTE. — Although this volume is devoted almost
entirely to addresses made after Mr. Roosevelt became Presi
dent, it is believed that this essay on the office of the Presi
dent, which has not elsewhere appeared in book form, has a
fitting place as introductory to the materials which follow
herewith. The article was written by Mr. Roosevelt in
1900, while he was Governor of New York, and previous to
the Republican National Convention, which nominated him
for Vice-President. The views expressed in the article are,
therefore, those of an outside observer, and are not to be
regarded as those of an incumbent of the office. It will be
clear to all readers that the writer of the article could not
at the time of its publication have foreseen the place he was
destined to occupy.

This article was written expressly for "The Youth's Com
panion," and is reprinted by courtesy of that publication.
Copyright, 1902, by Perry Mason Company.

THE President of the United States occupies a
position of peculiar importance. In the whole
world there is probably no other ruler, certainly no
other ruler under free institutions, whose power
compares with his. Of course a despotic king has
even more, but no constitutional monarch has as
much.

In the republics of France and Switzerland the
President is not a very important officer, at least,
compared with the President of the United States.
In England the sovereign has much less control in

(0

2 Presidential Addresses

shaping the policy of the nation, the Prime Minister
occupying a position more nearly analogous to that
of our President. The Prime Minister, however,
can at any time be thrown out of office by an ad
verse vote, while the President can only be removed
before his term is out for some extraordinary crime
or misdemeanor against the nation.

Of course, in the case of each there is the enor
mous personal factor of the incumbent himself to
be considered, entirely apart from the power of the
office itself. The power wielded by Andrew Jack
son was out of all proportion to that wielded by
Buchanan, although in theory each was alike. So
a strong President may exert infinitely more in
fluence than 'a weak Prime Minister, or vice versa.
But this is merely another way of stating that in
any office the personal equation is always of vital
consequence.

It is customary to speak of the framers of our
Constitution as having separated the judicial, the
legislative and the executive functions of the gov
ernment. The separation, however, is not in all
respects sharply defined. The President has cer
tainly most important legislative functions, and the
upper branch of the national legislature shares with
the President one of the most important of his ex
ecutive functions; that is, the President can either
sign or veto the bills passed by Congress, while, on
the other hand, the Senate confirms or rejects his
nominations. Of course the President can not ini
tiate legislation, although he can recommend it.

And State Papers 3

But unless two-thirds of Congress in both branches
are hostile to him, he can stop any measure from
becoming a law. This power is varyingly used by
different Presidents, but it always exists, and must
always be reckoned with by Congress.

While Congress is in session, if the President
neither signs nor vetoes the bill which is passed,
the bill becomes a law without his signature. The
effect is precisely the same as if he had signed it.
Presidents who disapproved of details in a bill, but
felt that on the whole it was advisable it should be
come a law, have at times used this method to
emphasize the fact that they were not satisfied with
the measure which they were yet unwilling to veto.
A notable instance was afforded in President Cleve
land's second term, when he thus treated the Wilson-
Gorman tariff bill.

The immense federal service, including all the
postal employees, all the customs employees, all the
Indian agents, marshals, district attorneys, navy-
yard employees, and so forth, is under the President.
It would of course be a physical impossibility for
him to appoint all the individuals in the service.
His direct power lies over the heads of the depart
ments, bureaus and more important offices. But
he does not appoint these by himself. His is only
the nominating power. It rests with the Senate to
confirm or reject the nominations.

The Senators are the constitutional advisers of
the President, for it must be remembered that his
Cabinet is not in the least like the Cabinet of which

4 Presidential Addresses

the Prime Minister is head in the English Parlia
ment. Under our government the Secretaries who
form the Cabinet are in the strictest sense the Presi
dent's own ministerial appointees; the men, chosen
out of all the nation, to whom he thinks he can best
depute the most important and laborious of his
executive duties. Of course they all advise him
on matters of general policy when he so desires it,
and in practice each Cabinet officer has a very free
hand in managing his own department, and must
have it if he is to do good work. But all this
advice and consultation is at the will of the Presi
dent. With the Senate, on the other hand, the
advice and consultation are obligatory under the
Constitution.

The President and Congress are mutually neces
sary to one another in matters of legislation, and
the President and the Senate are mutually necessary
in matters of appointment. Every now and then
men who understand our Constitution but imper
fectly raise an outcry against the .President for
consulting the Senators in matters of appointment,
and even talk about the Senators "usurping" his
functions. These men labor under a misapprehen
sion. The Senate has no right to dictate to the
President who shall be appointed, but they have an
entire right to say who shall not be appointed, for
under the Constitution this has been made their
duty.

In practice, under our party system, it has come
to be recognized that each Senator has a special

And State Papers 5

right to be consulted about the appointments in his
own State, if he is of the President's political party.
Often the opponents of the Senator in his State do
not agree with him in the matter of appointments,
and sometimes the President, in the exercise of his
judgment, finds it right and desirable to disregard
the Senator. But the President and the Senators
must work together, if they desire to secure the best
results.

But although many men must share with the
President the responsibility for different individual
actions, and although Congress must of course also
very largely condition his usefulness, yet the fact
remains that in his hands is infinitely more power
than in the hands of any other man in our country
during the time that he holds the office; that there
is upon him always a heavy burden of responsi
bility; and that in certain crises this burden may
become so great as to bear down any but the strong
est and bravest man.

It is easy enough to give a bad administration;
but to give a good administration demands the
most anxious thought, the most wearing endeavor,
no less than very unusual powers of mind. The
chances for error are limitless, and in minor mat
ters, where from the nature of the case it is abso
lutely inevitable that the President should rely upon
the judgment of others, it is certain that under the
best Presidents some errors will be committed.
The severest critics of a President's .policy are apt
to be, not those who know most about what is to

6 Presidential Addresses

be done and of the limitations under which it must
be done, but those who know least.

In the aggregate, quite as much wrong is com
mitted by improper denunciation of public servants
who do well as by failure to attack those who do
ill. There is every reason why the President, who
ever he may be and to whatever party he may be
long, should be held to a sharp accountability alike
for what he does and for what he leaves undone.
But we injure ourselves and the nation if we fail to
treat with proper respect the man, whether he is po
litically opposed to us or not, who in the highest
office in our land is striving to do his duty according
to the strength that is in him.

We have had Presidents who have acted very
weakly or unwisely in particular crises. We have
had Presidents the sum of whose work has not been
to the advantage of the Republic. But we have
never had one concerning whose personal integrity
there was so much as a shadow of a suspicion, or
who has not been animated by an earnest desire
to do the best possible work that he could for the
people at large. Of course infirmity of purpose or
wrong-headedness may mar this integrity and sin
cerity of intention; but the integrity and the good
intentions have always existed. We have never
had in the Presidential chair any man who did not
sincerely desire to benefit the people and whose own
personal ambitions were not entirely honorable, al
though as much can not be said for certain aspirants
for the place, such as Aaron Burr.

And State Papers 7

Corruption, in the gross sense in which the word
is used in ordinary conversation, has been abso
lutely unknown among our Presidents, and it has
been exceedingly rare in our President's Cabinets.
Inefficiency, whether due to lack of will-power,
sheer deficiency in wisdom, or improper yielding
either to the pressure of politicians or to the other
kinds of pressure which must often be found even
in a free democracy, has been far less uncommon.
Of deliberate moral obliquity there has been but
very little indeed.

In the easiest, quietest, most peaceful times the
President is sure to have great tasks before him.
The simple question of revenue and expenditure
is as important to the nation as it is to the average
household, and the President is the man to whom
the nation looks and whom it holds accountable in
the matter both of expenditure and of revenue. It
is an entirely mistaken belief that the expenditure
of money is simply due to a taste for recklessness
and extravagance on the part of the people's rep
resentatives.

The representatives in the long run are sure to
try to do what the people effectively want. The
trouble is that although each group has, and all the
groups taken together still more strongly have, an
interest in keeping the expenditures down, each
group has also a direct interest in keeping some
particular expenditure up. This expenditure is
usually entirely proper and desirable, save only that
the aggregate of all such expenditures may be so

2— VOL. XIII.

8 Presidential Addresses

great as to make it impossible for the nation to go
into them.

It is a good deal the same thing in the nation
as it is in a State. The demand may be for a
consumptive hospital, or for pensions to veterans,
or for a public building, or for an armory, or for
cleaning out a harbor, or for starting irrigation.
In each case the demand may be in itself entirely
proper, and those interested in it, from whatever
motives, may be both sincere and strenuous in their
advocacy. But the President has to do on a large
scale what every Governor of a State has to do
on a small scale, that is, balance the demands on
the Treasury with the capacities of the Treasury.

Whichever way he decides, some people are sure
to think that he has tipped the scale the wrong way,
and from their point of view they may conscien
tiously think it; whereas from his point of view he
may know with equal conscientiousness that he has
done his best to strike an average which would on
the one hand not be niggardly toward worthy ob
jects, and on the other would not lay too heavy a
burden of taxation upon the people.

Inasmuch as these particular questions have to
be met every year in connection with every session
of Congress and with the work of every depart
ment, it may readily be seen that even the Presi
dent's every-day responsibilities are of no light or
der. So it is with has appointments. Entirely
apart from the fact that there is a great pressure
for place, it is also the fact that in all the higher

And State Papers 9

and more important appointments there are usu
ally conflicting interests which must somehow be
reconciled to the best of the President's capacity.

Here again it must be remembered that the mat
ter is not always by any means one of merely what
we call politics. Where there is a really serious con
flict in reference to an appointment, while it may
be merely a factional fight, it is more apt to be be
cause two groups of the President's supporters dif
fer radically and - honestly on some question of
policy; so that whatever the President's decision
may be, he can not help arousing dissatisfaction.

One thing to be remembered is that appointments
and policies which are normally routine and unim
portant may suddenly become of absolutely vital
consequence. For instance, the War Department was
utterly neglected for over thirty years after the
Civil War. This neglect was due less to the suc
cessive Presidents than to Congress, and in Con
gress it was due to the fact that the people them
selves did not take an interest in the army. Neither
the regular officer nor the regular soldier takes any
part in politics as a rule, so that the demagogue
and the bread-and-butter politician have no fear of
his vote ; and to both of them, and also to the cheap
sensational newspaper, the army offers a favorite
subject for attack. So it often happens that some
amiable people really get a little afraid of the army,
and have some idea that it may be used some time
or other against our liberties.

The army never has been and, I am sure, it

io Presidential Addresses

never will be or can be a menace to anybody save
America's foes, or aught but a source of pride to
every good and far-sighted American. But it is
only in time of actual danger that such facts are
brought home vividly to the minds of our people,
and so the army is apt to receive far less than its
proper share of attention. But when an emergency
like that caused by the Spanish War arises, then the
Secretary of War becomes the most important offi
cer in the Cabinet, and the army steps into the
place of foremost interest in all the country.

It is only once in a generation that such a crisis
as the Spanish War or the Mexican War or the
War of 1812 has to be confronted, but in almost
every administration lesser crises do arise. They
may be in connection with foreign affairs, as was
the case with the Chilean trouble under President
Harrison's administration, the Venezuelan matter
in President Cleveland's second term, or the Boxer
uprising in China last year. Much more often they
relate to domestic affairs, as in the case of a disas
trous panic, which produces terrible social and indus
trial convulsions. Whatever the problem may be,
the President has got to meet it and to work out
some kind of a solution. In midwinter or midsum
mer, with Congress sitting or absent, the President
has always to be ready to devote every waking
hour to some anxious, worrying, harassing matter,
most difficult to decide, and yet which it is imper
ative immediately to decide.

An immense addition to the President's burden

And State Papers n

is caused by the entirely well-meaning people who
ask him to do what he can not possibly do. For
the first few weeks after the inauguration a new
President may receive on an average fifteen hundred
letters a day. His mail is so enormous that often
he can not read one letter in a hundred, and rarely
can he read one letter in ten. Even his private sec
retary can read only a small fraction of the mail.
Often there are letters which the President would
really be glad to see, but which are swamped in the
great mass of demands for office, demands for pen
sions, notes of warning or advice, demands for
charity, and requests of every conceivable character,
not to speak of the letters from "cranks," which are
always numerous in the President's mail.

One President, who was very anxious to help
people whenever he could, made the statement that
the requests for pecuniary aid received in a single
fortnight would, if complied with, have eaten up con
siderably more than his entire year's salary. The
requests themselves are frequently such as the
President would like to comply with if there was any
way of making'a discrimination ; but there is none.

One rather sad feature of the life of a President
is the difficulty of making friends, because almost
inevitably after a while the friend thinks there is
some office he would like, applies for it, and when
the President is obliged to refuse, feels that he has
been injured. Those who were closest to Abraham
Lincoln have said that this was one of the things
which concerned him most in connection with his

12 Presidential Addresses

administration. It is hardly necessary to allude
to the well-known fact that no President can gratify
a hundreth part of the requests and demands made
upon him for office, often by men who have rendered
him real services and who are fit to fill the position
they seek, but not so fit as somebody else. Of
course the man does not realize that his successful
rival was appointed because he really was more fit,
and he goes away sour and embittered because of
what he feels to be the President's ingratitude.

Perhaps the two most striking things in the Presi
dency are the immense power of the President, in
the first place ; and in the second place, the fact that
as soon as he has ceased being President he goes
right back into the body of the people and becomes
just like any other American citizen. While he is
in office he is one of the half-dozen persons thorough-
out the whole world who have most power to affect
the destinies of the world.

He can set fleets and armies in motion ; he can do
more than any save one or two absolute sovereigns
to affect the domestic welfare and happiness of
scores of millions of people. Then when he goes
out of office he takes up his regular round of duties
like any other citizen, or if he is of advanced age
retires from active life to rest, like any other man
who has worked hard to earn his rest.

One President, John Quincy Adams, after leaving
the Presidency, again entered public life as a Con
gressman, and achieved conspicuous successes in the
Lower House. This, however, is a unique case.

And State Papers 13

Many Presidents have followed the examples of
Jefferson and Jackson, and retired, as these two men
retired to Monticello and The Hermitage. Others
have gone into more or less active work, as practic
ing lawyers or as lecturers on law, or in business, or
in some form of philanthropy.

During the President's actual incumbency of his
office the tendency is perhaps to exaggerate not only
his virtues but his faults. When he goes out he is
simply one of the ordinary citizens, and perhaps for
a time the importance of the role he has played is
not recognized. True perspective is rarely gained
until years have gone by.

Altogether, there are few harder tasks than that of
filling well and ably the office of President of the
United States. The labor is immense, the cease
less worry and harassing anxiety are beyond de
scription. But if the man at the close of his term is
able to feel that he has done his duty well; that he
has solved after the best fashion of which they were
capable the great problems with which he was con
fronted, and has kept clean and in good running
order the governmental machinery of the mighty
Republic, he has the satisfaction of feeling that he
has performed one of the great world-tasks, and that
the mere performance is in itself the greatest of all
possible rewards.

ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

SPEECH OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AT THE
REUNION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE
POTOMAC, G. A. R., AT THE NEW WILLARD
HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C., FEB. 19, 1902

Mr. Chairman, Commander -in-Chief, and you, my

Comrades:

I can say that there is nothing else of which I am
quite so proud as having won, in a sense, the right
to claim comradeship with you. And, gentlemen,
I recollect speaking with a friend at the time of
the Spanish War as to why we went, and it was
agreed that it was simply because we could not
stay away. We had taken to heart the great object-
lesson that you gave. I am very glad to have the
chance of seeing you this evening and of being with
you. I would be but a poor American if I did
not appreciate to the full the debt under which
America rests to you, not alone for the lesson in
war that you have given, but for what that lesson
teaches as to peace. I meet you here and I see the
general and the man from the ranks honor one an
other by the highest title either knows — comrade,
I see you applying the great lesson of brotherhood
— the lesson that must be applied in civil life no
less than in military life if we are to work out,
as we shall work -out, aright the problems that face
(14)

Presidential Addresses 15

the Republic. The war in which I was engaged
was a small affair; but it gave us an understanding
of what you had done and of what you had been
through. I know pretty well what kind. of mem
ories you have. I know what you did, what you
risked, what you sacrificed. I know what it meant
to you, and I know why you did it. There are two
or three lessons that you taught that I hope this
country will not only never forget, but will never
cease applying. In the first place the motive — the
tissue of motives that spurred you on — the love for
liberty, love for union, and the love for the stable
and ordered freedom of a great people. You braved
nights in the freezing mud of the trenches in winter,
and the marches under scorching midsummer suns ;
fever cots, wounds, insufficient food, exhausting
fatigue of a type that those that have not tried it
can not even understand. You did it without one
thought of the trivial monetary reward at the mo
ment ; you did it because your souls spurred you on.
And that is the reason why to this day, when any
man speaks to a body of veterans he speaks to a
body of men who are instant to respond to any call
for adherence to a lofty ideal. In other words, you
practiced, and by practicing preached, in the strong
est manner, the ideal of doing your duty, of doing
duty when duty calls, without thought of what the
reward might be. In the days when the sad, kindly,
patient Lincoln — mighty Lincoln — stood in the
White House like a high priest of the people,
between the horns of the altar, and poured out the

1 6 Presidential Addresses

blood of the bravest and best, it was because only
by that sacrifice could the flag that had been rent
in sunder once again be made without a seam. You
taught the ideal of duty — duty, a word that stands
above glory, or any other word. Glory is a good
word, too, but duty is a better one.

You taught, in addition to that, brotherhood. In
the ranks, as you stood there shoulder to shoulder,
little any one of you cared what the man next to
you was as regarded wealth, trade, or education, if
he was in very truth a man. And, friends, short would
have been our shrift if in our army as a whole there
had been any failure to exercise just that type of
judgment — to exercise the judgment on the man as
a man; short would have been our shrift if we had
failed to do justice to the bricklayer on the one
hand, or to the banker on the other; if we had
shown either contempt of the one, or the no less
mean emotion of envy for the other. If we are to
go on, as we shall and must go on in our national
career, we must apply in the civic life of our na
tion exactly the principles which obtained in the
Grand Army of the Republic. There are plenty of
foes to fight and we can not afford to have honest
men betrayed into hostility toward one another ; be
trayed into acting toward one another in a way
that will permanently deteriorate the standard of
our national character. We can afford to disagree
on questions of proper political difference. There
are plenty such. But we can not afford, if we are
to remain true to the ideals of the past, to differ

And State Papers 17

about those ideals. We can not afford to do less
than justice to any man. We can not afford to
shrink from seeing that the right obtains; nor, on
the other hand, to rebuke any effort to stir up those
dark and evil forces which lurk in each man's breast,
and which need to be kept down, not excited.

The Commander-in-Chief spoke of the great and
good President — of President McKinley — who died
for the people exactly as Abraham Lincoln died.
You who wore the blue in the early sixties warred
against that spirit of disunion which, if successful,
would have meant widespread governmental an
archy throughout this land. You warred for or
derly liberty. So now it behooves each of us so
to conduct his civil life, so to do his duty as a citizen,
that we shall in the most effective way war against
the spirit of anarchy in all its forms. You did
mighty deeds, and you leave us more than mighty
deeds, for you leave us the memory of how you did
them. You leave us not only the victory, but the
spirit that lay behind it and shone through it. You
leave us not only the triumph, but the memory of
the patient resolution, of the suffering, of the dogged
endurance and heroic daring through which that
triumph came to pass. You in your youth and early
manhood took up the greatest task which fell to
the lot of any generation of our people to perform.
You did it well. We have lesser tasks, and yet
tasks of great and vital importance. Woe to us if
we do not show ourselves worthy to be your suc
cessors, by doing our lesser tasks with the same

1 8 Presidential Addresses

firm determination for right that you displayed when
you fought to a finish the great Civil War, when
you upheld the arms of Abraham Lincoln, and fol
lowed to victory the flag of Ulysses S. Grant.

AT THE CHARLESTON EXPOSITION, WEDNES
DAY, APRIL 9, 1902

Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, and you, the Men and.
Women of the Palmetto State, Men and Women
of the South; my Fellow-citizens of the Union:
It is indeed to me a peculiar pleasure to have the
chance of coming here to this Exposition held in
your old, your beautiful, your historic city.

My mother's people were from Georgia; but be
fore they came to Georgia, before the Revolution,
in the days of Colonial rule, they dwelt for nearly
a century in South Carolina; and therefore I can
claim your State as mine by inheritance no less than
by the stronger and nobler right which makes each
foot of American soil in a sense the property of all
Americans.

Charleston is not only a typical Southern city;
it is also a city whose history teems with events
which link themselves to American history as a
whole. In the early Colonial days Charleston was
the outpost of our people against the Spaniard in
the South. In the days of the Revolution there oc
curred here some of the events which vitally affected
the outcome of the struggle for Independence, and
which impressed themselves most deeply upon the

And State Papers 19

popular mind. It was here that the tremendous,
terrible drama of the Civil War opened.

With delicate and thoughtful courtesy you origin
ally asked me to come to this Exposition on the
birthday of Abraham Lincoln. The invitation not
only showed a fine generosity and manliness in you,
my hosts, but it also emphasized as hardly anything
else could have emphasized how completely we are
now a united people. The wounds left by the great
Civil War, incomparably the greatest war of mod
ern times, have healed ; and its memories are now
priceless heritages of honor alike to the North and
to the South. The devotion, the self-sacrifice, the
steadfast resolution and lofty daring, the high devo
tion to the right as each man saw it, whether North
erner or Southerner — all these qualities of the men
and women of the early sixties now shine luminous
and brilliant before our eyes, while the mists of
anger and hatred that once dimmed them have
passed away forever.

All of us, North and South, can glory alike in
the valor of the men who wore the blue and of
the men who wore the gray. Those were iron
times, and only iron men could fight to its terrible
finish the giant struggle between the hosts of Grant
and Lee, the struggle that came to an end thirty-
seven years ago this very day. To us of the pres
ent day, and to our children and children's children,
the valiant deeds, the high endeavor, and abnegation
of self shown in that struggle by those who took
part therein will remain for evermore to mark the

20 Presidential Addresses

level to which we in our turn must rise whenever
the hour of the Nation's need may come.

When four years ago this Nation was compelled
to face a foreign foe, the completeness of the re
union became instantly and strikingly evident. The
war was not one which called for the exercise of
more than an insignificant fraction of our strength,
and the strain put upon us was slight indeed com
pared with the results. But it was a satisfactory
thing to see the way in which the sons of the soldier
of the Union and the soldier of the Confederacy
leaped eagerly forward, emulous to show in brother
ly rivalry the qualities which had won renown for
their fathers, the men of the great war. It was
my good fortune to serve under an ex-Confederate
general, gallant old Joe Wheeler, who commanded
the cavalry division at Santiago.

In my regiment there were certainly as many
men whose fathers had served in the Southern, as
there were men whose fathers had served in the
Northern, army. Among the captains there was
opportunity to promote but one to field rank. The
man who was singled out for this promotion be
cause of conspicuous gallantry in the field was the
son of a Confederate general and was himself a
citizen of this, the Palmetto State ; and no American
officer could wish to march to battle beside a more
loyal, gallant, and absolutely fearless comrade than
my former captain and major, your fellow-citizen,
Micah Jenkins.

A few months ago, owing to the enforced absence

And State Papers 21

of the Governor of the Philippines, it became nec
essary to nominate a Vice-Governor to take his
place — one of the most important places in our Gov
ernment at this time. I nominated as Vice-Governor
an ex-Confederate, General Luke Wright, of Ten
nessee. It is therefore an ex-Confederate who now
stands as the exponent of this Government and this
people in that great group of islands in the eastern
seas over which the American flag floats. General
Wright has taken a leading part in the work of
steadily bringing order and peace out of the bloody
chaos in which we found the islands. He is now
taking a leading part not merely in upholding the
honor of the flag by making it respected as the
symbol of our power, but still more in upholding1
its honor by unwearied labor for the establishment
of ordered liberty — of law-creating, law-abiding
civil government — under its folds.

The progress which has been made under Gen
eral Wright and those like him has been indeed
marvelous. In fact, a letter of the General's the
other day seemed to show that he considered there
was far more warfare about the Philippines in this
country than there was warfare in the Philippines
themselves! It is an added proof of the complete
ness of the reunion of our country that one of the
foremost men who have been instrumental in driving
forward the great work for civilization and human
ity in the Philippines has been a man who in the
Civil War fought with distinction in a uniform of
Confederate gray.

22 Presidential Addresses

If ever the need comes in the future the past has
made abundantly evident the fact that from this
time on Northerner and Southerner will in war
know only the generous desire to strive how each
can do the more effective service for the flag of
our common country. The same thing is true in
the endless work of peace, the never-ending work
of building and keeping the marvelous fabric of
our industrial prosperity. The upbuilding of any
part of our country is a benefit to the whole, and
every such effort as this to stimulate the resources
and industry of a particular section is entitled to
the heartiest support from every quarter of the
Union. Thoroughly good national work can be
done only if each of us works hard for himself,
and at the same time keeps constantly in mind that
he must work in conjunction with others.

You have made a particular effort in your Ex
hibition to get into touch with the West Indies.
This is wise. The events of the last four years
have shown us that the West Indies and the Isthmus
must in the future occupy a far larger place in our
national policy than in the past. This is proved by
the negotiations for the purchase of the Danish
Islands, the acquisition of Porto Rico, the prepara
tion for building an Isthmian canal, and, finally,
by the changed relations which these years have
produced between us and Cuba. As a Nation we
have especial right to take honest pride in what we
have done for Cuba. Our critics abroad and at
home have insisted that we never intended to leave

And State Papers 23

the island. But on the 2Oth of next month Cuba
becomes a free republic, and we turn over to the
islanders the control of their own government. It
would be very difficult to find a parallel in the con
duct of any other great -State that has occupied
such a position as ours. We have kept our word
and done our duty, just as an honest individual in
private life keeps his word and does his duty.

Be it remembered, moreover, that after our four
years' occupation of the island we turn it over to
the Cubans in a better condition than it ever has
been in all the centuries of Spanish rule. This has
a direct bearing upon our own welfare. Cuba is
so near to us that we can never be indifferent to
misgovernment and disaster within its limits. The
mere fact that our administration in the island has
minimized the danger from the dreadful scourge of
yellow fever, alike to Cuba and to ourselves, is suf
ficient to emphasize the community of interest be
tween us. But there are other interests which bind
us together. Cuba's position makes it necessary that
her political relations with us should differ from
her political relations with other powers. This fact
has been formulated by us and accepted by the
Cubans in the Platt amendments. It follows as a
corollary that where the Cubans have thus assumed
a position of peculiar relationship to our political
system they must similarly stand in a peculiar re
lationship to our economic system.

We have rightfully insisted upon Cuba adopting
toward us an attitude differing politically from that

24 Presidential Addresses

she adopts toward any other power; and in return,
as a matter of right, we must give to Cuba a dif
ferent — that is, a better — position economically in
her relations with us than we give to other powers.
This is the course dictated by sound policy, by a
wise and far-sighted view of our own interest, and
by the position we have taken during the past four
years. We are a wealthy and powerful country,
dealing with a much weaker one; and the contrast
in wealth and strength makes it all the more our
duty to deal with Cuba, as we have already dealt
with her, in a spirit of large generosity.

This Exposition is rendered possible because of
the period of industrial prosperity through which we
are passing. While material well-being is never all-
sufficient to the life of a nation, yet it is the merest
truism to say that its absence means ruin. We
need to build a higher life upon it as a foundation;
but we can build little indeed unless this foundation
of prosperity is deep and broad. The well-being
which we are now enjoying can be secured only
through general business prosperity, and such pros
perity is conditioned upon the energy and hard work,
the sanity and the mutual respect, of all classes of
capitalists, large and small, of wage workers of
every degree. As is inevitable in a time of business
prosperity, some men succeed more than others, and
it is unfortunately also inevitable that when this is
the case some unwise people are sure to try to appeal
to the envy and jealousy of those who succeed least.
It is a good thing when these appeals are made to

And State Papers 25

remember that while it is difficult to increase pros
perity by law, it is easy enough to ruin it, and that
there is small satisfaction to the less prosperous if
they succeed in overthrowing both the more pros
perous and themselves in the crash of a common
disaster.

Every industrial exposition of this type necessar
ily calls up the thought of the complex social and
economic questions which are involved in our pres
ent industrial system. Our astounding material
prosperity, the sweep and rush rather than the mere
march of our progressive material development,
have brought grave troubles in their train. We
can not afford to blink these troubles, any more
than because of them we can afford to accept as
true the gloomy forebodings of the prophets of evil.
There are great problems before us. They are not
insoluble, but they can be solved only if we ap
proach them in a spirit of resolute fearlessness, of
common-sense, and of honest intention to do fair
and equal justice to all men alike. We are certain
to fail if we adopt the policy of the demagogue
who raves against the wealth which is simply the
form of embodied thrift, foresight, and intelligence ;
who would shut the door of opportunity against
those whose energy we should especially foster,
by penalizing the qualities which tell for success.
Just as little can we afford to follow those who fear
to recognize injustice and to endeavor to cut it out
because the task is difficult or even — if performed
by unskilful hands — dangerous.

26 Presidential Addresses

This is an era of great combinations both of labor
and of capital. In many ways these combinations
have worked for good; but they must work under
the law, and the laws concerning them must be
just and wise, or they will inevitably do evil; and
this applies as much to the richest corporation as
to the most powerful labor union. Our laws must
be wise, sane, healthy, conceived in the spirit of
those who scorn the mere agitator, the mere inciter
of class or sectional hatred; who wish justice for
all men; who recognize' the need of adhering so far
as possible to the old American doctrine of giving
the widest possible scope for the free exercise of
individual initiative, and yet who recognize also
that after combinations have reached a certain stage
it is indispensable to the general welfare that the
Nation should exercise over them, cautiously and
with self-restraint, but firmly, the power of super
vision and regulation.

Above all, the administration of the government,
the enforcement of the laws, must be fair and honest.
The laws are not to be administered either in the
interest of the poor man or the interest of the rich
man. They are simply to be administered justly;
in the interest of justice to each man be he rich or
be he poor — giving immunity to no violator, what
ever form the violation may assume. Such is the
obligation which every public servant takes, and to
it he must be true under penalty of forfeiting the
respect both of himself and of his fellows.

And now, my fellow-countrymen, in closing I am

And State Papers 27

going to paraphrase something said by Governor
Aycock last night. I have dwelt to-day upon the
fact that we are indeed a reunited people; that we
are indeed and forever one people. The time was
when one could not have made that statement with
truth; now it can be truthfully said. There was a
time when it was necessary to keep saying it, because
it was already true, and because the assertion made
it more true; but the time is at hand, I think the
time has come, when it is not necessary to say it
again. Proud of the South? Of course we are
proud of the South ; not only Southerners, but
Northerners are proud of the South. Proud of your
great deeds? Of course I am proud of your great
deeds, for you are my people. I thank you from
my heart for the welcome you have given me, and I
assure you that few experiences in my life have been
more pleasant than the experiences of these two days
that I have spent among you.

AT NEW YORK AT THE BANQUET AT SHERRY'S
IN HONOR OF DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUT
LER, PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSI
TY, APRIL 19, 1902

Mr. Chairman, and you, my hosts, and my Fellow-
Guests:

What I am going to say to-night will be based
upon the altogether admirable address made this
afternoon by my old and valued friend, the new
president of your great university, in the course

28 Presidential Addresses

of which he spoke of what the university can con
tribute to the state as being scholarship and service.
There are only a limited number of men of any uni
versity who can add to what has been so well called
by Professor Munsterberg "productive scholarship."
Of course each university should bend its energies
toward developing the few men who are thus able
to add to the sum of the nation's work in scholarly
achievement. To those men the all-important doc
trine to preach is that one piece of first-rate work
is worth a thousand pieces of second-rate work ; and
that after a generation has passed each university
will be remembered by what its sons have produced,
not in the line of a mass of pretty good work, but
in the way of the few masterpieces. I do not in
tend, however, to dwell upon this side of the uni
versity's work, the work of scholarship, the work
of the intellect trained to its. highest point of pro
ductiveness. I want to speak of the other side,
the side that produces service to the public, service
to the nation. Not one in a hundred of us is fit to
be in the highest sense a productive scholar, but all
of us are entirely fit to do decent service if we care
to take the pains. If we think we can render it
without taking the pains, if we think we can render
it by feeling how nice it would be to render it —
why, the value of that service will be but little.

Fortunately to-day those who addressed you had
a right to appeal not merely to what they had spoken,
but to what they had done. When we are inclined
to be pessimistic over affairs, and especially public

And State Papers 29

affairs here in the United States, it is a pleasant
thing to be able to look back to the last twenty years
of the life of Columbia's late President, Mayor Low.
And now, for a moment, look at things in their pure
historic perspective. Think what it means in the
way of an object-lesson to have a man who, after
serving two terms as Mayor of what is now one
of the great boroughs of this great city, then be
came for twelve years the President of one of the
foremost institutions of learning in the entire land,
and then again became the chief officer of the city.
That was not merely creditable to Mr. Low; it was
creditable to us. It spoke well for the city. It is
a big mark on the credit side. We have plenty of
marks on the debit side ; but we feel that this goes a
long way toward making the balance even.

As for the Dean — why, I sat at the feet of that
Gamaliel when I first went into politics. He and
I took part in the affairs of the old Twenty-first
Assembly District in the days when I was just out
of college. My very first experiences in practical
politics were gained in connection with the Dean.
And, gentlemen, as I gradually passed out of the
sphere of the Dean, I passed into the sphere of
your present President, and he has been my close
friend, my valued adviser, ever since.

When it comes to rendering service, that which
counts chiefly with a college graduate, as with any
other American citizen, is not intellect so much as
what stands above mere power of body, or mere
power of mind, but must in a sense include them,

jo Presidential Addresses

and that is character. It is a good thing to have
a sound body, and a better thing to have a sound
mind; and better still to have that aggregate of
virile and decent qualities which we group together
under the name of character. I said both decent
and virile qualities — it is not enough to have one
or the other alone. If a man is strong in mind and
body and misuses his strength then he becomes
simply a foe to the body politic, to be hunted down
by all decent men; and if, on the other hand, he
has thoroughly decent impulses but lacks strength
he is a nice man, but does not count. You can do
but little with him.

In the unending strife for civic betterment, small
is the use of these people who mean well, but who
mean well feebly. The man who counts is the man
who is decent and who makes himself felt as a force
for decency, for cleanliness, for civic righteousness.
He must have several qualities; first and foremost,
of course, he must be honest, he must have the root
of right thinking in him. That is not enough.
In the next place he must have courage; the timid
good man counts but little in the rough business
of trying to do well the world's work. And finally,
in addition to being honest and brave he must have
common-sense. If he does not have it, no matter
what other qualities he may have he will find him
self at the mercy of those who, without possessing
his desire to do right, know only too well how to
make the wrong effective.

To you, the men of Columbia here, the men of

And State Papers 31

this great city, and the men who, when they grad
uate, go to other parts of the country, we have the
right to look in an especial degree for service to the
public. To you much has been given, and woe and
shame to you if we can not rightfully expect much
from you in return.

We can pardon the man who has no chance in
life if he does but little for the State, and we can
count it greatly to his credit if he does much for
the State. But upon you who have had so much
rests a heavy burden to show that you are worthy
of what you have received. A double responsibility
is upon you to use aright, not merely the talents
that have been given to you, but the chances you
have to make much of these talents. We have a
right to expect service to the State from you in
many different lines : In the line of what, for lack
of a better word, we will call philanthropy; in all
lines of effort for public decency.

Remember always that the man who does a thing
so that it is worth doing is always a man who does
his work for the work's sake. Somewhere in Ruskin
there is a sentence to the effect that the man who
does a piece of work for the fee, normally does it
in a second-rate way, and that the only first-rate
work is the work done by the man who does it for
the sake of doing it well, who counts the deed as
itself his reward. In no kind of work done for
the public do you ever find the really best, except
where you find the man who takes hold of it because
he is irresistibly impelled to do it, because he wishes

3-VOL. XIII.

32 Presidential Addresses

to do it for the sake of doing it well, not for the
sake of any reward that comes afterward or in con
nection with it. Of course, gentlemen, that is true
of almost every other walk of life, just exactly as
true as it is in politics. A clergyman is not worth
his salt if he finds himself bound to be a clergyman
for the material reward of that profession. Every
doctor who has ever succeeded has been a man in
capable of thinking of his fee when he did a note
worthy surgical operation. A scientific man, a
writer, a historian, an artist, can only be a good
man of science, a first-class artist, a first-class writer,
if he does his work for the sake of doing it well;
and this is exactly as true in political life, exactly
as true in every form of social effort, in every kind
of work done for the public at large. The man
who does work worth doing is the man who does
it because he can not refrain from doing it, the
man who feels it borne in on him to try that par
ticular job and see if he can not do it well. And
so it is with a general in the field. The man in
the Civil War who thought of any material reward
for what he did was not among the men whose
names you read now on the honor roll of American
history.

So the work that our colleges can do is to fit
their graduates to do service — to fit the bulk of
them, the men who can not go in for the highest
type of scholarship, to do the ordinary citizen's
service for the country ; and they can fit them to do
this service only by training them in character. To

And State Papers 33

train them in character means to train them not
only to possess, as they must possess, the softer and
gentler virtues, but also the virile powers of a race
of vigorous men, the virtues of courage, of honesty
— not merely the honesty that refrains from doing
wrong, but the honesty that wars aggressively for
the right — the virtues of courage, honesty, and,
finally, hard common-sense.

TO THE GRADUATING CLASS, NAVAL ACAD
EMY, ANNAPOLIS, MD., MAY 2, 1902

Gentlemen of the Graduating Class:

In receiving these diplomas you become men who
above almost any others of the entire Union are to
carry henceforth ever-present with you the sense of
responsibility which must come if you are worthy
of wearing the uniform ; which must come with the
knowledge that on some tremendous day it may de
pend upon your courage, your preparedness, your
skill in your profession, whether or not the nation
is again to write her name on the world's roll of
honor or is to know the black shame of defeat. We
all of us earnestly hope that the occasion for war
may not arise, but if it has to come then this nation
must win; and as Dr. Winston has pointed out, in
winning the prime factor must of necessity be the
United States Navy. If the navy fails us then we
are doomed to defeat. It should therefore be an ob
ject of prime importance for every patriotic Amer
ican to see that the navy is built up; and that it is

34 Presidential Addresses

kept to the highest point of efficiency both in per
sonnel and material. Above all, it can not be too
often repeated to those representatives of the nation
in whose hands the practical application of the prin
ciple lies, that in modern naval war the chief factor
in achieving triumph is what has been done in the
way of thorough preparation and training before
the beginning of the war. It is what has been done
before the outbreak of war that counts most. After
the outbreak, all that can be done is to use to best ad
vantage the great war engines, and the seamanship,
marksmanship, and general practical efficiency which
have already been provided by the forethought of
the national legislature and by the administrative
ability, through a course of years, of the Navy De
partment. A battleship can not be improvised. It
takes years to build. And we must learn that it
is exactly as true that the skill of the officers and men
in handling a battleship aright can likewise never be
improvised ; that it must spring from use and actual
sea service, and from the most careful, zealous, and
systematic training. You to whom I am about to
give these diplomas now join the ranks of the of
ficers of the United States Navy. You enter a glo
rious service, proud of its memories of renown. You
must keep ever in your minds the thought of the
supreme hour which may come when what you do
will forever add to or detract from that renown.
Some of you will have to do your part in helping con
struct the ships and the guns which you use. You
need to bend every energy toward making these

And State Papers 35

ships and guns in all their details the most perfect
of their kind throughout the world. The ship must
be seaworthy, the armament fitted for best protec
tion to the guns and men, the guns in all their
mechanism fit to do the greatest possible execution
in the shortest possible time. Every detail, whether
of protection to the gun-crews, of rapidity and sure-
ness in handling the ammunition and working the
elevating and revolving gear, or of quickness and
accuracy in sighting, must be thought out far in ad
vance, and the thought carefully executed in the
actual work. But after that has been done it remains
true that the best ships and guns, the most costly
mechanism, are utterly valueless if the men have
not been trained to use them to the best possible ad
vantage. From now on throughout your lives there
can be no slackness in the performance of duty on
your part. Much has been given you, and much will
be expected from you. Your duty must be ever
present with you, waking and sleeping. You must
train yourselves, and you must train those under
you, in the actual work of seamanship, in the actual
work of gunnery. If the day for battle comes you
will need all that you possess of boldness, skill, de
termination, ability to bear punishment, and instant
readiness in an emergency. Without these qualities
you can do nothing, yet even with them you can do
but little if you have not had the forethought and set
purpose to train yourselves and the enlisted men
under you aright. Officers and men alike must have
the sea habit; officers and men alike must realize

36 Presidential Addresses

that in battle the only shots that count are the shots
that hit, and that normally the victory will lie with
the side whose shots hit oftenest. Of course you
must have the ability to stand up to the hammering ;
the courage, the daring, the resolution to endure;
but I take it for granted you will have those quali
ties. It is less to be thought to your credit to have
them than it would be eternally to your discredit to
lack them. I take it for granted you will have the
courage we have a right to expect to go with
American seamanship; that you will have the daring
and the resolution. And I ask that you make it from
now on your object to see that if ever the day should
arise, your courage, your readiness, your eager de
sire to win fresh renown for the flag be made good
by the training you have given yourselves and those
under you in the practical work of your profession
in seamanship and gunnery.

AT THE BANQUET OF THE SOCIETY OF THE
SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION,
WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 2, 1902

Mr. Toastmaster; Mr. President; Compatriots; and

fellow- A mer leans :

It is a pleasure to take part in greeting you this
evening. Societies that cultivate patriotism in the
present by keeping alive the memory of what we owe
to the patriotism of the past, fill an indispensable
function in this Republic. You come here to-night
from every quarter — from every State of the Repub-

And State Papers 37

lie and from the islands of the Eastern Seas. The
Republic has put up its flag in those islands, and the
flag will stay there.

I am glad to meet you here to-night — you, the de
scendants of the statesmen and soldiers who fought
to establish this country in 1776, some of the older
among whom, and the fathers of the others, fought
with no less valor wearing the blue or the gray in
the Civil War. May we now show our fealty to
the great men who did the great deeds of the past,
not alone by word but by deed! May we prove
ourselves true to them, not merely by paying homage
to their memory, but by so shaping the policy of this
great Republic as to make it evident that we are not
unworthy of our sires. They did justice, and we will
do justice. They did justice as strong men, not as
weaklings; and we will show ourselves strong men
and not weaklings.

Before me I see men who lived in iron times, men
who did great deeds. I see here a delegate from
Kentucky who served under Farragut in the great
days of the Civil War. I see a descendant of a
man from Connecticut who was called Brother
Jonathan. All around these tables are gathered
men the names of whose ancestors stand not only for
righteousness but also for strength — for both qual
ities, gentlemen. Righteousness finds weakness but
a poor yoke-fellow. With righteousness must go
strength to make that righteousness of avail. And
in the names of the mighty men of the past I ask
each man here to do his part in seeing that this na-

38 Presidential Addresses

tion remains true in deed as well as in word to the
ideals of the past ; to remember that we can no more
afford to show weakness than we can afford to do
wrong. Where wrong has been done by any one
the wrong-doer shall be punished; but we shall not
halt in our great work because some man has hap
pened to do wrong. Honor to the statesmen of the
past, and may the statesmen of the present strive to
live up to the example they set ! Honor to the army
and navy of the past! And honor to those gallant
Americans wearing the uniform of the American
Republic who in the army and the navy of the pres
ent day uphold gloriously the most glorious tradi
tions of the past !

Another thing, compatriots of the Society of the
Sons of the American Revolution : We are Amer
icans, and that means that we treat Americanism
primarily as a matter of spirit and purpose, and
in the broadest sense we regard every man as
a good American, whatever his creed, whatever
his birthplace, if he is true to the ideals of this
Republic.

To-day I have been down to Annapolis to see the
graduating class of the Naval Academy; and it
would have done your hearts good to have seen those
fine, manly, upstanding young fellows who looked
every man straight in the face without flinching.
We may be sure that the honor of the Republic is
safe in their hands.

I was glad to meet those young fellows to-day.
I am glad to meet representatives of the navy like

And State Papers 39

you, Admiral Watson, and of the army like you,
General Breckenridge. I am glad that we as Amer
icans have cause to be proud of the army and the
navy of the United States — of the men who in the
past have upheld the honor of the flag, and of their
successors, the soldiers and sailors of the present
day, who during the last three years have done such
splendid work in the inconceivably dangerous and
harassing warfare of the eastern tropics.

AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF
THE McKINLEY MEMORIAL OHIO COLLEGE
OF GOVERNMENT OF THE AMERICAN UNI
VERSITY, WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 14, 1902

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am to say but one word. Nothing more need
be said than has been said already by those who have
addressed you this afternoon — the statesmen who
worked with McKinley and the pastor under whose
ministrations he sat.

It is indeed appropriate that the Methodists of
America — the men belonging to that religious or
ganization which furnished the pioneers in carving
out of the West what is now the heart of the great
American Republic — should found this great uni
versity in the city of Washington and should build
the college that is to teach the science of govern
ment in the name of the great exponent of good and
strong government who died last fall, who died as
truly for this country as Abraham Lincoln himself.

40 Presidential Addresses

I thank you for having given me the opportunity
this afternoon to come before you and to lay the
corner-stone of this building.

AT THE EXERCISES OF THE SOCIETY OF THE
ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND, ATTENDING
THE REBURIAL OF MAJOR-GENERAL WIL
LIAM STARK ROSECRANS, ARLINGTON NA
TIONAL CEMETERY, WASHINGTON, D. C,
MAY 17, 1902

Speaker Henderson; and you, the Comrades of the
Great Chief zvhose reburial in the National Cem
etery here at Arlington we have met together to
commemorate:

Speaker Henderson in his address has well said
that the builder rather than the destroyer is the man
most entitled to honor among us ; that the man who
builds up is greater than he who tears down; and
that our homage should be for the fighting man who
not only fought worthily but fought in a worthy
cause. Therefore for all time, not merely the peo
ple of this great reunited country but the nations of
mankind who see the hope for ordered liberty in
what this country has done, will hold you, the men of
the great Civil War, and the leaders like him whose
mortal remains are to be put to-day in their final
resting place, in peculiar honor because you were
soldiers who fought to build ; you were upbuilders ;
you were the men to whose lot it fell to save, to per
petuate, to make stronger the great national fabric,
the foundations of which had been laid by the men

And State Papers 41

who fought under him whose home at Mount Ver-
non stands as an equally prized memorial of the
past with Arlington. It is no chance that has made
Mount Vernon and Arlington, here in the neighbor
hood of Washington, the two great memorials of
the nation's past. One commemorates the founding
and the other the saving of the nation. If it were
not for what Arlington symbolizes, Mount Vernon
would mean little or nothing. If it were not for what
was done by Rosecrans and his fellows, the work
of Washington would have crumbled into bloody
chaos and the deeds of the founders of this Repub
lic be remembered only because they had begun
another of the many failures to make practical the
spirit of liberty in this world. Without the work that
you did the work of the men who fought the Revo
lution to a successful close would have meant noth
ing. To you it was given to do the one great work
which if left undone would have meant that all else
done by our people would have counted for nothing.
And you left us a reunited country, and therefore
the right of brotherhood with and of pride in the
gallantry and self-devotion of those who wore the
gray, who were pitted against you in the great strug
gle. The very fact that we appreciate more and
more as the years go on the all-importance to this
country and to mankind of your victory, makes it
more and more possible for us to recognize in the
heartiest and frankest manner the sincerity, the
self-devotion, the fealty to the right as it was given
to them to see the right, of our fellow Americans

4^ Presidential Addresses

against whom you fought — and now the reunion is
so complete that it is useless to allude to the fact
that it is complete. And you left us another lesson
in brotherhood. To-day you come here, comrades
of the Army of the Cumberland — the man who had
a commission and the man who fought in the ranks
— brothers, because each did what there was in him
to do for the right. Each did what he could and all
alike shared equally in the glory of the deed that
was done. Officer and enlisted man stand at the
bar of history to be judged not by the difference of
rank, but by whether they did their duties in their
respective ranks. And 'oh, of how little count,
looking back, the difference of rank compared with
the doing of the duty ! What was true then is true
now. Doing the duty well is what counts. In
any audience of this kind one sees in the highest
official and social position men who fought as en
listed men in the armies of the Union or in the armies
of the Confederacy. All we ask is, did they do
their duty? If they did, honor to them! Little
we care what particular position they held, save
insofar as the holding of exalted position gave the
men a chance to do great and peculiar service.

I shall not try to eulogize the dead General in the
presence of his comrades, in the presence of his
countrymen who have come to honor the memory
of the man against whom they were pitted in the
past — who come here because they now, like us, are
Americans and nothing else, devoted to the Union
and to one flag. , I shall not try to speak of his ser-

And State Papers 43

vices in the presence of those who fought through
the Civil War, who risked the loss of life, who en
dured the loss of limb, who fought as enlisted men
or came out boys not yet ready to enter college but
able to bear commissions in the army of the United
States, as the result of three or four years of service
with the colors. There are those of each class of
whom I have spoken who have addressed or will
address you to-day. They are entitled to speak
as comrades of the great dead. But the younger
among us are only entitled to pay to the great dead
the homage of those to whom ordered liberty has
been handed down as a heritage because of the blood,
and of the sweat, and of the toil of the men who
fought to a finish the great Civil War. Great were
the lessons you taught us in war. Great have been
the lessons you have taught us in peace since the
war. Sincerely and humbly the men who came after
you hasten to acknowledge the debt that is owing to
you. You were the men of the mighty days who
showed yourselves equal to the days. We have to
day lesser tasks; and shame to us if we flinch from
doing or fail to do well these lesser tasks, when
you carried to triumphant victory a task as difficult
as that which was set you ! Here in the presence
of one of the illustrious dead whose names will re
main forever on the honor roll of the greatest Re
public upon which the sun has ever shone, it be
hooves all of us, young and old, solemnly and rev
erently to pledge ourselves to continue undimtned
the traditions you have left us; to do the work,

44 Presidential Addresses

whatever that work may be, necessary to make good
the work that you did; to acknowledge the inspira
tion of your careers in war and in peace; and to
remind ourselves once for all that lip loyalty is
not the loyalty that counts. The loyalty that counts
is the loyalty which shows itself in deeds rather than
in words; and therefore we pledge ourselves to
make good by our lives what you risked your lives
to gain and keep for the nation as a whole.

AT THE CENTENNIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD
OF HOME MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH, CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK, N. Y.,
ON THE EVENING OF MAY 20, 1902

Mr. Chairman; and you, my friends — for if this
meeting means anything, it means a commemor
ation of the embodied spirit of friendship and
righteousness working through the Church
through generations —

I am glad to have the chance of greeting you to
night. I belong to a closely allied Church — the
Dutch Reformed. I want to tell you a curious inci
dent which was mentioned to me by one of the two
gentlemen who, on your behalf, met me this evening
and brought me up here. Mr. Ogden mentioned
to me that two hundred and sixty or seventy years
ago, the first church of my denomination here in
this city was put up under contract by his ancestors,
who then dwelt in Connecticut. It is, I think,
in a sense symbolical of how much the Church has

And State Papers 45

counted in the life of our people that the descend
ants of those who worshiped in that church and of
those who under contract put it up, should be meet
ing here this evening. I have another bond with
you. There are not very many Dutch Reformed
churches in this city; not quite as many as there
should be; and during a considerable portion of my
life I have had to go to a Presbyterian church,
because there was not a Reformed church to attend.
All of my early years I went to the Madison Square
Presbyterian Church, which then had as its pastor
Dr. Adams. Those of you who remember him will
agree with me that he was one of the very few men
concerning whom it was not inappropriate to use
the adjective by which I shall describe him, for he
was in very truth a saintly man.

It is a pleasure on behalf of the people of the
United States to greet you and bid you welcome on
this hundredth anniversary of the beginning of
organized home missionary work by the Presbyterian
Church. In one sense of course all earnest and
fervent church work is a part of home missionary
work. Every earnest and zealous believer, every
man or woman who is a doer of the word and not a
hearer only, is a lifelong missionary in his or her
field of labor — a missionary by precept, and, by what
counts a thousandfold more than precept, by practice.
Every such believer exerts influence on those within
reach, somewhat by word and infinitely more
through the ceaseless, well-nigh unfelt pressure — all
the stronger where its exercise is unconscious — the

46 Presidential Addresses

pressure of example, broad charity, and neighborly
kindness.

But to-night we celebrate one hundred years of
missionary work done not incidentally, but with
set purpose; a hundred years of effort to spread
abroad the Gospel and lay the moral foundation upon
which all true national greatness must rest. The
century that has closed has seen the conquest of this
continent by our people. To conquer a continent
is rough work. All really great work is rough
in the doing, though it seems smooth enough to
those who look back upon it, or to the contempor
aries who overlook it from afar. We need display
but scant patience with those who, sitting at ease in
their own homes, delight to exercise a querulous and
censorious spirit of judgment upon their brethren
who, whatever their shortcomings, are doing strong
men's work as they bring the light of civilization
into the world's dark places. The criticism of those
who live softly, remote from the strife, is of little
value; but it would be difficult to overestimate the
value of the missionary work of those who go out
to share the hardship, and, while sharing it, not to
talk, but to wage war against the myriad forms of
brutality. It is such missionary work that prevents
the pioneers from sinking perilously near the level
of the savage race against which they war. With
out it the conquest of this continent would have had
little but an animal side. Without it the pioneers'
fierce and rude virtues and sombre faults would
have remained unlit by the flame of pure and loving

And State Papers 47

aspiration. Without it the life of this country
would have been a life of inconceivably hard and
barren materialism. Because of it, because of the
spirit that lay under those missionaries' work, deep
beneath and through the national character runs
that power of firm adherence to a lofty ideal upon
which the safety of the nation will ultimately de
pend.

Honor, thrice honor to those who for three gen
erations, during the period of this people's great ex
pansion, have seen that the force of the living truth
expanded as the nation expanded! They bore the
burden and heat of the day, they toiled obscurely and
died unknown, that we might come into a glorious
heritage. Let us prove the sincerity of our homage
to their faith and their works by the way in which
we manfully carry toward completion the work they
so well began.

Friends, I made up my mind coming up here .that
I would speak to you of something that has taken
place to-day and of something else that has taken
place within the last ten days. First of the action of
this nation which has culminated on this Tuesday,
the twentieth of May, nineteen hundred and two, in
starting a free Republic on its course. That repre
sented four years' work. There were blunders and
shortcomings in the work, of course ; and there were
men of little faith who could only see the blunders
and shortcomings. But it represents work tri
umphantly done. And I think that we as citizens of
this Republic have a right to feel proud that we

48 Presidential Addresses

kept our pledge to the letter, and that we have es
tablished a new international precedent. I do not
remember (and I have thought a good deal about it,
ladies and gentlemen) another case in modern times
where, as a result of such a war, the victorious na
tion has contented itself with setting a new nation
free and fitting it as well as could be done to start
well in the difficult path of self-government. Mere
anarchy and ruin would have fallen upon the island
if we had contented ourselves with simple victory
in the war and then had turned the island loose to
shift for itself. For over three years the harder
work of peace has supplemented the hard work
of war; for over three years our representatives
in the island (representatives largely of the army,
remember — I sometimes hear the army attacked;
gentlemen, I have even heard missionaries attacked.
But it is well for us that when there comes a great
work in peace or in war we have the army as an in
strument for it), our representatives in Cuba have
steadily worked to build up a school system, to see
to sanitation, to preserve order and secure the chance
for the starting of industries; to do everything in
our power so that the new government might begin
with the chances in its favor. And now as a nation
we bid it Godspeed. We intend to see that it has
all the aid we can give it, and I trust and believe
that our people will, through their national legis
lature, see to it very shortly that Cuba has the ad
vantage of entering into peculiarly close relations
with us in our economic system.

And State Papers 49

That is the deed that was consummated to-day;
now for the other.

Ten days or a fortnight ago an appalling calamity
befell another portion of the West Indies; befell
islands not in any way under our flag — islands own
ing allegiance to two European powers. But their
need was great and our people met that need as
speedily as possible. Congress at once appropriated
a large sum of money and through private gifts
great additions were made to that appropriation ; and
I found, as usual, the army and navy the instruments
through which the work could be done. I wanted
to get men whom I could call on instantly to drop
whatever their work was and go down, with the cer
tainty that neither pestilence nor the danger from
volcanoes or anything else would make them
swerve a half inch — men upon whose absolute in
tegrity and capacity I could count, as well as on their
courage. When I wanted these men and wanted
them at once I turned to the army and the navy.
I am sure that we all feel proud that ships bearing
the American flag should have been the first to
carry relief to those who had been stricken down by
so appalling a disaster.

It seems to me that while there is much evil
against which we need to war with all the strength
there is in us, and while there are many tendencies
in the complex forces about us which are fraught
with peril to the future welfare of the Republic and
of mankind, yet it is a fine thing to see at the open
ing of this century such omens of international

50 Presidential Addresses

brotherhood, of a future when the sense of duty to
one's neighbor will extend beyond national lines.
They are good omens for the future, these actions :
that action which' culminated to-day in establishing
the free Republic of Cuba; that action which made
our country the first to reach out a generous and
helping hand to those upon whom calamity had
fallen, without regard to what the flag was to which
they paid allegiance.

AT THE OVERFLOW MEETING OF THE CEN
TENNIAL OF PRESBYTERIAN HOME MIS
SIONS, CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
NEW YORK, N. Y., MAY 20, 1902

Mr. Chairman; Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am glad to have the chance of saying a word to
you this evening, and I know you will pardon me
if it is but a word, for I did not anticipate that there
would be another meeting at which to speak.

Of course, the very first thing that any nation has
to do is to keep in order the affairs- of its own house
hold ; to do that which is best for its own life. And
as has been so well and truthfully said, Dr. Van
Dyke, by you this evening, the vital thing to a nation
is the spiritual, not the material. Napoleon said
that in war the moral was to the material as ten to
one ; and it is just exactly as true in civil and social
life. I do not mean for one moment to undervalue
the material. We must have thrift, business energy,
business enterprise and all that spring from them,

And State Papers 51

as the foundation upon which we are to build the
great national superstructure. But it is a pretty poor
building if you have nothing but the basement. It
is an admirable thing to have material development,
great material riches, if we do not misestimate the
position that that material well-being should occupy
in the nation. It is an admirable thing to have
wealth if we use it aright and understand its relative
value compared to the things of the spirit. Now that
sounds like preaching. But it is only an expression
of a political truism if you look at it in the right way.
We have spread during the last century over this
whole continent. One hundred years ago the home
missionary work was begun. Do you realize that
at that time any one who went west of the Missis
sippi went into a foreign land ? He did ; and as late
as 1846 any one who went, in this latitude, to the
Pacific Coast, went into a foreign land. But as we
expanded nationally, so it was our good fortune that
there should go hand in hand with such expansion
the expansion of the church work, and of all that
goes with church work. I do not think we can real
ize the all-importance of the way in which the vital
need was met by the men who went out as mission
aries, and pastors, and workers in the little raw,
struggling communities whose people were laying
deep the foundations of the great States that to-day
fill the valley of the Mississippi and stud the Pacific
Coast. The men who -went out have by their efforts
given to what would otherwise have been the merely
material development of our people the spiritual

52 Presidential Addresses

lift that was vital to it — the spiritual lift that made
in the end a great nation instead of merely a nation
of well-to-do people. We want well-to-do people,
but if they are only well-to-do people, they have
come far short of what we have a right to demand.
A giant work looms up before the churches in this
country, and it is work which the churches -must do.
Our civilization has progressed in many ways for
the right; in some ways it has gone wrong. The
tremendous sweep of our industrial development
has already brought us face to face on this continent
with many a problem which has puzzled for genera
tions the wisest people of the old world. With that
growth in the complexity of our civilization, of our
industrialism, has grown an increase in the effective
power alike of the forces that tell for good and of
the forces that tell for evil. The forces for evil,
as our great cities grow, become more concentrated,
more menacing to the community, and if the com
munity is to go forward and not back they must be
met and overcome by forces for good that have
grown in corresponding degree. More and more in
the future our churches must realize that we have a
right to expect that they shall take the lead in shap
ing those forces for good.

I am not going to verge on the domain of the
ology, and still less of dogma. I do not think that
at the present time there will be any dissent from
the proposition that after all in this work-a-day
world we must largely judge men by their fruits;
that we can not accept a long succession of thistle

And State Papers 53

crops as indicating fig trees; and that we have a
right to look to the churches for setting the highest
possible standard of conduct and of service, public
and private, for the whole land ; that the church must
make itself felt by finding its expression through
the life work of its members; not merely on Sunday,
but on week days; not merely within these walls,
but at home and in business. We have a right to
expect that you will show your faith by your works ;
that the people who have the inestimable advan
tages of the church-life and the home-life should be
made to remember that as much has been given them,
much will be expected of them; that they must lead
upright lives themselves and be living forces in the
war for decency among their surroundings ; that we
have a right to expect of you and those like you
that you shall not merely speak for righteousness,
but do righteousness in your own homes and in the
world at large.

ON THE OCCASION OF THE UNVEILING OF
THE SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT
AT ARLINGTON, UNDER THE AUSPICES OF
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY OF THE COLONIAL
DAMES OF AMERICA, MAY 21, 1902

Mrs. President, and members of the Society, and
you, my comrades, and, finally, officers and men
of the Regular Army, whom we took as our
models in the war four years ago:
It is a pleasure to be here this afternoon to ac
cept in the name of the nation the monument put

54 Presidential Addresses

up by your society to the memory of those who fell
in the war with Spain; a short war; a war that
called for the exertion of only the merest fraction
of the giant strength of this nation; but a war, the
effects of which will be felt through the centuries
to come, because of the changes it wrought. It is
eminently appropriate that the monument should be
unveiled to-day, the day succeeding that on which
the free republic of Cuba took its place among the
nations of the world as a sequel to what was done
by those men who fell and by their comrades in '98.
And here, where we meet to honor the memory
of those who drew the great prize of death in battle,
a word in reference to the survivors : I think that
one lesson every one who was capable of learning
anything learned from his experience in that war
was the old, old lesson that we need to apply in
peace quite as much — the lesson that the man who
does not care to do any act until the time for heroic
action comes, does not do the heroic act when the
time does come. You all of you remember, com
rades, some man — it is barely possible some of you
remember being the man — who, when you enlisted,
had a theory that there was nothing but splendor
and fighting and bloodshed in the war, and then
had the experience of learning that the first thing
you had to do was to perform commonplace duties,
and perform them well. The work of any man in
the campaign depended upon the resolution and
effective intelligence with which he started about
doing each duty as it arose; not waiting until he

And State Papers 55

could choose the duty that he thought sufficiently
spectacular to do, but doing the duty that came to
hand. That is exactly the lesson that all of us
need to learn in times of peace. It is not merely
a great thing, but an indispensable thing that the
nation's citizens should be ready and willing to die
for it in time of need ; and the presence of no other
quality could atone for the lack of such readiness
to lay down life if the nation calls. But in addition
to dying for the nation you must be willing and
anxious to live for the nation, or the nation will be
badly off. If you want to do your duty only when
the time comes for you to die, the nation will be
deprived of valuable services during your lives.

I never see a gathering of this kind; I never
see a gathering under the auspices of any of the
societies which are organized to commemorate
the valor and patriotism of the founders of this
nation ; I never see a gathering composed of the men
who fought in the great Civil War or in any of
the lesser contests in which this country has been
engaged, without feeling the anxiety to make such
a gathering feel, each in his or her heart, the all-
importance of doing the ordinary, humdrum, com
monplace duties of each day as those duties arise.
A large part of the success on the day of battle is
always due to the aggregate of the individual per
formance of duty during the long months that have
preceded the day of battle. The way in which a
nation arises to a great crisis is largely conditioned
upon the way in which its citizens have habituated
4— VOL. XIII.

56 Presidential Addresses

themselves to act in the ordinary affairs of the na
tional life. You can not expect that much will be
done in the supreme hour of peril by soldiers who
have not fitted themselves to meet the need when
the need comes, and you can not expect the highest
type of citizenship in the periods when it is needed
if that citizenship has not been trained by the faith
ful performance of ordinary duty. What we need
most in this Republic is not special genius, not un
usual brilliancy, but the honest and upright ad
herence on the part of the mass of the citizens and
of their representatives to the fundamental laws of
private and public morality — which are now what
they have been during recorded history. We shall
succeed or fail in making this Republic what it
should be made — I will go a little further than that
— what it shall and must be made, accordingly as we
do or do not seriously and resolutely set ourselves
to do the tasks of citizenship — and good citizenship
consists in doing the many small duties, private and
public, which in the aggregate make it up.

AT ARLINGTON, MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 30, 1902

Mr. Commander; Comrades; and you, the men and
women of the United States ivho owe your being
here to what was done by the men of the great
Civil War:

I greet you, and thank you for the honor done
me in asking me to be present this day. It is a
good custom for our country to have certain

And State Papers 57

solemn holidays in commemoration of our great
est men and of the greatest crises in our his
tory. There should be but few such holidays. To
increase their number is to cheapen them. Wash
ington and Lincoln — the man who did most to
found the Union, and the man who did most to
preserve it — stand head and shoulders above all our
other public men, and have by common consent won
the right to this preeminence. Among the holidays
which commemorate the turning points in American
history, Thanksgiving has a significance peculiarly
its own. On July 4 we celebrate the birth of the
nation; on this day, the 3Oth of May, we call to
mind the deaths of those who died that the nation
might live, who wagered all that life holds dear
for the great prize of death in battle, who poured
out their blood like water in order that the mighty,
national structure raised by the far-seeing genius
of Washington, Franklin, Marshall, Hamilton, and
the other great leaders of the Revolution, great
framers of the Constitution, should not crumble
into meaningless ruins.

You whom I address to-day and your comrades
who wore the blue beside you in the perilous years
during which strong, sad, patient Lincoln bore the
crushing load of national leadership, performed the
one feat the failure to perform which would have
meant destruction to everything which makes the
name America a symbol of hope among the nations
of mankind. You did the greatest and most neces
sary task which has ever fallen to the lot of any

58 Presidential Addresses

men on this Western Hemisphere. Nearly three
centuries have passed since the waters of our coasts
were first furrowed by the keels of those whose
children's children were to inherit this fair land.
Over a century and a half of colonial growth fol
lowed the settlement; and now for over a century
and a quarter we have been a nation.

During our four generations of national life we
have had to do many tasks, and some of them of
far-reaching importance; but the only really vital
task was the one you did, the task of saving the
Union. There were other crises in which to have
gone wrong would have meant disaster; but this
was the one crisis in which to have gone wrong
would have meant not merely disaster but annihila
tion. For failure at any other point atonement
could have been made; but had you failed in the
iron days the loss would have been irreparable, the
defeat irretrievable. Upon your success depended
all the future of the people on this continent, and
much of the future of mankind as a whole.

You left us a reunited country. You left us the
right of brotherhood with the men in gray, who
with such courage, and such devotion for what they
deemed the right, fought against you. But you
left us much more even than your achievement,
for you left us the memory of how it was achieved.
You, who made good by your valor and patriotism
the statesmanship of Lincoln and the soldiership of
Grant, have set as the standards for our efforts in
the future both the way you did your work in war

And State Papers 59

and the way in which, when the war was over, you
turned again to the work of peace. In war and in
peace alike your example will stand as the wisest
of lessons to us and our children and our children's
children.

Just at this moment the Army of the United
States, led by men who served among you in the
great war, is carrying to completion a small but
peculiarly trying and difficult war in which is in
volved not only the honor of the flag but the tri
umph of civilization over forces which stand for
the black chaos of savagery and barbarism. The
task has not been as difficult or as important as
yours, but, oh, my comrades, the men in the uniform
of the United States, who have for the last three
years patiently and uncomplainingly championed
the American cause in the Philippine Islands, are
your younger brothers, your sons. They have
shown themselves not unworthy of you, and they
are entitled to the support of all men who are proud
of what you did.

These younger comrades of yours have fought
under terrible difficulties and have received terrible
provocation from a very cruel and very treacherous
enemy. Under the strain of these provocations I
deeply deplore to say that some among them have
so far forgotten themselves as to counsel and com
mit, in retaliation, acts of cruelty. The fact that for
every guilty act committed by one of our troops a
hundred acts of far greater atrocity have been com
mitted by the hostile natives upon our troops, or

60 Presidential Addresses

upon the peaceable and law-abiding natives who are
friendly to us, can not be held to excuse any wrong
doers on our side. Determined and unswerving ef
fort must be made, and has been and is being made,
to find out every instance of barbarity on the part
of our troops, to punish those guilty of it, and to
take, if possible, even stronger measures than have
already been taken to minimize or prevent the oc
currence of all such acts in the future.

Is it only in the army in the Philippines that
Americans sometimes commit deeds that cause all
other Americans to regret? No! From time to
time there occur in our country, to the deep and
lasting shame of our people, lynchings carried on
under circumstances of inhuman cruelty and bar
barity — cruelty infinitely worse than any that has
ever been committed by our troops in the Philip
pines; worse to the victims, and far more brutaliz
ing to those -guilty of it. The men who fail to con
demn these lynchings, and yet clamor about what
has been done in the Philippines, are indeed guilty
of neglecting the beam in their own eye while taunt
ing their brother about the mote in his. Under
stand me. These lynchings afford us no excuse for
failure to stop cruelty in the Philippines. But keep
in mind that these cruelties in the Philippines have
been wholly exceptional, and have been shamelessly
exaggerated. We deeply and bitterly regret that
they should have been committed, no matter how
rarely, no matter under what provocation, by Amer
ican troops. But they afford far less ground for

And State Papers 61

a general condemnation of our army than these
lynchings afford for the condemnation of the com
munities in which they occur. In each case it is
well to condemn the deed, and it is well also to re
frain from including both guilty and innocent in the
same sweeping condemnation.

In every community there are people who com
mit acts of well-nigh inconceivable horror and base
ness. If we fix our eyes only upon these individuals
and upon their acts, and if we forget the far more
numerous citizens of upright and honest life and
blind ourselves to their countless deeds of wisdom
and justice and philanthropy, it is easy enough to
condemn the community. There is not a city in
this land which we could not thus condemn if we
fixed our eyes solely upon its police record and
refused to look at what it had accomplished for
decency and justice and charity. Yet this is exactly
the attitude which has been taken by too many men
with reference to our army in the Philippines; and
it is an attitude iniquitous in its absurdity and its
injustice.

The rules of warfare which have been promul
gated by the War Department and accepted as the
basis of conduct by our troops in the field are the
rules laid down by Abraham Lincoln when you, my
hearers, were fighting for the Union. These rules
provide, of course, for the just severity necessary
in war. The most destructive of all forms of cruelty
would be to show weakness where sternness is de
manded by iron need. But all cruelty is forbidden,

62 Presidential Addresses

and all harshness beyond what is called for by need.
Our enemies in the Philippines have not merely vio
lated every rule of war, but have made of these vio
lations their only method of carrying on the war.
Think over that ! It is not a rhetorical statement —
it is a bald statement of contemporary history.
They have been able to prolong the war at all only
by recourse to acts each one of which put them
beyond the pale of civilized warfare. We would
have been justified by Abraham Lincoln's rules of
war in infinitely greater severity than has been
shown.

The fact really is that our warfare in the Philip
pines has been carried on with singular humanity.
For every act of cruelty by our men there have been
innumerable acts of forbearance, magnanimity, and
generous kindness. These are the qualities which
have characterized the war as a whole. The cruel
ties on our part have been wholly exceptional.

The guilty are to be punished; but in punishing
them, let those who sit at ease at home, who walk
delicately and live in the soft places of the earth,
remember also to do them common justice. Let
not the effortless and the untempted rail overmuch
at strong men who with blood and sweat face years
of toil and days of agony, and at need lay down
their lives in remote tropic jungles to bring the
light of civilization into the world's dark places.
The warfare that has extended the boundaries of
civilization at the expense of barbarism and savag
ery has been for centuries one of the most potent

And State Papers 63

factors in the progress of humanity. Yet from its
very nature it has always and everywhere been
liable to dark abuses.

It behooves us to keep a vigilant watch to pre
vent these abuses and to punish those who commit
them; but if because of them we flinch from finish
ing the task on which we have entered, we show
ourselves cravens and weaklings, unworthy of the
sires from whose loins we sprang. Oh, my com
rades, how the men of the present tend to forget
not merely what was done but what was spoken in
the past! There were abuses and to spare in the
Civil War; and slander enough, too, by each side
against the other. Your false friends then called
Grant a "butcher" and spoke of you who are listen
ing to me as mercenaries, as "Lincoln's hirelings."
Your open foes — as in the resolution passed by the
Confederate Congress in October, 1862 — accused
you, at great length, and with much particularity,
of "contemptuous disregard of the usages of civ
ilized war;" of subjecting women and children to
"banishment, imprisonment, and death;" of "mur
der," of "rapine," of "outrages on women," of
"lawless cruelty," of "perpetrating atrocities which
would be disgraceful in savages;" and Abraham
Lincoln was singled out for especial attack because
of his "spirit of barbarous ferocity." Verily, these
men who thus foully slandered you have their heirs
to-day in those who traduce our armies in the Phil
ippines, who fix their eyes on individual deeds of
wrong so keenly that at last they become blind to

64 Presidential Addresses

the great work of peace and freedom that has al
ready been accomplished.

Peace and freedom — are there two better objects
for which a soldier can fight? .Well, these are pre
cisely the objects for which our soldiers are fighting
in the Philippines. When there is talk of the cruel
ties committed in the Philippines, remember always
that by far the greater proportion of these cruelties
have been committed by the insurgents against their
own people — as well as against our soldiers — and
that not only the surest but the only effectual way of
stopping them is by the progress of the American
arms. The victories of the American Army have
been the really effective means of putting a stop
to cruelty in the Philippines. Wherever these vic
tories have been complete — and such is now the case
throughout the greater part of the islands — all
cruelties have ceased, and the native is secure in his
life, his liberty, and his pursuit of happiness. Where
the insurrection still smoulders there is always a
chance for cruelty to show itself.

Our soldiers conquer; and what is the object for
which they conquer? To establish a military gov
ernment ? No. The laws we are now endeavoring to
enact for the government of the Philippines are to
increase the power and domain of the civil at the
expense of the military authorities, and to render
even more difficult than in the past the chance of
oppression. The military power is used to secure
peace, in order that it may itself be supplanted by
the civil power. The progress of the American

And State Papers 65

arms means the abolition of cruelty, the bringing of
peace, and the rule of law and order under the civil
government. Other nations have conquered to
create irresponsible military rule. We conquer to
bring just and responsible civil government to the
conquered.

But our armies do more than bring peace, do
more than bring order. They bring freedom. Re
member always that the independence of a tribe or a
community may, and often does, have nothing what
ever to do with the freedom of the individual in
that tribe or community. There are now in Asia
and Africa scores of despotic monarchies, each of
which is independent, and in no one of which is
there the slightest vestige of freedom for the in
dividual man. Scant indeed is the gain to mankind
from the "independence" of a blood-stained tyrant
who rules over abject and brutalized slaves. But
great is the gain to humanity which follows the
steady though slow introduction of the orderly lib
erty, the law-abiding freedom of the individual,
which is the only sure foundation upon which na
tional independence can be built. Wherever in the
Philippines the insurrection has been definitely and
finally put down, there the individual Filipino al
ready enjoys such freedom, such personal liberty
under our rule, as he could never even have dreamed
of under the rule of an "independent" Aguinaldian
oligarchy.

The slowly-learned and difficult art of self-gov
ernment, an art which our people have taught them-

66 Presidential Addresses

selves by the labor of a thousand years, can not be
grasped in a day by a people only just emerging
from conditions of life which our ancestors left
behind them in the dim years before history dawned.
We believe that we can rapidly teach the people of
the Philippine Islands not only how to enjoy but
how to make good use of their freedom; and with
their growing knowledge their growth in self-gov
ernment shall keep steady pace. When they have
thus shown their capacity for real freedom by their
power of self-government, then, and not till then,
will it be possible to decide whether they are to
exist independently of us or be knit to us by ties
of common friendship and interest. When that day
will come it is not in human wisdom now to fore
tell. All that we can say with certainty is that it
would be put back an immeasurable distance if we
should yield to the counsels of unmanly weakness
and turn loose the islands, to see our victorious
foes butcher with revolting cruelty our betrayed
friends, and shed the blood of the most humane, the
most enlightened, the most peaceful, the wisest and
the best of their own number — for these are the
classes who have already learned to welcome our
rule.

Nor, while fully acknowledging our duties to
others, need we wholly forget our duty to ourselves.
The Pacific seaboard is as much to us as the Atlan
tic; as we grow in power and prosperity so our
interests will grow in that furthest west which is
the immemorial east. The shadow of our destiny

And State Papers 67

has already reached to the shores of Asia. The
might of our people already looms large against the
world-horizon; and it will loom ever larger as the
years go by. No statesman has a right to neglect
the interests of our people in the Pacific; interests
which are important to all our people, but of most
importance to those of our people who have built
populous and thriving States to the west of the
great watershed of this continent.

This should no more be a party question than
the war for the Union should have been a party
question. At this moment the man in highest office
in the Philippine Islands is the Vice-Governor, Gen
eral Luke Wright, of Tennessee, who gallantly
wore" the gray in the Civil War and who is now
working hand in hand with the head of our army
in the Philippines, Adna Chaffee, who in the Civil
War gallantly wore the blue. Those two, and the
men under them, from the North and from the
South, in civil life and in military life, as teachers,
as administrators, as, soldiers, are laboring mightily
for us who live at home. Here and there black
sheep are to be found among them ; but taken as a
whole they represent as high a standard of public
service as this country has ever seen. They are
doing a great work for civilization, a great work
for the honor and the interest of this nation, and
above all for the welfare of the inhabitants of the
Philippine Islands. All honor to them ; and shame,
thrice shame, to us if we fail to uphold their hands !

68 Presidential Addresses

AT THE OPENING SESSION OF THE MILITARY
SURGEONS' ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D. C,
JUNE 5, 1902

Mr. President; Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am glad to have the opportunity to bid welcome
to the members of this Association and their friends
to-day. The men of your Association combine two
professions each of which is rightfully held in high
honor by all capable of appreciating the real work
of men — the profession of the soldier and the pro
fession of the doctor. Conditions in modern civil
ization tend more and more to make the average
life of the community one of great ease, compared
to what has been the case in the past. Together
with what advantages have come from this soften
ing of life and rendering it more easy there are cer
tain attendant disadvantages. It is a very necessary
thing that there should be some professions, some
trades, where the same demands are made now as
ever in the past upon the heroic qualities. Those
demands are made alike upon the soldier and upon
the doctor; and more upon those who are both
soldiers and doctors, upon the men who have con
tinually to face all the responsibility, all the risk,
faced by their brothers in the civilian branch of the
profession, and who also, in time of war, must
face much the same risks, often exactly the same
risks, that are faced by their brothers in arms whose
trade is to kill and not to cure ! It has been my good
fortune, gentlemen, to see some of your body at

And State Papers 69

work in the field, to see them carrying the wounded
and the dying from the firing-line, themselves as
much exposed to danger as those they were rescuing,
and to see them working day and night in the field
hospital afterward when even the intensity of the
strain could hardly keep them awake, so fagged out
were they by having each to do the work of ten.

I welcome you here, and I am glad to have the
chance of seeing you, and I wish to say a word of
congratulation to you upon this Association. In
all our modern life we have found it absolutely in
dispensable to supplement the work of the individual
by the work of the individuals gathered into an
association. Without this work of the association
you can not give the highest expression to individ
ual endeavor, and it would be a great misfortune
if the military members of the surgical and medi
cal profession did not take every advantage of
their opportunities in the same way that is taken
by the members of the medical and the surgical
professions who are not in the army or the navy
or the marine hospital service — who are in civilian
life outside. I am glad to see you gathered in this
association. Just one word of warning: Pay all
possible heed to the scientific side of your work;
perfect yourselves as scientific men able to work
with the best and most delicate apparatus; and
never for one moment forget — especially the higher
officers among you — that in time of need you will
have to do your work with the scantiest possible
apparatus! and that then your usefulness will be

yo Presidential Addresses

conditioned not upon the adequacy of the complaint
that you did not have apparatus enough, but upon
what you have done with the insufficient apparatus
you had. Remember that and remember also — and
this especially applies to the higher officers — that
you must supplement in your calling the work of
the surgeon with the work of the administrator.
You must be doctors and military men and able
administrators.

AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNITED STATES
MILITARY ACADEMY, WEST POINT, JUNE
n, 1902

Colonel Mills, graduates of West Point, and you,
the Men and Women who are drawn to them by
ties of kinship, or by the simple fact that you are
Americans, and therefore of necessity drawn to
them :

I am glad to have the chance of saying a word
to you to-day. There is little need for me to say
how well your performance has squared with the
prophetic promise made on your behalf by the great
est of Americans, Washington. This institution has
completed its first hundred years of life. During
that century no other educational institution in the
land has contributed as many names as West Point
to the honor roll of the nation's greatest citizens.

Colonel Mills, I claim to be a historian, and I
speak simply in the spirit of one, simply as a reciter

And State Papers 71

of facts, when I say what I have said. And more
than that; not merely has West Point contributed
a greater number of the men who stand highest on
the nation's honor roll, but I think beyond question
that, taken as a whole, the average graduate of West
Point, during this hundred years, has given a greater
sum of service to the country through his life than
has the average graduate of any other institution
in this broad land. Now, gentlemen, that is not
surprising. It is what we had a right to expect
from this Military University, founded by the na
tion. It is what we had a right to expect, but I
am glad that the expectation has been made good.
And of all the institutions in this country, none is
more absolutely American, none, in the proper sense
of the word, more absolutely democratic than this.
Here we care nothing for the boy's birthplace,
nor his creed, nor his social standing; here we care
nothing save for his worth as he is able to show
it. Here you represent with almost mathematical
exactness all the country geographically. You are
drawn from every walk of life by a method of
choice made to ensure, and which in the great ma
jority of cases does ensure, that heed shall be paid
to nothing save the boy's aptitude for the profession
into which he seeks entrance. Here you come to
gether as representatives of America in a higher and
more peculiar sense than can possibly be true of any
other institution in the land, save your sister college
that makes similar preparation for the service of
the country on the seas.

72 Presidential Addresses

This morning I have shaken hands with many of
you; and I have met the men who stand as repre
sentatives of every great struggle, every great for
ward movement this nation has made for the last
fifty-five or sixty years. There are some still left
who took part in the Mexican War, a struggle which
added to this country a territory vaster than has
changed hands in Europe as the result of all the
wars of the last two centuries. I meet, when I see
any of the older men among you, men who took
part in the great Civil War, when this nation was
tried as in a furnace ; the men who were called upon
to do the one deed which had to be done under
penalty of making the memory of Washington him
self of little account, because if you had failed, then
failure would also have been written across the rec
ord of his work. Finally, I see the younger men
as well as the older ones, the men whom I myself
have seen taking part in a little war — a war that
was the merest skirmish compared with the struggle
in which you fought from '61 to '65, and yet a
war that has had most far-reaching effects, not
merely upon the destiny of this nation, but, there
fore, upon the destiny of the world — the war with
Spain.

It was my good fortune to see in the campaign
in Cuba how the graduates of West Point handled
themselves; to see and to endeavor to profit by
their example. It is a peculiar pleasure to come
here to-day, because I was at that time intimately
associated with many of these, your graduates, who

And State Papers 73

are here. On the day before the San Juan fight,
when we were marched up into position, the officers
with whom I was, lost connection with the baggage
and food, and I, for supper that night, had what
Colonel Mills gave me. And the next morning
Colonel Mills was with another West Pointer, gal
lant Shipp, of North Carolina. The next morning
we breakfasted together. I remember well congrat
ulating myself that my regiment, a raw volunteer
regiment, could have, to set it an example, men like
Mills and Shipp, whose very presence made the men
cool, made them feel collected and at ease. Mills
and Shipp went with our regiment into action.
Shortly after it began Shipp was killed and Colonel
Mills received a wound from which no one of us
at the time dreamed that he would recover. I
had at that time in my regiment, as acting second
lieutenant, a cadet from West Point. He was hav
ing his holiday; he took his holiday coming down
with us, and just before the assault he was shot,
the bullet going, I think, into the stomach, and
coming out the other side. He fell, and as we
came up I leaned over him, and he said, "All right,
Colonel, I am going to get well." I did not think
he was, but I said, "All right, I am sure you will/'
and he did; he is all right now. There was never
a moment during that time, by day or by night,
that I was not an eyewitness to some performance
of duty, som,e bit of duty well done, by a West
Pointer, and I never saw a West Pointer failing
in his duty. I want to be perfectly frank, gentlemen ;

74 Presidential Addresses

I heard of two or three instances; you can not get
in any body of men absolute uniformity of good
conduct; but I am happy to say that I never was
an eyewitness to such misconduct. It was my good
fortune to see what is the rule, what is the rule
with only the rarest exception; the rule of duty
done in a way that makes a man proud to be an
American, the fellow-citizen of such Americans.

Your duty here at West Point has been to fit
men to do well in war. But it is a noteworthy
fact that you also have fitted them to do singularly
well in peace. The highest positions in the land
have been held, not exceptionally, but again and
again by West Pointers. West Pointers have risen
to the first rank in all the occupations of civil life.
Colonel Mills, I make the answer that a man who
answers the question must make when I say that,
while we had a right to expect that West Point
would do well, we could not have expected that
she would do so. well as she has done.

I want to say one word to those who are grad
uating here, and to the undergraduates as well. I
was greatly impressed the other day by an article
of one of your instructors, himself a West Pointer,
in which he dwelt upon the changed conditions of
warfare, and the absolute need that the man who
was to be a good officer should meet those changed
conditions. I think it is going to be a great deal
harder to be a first-class officer in the future than
it has been in the past. In addition to the courage
and steadfastness that have always been the prime

And State Papers

75

requirements in a soldier, you have got to show
far greater fertility of resource and far greater
power of individual initiative than has ever been
necessary before if you are to come up to the highest
level of officer-like performance of duty.

As has been well said, the developments of war
fare during the last few years have shown that in
the future the unit will not be the regiment nor
the company nor troop ; the unit will be the individ
ual man. The army is to a very great extent going
to do well or ill according to the average of that
individual man. If he does not know how to shoot,
how to shift for himself, how both to obey orders
and to accept responsibility when the emergency
comes where he will not have any orders to obey,
if he is not able to do all of that, and if in addition
he has not got the fighting edge, you had better
have him out of the army; he will be a damage
in it.

In a battle hereafter each man is going to be to
a considerable extent alone. The formation will
be so open that the youngest officer will have to
take much of the responsibility that in former wars
fell on his seniors; and many of the enlisted men
will have to do most of their work without super
vision from any officer whatsoever. The man will
have to act largely alone, and if he shows a tendency
to huddle up to somebody else his usefulness will
be pretty near at an end. He must draw on his
own courage and resourcefulness to meet the emer
gencies as they come up. It will be more difficult

76 Presidential Addresses

in the future than ever before to know your pro
fession, and more essential also; and you officers,
and you who are about to become officers, if you are
going to do well, have got to learn how to perform
the duty which, while become more essential, has
become harder to perform.

You want to face the fact and realize more than
ever before that the honor or the shame of the
country may depend upon the high average of char
acter and capacity of the officers and enlisted men,
and that a high average of character and capacity
in the enlisted men can to a large degree be ob
tained only through you, the officers ; that you must
devote your time in peace to bringing up the stan
dard of fighting efficiency of the men under you,
not merely in doing your duty so that you can not
be called to account for failure to perform it, but
doing it in a way that will make any man under
you abler to perform his.

I noticed throughout the time that we were in
Cuba that the orders given and executed were of
the simplest kind, and that there was very little
manoeuvring, practically none of the manoeuvring
of the parade ground. Now, I want you to
weigh what I say, for if you take only half of
it, you will invert it. I found out very soon in
my regiment that the best man was the man who
had been in the Regular Army in actual service,
out in the West, campaigning on the plains; if he
had been a good man in the Regular Army in actual
service on the plains he was the best man that I

And State Papers 77

could get hold of. On the other hand, if he had
merely served in time of peace a couple of years
in an Eastern garrison, where he did practically
nothing outside of parade grounds and barracks,
or if he had been in an ordinary National Guard
regiment, then one of two things was true; if he
understood that he had only learned five per cent
of war, he was five per cent better than any one
who had learned none of it, and that was a big ad
vance; but if he thought he had also learned the
other ninety-five per cent he was worse than any one
else. I recollect perfectly one man who had been a
corporal in the Regular Army; this young fellow
joined us sure that he knew everything, confident
that war consisted in nice parade-ground manoeu
vres. It was almost impossible to turn his attention
from trying the very difficult stask of making my
cowpunchers keep in a straight line, to the easier
task of training them so that they could do the
most efficient fighting when the occasion arose. He
confused the essentials and the non-essentials. The
non-essentials are so pretty and so easy that it is
a great temptation to think that your duty lies in
perfecting yourself and the men under you in them.
You have got to do that, too; but if you only do
that you will not be worth your salt when the day
of trial comes.

Gentlemen, I do not intend to try here to preach
to you upon the performance of your duties. It has
been your special business to learn to do that. I
do ask you to remember the difference there is in

yB Presidential Addresses

the military profession now from what it has been
in past time ; to remember that the final test of sol
diership is not excellence in parade-ground forma
tion, but efficiency in actual service in the field, and
that the usefulness, the real and great usefulness
in the parade-ground and barracks work comes from
its being used not as an end, but as one of the
means to an end. I ask you to remember that. I
do not have to ask you to remember what you
can not forget — the lessons of loyalty, of cour
age, of steadfast adherence to the highest standards
of honor and uprightness which all men draw in
when they breathe the atmosphere of this great in
stitution.

AT THE HARVARD COMMENCEMENT DINNER,
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., JUNE 25, 1902

Mr. President; President Eliot; and you, my Fel
low Harvard Men —

I am speaking for all of you I am sure — I speak
for all Americans to-day, when I say that we watch
with the deepest concern the sick-bed of the Eng
lish king, and that all Americans in tendering their
hearty sympathy to the people of Great Britain re
member keenly the outburst of genuine grief with
which England last fall greeted the calamity that
befell us in the death of President McKinley.

President Eliot spoke of the service due and
performed by the college graduate to the State. It
was my great good fortune five years ago to serve

And State Papers 79

under your President, the then Secretary of the
Navy, ex-Governor Long, and by a strange turn of
the wheel of fate he served in my Cabinet as long
as he would consent to serve, and then I had to
replace him by another Harvard man!

I have been fortunate in being associated with
Senator Hoar, and I should indeed think ill of my
self if I had not learned something from associa
tion with a man who possesses that fine and noble
belief in mankind, the lack of which forbids healthy
effort to do good in a democracy like ours. I
shall not speak of his associate, the junior sena
tor, another Harvard man — Cabot Lodge — because
it would be difficult for me to discuss in public one
who is my closest, stanchest, and most loyal per
sonal friend. I have another fellow Harvard man to
speak of to-day, and it is necessary to paraphrase an
old saying in order to state the bald truth, that it is
indeed a liberal education in high-minded states
manship to sit at the same council table with John
Hay.

In addressing you this afternoon, I want to speak
of three other college graduates, because of the ser
vice they have done the public. If a college educa
tion means anything, it means fitting a man to do
better service than he could do without it ; if it does
not mean that it means nothing, and if a man does
not get that out of it, he gets less than nothing out
of it. No man has a right to arrogate to himself
one particle of superiority or consideration because
he has had a college education, but he is bound, if he
5— VOL. XIII.

8o Presidential Addresses

is in truth a man, to feel that the fact of his having
had a college education imposes upon him a heavier
burden of responsibility, that it makes it doubly in
cumbent upon him to do well and nobly in his life,
private and public. I wish to speak of three men,
who, during the past three or four years have met
these requirements — of a graduate of Hamilton Col
lege, Elihu Root, of a graduate of Yale, Governor
Taft, and of a fellow Harvard man, Leonard Wood
— men who did things; did not merely say how
they ought to be done, but did them themselves;
men who have miet that greatest of our national
needs, the need for service that can not be bought,
the need for service that can only be rendered by
the man willing to forego material advantages be
cause it has to be given at the man's own material
cost.

When in England they get a man to do what
Lord Cromer did in Egypt, when a man returns as
Lord Kitchener will return from South Africa, they
give him a peerage, and he receives large and tangi
ble reward. But our Cromers, our men of that
stamp, come back to this country, and if they are
fortunate, they go back to private life with the
privilege of taking up as best they can the strings
left loose when they severed their old connections;
and if fortune does not favor them they are accused
of maladversion in office — not' an accusation that
hurts them, but an accusation that brands with in
famy every man who makes it, and that reflects but
ill on the country in which it is made.

And State Papers 81

Leonard Wood four years ago went down to
Cuba, has served there ever since, has rendered her
literally invaluable service; a man who through
those four years thought of nothing else, did noth
ing else, save to try to bring up the standard of polit
ical and social life in that island, to clean it physi
cally and morally, to make justice even and fair in
it, to found a school system which should be akin
to our own, to teach the people after four centuries
of misrule that there were such things as govern
mental righteousness and honesty and fair play for
all men on their merits as men. He did all this.
He is a man of slender means. He did this on his
pay as an army officer. As Governor of the island
sixty millions of dollars passed through his hands,
and he came out having been obliged to draw on his
slender capital in order that he might come out
even when he left the island. Credit to him ? Yes,
in a way. In another, no particular credit, because
he was built so that he could do nothing else. He
devoted himself as disinterestedly to the good of the
Cuban people in all their relations as man could.
He has come back here, and has been attacked, for
sooth, by people who are not merely unworthy of
having their names coupled with his but who are
incapable of understanding the motives that have
spurred him on to bring honor to this republic.

And Taft, Judge Taft, Governor Taft, who has
been the head of the Philippine Commission, and
who has gone back there — Taft, the most brilliant
graduate of his year at Yale, the youngest Yale man

82 Presidential Addresses

upon whom Yale ever conferred a degree of LL.D.,
a man who, having won high position at the bar,
and then served as Solicitor-General at Washington,
was appointed to the United States bench. He was
then asked to sacrifice himself, to give up his posi
tion in order to go to the other side of the world
to take up an infinitely difficult, an infinitely danger
ous problem, and do his best to solve it. He has
done his best. He came back here the other day.
The man has always had the honorable ambition to
get upon the Supreme Court, and he knew that I had
always hoped that he would be put on the Supreme
Court, and when he was back here a few months
ago, and there was a question of a vacancy arising,
I said to him: "Governor, I think I ought to tell
you that if a vacancy comes in the Supreme Court"
(which I knew would put him for life in a position
which he would especially like to have), "I do not
see how I could possibly give it to you, for I need
you where you are." He said to me: "Mr. Presi
dent, it has always been my ambition to be on the
Supreme Court, but if you should offer me a justice
ship now, and at the same time Congress should take
away entirely my salary as Governor, I should go
straight back to the Philippines, nevertheless, for
those people need me, and expect me back, and be
lieve I will not desert them." He has gone back,
gone back as a strong friend among weaker friends
to help that people upward along the difficult path
of self-government. He has gone to do his part —
and a great part — in making the American name a

And State Papers 83

symbol of honor and good faith in the Philippine
Islands; to govern with justice, and with that firm
ness, that absence of weakness, which is only another
side of justice. He has gone back to do all of that
because it is his duty as he sees it. We are to be
congratulated, we Americans, that we have a fellow-
American like Taft.

And now Elihu Root, who, unlike myself, Mr.
President Eliot, but like most of you present, comes
of the old New England stock, whose great-grand
father stood beside Leonard Wood's great-grand
father among the "embattled farmers" at Concord
Bridge; Elihu Root, who had worked his way up
from being a poor and unknown country boy in
New York, to the leadership of the bar of the great
city — he gave it up, made the very great pecuniary
sacrifice implied in giving it up, and accepted the
position of Secretary of War, a position which, for
the last three years and at present amounts to being
not only the Secretary of War, but the Secretary
for the islands, the Secretary for the colonies at
the same time. He has done the most exhausting
and the most responsible work of any man in the
administration, more exhausting and more responsi
ble work than the work of the President, because
circumstances have been such that with a man of
Root's wonderful ability, wonderful industry and
wonderful conscientiousness, the President could not
help but devolve upon him work that made his task
one under which almost any other man would have
staggered. He has done all this absolutely, disin-

84 Presidential Addresses

terestedly. Nothing can come to Root in the way
of reward save the reward that is implied in the
knowledge that he has done something of incalcu
lable importance which hardly another man in the
Union — no other man that I know of — could have
done as well as he has done it. He has before him
continually questions of the utmost intricacy to de
cide, questions upon which life and death hang,
questions the decision of which will affect our whole
future world policy, questions which affect the wel
fare of the millions of people with whom we have
been brought into such intimate contact by the
events of the Spanish War, whose welfare must be
a prime consideration from now on with every
American public man worthy to serve his country.
Root has done this work with the certainty of at
tack, with the certainty of misunderstanding, with
the certainty of being hampered by ignorance (and
worse than ignorance). And yet he has created,
not for himself but for the nation also, a wonderful
triumph from all these adverse forces.

Those three men have rendered inestimable ser
vice to the American people. I can do nothing for
them. I can show my appreciation of them in no
way save the wholly insufficient one of standing up
for them, and for their work; and that I will do
as long as I have tongue to speak!

And State Papers 85

AT THE COLISEUM, HARTFORD, CONN.,
AUGUST 22, 1902

Mr. Chairman, and you, my fellow-Americans, men

and women of Hartford:

I thank you, Senator Platt; through you I thank
the State of Connecticut; Mayor Sullivan, through
you I thank the city of Hartford for the greeting
extended to me.

Before beginning the speech that I had intended,
and still intend, to make to you to-night, I wish to
allude to an incident that happened this afternoon.
In being driven around your beautiful city, I was
taken through Pope Park, and stopped at a plat
form where I was presented with a great horseshoe
of flowers, the gift of the workingmen of Hartford
to the President of the United States. In Father
Sullivan's speech he laid primary stress upon the
fact that it was a gift of welcome from the wage-
workers, upon whom ultimately this government
depends. And he coupled the words of giving with
certain sentences in which he expressed his belief
that I would do all that I could to show myself a
good representative of the wage-workers. I should
be utterly unfit for the position that I occupy if I
failed to do all that in me lies to act, as light is
given me to act, so as to represent the best thought
and purpose of the wage-worker of the United
States. At the outset of the twentieth century we
are facing difficult and complex problems — prob
lems social and economic — which will tax the best

86 Presidential Addresses

energies of all of us to solve aright, and which we
can only solve at all if we approach them in a spirit
not merely of common sense, but of generous desire
to act each for all and all for each. While there
are occasions when through legislative or adminis-
tiative action the governmental representatives of the
people can do especial service to one set of our
citizens, yet I think you will agree with me that in
the long run the best way in which to serve any
one set of our citizens is to try to serve all alike
well, to try to act in a spirit of fairness and justice
to all — to give to each man his rights — to safe
guard each man in his rights; and so far as in me
lies, while I hold my present position I will be true
to that conception of my duty.

I want to speak to you to-night, not on our inter
nal problems as a nation, but on some of the external
problems which we have had to face during the
last four years. The internal problems are the most
important. Keeping our own household straight is
our first duty; but we have other duties. Just ex
actly as each man who is worth his salt must first
of all be a good husband, a good father, a good
bread winner, a good man of business, and yet
must in addition to that be a good citizen for the
State at large — so a nation must first take care to
do well its duties within its own borders, but must
not make of that fact an excuse for failing to do
those of its duties the performance of which lies
without its own borders.

The events of the last few years have forced the

And State Papers 87

American Republic to take a larger position in the
world than ever before, and therefore more than
ever to concern itself with questions of policy com
ing without its own borders. As a people we have
new duties and new opportunities both in the tropical
seas and islands south of us and in the furthest
Orient. Much depends upon the way in which we
meet those duties, the way in which we take advan
tage of those opportunities. And remember this,
you never can meet any duty, and after you have
met it say that your action only affected that duty.
If you meet it well you face the next duty a stronger
man, and if you meet it ill you face your next duty
a weaker man.

From the days of Monroe, Clay and the younger
Adams, we as a people have always looked with
peculiar interest upon the West Indies and the
isthmus connecting North and South America,
feeling that whatever happened there was of par
ticular moment to this nation; and there is bet
ter reason for that feeling now than ever before.
The outcome of the Spanish War put us in posses
sion of Porto Rico, and brought us into peculiarly
close touch with Cuba ; while the successful negotia
tion of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, and the legis
lation following it, at last cleared the way for the
construction of the Isthmian Canal. Porto Rico,
it is a pleasure to say, may now serve as an example
of the best methods of administering our insular
possessions. Sometimes we have to learn by ex
perience what to avoid. It is much pleasanter when

88 Presidential Addresses

one can turn to an experience for the purpose of
learning what to follow ; and the last is true of our
experience in Porto Rico. So excellent has been
the administration of the island, so excellent the
effect of the legislation concerning it, that their
very excellence has caused most of us to forget all
about it. There is no opportunity for headlines
about Porto Rico. You don't need to use large let
ters in order to say that Porto Rico continues quiet
and prosperous. There is hardly a ripple of failure
upon the stream of our success there ; and as we don't
have to think of remedies, we follow our usual cus
tom in these matters, and don't think of it at all.
How have we brought that about? First and
foremost, in Porto Rico we have consistently striven
to get the very best men to administer the affairs
of the island. It is desirable throughout our public
service to secure a high standard of efficiency and
integrity. But after all, here at home we ourselves
always have in our own hands the remedy whereby
to supply any deficiency in integrity or capacity
among those that govern us. That is a fact that
seems to have been forgotten, but it is a fact. In
a far-off island things are different. There wrong
doing is more easy and those that suffer from it
are more helpless; while there is less efficient check
in the way of that public opinion to which public
men are sensitive. In consequence, the administra
tion of those islands is beyond all other kinds of
administration under our government the one in
which the highest standard must be demanded. In

And State Papers 89

making appointments to the insular service, the ap
pointing power must feel all the time that he is act
ing for the country as a whole, in the interest of
the good name of our people as a whole, and any
question of mere party expediency must be wholly
sjwept aside, and the matter looked at solely from
the standpoint of the honor of our own nation and
the welfare of the islands. We have gotten along
so well in Porto Rico because we have acted up to
that theory in choosing our men down there — gov
ernor, treasurer, attorney-general, judges, superin
tendent of education — every one. You will find
among those men all the shades of different political
opinion that we have here at home; but you will
find them knit together by the purpose of adminis
tering the affairs of that island on the highest plane
of decency and efficiency.

Besides acting in good faith, we have acted with
good sense, and that is also important. We have
not been frightened or misled into giving to the
people of the island a form of government unsuit
able to them. While providing that the people
should govern themselves as far as possible, we have
not hesitated in their own interests to keep the power
of shaping their destiny.

In Cuba the problem was larger, more compli
cated, more difficult. Here again we kept our
promise absolutely. After having delivered the
island from its oppressors, we refused to turn it
loose offhand, with the certainty that it would sink
back into chaos and savagery. For over three years

90 Presidential Addresses

we administered it on a plane higher than it had
ever reached before during the four hundred years
that had elapsed since the Spaniards first landed
upon its shores. We brought moral and physical
cleanliness into the government. We cleaned the
cities for the first time in their existence. We
stamped out yellow fever — an inestimable boon not
merely to Cuba, but to the people of the Southern
States as well. We established a school system.
We made life and property secure, so that industry
could again begin to thrive. Then when we had
laid deep and broad the foundations upon which
civil liberty and national independence must rest,
we turned the island over to the hands of those
whom its people had chosen as the founders of the
new republic. It is a republic with which our own
great Republic must ever be closely knit by the
ties of common interests and common inspirations.
Cuba must always be peculiarly related to us in in
ternational politics. She must in international af
fairs be to a degree a part of our political system.
In return she must have peculiar relations with us
economically. She must be in a sense part of our
economic system. We expect her to accept a po
litical attitude toward us which we think wisest both
for her and for us. In return we must be prepared
to put her in an economic position as regards our
tariff system which will give her some measure of the
prosperity which we enjoy. We can not, in my judg
ment, avoid taking this attitude if we are to per
severe in the course 'which we have outlined for our-

And State Papers 91

selves as a nation during- the past four years; and
therefore I believe that it is only a matter of time —
and I trust only a matter of a very short time —
before we enter into reciprocal trade relations with
Cuba.

The Isthmian Canal is to be one of the greatest,
probably the greatest, engineering feat of the 2Oth
century ; and I am glad it is to be done by America.
We must take care that it is done under the best con
ditions and by the best Americans. There are certain
preliminary matters to settle. When this has been
done, the first question will come upon choosing the
commission which is to supervise the building of
the canal. And but one thought here is permis
sible — how to get the very best men of the highest
engineering and business and administrative skill,
who will consent to undertake the work. If possi
ble, I wish to see those men represent different sec
tions and different political parties. But those ques
tions are secondary. The primary aim must be to
get men who, though able to control much greater
salaries than the nation is able to pay, nevertheless
possess the patriotism and the healthy ambition
which will make them put their talents at the gov
ernment's service.

So much for what has been done in the Occident.
In the Orient the labor was more difficult.

It is rare indeed that a great work, a work su
premely worth doing, can be done save at the cost
not only of labor and toil, but of much puzzling
worry during the time of the performance. Nor-

92 Presidential Addresses

mally, the nation that achieves greatness, like the
individual who achieves greatness, can do so only at
the cost of anxiety and bewilderment and heart-
wearing effort. Timid people, people scant of faith
and hope, and good people who are not accustomed
to the roughness of the life of effort — are almost
sure to be disheartened and dismayed by the work
and the worry, and overmuch cast down by the
shortcomings, actual or seeming, which in real life
always accompany the first stages even of what
eventually turn out to be the most brilliant victories.
All this is true of what has happened during the
last four years in the Philippine Islands. The Span
ish War itself was an easy task, but it left us certain
other tasks which were much more difficult. One
of these tasks was that of dealing with the Philip
pines. The easy thing to do — the thing which ap
pealed not only to lazy and selfish men, but to very
many good men whose thought did not drive down
to the root of things — was to leave the islands. Had
we done this, a period of wild chaos would have su
pervened, and then some stronger power would have
stepped in and seized the islands and have taken up
the task which we in such a case would have flinched
from performing. A less easy, but infinitely more
absurd course, would have been to leave the islands
ourselves, and at the same time to assert that we
would not permit any one else to interfere with
them. This particular course would have combined
all the possible disadvantages of every other course
which was advocated. It would have placed us in

And State Papers 93

a humiliating position, because when the actual test
came it would have been quite out of the question for
us, after some striking deed of savagery had oc
curred in the islands, to stand by and prevent the re
entry of civilization into them. While the mere
fact of our having threatened thus to guarantee the
local tyrants and wrongdoers against outside inter
ference by ourselves or others, would have put a
premium upon every species of tyranny and anarchy
within the islands.

Finally, there was the course which we adopted
— not an easy course, and one fraught with danger
and difficulty, as is generally the case in this world
when some great feat is to be accomplished as an
incident to working out national destiny. We made
up our minds to stay in the islands — to put down
violence — to establish peace and order — and then
to introduce a just and wise civil rule accompanied
by a measure of self-government which should in
crease as rapidly as the islanders showed themselves
fit for it. It was certainly a formidable task; but
think of the marvelously successful way in which it
has been accomplished! The first and vitally im
portant feat was the establishment of the supremacy
of the American flag; and this had to be done by
the effort of these gallant fellow-Americans of ours
to whom so great a debt is due — the officers and en
listed men of the United States regular and volun
teer forces. In a succession of campaigns, carried
on in unknown tropic jungles against an elusive and
treacherous foe vastly outnumbering them, under

94 Presidential Addresses

the most adverse conditions of climate, weather, and
country, our troops completely broke the power of
the insurgents, smashed their armies, and harried
the broken robber bands into submission. In its
last stages, the war against our rule sank into mere
brigandage; and what our troops had to do was to
hunt down the parties of ladrones. It was not an
easy task which it was humanly possible to accom
plish in a month or a year; and therefore after the
first month and the first year had elapsed, some ex
cellent people said that it couldn't be done; but it
was done. Month by month, year by year, with
unwearied and patient resolution, our army in the
Philippines did the task which it found ready at
hand until the last vestige of organized insurrection
was stamped out. I do not refer to the Moros, with
whom we have exercised the utmost forbearance,
but who may force us to chastise them if they per
sist in attacking our troops. We will do everything
possible to avoid having trouble with them, but if
they insist upon it it will come. Among the Fili
pinos proper, however, peace has come. Doubtless
here and there sporadic outbreaks of brigandage will
occur from time to time, but organized warfare
against the American flag has ceased, and there is
no reason to apprehend its recurrence. Our army
in the islands has been reduced until it is not a
fourth of what it was at the time the outbreak was
at its height.

Step by step as the army conquered, the rule of
the military was supplanted by the rule of the civil

And State Papers 95

authorities — the soldier was succeeded by the civil
ian magistrate. The utmost care has been exer
cised in choosing the best type of Americans for
the high civil positions, and the actual work of ad
ministration has been done, so far as possible, by
native Filipino officials serving under these Ameri
cans. The success of the effort has been wonder
ful. Never has this country had a more upright
or an abler body of public representatives than
Governor Taft, Vice-Governor Wright, and their
associates and subordinates in the Philippine Isl
ands. It is a very difficult matter, practically, to
apply the principles of an orderly free government
to an Oriental people struggling upward out of bar
barism and subjection. It is a task requiring infi
nite firmness, patience, tact, broadmindedness. All
these qualities, and the countless others necessary,
have been found in the civil and military officials
who have been sent over to administer the islands.
It was, of course, inevitable that there should be
occasional failures ; but it is astonishing how few
these have been. Here and there the civil govern
ment which had been established in a given district
had to be temporarily withdrawn because of some
outbreak. Let me give you an idea of some of the
difficulties. We have been trying to put into effect
the principle of a popular choice of representative.
In one district it proved to be wholly impossible to
make the people understand how to vote. Finally
they took a little hill, and put two candidates, one
on one side and one on the other, and made the

96 Presidential Addresses

people walk up and stand by the candidate they
wanted.

But at last, on the July 4th that has just passed —
on the 1 26th anniversary of our independence — it
was possible at the same time to declare amnesty
throughout the islands and definitely to establish
civil rule over all of them, excepting the country of
the Mohammedan Moros, where the conditions were
wholly different. Each inhabitant of the Philip
pines is now guaranteed his civil and religious
rights, his rights to life, personal liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness, subject only to not infringing
the rights of others. It is worth noting that dur
ing these three or four years under us the Philip
pine people have attained to a greater degree of
self-government, that they now have more to say
as to how they shall be governed, than is the case
with any people in the Orient which is under Euro
pean rule. Nor is this all. Congress has, with far-
seeing wisdom, heartily supported all that has been
done by the Executive. Wise laws for the govern
ment of the Philippine Islands have been placed
upon the statute books, and under those laws pro
vision is made for the introduction into the Philip
pines of representative government, with only the
delay absolutely necessary to allow for the estab
lishment of definite peace, for the taking of a census,
and the settling down of the country. In short, we
are governing the Filipinos primarily in their inter
est, and for their very great benefit. And we have
acted in practical' fashion — not trying to lay down

And State Papers 97

rules as to what should be done in the remote and
uncertain future, but turning our attention to the
instant need of things and meeting that need in the
fullest and amplest way. It would be hard to say
whether we owe most to our military or our civil
representatives in the Philippines. The soldiers
have shown splendid gallantry in the field ; and they
have done no less admirable work in preparing the
provinces for civil government. The civil authori
ties have shown the utmost wisdom in doing a very
difficult and important work, of vast extent. It
would be hard to find in modern times a better ex
ample of successful constructive statesmanship than
the American representatives have given to the
Philippine Islands.

In the Philippines, as in Cuba, the instances of
wrongdoing among either our civil or military repre
sentatives have been astonishingly few ; and pun
ishment has been meted with even-handed justice to
all offenders.

Nor should it be forgotten that while we have
thus acted in the interest of the islanders themselves,
we have also helped our own people. Our interests
are as great in the Pacific as in the Atlantic. The
welfare of California, Oregon, and Washington is
as vital to the nation as the welfare of New Eng
land, New York, and the South Atlantic States.
The awakening of the Orient means very much to
all the nations of Christendom, commercially no
less than politically; and it would be short-sighted
statesmanship on our part to refuse to take the nee-

98 Presidential Addresses

essary steps for securing a proper share to our peo
ple of this commercial future. The possession of
the Philippines has helped us, as the securing* of
the open door in China has helped us. Already the
government has taken the necessary steps to provide
for the laying of a Pacific cable under conditions
which safeguard absolutely the interests of the
American public. Our commerce with the East is
growing rapidly. Events have abundantly justi
fied, alike from the moral and material standpoint,
all that we have done in the Far East as a sequel
to our war with Spain.

AT PROVIDENCE, R. L, AUGUST 23, 1902

Mr. Governor, and you, my Fellow-citizens:

We are passing through a period of great com
mercial prosperity, and such a period is as sure as
adversity itself to bring mutterings of discontent.
At a time when most men prosper somewhat some
men always prosper greatly; and it is as true now
as when the tower of Siloam fell upon all alike,
that good fortune does not come solely to the just,
nor bad fortune solely to the unjust. When the
weather is good for crops it is good for weeds.
Moreover, not only do the wicked flourish when the
times are such that most men flourish, but, what
is worse, the spirit of envy and jealousy springs up
in the breasts of those who, though they may be
doing fairly well themselves, see others no more
deserving who do better.

And State Papers 99

Wise laws and fearless and upright administration
of the laws can give the opportunity for such pros
perity as we see about us. But that is all that they
can do. When the conditions have been created
which make prosperity possible, then each individual
man must achieve it for himself by his own energy
and thrift and business intelligence. If when people
wax fat they kick, as they have kicked since the
days of Jeshurun, they will speedily destroy their
own prosperity. If they go into wild speculation
and lose their heads they have lost that which no
laws can supply. If in a spirit of sullen envy they
insist upon pulling down those who have profited
most in the years of fatness, they will bury them
selves in the crash of the common disaster. It is
difficult to make our material condition better by
the best laws, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad
laws.

The upshot of all this is that it is peculiarly in
cumbent upon us in a time of such material well-
being, both collectively as a nation and individually
as citizens, to show, each on his own account, that
we possess the qualities of prudence, self-knowledge,
and self-restraint. In our government we need
above all things stability, fixity of economic policy;
while remembering that this fixity must not be fos-
silization, that there must not be inability to shift
our laws so as to meet our shifting national needs.
There are real and great evils in our social and
economic life, and these evils stand out in all their
ugly baldness in time of prosperity; for the wicked

ioo Presidential Addresses

who prosper are never a pleasant sight. There is
every need of striving in all possible ways, individ
ually and collectively, by combinations among our
selves and through the recognized governmental
agencies, to cut out those evils. All I ask is to be
sure that we do not use the knife with an ignorant
zeal which would make it more dangerous to the
patient than to the disease.

One of the features of the tremendous industrial
development of the last generation has been the
very great increase in private, and especially in cor
porate, fortunes. We may like this or not, just
as we choose, but it is a fact nevertheless; and as
far as we can see it is an inevitable result of the
working of the various causes, prominent among
them steam and electricity. Urban population has
grown in this country, as in all civilized countries,
much faster than the population as a whole during
the last century. If it were not for that Rhode
Island could not to-day be the State she is. Rhode
Island has flourished as she has flourished because
of the conditions which have brought about the
great increase in urban life. There is evil in these
conditions, but you can't destroy jt unless you de
stroy the civilization they have brought about.
Where men are gathered together in great masses
it inevitably results that they must work far more
largely through combinations than where they live
scattered and remote from one another. Many of
us prefer the old conditions of life, under which the
average man lived more to himself and by himself,

And State Papers 101

where the average community was more self-de
pendent, and where even though the standard of
comfort was lower on the average, yet there was
less of the glaring inequality in worldly conditions
which we now see about us in our great cities. It
is not true that the poor have grown poorer; but
some of the rich have grown so very much richer
that, where multitudes of men are herded together
in a limited space, the contrast strikes the onlooker
as more violent than formerly. On the whole, our
people earn more and live better than ever before,
and the progress of which we are so proud could
not have taken place had it not been for the up
building of industrial centres, such as this in which
I am speaking.

But together with the good there has come a
measure of evil. Life is not so simple as it was;
and surely, both for the individual and the commu
nity, the simple life is normally the healthy life.
There is not in the great cities the feeling of brother
hood which there is still in country localities; and
the lines of social cleavage are far more deeply
marked.

For some of the evils which have attended upon
the good of the changed conditions we can at pres
ent see no complete remedy. For others the remedy
must come by the action of men themselves in their
private capacity, whether merely as individuals or
by combination. For yet others some remedy can
be found in legislative and executive action — na
tional, State, or municipal. Much of the complaint

102 Presidential Addresses

against combinations is entirely unwarranted.
Under present-day conditions it is as necessary to
have corporations in the business world as it is to
have organizations, unions, among wage-workers.
We have a right to ask in each case only this :
that good, and not harm, shall follow. Exactly
as labor organizations, when managed intelligently
and in a spirit of justice and fair play, are of very
great service not only to the wage-workers, but to
the whole community, as has been shown again and
again in the history of many such organizations ;
so wealth, not merely individual, but corporate,
when used aright is not merely beneficial to the
community as a whole, but is absolutely essential
to the upbuilding of such a series of communities
as those whose citizens I am now addressing. This
is so obvious that it ought to be too trite to mention,
and yet it is necessary to mention it when we see
some of the attacks made upon wealth, as such.

Of course a great fortune if used wrongly is a
menace to the community. A man of great wealth
who does not use that wealth decently is, in a pecu
liar sense, a menace to the community, and so is
the man who does not use his intellect aright. Each
talent — the talent for making money, the talent for
showing intellect at the bar, or in any other way —
if unaccompanied by character, makes the possessor
a menace to the community. But such a fact no
more warrants us in attacking wealth than it does
in attacking intellect. Every man of power, by the
very fact of that power, is capable of doing damage

And State Papers 103

to his neighbors ; but we can not afford to discourage
the development of such men merely because it is
possible they may use their power for wrong ends.
If we did so we should leave our history a blank,
for we should have no great statesmen, soldiers,
merchants, no great men of arts, of letters, of
science. Doubtless on the average the most useful
citizen to the community as a whole is the man
to whom has been granted what the Psalmist asked
for — neither poverty nor riches. But the great cap
tain of industry, the man of wealth, who, alone or
in combination with his fellows, drives through our
great business enterprises, is a factor without whom
the civilization that we see round about us here
could not have been built up. Good, not harm, nor
mally comes from the upbuilding of such wealth.
Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is
the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves
when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep
into our own natures.

But there is other harm; and it is evident that
we should try to do away with that. The great
corporations which we have grown to speak of
rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State,
and the State not only has the right to control
them, but it is in duty bound to control them wher
ever the need of such control is shown. There is
clearly need of supervision — need to possess the
power of regulation of these great corporations
through the representatives of the public — wherever,
as in our own country at the present time, business

6— VOL. XIII.

104 Presidential Addresses

corporations become so very powerful alike for
beneficent work and for work that is not always
beneficent. It is idle to say that there is no need
for such supervision. There is, and a sufficient
warrant for it is to be found in any one of the
admitted evils appertaining to them,.

We meet a peculiar difficulty under our system
of government, because of the division of govern
mental power between the Nation and the States.
'When the industrial conditions were simple, very
little control was needed, and the difficulties of ex
ercising such control under our Constitution were
not evident. Now the conditions are complicated
and we find it hard to frame national legislation
which shall be adequate ; while as a matter of prac
tical experience it has been shown that the States
either can not or will not exercise a sufficient control
to meet the needs of the case. Some of our States
have excellent laws — laws which it would be well
indeed to have enacted by the National Legislature.
But the widespread differences in these laws, even
between adjacent States, and the uncertainty of the
power of enforcement, result practically in alto
gether insufficient control. I believe that the nation
must assume this power of control by legislation;
if necessary by constitutional amendment. The im
mediate necessity in dealing with trusts is to place
them under the real, not the nominal, control of
some sovereign to which, as its creatures, the trusts
shall owe allegiance, and in whose courts the sov
ereign's orders may be enforced.

And State Papers 105

This is not the case with the ordinary so-called
"trust" to-day; for the trust nowadays is a large
State corporation, which generally does business in
other States, often with a tendency toward monop
oly. Such a trust is an artificial creature not wholly
responsible to or controllable by any legislation,
either by State or nation, and not subject to the jur
isdiction of any one court. Some governmental sov
ereign must be given full power over these artificial,
and very powerful, corporate beings. In my judg
ment this sovereign must be the national govern
ment. When it has been given full power, then this
full power can be used to control any evil influence,
exactly as the government is now using the power
conferred upon it by the Sherman anti-trust law.

Even when the power has been granted it would
be most unwise to exercise it too much, to begin by
too stringent legislation. The mechanism of modern
business is as delicate and complicated as it is vast,
and nothing would be more productive of evil to all
of us, and especially to those least well off in this
world's goods, than ignorant meddling with this
mechanism — above all, meddling in a spirit of class
legislation or hatred or rancor. It is eminently nec
essary that the power should be had, but it is just as
necessary that it should be exercised with wisdom and
self-restraint. The first exercise of that power should
be the securing of publicity among all great corpora
tions doing an interstate business. The publicity,
though non-inquisitorial, should be real and thor
ough as to all important facts with which the pub-

io6 Presidential Addresses

lie has concern. Daylight is a powerful discourager
of evil. Such publicity would by itself tend to cure
the evils of which there is just complaint; it would
show us if evils existed, and where the evils are
imaginary, and it would show us what next ought
to be done.

Above all, let us remember that our success in
accomplishing anything depends very much upon our
not trying to accomplish everything. Distrust who
ever pretends to offer you a patent cure-all for every
ill of the body politic, just as you would a man who
offers a medicine which would cure every evil of
your individual body. A medicine that is, recom
mended to cure both asthma and a broken leg is not
good for either. Mankind has moved slowly up
ward through the ages, sometimes a little faster,
sometimes a little slower, but rarely indeed by leaps
and bounds. At times a great crisis comes in which
a great people, perchance led by a great man, can
at white heat strike some mighty blow for the right
— make a long stride in advance along the path of
justice and of orderly liberty. But normally we
must be content if each of us can do something —
not all that we wish, but something — for the ad
vancement of those principles of righteousness which
underlie all real national greatness, all true civiliza
tion and freedom. I see no promise of any imme
diate and complete solution of all the problems we
group together when we speak of the trust question.
But we can make a beginning in solving these prob
lems, and a good beginning, if only we approach the

And State Papers 107

subject with a sufficiency of resolution, of honesty,
and of that hard common-sense which is one of the
most valuable, and not always one of the most com
mon, assets in any nation's greatness. The existing
laws will be fully enforced as they stand on the
statute books without regard to persons, and I think
good has already come from their enforcement. I
think, furthermore, that additional legislation should
be had and can be had, which will enable us to ac
complish much more along the same lines. No man
can promise a perfect solution, at least in the imme
diate future. But something has already been done,
and much more can be done if our people temper
ately and determinedly will that it shall be done.

In conclusion let me add one word. While we
are not to be excused if we fail to do whatever is
possible through the agency of government, we must
keep ever in mind that no action of the govern
ment, no action by combination among ourselves, can
take the place of the individual qualities to which
in the long run every man must owe the success he
can make of life. There never has been devised,
and there never will be devised, any law which will
enable a man to succeed save by the exercise of
those qualities which have always been the prerequi
sites of success — the qualities of hard work, of keen
intelligence, of unflinching will. Such action can
supplement those qualities but it can not take their
place. No action by the State can do more than
supplement the initiative of the individual; and or
dinarily the action of the State can do no more than

io8 Presidential Addresses

to secure to each individual the chance to show un
der as favorable conditions as possible the stuff that
there is in him.

AT SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON, AUGUST 25, 1902

Governor Crane, Mayor Collins, men and women of
Boston:

I want to take up this evening the general ques
tion of our economic and social relations, with
specific reference to that problem with which I think
our people are now greatly concerning themselves
— the problem of our complex social condition as in
tensified by the existence of the great corporations
which we rather loosely designate as trusts. I have
not come here to say that I have discovered a patent
cure-all for any evils. When people's minds are
greatly agitated on any subject, and especially when
they feel deeply but rather vaguely that conditions
are not right, it is far pleasanter in addressing
them to be indifferent as to what you promise; but
it is much less pleasant afterward when you come
to try to carry out what has been promised. Of
course the worth of a promise consists purely in
the way in which the performance squares with it.
That has two sides. In the first place, if a man
is an honest man he will try just as hard to keep a
promise made on the stump as one made off the
stump. In the second place, if the people keep
their heads they won't wish promises to be made
which are impossible of performance. You see,

And State Papers 109

one side of that question represents my duty, and
the other side yours.

Mankind goes ahead but slowly, and it goes ahead
mainly through each of us trying to do the best that
is in him and to do it in the sanest way. We have
founded our Republic upon the theory that the aver
age man will as a rule do the right thing, that in the
long run the majority will decide for what is sane
and wholesome. If our fathers were mistaken in
that theory, if ever the times become such — not oc
casionally but persistently — that the mass of the
people do what is unwholesome, what is wrong, then
the Republic can not stand, I care not how good its
laws, I care not what marvelous mechanism its Con
stitution may embody. Back of the laws, back of the
administration, back of the system of government
lies the man, lies the average manhood of our peo
ple, and in the long run we are going to go up or go
down accordingly as the average standard of our
citizenship does or does not wax in growth and
grace.

The first requisite of good citizenship is that the
man shall do the homely, every-day, humdrum duties
well. A man is not a good citizen, I do not care
how lofty his thoughts are about citizenship in the
abstract, if in the concrete his actions do not bear
them out ; and it does not make much difference how
high his aspirations for mankind at large may be,
if he does not behave well in his own family those
aspirations do not bear visible fruit. He must be
a good breadwinner, he must take care of his wife

no Presidential Addresses

and his children, he must be a neighbor whom his
neighbors can trust, he must act squarely in his
business relations, — he must do all those every-day
ordinary duties first, or he is not a good citizen. But
he must do more. In this country of ours the aver
age citizen must devote a good deal of thought and
time to the affairs of the State as a whole or those
affairs will go backward; and he must devote that
thought and that time steadily and intelligently. If
there is any one quality that is not admirable,
whether in a nation or in an individual, it is hysterics,
either in religion or in anything else. The man or
woman who makes up for ten days' indifference to
duty by an eleventh-day morbid repentance about
that duty is of scant use in the world. Now in the
same way it is of no possible use to decline to go
through all the ordinary duties of citizenship for a
long space of time and then suddenly to get up
and feel very angry about something or somebody,
not clearly defined, and demand reform, as if it
were a concrete substance to be handed out forth
with.

This is preliminary to what I want to say to you
about the whole question of great corporations as
affecting the public. There are very many and very
difficult problems with which we are faced as' the
results of the forces which have been in play for
more than the lifetime of a generation. It is worse
than useless for any of us to rail at or regret the
great growth of our industrial civilization during the
last half century. Speaking academically, we can,

And State Papers in

according to our several temperaments, regret that
the old days with the old life have vanished, or not,
just as we choose; but we are here to-night only be
cause of the play of those great forces. There is but
little use in regretting that things have been shaping
themselves differently from what we might have
preferred. The practical thing to do is to face the
conditions as they are and see if we can not get the
best there is in them out of them. Now we shall not
get a complete or perfect solution for all of the evils
attendant upon the development of the trusts by any
single action on our part. A good many actions in
a good many different ways will be required before
we get many of those evils even partially remedied.
We must first of all think clearly ; we must probably
experiment somewhat; we must above all show by
our actions that our interest is permanent and not
spasmodic ; and we must see that all proper steps are
taken toward the solution. Now of course all this
is perfectly trite. Every one who thinks knows that
the only way in which any problem of great impor
tance was ever successfully solved was by consistent
and persistent effort toward a given end — effort that
did not cease with any one election or with any one
year, but was continued steadily, temperately, but
resolutely, toward a given end. It is a little diffi
cult to set clearly before us all of the evils attendant
upon the working of some of our great corporations,
but I think that those gentlemen, and especially those
gentlemen of large means, who deny that the evils
exist are acting with great folly. So far from being

ii2 Presidential Addresses

against property when I ask that the question of
the trusts be taken up, I am acting in the most con
servative sense in property's interest. When a great
corporation is sued for violating the anti-trust law,
it is not a move against property, it is a move in
favor of property, because when we make it evident
that all men, great and small alike, have to obey the
law, we put the safeguard of the law around all
men. When we make it evident that no man shall
be excused for violating the law, we make it evident
that every man will be protected from violations of
the law.

Now one of the great troubles — I am inclined to
think much the greatest trouble — in any immediate
handling of the question of the trusts comes from
our system of government. Under this system it
is difficult to say where the power is lodged to deal
with these evils. Remember that I am not saying
that even if we had all the power we could com
pletely solve the trust question. If what we read in
the papers is true, international trusts are now be
ing planned. It is going to be very difficult for any
set of laws on our part to deal completely with a
problem which becomes international in its bear
ings. But a great deal can be done in various ways
even now — a great deal is being done — and a great
deal more can be done, if we see that the power is
lodged somewhere to do it. On the whole, our sys
tem of government has worked marvelously well —
the system of divided functions of government, of
a scheme under which Maine, Louisiana, Oregon,

And State Papers 113

Idaho, New York, Illinois, South Carolina, can all
come together for certain purposes, and yet each
be allowed to work out its salvation as it desires
along certain other lines. On the whole, this has
worked well ; but in some respects it has worked ill.
While I most firmly believe in fixity of policy, I do
not believe that that policy should be fossilized, and
when conditions change we must change our gov
ernmental methods to meet them. I believe with
all my heart in the New England town meeting,
but you can't work the New England town meeting
in Boston — it is too big. You must devise some
thing else. If you look back in the history of Bos
ton you will find that Boston was very reluctant to
admit this particular truth for some time in the first
decades of the nineteenth century. When this gov
ernment was founded there were no great individ
ual or corporate fortunes, and commerce and in
dustry were being carried on very much as they had
been carried on in the days when Nineveh and Baby
lon stood in the Mesopotamian Valley. Sails, oars,
wheels — these were the instruments of commerce.
The pack train, the wagon train, the rowboat, the
sailing craft — these were the methods of commerce.
Everything has been revolutionized in the business
world since then, and the progress of civilization
from being a dribble has become a torrent. There
was no particular need at that time of bothering
as to whether the nation or the State had control of
corporations. They were easy to control. Now, how
ever, the exact reverse is the case. And remember

ii4 Presidential Addresses

when I say corporations I do not mean merely trusts
technically so-called, merely combinations of corpo
rations, or corporations under certain peculiar con
ditions. For instance, some time ago the Attorney-
General took action against a certain trust. There
was considerable discussion as to whether the trust
aimed at would not seek to get out from under the
law by becoming a single corporation. Now, I want
laws that will enable us to deal with any evil no
matter what shape it takes. I want to see the gov
ernment able to get at it definitely, so that the action
of the government can not be evaded by any turn
ing within or without Federal or State statutes.
At present we have really no efficient control over a
big corporation which does business in more than
one State. Frequently the corporation has nothing
whatever to do with the State in which it is incor
porated except to get incorporated; and all its busi
ness may be done in entirely different communities
— communities which may object very much to the
methods of incorporation in the State named. I
do not believe that you can get any action by any
State, I do not believe it practicable to get action
by all the States that will give us satisfactory con
trol of the trusts, of big corporations ; and the result
is at present that we have a great, powerful, artifi
cial creation which has no creator to which it is re
sponsible. The creator creates it and then it goes
and operates somewhere else; and there is no inter
est on the part of the creator to deal with it. It
does not do anything where the creator has power;

And State Papers 1 1 5

it operates entirely outside of the creator's juris
diction.

It is of course a mere truism to say that the cor
poration is the creature of the State, that the State
is sovereign. There should be a real and not a
nominal sovereign, some one sovereign to which the
corporation shall be really and not nominally re
sponsible. At present if we pass laws nobody can
tell whether they will amount to anything. That
has two bad effects. In the first place, the corpora
tion becomes indifferent to the law-making body;
and in the next place, the law-making body gets
into that most pernicious custom of passing a law
not with reference to what will be done under it,
but with reference to its effects upon the opinions
of the voters. That is a bad thing. When any
body of law-makers passes a law, not simply with
reference to whether that law will do good or ill,
but with the knowledge that not much will come of
it, and yet that perhaps the people as a whole will
like to see it on the statute books — it does not speak
well for the law-makers, and it does not speak well
for the people, either. What I hope to see is power
given to the National Legislature which shall make
the control real. It would be an excellent thing if
you could have all the States act on somewhat sim
ilar lines so that you would make it unnecessary
for the national government to act; but all of you
know perfectly well that the States will not act on
similar lines. No advance whatever has been made
in the direction of intelligent dealing by the States

n6 Presidential Addresses

as a collective body with these great corporations.
Here in Massachusetts you have what I regard as,
on the whole, excellent corporation laws. Most of
our difficulties would be in a fair way of solution
if we had the power to put upon the national statute
books, and did put upon them, laws for the nation
much like those you have here on the subject of
corporations in Massachusetts. So you can see,
gentlemen, I am not advocating anything very revo
lutionary. I am advocating action to prevent any
thing revolutionary. Now, if we can get adequate
control by the nation of these great corporations,
then we can pass legislation which will give us the
power of regulation and supervision over them.
If the nation had that power, mind you, I should
advocate as strenuously as I know how that the
power should be exercised with extreme caution
and self-restraint. No good will come from plung
ing in. without having looked carefully ahead. The
first thing we want is publicity; and I do not mean
publicity as a favor by some corporations — I mean
it as a right from all corporations affected by the
law. I want publicity as to the essential facts in
which the public has an interest. I want the knowl
edge given to the accredited representatives of the
people of facts upon which those representatives can
if they see fit base their actions later. The publicity
itself would cure many evils. The light of day is
a great deterrer of wrongdoing. The mere fact of
being able to put 9Ut nakedly, and with the certainty
that the statements were true, a given condition of

And Sjate Papers 117

things that was wrong, would go a long distance
toward curing that wrong; and, even where it did
not cure it, would make the path evident by which
to cure it. We would not be leaping in the dark;
we would not be striving blindly to see what was
good and what bad. We would know what the
facts were and be able to shape our course accord
ingly.

A good deal can be done now, a good deal is be
ing done now. As far as the anti-trust laws go
they will be enforced. No suit will be undertaken
for the sake of seeming to undertake it. Every
suit that is undertaken will be begun because the
great lawyer and upright man whom we are for
tunate enough to have as Attorney-General, Mr.
Knox, believes that there is a violation of the law
which we can get at; and when the suit is under
taken it will not be compromised except upon the
basis that the government wins. Of course, gen
tleman, no laws amount to anything unless they are
administered honestly and fearlessly. We must
have such administration or the law will amount to
nothing. I believe that it is possible to frame na
tional legislation which shall give us far more power
than we now have, at any rate over corporations
doing an interstate business. I can not guaran
tee that, because in the past it has more than once
happened that we have put laws on the statute books
which those who made them intended to mean one
thing, and when they came up for decision by the
courts, it was found that the intention had not been

n8 Presidential Addresses

successfully put into effect. But I believe that ad
ditional legislation can be had. If my belief is
wrong, if it proves evident that we can not, under
the Constitution as it is, give the national adminis
tration sufficient power to deal with these great
corporations, then no matter what our reverence
for the past, our duty to the present and the future
will force us to see that some power is conferred
upon the national government. And when that
power has been conferred, then it will rest with the
national government to exercise it.

AT HAVERHILL, MASS., AUGUST 26, 1902

My Fellow-Citizens:

Naturally at the home of Secretary Moody I
should like to say a word or two about the navy.
I think that whenever we touch on the navy we
are sure of a hearty response from any American au
dience; we are just as sure of such a response in the
mountains and great plains of the West as upon the
Atlantic or Pacific seaboards. The entire country is
vitally interested in the navy, because an efficient
navy of adequate size is not only the best guarantee
of peace, but is also the surest means for seeing that
if war does come the result shall be honorable to
our good name and favorable to our national in
terests.

Any really great nation must be peculiarly sensi
tive to two things: Stain on the national honor at
home, and disgrace to the national arms abroad.

And State Papers 119

Our honor at home, our honor in domestic and in
ternal affairs, is at all times in our own keeping, and
depends simply upon the possession of an awakened
public conscience. But the only way to make safe
our honor, as affected not by our own deeds but by
the deeds of others, is by readiness in advance. In
three great crises in our history during the nineteenth
century — in the War of 1812, in the Civil War, and
again in the Spanish War — the navy rendered to the
nation services of literally incalculable worth. In
the Civil War we had to meet antagonists even more
unprepared at sea than we were. On both the other
occasions we encountered foreign foes, and the fight
ing was done entirely by ships built long in advance,
and by officers and crews who had been trained dur
ing years of sea service for the supreme day when
their qualities were put to the final test. The ships
which won at Manila and Santiago under the Ad
ministration of President McKinley had been built
years before under Presidents Arthur, Cleveland,
and Harrison. The officers in those ships had been
trained from their earliest youth to their profession,
and the enlisted men, in addition to their natural
aptitude, their intelligence, and their courage, had
been drilled as marksmen with the great guns and
as machinists in the engine rooms, and perfected in
all the details of their work during years of cruising
on the high seas and of incessant target practice. It
was this preparedness which was the true secret of
the enormous difference in efficiency between our
navy and the Spanish navy. There was no lack of

120 Presidential Addresses

courage and self-devotion among the Spaniards, but
on our side, in addition to the courage and devotion,
for the lack of which no training could atone, there
was also that training — the training which comes
only as the result of years of thorough and painstak
ing practice.

Annapolis is, with the sole exception of its sister
academy at West Point, the most typically demo
cratic and American school of learning and prepa
ration that there is in the entire country. Men go
there from every State, from every walk of life, pro
fessing every creed — the chance of entry being open
to all who perfect themselves in the necessary studies
and who possess the necessary moral and physical
qualities. There each man enters on his merits,
stands on his merits, and graduates into a service
where only his merit will enable him to be of value.

The enlisted men are of fine type, as they needs
must be to do their work well, whether in the gun
turret or in the engine room; and out of the fine
material thus provided the finished man-of-war's
man is evolved by years of sea-service.

It is impossible after the outbreak of war to im
provise either the ships or the men of a navy. A
war vessel is a bit of mechanism as delicate and com
plicated as it is formidable. You might just as well
expect to turn an unskilled laborer offhand into a
skilled machinist or into the engineer of a flyer on
one of our big railroad systems as to put men
aboard a battleship with the expectation that they
will do anything but discredit themselves until they

And State Papers 121

have had months and years in which thoroughly to
learn their duties. Our shipbuilders and gunmakers
must keep ever on the alert so that no rivals pass
them by ; and the officers and enlisted men on board
the ships must in their turn, by the exercise of un
flagging and intelligent zeal, keep themselves fit to
get the best use out of the weapons of war intrusted
to their care. The instrument is always important,
but the man who uses it is more important still. We
must constantly endeavor to perfect our navy in all
its duties in time of peace, and above all in manoeu
vring in a seaway and in marksmanship with the
great guns. In battle the only shots that count are
those that hit, and marksmanship is a matter of long
practice and of intelligent reasoning. A navy's effi
ciency in a war depends mainly upon its prepared
ness at the outset of that war. We are not to be ex
cused as a nation if there is not such preparedness of
our navy. This is especially so in view of what we
have done during the last four years. No nation has
a right to undertake a big task unless it is prepared
to do it in masterful and effective style. It would
be an intolerable humiliation for us to embark on
such a course of action as followed from our declara
tion of war with Spain, and not make good our
words by deeds — not be ready to prove our truth
by our endeavor whenever the need calls. The good
work of building up the navy must go on without
ceasing. The modern warship can not with advan
tage be allowed to rust in disuse. It must be used
up in active service even in time of peace. This

122 Presidential Addresses

means that there must be a constant replacement of
the ineffective by the effective. The work of building
up and keeping up our navy is therefore one which
needs our constant and unflagging vigilance. Our
navy is now efficient; but we must be content with
no ordinary degree of efficiency. Every effort must
be made to bring it ever nearer to perfection. In
making such effort the prime factor is to have at
the head of the navy such an official as your fellow-
townsman, Mr. Moody; and the next is to bring
home to our people as a whole the need of thorough
and ample preparation in advance; this preparation
to take the form not only of continually building
ships, but of keeping these ships in commission under
conditions which will develop the highest degree of
efficiency in the officers and enlisted men aboard
them.

AT PORTLAND, MAINE, AUGUST 26, 1902

Mr. Mayor, and you, my fellow-citizens, men and

women of Maine:

I wish to say a word to you in recognition of
great service rendered not only to all our country
but to the entire principle of democratic government
throughout the world, by one of your citizens. The
best institutions are of no good if they won't work.
I do not care how beautiful a theory is, if it won't
fit in with the facts it is of no good. If you built
the handsomest engine that ever had been built and
it did not go, its usefulness would be limited. Well,

And State Papers 123

that was just about the condition that Congress had
reached at the time when Thomas B. Reed was
elected Speaker. We had all the machinery, but it
didn't work, — that was the trouble, — and you had
to find some one powerful man who would disregard
the storm of obloquy sure to be raised by what he
did in order to get it to work. Such a man was
found when Reed was made Speaker. We may differ
among ourselves as to policy. We may differ among
ourselves as to what course government should fol
low; but if we possess any intelligence we must be
a unit that it shall be able to follow some course.
If government can not go on it is not government.
If the legislative body can not enact laws, then there
is no use of misnaming it a legislative body ; and if
the majority is to rule some method by which it can
rule must be provided. Government by the majority
in Congress had practically come to a stop when
Mr. Reed became Speaker. Mr. Reed, at the cost
of infinite labor, at the cost of the fiercest attacks,
succeeded in restoring that old principle; and now
through Congress we can do well or ill, accordingly
as the people demand, but at any rate, we can do
something — and we owe it more than to any other
one man to your fellow-citizen, Mr. Reed. It is a
great thing for any man to be able to feel that in
some one crisis he left his mark deeply scored for
good in the history of his country, and Tom Reed
has the right to that feeling.

124 Presidential Addresses

AT AUGUSTA, MAINE, AUGUST 26, 1902

Governor Burleigh, my fellow-citizens, men and
women of Maine:

It would be difficult for any man speaking to this
audience and from in front of the house in which
Elaine once lived to fail to feel whatever of Ameri
canism there was in him stirred to the depths. For
my good fortune I knew Mr. Elaine quite well when
he was Secretary of State, and I have thought again
and again during the past few years how pleased
he would have been to see so many of the principles
for which he had stood approach fruition.

One secret, perhaps I might say the chief secret,
of Mr. Elaine's extraordinary hold upon the affec
tions of his countrymen was his entirely genuine and
unaffected Americanism. When I speak of Ameri
canism I do not for a minute mean to say, gentle
men, that all the things we do are all right. I think
there are plenty of evils to correct and that often a
man shows himself all the more a good American
because he wants to cut out any evil of the body po
litic which may interfere with our approaching the
ideal of true Americanism. But not only admitting
but also emphasizing this, it yet remains true that
throughout our history no one has been able to ren
der really great service to the country if he did not
believe in the country. Mr. Elaine possessed to an
eminent degree the confident hope in the nation's
future which ma,de him feel that she must ever strive
to fit herself for a great destiny. He felt that this

And State Papers 125

Republic must in every way take the lead in the
Western Hemisphere. He felt that this Republic
must play a great part among the nations of the
earth. The last four years have shown how true
that feeling of his was.

He had always hoped that we would have a pe
culiarly intimate relation with the countries south
of us. He could hardly have anticipated — no one
could have — the Spanish War and its effects. In
consequence of that war America's interest in the
tropic islands to our south and the seas and coasts
surrounding those islands is far greater than ever be
fore. Our interest in the Monroe Doctrine is more
complicated than ever before. The Monroe Doc
trine is simply a statement of our very firm belief
that on this continent the nations now existing here
must be left to work out their own destinies among
themselves and that the continent is not longer to be
regarded as colonizing ground for any European
power. The one power on the continent that can
make that doctrine effective is, of course, ourselves ;
for in the world as it is, gentlemen, the nation which
advances a given doctrine likely to interfere in any
way with other nations must possess power to back
it up if she wishes the doctrine to be respected. We
stand firmly on the Monroe Doctrine.

The events of the last nine months have ren
dered it evident that we shall soon embark on the
work of excavating the Isthmian Canal to connect
the two great oceans — a work destined to be, prob
ably, the greatest engineering feat of the twentieth

126 Presidential Addresses

century, certainly a greater engineering feat than
has ever yet been successfully attempted among the
nations of mankind; and as it is the biggest thing of
its kind to be done I am glad it is the United States
that is to do it. Whenever a nation undertakes to
carry out a great destiny it must make up its mind
that there will be work and worry, labor and risk,
in doing the work. It is with a nation as it is with
an individual ; if you are content to attempt but little
in private life you may be able to escape a good deal
of worry, but you won't achieve very much. The
man who attempts much must make up his mind that
there will now and then come days and nights of
worry; there will come even moments of seeming
defeat. But out of the difficulties we wrest success.
So it is with the nation. It is not the easy task that
is necessarily the best.

AT BANGOR, MAINE, AUGUST 27, 1902

My Fellow-Citizens:

I am glad to greet the farmers of Maine. Dur
ing the century that has closed, the growth of in
dustrialism has necessarily meant that cities and
towns have increased in population more rapidly
than the country districts. And yet, it remains true
now as it always has been, that in the last resort
the country districts are those in which we are surest
to find the old American spirit, the old American
habits of thought and ways of living. Conditions
have changed in the country far less than they have

And State Papers 127

changed in the cities, and in consequence there has
been little breaking away from the methods of life
which have produced the great majority of the lead
ers of the Republic in the past. Almost all of our
great Presidents have been brought up in the coun
try, and most of them worked hard on the farms
in their youth and got their early mental training
in the healthy democracy of farm life.

The forces which made these farm-bred boys
leaders of men when they had come to their full
manhood are still at work in our country districts.
Self-help and individual initiative remain to a pe
culiar degree typical of life in the country, life on a
farm, in the lumbering camp, on a ranch. Neither
the farmers nor their hired hands can work through
combinations as readily as the capitalists or wage-
workers of cities can work.

It must not be understood from this that there
has been no change in farming and farm life. The
contrary is the case. There has been much change,
much ' progress. The granges and similar organ
izations, the farmers' institutes, and all the agencies
which promote intelligent co-operation and give op
portunity for social and intellectual intercourse
among the farmers, have played a large part in
raising the level of life and work in the country dis
tricts. In the domain of government, the Depart
ment of Agriculture since its foundation has ac
complished results as striking as those obtained un
der any other branch of the national administration.
By scientific study of all matters connected with the
7— VOL. XIII.

128 Presidential Addresses

advancement of farm life ; by experimental stations ;
by the use of trained agents, sent to the uttermost
countries of the globe; by the practical application
of anything which in theory has been demonstrated
to be efficient; in these ways, and in many others,
great good has been accomplished in raising the
standard of productiveness in farm work through
out the country. We live in an era when the best
results can only be achieved, if to individual self-
help we add the mutual self-help which comes by
combination, both of citizens in their individual
capacity and of citizens working through the State
as an instrument. The farmers of the country have
grown more and more to realize this, and farming
has tended more and more to take its place as an
applied science — though, as with everything else,
the theory must be tested in practical work, and can
avail only when applied in practical fashion.

But after all this has been said, it remains true
that the countryman — the man on the farm, more
than any other of our citizens to-day, is called upon
continually to exercise the qualities which we like
to think of as typical of the United States through
out its history — the qualities of rugged independ
ence, masterful resolution, and individual energy
and resourcefulness. He works hard (for which
no man is to be pitied), and often he lives hard
(which may not be pleasant) ; but his life is passed
in healthy surroundings, surroundings which tend
to develop a fine type of citizenship. In the coun
try, moreover, the conditions are fortunately such

And State Papers 129

as to allow a closer touch between man and man,
than, too often, we find to be the case in the city.
Men feel more vividly the underlying sense of
brotherhood, of community of interest. I do not
mean by this that there are not plenty of problems
connected with life in our rural districts. There
are many problems; and great wisdom and earnest
disinterestedness in effort are needed for their solu
tion.

After all, we are one people, with the same fun
damental characteristics, whether we live in the city
or in the country, in the East or in the West, in the
North or the South. Each of us, unless he is con
tented to be a cumberer of the earth's surface, must
strive to do his life-work with his whole heart.
Each must remember that, while he will be noxious
to every one unless he first do his duty by himself,
he must also strive ever to do his duty by his fel
low. The problem of how to do these duties is
acute everywhere. It is most acute in great cities,
but it exists in the country, too. A man, to be a
good citizen, must first be a good bread-winner, a
good husband, a good father — I hope the father of
many healthy children ; just as a woman's first duty
Is to be a good housewife and mother. The busi
ness duties, the home duties, the duties to one's
family, come first. The couple who bring up plenty
of healthy children, who leave behind them many
sons and daughters fitted in their turn to be good
citizens, emphatically deserve well of the State.

But duty to one's self and one's family does not

130 Presidential Addresses

exclude duty to one's neighbor. Each of us, rich or
poor, can help his neighbor at times; and to do this
he must be, brought into touch with him, into sym
pathy with him. Any effort is to be welcomed that
brings people closer together, so as to secure a better
understanding among those whose walks of life
are in ordinary circumstances far apart. Probably
the good done is almost equally great on both sides,
no matter which one may seem to be helping the
other. But it must be kept in mind that no good
will be accomplished at all by any philanthropic or
charitable work, unless it is done along certain defi
nite lines. In the first place, if the work is done
in a spirit of condescension, it would be better never
to attempt it. It is almost as irritating to be patron
ized as to be wronged. The only safe way of work
ing is to try to find out some scheme by which it
is possible to make a common effort for the common
good. Each of us needs at times to have a helping
hand stretched out to him or her. Every one of us
slips on some occasion, and shame to his fellow who
then refuses to stretch out the hand that should al
ways be ready to help the man who stumbles. It
is our duty to lift him up ; but it is also our duty to
remember that there is no earthly use in trying to
carry him. If a man will submit to being carried,
that is sufficient to show that he is not worth carry
ing. In the long run, the only kind of help that
really avails is the help which teaches a man to help
himself. Such help every man who has been blessed
in life should try to give to those who are less fortu-

And State Papers 131

nate, and such help can be accepted with entire self-
respect.

The aim to set before ourselves in trying to aid
one another is to give that aid under conditions
which will harm no man's self-respect, and which
will teach the less fortunate how to help themselves
as their stronger brothers do. To give such aid it
is necessary not only to possess the right kind of
heart, but also the right kind of head. Hardness
of heart is a dreadful quality, but it is doubtful
whether, in the long run, it works more damage
than softness of head. At any rate, both are unde
sirable. The prerequisite to doing good work in
the field of philanthropy — in the field of social ef
fort, undertaken with one's fellows for the com
mon good — is that it shall be undertaken in a spirit
of broad sanity no less than of broad and loving
charity.

The other day I picked up a little book called
"The Simple Life," written by an Alsatian, Charles
Wagner, and he preaches such wholesome, sound
doctrine that I wish it could be used as a tract
throughout our country. To him the whole prob
lem of our complex, somewhat feverish modern life
can be solved only by getting men and women to
lead better lives. He sees that the permanence of
liberty and democracy depends upon a majority of
the people being steadfast in morality and in that
good plain sense which, as a national attribute,
comes only as the result of the slow and painful
labor of centuries, and which can be squandered in

132 Presidential Addresses

a generation by the thoughtless and vicious. He
preaches the doctrine of the superiority of the
moral to the material. He does not undervalue the
material, but he insists, as we of this nation should
always insist, upon the infinite superiority of the
moral, and the sordid destruction which comes upon
either the nation or the individual if it or he be
comes absorbed only in the desire to get wealth.
The true line of cleavage lies between good citizen
and bad citizen; and the line of cleavage may, and
often does, run at right angles to that which divides
the rich and the poor. The sinews of virtue lie in
man's capacity to care for what is outside himself.
The man who gives himself up to the service of his
appetites, the man who the more goods he has the
more wants, has surrendered himself to destruc
tion. It makes little difference whether he achieves
his purpose or not. If his point of view is all wrong,
he is a bad citizen whether he be rich or poor. It
is a small matter to the community whether in ar
rogance and insolence he has misused great wealth,
or whether, though poor, he is possessed by the
mean and fierce desire to seize a morsel, the biggest
possible, of that prey which the fortunate of earth
consume. The man who lives simply, and justly,
and honorably, whether rich or poor, is a good citi
zen. Those who dream only of idleness and pleas
ure, who hate others, and fail to recognize the duty
of each man to his brother, these, be they rich or
poor, are the enemies of the State. The misuse of
property is one manifestation of the same evil spirit

And State Papers 133

which, under changed circumstances, denies the right
of property because this right is in the hands of oth
ers. In a purely material civilization the bitterness
of attack on another's possession is only additional
proof of the extraordinary importance attached to
possession itself. When outward well-being, in
stead of being regarded as a valuable foundation on
which happiness may with wisdom be built, is mis
taken for happiness itself, so that material prosper
ity becomes the one standard, then, alike by those
who enjoy such prosperity in slothful or criminal
ease, and by those who in no less evil manner rail
at, envy, and long for it, poverty is held to be shame
ful, and money, whether well or ill gotten, to stand
for merit.

All this does not mean condemnation of prog
ress. It is mere folly to try to dig up the dead
past, and scant is the good that comes from asceti
cism and retirement from the world. But let us
make sure that our progress is in the essentials as
well as in the incidentals. Material prosperity with
out the moral lift toward righteousness means a
diminished capacity for happiness and a debased
character. The worth of a civilization is the worth
of the man at its centre. When this man lacks
moral rectitude, material progress only makes bad
worse, and social problems still darker and more
complex.

134 Presidential Addresses

AT NORTHFIELD, MASS., SEPTEMBER i, 1902

My Fellow-Citizens:

Here near the seat of the summer school for young
men founded by Dwight L. Moody, I naturally speak
on a subject suggested to me by the life of Mr.
Moody and by the aims sought for through the es
tablishment of the summer school.

In such a school — a school which is to equip
young men to do good in the world — to show both
the desire for the rule of righteousness and the prac
tical power to give actual effect to that desire — it
seems to me there are two texts specially worthy of
emphasis : One is, "Be ye doers of the word and not
hearers only"; and the other is, "Not slothful in
business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." A re
public of freemen is pre-eminently a community in
which there is need for the actual exercise and prac
tical application of both the milder and the stronger
virtues. Every good quality — every virtue and every
grace — has its place and is of use in the great scheme
of creation; but it is of course a mere truism to say
that at certain times and in certain places there is
pre-eminent need for a given set of virtues. In our
own country, with its many-sided, hurrying, prac
tical life, the place for cloistered virtue is far smaller
than is the place for that essential manliness which,
without losing its fine and lofty side, can yet hold its
own in the rough struggle with the forces of the
world round about us. It would be a very bad thing
for this country if it happened that the men of right-

And State Papers 135

ecus living tended to lose the robust, virile qualities
of heart, mind and body, and if, on the other hand,
the men best fitted practically to achieve results lost
the guidance of the moral law. No one-sided devel
opment can produce really good citizenship — as good
citizenship is needed in the America of to-day. If
a man has not in him the root of righteousness — if
he does not believe in, and practice, honesty — if he
is not truthful and upright, clean and high-minded,
fair in his dealings both at home and abroad — then
the stronger he is, the abler and more energetic he
is, the more dangerous he is to the body politic.
Wisdom untempered by devotion to an ideal usually
means only that dangerous cunning which is far
more fatal in its ultimate effects to the community
than open violence itself. It is inexcusable in an
honest people to deify mere success without regard
to the qualities by which that success is achieved.
Indeed there is a revolting injustice, intolerable to
just minds, in punishing the weak scoundrel who
fails, and bowing down to and making life easy for
the far more dangerous scoundrel who succeeds. A
wicked man who is wicked on a large scale, whether
in business or in politics, of course does many times
more evil to the community than the man who only
ventures to be wicked furtively and in lesser ways.
If possible, the success of such a man should be pre
vented by law, and in any event he ought to be made
to feel that there is no condonation of his offences
by the public. There is no more unpleasant mani
festation of public feeling than the deification of

136 Presidential Addresses

mere "smartness," as it is termed — of mere success
ful cunning unhampered by scruple or generosity or
right feeling. If a man is not decent, is not square
and honest, then the possession of ability only serves
to render him more dangerous to the community ; as
a wild beast grows more dangerous the stronger
and fiercer he is.

But virtue by itself is not enough, or anything like
enough. Strength must be added to it, and the de
termination to use that strength. The good man who
is ineffective is not able to make his goodness of
much account to the people as a whole. No matter
how much a man hears the word, small is the credit
attached to him if he fails to be a doer also; and in
serving the Lord he must remember that he needs to
avoid sloth in his business as well as to cultivate
fervency of spirit. All around us there are great
evils to combat, and they are not to be combated
with success by men who pride themselves on their
superiority in taste and in virtue, and draw aside
from the world's life. It matters not whether they
thus draw aside because they fear their fellows or
because they despise them. Each feeling — the fear
no less than the contempt — is shameful and un
worthy. A man to be a good American must be
straight, and he must also be strong. He must have
in him the conscience which will teach him to see
the right, and he must also have the vigor, the
courage, and the practical, hard-headed common-
sense which will enable him to make his seeing right
result in some benefit to his fellows.

And State Papers 13?

AT FITCHBURG, MASS., SEPTEMBER 2, 1902

Mr. Mayor, and you, my Fellow-Citisens:

There are two or three things that I should like
to say to this audience, but before beginning what
I have to say on some of the problems of the day,
I wish to thank for their greeting, not only all of you,
my fellow-citizens here, but particularly the men of
the great war, and second only to them my comrades
of a lesser war, where, I hope, we showed that we
were anxious to do our duty, as you had done yours,
only the need did not come to us.

We have great problems before us as a nation. I
will not try to discuss them at length with you to
day, but I can speak a word as to the manner in
which they must be met if they are to be met suc
cessfully. All great works, though they differ in
the method of doing them, must be Solved by sub
stantially the same qualities. You who upheld the
arms of Lincoln, who followed the sword of Grant,
were able to do your duty not because you found
some patent device for doing it, but by going down
to the bedrock principles which had made good sol
diers since the world began.

There was no method possible to devise which
would have spared you from heart-breaking fatigue
on the marches, from hardships at night, from dan
ger in battle. The only way to overcome those dif
ficulties and dangers was by drawing on every ounce
of hardihood, of courage, of loyalty, and of iron
resolution. That is how you had to win out. You

138 Presidential Addresses

had to win as the soldiers of Washington had won
before you, as we of the younger generation must
win if ever the call should be made upon us to
face a serious foe. Arms change, tactics change,
but the spirit that makes the real soldier does not
change. The spirit that makes for victory does
not change.

It is just so in civic life. The problems change,
but fundamentally the qualities needed to face them
in the average citizen are the same. Our new and
highly complex industrial civilization has produced
a new and complicated series of problems. We
need to face those problems and not to run away
from them. We need to exercise all our ingenuity
in trying to devise some effective solution, but the
only way in which that solution can be applied is
the old way of bringing honesty, courage, and com
mon-sense to bear upon it. One feature of honesty
and common-sense combined is never to promise
what you do not think you can perform, and then
never fail to perform what you have promised.
And that applies in public life just as much as in
private life.

If some of those who have seen cause for wonder
in what I have said this summer on the subject of
the great corporations, which are popularly, although
with technical inaccuracy, known as trusts, would
take the trouble to read my messages when I was
Governor, what I said on the stump two years ago,
and what I put into my first message to Congress, I
think they would have been less astonished. I said

And State Papers 139

nothing on the stump that I did not think I could
make good, and I shall not hesitate now to take the
position which I then advocated.

I am even more anxious that you who hear what
I say should think of it than that you should applaud
it. I am not going to try to define with technical
accuracy what ought to be meant when we speak of
a trust. But if by trust we mean merely a big cor
poration, then I ask you to ponder the utter folly
of the man who either in a spirit of rancor or in a
spirit of folly says "destroy the trusts," without giv
ing you an idea of what he means really to do. I
will go with him if he says destroy the evil in the
trusts, gladly. I will try to find out that evil, I
will seek to apply remedies, which I have already
outlined in other speeches; but if his policy, from
whatever motive, whether hatred, fear, panic or
just sheer ignorance, is to destroy the trusts in a
way that will destroy all our property — no. Those
men who advocate wild and foolish remedies which
would be worse than the disease are doing all in
their power to perpetuate the evils against which
they nominally war, because, if we are brought face
to face with the naked issue of either keeping or
totally destroying a prosperity in which the major
ity share, but in which some share improperly, why,
as sensible men, we must decide that it is a great
deal better that some people should prosper too
much than that no one should prosper enough. So
that the man who advocates destroying the trusts
by measures which would paralyze the industries

140 Presidential Addresses

of the country is at least a quack, and at worst an
enemy to the Republic.

In 1893 there was no trouble about anybody mak
ing too much money. The trusts were down, but
the trouble was that we were all of us down. Noth
ing but harm to the whole body politic can come
from ignorant agitation, carried on partially against
real evils, partially against imaginary evils, but in a
spirit which would substitute for the real evils evils
just as real and infinitely greater. Those men, if
they should succeed, could do nothing to bring about
a solution of the great problems with which we are
concerned. If they could destroy certain of the
evils at the cost of overthrowing the well-being of
the entire country, it would mean merely that there
would come a reaction in which they and their reme
dies would be hopelessly discredited.

Now, it does not do anybody any good, and it will
do most of us a great deal of harm, to take steps
which will check any proper growth in a corpora
tion. We wish not to penalize but to reward a great
captain of industry or the men banded together in a
corporation who have the business forethought and
energy necessary to build up a great industrial en
terprise. Keep that in mind. A big corporation may
be doing excellent work for the whole country, and
you want, above all things, when striving to get a
plan which will prevent wrong-doing by a corpora
tion which desires to do wrong, not at the same time
to have a scheme which will interfere with a cor
poration doing well, if that corporation is handling

And State Papers 141

itself honestly and squarely. What I am saying
ought to be treated as simple, elementary truths.
The only reason it is necessary to say them at all is
that apparently some people forget them.

I believe something can be done by national legis
lation. When I state that I ask you to note my
words. I say I believe. It is not in my power to say
I know. When I talk to you of my own executive
duties I can tell you definitely what will and what
will not be done. When I speak of the actions of any
one else I can only say that I believe something more
can be done by national legislation. I believe it will
be done. I think we can get laws which will increase
the power of the Federal Government over corpora
tions; if we can not, then there will have to be an
amendment to the Constitution of the nation con
ferring additional power upon the Federal Govern
ment to deal with corporations. To get that will be
a matter of difficulty, and a matter of time.

Let me interrupt here by way of illustration.
You of the great war recollect that about six weeks
after Sumter had been fired on there began to be
loud clamor in the North among people who were
not at the front that you should go to Richmond;
and there were any number of people who told you
how to go there. Then came Bull Run, and a lot
of those same people who a fortnight before had
been yelling "On to Richmond at once," turned
around and said the war was over. All the hysteric
brotherhood said so. But you didn't think so. The
war was not over. It was not over for three years

142 Presidential Addresses

and nine months, and then it was over the other
way. And you got it over by setting your faces
steadily toward the goal, by not relying upon any
thing impossible, but by each doing everything pos
sible that came in his line to do, by each man doing
his duty. You did not win by any patent device ; you
won by the generalship of Grant and Sherman and
Thomas and Sheridan, and, above all, by the sol
diership of the men who carried the muskets and
the sabres. It did not come as soon as you wanted,
and the men who said it would come at once did not
help you much either.

In dealing with any great problem in civil life, be
it the trusts or anything else, you are going to get
along in just about the same fashion. There is not
any patent remedy for all the ills. All we can
do is to make up our minds definitely that we
intend to find some method by which we shall be
able to tell, in the first place, what are the real
evils and what of the alleged evils are imaginary;
in the next place, what of those real evils it is
possible to cure by legislation; and then to cure
them by legislation and by an honest administration
of the laws after they have been enacted. That state
ment of the problem will never be attractive to the
man who thinks that somehow, by turning your
hand, you are going to get a complete solution at
once.

Grant's plan of fighting it out on that line, if it
took all summer, was not attractive to the men who
wanted it done in a week. But it was the only plan

And State Papers 143

that won. The only way we can ever work out
even an approximately satisfactory solution of these
great industrial problems, of which this so-called
problem of the trusts is but one, is by approaching
them in a spirit which shall combine equally sanity
and self-restraint on the one hand and resolute pur
pose on the other.

It is not given to me or to any one else to promise
a perfect solution. It is not given to me or to any
one else to promise you even an approximately per
fect solution in a short time. But I think that we
can work out a very great improvement over the
present conditions, and the steps taken must, I am
sure, be along these lines — along the lines, in the
first place, of getting power somewhere so that we
shall be able to say, the nation has power, let it
use that power — and not as it is at present, where it
is out of the question to say exactly where the
power is.

We must get power first, then use that power fear
lessly, but with moderation. Let me say that again
— with moderation, with sanity, with self-restraint.
The mechanism of modern business is altogether too
delicate and too complicated for us to sanction for
one moment any intermeddling with it in a spirit
of ignorance, above all in a spirit of rancor. Some
thing can be done, something is being done now.
Much more can be done if our people resolutely
but temperately will that it shall be done. But the
certain way of bringing great harm upon ourselves,
without in any way furthering the solution of the

H4 Presidential Addresses

problem, but, on the contrary, deferring indefinitely
its proper solution, would be to act in a spirit of
ignorance, of violence, of rancor, in a spirit which
would make us tear down the temple of industry
in which we live because we are not satisfied with
some of the details of its management.

I want you to think of what I have said, because
it represents all of the sincerity and earnestness that
I have, and I say to you here, from this platform,
nothing that I have not already stated in effect, and
nothing I would not say at a private table with any
of the biggest corporation managers in the land.

AT DALTON, MASS., SEPTEMBER 3, 1902

Governor Crane, and you, m$ Friends and Fellow-
Citizens:

It seems to me that in a town like this we not only
have but ought to have a better standard of citizen
ship and a more thorough appreciation of the rights
and duties of the individual citizen and of the pos
sibilities of government than in almost any other
community. Here is a town where you have both
farming and manufacturing, where you have on a
small scale all the elements that go to make up the
industrial life of the nation as a whole — the capital
ist and wage-earner, the farmer and hired man, mer
chant, men of the professions, you have them all;
you see the forces that have built up the nation and
that are at work in the nation, in play round about
you in the farms, in the factories, in the houses, right

And State Papers H5

among your neighbors and friends. When men live
in a big city they lose touch with one another ; they
tend to lose intimate touch with the government, and
they get to speak of the state, of the government, as
something entirely apart from them. Now the gov
ernment is us, here, you and me, and that ought to
make us understand on the one hand what we have a
right to expect from the government, and on the
other hand what it is foolish to expect from the gov-
Tnment. We have a right to expect from it that
£ will secure us against injustice; that so far as is
humanly possible it will secure for each man a fair
chance; that it will do justice as between man and
man, and that it will not respect persons; that in
that division of the government dealing with justice
each man shall stand absolutely on his merits, not
being discriminated for or against because of his
wealth or his poverty, because of anything but his
own conduct.

The government can take hold of certain func
tions which are in the interest of the people as a
whole. More than this the government can not
do or else does at the risk of doing it badly.
The government can not supply the lack in any
man of the qualities which must determine in the
last resort the man's success or failure. Instead
of "government" say "the town." Now what can
the town do for you ? A good deal ; but not nearly
as much as you can do for it, not nearly as much as
you must do for yourself. The government can not
make a man a success in life. If we would re-

146 Presidential Addresses

member that and remember that when we use the
large terms of the government and nation, we only
mean the town on a large scale, there would be much
less danger in our thinking that perhaps by some
queer patent device or some scheme, the state, the
government, the town, can supply the lack of indi
vidual thrift, energy, enterprise, resolution. It can
not supply such lack. Something can be done by
government, that is, by all of us acting together to
protect the rights of all, to accomplish certain things
for all. Something can be accomplished by helping
one another. He is a poor creature who does not
give help generously when the chance comes. But
finally in the last resort the man who wins now will
be the man of the type who has won always, the
man who can win for himself. Do not make the
mistake of thinking that it is possible ever to call in
any outside force to take the place of the man's own
individual initiative, the man's individual capacity
to do work worth doing.

AT WHEELING, W. VA., SEPTEMBER 6, 1902
My Friends and Fellow-Citizens:

It is a pleasure to come here to your city. I wish
to thank the Mayor, and through the Mayor all of
your citizens, for the way in which, upon your be
half, he has greeted me; and I wish to state that it
is a special pleasure to be introduced by my friend,
Senator Scott. I have known the Senator for some
time, and I like hin^ because when he gives you his
word you don't have to think about it again.

And State Papers 147

I am glad to have the chance of saying a few
words here in this great industrial centre in one of
those regions which have felt to a notable degree
the effects of the period of prosperity through
which we are now passing. Probably never before
in our history has the country been more prosperous
than it is at this moment; and it is a prosperity
which has come alike to the tillers of the soil and
to those connected with our great industrial enter
prises.

Every period has its own troubles and difficulties.
A period of adversity, of course, troubles us all ; but
there are troubles in connection with a period of
prosperity also. When all things flourish it means
that there is a good chance for things that we don't
like to flourish also, just exactly as things that we
do like. A period of great national material well-
being is inevitably one in which men's minds are
turned to the way in which those flourish who are
interested in the management of the gigantic cap
italistic corporations, whose growth has been so
noted a feature of the last half century — the cor
porations which we have grown to speak of rather
loosely as trusts — accepting the word in its usual
and common significance as a big corporation usu
ally doing business in several States at least, besides
the State in which it is incorporated, and often,
though not always, with some element of monopoly
in it.

It seems to me that in dealing with this problem
of the trusts — perhaps it would be more accurate

148 Presidential Addresses

to say the group of problems which come into our
minds when we think of the trusts — we have two
classes of our fellow-citizens whom we have to con
vert or override. One is composed of those men
who refuse to admit that there is any action neces
sary at all. The other is composed of those men
who advocate some action so extreme, so foolish,
that it would either be entirely non-effective, or, if
effective, would be so only by destroying every
thing, good and bad, connected with our industrial
development.

In every governmental process the aim that a peo
ple capable of self-government should steadfastly
keep in mind is to proceed by evolution rather than
revolution. On the other hand, every people fit for
self-government must beware of that fossilization
of mind which refuses to allow of any change as
conditions change. Now, in dealing with the whole
problem of the change in our great industrial civil
ization — in dealing with the tendencies which have
been accentuated in so extraordinary a degree by
steam and electricity, and by the tremendous up
building of industrial centres which steam and elec
tricity have been the main factors in bringing about
— I think we must set before ourselves the desire
not to accept less than the possible, and at the same
time not to bring ourselves to a complete standstill
by attempting the impossible. It is a good deal as
it is in taking care, through the engineers, of the
lower Mississippi River. No one can dam the Mis
sissippi. If the nation started to dam it? the nation

And State Papers H9

would waste its time. It would not hurt the Missis
sippi, but it would not only throw away its own
means, but would incidentally damage the popula
tion along the banks. You can't dam the current.
You can build levees to keep the current within
bounds and to shape its direction. I think that
is exactly what we can do in connection with these
great corporations known as trusts. We can not
reverse the industrial tendency of the age. If you
succeed in doing it, then all cities like Wheeling
will have to go out of business. Remember that.
You can not put a stop to or reverse the industrial
tendencies of the age, but you can control and regu
late them and see that they do no harm.

A flood comes down the Mississippi — you can't
stop it. If you tried to build a dam across it, it
would not hurt the flood, and it would not benefit
you. You can guide it between levees so as to pre
vent its doing injury, and so as to ensure its doing
good. Another thing: you don't build those levees
in a day or in a month. A man who told you that
he had a patent device by which in sixty days he
would solve the whole question of the floods along
the lower Mississippi would not be a wise man ; but
he would be a perfect miracle of wisdom compared
to the man who tells you that by any one patent
remedy he can bring the millennium in our indus
trial and social affairs.

We can do something ; I believe we can do a good
deal, but our accomplishing what I expect to see
accomplished is conditioned upon our setting to

150 Presidential Addresses

work in a spirit as far removed as possible from
hysteria — a spirit of sober, steadfast, kindly — I want
to emphasize that — kindly determination not to sub
mit to wrong ourselves and not to wrong others,
not to interfere with the great business development
of the country, and at the same time so to shape our
legislation and administration as to minimize, if we
can not eradicate, the unpleasant and vicious feat
ures connected with that industrial development.
I have said that there can be no patent remedy.
There is not any one thing which can be done to
remove all of the existing evils. There are a good
many things which, if we do them all, will, I believe,
make a very appreciable betterment in the existing
conditions. To do that is not to make a promise that
will evoke wild enthusiasm, but a promise. that can
be kept; and in the long run it is much more com
fortable only to make promises that can be kept than
to make promises which are sure of an immense re
ception when made, but which entail intolerable hu
miliation when it is attempted to carry them out.

I am sufficiently fortunate to be advocating now,
as President, precisely the remedies that I advocated
two years ago — advocating them not in any partisan
spirit, because, gentlemen, this problem is one which
affects the life of the nation as a whole — but advo
cating them simply as the American citizen who, for
the time being, stands as the Chief Executive and,
therefore, the special representative of his fellow-
American citizens of all parties.

A century and a quarter ago there had been no

And State Papers 151

development of industry such as to make it a matter
of the least importance whether the nation or the
State had charge of the great corporations or su
pervised the great business and industrial organiza
tions. A century and a quarter ago, here at Wheel
ing, commerce was carried on by pack train, by
wagon train, by boat. That was the way it was
carried on throughout the whole civilized world —
oars and sails, wheeled vehicles and beasts of bur
den — those were the means of carrying on com
merce at the end of the eighteenth century, when
this country became a nation.

There had been no radical change, no essen
tial change, in the means of carrying on com
merce from the days when the Phoenician galleys
plowed the waters of the Mediterranean. For
four or five thousand years, perhaps longer, from
the immemorial past when Babylon and Nineveh
stood in Mesopotamia, when Thebes and Mem
phis were mighty in the valley of the Nile — from
that time on through the supremacy of Greece and
of Rome, through the upbuilding of the great
trading cities like Venice and Genoa in Italy; like
the cities of the Rhine and the Netherlands in
Northern Europe — on through the period of the
great expansion of European civilization which
followed the voyages of Columbus and Vasco
da Gama, down to the time when this country
became a nation — the means of commercial inter
course remained substantially unchanged. Those
means, therefore, limited narrowly what could be

8— VOL. XIII.

i52 Presidential Addresses

done by any corporation, the growth that could take
place in any community.

Suddenly, during our own lifetime as a nation —
a lifetime trivial in duration compared to the period
of recorded history — there came a revolution in the
means of intercourse which made a change in com
merce, and in all that springs from commerce, in in
dustrial development, greater than all the changes
of the preceding thousands of years. A greater
change in the means of commerce of mankind has
taken place since Wheeling was founded, since the
first settlers built their log huts in the great forests
on the banks of this river, than in all the previous
period during which man had led an existence that
can be called civilized.

Through the railway, the electric telegraph, and
other developments, steam and electricity worked a
complete revolution. This has meant, of course,
that entirely new problems have sprung up. You
have right in this immediate neighborhood a very
much larger population than any similar region in
all the United States held when the Continental
Congress began its sessions; and the change in in
dustrial conditions has been literally immeasurable.
Those changed conditions need a corresponding
change in the governmental agencies necessary for
their regulation and supervision.

Such agencies were not provided, and could not
have been provided, in default of a knowledge of
prophecy by the men who founded the Republic.
In those days each State could take care perfectly

And State Papers 153

well of any corporations within its limits, and all
it had to do was to try to encourage their upbuild
ing. Now the big corporations, although nominal
ly the creatures of one State, usually do business in
other States, and in a very large number of cases
the wide variety of State laws on the subject of cor
porations has brought about the fact that the cor
poration is made in one State, but does almost all its
work in entirely different States.

It has proved utterly impossible to get anything
like uniformity of legislation among the States.
Some States have passed laws about corporations
which, if they had not been ineffective, would have
totally prevented any important corporate work be
ing done within their limits. Other States have
such lax laws that there is no effective effort made
to control any of the abuses. As a result we have
a system of divided control — where the nation has
something to say, but it is a little difficult to know
exactly how much, and where the different States
have each something to say, but where there is no
supreme power that can speak with authority. It
is, of course, a mere truism to say that every cor
poration, the smallest as well as the largest, is the
creature of the State. Where the corporation is
small there is very little need of exercising much
supervision over it, but the stupendous corporations
of the present day certainly should be under gov
ernmental supervision and regulation. The first
effort to make is to give somebody the power to
exercise that supervision, that regulation. We have

154 Presidential Addresses

*

already laws on the statute books. Those laws will
be enforced, and are being enforced, with all the
power of the National Government, and wholly
without regard to persons. But the power is very
limited. Now I want you to take my words at their
exact value. I think — I can not say I am sure, be
cause it has often happened in the past that Congress
has passed a law with a given purpose in view, and
when that law has been judicially interpreted it has
proved that the purpose was not achieved — but I
think that by legislation additional power in the way
of regulation of at least a number of these great
corporations can be conferred. But, gentlemen, I
firmly believe that in the end power must be given
to the National Government to exercise in full su
pervision and regulation of these great enterprises,
and, if necessary, a Constitutional amendment must
be resorted to for this purpose.

That is not new doctrine for me. That is the
doctrine that I advocated on the stump two years
ago. Some of my ultra-conservative friends have
professed to be greatly shocked at my advocating
it now. I would explain to those gentlemen, once
for all, that they err whenever they think that I ad
vocate on the stump anything that I will not try to
put into effect after election. The objection is made
that working along these lines will take time. So
it will. Let me go back to my illustration of the
Mississippi River. It took time to build the levees,
but we built them. And if we have the proper
intelligence, the proper resolution, and the proper

And State Papers 155

self-restraint, we can work out the solution along
the lines that I have indicated. Thus, the first thing
is to give the National Government the power. All
the power that is given, I can assure you, will be
used in a spirit as free as possible from rancor of
any kind, but with the firmest determination to make
big man and little man alike obey the law.

What we need first is power. Having gotten the
power, remember the work won't be ended — it- will
be only fairly begun. And let me say again and
again and again that you will not get the millen
nium — the millennium is some way off yet. But
you will be in a position to make long strides in ad
vance in the direction of securing a juster, fairer,
wiser management of many of these corporations,
both as regards the general public and as regards
their relationship among themselves and to the in
vesting public. When we have the power I most
earnestly hope, and should most earnestly advocate,
that it be used with the greatest wisdom and self-
restraint.

The first thing to do would be to find out the
facts. For that purpose I am absolutely clear that
we need publicity — that we need it not as a matter
of favor from any one corporation, but as a matter
of right, secured through the agents of the Govern
ment, from all the corporations concerned. The
mere fact of the publicity itself will tend to stop
many of the evils, and it will show that some other
alleged evils are imaginary, and finally in making
evident the remaining evils — those that are not

156 Presidential Addresses

imaginary and that are not cured by the simple light
of day — it will give us an intelligent appreciation
of the methods to take in getting at them. We
should have, under such circumstances, one sover
eign to whom the big corporations should be respon
sible — a sovereign in whose courts a corporation
could be held accountable for any failure to comply
with the laws of the legislature of that sovereign.
I do not think you can accomplish that among the
forty-six sovereigns of the States. I think that it
will have to be through the National Government.

TO THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE
FIREMEN, CHATTANOOGA, TENN., SEP
TEMBER 8, 1902

Mr. Grand Master, Governor McMillan, Mr. May
or, my Brothers, my Fellow-Citizens:
I am glad to be here to-day. I am glad to come
as the guest of the Brotherhood. Let me join with
you, the members of the Brotherhood of this coun
try, in extending a most cordial welcome to our
fellows from Canada and Mexico. The fact that
we are good Americans only makes us all the better
men, all the more desirous of seeing good fortune
to all mankind. I needed no pressing to accept
the invitation tendered through you, Mr. Hanna-
han, and through Mr. Arnold, to come to this meet
ing. I have always admired greatly the railroad men
of the country, and I do not see how any one who
believes in what I regard as the fundamental virtues

And State Papers 157

of citizenship can fail to do so. I want to see the
average American a good man, an honest man, and
a man who can handle himself, and does handle
himself, well under difficulties. The last time I
ever saw General Sherman, I dined at his house, and
we got to talking over the capacity of different types
of soldiers, and the General happened to say that
if ever there were another war, and he were to have
a command, he should endeavor to get as many rail
way men as possible under him. I asked him why,
and he said, "Because on account of their profession
they have developed certain qualities which are es
sential in a soldier." In the first place, they are
accustomed to taking risks. There are a great
many men who are naturally brave, but who, being
entirely unaccustomed to risks, are at first appalled
by them. Railroad men are accustomed to endur
ing hardship; they are accustomed to irregular
hours; they are accustomed to act on their own re
sponsibility, on their own initiative, and yet they are
accustomed to obeying orders quickly. There is not
anything more soul-harrowing for a man in time of
war, or for a man engaged in a difficult job in time
of peace, than to give an order and have the gentle
man addressed say "What?" The railroad man has
to learn that when an order is issued there may be
but a fraction of a second in which to obey it. He
has to learn that orders are to be obeyed, and, on
the other hand, that there will come plenty of crises
in which there will be no orders to be obeyed, and'
he will have to act for himself.

158 Presidential Addresses

Those are all qualities that go to the very essence
of good soldiership, and I am not surprised at what
General Sherman said. In raising my own regi
ment, which was raised mainly in the Southwest,
partly in the Territory in which Mr. Sargent him
self served as a soldier at one time — in Arizona —
I got a number of railroad men. Of course, the first
requisite was that a man should know how to shoot
and how to ride. We were raising the regiment in
a hurry, and we did not have time to teach him
either. He had to know how to handle a horse and
how to handle a rifle, to start with. But given the
possession of those two qualities, I found that there
was no group of our citizens from whom better men
could be drawn to do a soldier's work in a tight
place and at all times than the railroad men.

But, gentlemen, the period of war is but a frac
tional part of the life of our Republic, and I ear
nestly hope and believe that it will be an even smaller
part in the future than it has been in the past. It
was the work that you have done in time of peace
that especially attracted me to you, that made me
anxious to come down here and see you, and that
made me glad to speak to you, not for what I can
tell you, but for the lesson it seems to me can be
gained by all of our people from what you have
done.

At the opening of the twentieth century we face
conditions vastly changed from what they were in
this country and throughout the world a century ago.
Our complex industrial civilization under which

And State Papers 159

progress has been so rapid, and in which the changes
for good have been so great, has also inevitably seen
the growth of certain tendencies that are not for
good, or at least that are not wholly for good; and
we in consequence, as a people, like the rest of civ
ilized mankind, find set before us for solution dur
ing the coming century problems which need the
best thought of all of us, and the most earnest de
sire of all to solve them well if we expect to work
out a solution satisfactory to our people, a solution
for the advantage of the nation. In facing these
problems, it must be a comfort to every well-wisher
of the nation to see what has been done by your
organization. I believe emphatically in organized
labor. I believe in organizations of wage-work
ers. Organization is one of the laws of our social
and economic development at this time. But I feel
that we must always keep before our minds the
fact that there is nothing sacred in the name itself.
To call an organization an organization does not
make it a good one. The worth of an organization
depends upon its being handled with the courage,
the skill, the wisdom, the spirit of fair dealing as
between man and man, and the wise self-restraint
which, I am glad to be able to say, your Brother
hood has shown. You now number close upon
44,000 members. During the two years ending
June 30 last you paid in to the general and bene
ficiary funds close upon a million and a half dol
lars. More than six and one-half millions have been
paid in since the starting of the insurance clause in

160 Presidential Addresses

the constitution — have been paid to disabled mem
bers and their beneficiaries. Over fifty per cent of
the amount paid was paid on account of accidents.
Gentlemen, that is a sufficient commentary upon the
kind of profession which is yours. You face death
and danger in time of peace, as in time of war the
men wearing Uncle Sam's uniform must face them.

Your work is hard. Do you suppose I mention
that because I pity you? No; not a bit. I don't
pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I
admire him. I pity the creature who doesn't work,
at whichever end of the social scale he may regard
himself as being. The law of worthy work well
done is the law of successful American life. I be
lieve in play, too — play, and play hard while you
play; but don't make the mistake of thinking that
that is the main thing. The work is what counts,
and if a man does his work well and it is worth
doing, then it matters but little in which line that
work is done; the man is a good American citizen.
If he does his work in slip-shod fashion, then no
matter what kind of work it is, he is a poor Ameri
can citizen.

I speak to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fire
men, but what I say applies to all railroad men
— not only to the engineers who have served an
apprenticeship as firemen, to the conductors, who,
as a rule, have served an apprenticeship as brakemen,
but to all the men of all the organizations connected
with railroad work. I know you do not grudge my
saying that, through you, I am talking to all the

And State Papers 161

railroad men of the country. You, in your organi
zation as railroad men, have taught two lessons:
the lesson of how much can be accomplished by or
ganization, by mutual self-help of the type that helps
another in the only way by which, in the long run,
— that is, by teaching him to help himself. You
teach the benefits of organization, and you also
teach the indispensable need of keeping absolutely
unimpaired the faculty of individual initiative, the
faculty by which each man brings himself to the
highest point of perfection by exercising the special
qualities with which he is himself endowed. The
Brotherhood has developed to this enormous ex
tent since the days, now many years ago, when the
first little band came together ; and it has developed,
not by crushing out individual initiative, but by
developing it, by combining many individual in
itiatives.

The Brotherhood of Firemen does much for all
firemen, but I firmly believe that the individual fire
man since the growth of the Brotherhood has been
more, not -less, efficient than he was twenty years
ago. Membership in the Brotherhood comes, as
I understand it, after a nine months' probationary
period ; after a man has shown his worth, he is then
admitted and stands on his footing as a brother.
Now, any man who enters with the purpose of let
ting the Brotherhood carry him is not worth much.
The man who counts in the Brotherhood is the
man who pulls his own weight and a little more.
Much can be done by the Brotherhood. I have just

1 62 Presidential Addresses

hinted in the general figures I gave you, at how
much has been done, but it still remains true in the
Brotherhood, and everywhere else throughout Amer
ican life, that in the last resort nothing can supply
the place of the man's own individual qualities. We
need those, no matter how perfect the organization
is outside. There is just as much need of nerve,
hardihood, power to face risks and accept respon
sibilities, in the engineer and the fireman, whether
on a flyer or a freight train, now as there ever was.
Much can be done by the Association. A great deal
can be accomplished by working each for all and
all for each; but we must not forget that the first
requisite in accomplishing that is that each man
should work for others by working for himself, by
developing his own capacity.

The steady way in which a man can rise is illus
trated by a little thing that happened yesterday. I
came down here over the Queen and Crescent Rail
road, and the General Manager, who handled my
train and who handled yours, was Mr. Maguire. I
used to know him in the old days when he was on
his way up, and he began right at the bottom. He
was a fireman at one time. He worked his way
straight up, and now he is General Manager.

I believe so emphatically in your organization be-
cause, while it teaches the need of working in union,
of working in association, of working with deep in
our hearts, not merely on our lips, the sense of
Brotherhood, yet of necessity it still keeps, as your
organization always must keep, to the forefront the

And State Papers 163

worth of the individual qualities of a man. I said
to you that I came here in a sense not to speak to
you, but to use your experience as an object-lesson
for all of us, an object-lesson in good American
citizenship. All professions, of course, do not call
for the exercise to the same degree of the qualities
of which I have spoken. Your profession is one of
those which I am inclined to feel play in modern
life a greater part from the standpoint of character
than we entirely realize. There is in modern life, with
the growth of civilization and luxury, a certain ten
dency to softening of the national fibre. There is
a certain tendency to forget, in consequence of their
disuse, the rugged virtues which lie at the back of
manhood ; and I feel that professions like yours, like
the profession of the railroad men of the country,
have a tonic effect upon the whole body politic.

It is a good thing that there should be a large
body of our fellow-citizens — that there should be a
profession — whose members must, year in and year
out, display those old, old qualities of courage, dar
ing, resolution, unflinching willingness to meet
danger at neeti. I hope to see all our people develop
the softer, gentler virtues to an ever increasing de
gree, but I hope never to see them lose the sterner
virtues that make men men.

A man is not going to be a fireman or an engineer,
or serve well in any other capacity on a railroad
long if he has a "streak of yellow" in him. You
are going to find it out, and he is going to be pain
fully conscious of it, very soon. It is a fine thing

164 Presidential Addresses

for our people that we should have those qualities
in evidence before us in the life-work of a big group
of our citizens.

In American citizenship, we can succeed perma
nently only upon the basis of standing shoulder to
shoulder, working in association, by organization,
each working for all, and yet remembering that we
need each so to shape things that each man can
develop to best advantage all the forces and powers
at his command. In your organization you accom
plish much by means of the Brotherhood, but you
accomplish it because of the men who go to make
up that brotherhood.

If you had exactly the organization, exactly the
laws, exactly the system, and yet were yourselves
a poor set of men, the system would not save you.
I will guarantee that, from time to time, you have
men go in to try to serve for the nine months who
prove that they do not have the stuff in them out
of which you can make good men. You have to
have the stuff in you, and, if you have the stuff,
you can make out of it a much finer man by means
of the association — but you must have the material
out of which to make it. So it is in citizenship.

And now let me say a word, speaking not merely
especially to the Brotherhood, but to all our citizens.
Governor McMillan, Mr. Mayor : I fail to see how
any American can come to Chattanooga and go over
the great battle-fields in the neighborhood — the bat
tle-fields here in this State and just across the border
in my mother's State of Georgia — how any Ameri-

And State Papers 165

can can come here and see evidences of the mighty
deeds done by the men who wore the blue and the
men who wore the gray, and not go away a better
American, prouder of the country, prouder because
of the valor displayed on both sides in the contest
— the valor, the self-devotion, the loyalty to the
right as each side saw the right. Yesterday I was
presented with a cane cut from the Chickamauga
battle-field by some young men of Northern Georgia.
On the cane were engraved the names of three
Union generals and three Confederate generals. One
of those Union generals was at that time showing
me over the battle-field — General Boynton. Under
one of the Confederate generals — General Wheeler
— I myself served. In my regiment there served
under me in the ranks a son of General Hood, who
commanded at one time the Confederate army
against General Sherman. The only captain whom
I had the opportunity of promoting to field rank,
and to whom the promotion was given for gallantry
on the field, was Micah Jenkins, of South Carolina,
the son of a Confederate general, whose name you
will find recorded among those who fought at Chick
amauga.

Two of my best captains were killed at Santiago
— one was Allyn Capron, the fifth in line who, from
father to son, had served in the regular army of the
United States, who had served in every war in which
our country had been engaged; the other, Bucky
O'Neill. His father had fought under Maher, when,
on the day at Fredericksburg, his brigade left more

1 66 Presidential Addresses

men under the stone wall than did any other brigade.
I had in my regiment men from the North and the
South ; men from the East and the West ; men whose
fathers had fought under Grant, and whose fathers
had fought under Lee ; college graduates, capitalists'
sons, wage-workers, the man of means and the man
who all his life had owed each day's bread to the
day's toil. I had Catholic, Protestant, Jew, and
Gentile under me. Among my captains were men
whose forefathers had been among the first white
men to settle on Massachusetts Bay and on the banks
of the James, and others whose parents had come
from Germany, from Ireland, from England, from
France. They were all Americans, and nothing else,
and each man stood on his worth as a man, to be
judged by it, and to succeed or fail accordingly as
he did well or ill. Compared to the giant death-
wrestles that reeled over the mountains round about
this city the fight at Santiago was the merest skir
mish; but the spirit in which we handled ourselves
there, I hope was the spirit in which we have to
face our duties as citizens if we are to make this
Republic what it must be made.

Yesterday, in passing over the Chickamauga bat
tle-field, I was immensely struck by the monument
raised by Kentucky to the Union and Confederate
soldiers from Kentucky who fell on that battle-field.
The inscription reads as follows : "As we are united
in life, and they united in death, let one monument
perpetuate their deeds, and one people, forgetful of
all asperities, forever hold in grateful remembrance

And State Papers 167

all the glories of that terrible conflict which made
all men free and retained every star on the nation's
flag." That is a good sentiment. That is a senti
ment by which we can all stand. And oh, my
friends ! what does that sentiment have as its under
lying spirit ? The spirit of brotherhood !

I firmly believe in my countrymen, and therefore
I believe that the chief thing necessary in order that
they shall work together is that they shall know
one another — that the Northerner shall know the
Southerner, and the man of one occupation know the
man of another occupation ; the man who works in
one walk of life know the man who works in an
other walk of life, so that we may realize that the
things which divide us are superficial, are unim
portant, and that we are, and must ever be, knit
together into one indissoluble mass by our common
American brotherhood.

AT DANVILLE, VA., SEPTEMBER 9, 1902

My Fellow-Citizens:

I did not expect to have the chance of speaking to
any of you of Virginia on this trip. I only wish it
had been my good fortune to be able to go through
your grand and beautiful historic State by daylight.
But you have not escaped me, gentlemen ; I am going
to come again.

Yesterday and to-day I spent in Tennessee and
North Carolina. I have enjoyed much those two
days. It is a good thing for any American, and it

1 68 Presidential Addresses

is an especially good thing for the American who
happens to be President at any time, to go around
in the country and meet his fellow-Americans of
different sections and different States. The more
he sees of his fellow-Americans the more he will
realize that the differences which divide them are
trivial and that the likenesses which unite them are
fundamental. A good American is a good Ameri
can wherever he is, and a bad American is a poor
one wherever he is. If a man is a decent citizen, if
he does his duty to his family, to his neighbors, to
the State and the nation, as a decent man ought to,
then he is a man who has a right to claim kinship and
comradeship with every other decent American from
one end of this country to the other. If he is a
straight man he is a credit to all of us, and if he is a
crooked man he is a disgrace to all of us. Fundamen
tally, for weal or for woe, we are knit together ; we
shall go up or go down together. If hard times come
they come without much regard to State lines. If
good times come they come without regard to State
lines. Wherever a deed is done by an American
which reflects credit upon our country, each of us
can walk with his head a little higher in conse
quence ; and wherever anything happens through the
fault of any of us that is discreditable it discredits all
of us more or less.

Gentlemen and ladies, I thank you greatly for
having come down here to greet me. It is a genuine
pleasure to see you. No man of the United States,
proud of the history of the United States, can fail

And State Papers 169

to feel certain associations of reverence and regard
awakened when he treads the soil of Virginia, which
has taken so leading a part in peace and in war
throughout our history.

AT MUSIC HALL, CINCINNATI, OHIO, ON THE
EVENING OF SEPTEMBER 20, 1902

Mr. Mayor, and you, my Fellow- Americans:

I shall ask your attention to what I say to-night,
because I intend to make a perfectly serious argu
ment to you, and I shall be obliged if you will re
main as still as possible ; and I ask that those at the
very back will remember that if they talk or make a
noise it interferes with the hearing of the rest. I
intend to speak to you on a serious subject and to
make an argument as the Chief Executive of a na
tion, who is the President of all the people, without
regard to party, without regard to section. I intend
to make to you an argument from the standpoint
simply of one American talking to his fellow-Ameri
cans upon one of the great subjects of interest to all
alike; and that subject is what are commonly known
as trusts. The word is used very loosely and almost
always with technical inaccuracy. The average man,
however, when he speaks of the trusts means rather
vaguely all of the very big corporations, the growth
of which has been so signal a feature of our modem
civilization, and especially those big corporations
which, though organized in one State, do business in
several States, and often have a tendency to mo
nopoly.

170 Presidential Addresses

The whole subject of the trusts is of vital concern
to us, because it presents one, and perhaps the most
conspicuous, of the many problems forced upon our
attention by the tremendous industrial development
which has taken place during the last century, a de
velopment which is occurring in all civilized coun
tries, notably in our own. There have been many
factors responsible for bringing about these changed
conditions. Of these, steam and electricity are the
chief. The extraordinary changes in the methods of
transportation of merchandise and of transmission
of news have rendered not only possible, but inevi
table, the immense increase in the rate of growth
of our great industrial centres — that is, of our great
cities. I want you to bring home to yourselves that
fact. When Cincinnati was founded news could be
transmitted and merchandise carried exactly as has
been the case in the days of the Roman Empire.
You had here on your river the flat-boat, you had on
the ocean the sailing-ship, you had the pack-train,
you had the wagon, and every one of the four was
known when Babylon fell. The change in the last
hundred years has been greater by far than the
changes in all the preceding three thousand. Those
are the facts. Because of them have resulted the
specialization of industries, and the unexampled
opportunities offered for the employment of huge
amounts of capital, and therefore for the rise in the
business world of those master-minds through whom
alone it is possible for such vast amounts of capital
to be employed with profit. It matters very little

And State Papers

whether we like these new conditions or whether
we dislike them; whether we like the creation of
these new opportunities or not. Many admirable
qualities which were developed in the older, simpler,
less progressive life have tended to atrophy under
our rather feverish, high-pressure, complex life of
to-day. But our likes and dislikes have nothing to
do with the matter. The new conditions are here.
You can't bring back the old days of the canalboat
and stagecoach if you wish. The steamboat and
the railroad are here. The new forces have pro
duced both good and evil. We can not get rid of
them — even if it were not undesirable to get rid of
them ; and our instant duty is to try to accommodate
our social, economic and legislative life to them, and
to frame a system of law and conduct under which
we shall get out of them the utmost possible benefit
and the least possible amount of harm. It is foolish
to pride ourselves upon our progress and prosperity,
upon our commanding position in the international
industrial world, and at the same time have nothing
but denunciation for the men to whose commanding
position we in part owe this very progress and pros
perity, this commanding position.

Whenever great social or industrial changes take
place, no matter how much good there may be to
them, there is sure to be some evil; and it usually
takes mankind a number of years and a good deal
of experimenting before they find the right ways in
which so far as possible to control the new evil, with
out at the same time nullifying the new good. I am

Presidential Addresses

stating facts so obvious that if each one of you will
think them over you will think them trite, but if
you read or listen to some of the arguments ad
vanced, you will come to the conclusion that there
is need of learning these trite truths. In these cir
cumstances the effort to bring the new tendencies to
a standstill is always futile and generally mischiev
ous; but it is possible somewhat to develop them
aright. Law can to a degree guide, protect and
control industrial development, but it can never
cause it, or play more than a subordinate part in
its healthy development — unfortunately it is easy
enough by bad laws to bring it to an almost com
plete stop.

In dealing with the big corporations which we
call trusts, we must resolutely purpose to proceed by
evolution and not revolution. We wish to face the
facts, declining to have our vision blinded either
by the folly of those who say there are no evils, or
by the more dangerous folly of those who either see,
or make believe that they see, nothing but evil in all
the existing system, and who if given their way
would destroy the evil by the simple process of
bringing ruin and disaster to the entire country. The
evils attendant upon over-capitalization alone are, in
my judgment, sufficient to warrant a far closer su
pervision and control than now exists over the great
corporations. Wherever a substantial monopoly can
be shown to exist we should certainly try our utmost
to devise an expedient by which it can be controlled.
Doubtless some of the evils existing in or because

And State Papers 173

of the great corporations can not be cured by any
legislation which has yet been proposed, and doubt
less others, which have really been incident to the
sudden development in the formation of corporations
of all kinds, will in the end cure themselves. But
there will remain a certain number which can be
cured if we decide that by the power of the Govern
ment they are to be cured. The surest way to pre
vent the possibility of curing any of them is to
approach the subject in a spirit of violent rancor,
complicated with total ignorance of business inter
ests and fundamental incapacity or unwillingness to
understand the limitations upon all lawmaking
bodies. No problem, and least of all so difficult a
problem as this, can be solved if the qualities brought
to its solution are panic, fear, envy, hatred, and ig
norance. There can exist in a free republic no man
more wicked, no man more dangerous to the people,
than he who would arouse these feelings in the hope
that they would redound to his own political advan
tage. Corporations that are handled honestly and
fairly, so far from being an evil, are a natural busi
ness evolution and make for the general prosperity of
our land. We do not wish to destroy corporations,
but we do wish to make them subserve the public
good. All individuals, rich or poor, private or cor
porate, must be subject to the law of the land; and
the government will hold them to a. rigid obedience
thereof. The biggest corporation, like the humblest
private citizen, must be held to strict compliance
with the will of the people as expressed in the funda-

174 Presidential Addresses

mental law. The rich man who does not see that
this is in his interest is indeed short-sighted. When
we make him obey the law we ensure for him the
absolute protection of the law.

The savings banks show what can be done in the
way of genuinely beneficent work by large corpora
tions when intelligently administered and supervised.
They now hold over twenty-six hundred millions
of the people's money and pay annually about one
hundred millions of interest or profit to their depos
itors. There is no talk of danger from these cor
porations ; yet they possess great power, holding over
three times the amount of our present national debt,
more than all the currency, gold, silver, greenbacks,
etc., in circulation in the United States. The chief
reason for there being no talk of danger from them
is that they are on the whole faithfully administered
for the benefit of all, under wise laws which require
frequent and full publication of their condition, and
which prescribe certain needful regulations with
which they have to comply, while at the same time
giving full scope for the business enterprise of their
managers within these limits.

Now of course savings banks are as highly special
ized a class of corporations as railroads, and we
can not force too far the analogy with other cor
porations; but there are certain conditions which I
think we can lay down as indispensable to the proper
treatment of all corporations which from their size
have become important factors in the social develop
ment of the community.

And State Papers 175

Before speaking, however, of what can be done
by way of remedy let me say a word or two as
to certain proposed remedies which, in my judgment,
would be ineffective or mischievous. The first thing
to remember is that if we are to accomplish any
good at all it must be by resolutely keeping in mind
the intention to do away with any evils in the con
duct of big corporations, while steadfastly refusing
to assent to indiscriminate assault upon all forms
of corporate capital as such. The line of demar
cation we draw must always be on conduct, not upon
wealth ; our objection to any given corporation must
be, not that it is big, but that it behaves badly.
Perfectly simple again, my friends, but not always
heeded by some of those who would strive to teach
us how to act toward big corporations. Treat the
head of the corporation as you would treat all other
men. If he does well stand by him. You will oc
casionally find the head of a big corporation who
objects to that treatment; very good, apply it all
the more carefully. Remember, after all, that he
who objects because he is the head of a big corpora
tion to being treated like any one else is only guilty
of the same sin as the man who wishes him treated
worse than any one else because he is the head of a
big corporation. Demagogic denunciation of wealth
is never wholesome and is generally dangerous;
and not a few of the proposed methods of curbing
the trusts are dangerous chiefly because all insincere
advocacy of the impossible is dangerous. It is an
unhealthy thing for a community when the appeal

9— VOL. XIII.

176 Presidential Addresses

is made to follow a course which those who make
the appeal either do know, or ought to know, can
not be followed; and which, if followed, would
result in disaster to everybody. Loose talk about
destroying monopoly out of hand without a hint as to
how the monopoly should even be defined offers a
case in point.

Nor can we afford to tolerate any proposal
which will strike at the so-called trusts only by
striking at the general well-being. We are now
enjoying a period of great prosperity. The pros
perity is generally diffused through all sections and
through all classes. Doubtless there are some in
dividuals who do not get enough of it, and there
are others who get too much. That is simply an
other way of saying that the wisdom of mankind
is finite ; and that even the best human system does
not work perfectly. You don't have to take my
word for that. Look back just nine years. In 1893
nobody was concerned in downing the trusts. Every
body was concerned in trying to get up himself.
The men who propose to get rid of the evils of
the trusts by measures which would do away with
the general well-being, advocate a policy which
would not only be a damage to the community as
a whole, but which would defeat its own professed
object. If we are forced to the alternative of choos
ing either a system under which most of us prosper
somewhat, though a few of us prosper too much,
or else a system under which no one prospers enough,
of course we will choose the former. If the policy

And State Papers 17?

advocated is so revolutionary and destructive as to
involve the whole community in the crash of com
mon disaster, it is as certain as anything can be that
when the disaster has occurred all efforts to regulate
the trusts will cease, and that the one aim will be
to restore prosperity.

A remedy much advocated at the moment is to
take off the tariff from all articles which are made
by trusts. To do this it will be necessary first to
define trusts. The language commonly used by the
advocates of the method implies that they mean all
articles made by large corporations, and that the
changes in tariff are to be made with punitive intent
toward these large corporations. Of course if the
tariff is to be changed in order to punish them,
it should be changed so as to punish those that do
ill, not merely those that are prosperous. It would
be neither just nor expedient to punish the big cor
porations as big corporations; what we wish to do
is to protect the people from any evil that may
grow out of their existence or maladministration.
Some of those corporations do well and others do
ill. If in any case the tariff is found to foster a
monopoly which does ill, of course no protectionist
would object to a modification of the tariff sufficient
to remedy the evil. But in very few cases does the
so-called trust really monopolize the market. Take
any very big corporation — I could mention them by
the score — which controls, say, something in the
neighborhood of half of the products of a given
industry. It is the kind of corporation that is always

178 Presidential Addresses

spoken of as a trust. Surely in rearranging the
schedules affecting such a corporation it would be
necessary to consider the interests of its smaller
competitors which control the remaining part, and
which, being weaker, would suffer most from any
tariff designed to punish all the producers; for, of
course, the tariff must be made light or heavy for
big and little producers alike. Moreover, such a
corporation necessarily employs very many thou
sands, often very many tens of thousands of work
men, and the minute we proceeded from denuncia
tion to action it would be necessary to consider the
interests of these workmen. Furthermore, the prod
ucts of many trusts are unprotected, and would be
entirely unaffected by any change in the tariff, or at
most very slightly so. The Standard Oil Company
offers a case in point; and the corporations which
control the anthracite coal output offer another —
for there is no duty whatever on anthracite coal.
I am not now discussing the question of the tariff
as such ; whether from the standpoint of the funda
mental difference between those who believe in a
protective tariff and those who believe in free trade ;
or from the standpoint of those who, while they
believe in a protective tariff, feel that there could
be a rearrangement of our schedules, either by direct
legislation or by reciprocity treaties, which would
result in enlarging our markets; nor yet from the
standpoint of those who feel that stability of eco
nomic policy is at the moment our prime economic
need, and that the benefits to be derived from any

And State Papers 179

change in schedules would not compensate for the
damage to business caused by the widespread agita
tion which would follow any attempted general re
vision of the tariff at this moment. Without regard
to the wisdom of any one of those three positions it
remains true that the real evils connected with the
trusts can not be remedied by any change in the
tariff laws. The trusts can be damaged by depriv
ing them of the benefits of a protective tariff, only
on condition of damaging all their smaller compet
itors, and all the wage-workers employed in the in
dustry. This point is very important, and it is
desirable to avoid any misunderstanding con
cerning it. I am not now considering whether
or not, on grounds totally unconnected with the
trusts, it would be well to lower the duties on va
rious schedules, either by direct legislation or by
legislation or treaties designed to secure as an offset
reciprocal advantages from the nations with which
we trade. My point is that changes in the tariff
would have little appreciable effect on the trusts save
as they shared in the general harm or good pro
ceeding from such changes. No tariff change would
help one of our smaller corporations, or one of our
private individuals in business, still less one of our
wage-workers, as against a large corporation in the
same business ; on the contrary, if it bore heavily on
the large corporation it would inevitably be felt still
more by that corporation's weaker rivals, while any
injurious result would of necessity be shared by
both the employer and the employed in the business

i8o Presidential Addresses

concerned. The immediate introduction of substan
tial free trade in all articles manufactured by trusts,
that is, by the largest and most successful corpora
tions, would not affect some of the most powerful
of our business combinations in the least, save by the
damage done to the general business welfare of the
country; others would undoubtedly be seriously af
fected, but much less so than their weaker rivals,
while the loss would be divided between the cap
italists and the laborers; and after the years of
panic and distress had been lived through, and some
return to prosperity had occurred, even though all
were on a lower plane of prosperity than before,
the relative difference between the- trusts and their
rivals would remain as marked as ever. In other
words, the trust, or big corporation, would have suf
fered relatively to, and in the interest of, its foreign
competitor ; but its relative position toward its Amer
ican competitors would probably be improved; little
would have been done toward cutting out or min
imizing the evils in the trusts ; nothing toward secur
ing adequate control and regulation of the large
modern corporations. In other words, the question
of regulating the trusts with a view to minimizing
or abolishing the evils existent in them is separate
and apart from the question of tariff revision.

You must face the fact that only harm will come
from a proposition to attack the so-called trusts in
a vindictive spirit by measures conceived solely with
a desire of hurting them, without regard as to
whether or not discrimination should be made be-

And State Papers 181

tween the good and evil in them, and without even
any regard as to whether a necessary sequence of
the action would be the hurting of other interests.
The adoption of such a policy would mean tempo
rary damage to the trusts, because it would mean
temporary damage to all of our business interests;
but the effect would be only temporary, for exactly
as the damage affected all alike, good and bad, so
the reaction would affect all alike, good and bad.
The necessary supervision and control, in which I
firmly believe as the only method of eliminating the
real evils of the trusts, must come through wisely
and cautiously framed legislation, which shall aim
in the first place to give definite control to some
sovereign over the great corporations, and which
shall be followed, when once this power has been
conferred, by a system giving to the Government
the full knowledge which is the essential for satis
factory action. Then when this knowledge — one of
the essential features of which is proper publicity —
has been gained, what further steps of any kind are
necessary can be taken with the confidence born of
the possession of power to deal with the subject,
and of a thorough knowledge of what should and
can be done in the matter.

We need additional power; and we need knowl
edge. Our Constitution was framed when the
economic conditions were so different that each
State could wisely be left to handle the corpora
tions within its limits as it sa.w fit. Nowadays all
the corporations which I am considering do what

1 82 Presidential Addresses

is really an interstate business, and as the States
have proceeded on very different lines in regulat
ing them, at present a corporation will be organ
ized in one State, not because it intends to do
business in that State, but because it does not, and
therefore that State can give it better privileges,
and then it will do business in some other States,
and will claim not to be under the control of the
States in which it does business; and of course it
is not the abject of the State creating it to exercise
any control over it, as it does not do any business
in that State. Such a system can not obtain. There
must be some sovereign. It might be better if all
the States could agree along the same lines in deal
ing with these corporations, but I see not the slight
est prospect of such an agreement. Therefore, I
personally feel that ultimately the nation will have
to assume the responsibility of regulating these very
large corporations which do an interstate business.
The States must combine to meet the way in which
capital has combined; and the way in which the
States can combine is through the National Gov
ernment. But I firmly believe that all these obstacles
can be met if only we face them, both with the de
termination to overcome them, and with the further
determination to overcome them in ways which shall
not do damage to the country as a whole ; which on
the contrary shall further our industrial develop
ment, and shall help instead of hindering all cor
porations which work out their success by means
that are just arid fair toward all men.

And State Papers 183

Without the adoption of a constitutional amend
ment, my belief is that a good deal can be done by
law. It is difficult to say exactly how much, because
experience has taught us that in dealing with these
subjects, where the lines dividing the rights and
duties of the States and of the Nation are in doubt,
it has sometimes been difficult for Congress to fore
cast the action of the courts upon its legislation.
Such legislation (whether obtainable now, or ob
tainable only after a constitutional amendment)
should provide for a reasonable supervision, the most
prominent feature of which at first should be pub
licity; that is, the making public, both to the gov
ernmental authorities and to the people at large, the
essential facts in which the public is concerned.
This would give us exact knowledge of many points
which are now not only in doubt, but the subject of
fierce controversy. Moreover, the mere fact of the
publication would cure some very grave evils, for
the light of day is a deterrent to wrong-doing. It
would doubtless disclose other evils with which, for
the time being, we could devise no way to grapple.
Finally, it would disclose others which could be
grappled with and cured by further legislative action.

Remember, I advocate the action which the Pres
ident can only advise, and which he has no power
himself to take. Under our present legislative and
constitutional limitations the national executive
can work only between narrow lines in the field of
action concerning great corporations. Between those
lines, I assure you that exact and even-handed justice

184 Presidential Addresses

will be dealt, and is being dealt, to all men, without
regard to persons.

I wish to repeat with all emphasis that desirable
though it is that the nation should have the power
I suggest, it is equally desirable that it should be
used with wisdom and self-restraint. The mechan
ism of modern business is tremendous in its size
and complexity, and ignorant intermeddling with it
would be disastrous. We should not be made timid
or daunted by the size of the problem ; we should
not fear to undertake it; but we should undertake
it with ever present in our minds dread of the sin
ister spirits of rancor, ignorance, and vanity. We
need to keep steadily in mind the fact that besides
the tangible property in each corporation there lies
behind the spirit which brings it success, and in the
case of each very successful corporation this is
usually the spirit of some one man or set of men.
Under exactly similar conditions one corporation
will make a stupendous success where another makes
a stupendous failure, simply because one is well man
aged and the other is not. While making it clear
that we do not intend to allow wrong-doing by one
of the captains of industry any more than by the
humblest private in the industrial ranks, we must
also in the interests of all of us avoid cramping a
strength which, if beneficently used, will be for the
good of all of us. The marvelous prosperity we
have been enjoying for the past few years has been
due primarily to the high average of honesty, thrift,
and business capacity among our people as a whole;

And State Papers 185

but some of it has also been due to the ability of
the men who are the industrial leaders of the nation.
In securing just and fair dealing by these men let
us remember to do them justice in return, and this
not only because it is our duty, but because it is
our interest; not only for their sakes, but for ours.
We are neither the friend of the rich man as such,
nor the friend of the poor man as such ; we are the
friend of the honest man, rich or poor; and we in
tend that all men, rich and poor alike, shall obey
the law alike and receive its protection alike.

AT THE BANQUET OF THE SPANISH WAR
VETERANS, DETROIT, MICH., SEP
TEMBER 22, 1902

Mr. Mayor, and you, my Comrades, and all of you,
my Fellow-Americans, Men and W omen of De
troit:

While the war with Spain was easy enough, the
tasks left behind, though glorious, have been hard.
You, the men of the Spanish War, and your com
rades in arms who fought in Cuba and Porto Rico
and in the Philippines, won renown for the country,
added to its moral grandeur and to its material
prosperity; but you also left duties to be done by
those who came after you. In Porto Rico the duty
has been merely administrative, and it has been so
well done that very little need be said about it.

I speak in the presence not only of the men who
fought in the Spanish War and in the Philippine

i86 Presidential Addresses

War, which was its aftermath, but in the presence
of those who fought in the great Civil War; and
more than that, I speak here in a typical city of
the old Northwest, what is now the Middle West,
in a typical State of our Union. You men of Mich
igan have been mighty in war and mighty in peace.
You belong to a country mighty in war and mighty
in peace — a country of a great past, whose great
present is but an earnest of an even greater future.
The world has never seen more marvelous prosperity
than that which we now enjoy, and this prosperity
is not ephemeral. We shall have our ups and downs.
The waves at times will recede, but the tide will
go steadily higher. This country has never yet
been called upon to meet a crisis in war or a
crisis in peace to which it did not eventually prove
equal. I preach the gospel of hope to you men of
the West who in thought and life embody this gos
pel of hope, this gospel of resolute and confident
belief in your own powers and in the destiny of
this mighty Republic. I believe in the future1 — not
in a spirit which will sit down and look for the
future to work itself out — but with a determination
to do its part in making the future what it can and
shall be made. We are optimists. We spurn the
teachings of despair and distrust. We have an
abiding faith in the growing strength, the growing
future of the mighty young nation, still in the flush
of its youth, and yet with the might of a giant,
which stands on a continent and grasps an ocean
with either handl

And State Papers 187

•

Succeed ? Of course we shall succeed ! How can
success fail to come to a race of masterful energy
and resoluteness, which has a continent for the base
of its domain, and which feels within its veins the
thrill that comes to generous souls when their
strength stirs in them, and they know that the future
is theirs? No great destiny ever yet came to a
people walking with their eyes on the ground and
their faces shrouded in gloom. No great destiny
ever yet came to a people who feared the future,
who feared failure more than they hoped for suc
cess. With such as these we have no part. We
know there are Hangers ahead, as we know there
are evils to fight and overcome, but we feel to the
full the pulse of the prosperity which we enjoy.
Stout of heart, we see across the dangers the great
future that lies beyond, and we rejoice as a giant
refreshed, as a strong man girt for the race; and
we go down into the arena where the nations strive
for mastery, our hearts lifted with the faith that
to us and to our children and our children's children
it shall be given to make this Republic the mightiest
among the peoples of mankind.

AT LOGANSPORT, IND., SEPTEMBER 23, 1902

Pellow-Ci tisens :

I am going to ask you to take what I say at its
exact face value, as I like whatever I say to be
taken. It is suggested by coming to this great
Western State and speaking to one of its thriving

1 88 Presidential Addresses

cities. We believe that the American business man
is of a peculiar type; and probably the qualities of
energy, daring, and resourcefulness which have
given him his prominence in the international in
dustrial world find their highest development here
in the West. It is the merest truism to say that in the
modern world industrialism is the great factor in the
growth of nations. Material prosperity is the foun
dation upon which every mighty national structure
must be built. Of course there must be more than
this. There must be a high moral purpose, a life
of the spirit which finds its expression in many dif
ferent ways; but unless material prosperity exists
also there is scant room in which to develop the
higher life. The productive activity of our vast
army of workers, of those who work with head or
hands, is the prime cause of the giant growth of
this nation. We have great natural resources, but
such resources are never more than opportunities,
and they count for nothing if the men in possession
have not the power to take advantage of them. You
have built up in the West these cities of the Missis
sippi Valley and the Great Lakes; as all the region
round about them has been built up — that is, because
you had the qualities of heart and brain, the quali
ties of moral and physical fibre, which enabled you
to use to the utmost advantage whatever you found
ready to your hands. You win, not by shirking
difficulties, but by facing and overcoming them.

In such development laws play a certain part, but
individual characteristics a still greater part. A

And State Papers 189

great and successful commonwealth like ours in the
long run works under good laws, because a people
endowed with honest and practical common-sense
ultimately demands good laws. But no law can
create industrial well-being, although it may foster
and safe-guard it, and although a bad law may de
stroy it. The prime factor in securing industrial
well-being is the high average of citizenship found
in the community. The best laws that the wit of
man can devise would not make a community of
thriftless and idle men prosperous. No scheme of
legislation or of social reform will ever work good
to the community unless it recognizes as fundamen
tal the fact that each man's own individual qualities
must be the prime factors in his success. Work in
combination may help and the State can do a good
deal in its own sphere, but in the long run each man
must rise or fall on his own merits; each man must
owe his success in life to whatever of hardihood,
of resolution, of common-sense and of capacity for
lofty endeavor he has within his own soul. It is
a good thing to act in combination for the common
good, but it is a very unhealthy thing to let ourselves
think for one moment that anything can ever supply
the want of our own individual watchfulness and
exertion.

Yet given this high average of individual ability
and invention, we must ever keep in mind that it
may be nullified by bad legislation, and that it can
be given a chance to develop under the most favor
able conditions by good legislation. Probably the

190 Presidential Addresses

most important aid which can be contributed by the
National Government to the material well-being of
the country is to ensure its financial stability. An
honest currency is the strongest symbol and expres
sion of honest business life. The business world
must exist largely on credit, and to credit confidence
is essential. Any tampering with the currency, no
matter with what purpose, if fraught with the sus
picion of dishonesty, in result is fatal in its effects
on business prosperity. Very ignorant and primitive
communities are continually obliged to learn the ele
mentary truth that the repudiation of debts is in the
end ruinous to the debtors as a class ; and when com
munities have moved somewhat higher in the scale
of civilization they also learn that anything in the
nature of a debased currency works similar damage.
A financial system of assured honesty is the first
essential.

Another essential for any community is perse
verance in the economic policy which for a course
of years is found best fitted to its peculiar needs.
The question of combining such fixedness of eco
nomic policy as regards the tariff, while at the same
time allowing for a necessary and proper readjust
ment of duties in particular schedules, as such re
adjustment becomes a matter of pressing impor
tance, is not an easy one. It is perhaps too much to
expect that from the discussion of such a question
it would be possible wholly to eliminate political
partisanship. Yet those who believe, as we all must
when we think seriously of the subject, that the

And State Papers 191

proper aim of the party system is after all simply to
subserve the public good, can not but hope that
where such partisanship on a matter of this kind
conflicts with the public good it shall at least be
minimized. It is all right and inevitable that we
should divide on party lines, but woe to us if we are
not Americans first, and party men second. What
we really need in this country is to treat the tariff
as a business proposition from the standpoint of the
interests of the country as a whole, and not from the
standpoint of the temporary needs of any political
party. It surely ought not to be necessary to dwell
upon the extreme unwisdom, from a business stand
point, from the standpoint of national prosperity,
of violent and radical changes amounting to the
direct upsetting of tariff policies at intervals of
every few years. A nation like ours can adjust its
business after a fashion to any kind of tariff. But
neither our nation nor any other can stand the ruin
ous policy of readjusting its business to radical
changes in the tariff at short intervals. This is
more true now than ever it was before, for owing to
the immense extent and variety of our products, the
tariff schedules of to-day carry rates of duty on
more than four thousand articles. Continual sweep
ing changes in such a tariff, touching so intimately
the commercial interests of the nation which stands
as one of the two or three greatest in the whole
industrial world, can not but be disastrous. Yet
on the other hand where the industrial needs of the
nation shift as rapidly as they do with us, it is a

Presidential Addresses

matter of prime importance that we should be able
to readjust our economic policy as rapidly as pos
sible and with as little friction as possible to these
needs.

We need a scheme which will enable us to provide
a reapplication of the principle to the changed con
ditions. The problem therefore is to devise some
method by which these shifting needs can be recog
nized and the necessary readjustments of duties pro
vided without forcing the entire business commu
nity, and therefore the entire nation, to submit to a
violent surgical operation, the mere threat of which,
and still more the accomplished fact of which, would
probably paralyze for a considerable time all the in
dustries of the country. Such radical action might
very readily reproduce the conditions from which
we suffered nine years ago, in 1893. It is on every
account most earnestly to be hoped that this prob
lem can be solved in some manner into which par
tisanship shall enter as a purely secondary consid
eration, if at all ; that is, in some manner which shall
provide for an earnest effort by non-partisan in
quiry and action to secure any changes the need of
which is indicated by the effect found to proceed
from a given rate of duty on a given article; its ef
fect, if any, as regards the creation of a substantial
monopoly; its effect upon domestic prices, upon the
revenue of the government, upon importations from
abroad, upon home productions, and upon consump
tion. In other words, we need to devise some ma
chinery by which, while persevering in the policy

And State Papers 193

of a protective tariff, in which I think the nation as
a whole has now generally acquiesced, we would be
able to correct the irregularities and remove the
incongruities produced by changing conditions,
without destroying the whole structure. Such ma
chinery would permit us to continue our definitely
settled tariff policy, while providing for the changes
in duties upon particular schedules which must in
evitably and necessarily take place from time to
time as matters of legislative and administrative
detail. This would secure the needed stability of
economic policy which is a prime factor in our in
dustrial success, while doing away with any tendency
to fossilization. It would recognize the fact that,
as our needs shift, it may be found advisable to alter
rates and schedules, adapting them to the changed
conditions and necessities of the whole people; and
this would be in no wise incompatible with preserv
ing the principle of protection, for belief in the wis
dom of a protective tariff is in no way inconsistent
with frankly admitting the desirability of changing
a set of schedules, when from any cause such change
is in the interests of the nation as a whole — and our
tariff policy is designed to favor the interests of the
nation as a whole and not those of any particular
set of individuals save as an incident to this build
ing up of national well-being. There are two or
three different methods by which it will be possible
to provide such readjustment without any shock to
the business world. My personal preference would
be for action which should be taken only after pre-

194 Presidential Addresses

liminary inquiry by and upon the findings of a body
of experts of such high character and ability that
they could be trusted to deal with the subject purely
from the standpoint of our business and industrial
needs; but, of course, Congress would have to de
termine for itself the exact method to be followed.
The Executive has at its command the means for
gathering most of the necessary data, and can act
whenever it is the desire of Congress that it should
act. That the machinery for carrying out the policy
above outlined can be provided I am very certain,
if only our people will make up their minds that the
health of the community will be subserved by treat
ing the whole question primarily from the stand
point of the business interests of the entire country,
rather than from the standpoint of the fancied in
terests of any group of politicians.

Of course in making any changes we should have
to proceed in accordance with certain fixed and defi
nite principles, and the most important of these is
an avowed determination to protect the interests of
the American producer, be he business man, wage-
worker, or farmer. The one consideration which
must never be omitted in a tariff change is the
imperative need of preserving the American stand
ard of living for the American workingman. The
tariff rate must never fall below that which will
protect the American workingman by allowing
for the difference between the general labor cost
here and abroad, so as at least to equalize the
conditions arising from the difference in the

And State Papers 195

standard of labor here and abroad — a difference
which it should be our aim to foster in so far
as it represents the needs of better educated, bet
ter paid, better fed, and better clothed workingmen
of a higher type than any to be found in a foreign
country. At all hazards, and no matter what else
is sought for or accomplished by changes of the
tariff, the American workingman must be protected
in his standard of wages, that is, in his standard of
living, and must be secured the fullest opportunity
of employment. Our laws should in no event af
ford advantage to foreign industries over American
industries. They should in no event do less than
equalize the difference in conditions at home and
abroad. The general tariff policy to which, with
out regard to changes in detail, I believe this country
to be irrevocably committed, is fundamentally based
upon ample recognition of the difference in labor
cost here and abroad; in other words, the recogni
tion of the need for full development of the intelli
gence, the comfort, the high standard of civilized
living and the inventive genius of the American
workingman as compared to the workingman of any
other country in the world.

196 Presidential Addresses

AT THE BANQUET OF THE CHAMBER OF COM
MERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK,
AT NEW YORK, NOVEMBER n, 1902

Mr. President, Gentlemen, and you, the Guests,
whom we welcome here this evening:
I do not wish to speak to you in the language
of idle compliment, and yet it is but a bare state
ment of fact to say that nowhere in our country
could there be gathered an audience which would
stand as more typically characteristic than this of
all those qualities and attributes which have given
us of the United States our commanding position in
the industrial world. There is no need of my preach
ing to this gathering the need of combining effi
ciency with upright dealing, for as an American and
as a citizen of New York I am proud to feel that the
name of your organization carries with it a guar
antee of both; and your practice counts for more
than any preaching could possibly count. New York
is a city of national importance, because its position
toward the Nation is unique, and the Chamber of
Commerce of New York must of necessity be an
element of weight in the commercial and industrial
welfare of the entire people. New York is the
great port of entry for our country — the port in
which centres the bulk of the foreign commerce of
the country — and her welfare is therefore no matter
of mere local or municipal, but of national, concern.
The conduct of the Government in dealing with all
matters affecting the financial and commercial rela-

And State Papers 197

tions of New York must continually take into ac
count this fact ; and it must be taken into account in
appreciating the importance of the part played by the
New York Chamber of Commerce.

This body stands for the triumphs of peace both
abroad and at home. We have passed that stage of
national development when depreciation of other
peoples is felt as a tribute to our own. We watch
the growth and prosperity of other nations, not with
hatred or jealousy, but with sincere and friendly
good-will. I think I can say safely that we have
shown by our attitude toward Cuba, by our attitude
toward China, that as regards weaker powers our
desire is that they may be able to stand alone, and
that if they will only show themselves willing to deal
honestly and fairly with the rest of mankind we on
our side will do all we can to help, not to hinder,
them. With the great powers of the world we de
sire no rivalry that is not honorable to both parties.
We wish them well. We believe that the trend of
the modern spirit is ever stronger toward peace, not
war; toward friendship, not hostility, as the normal
international attitude. We are glad indeed that we
are on good terms with all the other peoples of man
kind, and no effort on our part shall be spared to se
cure a continuance of these relations. And remem
ber, gentlemen, that we shall be a potent factor for
peace largely in proportion to the way in which
we make it evident that our attitude is due, not to
weakness, not to inability to defend ourselves, but
to a genuine repugnance to wrongdoing, a genuine

198 Presidential Addresses

desire for self-respecting friendship with our neigh
bors. The voice of the weakling or the craven
counts for nothing when he clamors for peace; but
the voice of the just man armed is potent. We need
to keep in a condition of preparedness, especially as
regards our navy, not because we want war, but be
cause we desire to stand with those' whose plea for
peace is listened to with respectful attention.

Important though it is that we should have peace
abroad, it is even more important that we should
have peace at home. You, men of the Chamber
of Commerce, to whose efforts we owe so much of
our industrial well-being, can, and I believe surely
will, be influential in helping toward that industrial
peace which can obtain in society only when in their
various relations employer and employed alike show
not merely insistence each upon his own rights, but
,also regard for the rights of others, and a full ac
knowledgment of the interests of the third party —
the public. It is no easy matter to work out a sys
tem or rule of conduct, whether with or without the
help of the lawgiver, which shall minimize that jar
ring and clashing of interests in the industrial world
which causes so much individual irritation and
suffering at the present day, and which at times
threatens baleful consequences to large portions of
the body politic. But the importance of the problem
can not be overestimated, and it deserves to receive
the careful thought of all men such as those whom
I am addressing to-night. There should be no yield
ing to wrong ; but there should most certainly be not

And State Papers 199

only desire to do right but a willingness each to try
to understand the viewpoint of his fellow, with
whom, for weal or for woe, his own fortunes are in-
dissolubly bound.

No patent remedy can be devised for the solu
tion of these grave problems in the industrial world ;
but we may rest assured that they can be solved at
all only if we bring to the solution certain old-time
virtues, and if we strive to keep out of the solution
some of the most familiar and most undesirable of
the traits to which mankind has owed untold degra
dation and suffering throughout the ages. Arro
gance, suspicion, brutal envy of the well-to-do, bru
tal indifference toward those who are not well-to-do,
the hard refusal to consider the rights of others, the
foolish refusal to consider the limits of beneficent
action, the base appeal to the spirit of selfish greed,
whether it take the form of plunder of the fortunate
or of oppression of the unfortunate — from these and
from all kindred vices this Nation must be kept free
if it is to remain in its present position in the fore
front of the peoples of mankind. On the other
hand, good will come, even out of the present evils,
if we face them armed with the old homely vir
tues; if we show that we are fearless of soul, cool
of head, and kindly of heart ; if, without betraying
the weakness that cringes before wrongdoing, we
yet show by deeds and words our knowledge that
in such a government as ours each of us must be
in very truth his brother's keeper.

At a time when the growing complexity of our

10-VOL. XIII.

200 Presidential Addresses

social and industrial life has rendered inevitable the
intrusion of the State into spheres of work wherein
it formerly took no part, and when there is also
a growing tendency to demand the illegitimate and
unwise transfer to the government of much of the
work that should be done by private persons, singly
or associated together, it is a pleasure to address a
body whose members possess to an eminent degree
the traditional American self-reliance of spirit which
makes them scorn to ask from the government,
whether of State or of Nation, anything but a fair
field and no favor; who confide not in being helped
by others, but in their own skill, energy, and busi
ness capacity to achieve success. The first requisite
of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he
shall be able and willing tp pull his weight — that
he shall not be a mere passenger, but shall do his
share in the work that each generation of us finds
ready to hand; and, furthermore, that in doing
his work he shall show not only the capacity for
sturdy self-help but also self-respecting regard for
the rights of others.

The Chamber of Commerce, it is no idle boast
to say, stands in a preeminent degree for those
qualities which make the successful merchant,
the successful business man, whose success is
won in ways honorable to himself and beneficial
to his fellows. There are very different kinds
of success. There is the success that brings
with it the seared soul — the' success which is
achieved by wolfish greed and vulpine cunning —

And State Papers 201

the success which makes honest men uneasy or in
dignant in its presence. Then there is the- other
kind of success — the success which comes as the re
ward of keen insight, of sagacity, of resolution, of
address, combined with unflinching rectitude of be
havior, public and private. The first kind of success
may, in a sense — and a poor sense at that — benefit the
individual, but it is always and necessarily a curse to
the community ; whereas the man who wins the sec
ond kind, as an incident of its winning becomes a
beneficiary to the whole commonwealth. Throughout
its history the Chamber of Commerce has stood for
this second and higher kind of success. It is there
fore fitting that I should come on here as the Chief
Executive of the Nation to wish you well in your
new home; for you belong not merely to the city,
not merely to the State, but to all the country, and
you stand high among the great factors in building
up that marvelous prosperity which the entire coun
try now enjoys. The continuance of this pros
perity depends in no small measure upon your sanity
and common-sense, upon the way in which you com
bine energy in action with conservative refusal to
take part in the reckless gambling which is so often
bred by, and which so inevitably puts an end to,
prosperity. You are men of might in the world of
American effort; you are men whose names stand
high in the esteem of our people ; you are spoken of
in terms like those used in the long-gone ages when
it was said of the Phoenician cities that their mer
chants were princes. Great is your power and great,

202 Presidential Addresses

therefore, your responsibility. Well and faithfully
have you met this responsibility in the past. We
look forward with confident hope to what you will
do in the future, and it is therefore with sincerity
that I bid you Godspeed this evening and wish for
you, in the name of the Nation, a career of ever-
increasing honor and usefulness.

AT THE BANQUET TENDERED GENERAL LUKE

E. WRIGHT, AT MEMPHIS, TENN.,

NOVEMBER 19, 1902

Mr. Toastmaster, General Wright, and you, my
friends, whose greeting to-night I shall ever re
member:

IT is a real and great pleasure to come to this
typical city of the southern Mississippi Valley in
order to greet a typical American, a citizen of Ten
nessee, who deserves honor not only from his State,
but from the entire country — General Luke E.
Wright. We have a right to expect a high standard
of manhood from Tennessee. It was one of the first
two States created west of the Alleghany Mountains,
and it was in this State that the first self-governing
community of American freemen was established
upon waters flowing into the Gulf. The pioneers of
Tennessee were among the earliest in that great
westward march which thrust the nation's border
across the continent to the Pacific, and it is emi
nently fitting that a son of Tennessee should now
play so prominent a part in the further movement

And State Papers 203

of expansion beyond the Pacific. There have been
Presidents of the United States for but one hundred
and thirteen years, and during sixteen of those years
Tennesseeans sat in the White House. Hardihood,
and daring, and iron resolution are of right to be
expected among the sons of a State which nurtured
Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston ; which sent into
the American Navy one of the most famous fighting
admirals of all time, Farragut.

There is another reason why our country should
be glad that it was General Wright who rendered
this service. General Wright fought with distin
guished gallantry among the gallant men who served
in the armies of the Confederacy during the Civil
War. We need no proof of the completeness of our
reunion as a people. When the war with Spain
came the sons of the men who wore the blue and
the sons of the men who wore the gray vied with
ene another in the effort to get into the ranks and
face a foreign foe under the old flag that had been
carried in triumph under Winfield Scott and Zachary
Taylor and Andrew Jackson. It was my own
good fortune to serve under that fearless fighter,
old Joe Wheeler, a memory of which I shall always
be proud. But if we needed any proof of the unity
of our interests it would have been afforded this
very year by General Wright, the ex-Confederate, in
his administration as Acting Governor of the Philip
pine Islands. Upon him during the months of sum
mer rested a heavier burden of responsibility than
upon any other public servant at that particular

204 Presidential Addresses

time ; and not the least of his titles to our regard is
the way in which he was able to work on terms of
cordial good-will with the head of the army, himself
a man who had honored the blue uniform as Wright
had honored the gray.

General Wright's work has been as difficult as it
was important. The events of the last four years
have definitely decided that whether we wish to or
not we must hereafter play a great part in the
world. We can not escape facing the duties. We
may shirk them if we are built of poor stuff, or we
may take hold and do them if we are fit sons of our
sires — but face them we must, whether we will or
not. Our duty in the Philippine Islands has simply
been one of the duties that thus have come upon us.
We are there, and we can no more haul down our
flag and abandon the islands than we could now
abandon Alaska. Whether we are glad or sorry
that events forced us to go there is aside from the
question; the point is that, as the inevitable result
of the war with Spain, we found ourselves in the
Philippines and that we could not leave the islands
without discredit. The islanders were wholly unfit
to govern themselves, and if we had left there
would have been a brief period of bloody chaos, and
then some other nation would have stepped in to
do the work which we had shirked. It can not be
too often repeated that there was no question that
the work had to be done. All the question was,
whether we would do it well or ill ; and, thanks to
the choice of men like Governor Wright, it has been

And State Papers 205

done well. The first and absolutely indispensable
requisite was order — peace. The reign of lawless
violence, of resistance to legitimate authority, the
reign of anarchy, could no more be tolerated abroad
than it could be tolerated here in our own land.

The American flag stands for orderly liberty, and
it stands for it abroad as it stands for it at home.
The task of our soldiers was to restore and main
tain order in the islands. The army had the task to
do, and it did it well and thoroughly. The fullest
and heartiest praise belongs to our soldiers who in
the Philippines brought to a triumphant conclusion
a war, small indeed compared to the gigantic strug
gle in which the older men whom I am addressing
took part in the early sixties, but inconceivably ha
rassing and difficult, because it was waged amid the
pathless jungles of great tropic islands and against
a foe very elusive, very treacherous, and often in
conceivably cruel both toward our men and toward
the great numbers of peace-loving Filipinos who
gladly welcomed our advent. The soldiers included
both regulars and volunteers, men from the North,
the South, the East, and the West, men from Penn
sylvania and from Tennessee, no less than men from
the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Slope — and to
all alike we give honor, for they acted as American
soldiers should. Cruelties were committed here and
there. The fact that they were committed under
wellnigh intolerable provocation affords no excuse
for such cruelties, nor can we admit as justification
that they were retaliatory in kind. Every effort has

206 Presidential Addresses

been made to detect and punish the wrongdoers and
the wrongdoing itself has been completely stopped.
But these misdeeds were exceptional, and their oc
currence in no wise alters the fact that the Ameri
can army in the Philippines showed as a whole
not only splendid soldierly qualities but a high order
of humanity in dealing with their foes. A hundred
thousand of our troops went to the Philippines.
Among them were some who offended against the
right. Well, are we altogether immaculate at home ?•
I think not. I ask for no special consideration to
be shown our friends and kinsmen, our sons and
brothers, who during three years so well upheld
the national honor in the Philippines. I ask merely
that we do the same equal justice to the soldier who
went abroad and faced death and lived hard as we
show to his fellow who stayed at home and lived
easily and in comfort; and if we show that equal
justice we will doff our hats to the man who has
put the whole country under obligations by the vic
tory he helped to win in the Philippines.

But the soldier's work as a soldier was not the
larger part of what he did. When once the out
break was over in any place, then began the work of
establishing civil administration. Here, too, the sol
dier did his part, for the work of preparing for the
civil authority was often done by the officers and
men of the regular army, and well done, too. Then
the real work of building up a system of self-gov
ernment for the. people who had become our wards
was begun, under the auspices of the Philippine

And State Papers 207

Commission, Judge Taft being made Governor, and
I having had the honor myself to appoint General
Wright as Vice-Governor. During the critical pe
riod when the insurrection was ending and the time
was one of transition between a state of war and a
state of peace, at the time that I issued a proclama
tion declaring that the state of war was over and that
the civil government was now in complete command,
General Wright served as Governor of the archi
pelago. The progress of the islands both in mate
rial well-being and as regards order and justice un
der the administration of Governor Wright and his
colleagues has been astounding.

There is no question as to our not having gone
far enough and fast enough in granting self-govern
ment to the Filipinos; the only possible danger has
been lest we should go faster and further than was
in the interest of the Filipinos themselves. Each
Filipino at the present day is guaranteed his life,
his liberty, and the chance to pursue happiness as
he wishes, so Jong as he does not harm his fellows,
in a way which the islands have never known before
during all their recorded history. There are bands
of ladrones, of brigands, still in existence. Now and
then they may show sporadic increase. This will
be due occasionally to disaffection with some of the
things that our government does which are best —
for example, the effort to quarantine against the
plague and to enforce necessary sanitary precautions,
gently and tactfully though it was made, produced
violent hostility among some of the more ignorant

208 Presidential Addresses

natives. Again, a disease like the cattle plague may
cause in some given province such want that a part
of the inhabitants revert to their ancient habit of
brigandage. But -the islands have never been as
orderly, as peaceful, or as prosperous as now ; and in
no other Oriental country, whether ruled by Asiatics
or Europeans, is there anything approaching to the
amount of individual liberty and of self-government
which our rule has brought to the Filipinos. The
Nation owes a great debt to the people through
whom this splendid work for civilization has been
achieved, and therefore on behalf of the Nation I
have come here to-night to thank in your presence
your fellow-townsman, because he has helped us
materially to add a new page to the honor roll of
American history. General Wright, I greet you,
I thank you, and I wish you well.

AT THE RECEPTION TO GENERAL WRIGHT
"AT MEMPHIS, -TENN., NOVEMBER 19, 1902

Mr. Chairman, and you, my Fellow- Americans:

I am glad indeed to have the honor of coming to
day to your beautiful city in your beautiful State to
greet, on behalf of the whole country, a Tennesseean
who has rendered high and honorable service to the
whole country — a Tennesseean of whom it can be
said, as it has been said of the Greek hero :

"Much has he seen and known, cities of men,
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Himself not least, but honored of them all ;
Has drunk delight of battle with his peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy."

And State Papers 209

We are one people absolutely. The memories of
the Civil War are now heritages of honor alike for
those whose fathers wore the blue and for those
whose fathers wore the gray. There is one curi
ous and not inappropriate coincidence to-day — my
mother's brother served under Mrs. Wright's father
in the Confederate Navy. I am proud of his valor ;
and I can say this freely, for if I had been old
enough I would myself have surely worn the blue
uniform.

I come here to-day to greet General Wright be
cause it has been given to him to render a peculiar
service to the whole country. A man can render
service of the very highest character at home, but
owing to the very nature of our system of govern
ment, he must, in his election at least, represent par
ticularly a given party. I say in his election at least,
for after election, if he is worth anything, he must
be a representative of the whole country. But there
are certain branches of the public service in which if
we are wise and far-seeing we will never allow par
tisan politics to enter. There must be no partisan
politics in the army or the navy of the United States.
All that concerns us to know about any general or
admiral, about a mighty captain by sea or by land,
is whether he is a thoroughly fit commander of men
and loyal to the country as a whole. In the same
way if we are wise, if we care for our reputation
abroad, if we are sensitive of our honor at home, we
will allow no question of partisan politics ever to
enter into the administration of the great islands

210 Presidential Addresses

which came under our flag as a result of the war
with Spain.

Hence I say that General Wright, like Governor
Taft and his associates, has rendered a peculiar ser
vice to every man jealous of the honor of the Amer
ican name in what he has done in administering the
Philippine Islands. For fourteen months it has
been part of my business to see how the work there
was done. I am not speaking exaggeratedly, I am
speaking literally, telling the naked truth, when I
say that never during that time has a question of
party politics entered into even the smallest action
of those in control of the Philippine Islands.

My fellow-Americans, we can not afford to have
the honor of the Nation in any way smirched in con
nection with our dependencies. We can not afford
to have it smirched anywhere; but if we wrong our
selves here at home we are to blame and we pay the
penalty, while if we allow wrong in connection with
the islands not only the islands suffer, but an in
delible stigma of shame comes to the American name.
I am earnestly desirous that the administration of
the Philippine Islands shall be put and kept upon
such a plane of patriotic efficiency that no change
will be made in it owing to any change of party
here at home. Party feeling should of course stop
at the water-line. The inestimable service rendered
by Governor Wright in the Philippine Islands has
been because he has so conducted the government of
those islands as,to make it not only of signal benefit
to them, but of signal honor to every citizen of

And State Papers 211

our country; that he has so handled the adminis
tration of affairs as to make us feel a justifiable
confidence that hereafter the storms of party politics
in the United States shall never touch the govern
ment of the Philippine Islands, and that whatever
changes of administration there are here in the
Union, there shall not be a ripple of change in the
course of conduct in the Philippines marked out by
Governor Wright and his associates. The man of
whom that can be truthfully said is a man entitled
to honor from his fellow-countrymen ; and of Gov
ernor Wright it can be truthfully said.

AT THE FOUNDERS' DAY BANQUET OF THE

UNION LEAGUE, PHILADELPHIA, PA.,

NOVEMBER 22, 1902

Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Union League:

Forty years ago this club was founded, in the
dark days of the Civil War, to uphold the hands of
Abraham Lincoln and give aid to those who bat
tled for the Union and for human liberty. Two
years ago President McKinley came here as your
guest to thank you, and through you all those far-
sighted and loyal men who had supported him in his
successful effort to keep untarnished the national
good faith at home and the national honor abroad,
and to bring back to this country the material well-
being which we now so abundantly enjoy. It was
no accident which made the men of this club who
stood as in a peculiar sense the champions and up-

212 Presidential Addresses

holders of the principles of Lincoln in the early
sixties stand no less stoutly for those typified in the
person of McKinley during the closing years of the
century. The qualities apt to make men respond to
the call of duty in one crisis are also apt to make
them respond to a similar call in a crisis of a dif
ferent character. The traits which enabled our peo
ple to pass unscathed through the fiery ordeal of
the Civil War were the traits upon which we had to
rely in the less serious, but yet serious, dangers by
which we were menaced in 1896, 1898, and 1900.
From the very beginning our people have mark
edly combined practical capacity for affairs with
power of devotion to an ideal. The lack of either
quality would have rendered the possession of the
other of small value. Mere ability to achieve suc
cess in things concerning the body would not have
atoned for the failure to live the life of high en
deavor; and, on the other hand, without a foun
dation of those qualities which bring material pros
perity there would be nothing on which the higher
life could be built. The men of the Revolution
would have failed if they had not possessed alike
devotion to liberty and ability (once liberty had been
achieved) to show common-sense and self-restraint
in its use. The men of the great Civil War would
have failed had they not possessed the business ca
pacity which developed and organized their resources
in addition to the stern resolution to expend these
resources as freely as they expended their blood in
furtherance of the great cause for which their hearts

And State Papers 213

leaped. It is this combination of qualities that has
made our people succeed. Other peoples have been
as devoted to liberty, and yet, because of lack of
hard-headed common-sense and of ability to show
restraint and subordinate individual passions for the
general good, have failed so signally in the struggle
of life as to become a byword among the nations.
Yet other peoples, again, have possessed all possible
thrift and business capacity, but have been trampled
under foot, or have played a sordid and ignoble part
in the world, because their business capacity was
unaccompanied by any of the lift toward nobler
things which marks a great and generous nation.
The stern but just rule of judgment for humanity
is that each nation shall be known by its fruits ; and
if there are no fruits, if the nation has failed, it mat
ters but little whether it has failed through mean
ness of soul or through lack of robustness of char
acter. We must judge a nation by the net result
of its life and activity. And so we must judge the
policies of those who at any time control the des
tinies of a nation.

Therefore I ask you to-night to look at the re
sults of the policies championed by President Mc-
Kinley on both the occasions when he appealed to
the people for their suffrages, and to see how well
that appeal has been justified by the event. Most
certainly I do not claim all the good that has be
fallen us during the past six years as due solely to
any human policy. No legislation, however wise, no
Administration, however efficient, can secure pros-

214 Presidential Addresses

perity to a people or greatness to a nation. All
that can be done by the law-maker and the adminis
trator is to give the best chance possible for the peo
ple of the country themselves to show the stuff that
is in them. President McKinley was elected in
1896 on the specific pledge that he would keep
the financial honor of the Nation untarnished and
would put our economic system on a stable basis,
so that our people might be given a chance to
secure the return of prosperity. Both pledges
have been so well kept that, as is but too often
the case, men are beginning to forget how much
the keeping of them has meant. When people
have become very prosperous they tend to become
sluggishly indifferent to the continuation of the
policies that brought about their prosperity. At such
times as these it is of course a mere law of nature
that some men prosper more than others, and too
often those who prosper less, in their jealousy of
their more fortunate brethren, forget that all have
prospered somewhat. I ask you soberly to remem
ber that the complaint made at the present day of
our industrial or economic conditions never takes
the form of stating that any of our people are less
well off than they were seven or eight years back,
before President McKinley came in and his policies
had a chance to be applied ; but that the complaint is
that some people have received more than their share
of the good things of the world. There was no
such complaint eight years ago, in the summer of
1894. Complaint was not then that any one had

And State Papers 215

prospered too much ; it was that no one had pros
pered enough. Let each one of us think of the af
fairs of his own household and his own business, let
each of us compare his standing now with his stand
ing eight years back, and then let him answer for
himself whether it is not true that the policies for
which William McKinley stood in 1896 have justi
fied themselves thrice over by the results they have
brought a&out.

In 1900 the issues were in part the same, but new
ones had been added. Prosperity had returned ; the
gold standard was assured ; our tariff was remodeled
on the lines that have marked it at all periods when
our well-being was greatest. But as must often
happen, the President elected on certain issues was
obliged to face others entirely unforeseen. Rarely
indeed have our greatest men made issues — they
have shown their greatness by meeting them as they
arose. President McKinley faced the problems of
the Spanish War and those that followed it exactly
as he had faced the problems of our economic and
financial needs. As a sequel to the war with Spain
we found ourselves in possession of the Philippines
under circumstances which rendered it necessary to
subdue a formidable insurrection which made it im
possible for us with honor or with regard to the
welfare of the island to withdraw therefrom. The
occasion was seized by the opponents of the Presi
dent for trying to raise a new issue, on which they
hoped they might be more successful than on the old.
The clamor raised against him was joined in not

216 Presidential Addresses

only by many honest men who were led astray by a
mistaken view or imperfect knowledge of the facts,
but by all who feared effort, who shrank from the
rough work of endeavor. The campaign of 1900
had to be fought largely upon the new issue thus
raised. President McKinley met it squarely. Two
years and eight months ago, before his second nomi
nation, he spoke as follows:

"We believe that the century of free government
which the American people have enjoyed has not
rendered them irresolute and faithless, but has fitted
them for the great task of lifting up and assisting
to better conditions and larger liberty those distant
peoples who through the issue of battle have become
our wards. Let us fear not. There Is no occasion
for faint hearts, no excuse for regrets. Nations do
not grow in strength, the cause of liberty and law
is not advanced by the doing of easy things. The
harder the task the greater will be the result, the
benefit, and the honor. To doubt our power to ac
complish it is to lose faith in the soundness and
strength of our popular institutions. . . . We have
the new care and can not shift it. And, breaking
up the camp of ease and isolation, let us bravely and
hopefully and soberly continue the march of faithful
service, and falter not until the work is done. . . .
The burden is our opportunity. The opportunity is
greater than the burden."

There spoke the man who preached the gospel of
hope as well as the gospel of duty, and on the issue
thus fairly drawn between those who said we would

And State Papers 217

do our new work well and triumphantly and those
who said we would fail lamentably in the effort, the
contest was joined. We won. And now I ask you,
two years after the victory, to look across the seas
and judge for yourselves whether or not the promise
has been kept. The prophets of disaster have seen
their predictions so completely falsified by the event
that it is actually difficult to arouse even a passing
interest in their failure. To answer them now, to
review their attack on our army, is of merely aca
demic interest. They played their brief part of ob
struction and clamor; they said their say; and the
current of our life went over them and they sank
under it as did their predecessors who, thirty-six
years before, had declared that another and greater
war was a failure, that another and greater struggle
for true liberty was only a contest for subjugation in
which the United States could never succeed. The
insurrection among the Filipinos has been absolutely
quelled. The war has been brought to an end sooner
than even the most sanguine of us dared to hope.
The world has not in recent years seen any military
task done with more soldierly energy and ability;
and done, moreover, in a spirit of great humanity.
The strain on the army was terrible, for the condi
tions of climate and soil made their work harassing
to an extraordinary degree, and the foes in the field
were treacherous and cruel, not merely toward our
men, but toward the great multitude of peaceful isl
anders who welcomed our rule. Under the strain
of wellnigh intolerable provocation there were

2i 8 Presidential Addresses

shameful instances, as must happen in all wars,
where the soldiers forgot themselves, and retaliated
evil for evil. There were one hundred thousand of
our men in the Philippines, a hundred thousand hired
for a small sum a month apiece, put there under
conditions that strained their nerves to the breaking
point, and some of the hundred thousand did what
they ought not to have done. But out of a hundred
thousand men at home, have all been faultless?
Every effort has been made to detect such cases,
to punish the offenders, and to prevent any re
currence of the deed. It is a cruel injustice to the
gallant men who fought so well in the Philippines
not to recognize that these instances were excep
tional, and that the American troops who served in
the far-off tropic islands deserve praise the same in
kind that has always been given to those who have
well and valiantly fought for the honor of our com
mon flag and common country. The work of civil
administration has kept pace with the work of mili
tary administration, and when on July 4 last am
nesty and peace were declared throughout the isl
ands the civil government assumed the complete con
trol. Peace and order now prevail and a greater
measure of prosperity and of happiness than the
Filipinos have ever hitherto known in all their dark
and checkered history ; and each one of them has a
greater measure of liberty, a greater chance of hap
piness, and greater safety for his life and property
than he or his forefathers have ever before known.
Thus we have met each task that has confronted

And State Papers 219

us during the past six years. Thus we have kept
every promise made in 1896 and 1900. We have a
right to be proud of the memories of the last six
years. But we must remember that each victory only
opens the chance for a new struggle; that the re
membrance of triumphs achieved in the past is of
use chiefly if it spurs us to fresh effort in the pres
ent. No nation has ever prospered as we are pros
pering now, and we must see to it that by our own
folly we do not mar this prosperity. Yet we must
see to it also that wherever wrong flourishes it be
repressed. It is not the habit of our people to shirk
issues, but squarely to face them. It is not the
habit of our people to treat a good record in the past
as anything but a reason for expecting an even bet
ter record in the present; and no Administration,
gentlemen, should ask to be judged save on those
lines. The tremendous growth of our industrialism
has brought to the front many problems with which
we must deal; and I trust that we shall deal with
them along the lines indicated in speech and in ac
tion by that profound jurist and upright and fearless
public servant who represents Pennsylvania in the
Cabinet — Attorney-General Knox. The question
of the so-called trusts is but one of the questions we
must meet in connection with our industrial sys
tem. There are many of them and they are seri
ous; but they can and will be met. Time may be
needed for making the solution perfect ; but it is idle
to tell this people that we have not the power to solve
such a problem as that of exercising adequate super-

220 Presidential Addresses

vision over the great industrial combinations of to
day. We have the power and we shall find out the
way. We shall not act hastily or recklessly ; but we
have firmly made up our minds that a solution, and
a right solution, shall be found, and found it will be.
No nation as great as ours can expect to escape
the penalty of greatness, for greatness does not come
without trouble and labor. There are problems
ahead of us at home and problems abroad, because
such problems are incident to the working out of a
great national career. We do not shrink from them.
Scant is our patience with those who preach the gos
pel of craven weakness. No nation under the sun
ever yet played a part worth playing if it feared its
fate overmuch — if it did not have the courage to be
great. We of America, we, the sons of a nation yet
in the pride of its lusty youth, spurn the teachings
of distrust, spurn the creed of failure and despair.
We know that the future is ours if we have in us the
manhood to grasp it, and we enter the new century
girding our loins for the contest before us, re
joicing in the struggle, and resolute so to bear our
selves that the Nation's future shall even surpass
her glorious past.

And State Papers

AT THE BANQUET TO JUSTICE HARLAN, THE
NEW WILLARD HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C,
DECEMBER 9, 1902

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen:

It is a peculiar privilege to be here to-night as
one of those gathered to do homage to a career
which has honored America. It is difficult to say
certain of the truths which must need be said with
out being guilty of truisms in saying them. It is
not an idle boast of this country when we speak of
the court upon which Mr. Justice Harlan sits as the
most illustrious and important court in all the civil
ized world. It is not merely our own people who
say that — it is the verdict of other nations as
well.

Mr. Justice Harlan has served for a quarter of a
century on that court. During that time he has ex
ercised an influence over the judicial statesmanship
of the country of a kind such as is possible only un
der our own form of government. For the judges
of the Supreme Court of the land must be not only
great jurists, but they must be great constructive
statesmen. And the truth of what I say is illus
trated by every study of American statesmanship,
for in not one serious study of American political
life will it be possible to omit the immense part
played by the Supreme Court in the creation, not
merely the modification, of the great policies through
and by means of which the country has moved on to
its present position.

222 Presidential Addresses

Thrice fortunate is the court when it has as one
of its members a man who has played a great part
in other spheres of our composite national life. Mr.
Justice Harlan came from Kentucky, a State in
which the patriotism of the people was put to so
peculiarly a severe test in the Civil War. In the
States of the further North it was easy for the
man to make up his mind on which side he would
unsheathe his sword. In the States of the further
South it was equally easy. In Kentucky the task
was a difficult one. I remember, Mr. Justice, being
told by a Kentuckian, who was a stanch friend of
yours and one of the greatest lawyers and most pa
triotic citizens whom this country had — John Mason
Brown — that he came back from a trip from the
West as a young man of twenty-one, just at the
time of the outbreak of the Civil War, just after
Sumter had been fired upon, and his mother brought
down to him the sword that his father had carried
in the Mexican War, and said to him :

"My son, this is the sword your father carried.
I hope you will draw it on the side that defends the
flag for which your father fought, but, for one side
or the other, draw it you must."

In any audience in any State of the Union, take
it as far north as you wish, I can appeal with confi
dence to the people I address when I say that next
to the homage we pay to the men who proved the
truth of their endeavor as they battled in the blue
uniform is the homage we pay to the men who, with
equal sincerity, with equal devotion to the right as

And State Papers 223

it was given them to see the right, wore the gray.
And none pay that tribute of regard so frankly as
those who themselves wore the blue in battle.

And having said that, I am sure that none of my
friends who fought in the Confederate service will
misunderstand me or will grudge what I am about
to say when I say that the greatest debt owed by
this country to any set of men is owed by it to those
men of the so-called border States — the men who in
statesmanship followed Clay and the Crittendens
and the Blairs; the men who as soldiers fought on
the same side with Thomas and Farragut, the men
who were for the Union, without regard to whether
their immediate associates were for it or not. In
'New York, in Massachusetts, in Illinois, in Iowa,
the men who stood for the Union went with the
stream. In parts of Kentucky, of Virginia, of Mis
souri, they stemmed the torrent. And, gentlemen,
I am half a Southerner myself. Two of my uncles
fought in the Confederate Navy. One of them
served under the father-in-law of Vice-Governor
Luke Wright, of the Philippine Islands. And so I
think I have the right to say that, knowing the
Southern people as I do, I would heartily advocate
fighting twice as hard as you fought from 1861 to

1865 for the privilege of staying in the same Union
with them.

The man to be a great statesman on the bench
of the Supreme Court must have many qualities,
and fortunate are we that this evening we can point
to Justice Harlan as embodying them. A good citi-

ii— VOL. XIII.

224 Presidential Addresses

zen must be a good citizen in peace and in war.
He must have the decent and orderly virtues, and
he must have the essential manliness for the lack
of which no good intention can atone. It will be
a bad thing for the nation if ever we grow as a na
tion to submit to the suppression of efficiency and
morality, if we ever grow to accept the belief that
we are to have two camps, in one of which will be
grouped the men who mean well, but who don't
do things, and in the other the men who do things,
but who do not mean well.

The art of successful self-government is not an
easy art for people or for individuals. It comes to
our people here as the inheritance of ages of effort.
It can be thrown away; it can be unlearned very
easily, and it surely will be unlearned if we forget
the vital need not merely of preaching, but of prac
ticing both sets of virtues — if we forget the vital
need of having the average citizen not only a good
man, but a man.

It is a fine thing to have on the Supreme Court
a man who dared venture all for the great prize of
death in battle when the country called for him, and
a man who, after the war was closed, did not
content himself with living an ignoble life on the
plea that he had done so well it was not necessary
to do more, but who continued to do his duty as a
citizen all the better because he had done it as a
soldier; the man who remembered that duty done,
to be of practical use, must serve not as an excuse
for not doing further duty, but as an incentive, as

And State Papers 225

a spur, to make him feel ashamed that his present
or his future should fall short of his past.

So, Judge Harlan, I greet you personally, sir. I
wish to express my own personal debt to you for
your influence, for your example, but I wish far
more, speaking as the representative of all our peo
ple, to express the infinite sense of obligation we
have to you for having shown by your life what the
type of fearless American citizenship should be.

RECEPTION OF A DELEGATION FROM THE
NATIONAL BOARD OF TRADE, WASHING
TON, D. C, JANUARY 15, 1903

Mr. Randall, speaking for the delegation, said:
Mr. President, we have come here merely to present
ourselves and to make our annual call on the Presi
dent of the United States. We thank you for meet
ing us.

The President responded : I shall not try to make
you any speech. I wish simply to say what a very
real pleasure it is to see you, and also to say this —
that I am glad to see the meetings of the big busi
ness interests take place sometimes in Washington.
Nothing can be better both for the business interests
and for legislation than to have as close a touch as
possible between the elective representatives here and
the men whose welfare is so interwoven with what
is done in the halls of Congress. It is a very great
help to all of us to have you come here. I thank
you for coming.

226 Presidential Addresses

AT THE BANQUET OF THE YOUNG MEN'S
CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, NEW WILLARD
HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C., JAN. 19, 1903

Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen:

It is no accident that we should meet here to cele
brate a record of fifty years — that period which cov
ers the half century which has seen the gigantic
industrial change of the world, which has seen the
fruition of the forces that have brought about a
revolution, socially and industrially, within the fifty
years such as was hardly seen within any preceding
five centuries. Life has been very intense, has been
carried on at a very high pressure, during that half
century; more intense, carried on at a higher pres
sure, than ever before. That means of course that
all the forces have been raised to a higher degree
of power — the forces of evil, and, thank heaven, also
the forces of good. If it had not been for the work
of such organizations as this, for such organized
effort as that represented by you here to-night,
the immense material progress of the world dur
ing the past half century would have been a prog
ress that would have told for ill for the nations, not
for good. We can say with truth that we are better
off than we were. We can say that the creed of
those who have faith is the right creed as justified
in present history, because side by side with this
great material, development, and with an even
stronger rate of growth than the forces of evil, have
grown the forces of good. If it had not been for

And State Papers 227

the work done by those who founded this move
ment, and of course by all those who have taken
part in similar movements, in all movements for
good, in every movement for social betterment, for
civic betterment, in every movement to make men
decent and manly and strong — if it had not been for
the work done by them, if they had sat supine and
thought things would make themselves better, things
would have become steadily worse. We see all
around us people who say, "Oh, well, things will
come out all right." So they will; but not because
there are men who are content to say that they will
come out all right; but because there is a sufficient
number of earnest men with the root of righteous
ness in them who are bound to do what will make
them come out right.

The remarkable concentration of our lives during
the last half century has rendered it possible for any
thing that is evil to manifest itself more strongly
than ever before, and therefore made it necessary
for us to see that the good has a corresponding de
velopment. A hundred years ago there was no such
need for the Young Men's Christian Associations,
for the invaluable Young Women's Christian Asso
ciations. Life was simpler. The temptation would
come surely to every man, but it would not come so
frequently and in so intense a form. As the forces
of evil manifested themselves in stronger and
stronger form they had to be met, if they were to
be successfully grappled with, by organized effort,
by the effort of the many, which must always be

228 Presidential Addresses

stronger than the effort of one; and the successful
effort to combat the forces of evil had to take just
such shape as has been given to the growth of the
Young Men's Christian Associations. It had to
take the shape of combining decency and efficiency.
There are many things that are so true that it seems
almost trite to speak of them, and yet it is contin
ually necessary to speak of them. There have been
philanthropic movements led and supported by most
excellent people, which, nevertheless, have produced
results altogether incommensurable with the efforts
spent, because they failed to combine as this move
ment has combined a recognition of the needs of
human nature with a resolute effort to make that
human nature better.

I have been acquainted especially with three types
of your work: the work in the army and navy, the
work among railroad men, and the work among col
lege students. These three classes are not going
to be effectively reached as classes by any effort
which fails to take account of the fact that they de
mand manliness as well as virtue ; and you can make
them straight only on condition that in making them
straight you also keep in mind that it is necessary
for them to be strong. Remember Wesley's re
mark when some one criticised him because his
hymn tunes were so good. He answered that he
was not going to leave all the good tunes to the
devil. We want to be exceedingly careful that the
impression shall not get about that good men intend
to leave strength to those who serve the devil. I

And State Papers 229

was very much interested in what was said by Mr.
Mott as to the meeting at Yale a few nights ago,
where the captain of the football team and the cap
tain of the crew of next season both were present.
I think that is typical of the whole movement. I
am certain that those who have had experience in
the army and navy have seen that in the long run
the man who is a decent man is apt to be the man
who is the best soldier. The work among the rail
road men always particularly appealed to me because
the railroad men are those who follow that modern
industry which more than any other modern indus
try makes demand upon its followers for the heroic
virtues, for the willingness to take risks, the willing
ness to accept responsibilities, the readiness to adopt
a standard of duty which will require at need the
sacrifice of life; those who follow it must possess
both the power to obey and the power to act on in
dividual initiative — the power to take responsibility.
You can make men like that accept morality if you
can make them understand that it is not only com
patible with but is demanded by essential manliness.
The work of the Y. M. C. A. has grown so among
college students, for instance, because (I think I am
right in saying) it has tried, not to dwarf any of
the impulses of the young, vigorous men but to
guide them aright. It has sought not to make a
man's development one-sided, not to prevent his be
ing a man, but to see that he is in the fullest sense a
man, and a good man. We greet to-night with pe
culiar pleasure the men who served in the great war.

230 Presidential Addresses

Those men won in the day of trial because they
and their fellows had in them, in the first place, the
power of devotion to an ideal, and, in the next place,
the strength to realize that power in effective fash
ion. If the men of '61 had not been driven forward
by a spirit which made them anxious to lay down
their lives if need should be rather than to see the
flag of the Union torn in twain, if they had not had
in them the lift toward loftier things which comes
to those who value life as of small account compared
to devotion to country and to the flag, if they had
not in the truest and greatest and deepest sense of
the word been patriotic, then no amount of fighting
capacity would have saved them. I don't care how
good natural soldiers or sailors they had been, if
their ambitions had been personal, if they had been
fundamentally disloyal, if each had been striving
to build up himself and had viewed his fellows as
rivals to be trampled down for his own advantage,
then failure would have come upon them. If Grant
and Sherman and Thomas and Farragut had not all
felt that they were fighting for one end, that they
were holding up the arms of mighty Lincoln as he
toiled and wrought and suffered for the people, then
their. prowess would have availed naught, and this
Nation would have gone down into bloody anarchy,
would have crumbled into dust as so many republics
had crumbled of old. They needed fervent devo
tion to country, devotion to the right, and power to
fight.

In addition to the lofty ideal — in no way as a

And State Papers 231

substitute for it, but in addition to this power of de
votion to an ideal — the man must have the fibre of
heart, the fibre of body, to make his devotion take
effective shape for the Nation's welfare. And now
adays we shall win out, in the fight for a loftier life
— we shall make this twentieth century better and
not worse than any century that has gone before it
— in proportion as we approach the problems that
face us as this society has approached those prob
lems, with a firm resolution to neglect neither side
of the development of our people, to strive to make
the young men decent, God-fearing, law-abiding,
honor-loving, justice-doing; and also fearless and
strong, able to hold their own in the hurly-burly of
the world's work, able to strive mightily that the
forces of right may be in the end triumphant.

AT THE BANQUET AT CANTON, OHIO, JANU
ARY 27, 1903, IN HONOR OF THE BIRTHDAY
OF THE LATE PRESIDENT McKINLEY

Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies, and Gentlemen:

Throughout our history, and indeed through
out history generally, it has been given to only a
very few thrice-favored men to take so marked a
lead in the crises faced by their several generations
that thereafter each stands as the embodiment of the
triumphant effort of his generation. President Mc-
Kinley was one of these men.

If during the lifetime of a generation no crisis
occurs sufficient to call out in marked manner the

232 Presidential Addresses

energies of the strongest leader, then of course the
world does not and can not know of the existence
of such a leader; and in consequence there are long
periods in the history of every nation during which
no man appears who leaves an indelible mark in his
tory. If, on the other hand, the crisis is one so
many-sided as to call for the development and ex
ercise of many distinct attributes, it may be that
more than one man will appear in order that the re
quirements shall be fully met. In the Revolution
and in the period of constructive statesmanship
immediately following it, for our good fortune it
befell us that the highest military and the highest
civic attributes were embodied in Washington, and
so in him we have one of the undying men of his
tory — a great soldier, if possible an even greater
statesman, and above all a public servant whose lofty
and disinterested patriotism rendered his power and
ability — alike on fought fields and in council cham
bers — of the most far-reaching service to the Re
public. In the Civil War the two functions were
divided, and Lincoln and Grant will stand for ever
more with their names inscribed on the honor roll
of those who have deserved well of mankind by
saving to humanity a precious heritage. In similar
fashion Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson stand
each as the foremost representative of the great
movement of his generation, and their names sym
bolize to us their times, and the hopes and aspira
tions of their times.

And State Papers 233

It was given to President McKinley to take the
foremost place in our political life at a time when
our country was brought face to face with problems
more momentous than any whose solution we have
ever attempted, save only in the Revolution and in
the Civil War; and it was under his leadership that
the Nation solved these mighty problems aright.
Therefore he shall stand in the eyes of history not
merely as the first man of his generation, but as
among the greatest figures in our national life,
coming second only to the men of the two great
crises in which the Union was founded and pre
served.

No man could carry through successfully such
a task as President McKinley undertook, unless
trained by long years of effort for its performance.
Knowledge of his fellow-citizens, ability to under
stand them, keen sympathy with even their inner
most feelings, and yet power to lead them, together
with far-sighted sagacity and resolute belief both in
the people and in their future — all these were needed
in the man who headed the march of our people
during the eventful years from 1896 to 1901. These
were the qualities possessed by McKinley and devel
oped by him throughout his whole history previous
to assuming the Presidency. As a lad he had the
inestimable privilege of serving, first in the ranks,
and then as a commissioned officer, in the great war
for national union, righteousness, and grandeur;
he was one of those whom a kindly Providence per
mitted to take part in a struggle which ennobled

234 Presidential Addresses

every man who fought therein. He who when
little more than a boy had seen the grim steadfast
ness which after four years of giant struggle re
stored the Union and freed the slaves was not there
after to be daunted by danger or frightened out of
his belief in the great destiny of our people.

Some years after the war closed McKinley came
to Congress, and rose, during a succession of terms,
to leadership in his party in the lower House. He
also became Governor of his native State, Ohio.
During this varied service he received practical
training of the kind most valuable to him when he
became Chief Executive of the Nation. To the
high faith of his early years was added the capacity
to realize his ideals, to work with his fellow-men at
the same time that he led them.

President McKinley's rise to greatness had in it
nothing of the sudden, nothing of the unexpected
or seemingly accidental. Throughout his long term
of service in Congress there was a steady increase
alike in his power of leadership and in the recogni
tion of that power both by his associates in public
life and by the public itself. Session after session
his influence in the House grew greater; his party
antagonists grew to look upon him with constantly
increasing respect, his party friends with constantly
increasing faith and admiration. Eight years be
fore he was nominated for President he was al
ready considered a Presidential possibility. Four
years before he was nominated only his own high
sense of honor prevented his being made a formida-

And State Papers 235

ble competitor of the chief upon whom the choice
of the convention then actually fell. In 1896, he
was chosen because the great mass of his -party
knew him and believed in him and regarded him as
symbolizing their ideals, as representing their as
pirations. In estimating the forces which brought
about this nomination and election I do not under
value that devoted personal friendship which he had
the faculty to inspire in so marked a degree among
the ablest and most influential leaders; this leader
ship was of immense consequence in bringing about
the result; but, after all, the prime factor was the
trust in and devotion to him felt by the great mass
of men who had come to accept him as their recog
nized spokesman. In his nomination the national
convention of a great party carried into effect in
good faith the deliberate judgment of that party as
to whom its candidate should be.

But even as a candidate President McKinley was
far more than the candidate of a party, and as Pres
ident he was in the broadest and fullest sense the
President of all the people of all sections of the
country.

His first nomination came to him because of the
qualities he had shown in healthy and open politi
cal leadership, the leadership which by word and
deed impresses itself as a virile force for good upon
the people at large and which has nothing in com
mon with mere intrigue or manipulation. But, in
1896, the issue was fairly joined, chiefly upon a
question which as a party question was entirely new,

236 Presidential Addresses

so that the old lines of political cleavage were, in
large part, abandoned. All other issues sank in im
portance when compared with the vital need of
keeping our financial system on the high and honor
able plane imperatively demanded by our position
as a great civilized power. As the champion of
such a principle President McKinley received the
support not only of his own party, but of hundreds
of thousands of those to whom he had been politi
cally opposed. He triumphed, and he made good
with scrupulous fidelity the promises upon which
the campaign was won. We were at the time in a
period of great industrial depression, and it was
promised for and on behalf of McKinley that if he
were elected our financial system should not only be
preserved unharmed but improved and our economic
system shaped in accordance with those theories
which have always marked our periods of greatest
prosperity. The promises were kept and following
their keeping came the prosperity which we now
enjoy. All that was foretold concerning the well-
being which would follow the election of McKinley
has been justified by the event. But as so often
happens in our history, the President was forced
to face questions other than those at issue at the
time of his election. Within a year the situa
tion in Cuba had become literally intolerable.
President McKinley had fought too well in his
youth, he knew too well at first hand what war
really was, lightly to enter into a struggle. He
sought by every honorable means to preserve peace,

And State Papers 237

to avert war. He made every effort consistent with
the national honor to bring about an amicable set
tlement of the Cuban difficulty. Then, when it
became evident that these efforts were useless, that
peace could not be honorably entertained, he devoted
his strength to making the war as short and as de
cisive as possible. It is needless to tell the result in
detail. Suffice it to say that rarely indeed in his
tory has a contest so far-reaching in the importance
of its outcome been achieved with such ease. There
followed a harder task. As a result of the war we
came into possession of Cuba, Porto Rico, and the
Philippines. In each island the conditions were such
that we had to face problems entirely new to our
national experience, and, moreover, in each island
or group of islands the problems differed radically
from those presented in the others. In Porto Rico
the task was simple. The island could not be in
dependent. It became in all essentials a part of the
Union. It has been given all the benefits of our
economic and financial system. Its inhabitants have
been given the highest individual liberty, while yet
their government has been kept under the super
vision of officials so well chosen that the island can
be appealed to as affording a model for all such ex
periments in the future; and this result was mainly
owing to the admirable choice of instruments by
President McKinley when he selected the governing
officials.

In Cuba, where we were pledged to give the isl
and independence, the pledge was kept not merely

23 8 Presidential Addresses

in letter but in spirit. It would have been a betrayal
of our duty to have given Cuba independence out of
hand. President McKinley, with his usual singular
sagacity in the choice of agents, selected in General
Leonard Wood the man of all others best fit to
bring the island through its uncertain period of prep
aration for independence, and the result of his wis
dom was shown when last May the island became
in name and in fact a free Republic, for it started
with a better equipment and under more favorable
conditions than had ever previously been the case
with any Spanish-American commonwealth.

Finally, in the Philippines, the problem was one
of great complexity. There was an insurrectionary
party claiming to represent the people of the islands
and putting forth their claim with a certain specious-
ness which deceived no small number of excellent
men here at home, and which afforded to yet others
a chance to arouse a factious party spirit against the
President. Of course, looking back, it is now easy
to see that it would have been both absurd and
wicked to abandon the Philippine Archipelago and
let the scores of different tribes — Christian, Moham
medan, and pagan, in every stage of semi-civiliza
tion and Asiatic barbarism — turn the islands into a
welter of bloody savagery, with the absolute cer
tainty that some strong power would have to step
in and take possession. But though now it is easy
enough to see that our duty was to stay in the isl
ands, to put down- the insurrection by force of arms,
and then to establish freedom-giving civil govern-

And State Papers 239

ment, it needed genuine statesmanship to see this
and to act accordingly at the time of the first revolt.
A weaker and less far-sighted man than President
McKinley would have shrunk from a task very diffi
cult in itself, and certain to furnish occasion for
attack and misrepresentation no less than for honest
misunderstanding. But President McKinley never
flinched. He refused to consider the thought of
abandoning our duty in our new possessions. While
sedulously endeavoring to act with the utmost hu
manity toward the insurrectionists, he never faltered
in the determination to put them down by force of
arms, alike for the sake of our own interest and
honor, and for the sake of the interest of the isl
anders, and particularly of the great numbers of
friendly natives, including those most highly civil
ized, for whom abandonment by us would have
meant ruin and death. Again his policy was most
amply vindicated. Peace has come to the islands,
together with a greater measure of individual lib
erty and self-government than they have ever before
known. All the tasks set us as a result of the war
with Spain have so far been well and honorably
accomplished, and as a result this Nation stands
higher than ever before among the nations of
mankind.

President McKinley's second campaign was
fought mainly on the issue of approving what he
had done in his first administration, and specifically
what he had done as regards these problems spring
ing out of the war with Spain. The result was that

240 Presidential Addresses

the popular verdict in his favor was more over
whelming than it had been before.

No other President in our history has seen high
and honorable effort crowned with more conspicu
ous personal success. No other President entered
upon his second term feeling such right to a pro
found and peaceful satisfaction. Then by a stroke
of horror, so strange in its fantastic iniquity as to
stand unique in the black annals of crime, he was
struck down. The brave, strong, gentle heart was
stilled forever, and word was brought to the woman
who wept that she was to walk thenceforth alone
in the shadow. The hideous infamy of the deed
shocked the Nation to its depths, for the man thus
struck at was in a peculiar sense the champion of
the plain people, in a peculiar sense the representa
tive and the exponent of those ideals which, if we
live up to them, will make, as they have largely
made, our country a blessed refuge for all who
strive to do right and to live their lives simply and
well as light is given them. The Nation was
stunned, and the people mourned with a sense of
bitter bereavement because they had lost a man
whose heart beat for them as the heart of Lincoln
once had beaten. We did right to mourn; for the
loss was ours, not his. He died in the golden ful
ness of his triumph. He died victorious in that
highest of all kinds of strife — the strife for an am
pler, juster, and more generous national life. For
him the laurel ; but woe for those whom he left be
hind ; woe to the Nation that lost him ; and woe to

And State Papers 241

mankind that there should exist creatures so foul
that one among them should strike at so noble a
life.

We are gathered together to-night to recall his
memory, to pay our tribute of respect to the great
chief and leader who fell in the harness, who was
stricken down while his eyes were bright with "the
light that tells of triumph tasted." We can honor
him best by the way we show in actual deed that
we have taken to heart the lessons of his life. We
must strive to achieve, each in the measure that he
can, something of the qualities which made Presi
dent McKinley a leader of men, a mighty power for
good — his strength, his courage, his courtesy and
dignity, his sense of justice, his ever-present kindli
ness and regard for the rights of others. He won
greatness by meeting and solving the issues as they
arose — not by shirking them — meeting them with
wisdom, with the exercise of the most skilful and
cautious judgment, but with fearless resolution when
the time of crisis came. He met each crisis on its
own merits; he never sought excuse for shirking a
task in the fact that it was different from the one
he had expected to face. The long public career,
which opened when as a boy he carried a musket in
the ranks and closed when as a man in the prime
of his intellectual- strength he stood among the
world's chief statesmen, came to what it was be
cause he treated each triumph as opening the road
to fresh effort, not as an excuse for ceasing from
effort. He undertook mighty tasks. Some of them

242 Presidential Addresses

he finished completely; others we must finish; and
there remain yet others which he did not have to
face, but which, if we are worthy to be the inheritors
of his principles, we will in our turn face with the
same resolution, the same sanity, the same unfalter
ing belief in the greatness of this country, and un
faltering championship of the rights of each and all
of our people, which marked his high and splendid
career.

AT CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK, N. Y., FEB
RUARY 26, 1903, UPON THE OCCASION OF
THE BI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE
BIRTH OF JOHN WESLEY

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am glad to have the chance of addressing this
representative body of the great Church which Wes
ley founded, on the occasion of the commemoration
of the two hundredth anniversary of his birth.
America, moreover, has a peculiar proprietary claim
on Wesley's memory, for it is on our continent that
the Methodist Church has received its greatest de
velopment. In the days of our Colonial life Meth
odism was not on the whole a great factor in the
religious and social life of the people. The Congre-
gationalists were supreme throughout most of New
England; 'the Episcopalians on the seaboard from
New York southward; while the Presbyterian con
gregations were most numerous along what was
then the entire Western frontier; and the Quaker,

And State Papers 243

Catholic, and Dutch Reformed Churches each had
developments in special places. The great growth
of the Methodist Church, like the great growth of
the Baptist Church, began at about the time of the
Revolutionary War. To-day my theme is purely
Methodism.

Since the days of the Revolution not only has the
Methodist Church increased greatly in the old com
munities of the thirteen original States, but it has
played a peculiar and prominent part in the pioneer
growth of our country, and has in consequence as
sumed a position of immense importance through
out the vast region west of the Alleghanies which
has been added to our Nation since the days when
the Continental Congress first met.

For a century after the Declaration of Independ
ence the greatest work of our people, with the ex
ception only of the work of self-preservation under
Lincoln, was the work of the pioneers as they took
possession of this continent. During that century
we pushed westward from the Alleghanies to the
Pacific, southward to the Gulf and the Rio Grande,
and also took possession of Alaska. The work of
advancing our boundary, of pushing the frontier
across forest and desert and mountain chain, was
the great typical work of our Nation; and the men
who did it — the frontiersmen, the pioneers, the back
woodsmen, plainsmen, mountain men — formed a
class by themselves. It was an iron task, which
none but men of iron soul and iron body could do.
The men who carried it to a successful conclusion

244 Presidential* Addresses

had characters strong alike for good and for evil.
Their rugged natures made them powers who served
light or darkness with fierce intensity; and together
with heroic traits they had those evil and dreadful
tendencies which are but too apt to be found in
characters of heroic possibilities. Such men make
the most efficient servants of the Lord if their
abounding vitality and energy are directed aright;
and if misdirected their influence is equally potent
against the cause of Christianity and true civilization.
In the hard and cruel life of the border, with its
grim struggle against the forbidding forces of wild
nature and wilder men, there was much to pull the
frontiersman down. If left to himself, without
moral teaching and moral guidance, without any of
the influences that tend toward the uplifting of man
and the subduing of the brute within him, sad would
have been his, and therefore our, fate. From this
fate we have been largely rescued by the fact that
together with the rest of the pioneers went the
pioneer preachers; and all honor be given to the
Methodists for the great proportion of these pioneer
preachers whom they furnished.

These preachers were of the stamp of old Peter
Cartwright — men who suffered and overcame every
hardship in common with their flock, and who in
addition tamed the wild and fierce spirits of their
fellow-pioneers. It was not a task that could have
been accomplished by men desirous to live in the
soft places of the earth and to walk easily on life's
journey. They had to possess the spirit of the

And State Papers 245

martyrs; but not of martyrs who could merely suf
fer, not of martyrs who could oppose only passive
endurance to wrong. The pioneer preachers warred
against the forces of spiritual evil with the same
fiery zeal and energy that they and their fellows
showed in the conquest of the rugged continent.
They had in them the heroic spirit, the spirit that
scorns ease if it must be purchased by failure to do
duty, the spirit that courts risk and a life of hard
endeavor if the goal to be reached is really worth
attaining. Great is our debt to these men and scant
the patience we need show toward their critics. At
times they seemed hard and narrow to those whose
training and surroundings had saved them from
similar temptations; and they have been criticised,
as all men, whether missionaries, soldiers, explorers,
or frontier settlers, are criticised when they go forth
to do the rough work that must inevitably be done
by those who act as the first harbingers, the first her
alds, of civilization in the world's dark places. It
is easy for those who stay at home in comfort, who
never have to see humanity in the raw, or to strive
against the dreadful naked forces which appear
clothed, hidden, and subdued in civilized life — it is
easy for such to criticise the men who, in rough fash
ion, and amid grim surroundings, make ready the
way for the higher life that is to come afterward;
but let us all remember that the untempted and the
effortless should be cautious in passing too heavy
judgment upon their brethren who may show hard
ness, who may be guilty of shortcomings, but who

246 Presidential Addresses

nevertheless do the great deeds by which mankind
advances. These pioneers of Methodism had the
strong, militant virtues which go to the accomplish
ment of such great deeds. Now and then they be
trayed the shortcomings natural to men of their
type ; but their shortcomings seem small indeed when
we place beside them the magnitude of the work
they achieved.

And now, friends, in celebrating the wonderful
growth of Methodism, v in rejoicing at the good it
has done to the country and to mankind, I need
hardly ask a body like this to remember that the
greatness of the fathers becomes to the children a
shameful thing if they use it only as an excuse for
inaction instead of as a spur to effort for noble aims.
I speak to you not only as Methodists — I speak to
you as American citizens. The pioneer days are
over. We now all of us form parts of a great civil
ized nation, with a complex industrial and social life
and infinite possibilities both for good and for evil.
The instruments with which, and the surroundings
in which, we work, have changed immeasurably
from what they were in the days when the rough
backwoods preachers ministered to the moral and
spiritual needs of their rough backwoods congrega
tions. But if we are to succeed, the spirit in which
we do our work must be the same as the spirit in
which they did theirs. These men drove forward,
and fought their way upward, to success, because
their sense of duty was in their hearts, in the very
marrow of their bones. It was not with them some-

And State Papers 247

thing to be considered as a mere adjunct to their
theology, standing separate and apart from their daily
life. They had it with them week days as well as
Sundays. They did not divorce the spiritual from the
secular. They did not have one kind of conscience
for one side of their lives and another for another.
If we are to succeed as a nation we must have
the same spirit in us. We must be absolutely
practical, of course, and must face facts as they are.
The pioneer preachers of Methodism could not have
held their own for a fortnight if they had not
shown an intense practicability of spirit, if they had
not possessed the broadest and deepest sympathy
for, and understanding of, their fellowmen. But
in addition to the hard, practical common-sense
needed by each of us in life, we must have a lift
toward lofty things or we shall be lost, individually
and collectively, as a nation. Life is not easy, and
least of all is it easy for either the man or the nation
that aspires to do great deeds. In the century open
ing, the play of the infinitely far-reaching forces
and tendencies which go to make up our social sys
tem bids fair to be even fiercer in its activity than
in the century which has just closed. If during this
century the men of high and fine moral sense show
themselves weaklings ; if they possess only that clois
tered virtue which shrinks shuddering from contact
with the raw facts of actual life ; if they dare not go
down into the hurly-burly where the men of might
contend for the mastery; if they stand aside from
the pressure and conflict; then as surely as the sun

I2_VOL. XIII.

248 Presidential Addresses

rises and sets all of our great material progress, all
the multiplication of the physical agencies which
tend for our comfort and enjoyment, will go for
naught and our civilization will become a brutal
sham and mockery. If we are to do as I believe we
shall and will do, if we are to advance in broad hu
manity, in kindliness, in the spirit of brotherhood,
exactly as we advance in our conquest over the hid
den forces of nature, it must be by developing
strength in virtue and virtue in strength, by breed
ing and training men who shall be both good and
strong, both gentle and valiant — men who scorn
wrongdoing, and who at the same time have both
the courage and the strength to strive mightily for
the right. Wesley accomplished so much for man
kind because he refused to leave the stronger, man
lier qualities to be availed of only in the interest of
evil. The Church he founded has through its career
been a Church for the poor as well as for the rich
and has known no distinction of persons. It has
been a Church whose members, if true to the teach
ings of its founder, have sought for no greater
privilege than to spend and be spent in the interest
of the higher life, who have prided themselves, not
on shirking rough duty, but on undertaking it and
carrying it to a successful conclusion.

I come here to-night to greet you and to pay my
tribute to your past because you have deserved well
of mankind, because you have striven with strength
and courage to bring nearer the day when peace and
justice shall obtain among the peoples of the earth.

And State Papers 249

AT A MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF AMERI
CAN FORESTERS, HELD AT THE RESIDENCE
OF MR. GIFFORD PINCHOT, WASHINGTON,
D. C, MARCH 26, 1903

Mr. Pinchot, Mr. Secretary, and Gentlemen:

I have felt that this evening the meeting was of
such a character as not merely to warrant but in
a sense require that I should break through my cus
tom of not coming out to make speeches of this sort.
For I believe there are few bodies of men who have
it in their power to do a greater service to the coun
try than those engaged in the scientific study and
practical application of improved methods of for
estry for the preservation of our woods in the United
States. I am glad to see here this evening not
only the officials, including the head, of the De
partment of Agriculture, but those, like Governor
Richards, most concerned in carrying out the policy
of the Department of the Interior.

First and foremost, you can never afford to for
get for one moment what is the object of the forest
policy. Primarily that object is not to preserve for
ests because they are beautiful — though that is good
in itself; — not to preserve them because they are
refuges for the wild creatures of the wilderness —
though that too is good in itself — but the primary
object of the forest policy as of the land policy of the
United States, is the making of prosperous homes, is
part of the traditional policy of home-making of our
country. Every other consideration comes as sec-

250 Presidential Addresses

ondary. The whole effort of the government in
dealing with the forests must be directed to this end,
keeping in view the fact that it is not only necessary
to start the homes as prosperous, but to keep them
so. That is the way the forests have need to be kept.
You can start a prosperous home by destroying the
forest, but you do not keep it. You will be able to
make that policy permanently the policy of the coun
try only in so far as you are able to make the people
at large, and then all the people concretely, inter
ested in the results in the different localities, appre
ciative of what it means; give them a full recogni
tion of its value, and make them earnest and zealous
adherents of it. Keep that in mind too. In a gov
ernment such as ours it is out of the question to
impose a policy like this upon the people from with
out. A permanent policy can come only from the
intelligent conviction of the people themselves that
it is wise, and useful; nay, indispensable. We shall
decide in the long run whether we will or will not
preserve the forests of the Rocky Mountains ac
cordingly as we are or are not able to make the
people of the States around the mountains, in their
neighborhood, hearty believers in the policy of for
est preservation. This is the only way in which this
policy can be made a permanent success. In other
words, you must convince the people of the truth —
and it is the truth — that the success of home-makers
depends in the long run upon the wisdom with which
the Nation takes care of its forests. That seems a
strong statement. It is none too strong. There are

And State Papers 251

small sections of this country where what is done
with the woodlands makes no difference; but over
the great extent of the country the ultimate well-
being of the home-maker will depend in very large
part upon the intelligent use made of the forests.
In other words, you, yourselves, must keep this prac
tical object before your mind. You must remember
that the forest which contributes nothing to the
wealth, progress, or safety of the country is of no
interest to the government, and it should be of little
to the forester. Your attention should be directed
not to the preservation of the forests as an end in
itself, but as the means for preserving and increas
ing the prosperity of the Nation. Forestry is the
preservation of forests by wise use. We shall suc
ceed, not by preventing the use, but by making the
forests of use to the settler, the rancher, the miner,
the man who lives in the neighborhood, and indi
rectly the man who may live hundreds of miles off,
down the course of some great river which has its
rise among the forests.

The forest problem is in many ways the most vital
internal problem of the United States. The more
closely this statement is examined the more evi
dent its truth becomes. In the arid regions of the
West agricultural prosperity depends first of all
upon the available water supply. Forest protection
alone can maintain the streamflow necessary for ir
rigation in the West and prevent floods destructive
to agriculture and manufactures in the East. The
relation between forests and the whole mineral in-

252 Presidential Addresses

dustry is an extremely intimate one, for mines can
not be developed without timber, and usually not
without timber close at hand. In many regions of
the West ore is more abundant than wood, and where
the ore is of low grade, transportation of the nec
essary mine timbers from a distance is out of the
question. The use of the mine is strictly limited to
the man who has timber available close at hand. The
very existence of lumbering, the fourth great in
dustry of the United States, depends upon the success
of your work and our work as a Nation in putting
practical forestry into effective operation.

As it is with mining and lumbering, so it is in only
less degree with transportation, manufacture, and
commerce in general. The relation of all these in
dustries to the forests is of the most intimate and
dependent kind. It is a matter for congratulation
that so many of these great interests are waking up
to this fact. The railroads, especially, managed as
they are by men who are obliged by the very nature
of their profession to possess insight into the future,
have awakened to a clearer realization of the vast
importance of economical use both of timber and of
forests. Even the grazing industry, as it is carried
out in the great West, which might at first sight ap
pear to have little relation to forestry, is neverthe
less closely related to it, because great areas of win
ter range would be entirely useless without the sum
mer range in the mountains, where the forest re
serves lie.

The forest resources of our country are already

And State Papers 253

seriously depleted. They can be renewed and main
tained only by the co-operation of the forester and
the lumberman. The most striking and encouraging
fact in the forest situation is that lumbermen are
realizing that practical lumbering and practical for
estry are allies and not enemies, and that the future
of each depends upon the other. The resolutions
passed at the last great meeting of the representa
tive lumber interests held here in Washington are
strong proof of this fact and the most encouraging
feature of the present situation. As long as we
could not make the men concerned in the great lum
bering industry realize that the foresters were en
deavoring to work in their interests and not against
them, the headway that could be made was but small.
And we will be able to work effectively to bring about
immediate results of permanent importance largely
in proportion as we are able to convince the men
at the head of that great business of the practical
wisdom of what the foresters of the United States
are seeking to accomplish. In the last analysis, the
attitude of the lumbermen toward your work will
be the chief factor of the success or failure of that
work. In other words, gentlemen, I can not too
often say to you, as indeed it can not be too often
said to any body of men of high ideals and of scien
tific training who are endeavoring to accomplish
work of real worth for the country, you must keep
your ideals, and yet seek to realize them in prac
tical ways.

The United States is exhausting its forest supplies

254 Presidential Addresses

far more rapidly than they are being produced. The
situation is a grave one, and there is but one remedy.
That remedy is the introduction of practical forestry
on a large scale, and of course that is impossible
without trained men; men trained in the closet and
trained by actual field work, under practical condi
tions. You will have created a new profession; a
profession of the highest importance; a profession
of the highest usefulness toward the State ; and you
are in honor bound to yourselves and to the people
to make your profession stand as high as the pro
fession of law, as the profession of medicine, as any
other profession most intimately connected with our
highest and finest development as a nation. You are
engaged in pioneer work in a calling whose opportu
nities for public service are very great. Treat the
calling seriously ; remember how much it means for
the country as a whole; remember that if you do
your work in crude fashion, if you only half learn
your profession, you discredit it as well as your
selves. Give yourselves every chance by thorough
and generous preparation and by acquiring not only a
thorough knowledge, but a wide outlook over all the
questions on which you have to touch. The pro
fession which you have adopted is one which touches
the Republic on almost every side, political, social,
industrial, commercial; and to rise to its level you
will need a wide acquaintance with the general life
of the Nation, and a viewpoint both broad and high.
Any profession which makes you deal with your fel-
lowmen at large makes it necessary that, if you are

And State Papers 255

to succeed, you should understand what these fel-
lowmen are, and not merely what they are thought
to be by people who live in the closet and the parlor.
You must know who the men are with whom you
are acting ; how they feel ; how far you can go ; when
you have to stop; when it is necessary to push on;
you must know all of these things if you are going
to do work of the highest value.

I believe that the foresters of the United States
will create and apply a more effective system of for
estry than we have yet seen. If you don't, gentle
men, I will feel that you have fallen behind your
brethren of other callings; and I don't believe you
will fall behind them. Nowhere else is the develop
ment of a country more closely bound up with the
creation and execution of a judicious forest policy.
This is of course especially true of the West ; but it is
true of the East also. Fortunately in the West we
have been able relatively to the growth of the coun
try to begin at an earlier day ; so that we have been
able to provide great forest reserves in the Rocky
Mountains, instead of waiting and attempting to
get Congress to pay a very large sum for their crea
tion, as we are now endeavoring to do in the South
ern Appalachians. In the administration of the na
tional forest reserves, the introduction of conserva
tive lumbering on the timber tract of the lumberman
and the woodlot of the farmer, in the practical solu
tion of forest problems which affect every industry
and every activity of the nation, the members of
this society have an unexampled field before them.

256 Presidential Addresses

You have heavy responsibilities — every man that
does any work that is worth doing has a heavy re
sponsibility — for upon the quality of your work the
development of forestry in the United States and
the protection of the industries which depend upon it
will largely rest. You have made a good beginning,
and I congratulate you upon it. Not only is a sound
national forest policy coming rapidly into being, but
the lumbermen of the country are proving their in
terest in forestry by practicing it. Twenty years ago
a meeting such as this to-night would have been im
possible, and the desires we hear expressed would
have been treated as having no possible relation to
practical life. I think, Mr. Secretary, that since you
first came into Congress here there has been a com
plete revolution in the attitude of public men to
ward this question. We have reached a point where
American foresters, trained in American forest
schools, are attacking American forest problems
with success. That is the way to meet the larger
work you have before you. It is a work of peculiar
difficulty, because precedents are lacking. It will de
mand training, steadiness, devotion, and above all
esprit de corps, fealty to the body of which you are
members, zeal to keep the practice as well as the
ideals of that body high. The more harmoniously
you work with each other, the better your work will
be. And above all a condition precedent upon your
usefulness to the body politic as a whole is the way
in which you are able both to instil your own ideals
into the mass of your fellowmen with whom you

And State Papers 257

come in contact, and at the same time to show your
ability to work in practical fashion with them ; to con
vince them that as a business matter it will pay for
them to co-operate with you ; to convince the public
of that, and then also so to convince the people of the
localities, of the neighborhoods in which you work,
and especially the lumbermen and all others who
make their life trades dealing with the forests.

AT CHICAGO, ILL., APRIL 2, 1903

Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen:

To-day I wish to speak to you, not merely about
the Monroe Doctrine, but about our entire position
in the Western Hemisphere — a position so peculiar
and predominant that out of it has grown the ac
ceptance of the Monroe Doctrine as a cardinal fea
ture of our foreign policy ; and in particular I wish
to point out what has been done during the life
time of the last Congress to make good our position
in accordance with this historic policy.

Ever since the time when we definitely extended
our boundaries westward to the Pacific and south
ward to the Gulf, since the time when the old Span
ish and Portuguese colonies to the south of us as
serted their independence, our Nation has insisted
that because of its primacy in strength among the
nations of the Western Hemisphere it has certain
duties and responsibilities which oblige it to take
a leading part thereon. We hold that our interests
in this hemisphere are greater than those of any

258 Presidential Addresses

European power possibly can be, and that our duty
to ourselves and to the weaker republics who are
our neighbors requires us to see that none of the
great military powers from across the seas shall
encroach upon the territory of the American re
publics or acquire control thereover.

This policy, therefore, not only forbids us to
acquiesce in such territorial acquisition, but also
causes us to object to the acquirement of a control
which would in its effect be equal to territorial ag
grandizement. This is why the United States has
steadily believed that the construction of the great
Isthmian Canal, the building of which is to stand as
the greatest material feat of the twentieth century
— greater than any similar feat in any preceding
century — should be done by no foreign nation but
by ourselves. The canal must of necessity go
through the territory of one of our smaller sister
republics. We have been scrupulously careful to
abstain from perpetrating any wrong upon any of
these republics in this matter. We do not wish to
interfere with their rights in the least, but, while
carefully safeguarding them, to build the canal our
selves under provisions which will enable us, if
necessary, to police and protect it, and to guarantee
its neutrality, we being the sole guarantor. Our
intention was steadfast; we desired action taken so
that the canal could always be used by us in time of
peace and war alike, and in time of war could never
be used to our detriment by any nation which was
hostile to us. Such action, by the circumstances

And State Papers 259

surrounding it, was necessarily for the benefit and
not the detriment of the adjacent American re
publics.

After considerably more than half of a century
these objects have been exactly fulfilled by the legis
lation and treaties of the last two years. Two years
ago we were no further advanced toward the con
struction of the Isthmian Canal on our terms than
we had been during the preceding eighty years.
By the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, ratified in December,
1901, an old treaty with Great Britain, which had
been held to stand in the way, was abrogated and
it was agreed that the canal should be constructed
under the auspices of the Government of the United
States, and that this Government should have the
exclusive right to regulate and manage it, becoming
the sole guarantor of its neutrality.

It was expressly stipulated, furthermore, that this
guaranty of neutrality should not prevent the United
States from taking any measures which it found
necessary in order to secure by its own forces the
defence of the United States and the maintenance
of public order. Immediately following this treaty
Congress passed a law under which the President
was authorized to endeavor to secure a treaty for
acquiring the right to finish the construction of, and
to operate, the Panama Canal, which had already
been begun in the territory of Colombia by a French
company. The rights of this company were accord
ingly obtained and a treaty negotiated with the Re
public of Colombia. This treaty has just been rati-

260 Presidential Addresses

fied by the Senate. It reserves all of Colombia's
rights, while guaranteeing all of our own and those
of neutral nations, and specifically permits us to
take any and all measures for the defence of the
canal, and for the preservation of our interests,
whenever in our judgment an exigency may arise
which calls for action on our part. In other words,
these two treaties, and the legislation to carry them
out, have resulted in our obtaining on exactly the
terms we desired the rights and privileges which we
had so long sought in vain. These treaties are
among the most important that we have ever nego
tiated in their effects upon the future welfare of this
country, and mark a memorable triumph of Ameri
can diplomacy — one of those fortunate triumphs,
moreover, which redound to the benefit of the en
tire world.

About the same time trouble arose in connection
with the Republic of Venezuela because of certain
wrongs alleged to have been committed, and debts
overdue, by this Republic to citizens of various for
eign powers, notably England, Germany, and Italy.
After failure to reach an agreement these powers
began a blockade of the Venezuelan coast and a con
dition of quasi-war ensued. The concern of our
Government was of course not to interfere needless
ly in any quarrel so far as it did not touch our in
terests or our honor, and not to take the attitude of
protecting from coercion any power unless we were
willing to espouse the quarrel of that power, but to
keep an attitude of watchful vigilance and see that

And State Papers 261

there was no infringement of the Monroe Doctrine-
no acquirement of territorial rights by a European
power at the expense of a weak sister republic —
whether this acquisition might take the shape of
an outright and avowed seizure of territory or of
the exercise of control which would in effect be
equivalent to such seizure. This attitude was ex
pressed in the two following published memoranda,
the first being the letter addressed by the Secretary
of State to the German Ambassador, the second the
conversation with the Secretary of State reported
by the British Ambassador :

"DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
"WASHINGTON, December 16, 1901.

"His EXCELLENCY DR. VON HOLLEBEN, etc. :

"Dear Excellency: I inclose a memorandum
by way of reply to that which you did me the honor
to leave with me on Saturday, and am, as ever,
"Faithfully yours,

"JOHN HAY.

"Memorandum.

"The President in his message of the 3d of De
cember, 1901, used the following language:

" The Monroe Doctrine is a declaration that there
must be no territorial aggrandizement by any non-
American power at the expense of any American
power on American soil. It is in no wise intended
as hostile to any nation in the Old World/ '

"The President further said :

262 Presidential Addresses

" 'This doctrine has nothing to do with the com
mercial relations of any American power, save that
it in truth allows each of them to form such as it
desires. . . . We do not guarantee any State
against punishment if it misconducts itself, pro
vided that punishment does not take the form of
the acquisition of territory by any non-American
power/

"His Excellency the German Ambassador, on
his recent return from Berlin, conveyed personally
to the President the assurance of the German Em
peror that His Majesty's Government had no pur
pose or intention to make even the smallest acquisi
tion of territory on the South American continent
or the islands adjacent. This voluntary and friendly
declaration was afterward repeated to the Secretary
of State, and was received by the President and the
people of the United States in the frank and cordial
spirit in which it was offered. In the memoran
dum of the nth of December, His Excellency the
German Ambassador repeats these assurances as
follows: 'We declare especially that under no cir
cumstances do we consider in our proceedings the
acquisition or the permanent occupation of Ven
ezuelan territory/

"In the said memorandum of the nth of De
cember, the German Government informs that of
the United States that it has certain just claims for
money and for damages wrongfully withheld from
German subjects by the Government of Venezuela,
and that it proposes to take certain coercive meas-

And State Papers 263

ures described in the memorandum to enforce the
payment of these just claims.

"The President of the United States, appre
ciating the courtesy of the German Government in
making- him acquainted with the state of affairs
referred to, and not regarding himself as called
upon to enter into the consideration of the claims in
question, believes that no measures will be taken in
this matter by the agents of the German Govern
ment which are not in accordance with the well-
known purpose, above set forth, of His Majesty the
German Emperor."

SIR MICHAEL HERBERT TO THE MARQUIS OF
LANSDOWNE.

"WASHINGTON, November 13, 1902.

"I communicated to Mr. Hay this morning the
substance of Your Lordship's telegram of the nth
instant.

"His Excellency stated in reply, that the United
States Government, although they regretted that
European powers should use force against Central
and South American countries, could not object to
their taking steps to obtain redress for injuries suf
fered by their subjects, provided that no acquisition
of territory was contemplated. "

Both powers assured us in explicit terms that
there was not the slightest intention on their part
to violate the principles of the Monroe Doctrine, and

264 Presidential Addresses

this assurance was kept with an honorable good
faith which merits full acknowledgment on our part.
At the same time, the existence of hostilities in a
region so near our own borders was fraught with
such possibilities of danger in the future that it was
obviously no less our duty to ourselves than our
duty to humanity to endeavor to put an end to that.
Accordingly, by an offer of our good services in a
spirit of frank friendliness to all the parties con
cerned, a spirit in which they quickly and cordially
responded, we secured a resumption of peace — the
contending parties agreeing that the matters which
they could not settle among themselves should be
referred to The Hague Tribunal for settlement.
The United States had most fortunately already
been able to set an example to other nations by
utilizing the great possibilities for good contained in
The Hague Tribunal, a question at issue between
ourselves and the Republic of Mexico being the
first submitted to this international court of arbi
tration.

The terms which we have secured as those under
which the Isthmian Canal is to be built, and the
course of events in the Venezuela matter, have
shown not merely the ever growing influence of the
United States in the Western Hemisphere, but also,
I think I may safely say, have exemplified the firm
purpose of the United States that its growth and in
fluence and power shall redound not to the harm but
to the benefit of our sister republics whose strength
is less. Our growth, therefore, is beneficial to hu-

And State Papers 265

mankind in general. We do not intend to assume
any position which can give just offence to our
neighbors. Our adherence to the rule of human
right is not merely profession. The history of our
dealings with Cuba shows that we reduce it to per
formance.

The Monroe Doctrine is not international law,
and though I think one day it may become such,
this is not necessary as long as it remains a car
dinal feature of our foreign policy and as long as we
possess both the will and the strength to make it
effective. This last point, my fellow-citizens, is all
important, and is one which as a people we can never
afford to forget. I believe in the Monroe Doctrine
with all my heart and soul; I am convinced that
the immense majority of our fellow-countrymen so
believe in it; but I would infinitely prefer to see us
abandon it than to see us put it forward and bluster
about it, and yet fail to build up the efficient fight
ing strength which in the last resort can alone make
it respected by any strong foreign power whose in
terest it may ever happen to be to violate it.

Boasting and blustering are as objectionable
among nations as among individuals, and the public
men of a great nation owe it to their sense of na
tional self-respect to speak courteously of foreign
powers, just as a brave and self-respecting man
treats all around him courteously. But though to
boast is bad, and .causelessly to insult another, worse,
yet worse than all is it to be guilty of boasting, even
without insult, and when called to the proof to be

266 Presidential Addresses

unable to make such boasting good. There is a
homely old adage which runs : "Speak softly and
carry a big stick; you will go far." If the Ameri
can Nation will speak softly, and yet build, and keep
at a pitch of the highest training, a thoroughly effi
cient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far. I ask
you to think over this. If you do, you will come to
the conclusion that it is mere plain common-sense,
so obviously sound that only the blind can fail to see
its truth and only the weakest and most irresolute
can fail to desire to put it into force.

In the last two years I am happy to say we
have taken long strides in advance as regards our
navy. The last Congress, in addition to smaller
vessels, provided nine of those formidable righting
ships upon which the real efficiency of any navy in
war ultimately depends. It provided, moreover, for
the necessary addition of officers and enlisted men to
make the ships worth having. Meanwhile the Navy
Department has seen to it that our ships have been
constantly exercised at sea, with the great guns, and
in manoeuvres, so that their efficiency as fighting-
units, both individually and when acting together,
has been steadily improved. Remember that all
of this is necessary. A warship is a huge bit of
mechanism, wellnigh as delicate and complicated
as it is formidable. It takes years to build it. It
takes years to teach the officers and men how to
handle it to good advantage. It is an absolute
impossibility to, improvise a navy at the outset of
war. No recent war between any two nations has

And State Papers 267

lasted as long as it takes to build a battleship; and
it is just as impossible to improvise the officers or the
crews as to improvise the navy.

To lay up a battleship and only send it afloat at
the outset of a war, with a raw crew and untried
officers, would be not merely a folly but a crime, for
it would invite both disaster and disgrace. The
navy which so quickly decided in our favor in the
war in 1898 had been built and made efficient dur
ing the preceding fifteen years. The ships that tri
umphed off Manila and Santiago had been built un
der previous Administrations with money appro
priated by previous Congresses. The officers and
the men did their duty so well because they had al
ready been trained to it by long sea service. All
honor to the gallant officers and gallant men who
actually did the fighting; but remember, too, to
honor the public men, the shipwrights and steel
workers, the owners of the shipyards and armor
plants, to whose united foresight and exertion we
owe it that in 1898 we had craft so good, guns so
excellent, and American seamen of so high a type
in the conning towers, in the gun-turrets, and in the
engine rooms. It is too late to prepare for war
when war has come; and if we only prepare suffi
ciently no war will ever come. We wish a powerful
and efficient navy, not for purposes of war, but as
the surest guarantee of peace. If we have such a
navy — if we keep on building it up — we may rest
assured that there is but the smallest chance that
trouble will ever come to this Nation ; and we may

268 Presidential Addresses

likewise rest assured that no foreign power will ever
quarrel with us about the Monroe Doctrine.

AT WAUKESHA, WIS., APRIL 3, 1903

Gentlemen and Ladies; my Fellow-Citizens of Wis-
. consin :

You are men and women of Wisconsin, but you
are men and women of America first. I am glad of
having the chance of saying a few words to you to
day. I believe with all my heart in this Nation play
ing its part manfully and well. I believe that we are
now, at the outset of the twentieth century, face to
face with great world problems ; that we can not help
playing the part of a great world power; that all
we can decide is whether we will play it well or ill.
I do not want to see us shrink from any least bit of
duty. We have not only taken during the past five
years a position of even greater importance in this
Western Hemisphere than ever before, but we have
taken a position of great importance even in the
furthest Orient, in that furthest West, which is the
immemorial East. We must hold our own. If we
show ourselves weaklings we will earn the contempt
of mankind, and — what is of far more consequence
— our own contempt; but I would like to impress
upon every public man, upon every writer, in the
press, the fact that strength should go hand in hand
with courtesy, with scrupulous regard in word and
deed, not only for the rights, but for the feelings,
of other nations. I want to see a man able to hold

And State Papers 269

his own. I have no respect for the man who will
put up with injustice. If a man will not take his
part, the part is not worth taking. That is true. On
the other hand, I have a hearty contempt for the
man who is always walking about wanting to pick
a quarrel, and above all, wanting to say something
unpleasant about some one else. He is not an
agreeable character anywhere; and the fact that he
talks loud does not necessarily mean that he rights
hard either. Sometimes you will see a man who
will talk loud and fight hard; but he does not fight
hard because he talks loud, but in spite of it. I
want the same thing to be true of us as a nation.
I am always sorry whenever I see any reflection that
seems to come from America upon any friendly
nation. To write or say anything unkind, unjust,
or inconsiderate about any foreign nation does not
do us any good, and does not help us toward hold
ing our own if ever the need should arise to hold
our own. I am sure you will not misunderstand
me; I am sure that it is needless for me to say
that I do not believe the United States should
ever suffer a wrong. I should be the first to ask
that we resent a wrong from the strong, just as
I should be the first to insist that we do not
wrong the weak. As a nation, if we are to be
true to our past, we must steadfastly keep these two
positions— to submit to no injury by the strong and
to inflict no injury on the weak. It is not at all
necessary to say disagreeable things about the strong

270 Presidential Addresses

in order to impress them with the fact that we do
not intend to submit to injury. Keep our navy up
to the highest point of efficiency; have good ships,
and enough of them; have the officers and the en
listed men on them trained to handle them, so that
in the future the American navy shall rise level,
whenever the need comes, to the standard it has set
in the past. Keep in our own hearts the rugged,
manly virtues, which have made our people for
midable as foes, and valuable as friends throughout
the century and a quarter of our national life. Do
all that; and having done it, remember that it is a
sensible thing to speak courteously of others.

I believe in the Monroe Doctrine. I shall try to
see that this Nation lives up to it; and as long as I
am President it will be lived up to. But I do not
intend to make the doctrine an excuse or a justifi
cation for being unpleasant to other powers, for.
speaking ill of other powers. We want the friend
ship of mankind. We want to get on well with the
other nations of mankind, with the small nations
and with the big nations. We want so to carry
ourselves that if (which I think most unlikely) any
quarrel should arise, it would be evident that it was
not a quarrel of our own seeking, but one that was
forced on us. If it is forced on us, I know you
too well not to know that you will stand up to it if
the need comes ; but you will stand up to it all the
better if you have not blustered or spoken ill of
other nations in advance. We want friendship;

And State Papers 271

we want peace. We wish well to the nations of
mankind. We look with joy at any prosperity of
theirs; we wish them success, not failure. We re
joice as mankind moves forward over the whole
earth. Each nation has its own difficulties. We
have difficulties enough at home. Let us improve
ourselves, lifting what needs to be lifted here, and
let others do their own work; let us attend to our
own business ; keep our own hearthstone swept and
in order. Do not shirk any duty ; do not shirk any
difficulty that is forced upon us, but do not invite
it by foolish language. Do not assume a quarrel
some and unpleasant attitude toward other people.
Let the friendly expressions of foreign powers be
accepted as tokens of their sincere good will, and re
flecting their real sentiments; and let us avoid any
language on our part which might tend to turn their
good will into ill will. All that is mere common-
sense; the kind of common-sense that we apply in
our own lives, man to man, neighbor to neighbor;
and remember that substantially what is true among
nations is true on a small scale among ourselves.
The man who is a weakling, who is a coward, we all
despise, and we ought to despise him. If a man
can not do his own work and take his own part, he
does not count; and I have no patience with those
who would have the United States unable to take
its own part, to do its work in the world. But re
member that a loose tongue is just as unfortunate
an accompaniment for a nation as for an individual.
XIII.

272 Presidential Addresses

The man who talks ill of his neighbors, the man who
invites trouble for himself and them, is a nuisance.
The stronger, the more self-confident the nation is,
the more carefully it should guard its speech as well
as its action, and should make it a point, in the inter
est of its own self-respect, to see that it does not
say what it can not make good, that it avoids giving
needless offence, that it shows genuinely and sin
cerely its desire for friendship with the rest of man
kind, but that it keeps itself in shape to make its
weight felt should the need arise.

That is in substance my theory of what our for
eign policy should be. Let us not boast, not insult
any one, but make up our minds coolly what is neces
sary to say, say it, and then stand to it, whatever the
consequences may be.

AT MILWAUKEE, WIS., APRIL 3, 1903
Mr. Toastmaster, Gentlemen:

To-day I wish to speak to you on the question of
the control and regulation of those great corpora
tions which are popularly, although rather vaguely,
known as trusts ; dealing mostly with what has actu
ally been accomplished in the way of legislation and
in the way of enforcement of legislation during the
past eighteen months, the period covering the two
sessions of the Fifty-seventh Congress. At the out
set I shall ask you to remember that I do not ap
proach the subject either from the standpoint of
those who speak of themselves as anti-trust or anti-

And State Papers 273

corporation people, nor yet from the standpoint of
those who are fond of denying the existence of evils
in the trusts, or who apparently proceed upon the
assumption that if a corporation is large enough it
can do no wrong.

I think I speak for the great majority of the
American people when I say that we are not in the
least against wealth as such, whether individual or
corporate ; that we merely desire to see any abuse of
corporate or combined wealth corrected and reme
died ; that we do not desire the abolition or destruc
tion of big corporations, but, on the contrary, rec
ognize them as being in many cases efficient econom
ic instruments, the results of an inevitable process
of economic evolution, and only desire to see them
regulated and controlled so far as may be necessary
to subserve the public good. We should be false to
the historic principles of our government if we dis
criminated, either by legislation or administration,
either for or against a man because of either his
wealth or his poverty. There is no proper place in
our society either for the rich man who uses the pow
er conferred by his riches to enable him to oppress
and wrong his neighbors, nor yet for the demagogic
agitator who, instead of attacking abuses as all abuses
should be attacked wherever found, attacks prop
erty, attacks prosperity, attacks men of wealth, as
such, whether they be good or bad, attacks corpora
tions whether they do well or ill, and seeks, in a
spirit of ignorant rancor, to overthrow the very
foundations upon which rests our national wellbeing.

274 Presidential Addresses

In consequence of the extraordinary industrial
changes of the last half century, and notably of the
last two or three decades, changes due mainly to the
rapidity and complexity of our industrial growth,
we are confronted with problems which in their
present shape were unknown to our forefathers.
Our great prosperity, with its accompanying con
centration of population and of wealth, its extreme
specialization of faculties, and its development of
giant industrial leaders, has brought much good and
some evil, and. it is as .foolish to ignore the good as
wilfully to blind ourselves to the evil.

The evil has been partly the inevitable accompani
ment of the social changes, and where this is the
case it can be cured neither by law nor by the ad
ministration of the law, the only remedy lying in
the slow change of character and of economic en
vironment. But for a portion of the evil, at least,
we think that remedies can be found. We know
well the danger of false remedies, and we are against
all violent, radical, and unwise change. But we be
lieve that by proceeding slowly, yet resolutely, with
good sense and moderation, and also with a firm de
termination not to be swerved from our course
either by foolish clamor or by any base or sinister
influence, we can accomplish much for the better
ment of conditions.

Nearly two years ago, speaking at the State Fair
in Minnesota, I said :

"It is probably true that the large majority of the
fortunes that now exist in this country have been

And State Papers 275

amassed, not by injuring our people, but as an inci
dent to the conferring of great benefits upon the
community, and this no matter what may have been
the conscious purpose of those amassing them.
There is but the scantiest justification for most of
the outcry against the men of wealth as such; and
it ought to be unnecessary to state that any appeal
which directly or indirectly leads to suspicion and
hatred among ourselves, which tends to limit oppor
tunity, and therefore to shut the door of success
against poor men of talent, and, finally, which entails
the possibility of lawlessness and violence, is an at
tack upon the fundamental properties of American
citizenship. Our interests are at bottom common ; in
the long run we go up or go down together. Yet
more and more it is evident that the State, and if
necessary the Nation, has got to possess the right of
supervision and control as regards the great corpora
tions which are its creatures ; particularly as regards
the great business combinations which derive a por
tion of their importance from the existence of some
monopolistic tendency. The right should be ex
ercised with caution and self-restraint ; but it should
exist, so that it may be invoked if the need arises."
Last fall in speaking at Cincinnati I said :
"The necessary supervision and control, in which
I firmly believe as the only method of eliminating
the real evils of the trusts, must come through wisely
and cautiously framed legislation, which shall aim
in the first place to give definite control to some
sovereign over the great corporations, and which

276 Presidential Addresses

shall be followed, when once this power has been
conferred, by a system giving to the government
the full knowledge which is the essential for satis
factory action. Then, when this knowledge — one of
the essential features of which is proper publicity —
has been gained, what further steps of any kind are
necessary can be taken with the confidence born of
the possession of power to deal with the subject, and
of a thorough knowledge of what should and can
be done in the matter. We need additional power,
and we need knowledge. . . . Such legislation —
whether obtainable now or obtainable only after
a Constitutional amendment — should provide for a
reasonable supervision, the most prominent feature
of which at first should be publicity; that is, the
making public, both to the government authorities
and to the people at large, the essential facts in
which the public is concerned. This would give us
exact knowledge of many points which are now not
only in doubt but the subject of fierce controversy.
Moreover, the mere fact of the publication would
cure some very grave evils, for the light of day is a
deterrent to wrongdoing. It would doubtless dis
close other evils with which, for the time being, we
could devise no way to grapple. Finally, it would
disclose others which could be grappled with and
cured by further legislative action."

In my Message to Congress for 1901 I said:
"In the interest of the whole people the Nation
should, without interfering with the power of the
States in the matter, itself also assume power of

And State Papers 277

supervision and regulation over all corporations
doing an interstate business."

The views thus expressed have now received ef
fect by the wise, conservative, and yet far-reaching
legislation enacted by Congress at its last session.
In its wisdom Congress enacted the very impor
tant law providing a Department of Commerce and
Labor, and further providing therein under the Sec
retary of Commerce and Labor for a Commissioner
of Corporations, charged with the duty of supervis
ion of and of making intelligent investigation into
the organization and conduct of corporations en
gaged in interstate commerce. His powers to ex
pose illegal or hurtful practices and to obtain all
information needful for the purposes of further in
telligent legislation seem adequate; and the pub
licity justifiable and proper for public purposes is
satisfactory guaranteed. The law was passed at
the very end of the session of Congress. Owing
to the lateness of its passage Congress was not able
to provide proper equipment for the new Depart
ment ; and the first few months must necessarily be
spent in the work of organization, and the first in
vestigations must necessarily be of a tentative char
acter. The satisfactory development of such a sys
tem requires time and great labor. Those who are
intrusted with the administration of the new law
will assuredly administer it in a spirit of absolute
fairness and justice and of entire fearlessness, with
the firm purpose not to hurt any corporation doing
a legitimate business — on the contrary to help it —

278 Presidential Addresses

and, on the other hand, not to spare any corporation
which may be guilty of illegal practices, or the meth
ods of which may make it a menace to the public
welfare. Some substantial good will be done in the
immediate future ; and as the Department gets fairly
to work under the law an ever larger vista for good
work will be opened along the lines indicated. The
enactment of this law is one of the most significant
contributions which have been made in our time to
ward the proper solution of the problem of the re
lations to the people of the great corporations and
corporate combinations.

But much though this is, it is only a part of what
has been done in the effort to ascertain and correct
improper trust or monopolistic practices. Some
eighteen months ago the Industrial Commission, an
able and non-partisan body, reported to Congress the
result of their investigation of trusts and industrial
combinations. One of the most important of their
conclusions was that discriminations in freight rates
and facilities were granted favored shippers by the
railroads and that these discriminations clearly
tended toward the control of production and prices
in many fields of business by large combinations.
That this conclusion was justifiable was shown by
the disclosures in the investigation of railroad meth
ods, pursued in the fall and winter of 1901-1902.
It was then shown that certain trunk lines had en
tered into unlawful agreements as to the transporta
tion of food products from the West to the Atlantic
seaboard, giving a few favored shippers rates much

And State Papers 279

below the tariff charges imposed upon the smaller
dealers and the general public. These unjust prac
tices had prevailed to such an extent and for so long
a time that many of the smaller shippers had been
driven out of business, until practically one buyer of
grain on each railway system had been able by his
illegal advantages to secure a monopoly on the line
with which his secret compact was made; this mo
nopoly enabling him to fix the price to both pro
ducer and consumer. Many of the great packing
house concerns were shown to be in combination with
each other and with most of the great railway lines,
whereby they enjoyed large secret concessions in
rates and thus obtained a practical monopoly of the
fresh and cured meat industry of the country. These
fusions, though violative of the statute, had pre
vailed unchecked for so many years that they had
become intrenched in and interwoven with the com
mercial life of certain large distributing localities;
although this was of course at the expense of the
vast body of law-abiding merchants, the general pub
lic, and particularly of unfavored localities.

Under those circumstances it was a serious prob
lem to determine the wise course to follow in vital
izing a law which had in part become obsolete or
proved incapable of enforcement. Of what the At
torney-General did in enforcing it I shall speak later.
The decisions of the courts upon the law had be
trayed weaknesses and imperfections, some of them
so serious as to render abortive efforts to apply any
effective remedy for the existing evils.

280 Presidential Addresses

It is clear that corporations created for quasi pub
lic purposes, clothed for that reason with the ulti
mate power of the state to take private property
against the will of the owner, hold their corporate
powers as carriers in trust for the fairly impartial
service of all the public. Favoritism in the use of
such powers, unjustly enriching some and unjustly
impoverishing others, discriminating in favor of
some places and against others, is palpably violative
of plain principles of justice. Such a practice un
checked is hurtful in many ways. Congress, having
had its attention drawn to the matter, enacted a most
important anti-rebate law, which greatly strengthens
the interstate-commerce law. This new law pro
hibits under adequate penalties the giving and as
well the demanding or receiving of such preferences,
and provides the preventive remedy of injunction.
The vigorous administration of this law — and it
will be enforced — will, it is hoped, afford a sub
stantial remedy for certain trust evils which have
attracted public attention and have created public
Unrest.

This law represents a noteworthy and important
advance toward just and effective regulation of
transportation. Moreover, its passage has been sup
plemented by the enactment of a law to expedite the
hearing of actions of public moment under the anti
trust act, known as the Sherman law, and under the
act to regulate commerce, at the request of the At
torney-General ; and furthermore, additional funds
have been appropriated to be expended under the

And State Papers 281

direction of the Attorney-General in the enforcement
of these laws.

All of this represents a great and substantial ad
vance in legislation. But more important even than
legislation is the administration of the law, and I
ask your attention for a moment to the way in
which the law has been administered by the pro
found jurist and fearless public servant who now
occupies the position of Attorney-General, Mr.
Knox. The Constitution enjoins upon the Presi
dent that he shall take care that the laws be faithfully
executed, and under this provision the Attorney-
General formulated a policy which was in effect
nothing but the rigid enforcement, by suits managed
with consummate skill and ability, both of the anti
trust law and of the imperfect provisions of the act
to regulate commerce. The first step taken was the
prosecution of fourteen suits against the principal
railroads of the Middle West, restraining them by
injunction from further violations of either of the
laws in question.

About the same time the case against the North
ern Securities Company was initiated. This was a
corporation organized under the laws of the State
of New Jersey with a capital of four hundred million
dollars, the alleged purpose being to control the
Great Northern and the Northern Pacific railroad
companies, two parallel and competing lines extend
ing across the northern tier of States from the Mis
sissippi River to the Pacific Ocean. Whatever the

282 Presidential Addresses

purpose, its consummation would have resulted in
the control of the two great railway systems — upon
which the people of the Northwestern States were
so largely dependent for their supplies and to get
their products to market — being practically merged
into the New Jersey corporation. The proposition
that these independent systems of railroads should
be merged under a single control alarmed the peo
ple of the States concerned, lest they be subjected
to what they deemed a monopoly of interstate trans
portation and the suppression of competition. The
Governors of the States most deeply affected held
a meeting to consider how to prevent the merger
becoming effective and passed resolutions calling
upon the National Government to enforce the anti
trust laws against the alleged combination. When
these resolutions were referred to the Attorney-
General for consideration and advice, he reported
that in his opinion the Northern Securities Company
and its control of the railroads mentioned was a
combination in restraint of trade, and was attempting
a monopoly in violation of the national anti-trust
law. Thereupon a suit in equity, which is now
pending, was begun by the Government to test the
validity of this transaction under the Sherman law.

At nearly the same time the disclosures respecting
the secret rebates enjoyed by the great packing
house companies, coupled with the very high price
of meats, led the Attorney-General to direct an in
vestigation into the methods of the so-called beef

And State Papers 283

trust. The result was that he filed bills for injunc
tion against six of the principal packing house
companies, and restrained them from combining
and agreeing upon prices at which they would sell
their products in States other than those in which
their meats were prepared for market. Writs of
injunction were issued accordingly, and since then,
after full argument, the United States Circuit Court
has made the injunction perpetual.

The cotton interests of the South, including
growers, buyers, and shippers, made complaint that
they were suffering great injury in their business
from the methods of the Southern railroads in the
handling and transportation of cotton. They al
leged that these railroads, by combined action under
a pooling arrangement to support their rate sched
ules, had denied to the shippers the right to elect
over what roads their commodities should be shipped,
and that by dividing upon a fixed basis the cot
ton crop of the South all inducement to compete in
rates for the transportation thereof was eliminated.
Proceedings were instituted by the Attorney-General
under the anti-trust law, which resulted in the de
struction of the pool and in restoring to the growers
and shippers of the South the right to ship their
products over any road they elected, thus remov
ing the restraint upon the freedom of commerce.

In November, 1902, the Attorney-General di
rected that a bill for an injunction be filed in the
United States Circuit Court at San Francisco against

284 Presidential Addresses

the Federal Salt Company — a corporation which
had been organized under the laws of an Eastern
State, but had its main office and principal place of
business in California — and against a number of
other companies and persons constituting what was
known as the salt trust. These injunctions were
to restrain the execution of certain contracts be
tween the Federal Salt Company and the other de
fendants, by which the latter agreed neither to im
port nor buy or sell salt, except from and to the
Federal Salt Company, and not to engage or assist
in the production of salt west of the Mississippi
River during the continuance of such contracts.
As the result of these agreements the price of salt
had been advanced about four hundred per cent. A
temporary injunction order was obtained, which the
defendants asked the court to modify on the ground
that the anti-trust law had no application to con
tracts for purchases and sales within a State. The
Circuit Court overruled this contention and sustained
the Government's position. This practically con
cluded the case, and it is understood that in conse
quence the Federal Salt Company is about to be
dissolved and that no further contest will be made.

The above is a brief outline of the most important
steps, legislative and administrative, taken during
the past eighteen months in the direction of solving,
so far as at present it seems practicable by national
legislation or administration to solve, what we call
the trust problem. They represent a sum of very

And State Papers 285

substantial achievement. They represent a success
ful effort to devise and apply real remedies; an ef
fort which so far succeeded because it was made not
only with resolute purpose and determination, but
also in a spirit of common-sense and justice, as far
removed as possible from rancor, hysteria, and un
worthy demagogic appeal. In the same spirit the
laws will continue to be enforced. Not only is the
legislation recently enacted effective, but in my
judgment it was impracticable to attempt more.
Nothing of value is to be expected from ceaseless
agitation for radical and extreme legislation. The
people may wisely, and with confidence, await the
results which are reasonably to be expected from
the impartial enforcement of the laws which have
recently been placed upon the statute books. Legis
lation of a general and indiscriminate character
would be sure to fail, either because it would involve
all interests in a common ruin, or because it would
not really reach any evil. We have endeavored
to provide a discriminating adaptation of the remedy
to the real mischief.

Many of the alleged remedies advocated are of
the unpleasantly drastic type which seeks to destroy
the* disease by killing the patient. Others are so
obviously futile that it is somewhat difficult to treat
them seriously or as being advanced in good faith.
High among the latter I place the effort to reach the
trust question by means of the tariff. You can, of
course, put an end to the prosperity of the trusts
by putting an end to the prosperity of the Nation;

286 Presidential Addresses

but the price for such action seems high. The al
ternative is to do exactly what has been done dur
ing the life of the Congress which has just closed —
that is, to endeavor, not to destroy corporations, but
to regulate them with a view of doing away with
whatever is of evil in them and of making them sub
serve the public use. The law is not to be admin
istered in the interest of the poor man as such, nor
yet in the interest of the rich man as such, but in the
interest of the law-abiding man, rich or poor. We
are no more against organizations of capital than
against organizations of labor. We welcome both,
demanding only that each shall do right and shall
remember its duty to the Republic. Such a course
we consider not merely a benefit to the poor man,
but a benefit to the rich man. We do no man an
injustice when we require him to obey the law.
On the contrary, if he is a man whose safety and
well-being depend in a peculiar degree upon the ex
istence of the spirit of law and order, we are render
ing him the greatest service when we require him
to be himself an exemplar of that spirit.

BEFORE THE MINNESOTA LEGISLATURE, ST.
PAUL, MINN., APRIL 4, 1903

Mr. Governor, Mr. Lieutenant-Governor, Mr. Speak
er, Members of the Legislative Body, Men and
Women of Minnesota:
I thank you for greeting me and for giving me

the chance to say a word or two in welcome and in

acknowledgment of your greeting.

And State Papers 287

To any American capable of any depth of reflec
tion whatever, it should always be a somewhat sol
emn thing to come into the presence of two bodies
— one a legislative body; the other an educational
body; the legislative body, which is not only the
method but the symbol of our free government ; the
educational body, which, using educational in its
broadest and truest sense, means the body that fits
us for self-government. Self-government is not an
easy thing. The nations of antiquity, the nations
of the middle ages, that tried the experiment of in
dependent self-government which should guarantee
freedom to the individual, and yet safety from with
out and within to the body politic itself, rarely lasted
long, never rose to a pitch of greatness such as ours
without having suffered some radical and, as it
proved ultimately, fatal change of structure. Until
our Republic was founded it had proved impossible
in the long run to combine freedom for the individ
ual and greatness for the nation. The republics of
antiquity and of the middle ages went one of two
lines; either proved fatal. Either the individual's
interests were sacrificed, and, while retaining the
forms of freedom, the republic became in effect a
despotism, or else the freedom of the individual was
kept at the cost of utter impotence either to put
down disorder at home or to repel aggression from
abroad.

It has been given to us during the century and a
quarter of our national life so to handle ourselves
as a people that we have escaped both dangers. We

288 Presidential Addresses

have been able to escape the leadership of those who
feared Scylla so much that they would plunge us into
Charybdis, and of those who feared Charybdis so
much that they would plunge us into Scylla. We
have been able to preserve orderly liberty and
strength to grow in greatness among the nations of
the earth, while becoming steadily more and more
democratic in the truest and broadest sense of the
word. I believe with all my heart that we shall con
tinue on the path thus marked out for us; but we
shall so continue only if we remember that in the
last analysis the safety of the Republic depends upon
the high average of individual citizenship.

We can keep all the forms of free government;
and every Fourth of July we can talk possibly a little
too boastfully of both the past and the present ; and
yet it shall not avail us if we do not have in our
hearts the spirit that makes for decent citizenship,
the spirit that alone counts in the formation of a true
republic. And that spirit is essentially the same in
public life as in private life. The manifestations of
it differ, but the spirit is the same. A public man
is as much bound to tell the truth on the stump as
off the stump. On the other hand, his critics will
do well to remember that truth-telling is a virtue for
them to practice also. What we need in public life
and in private life is not genius so much as the
many-sided development of the qualities which in
their sum make good citizenship. In a great crisis
we shall need a genius ; thrice and thrice over fortu
nate is the nation which then develops a Lincoln to

And State Papers 289

lead it in peace ; a Grant to lead it in war ; a Wash
ington to lead it in war and peace.

But what we need as a nation, as an individual, at
the ordinary times which are so much larger in the
aggregate than the extraordinary times, and upon
our conduct in which really depends our conduct in
extraordinary times, are the commonplace virtues
which we all recognize, and which when we were
young we wrote about in copybooks, and which, if
we practice, will count for a thousand times more in
the long run than- any brilliance and genius of any
kind or sort whatsoever.

I want to say just a word on the other side of the
two great questions, the legislative and educational
questions. Education must be twofold. Of course if
we do not have education in the school, the academy,
the college, the university, and have it developed in
the highest and wisest manner, we shall make but a
poor fist of American citizenship. One of the things
that is most hopeful in our Republic is the way in
which the State has taken charge of elementary edu
cation ; and the way in which, in the East through
private gift, here in the West through the wise liber
ality of the several States, the higher education has
been taken care of, as in your own University of
Minnesota. But such education can never be all. It
can never be more than half, and sometimes not that.
Nothing can take the place of the education of the
home; and that education must be largely the un
conscious influence of character upon character.
There is no use in the father trying to instil wise

13— VOL. XIII.

290 Presidential Addresses

saws and precepts into the son, if his own character
gives the lie to his advice. And unfortunately it is
just as true in the education of children as in every
thing else, that it is almost as harmful to be a virtu
ous fool as a knave. So often throughout our social
structure from the wealthiest down to the poorest
you see the queer fatuity of the man or the woman
which makes them save their children temporary
discomfort, temporary unpleasantness, at the cost of
future destruction ; you see a great many men, and I
am sorry to say a great many women, who say, "I
have had to work hard ; my boy or my girl shall not
do anything." I have seen it in every rank. I have
heard the millionaire say, "I have had to work all
my life to make money, let my boy spend it." It
would be better for the boy never to have been born
than to be brought up on that principle. On the
other hand, I have seen the overworked drudge, the
laborer's wife, who said, "Well, I have had to work
my heart out all my days; my daughters shall be
ladies" ; and her conception of her daughters being
ladies was to have them sit around useless and in
competent, unable to do anything, brought up to be
discontented cumberers of the earth's surface. As
Abraham Lincoln said : "There is a deal of human
nature in mankind." Fundamentally, virtues and
faults are just the same in the millionaire and the
day laborer. The man or the woman who seeks to
bring up his or her children with the idea that their
happiness is, secured by teaching them to avoid diffi
culties is doing them a cruel wrong. To bring up

And State Papers 291

the boy and girl so sheltered that they can not stand
any rough knocks, that they shrink from toil, that
when they meet an obstacle they feel they ought to
go around or back instead of going on over it — the
man or the woman who does that is wronging the
children to a degree that no other human being can
wrong them. If you are worth your salt and want
your children to be worth their salt, teach them that
the life that is not a life of work and effort is worth
less, a curse to the man or woman leading it, a
curse to those around him or her. Teach the boys
that if they are ever to count in the world they will
count not by flinching from difficulties, but by war
ring with and overcoming them. What utter scorn
one feels for those who seek only the life of ease;
the life passed in dexterous effort to avoid all an
gular corners, to avoid being put in the places where
a strong man by blood and sweat and toil and risk
wins triumph ! What a wretched life is the life of the
man passed in endeavoring to shirk his share of the
burden laid upon him in this world ! And it makes
no difference whether that man is a man of inher
ited wealth or one who has to earn his bread by the
sweat of his brow; it is equally ignoble in either
case. What is true of the individual is true of the
nation. The man who counts is not the man who
dodges work, but he who goes out into life re
joicing as a strong man to run a race, girding him
self for the effort, bound to win and wrest triumph
from difficulty and disaster.

So it is with our Nation. No nation which has

292 Presidential Addresses

bound itself only to do easy things ever yet amount
ed to anything, ever yet came to anything through
out the ages. We have become a great people. At
the threshold of this twentieth century we stand
with the future looming large before us. We face
great problems within and great problems without.
We can not if we would refuse to face those .prob
lems. All we can decide is whether we will do them
well or ill ; for the refusal to face them would itself
mean that we were doing them ill. We are in the
arena into which great nations must come. We
must play our part. It rests with us to decide that
we shall not play it ignobly ; that we shall not flinch
from the great problems that there are to do, but that
we shall take our place in the forefront of the great
nations and face each problem of the day with con
fident and resolute hope.

IN THE CHAPEL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF

MINNESOTA, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.,

APRIL 4, 1903

Mr. President; Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am glad to have the chance of greeting you this
evening, but I regret that the engagements for me
have been so numerous that it will be only a greet
ing. I wish I could be here to see your beautiful
grounds and buildings by daylight, and to see a
little of the life of the university.

There are plenty of tendencies for good, and, I
am sorry to . say, plenty of tendencies for evil in
our modern life, and high among the former must

And State Papers 293

be placed the rapid growth of the great institutions
of learning in this country. There is a twofold side
to the work done in any institution of this kind.
In the first place the institution is to turn out schol
ars and men proficient in the different technical
branches for which it trains them. It should be
the aim of every university which seeks to develop
the liberal side of education to turn out men and
women who will add to the sum of productive
achievement in scholarship; who will not merely
be content to work in the fields that have already
been harrowed a thousand times by other workers,
but who will strike out for themselves and try to
do new work that counts ; so in each technical school
if the institution is worthy of standing in the front
rank, it will turn out those who in that particular
specialty stand at the head. But in addition to this
merely technical work, to the turning out of the
scholar, the professional man, the man or woman
trained on some special line, each university worthy

the name must endeavor to turn out men and women

% *

in the fullest sense of the word, good citizens, men
and women who will add by what they do to the
sum of noble work in the whole community.

It is a good thing that so much attention should
be given to physical development. I believe in rough
games and in rough, manly sports. I do not feel
any particular sympathy for the person who gets
battered about a good deal so long as it is not
fatal, and if he feels any sympathy for himself I
do not like him. I believe thoroughly in the sound

294 Presidential Addresses

and vigorous body. I believe still more in the vig
orous mind. And I believe most of all in what
count for more than body, for more than mind, and
that is character. That is the sum of the forces that
make the man or the woman worth knowing, worth
revering, worth holding to. Play hard while you
play, but do not mistake it for work. If a young
fellow is twenty it is a good thing that he should
be a crack half-back; but when he is forty I am
sorry if he has never been anything else except once
at twenty a good half-back. Keep the sense of pro
portion. Play hard ; it will do you good in your
work. But work hard and remember that this is
the main thing.

Finally, in closing, I think it is a safe thing to
take a motto that I heard from the lips of an old
football player once: "Don't flinch, don't foul, and
hit the line hard."

AT MINNEAPOLIS, MINN., APRIL 4, 1903

My Fellow-Citizens:

At the special session of the Senate held in
March the Cuban reciprocity treaty was ratified.
When this treaty goes into effect, it will confer sub
stantial economic benefits alike upon Cuba, because
of the widening of her market in the United States,
and upon the United States, because of the equal
widening and the progressive control it will give to
our people in the Cuban market. This treaty is
beneficial to both parties and justifies itself on sev-

And State Papers 295

eral grounds. In the first place we offer to Cuba
her natural market. We can confer upon her a ben
efit which no other nation can confer; and for the
very reason that we have started her as an inde
pendent republic and that we are rich, prosperous,
and powerful, it behooves us to stretch out a help
ing hand to our feebler younger sister. In the next
place, it widens the market for our products, both
the products of the farm and certain of our manu
factures; and it is therefore in the interests of our
farmers, manufacturers, merchants, and wage-work
ers. Finally, the treaty was not merely warranted
but demanded, apart from all other considerations,
by the enlightened consideration of our foreign pol
icy. More and more in the future we must occupy
a preponderant position in the waters and along the
coasts in the region south of us; not a position of
control over the republics of the south, but of con
trol of the military situation so as to avoid any pos
sible complications in the future. Under the Platt
amendment Cuba agreed to give us certain naval
stations on her coast. The Navy Department de
cided that we needed but two, and we have specified
where these two are to be. President Palma has con
cluded an agreement giving them to us — an agree
ment which the Cuban legislative body will doubt
less soon ratify. In other words, the Republic of
Cuba has assumed a special relation to our interna
tional political system, under which she gives us
outposts of defence, and we are morally bound to

extend to her in a degree the benefit of our own
14— VOL. XIII.

296 Presidential Addresses

economic system. From every standpoint of wise
and enlightened home and foreign policy the ratifi
cation of the Cuban treaty marked a step of substan
tial progress in the growth of our nation toward
greatness at home and abroad.

Equally important was the action on the tariff
upon products of the Philippines. We gave them a
reduction of twenty-five per cent, and would have
given them a reduction of twenty-five per cent more
had it not been for the opposition, in the hurried
closing days of the last session, of certain gentle
men who, by the way, have been representing them
selves both as peculiarly solicitous for the in
terests of the Philippine people and as special
champions of the lowering of tariff duties. There
is a distinctly humorous side to the fact that
the reduction of duties which would benefit Cuba
and the Philippines as well as ourselves was antago
nized chiefly by those who in theory have been fond
of proclaiming themselves the advanced guardians
of the oppressed nationalities in the islands affected
and the ardent advocates of the reduction of duties
generally, but who instantly took violent ground
against the practical steps to accomplish either pur
pose.

Moreover, a law was enacted putting anthracite
on the free list and completely removing the duties
on all other kinds of coal for one year.

We are now in a condition of prosperity unparal
leled not merely in our own history but in the his
tory of any other nation. This prosperity is deep

And State Papers 297

rooted and stands on a firm basis because it is due
to the fact that the average American has in him the
stuff out of which victors are made in the great in
dustrial contests of the present day, just as in the
great military contests of the past; and because he
is now able to use and develop his qualities to best
advantage under our well-established economic sys
tem. We are winning headship among the nations
of the world because our people are able to keep their
high average of individual citizenship and to show
their mastery in the hard, complex, pushing life of
the age. There will be fluctuations from time to
time in our prosperity, but it will continue to grow
just so long as we keep up this high average of in
dividual citizenship and permit it to work out its
own salvation under proper economic legislation.

The present phenomenal prosperity has been won
lunder a tariff which was made in accordance with
certain fixed and definite principles, the most impor
tant of which is an avowed determination to pro
tect the interests of the American producer, business
man, wage- worker, and farmer alike. The gen
eral tariff policy, to which, without regard to changes
in detail, I believe this country is irrevocably com
mitted, is fundamentally based upon ample recogni
tion of the difference between the cost of production
— that is, the cost of labor — here and abroad, and
of the need to see to it that our laws shall in no
event afford advantage in our own market to foreign
industries over American industries, to foreign cap
ital over American capital, to foreign labor over

298 Presidential Addresses

our own labor. This country has and this country
needs better-paid, better-educated, better-fed, and
better-clothed workingmen, of a higher type, than
are to be found in any foreign country. It has
and it needs a higher, more vigorous, and more
prosperous type of tillers of the soil than is pos
sessed by any other country. The business men,
the merchants and manufacturers, and the man
agers of the transportation interests show the same
superiority when compared with men of their type
abroad. The events of the last few years have
shown how skilfully the leaders of American in
dustry use in international business competition the
mighty industrial weapons forged for them by the
resources of our country, the wisdom of our laws,
and the skill, the inventive genius, and the admin
istrative capacity of our people.

It is, of course, a mere truism to say that we want
to use everything in our power to foster the wel
fare of our entire body politic. In other words,
we need to treat the tariff as a business proposition,
from the standpoint of the interests of the country
as a whole, and not with reference to the tempo
rary needs of any political party. It is almost as
necessary that our policy should be stable as that it
should be wise. A nation like ours could not long
stand the ruinous policy of readjusting its business
to radical changes in the tariff at short intervals,
especially when, as now, owing to the immense ex
tent and variety of our products, the tariff schedules
carry rates of duty on thousands of different ar-

And State Papers 299

tides. Sweeping and violent changes in such a
tariff, touching so vitally the interests of all of us,
embracing agriculture, labor, manufactures, and
commerce, would be disastrous in any event, and
they would be fatal to our present well-being if
approached on the theory that the principle of the
protective tariff was to be abandoned. The business
world, that is, the entire American world, can not
afford, if it has any regard for its own welfare,
even to consider the advisability of abandoning the
present system.

Yet, on the other hand, where the industrial con
ditions so frequently change, as with us must of
necessity be the case, it is a matter of prime im
portance that we should be able from time to time
to adapt our economic policy to the changed con
ditions. Our aim should be to preserve the policy
of a protective tariff, in which the Nation as a whole
has acquiesced, and yet wherever and whenever
necessary to change the duties in particular para
graphs or schedules as matters of legislative detail,
if such change is demanded by the interests of the
Nation as a whole.

In making any readjustment there are certain
important considerations which can not be disre
garded. If *a tariff law has on the whole worked
well, and if business has prospered under it and is
prospering, it may be better to endure some in
conveniences and inequalities for a time than by
making changes to risk causing disturbance and

300 Presidential Addresses

perhaps paralysis in the industries and business of
the country. The fact that the change in a given
rate of duty may be thought desirable does not set
tle the question whether it is advisable to make the
change immediately. Every tariff deals with duties
on thousands of articles arranged in hundreds of
paragraphs and in many schedules. These duties
affect a vast number of interests which are often
conflicting. If necessary for our welfare, then of
course Congress must consider the question of
changing the law as a whole or changing any given
rates of duty, but we must remember that when
ever even a single schedule is considered some in
terests will appear to demand a change in almost
every schedule in the law; and when it comes to
upsetting the schedules generally the effect upon the
business interests of the country would be ruinous.
One point we must steadily keep in mind. The
question of tariff revision, speaking broadly, stands
wholly apart from the question of dealing with the
trusts. No change in tariff duties can have any
substantial effect in solving the so-called trust prob
lem. Certain great trusts or great corporations are
wholly unaffected by the tariff. Practically all the
others that are of any importance have as a matter
of fact numbers of smaller American competitors;
and of course a change in the tariff which would
work injury to the large corporation would work
not merely injury but destruction to its smaller
competitors; and equally of course such a change

And State Papers 301

would mean disaster to all the wage-workers con
nected with either the large or the small corpora
tions. From the standpoint of those interested in
the solution of the trust problem such a change
would therefore merely mean that the trust was
relieved of the competition of its weaker American
competitors, and thrown only into competition with
foreign competitors ; and that the first effort to meet
this new competition would be made by cutting
down wages, and would therefore be primarily at
the cost of labor. In the case of some of our greatest
trusts such a change might confer upon them a posi
tive benefit. Speaking broadly, it is evident that
the changes in the tariff will affect the trusts for
weal or for woe simply as they affect the whole
country. The tariff affects trusts only as it affects
all other interests. It makes all these interests,
large or small, profitable; and its benefits can be
taken from the large only under penalty of taking
them from the small also.

To sum up, then, we must as a people approach
a matter of such prime economic importance as the
tariff from the standpoint of our business needs.
We can not afford to become fossilized or to fail
to recognize the fact that as the needs of the coun
try change it may be necessary to meet these new
needs by changing certain features of our tariff
laws.. Still less can we afford to fail to recognize
the further fact that these changes must not be
made until the need for them outweighs the dis-

J02 Presidential Addresses

advantages which may result; and when it becomes
necessary to make them they should be made with
full recognition of the need of stability in our
economic system and of keeping unchanged the prin
ciple of that system which has now become a set
tled policy in our national life. We have prospered
marvelously at home. As a nation we stand in the
very forefront in the giant international industrial
competition of the day. We can not afford by any
freak or folly to forfeit the position to which we
have thus triumphantly attained.

AT SIOUX FALLS, S. D., APRIL 6, 1903

Fellow-Citizens :

There are many, many lesser problems which go
to make up in their entirety the huge and complex
problems of our modern industrial life. Each of
these problems is, moreover, connected with many
of the others. Few indeed are simple or stand only
by themselves. The most important are those con
nected with the relation of the farmers, the stock
growers and soil tillers, to the community at large,
and those affecting the relations between employer
and employed. In a country like ours it is funda
mentally true that the well-being of the tiller of the
soil and the wage-worker is the well-being of the
State. If they are well off, then we need concern
ourselves but little as to how other classes stand, for
they will inevitably be well off too ; and, on the other
hand, there can be no real general prosperity unless

And State Papers 303

based on the foundation of the prosperity of the
wage-worker and the tiller of the soil.

But the needs of these two classes are often not
the same. The tiller of the soil has been of all our
citizens the one on the whole the least affected in his
ways of life and methods of industry by the giant in
dustrial changes of the last half century. There has
been change with him, too, of course. He also can
work to best advantage if he keeps in close touch
with his fellows; and the success of the national De
partment of Agriculture has shown how much can
be done for him by rational action of the Govern
ment. Nor is it only through the Department that
the Government can act. One of the greatest and
most beneficent measures passed by the last Con
gress, or indeed by any Congress in recent years,
is the Irrigation Act, which will do for the States
of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountain region
at least as much as ever has been done for the States
of the humid region by river and harbor improve
ments. Few measures that have been put upon the
statute books of the Nation have done more for the
people than this law will, I firmly believe, directly
and indirectly accomplish for the States in question.

The Department of Agriculture devotes its whole
energy to working for the welfare of farmers and
stock growers. In every section of our country it
aids them in their constantly increasing search for
a better agricultural education. It helps not only
them, but all the nation, in seeing that our exports
of meats have clean bills of health, and that there is

304 Presidential Addresses

rigid inspection of all meats that enter into inter
state commerce. Thirty-eight million carcasses
were inspected during the last fiscal year. Our
stock growers sell forty-five million dollars' worth
of live stock annually, and these animals must be
kept healthy or else our people will lose their trade.
Our export of plant products to foreign countries
amounts to over six hundred million dollars a year,
and there is no branch of its work to which the De
partment of Agriculture devotes more care. Thus
the Department has been successfully introducing a
macaroni wheat from the headwaters of the Volga,
which grows successfully in ten inches of rainfall,
and by this means wheat growing has been suc
cessfully extended westward into the semi-arid re
gion. Two million bushels of this wheat were
grown last year ; and being suited to . dry condi
tions it can be used for forage as well as for food
for man.

The Department of Agriculture has been helping
our fruit men to establish markets abroad by study
ing methods of fruit preservation through refrigera
tion and through methods of handling and packing.
On the Gulf coasts of Louisiana and Texas, thanks
to the Department of Agriculture, a rice suitable to
the region was imported from the Orient and the
rice crop is now practically equal to our needs in
this country, whereas a few years ago it supplied but
one-fourth of them. The most important of our
farm products is the grass crop; and to show what
has been done with grasses, I need only allude to the

And State Papers 305

striking change made in the entire West by the ex
tended use of alfalfa.

Moreover, the Department has taken the lead in
the effort to prevent the deforestation of the country.
Where there are forests we seek to preserve them ;
and on the once treeless plains and the prairies we
are doing our best to foster the habit of tree planting
among our people. In my own lifetime I have seen
wonderful changes brought about by this tree plant
ing here in your own State and in the States im
mediately around it.

There are a number of very important questions,
such as that of good roads, with which the States
alone can deal, and where all that the National Gov
ernment can do is to co-operate with them. The
same is true of the education of the American farm
er. A number of the States have themselves started
to help in this work and the Department of Agricul
ture does an immense amount which is in the proper
sense of the word educational, and educational in the
most practical way.

It is therefore clearly true that a great advance
has been made in the direction of finding ways by
which the Government can help the farmer to help
himself — the only kind of help which a self-respect
ing man will accept, or, I may add, which will in
the end do him any good. Much has been done in
these ways, and farm life and farm processes con
tinually change for the better. The farmer himself
still retains, because of his surroundings and the
nature of his work, to a pre-eminent degree the

306 Presidential Addresses

qualities which we like to think of as distinctly
American in considering our early history. The
man who tills his own farm, whether on the prairie
or in the woodland, the man who grows what we eat
and the raw material which is worked up into what
we wear, still exists more nearly under the condi
tions which obtained when the "embattled farmers"
of '76 made this country a nation than is true of any
others of our people.

But the wage-workers in our cities, like the cap
italists in our cities, face totally changed conditions.
The development of machinery and the extraordi
nary change in business conditions have rendered
the employment of capital and of persons in large
aggregations not merely profitable but -often neces
sary for success, and have specialized the labor of the
wage- worker at the same time that they have brought
great aggregations of wage-workers together. More
and more in our great industrial centres men have
come to realize that they can not live as indepen
dently of one another as in the old days was the case
everywhere, and as is now the case in the country
districts.

Of course, fundamentally each man will yet find
that the chief factor in determining his success or
failure in life is the sum of his own individual
qualities. He can not afford to lose his individual
initiative, his individual will and power ; but he can
best use that power if for certain objects he unites
with his fellows. Much can be done by organiza
tion, combination, union among the wage-workers ;

And State Papers 307

finally something can be done by the direct action of
the State. It is not possible empirically to declare
when the interference of the State should be deemed
legitimate and when illegitimate.

The line of demarcation between unhealthy over-
interference and unhealthy lack of regulation is not
always well defined, and shifts with the change in
our industrial needs. Most certainly we should never
invoke the interference of the State or Nation unless
it is absolutely necessary ; but it is equally true that
when confident of its necessity we should not on aca
demic grounds refuse it. Wise factory laws, laws to
forbid the employment of child labor and to safe
guard the employees against the effects of culpable
negligence by the employer, are necessary, not mere
ly in the interest of the wage-worker, but in the in
terest of the honest and humane employer, who
should not be penalized for his honesty and human
ity by being exposed to unchecked competition with
an unscrupulous rival. It is far more difficult to
deal with the greed that works through cunning
than with the greed that works through violence.
But the effort to deal with it must be steadily made.

Very much of our effort in reference to labor
matters should be by every device and expedient to
try to secure a constantly better understanding be
tween employer and employee. Everything possible
should be done to increase the sympathy and fellow-
feeling between them, and every chance taken to
allow each to look at all questions, especially at ques
tions in dispute, somewhat through the other's eyes.

308 Presidential Addresses

If met with a sincere desire to act fairly by one an
other, and if there is, furthermore, power by each
to appreciate the other's standpoint, the chance for
trouble is minimized. I suppose every thinking man
rejoices when by mediation or arbitration it proves
possible to settle troubles in time to avert the suf
fering and bitterness caused by strikes. Moreover,
a conciliation committee can do best work when the
trouble is in its beginning, or at least has not come
to a head. When the break has actually occurred,
damage has been done, and each side feels sore and
angry; and it is difficult to get them together —
difficult to make either forget its own wrongs and
remember the rights of the other. If possible the
effort at conciliation or mediation or arbitration
should be made in the earlier stages, and should be
marked by the wish on the part of both sides to try
to come to a common agreement which each shall
think in the interests of the other as well as of itself.
When we deal with such a subject we are fortu
nate in having before us an admirable object-lesson
in the work that has just been closed by the Anthra
cite Coal Strike Commission. This was the Com
mission which was appointed last fall at the time
when the xcoal strike in the anthracite regions threat
ened our Nation with a disaster second to none which
has befallen us since the days of the Civil War.
Their report was made just before the Senate ad^
journed at the special session; and no Government
document of recent years marks a more important
piece of work better done, and there is none which

And State Papers 3°9

teaches sounder social morality to our people. The
commission consisted of seven as good men as were
to be found in the country, representing the bench,
the church, the army, -the professions, the employ
ers, and the employed. They acted as a unit, and the
report which they unanimously signed is a master
piece of sound common-sense and of sound doctrine
on the very questions with which our people should
most deeply concern themselves. The immediate
effect of this commission's appointment and action
was of vast and incalculable benefit to the Nation;
but the ultimate effect will be even better, if cap
italist, wage-worker, and lawmaker alike will take
to heart and act upon the lessons set forth in the
report they have made.

Of course the National Government has but a
small field in which it can work in labor matters.
Something it can do, however, and that something
ought to be done. Among other things I should
like to see the District of Columbia, which is com
pletely under the control of the National Govern
ment, receive a set of model labor laws. Washing
ton is not a city of very large industries, but still it
has some. Wise labor legislation for the city of
Washington would be a good thing in itself, and it
would be a far better thing, because a standard
would thereby be set for the country as a whole.

In the field of general legislation relating to these
subjects the action of Congress is necessarily very
limited. Still there are certain ways in which we
can act. Thus the Secretary of the Navy has rec-

310 Presidential Addresses

ommended, with my cordial and hearty approval,
the enactment of a strong employers'-liability law
in the navy yards of the Nation. It should be ex
tended to similar branches of the Government work.
Again, sometimes such laws can be enacted as an
incident to the Nation's control over interstate com
merce. In my last annual Message to Congress I
advocated the passage of a law in reference to car
couplings — to strengthen the features of the one
already on the statute books so as to minimize the
exposure to death and maiming of railway em
ployees. Much opposition had to be overcome. In
the end an admirable law was passed "to promote
the safety of employees and travelers upon railroads
by compelling common carriers engaged in inter
state commerce to equip their cars with automatic
couplers and continuous brakes and their locomo
tives with driving-wheel brakes." This law re
ceived my signature a couple of days before Con
gress adjourned. It represents a real and substantial
advance in an admirable kind of legislation.

AT FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA, APRIL 7, 1903

My Fellow-Citizens:

The Northwest, whose sons in the Civil War
added such brilliant pages to the honor roll of the
Republic, likewise bore a full share in the struggle
of which the war with Spain was the beginning; a
struggle slight indeed when compared with the gi
gantic death wrestle which for four years stamped

And State Papers 31 1

to and fro across the Southern States in the Civil
War; but a struggle fraught with consequences to
the Nation, and indeed to the world, out of all
proportion to the smallness of the effort upon our
part.

Three and a half years ago President McKinley
spoke in the adjoining State of Minnesota on the
occasion of the return of the Thirteenth Minnesota
Volunteers from the Philippine Islands, where they
had served with your own gallant sons of the North
Dakota regiment. After heartily thanking the re
turned soldiers for their valor and patriotism, and
their contemptuous refusal to be daunted or misled
by the outcry raised at home by the men of little
faith who wished us to abandon the islands, he
spoke of the islands themselves as follows :

"That Congress will provide for them a govern
ment which will bring them blessings, which will
promote their material interests as well as advance
their people in the path of civilization and intelli
gence, I confidently believe. They will not be gov
erned as vassals or serfs or slaves. They will be
given a government of liberty, regulated by law,
honestly administered, without oppressing exactions,
taxation without tyranny, justice without bribe, edu
cation without distinction of social condition, free
dom of religious worship, and protection in 'life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness/ '

What he said then lay in the realm of promise.
Now it lies in the realm of positive performance.

It is a good thing to look back upon what has

312 Presidential Addresses

been said and compare it with the record of what
has actually been done. If promises are violated,
if plighted word is not kept, then those who have
failed in their duty should be held up to reprobation.
If, on the other hand, the promises have been sub
stantially made good; if the achievement has kept
pace and more than kept pace with the prophecy,
then they who made the one and are responsible for
the other are entitled of just right to claim the
credit which attaches to those who serve the Nation
well. This credit I claim for the men who have
managed so admirably the military and the civil
affairs of the Philippine Islands, and for those other
men who have so heartily backed them in Congress,
and without whose aid and support not one thing
could have been accomplished.

When President McKinley spoke, the first duty
was the restoration of order ; and to this end the use
of the Army of the United States — an Army com
posed of regulars and volunteers alike — was neces
sary. To put down the insurrection and restore
peace to the islands was a duty not only to ourselves
but to the islanders also. We could not have aban
doned the conflict without shirking this duty, with
out proving ourselves recreants to the memory of
our forefathers. Moreover, if we had abandoned
it we would have inflicted upon the Filipinos the
most cruel wrong and would have doomed them to
a bloody jumble of anarchy and tyranny. It seems
strange, looking back, that any of our people should
have failed to recognize a duty so obvious ; but there

And State Papers 313

was such failure, and the Government at home, the
civil authorities in the Philippines, and above all
our gallant Army, had to do their work amid a
storm of detraction. The Army in especial was at
tacked in a way which finally did good, for in the
end it aroused the hearty resentment of the great
body of the American people, not against the Army,
but against the Army's traducers. The circum
stances of the war made it one of peculiar difficulty,
and our soldiers were exposed to peculiar wrongs
from their foes. They fought in dense tropical
jungles against enemies who were very treacherous
and very cruel, not only toward our own men, but
toward the great numbers of friendly natives, the
most peaceable and most civilized among whom
eagerly welcomed our rule. Under such circum
stances, among a hundred thousand hot-blooded and
powerful young men serving in small detachments
on the other side of the globe, it was impossible
that occasional instances of wrongdoing should not
occur. The fact that they occurred in retaliation for
wellnigh intolerable provocation can not for one
moment be admitted in the way of excuse or justifi
cation. All good Americans regret and deplore
them, and the War Department has taken every
step in its power to punish the offenders and to pre
vent or minimize the chance of repetition of the
offence. But these offences were the exception and
not the rule. As a whole our troops showed not
only signal courage and efficiency, but great hu
manity and the most sincere desire to promote the

3 H Presidential Addresses

welfare and liberties of the islanders. In a series of
exceedingly harassing .and difficult campaigns they
completely overthrew the enemy, reducing them
finally to a condition of mere brigandage ; and wher
ever they conquered they conquered only to make
way for the rule of the civil government, for the
introduction of law, and of liberty under the law.
When, by last July, the last -vestige of organized
insurrection had disappeared, peace and amnesty
were proclaimed.

As rapidly as the military rule was extended over
the islands by the defeat of the insurgents, just so
rapidly was it replaced by the civil government. At
the present time the civil government is supreme
and the army in the Philippines has been reduced
until it is sufficient merely to provide against the
recurrence of trouble. In Governor Taft and his
associates we sent to the Filipinos as upright, as con
scientious, and as able a group of administrators as
ever any country has been blessed with having.
With them and under them we have associated the
best men among the Filipinos, so that the great
majority of the officials, including many of the high
est rank, are themselves natives of the islands. The
administration is incorruptibly honest; justice is as
jealously safeguarded as here at home. The gov
ernment is conducted purely in the interests of the
people of the islands; they are protected in their
religious and civil rights; they have been given an
excellent and well administered school system, and
each of them now enjoys rights to "life, liberty, and

And State Papers 315

the pursuit of happiness" such as were never before
known in all the history of the islands.

The Congress which has just adjourned has
passed legislation of high importance and great wis
dom in the interests of the Filipino people. First
and foremost, they conferred upon them by law the
present admirable civil government ; in addition they
gave them an excellent currency ; they passed a meas
ure allowing the organization of a native constabu
lary; and they provfded, in the interests of the isl
ands, for a reduction of twenty-five per cent in the
tariff on Filipino articles brought to this country.
I asked that a still further reduction should be made.
It was not granted by the last Congress, but I think
that in some shape it will be granted by the next.
And even without it, the record of legislation in the
interests of the Filipinos is one with which we have
a right to feel great satisfaction.

Moreover, Congress appropriated three million
dollars, following the precedent it set when the peo
ple of Porto Rico were afflicted by sudden disaster ;
this money to be used by the Philippine government
in order to meet the distress occasioned primarily by
the terrible cattle disease which almost annihilated
the carabao or water-buffalo, the chief and most
important domestic animal in the islands. Coming
as this disaster did upon the heels of the havoc
wrought by the insurrectionary war, great suffering
has been caused: and this misery, for which this
Government is in no way responsible, will doubtless
in turn increase the difficulties of the Philippine

316 Presidential Addresses

government for the next year or so. In consequence
there will doubtless here and there occur sporadic
increases of the armed brigandage to which the isl
ands have been habituated from time immemorial,
and here and there for their own purposes the ban
dits may choose to style themselves patriots or in
surrectionists ; but these local difficulties will be of
little consequence save as they give occasion to a
few men here at home again to try to mislead our
people. Not only has the military problem in the
Philippines been worked out quicker and better than
we had dared to expect, but the progress socially and
in civil government has likewise exceeded our fond
est hopes.

The best thing that can be done in handling such
a problem as that in the Philippine Islands, so pecu
liar, so delicate, so difficult and so remote, is to put
the best man possible in charge and then give him
the heartiest possible support, and the freest pos
sible hand. This is what has been done with Gov
ernor Taft. There is not in this Nation a higher
or finer type of public servant than Governor Taft.
He has rendered literally inestimable service, not
only to the people of the Philippine Islands but
also to the people of the United States, by what he
has done in those islands. He has been able to do
it, because from the beginning he has been given
absolute support by the War Department, under
Secretary Root. With the cessation of organized
resistance the civil government assumed its proper
position of headship. The army in the Philippines

And State Papers 317

is now one of. the instruments through which Gov
ernor Taft does his admirable work. The civil
government, of which Governor Taft is the head, is
supreme, and will do well in the future as it has in
the past, because it will be backed up in the future
as it has been in the past.

Remember always that "in the Philippines the
American Government has tried and is trying to
carry out exactly what the greatest genius and most
revered patriot ever known in the Philippine Isl
ands — Jose Rizal — steadfastly advocated. This man
shortly before his death, in a message to his country
men, under date of December 16, 1896, condemned
unsparingly the insurrection of Aguinaldo, termi
nated just before our navy appeared upon the scene,
and pointed out the path his people should follow to
liberty and enlightenment. Speaking of the insur
rection and of the pretence that Filipino indepen
dence of a wholesome character could thereby be
obtained, he wrote :

"When, in spite of my advice, a movement was
begun, I offered of my own accord, not only my ser
vices, but my life and even my good name to be used
in any way they might believe effective in stifling
the rebellion. I thought of the disaster which would
follow the success of the revolution, and I deemed
myself fortunate if by any sacrifice I could block the
progress of such a useless calamity.

"My countrymen, I have given proof that I was
one who sought liberty for our country and I still
seek it. But as a first step I insisted upon the de-

3i 8 Presidential Addresses

velopment of the people in order that, by means of
education and of labor, they might acquire the proper
individual character and force which would make
them worthy of it. In my writings I have com
mended to you study and civic virtue, without which
our redemption does not exist. ... I can not
do less than condemn, and I do condemn, this ab
surd and savage insurrection planned behind my
back, which dishonors us before the Filipinos and
discredits us with those who otherwise would argue
in our behalf. I abominate its cruelties and disavow
any kind of connection with it, regretting with all
the sorrow of my soul that these reckless men have
allowed themselves to be deceived. Let them return,
then, to their homes, and may God pardon those who
have acted in bad faith."

This message embodied precisely and exactly the
avowed policy upon which the American Govern
ment has acted in the Philippines. What the pa
triot Rizal said with such force in speaking of the
insurrection before we came to the islands applies
with tenfold greater force to those who foolishly
or wickedly opposed the mild and beneficent gov
ernment we were instituting in the islands. The
judgment of the martyred public servant, Rizal,
whose birthday the Philippine people celebrate, and
whom they worship as their hero and ideal, sets
forth the duty of American sovereignty ; a duty from
which the American people will never flinch.

While we have been doing these great and benefi
cent works in the islands, we have yet been steadily

And State Papers 319

reducing the cost at which they are done. The last
Congress repealed the law for the war taxes, and the
War Department has reduced the Army from the
maximum number of one hundred thousand allowed
under the law to very nearly the minimum of sixty
thousand.

Moreover, the last Congress enacted some admi
rable legislation affecting the Army, passing first of
all the militia bill and then the bill to create a gen
eral staff. The militia bill represents the realization
of a reform which had been championed ineffectively
by Washington, and had been fruitlessly agitated ever
since. At last we have taken from the statute books
the obsolete militia law of the Revolutionary days
and have provided for efficient aid to the National
Guard of the States. I believe that no other great
country has such fine natural material for volunteer
soldiers as we have, and it is the obvious duty^of the
nation and of the States to make such provision as
will enable this volunteer soldiery to be organized
with all possible rapidity and efficiency in time of
war; and, furthermore, to help in every way the
National Guard in time of peace. The militia law
enacted by the Congress marks the first long step
ever taken in this direction by the National Govern
ment. The general-staff law is of immense impor
tance and benefit to the Regular Army. Individ
ually, I would not admit that the American regular,
either officer or enlisted man, is inferior to any other
regular soldier in the world. In fact, if it were
worth while to boast, I should be tempted to say

15— VOL. XIII.

320 Presidential Addresses

that he was the best. But there must be proper
training, proper organization and administration, in
order to get the best service out of even the best
troops. This is particularly the case with such a
small army as ours, scattered over so vast a country.
We do not need a large Regular Army, but we do
need to have our small Regular Army the very best
that can possibly be produced. Under the worn-out
and ineffective organization which has hitherto exist
ed, a sudden strain is absolutely certain to produce
the dislocation and confusion we saw at the outbreak
of the war with Spain; and when such dislocation and
confusion occurs it is easy and natural, but entirely
improper, to blame the men who happen to be in
office, instead of the system which is really respon
sible. Under the law just enacted by Congress this
system will be changed immensely for the better,
and every patriotic American ought to rejoice;
for when we come to the Army and the Navy we
deal with the honor and interests of all our people;
and when such is the case party lines are as noth
ing, and we all stand shoulder to shoulder as Ameri
cans, moved only by pride in and love for our com
mon country.

AT MEDORA, NORTH DAKOTA, APRIL 7, 1903

My Friends and Neighbors:

I am very glad to see you all. I made up my
mind that come what would I would stop at Me-
dora. I first came to Medora twenty years ago, so

And State Papers 321

I am a middling old settler. I meet boys, great big
strapping men, and mothers of families who were
children about three feet high when I knew .them
here. It is a very pleasant thing for me to see you. I
shall not try to make you more than a very short talk,
because I want to have the chance to shake hands
with you. Most all of you are old friends. I have
stopped at your houses and shared your hospitality.
With some of the men I have ridden guard around
the cattle at night, worked with them in the round
up, and hunted with them, so that I know them
pretty well. It is the greatest possible pleasure to me
to come back and see how you are getting along, to
see the progress made by the State, to see the prog
ress made up at this end in the place that I know so
well, and it does me good to come here and see
you. There is not a human being who is more proud
of what you have done, and more pleased with your
welfare and progress, than I am.

AT JAMESTOWN, N. D., APRIL 7, 1903

Mr. Chairman and my Fellow-Citizens:

I have only time to develop one thought to you
to-day, and that is suggested to me by a letter sent
me by a labor organization here in your city thank
ing me for some of the work that has been done in
Congress this year, in connection- with labor matters,
in connection with what is called trust legislation.
All that we have been trying to do, with a certain
fair amount of success, through legislation and

Presidential Addresses

through administration, has been to do square and
equal justice between man and man; to try to give
every man a fair chance, to try to secure good treat
ment for him, if he deserves it, be he rich or poor,
and to try to see that he does not wrong his fellow.
After all, that is about what must be the essence of
legislation, if it is to be really good legislation.
Take such a matter as these so-called anti-trust laws
— I always hate to have them called anti-trust laws
or anti-corporation laws because they are not de
signed to hurt any corporation, they are simply de
signed for such regulations and control as will pre
vent the doing of ill. Take the anti-rebate law
passed by the last Congress. It was merely designed
to make effective previous legislation, to prevent
any discrimination by any railroad in favor of or
against any particular shipper — not trying to favor
the big shipper or the little shipper; only trying
to secure a fair deal for each, get fair play for
each, so that each man shall have the chance to
which he is entitled. That is not a bill aimed at the
railroads, it is only aimed at any railroad that does
anything wrong, in the same way that it is aimed
at a shipper that does anything wrong — no more
against the big shipper than the little shipper. It
is meant to do square justice to each man, big or
little, and to ensure, as far as by legislation we can
secure, that he will do fair justice in return.

Take the report of the Anthracite Coal Strike
Commission and the spirit in which that commis
sion went to work. They were not trying to decide

And State Papers 323

for the operators or for the miners. They were
trying to do justice to both the operator and the
miner, and to secure justice for the general public.

Legislation to be thoroughly effective for good
must proceed upon the principle of aiming to get
for each man a fair chance to allow him to show the
stuff there is in him. No legislation can make some
men prosperous; no legislation can give wisdom to
the foolish, courage to the timid, strength to the
shiftless. All that legislation can do, and all that
honest and fearless administration of the laws can
do is to give each man as good a chance as possible
to develop the qualities he has in him, and to protect
him so far as is humanly possible against wrong
of any kind at the hands of his fellows. That is
what legislation can do, and that I think I may say
we have successfully tried to do both by legislation
and by the administration of the law.

I have seen you grow up. I am proud of you.
I can assure you that so far as in me lies the efforts
of the National Government, legislative and admin
istrative, will be to help you and all others of our
people in the only way in which they can be helped
— to help them to help themselves, to help them so
that each man shall have the fairest field to show
the stuff that there is in him, the qualities that he
has at his command.

324 Presidential Addresses

AT LAYING OF CORNERSTONE OF GATEWAY
TO YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, GAR
DINER, MONTANA, APRIL 24, 1903

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Superintendent, and my Fellow-
Citizens:

I wish to thank the people of Montana generally,
those of Gardiner and Cinnabar especially, and more
especially still all those employed in the Park,
whether in civil or military capacity, for my very
enjoyable two weeks' holiday.

It is a pleasure now to say a few words to you at
the laying of the cornerstone of the beautiful road
which is to mark the entrance to this Park. The Yel
lowstone Park is something absolutely unique in the
world, so far as I know. Nowhere else in any civil
ized country is there to be found such a tract of
veritable wonderland made accessible to all visitors,
where at the same time not only the scenery of the
wilderness, but the wild creatures of the Park are
scrupulously preserved; the only change being that
these same wild creatures have been so carefully pro
tected as to show a literally astounding tameness.
The creation and preservation of such a great natural
playground in the interest of our people as a whole
is a credit to the nation; but above all a credit to
Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. It has been pre
served with wise foresight. The scheme of its pres
ervation is noteworthy in its essential democracy.
Private game preserves, though they may be handled
in such a way as to be not only good things for

And State Papers 325

themselves, but good things for the surrounding
community, can yet never be more than poor
substitutes, from the standpoint of the public,
for great national playgrounds such as this Yel
lowstone Park. This Park was created, and is
tTow administered, for the benefit and enjoyment of
the people. The government must continue to ap
propriate for it especially in the direction of com
pleting and perfecting an excellent system of drive
ways. But already its beauties can be seen with
great comfort in a short space of time and at an as-
toundingly small cost, and with the sense on the
part of every visitor that it is in part his property,
that it is the property of Uncle Sam and therefore
of all of us. The only way that the people as a whole
can secure to themselves and their children the en
joyment in perpetuity of what the Yellowstone Park
has to give is by assuming the ownership in the name
of the nation and by jealously safeguarding and pre
serving the scenery, the forests, and the wild crea
tures. When we have a good system of carriage
roads throughout the Park — for of course it would
be very unwise to allow either steam or electric
roads in the Park — we shall have a region as easy
and accessible to travel in as it is already every
whit as interesting as any similar territory of the
Alps or the Italian Riviera. The geysers, the ex
traordinary hot springs, the lakes, the mountains,
the canyons, and cataracts unite to make this region
something not wholly to be paralleled elsewhere on
the globe. It must be kept for the benefit and en-

326 Presidential Addresses

joyment of all of us ; and I hope to see a steadily in
creasing number of our people take advantage of its
attractions. At present it is rather singular that a
greater number of people come from Europe to see
it than come from our own Eastern States. The
people near by seem awake to its beauties ; and
I hope that more and more of our people who dwell
far off will appreciate its really marvelous character.
Incidentally, I should like to point out that some time
people will surely awake to the fact that the Park has
special beauties to be seen in winter ; and any hardy
man who can go through it in that season on skis
will enjoy himself as he scarcely could elsewhere.

I wish especially to congratulate the people of
Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, and notably you of
Gardiner and Cinnabar and the immediate out
skirts of the Park, for the way in which you heartily
co-operate with the superintendent to prevent acts of
vandalism and destruction. Major Pitcher has ex
plained to me how much he owes to your co-opera
tion and your lively appreciation of the fact that the
Park is simply being kept in the interest of all pf us,
so that every one may have the chance to see its won
ders with ease and comfort at the minimum of ex
pense. I have always thought it was a liberal edu
cation to any man of the East to come West, and he
can combine profit with pleasure if he will inci
dentally visit this Park, the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado, and the Yosemite, and take the sea voyage
to Alaska. Major Pitcher reports to me, by the
way, that he has received invaluable assistance from

And State Papers 327

the game wardens of Montana and Wyoming, and
that the present game warden of Idaho has also
promised his hearty aid.

The preservation of the forests is of course the
matter of prime importance in every public reserve
of this character. In this region of the Rocky Moun
tains and the great plains the problem of the water
supply is the most important which the home-maker
has to face. Congress has not of recent years done
anything wiser than in passing the irrigation bill;
and nothing is more essential to the preservation of
the water supply than the preservation of the for
ests. Montana has in its water power a source of
development which has hardly yet been touched.
This water power will be seriously impaired if ample
protection is not given the forests. Therefore this
Park, like the forest reserves generally, is of the ut
most advantage to the country around from the
merely utilitarian side. But of course this Park,
also because of its peculiar features, is to be pre
served as a beautiful natural playground. Here
all the wild creatures of the old days are being
preserved, and their overflow into the surrounding
country means that the people of the surrounding
country, so long as they see that the laws are ob
served by all, will be able to ensure to themselves
and to their children and to their children's children
much of the old-time pleasure of the hardy life of
the wilderness and of the hunter in the wilder
ness. This pleasure, moreover, can under such con
ditions be kept for all who have the love of adven-

328 Presidential Addresses

ture and the hardihood to take advantage of it, with
small regard for what their fortune may be. I can
not too often repeat that the essential feature in the
present management of the Yellowstone Park, as
in all similar places, is its essential democracy — it
is the preservation of the scenery, of the forests, of
the wilderness life and the wilderness game for the
people as a whole, instead of leaving the enjoyment
thereof to be confined to the very rich who can con
trol private reserves. I have been literally astounded
at the enormous quantities of elk and at the number
of deer, antelope and mountain sheep which I have
seen on their wintering grounds; and the deer and
sheep in particular are quite as tame as range stock.
A few buffalo are being preserved. I wish very
much that the government could somewhere provide
for an experimental breeding station of cross-breeds
between buffalo and the common cattle. If these
cross-breeds could be successfully perpetuated we
should have animals which would produce a robe
quite as good as the old buffalo robe with which
twenty years ago every one was familiar, and ani
mals moreover which would be so hardy that I think"
they would have a distinct commercial importance.
They would, for instance, be admirably suited for
Alaska, a territory which I look to see develop
astoundingly within the next decade or two, not
only because of its furs and fisheries, but because of
its agricultural and pastoral possibilities.

And State Papers 329

AT OMAHA, NEB., APRIL 27, 1903

Mr. Chairman, and you, my Fellow-Citizens:

It is a great pleasure to come before you this
evening. Since Saturday I have been traveling
through your great and beautiful State. I know
your people ; I have been with them ; I have worked
with them ; and it is indeed a joy to come here now
and see from one end of your State to the other the
signs of your abounding prosperity. I feel that the
future of Nebraska is secure. There will be tem
porary ups and downs, and of course if any of you
are guilty of folly, from your own folly nothing can
save you but yourselves. But if you act as I believe
and trust that you will act, this State has a future
before it second to that of no other State in this
great Nation.

I address you to-night on the anniversary of the
birth of the great silent soldier — Ulysses Grant, and
I am glad to have the chance of saying a few words
to an audience such as this in this great typical city
of the West on the occasion of the birthday of the
great Western general, the great American general.
It is a good thing to pay homage with our lips to the
illustrious dead. It is a good thing to keep in mind
what we owe to the memories of Washington and
his fellows, who founded this mighty Republic; to
Abraham Lincoln and Grant and their fellows, who
saved it. It is a far better thing to pay the homage
that counts — the homage of our lives and our deeds.
Illustrious memories of the Nation's past are but

3jo Presidential Addresses

curses if they serve the men of the Nation at present
as excuses for shirking the problems of the day.
They are blessings if they serve to spur on the men
of now to see that they act as well in their time as
the men of yesterday did in theirs.

Each generation has its peculiar problems; each
generation has certain tasks allotted to it to do.
Shame to it if it treats the glorious deeds of a gen
eration that went before as an excuse for its own
failure to do the peculiar task it finds ready to hand.
Upon the way in which we solve our problems
will depend whether our children and our children's
children shall look back or shall not look back to us
with the veneration which we feel for the men of
the mighty years of the Civil War. Our task is a
lighter one than theirs, but it is an important one,
and do it we must, if we wish to rise level to the
standard set us by our forefathers. You in Ne
braska have passed through periods of terrible pri
vation, of misery and hardship. They were evil
times. And yet, there is no experience, no evil, that
out of it good can not come, if only we look at it
right. Things are better now. Things can be kept
better, but only on condition that we face facts with
coolness and sanity, with clear-eyed vision that tells
us what is true and what is false. When things go
wrong there is a tendency in humanity to wish to
blame some of its fellows. It is a natural tendency,
and by no means always a wholesome tendency.
There is always, a tendency to feel that somehow by
legislation, by the enactment of some law, by the

And State Papers 331

trying of some patent scheme things can be made
permanently better. Now, something can be done
by law. A good deal can be done by law. Even
more can be done by the honest administration of
the law ; an administration which knows neither fear
nor favor, which treats each man exactly as that
man's record entitles him to be treated ; the kind of
enforcement of the law which I think I may prom
ise that you will have while Mr. Knox remains At
torney-General. But more than the law, far more
than the administration of the law, depends upon
the individual quality of the average citizen. The
chief factor in winning success for your State, for
the people in the State, must be what the chief
factor in winning the success of a people has been
from the beginning of time — the character of the
individual man, of the individual woman.

I have spoken of the homage we should pay to the
memory of Grant. It is the homage we should pay
to the memory of Lincoln, the homage we should
pay to all of our fellow-countrymen who have at any
time rendered great service to the Republic, and it
can be rendered in most efficient form not by merely
praising them for having dealt with problems which
now we do not have to face, but by facing our prob
lems in the same spirit in which they faced theirs.
Nothing was more noteworthy in all of Lincoln's
character than the way in which he combined fealty
to the loftiest ideal with a thoroughly practical ca
pacity to achieve that ideal by practical methods.
He did not war with phantoms ; he did not struggle

332 Presidential Addresses

among the clouds; he faced facts; he endeavored
to get the best results he could out of the warring
forces with which he had to deal. When he could
not get the best he was forced to content himself,
and did content himself, with the best possible.
What he did in his day we must do in ours. It is
not possible to lay down any rule of conduct so
specific that it will enable us to meet each particu
lar issue as it arises. All that can be done is to lay
down certain general rules, and then to try, each
man for himself, to apply those general rules to the
specific cases that come up.

Our complex industrial civilization has not only
been productive of much benefit, but has also brought
us face to face with many puzzling problems ; prob
lems that are puzzling, partly because there are men
that are wicked, partly because there are good men
who are foolish or short-sighted. There are many
such to-day — the problems of labor and capital, the
problems which we group together rather vaguely
when we speak of the problems of the trusts, the
problems affecting the farmers on the one hand, the
railroads on the other. It would not be possible in
any one place to deal with the particular shapes
which these problems take at that time and in that
place. And yet, there are certain general rules
which can be laid down for dealing with them, and
those rules are the immutable rules of justice, of
sanity, of courage, of common-sense. Six months
ago it fell to niy lot to appoint a commission to in
vestigate into and conclude about matters connected

And State Papers 333

with the great and menacing strike in the anthra
cite coal fields of Pennsylvania. On that commis
sion I appointed representatives of the church, of
the bench, of the army, a representative of the capi
talists of the region, and a representative of or
ganized labor. They published a report which was
not only of the utmost moment because of dealing
with the great and vital problem with which they
were appointed to deal, but also because in its con
clusions it initiated certain general rules in so clear
and masterful a fashion that I wish most earnestly
it could receive the broadest circulation as a tract
wherever there exists or threatens to exist trouble in
any way akin to that with which those commission
ers dealt.

If I might give a word of advice to Omaha, I
should like to see your daily press publish in full the
concluding portion of that report of the Anthracite
Coal Strike Commission, signed by all the members
thereof, by those in a special sense the champion of
the wage-worker, and by those in a special sense iden
tified with capital, organized or unorganized ; be
cause, men and women of Omaha, those people did
not speak first as capitalist or as laborer, did not
speak first as judge, as army man, as church man,
but all of them signed that report as American citi
zens anxious to see right and justice prevail. No
one quality will get us out of any difficulty. We
need more than otic; we need a good many. We
need, as I said, the power first of each man's hon
estly trying to look at the problem from his fellow's

334 Presidential Addresses

standpoint. Capitalist and wage-worker alike should
honestly endeavor each to look at any matter from
the other's standpoint, with a freedom on the one
hand from the contemptible arrogance which looks
down upon the man of less means, and on the other,
from the no less contemptible envy, jealousy and
rancor, which hates another because he is better off.
Each quality is the supplement of the other, and in
point of baseness there is not the weight of a finger
to choose between them. Look at the report signed
by those men ; look at it in the spirit in which they
wrote it, and if you can only make yourselves, make
this community, approach the problems of to-day
in the spirit that those men, your fellows, showed
in approaching the problem of yesterday, your prob
lems will be solved.

Any man who tries to excite class hatred, sectional
hate, hate of creeds, any kind of hatred in our com
munity, though he may affect to do it in the interest
of the class he is addressing, is in the long run
with absolute certainty that class's own worst en
emy. In the long run, and as a whole, we are going
to go up or go down together. Of course there will
be individual exceptions, small, local exceptions,
exceptions in kind, exceptions in place; but as a
whole, if the commonwealth prospers some measure
of prosperity comes to all of us. If it is not pros
perous, then the adversity, though it may fall un
equally upon us, will weigh more or less upon all.
It lies with us .ourselves to determine our own fate.
I can not too often say that the wisest law, the best

And State Papers 335

administration of the law, can do naught more than
give us a fair field in which to work out that fate
aright. If as individuals, or as a community, we
mar our future by our own folly, let us remember
that it is upon ourselves that the responsibility must
rest.

FROM ADDRESS AT QUINCY, ILL., APRIL 29, 1903

Mr. Chairman and my Fellow-Citizens:

There is one matter which I think presses for
national legislative attention — the matter of the cur
rency.' From your sister State of Iowa I have a Sec
retary of the Treasury, who, as he showed last fall,
can be counted on to act with courage and with wis
dom whenever the need arises, and to use fearlessly
and coolly whatever the law now allows him to use.
Our currency laws have been recently improved by
specific declarations intended to secure permanency
of values; but this does not imply that these laws
may not be further improved and strengthened. It
is wellnigh universally admitted, certainly in any
business community such as this, that our currency
system is wanting in elasticity; that is, the volume
does not respond to the varying needs of the country
as a whole, nor to the varying needs of the different
localities as well as of different times. Our people
scarcely need to be reminded that grain-raising com
munities require a larger volume of currency at
harvest time than during the summer months; and
the same principle in greater or less extent applies
to every community. Our currency laws need such

336 Presidential Addresses

modification as will ensure definitely the parity of
every dollar coined or issued by the government, and
such expansion or contraction of the currency as will
promptly and automatically respond to the varying
needs of commerce. Permanent increase would be
dangerous, permanent contraction ruinous, but the
needed elasticity must be brought about by provi
sions which will permit both contraction and ex
pansion as the varying needs of the several commu
nities and business interests at different times and in
different localities require.

AT ODEON HALL, ST. LOUIS, MO., BEFORE THE

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL GOOD

ROADS CONVENTION, APRIL 29, 1903

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

When we wish to use descriptive terms fit to
characterize great empires and the men who made
those empires great, invariably one of the terms used
is to signify that that empire built good roads. When
we speak of the Romans, we speak of them as rulers,
as conquerors, as administrators, as road builders.
There were empires that rose over night and fell
over night, empires whose influence was absolutely
evanescent, which have passed away without leaving
a trace of their former existence ; but wherever the
Roman established his rule the traces of that rule
remain deep to-day, stamped on the language and
customs of the people, or stamped in tangible form
upon the soil itself. And so passing through Brit-

And State Papers 337

ain fifteen centuries and over after the dominion of
Rome passed away, the Roman roads as features
still remain ; going through Italy, where power after
power has risen, and flourished, and vanished since
the days when the temporal dominion of the Roman
emperors transferred its seat from Rome to By
zantium — going through Italy after the Lombard,
the Goth, the Byzantine, and all the people of the
Middle Ages that have ruled that country — it is the
imperishable Roman road that reappears.

The faculty, the art, the habit of road building
marks in a nation those solid, stable qualities which
tell for permanent greatness. Merely from the stand
point of historic analogy we should have a right to
ask that this people which has tamed a continent,
which has built up a country with a continent for its
base, which boasts itself, with truth, as the might
iest republic that the world has ever seen, which I
firmly believe will in the century now opening rise
to a position of headship and leadership such as no
other nation has ever yet attained — merely from his
toric analogy, I say, we should have a right to de
mand that such a nation build good roads. Much
more have we the right to demand it from the prac
tical standpoint. The great difference between the
semi-barbarism of the Middle Ages and the civiliza
tion which succeeded it was the difference between
poor and good means of communication. And we to
whom space is less of an obstacle than ever it was
in the history of any other nation, we who have
spanned a continent, who have thrust our border

33 8 Presidential Addresses

westward in the course of a century and a quarter
until it has gone from the Atlantic to the Allegha-
nies, from the Alleghanies down into the valley of
the Mississippi, across the great plains, over the
Rockies to where the Golden Gate lets through the
long heaving waters of the Pacific, and finally to
Alaska, to the Arctic regions, to the tropic islands
of the sea — we who take so little account of mere
space must see to it that the best means of nullifying
the existence of space are at our command.

Of course, during the last century there has been
an altogether phenomenal growth of one kind of
road wholly unknown to the people of an earlier
period — the iron road. The railroad is, of course,
something purely modern. A great many excellent
people have proceeded upon the assumption that
somehow or other having good railways should be
a substitute for having good highways, good ordi
nary roads. A more untenable position can not be
imagined. What the railway does is to develop the
country; and of course its development implies that
the developed country will need more and better roads.

A few years ago it was a matter of humiliation
that there should be so little attention paid to our
roads; that there should be a willingness not mere
ly to refrain from making good roads, but to let the
roads that were in existence become worse. I can
not too heartily congratulate our people upon the
existence of a body such as this, ramifying into every
section of the country, having its connections in
every State of the country, and bent upon that emi-

And State Papers 339

nently proper work of making the conditions of life
easier and better for the people whom of all others
we can least afford to see grow discontented with
their lot in life — the people who live in the country
districts. The extraordinary, the wholly unheard-of,
rate of our industrial development during the past
seventy-five years, together with the good sides
has had some evil sides. It is a fine thing to see
our cities built up, but not at the expense of the
country districts. The healthy thing to see is the
building up of both the country and city go hand in
hand. But we can not expect the ablest, the most
eager, the most ambitious young men to stay in the
country, to stay on the farm, unless they have cer
tain advantages. If the farm life is a life of isola
tion, a life in which it is a matter of great and real
difficulty for one man to communicate with his
neighbor, you can rest assured that there will be a
tendency to leave it on the part of those very people
whom we should most wish to see stay in it. It is a
good thing to encourage in every way any tendency
which will tend to check an unhealthy flow from the
country to the city. There are several such ten
dencies in evidence at present. The growth of elec
tricity as a means of transportation tends to a cer
tain degree to exercise a centrifugal force to offset
the centripetal force of steam. Exactly as steam and
electricity have tended to gather men in masses, so
now electricity, as applied to the purposes which
steam has so long claimed as exclusively its own,
tends again to scatter out the masses. The trolley

34° Presidential Addresses

lines that go out into the country are doing a great
deal to render it more possible to live in the country
and yet not to lose wholly the advantages of the
town. The telephone is not to be minimized as an
instrument with a tendency in the same direction;
and rural free delivery is playing its part along the
same lines. But no one thing can do more to offset
the tendency toward an unhealthy growth from the
country into the city than the making and keeping
of good roads. They are needed for the sake of
their effect upon the industrial conditions of the
country districts; and I am almost tempted to say
they are needed for the sake of social conditions in
the country districts. If winter means to the aver
age farmer the existence of a long line of liquid mo
rasses through which he is to move his goods if bent
on business, or to wade and swim if bent on pleasure ;
if winter means that after an ordinary rain the
farmer boy or girl can not use his or her bicycle; if
a little heavy weather means a stoppage of all com
munication not only with industrial centres but with
the neighbors, you must expect that there will be a
great many young people of both sexes who will not
find farm life attractive. It is for this reason that
I feel the work you are doing is so pre-eminently one
in the interest of the Nation as a whole. I congratu
late you upon the fact that you are doing it. In our
American life it would be hard to overestimate the
amount of good that has been accomplished by as
sociations of individuals who have gathered together
to work for a common object which was to be of

And State Papers 34*

benefit to the community as a whole ; and among all
the excellent objects for which men and women com
bine to work to-day, there are few indeed which
have a better right to command the energies of those
engaged in the movement, and the hearty sympathy
and support of those outside, than this movement in
which you are engaged.

AT ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY, ST. LOUIS,
MISSOURI, APRIL 29, 1903

Cardinal Gibbons, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is indeed a pleasure to be received here as a
guest of the first and oldest university founded in
our country west of the Mississippi River in the Lou
isiana Purchase. I know your work. I have myself
been much in the West, and I have come across the
traces of your work, both among the communities
of our own people and among the Indian tribes.

I thank you personally for your kind allusions to
me, and would hold myself recreant to the principles
upon which this government was founded did I not
strive as Chief Executive to do fair and equal jus
tice to all men without regard to the way in which
any man chooses to worship his Maker.^

AT THE DEDICATION CEREMONIES OF THE

LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION,

ST. LOUIS, APRIL 30/1903

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen:

At the outset of my address let me recall to the
minds of my hearers that the soil upon which we

342 Presidential Addresses

stand, before it was ours, was successively the pos
session of two mighty empires, Spain and France,
whose sons made a deathless record of heroism in
the early annals of the New World. No history
of the Western country can be written without
paying heed to the wonderful part played therein
in the early days by the soldiers, missionaries, ex
plorers, and traders, who did their work for the
honor of the proud banners of France and Castile.
While the settlers of English-speaking stock, and
those of Dutch, German, and Scandinavian origin
who were associated with them, were still clinging
close to the Eastern seaboard, the pioneers of Spain
and of France had penetrated deep into the hitherto
unknown wilderness of the West, had wandered
far and wide within the boundaries of what is
now our mighty country. The very cities them
selves — St. Louis, New Orleans, Santa Fe — bear
witness by their titles to the nationalities of their
founders. It was not until the Revolution had
begun that the English-speaking settlers pushed
west across the Alleghanies, and not until a century
ago that they entered in to possess the land upon
which we now stand.

We have met here to-day to commemorate the
Hundredth anniversary of the event which more
than any other, after the foundation of the Gov
ernment and always excepting its preservation,
determined the character of our national life —
determined that we should be a great expanding

And State Papers 343

Nation instead of relatively a small and station
ary one.

Of course it was not with the Louisiana Pur
chase that our career of expansion began. In the
middle of the Revolutionary War the Illinois region,
including the present States of Illinois and Indiana,
was added to our domain by force of arms, as a
sequel to the adventurous expedition of George
Rogers Clark and his frontier riflemen. Later the
treaties of Jay and Pinckney materially extended
our real boundaries to the West. But none of these
events was of so striking a character as to fix the
popular imagination. The old thirteen colonies had
always claimed that their rights stretched westward
to the Mississippi, and vague and unreal though
these claims were until made good by conquest, set
tlement, and diplomacy, they still served to give
the impression that the earliest westward move
ments of our people were little more than the filling
in of already existing national boundaries.

But there could be no illusion about the acquisi
tion of the vast territory beyond the Mississippi,
stretching westward to the Pacific, which in that
day was known as Louisiana. This immense region
was admittedly the territory of a foreign power,
of a European kingdom. None of our people had
ever laid claim to a foot of it. Its acquisition
could in no sense be treated as rounding out any
existing claims. When we acquired it we made
evident once for all that consciously and of set pur-

I6-VOL. XIII.

344 Presidential Addresses

pose we had embarked on a career of expansion,
that we had taken our place among those daring
and hardy nations who risk much with the hope and
desire of winning high position among the great
powers of the earth. As is so often the case in
nature, the law of development of a living organ
ism showed itself in its actual workings to be wiser
than the wisdom of the wisest.

This work of expansion was by far the greatest
work of our people during the years that intervened
between the adoption of the Constitution and the
outbreak of the Civil War. There were other ques
tions of real moment and importance, and there
were many which at the time seemed such to those
engaged in answering them; but the greatest feat
of our forefathers of those generations was the deed
of the men who, with pack train or wagon train,
on horseback, on foot, or by boat, pushed the fron
tier ever westward across the continent.

Never before had the world seen the kind of na
tional expansion which gave our people all that part
of the American continent lying west of the thirteen
original States ; the greatest landmark in which was
the Louisiana Purchase. Our triumph in this proc
ess of expansion was indissolubly bound up with
the success of our peculiar kind of federal gov
ernment; and this success has been so complete that
because of its very completeness we now sometimes
fail to appreciate not only the all-importance but
the tremendous difficulty of the problem with which
our Nation was originally faced.

And State Papers 345

When our forefathers joined to call into being
this Nation, they undertook a task for which there
was but little encouragaging precedent. The de
velopment of civilization from the earliest period
seemed to show the truth of two propositions : In
the first place, it had always proved exceedingly
difficult to secure both freedom and strength in any
government ; and in the second place, it had always
proved wellnigh impossible for a nation to expand
without either breaking up or becoming a central
ized tyranny. With the success of our effort to
combine a strong and efficient national union, able
to put down disorder at home and to maintain our
honor and interest abroad, I have not now to deal.
This success was signal and all-important, but it
was by no means unprecedented in the same sense
that our type of expansion was unprecedented. The
history of Rome and of Greece illustrates very well
the two types of expansion which had taken place
in ancient time and which had been universally ac
cepted as the only possible types up to the period
when as a Nation we ourselves began to take pos
session of this continent. The Grecian States per
formed remarkable feats of colonization, but each
colony as soon as created became entirely independ
ent of the mother State, and in after years was al
most as apt to prove its enemy as its friend. Local
self-government, local independence, was secured,
but only by the absolute sacrifice of anything re
sembling national unity. In consequence, the Greek
world, for all its wonderful brilliancy and the ex-

346 Presidential Addresses

traordinary artistic, literary, and philosophical de
velopment which has made all mankind its debtors
for the ages, was yet wholly unable to withstand
a formidable foreign foe, save spasmodically. As
soon as powerful, permanent empires arose on its
outskirts, the Greek states in the neighborhood of
such empires fell under their sway. National power
and greatness were completely sacrificed to local
liberty.

With Rome the exact opposite occurred. The
imperial city rose to absolute dominion over all the
peoples of Italy and then expanded her rule over
the entire civilized world by a process which kept
the nation strong and united, but gave no room
whatever for local liberty and self-government. All
other cities and countries were subject to Rome.
In consequence this great and masterful race of
warriors, rulers, road-builders, and administrators
stamped their indelible impress upon all the after
life of our race, and yet let an over-centralization
eat out the vitals of their empire until it became
an empty shell; so that when the barbarians came
they destroyed only what had already become worth
less to the world.

The underlying viciousness of each type of expan
sion was plain enough and the remedy now seems
simple enough. But when the fathers of the Re
public first formulated the Constitution under which
we live this remedy was untried and no one could
foretell how it would work. They themselves began
the experiment almost immediately by adding new

And State Papers 347

States to the original thirteen. Excellent people
in the East viewed this initial expansion of the
country with great alarm. Exactly as during the
colonial period many good people in the mother-
country thought it highly important that settlers
should be kept out of the Ohio Valley in the interest
of the fur companies, so after we had become a
Nation many good people on the Atlantic Coast felt
grave apprehension lest they might somehow be
hurt by the westward growth of the Nation. These
good people shook their heads over the formation
of States in the fertile Ohio Valley which now forms
part of the heart of our Nation; and they declared
that the destruction of the Republic had been ac
complished when through the Louisiana Purchase
we acquired nearly half of what is now that same
Republic's present territory. Nor was their feeling
unnatural. Only the adventurous and the far-seeing
can be expected heartily to welcome the process of
expansion, for the nation that expands is a nation
which is entering upon a great career, and with
greatness there must of necessity come perils which
daunt all save the most stout-hearted.

We expanded by carving the wilderness into Ter
ritories and out of these Territories building new
States when once they had received as permanent
settlers a sufficient number of our own people. Being
a practical Nation we have never tried to force on
any section of our new territory an unsuitable form
of government merely because it was suitable for
another section under different conditions. Of the

348 Presidential Addresses

territory covered by the Louisiana Purchase a por
tion was given Statehood within a few years. An
other portion has not been admitted to Statehood,
although a century has elapsed — although doubt
less it soon will be. In* each case we showed the
practical governmental genius of our race by de
vising methods suitable to meet the actual existing
needs ; not by insisting upon the application of some
abstract shibboleth to all our new possessions alike,
no matter how incongruous this application might
sometimes be.

Over by far the major part of the territory,
however, our people spread in such numbers during
the course of the nineteenth century that we were
able to build up State after State, each with exactly
the same complete local independence in all matters
affecting purely its own domestic interests as in
any of the original thirteen States — each owing the
same absolute fealty to the Union of all the States
which each of the original thirteen States also owes
— and finally each having the same proportional
right to its share in shaping and directing the com
mon policy of the Union which is possessed by any
other State, whether of the original thirteen or not.

This process now seems to us part of the natural
order of things, but it was wholly unknown until
our own people devised it. It seems to us a mere
matter of course, a matter of elementary right and
justice, that in the deliberations of the national rep
resentative bodies the representatives of a State
which came into the Union but yesterday stand on

And State Papers 349

a footing of exact and entire equality with those
of the Commonwealths whose sons once signed the
Declaration of Independence. But this way of look
ing at the matter is purely modern, and in its origin
purely American. When Washington during his
Presidency saw new States come into the Union
on a footing of complete equality with the old, every
European nation which had colonies still adminis
tered them as dependencies, and every other mother-
country treated the colonist not as a self-governing
equal but as a subject.

The process which we began has since been fol
lowed by all the great peoples who were capable
both of expansion and of self-government, and now
the world accepts it as the natural process, as the
rule; but a century and a quarter ago it was not
merely exceptional; it was unknown.

This, then, is the great historic significance of
the movement of continental expansion in which the
Louisiana Purchase was the most striking single
achievement. It stands out in marked relief even
among the feats of a nation of pioneers, a nation
whose people have from the beginning been picked
out by a process of natural selection from among
the most enterprising individuals of the nations of
western Europe. The acquisition of the territory
is a credit to the broad and far-sighted statesman
ship of the great statesmen to whom it was imme
diately due, and above all to the aggressive and
masterful character of the hardy pioneer folk to
whose restless energy these statesmen gave expres-

35° Presidential Addresses

sion and direction, whom they followed rather than
led. The history of the land comprised within the
limits of the Purchase is an epitome of the entire
history of our people. Within these limits we
have gradually built up State after State until now
they many times surpass in wealth, in population,
and in many-sided development, the original thir
teen States as they were when their delegates met
in the Continental Congress. The people of these
States have shown themselves mighty in war with
their fellow-man, and mighty in strength to tame
the rugged wilderness. They could not thus have
conquered the forest and the prairie, the mountain
and the desert, had they not possessed the great
fighting virtues, the qualities which enable a people
to overcome the forces of hostile men and hostile
nature. On the other hand, they could not have
used aright their conquest had they not in addition
possessed the qualities of self-mastery and self-re
straint, the power of acting in combination with
their fellows, the power of yielding obedience to
the law and of building up an orderly civilization.
Courage and hardihood are indispensable virtues
in a people ; but the people which possesses no others
can never rise high in the scale either of power or
of culture. Great peoples must have in addition
the governmental capacity which comes only when
individuals fully recognize their duties to one an
other and to the whole body politic, and are able
to join together in feats of constructive statesman
ship and of honest and effective administration.

And State Papers 351

The old pioneer days are gone, with their rough
ness and their hardship, their incredible toil and
their wild half-savage romance. But the need for
the pioneer virtues remains the same as ever. The
peculiar frontier conditions have vanished; but the
manliness and stalwart hardihood of the frontiers
men can be given even freer scope under the con
ditions surrounding the complex industrialism of
the present day. In this great region acquired for
our people under the Presidency of Jefferson, this
region stretching from the Gulf to the Canadian
border, from the Mississippi to the Rockies, the
material and social progress has been so vast that
alike for weal and for woe its people now share
the opportunities and bear the burdens common to
the entire civilized world. The problems before
us are fundamentally the same east and west of
the Mississippi, in the new States and in the old,
and exactly the same qualities are required for their
successful solution.

We meet here to-day to commemorate a great
event, an event which marks an era in statesman
ship no less than in pioneering. It is fitting that
we should pay our homage in words; but we must
in honor make our words good by deeds. We
have every right to take a just pride in trie great
deeds of our forefathers; but we show ourselves
unworthy to be their descendants if we make what
they did an excuse for our lying supine instead of
an incentive to the effort to show ourselves by our
acts worthy of them. In the administration of

Presidential Addresses

city, State, and Nation, in the management of our
home life and the conduct of our business and social
relations, we are bound to show certain high and
fine qualities of character under penalty of seeing
the whole heart of our civilization eaten out while
the body still lives.

We justly pride ourselves on our marvelous ma
terial prosperity, and such prosperity must exist in
order to establish a foundation upon which a higher
life can be built ; but unless we do in very fact build
this higher life thereon, the material prosperity
itself will go for but very little. Now, in 1903, in
the altered conditions, we must meet the changed
and changing problems with the spirit shown by
the men who in 1803 and in the subsequent years
gained, explored, conquered, and settled this vast
territory, then a desert, now filled with thriving
and populous States.

The old days were great because the men who
lived in them had mighty qualities; and we must
make the new days great by showing these same
qualities. We must insist upon courage and reso
lution, upon hardihood, tenacity, and fertility in re
source; we must insist upon the strong, virile vir
tues; and we must insist no less upon the virtues
of self-restraint, self-mastery, regard for the rights
of others ; we must show our abhorrence of cruelty,
brutality, and corruption, in public and in private
life alike. If we come short in any of these quali
ties we shall measurably fail; and if, as I believe
we surely shall, we develop these qualities in the fu-

And State Papers 353

ture to an even greater degree than in the past, then
in the century now beginning we shall make of this
Republic the freest and most orderly, the most just
and most mighty, nation which has ever come forth
from the womb of time.

AT TOPEKA, KANSAS, MAY i, 1903

Colonel McCook, Gentlemen, and Ladies:

It needed no urging to get me to accept your
invitation. I hailed the chance of speaking a few
words to you on this occasion, because it seems to
me that the railroad branch of the Young Men's
Christian Association exemplifies in practice just
exactly what I like to preach; that is, the combi
nation of efficiency with decent living and high
ideals.

In our present advanced civilization we have to
pay certain penalties for what we have obtained.
Among the penalties is the fact that in very many
occupations there is so little demand upon nerve,
hardihood, and endurance, that there is a tendency
to unhealthy softening of fibre and relaxation of
fibre; and such being the case I think it is a fortu
nate thing for our people as a whole that there
should be certain occupations, prominent among
them railroading, in which the man has to show the
very qualities of courage, of hardihood, or willing
ness to face danger, the cultivation of the power of
instantaneous decision under difficulties, and the
other qualities which go to make up the virile side

354 Presidential Addresses

of a man's character — -the qualities, Colonel McCook,
which you and those like you showed when as boys,
as young men, they fought to a finish the great
Civil War.

So much for the manliness, so much for the
strength, so much for the courage developed by
your profession, all of which you show, and have
to show, or you could not succeed in doing the work
you are doing as your life work. These qualities
are all-important, but they are not all-sufficient. It
is necessary absolutely to have them. No nation
can rise to greatness without them; but by them
alone no nation will ever become great. Reading
through the pages of history you come upon nation
after nation in which there has been a high average
of individual strength, bravery, and hardihood, and
yet in which there has been nothing approaching
to national greatness, because those qualities were
not supplemented by others just as necessary. With
the courage, with the hardihood, with the strength,
must come the power of self-restraint, the power
of self-mastery, the capacity to work for and with
others as well as for one's self, the power of giving
to others the love which each of us must bear for
his neighbor, if we are to make our civilization really
great. And these are the qualities which are fos
tered and developed, which are given full play, by
institutions such as the Young Men's Christian As
sociation.

The other day in a little Lutheran church at
Sioux Falls I listened to a most interesting and most

And State Papers 355

stimulating sermon, which struck me particularly
because of the translation of a word which, I am
ashamed to say, I had myself always before mis
translated. It was on the old text of faith, hope,
and charity. The sermon was delivered in Ger
man, and the word that the preacher used for char
ity was not charity, but love; preaching that the
greatest of all the forces with which we deal for
betterment is love. Looking it up I found, of course,
what I ought to have known but did not, that the
Greek word which we have translated into the word
charity, should be more properly translated love.
That is, we use the word charity at present in a sense
which does not make it correspond entirely to the
word used in the original Greek. This Lutheran
preacher developed in a very striking but very happy
fashion the absolute need of love in the broadest
sense of the word, in order to make mankind even
approximately perfect.

We need then the two qualities — the quality of
which I first spoke to you which has many shapes,
the quality which rests upon courage, upon bodily
and mental strength, upon will, upon daring, upon
resolution, the quality which makes a man work;
and then we need the quality of which the preacher
spoke when he spoke of love as being the great
factor, the ultimate factor, in bringing about the
kind of human fellowship which will even approx
imately enable us to come up toward the standard
after which I think all of us with many short-com
ings strive. Work, the quality which makes a man

356 Presidential Addresses

ashamed not to be able to pull his own weight,
not to be able to do for himself as well as for others
without being beholden to any one for what he is
doing. No man is happy if he does not work. Of
all miserable creatures the idler, in whatever rank
of society, is in the long run the most miserable.
If a man does not work, if he has not in him not
merely the capacity for work but the desire for
work, then nothing can be done with him. He is
out of place in our community. We have in our
scheme of government no room for the man who
does not wish to pay his way through life by what
he does for himself and for the community. If
he has leisure which makes it unnecessary for him
to devote his time to earning his daily bread, then
all the more he is bound to work just as hard in
some way that will make the community the better
off for his existence. If he fails in that, he fails
to justify his existence. Work, the capacity for
work, is absolutely necessary; and no man's life
is full, no man can be said to live in the true sense
of the word, if he does not work. This is neces
sary, and yet it is not enough. If a man is utterly
selfish, if utterly disregardful of the rights of others,
if he has no ideals, if he works simply for the sake
of ministering to his own base passions, if he works
simply to gratify himself, small is his good in the
community. I think even then he is probably better
off than if he is an idler, but he is of no real use
unless together with the quality which enables him
to work he has the quality which enables him to

And State Papers 357

love his fellows, to work with them and for them
for the common good of all.

It seems to me that these Young Men's Christian
Associations play a part of the greatest consequence,
not merely because of the great good they do in
themselves, but because of the lesson of brotherhood
that they teach all of us. All of us here are knit
together by bonds which we can not sever. For weal
or for woe our fates are inextricably intermingled.
All of us in our present civilization are dependent
upon one another to a degree never before known
in the history of mankind, and in the long run we
are going to go up or go down together. For a
moment some man may rise by trampling on his
fellows; for a moment, and much more commonly,
some men may think they will rise or gratify their
envy and hatred by pulling down others. But any
such movement upward is probably illusory, and is
certainly short-lived. Any permanent movement
upward must come in such a shape that all of us feel
the lift a little, and if there is a tendency down
ward all of us will feel that tendency, too. We
must, if we are to raise ourselves, realize that each
of us in the long run can with certainty be raised
only if the conditions are such that all of us are
somewhat raised. In order to bring about these
conditions the first essential is that each shall have
a genuine spirit of regard and friendship for the
others, and that each of us shall try to look at the
problems of life somewhat from his neighbor's
standpoint — that we shall have the capacity to un-

Presidential Addresses

derstand one another's position, one another's needs,
and also the desire each to help his brother as well
as to help himself. To do that wisely, wisely to
strive with that as the aim, is not very easy. Many
qualities are needed in order that we can contribute
our mite toward the upward movement of the world
— among them the quality of self-abnegation, and
yet combined with it the quality which will refuse
to submit to injustice. 1 want to preach the two
qualities going hand in hand. I do not want a man
to fail to try to strive for his own betterment, I do
not want him to be quick to yield to injustice; I
want him to stand for his rights; but I want him
to be very certain that he knows what his rights
are, and that he does not make them the wrongs
of some one else.

I have a great deal of faith in the average Ameri
can citizen. I think he is a pretty good fellow,
and I think he can generally get on with the other
average American citizen if he will only know him.
If he does not know him, but makes him a monster
in his mind, then he will not get on with him. But
if he will take the trouble to know him and realize
that he is a being just like himself, with the same
instincts, not all of them good, the same desire to
overcome those that are not good, the same purposes,
the same tendencies, the same short-comings, the
same desires for good, the same need of striving
against evil; if he will realize all this, then if you
can get the two together with an honest desire each
' to try not only to help himself but to help the other,

And State Papers 359

most of our problems will be solved. And I can
imagine no way more likely to hurry forward such
a favorable solution than to encourage the building
up of just such institutions as this.

Therefore, I congratulate you with all my heart
upon this meeting to-day. Therefore I esteem my
self most fortunate in having the chance of address
ing you. It is a very good thing to attend to the
material side of life. We must in the first instance
attend to our material prosperity. Unless we have
that as a foundation we can not build up any higher
kind of life. But we shall lead a miserable and
sordid life if we spend our whole time in doing
nothing but attending to our material needs. If the
building up of the railroads, of the farms, of the
factories, of the industrial centres, means nothing
whatever but an increase in the instruments of pro
duction and an increase in the fevered haste with
which those instruments are used, progress amounts
to but a little thing. If, however, the developing
of our material prosperity is to serve as a founda
tion upon which we raise a higher, a purer, a fuller,
a better life, then indeed things are well with the
Republic. If as our wealth increases the wisdom
of our use of the wealth increases in even greater
proportion, then the wealth has justified its existence
many times over. If with the industry, the skill,
the hardihood, of those whom I am addressing and
their fellows, nothing comes beyond a selfish desire
each to grasp for himself whatever he can of ma
terial enjoyment, then the outlook for the future

360 Presidential Addresses

is indeed grave, then the advantages of living in
the twentieth century surrounded by all our modern
improvements, our modern symbols of progress, is
indeed small. But if we mean to make of each fresh
development in the way of material betterment a
step toward a fresh development in moral and spir
itual betterment, then we are to be congratulated.

To me the future seems full of hope because,
although there are many conflicting tendencies, and
although some of these tendencies of our present
life are for evil, yet, on the whole the tendencies for
good are in the ascendency. And I greet this au
dience, this great body of delegates, with peculiar
pleasure because they are men who embody, and
embody by the very fact of their presence here, the
two essential sets of qualities of which I have been
speaking. They embody the capacity for self-help
with the desire mutually to help one the other.
You have several qualities I like. You have sound
bodies. Your profession is not one that can be
carried on, at least in some of its branches, without
the sound body. You have sound minds, and that
is better than sound bodies ; and finally, the fact that
you are here, the fact that you have done what you
have done, shows that you have that which counts
for more than body, for more than mind — char
acter.

I congratulate you upon what you are doing for
yourselves, and I congratulate you even more upon
what you are doing for all men who hope to see
the day brought nearer when the people of all na-

And State Papers 361

tions, shall realize — not merely talk of, but realize
— what the essence of brotherhood is. I congratu
late you, as I say, not only because you are bettering
yourselves, but because to you, for your good for
tune, it is given to better others, to teach, in the
way in which teaching is most effective, not merely
by precept but by action. The railroad men of this
country are a body entitled to the well wishes of
their fellow-men in any event, but peculiarly is this
true of the railroad men of the country who join
in such work as that of the Young Men's Christian
Associations, because they are showing by their
actions — and oh, how much louder actions speak
than words! — that it is not only possible, but very,
very possible and easy to combine the manliness
which makes a man able to do his own share of the
world's work, with that fine and lofty love of one's
fellow-men which makes you able to come together
with your fellows and work hand in hand with them
for the common good of mankind in general.

FROM ADDRESS AT DENVER, COL, MAY 4, 1903

Mr. Governor, Mr. Mayor, and you, my Fellow-
Citizens:

Colorado has certain special interests which it
shares with the group of States immediately around
it. To my mind one of the best pieces of legisla
tion put upon the statute books of the National
Government of recent years was the irrigation act;
an act under which we declare it to be the national

362 Presidential Addresses

policy that exactly as care is to be taken of the
harbors and along the lower courses of the rivers,
so in their upper courses care is to be taken by the
Nation of the irrigation work to be done in connec
tion with them.

Under that act a beginning has been made in
Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and the
Territory of Arizona. There is bound to be disap
pointment here and there where people have built
hopes without a quite sufficient warranty of fact
behind. But good will surely come at once and
wellnigh immeasurable good in the future from the
policy which has thus been begun. In Colorado
two-thirds of your products come from irrigated
farms, and four years ago those products already
surpassed fifteen million dollars. With the aid of
the government far more can be done in the future
even than has been done in the past. The object
of the law is to provide small irrigated farms to
actual settlers, to actual home-makers; the land is
given away ultimately in small tracts under the
terms of the homestead act, the settlers repaying
the cost of bringing water to their lands in ten
annual payments; and lands now in private owner
ship can be watered in small tracts by similar pay
ments, but the law forbids the furnishing of water
to large tracts, and the aim of the government is
rigidly to prevent the acquisition of large rights
for speculative purposes. The purpose of the law
was, and that purpose is being absolutely carried
out, to promote settlement and cultivation of small

And State Papers 363

farms carefully tilled. Water made available under
the terms of this law becomes appurtenant under
the law to the land, and can not be disposed of
without it, and thus monopoly and speculation in
this vitally important commodity are prevented, or
at least their evil effects minimized so far as the
law or the administration of the law can bring that
end about. This is the great factor in future suc
cess. The policy is a policy of encouragement to
the home-maker, to the man who comes to establish
his home, to bring up his children here as a citizen
of the commonwealth, and his welfare is guarded
by the union of the water and the land.

The government can not deal with large numbers
individually. We have encouraged the formation of
associations of water users, of cultivators of the soil
in small tracts. The ultimate ownership and control
of the irrigation works will pass away from the
government into the hands of those users, those
home-makers, who through their officers do the
necessary business of their associations. The aim
of the government is to give locally the ultimate
control of water distributed and to leave neighbor
hood disputes to be settled locally; and that should
be so as far as it is possible. The law protects vested
rights; it prevents conflict with established laws or
institutions; but of course it is important that the
legislatures of the States should co-operate with the
National Government. When the works are con
structed to utilize the waters now wasted happy and
prosperous homes will flourish where twenty years

364 Presidential Addresses

ago it would have seemed impossible that a man
could live. It is a great national measure of benefit,
and while, as I say, it is primarily to benefit the
people of the mountain States and of the great
plains, yet it will ultimately benefit the whole com
munity. For, my fellow-countrymen, you can never
afford to forget for one moment that in the long
run anything that is of benefit to one part of our
Republic is of necessity of benefit to all the Repub
lic. The creation of new homes upon desert lands
means greater prosperity for Colorado and the
Rocky Mountain States, and inevitably their greater
prosperity means greater prosperity for Eastern
manufacturers, for Southern cotton growers, for all
our people throughout the Union.

AT SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO, MAY 5, 1903

Mr. Governor, Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is of course with a peculiar feeling of pleas
ure that I come here to New Mexico, from which
Territory half (and if my memory serves me cor
rectly a little over half) of the men of my regiment
came. The man is but a poor man wherever he
may be born to whom one part of this country is
not exactly as dear as any other part. And I should
count myself wholly unworthy of the position I hold
if I did not strive to represent the people of the
mountains and the plains exactly as much as those
of the Mississippi Valley or of either coast, the At
lantic or the Pacific. I know your people, Mr.

And State Papers 365

Governor, and I need not say how fond I am of
them, for that you know yourself. How could I
help being fond of people with whom I have worked,
with whom I marched to battle ? The only men here
to whom I would doff my hat quicker than to the men
of my own regiment are the men of the great war.
You know well the claim that comradeship in war
makes between man and man; and it has always
seemed to me, Mr. Governor, that in a sense my
regiment in its composition was a typical American
regiment. Its people came from the West chiefly,
but some from the East, from the South chiefly, but
some from the North, so that every section was rep
resented in it. They varied in birthplace as in creed ;
some were born on this side of the water, some on the
other side ; some of their ancestors had come to New
Mexico, as did your ancestors, Mr. Governor, when
this was already a city and at a time when not one
English-speaking community existed on the Atlantic
seaboard; some were men whose forefathers were
among the early Puritans and Pilgrims; some were
of those whose forefathers had settled by the banks
of the James even before the Puritan and Pilgrim
came to this country, but after your people came.
There were men in that regiment who themselves
were born, or whose parents were born, in England,
Ireland, Germany, or Scandinavia, but there was not
a man, no matter what his creed, what his birth
place, what his ancestry, who was not an American
and nothing else. We had representatives of the
real, original, native Americans, because we had no

366 Presidential Addresses

inconsiderable number who were in whole or in part
of Indian blood. There was in the regiment but
one kind of rivalry among those men, and but one
would have been tolerated. - That was the rivalry
of each man to see if he could not do his duty a
little better than any one else. Short would have
been the shrift of any man who tried to introduce
division along lines of section, or creed, or class.
We had serving in the ranks men of inherited wealth
and men who all their lives had earned each day's
bread by that day's labor, and they stood on a foot
ing of exact equality. It would not have been any
more possible for a feeling of arrogance to exist
on one side than for a feeling of rancor and envy
to exist on the other.

I appreciate to the full all the difficulties under
which you labor, and I think that your progress has
been astonishing. I congratulate you upon all that
has been done, and I am certain that the future will
far more than make good the past. I believe that we
have come upon an era of fuller development for
New Mexico. That development must of course take
place principally through the average of foresight,
thrift, industry, energy and will of the citizens of
New Mexico ; but the government can and will help
somewhat. This is a great grazing State. Because
of the importance of the grazing industry I wish to
bespeak your support for the preservation in proper
shape of the forest reserves of the State. These
forest reserves are created and are kept up in the
interest of the home-maker. In many of them there

And State Papers 367

is much natural pasturage. Where that is the case
the object is to have that pasturage used by the
settlers, by the people of the Territory, not eaten
out so that nobody will have the benefit after
three years. I want the land preserved so that
the pasturage will do, not merely for a man who
wants to make a good thing out of it for two or
three years, but for the man who wishes to see it
preserved for the use of his children and his chil
dren's children. That is the way to use the re
sources of the land. I build no small hope upon the
aid that under the wise law of Congress will ulti
mately be extended to this as to other States and
Territories in the way of governmental aid to irri
gation. Irrigation is of course to be in the future
wellnigh the most potent factor in the agricultural
development of this Territory and one of the factors
which will do most toward bringing it up to State
hood. Nothing will count more than development
of that kind in bringing the Territory in as a State.
That is the kind of development which I am most
anxious to see here — the development that means
permanent growth in the capacity of the land, not
temporary, not the exploiting of the land for a year
or two at the cost of its future impoverishment, but
the building up of farm and ranch in such shape
as to benefit the home-maker whose intention it is
that this Territory of the present, this State of the
future, shall be a great State in the American Union.

17— VOL. XIII.

368 Presidential Addresses

AT THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL, ALBUQUERQUE,

N. M., MAY 5, 1903
Bishop :

Permit me to thank you and to say how much I
appreciate the courtesy you showed in putting your
self to such inconvenience to come here to greet me.
I had hoped to meet you at Santa Fe in the cathe
dral, where I participated in the baptism of the son
of one of the men of my regiment.

I greet the school children and the sisters. There
can be no greater privilege than to meet a mis
sionary who has done good work. Of all the work
that is done or that can be done for our country, the
greatest is that of educating the body, the mind, and
above all the character, giving spiritual and moral
training to those who in a few years are themselves
to decide the destinies of the nation.

AT THE INDIAN SCHOOL, ALBUQUERQUE,
N. M., MAY 5, 1903

Mr. Superintendent:

I wish to express the peculiar pleasure it is to
have seen the Indian schools to-day, and through
you, Mr. Superintendent, I want to say to the In
dians that are right behind you, what a fine thing it
is to see the industry and thrift of their people. I
was struck by their orchards, the irrigated fields,
and by seeing them working in the fields and
along the road. The Indian who will work and
do his duty will stand on a par with any other Amer-

And State Papers 369

ican citizen. Of course I will do as every President
must do, I will stand for his rights with the same
jealous eagerness that I would for the rights of any
white man. I am glad to see the Indian children
bebof educated as these are educated so as to come
more and more into the body of American citizen
ship, to fit themselves for work in the home, work
in the fields, for leading decent, clean lives, for mak
ing themselves self-supporting, for being good pro
viders and good housekeepers; in other words, for
becoming American citizens just like other American
citizens.

AT GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA, MAY 6, 1903

Mr. Governor, and you, my Fellow-Citizens:

I am glad to be in Arizona to-day. From
Arizona many gallant men came into the regi
ment which I had the honor to command. Ari
zona sent men who won glory on fought fields, and
men to whom came a glorious and an honorable
death fighting for the flag of their country. As
long as I live it will be to me an inspiration to have
served with Bucky O'Neill. ,1 have met so many
comrades whom I prize, for whom I feel respect and
admiration and affection, that I shall not particu
larize among them except to say that there is none
for whom I feel all of respect and admiration and
affection more than for your Governor.

I have never been in Arizona before. It is one of
the regions from which I expect most development
through the wise action of the National Congress in

37° Presidential Addresses

passing the irrigation act. The first and biggest ex
periment now in view under that act is the one that
we are trying in Arizona. I look forward to the
effects of irrigation partly as applied by and through
the government, still more as applied by individuals,
and especially by associations of individuals, profit
ing by the example of the government, and possibly
by help from it — I look forward to the effects of ir
rigation as being of greater consequence to all this
region of country in the next fifty years than any
other material movement whatsoever.

In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural
wonder which, so far as I know, is in kind ab
solutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the
world. I want to ask you to do one thing in con
nection with it in your own interest and in the inter
est of the country — to keep this great wonder of na
ture as it now is. I was delighted to learn of the
wisdom of the Santa Fe railroad people in deciding
not to build their hotel on the brink of the canyon.
I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not
a summer cottage, a hotel, or anything else, to mar
the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great
loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it
is. You can not improve on it. The ages have been
at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you
can do is to keep it for your children, your children's
children, and for all who come after you, as one of
the great sights which every American if he can
travel at all should see. We have gotten past the
stage, my fellow-citizens, when we are to be par-

And State Papers 371

doned if we treat any part of our country as some
thing to be skinned for two or three years for the
use of the present generation, whether it is the for
est, the water, the scenery. Whatever it is, handle
it so that your children's children will get the benefit
of it. If you deal with irrigation, apply it under cir
cumstances that will make it of benefit, not to the
speculator who hopes to get profit out of it for two
or three years, but handle it so that it will be of
use to the home-maker, to the man who comes
to live here, and to have his children stay after
him. Keep the forests in the same way. Pre
serve the forests by use; preserve them for the
ranchman and the stockman, for the people of the
Territory, for the people of the region round about.
Preserve them for that use, but use them so that they
will not be squandered, that they will not be wasted,
so that they will be of benefit to the Arizona of
1953 as well as the Arizona of 1903.

To the Indians here I want to say a word of wel
come. In my regiment I had a good many Indians.
They were good enough to fight and to die, and they
are good enough to have me treat them exactly as
squarely as any white man. There are many prob
lems in connection with them. We must save them
from corruption and from brutality; and I regret
to say that at times we must save them from unregu
lated Eastern philanthropy. All I ask is a square
deal for every man. Give him a fair chance. Do
not let him wrong any one, and do not let him be
wronged.

372 Presidential Addresses

I believe in you. I am glad to see you. I wish
you well with all my heart, and I know that your
future will justify all the hopes we have.

AT BARSTOW, CALIFORNIA, MAY 7, 1903

My -Fellow-Citizens:

This is the first time I have ever been to Cali
fornia, and I can not say to you how much I have
looked forward to making the trip. I can tell you
now with absolute certainty that I will have en
joyed it to the full when I get through.

I have felt that the events of the last five or six
years have been steadily hastening the day when the
Pacific will loom in the world's commerce as the
Atlantic now looms, and I have wished greatly to see
these marvelous communities growing up on the
Pacific Slope. There are plenty of things that to you
seem matters of course, that I have read about and
know about from reading, and yet when I see them
they strike me as very wonderful.

One thing that impresses me more than anything
else as I go through the country — as I said I have
never been on the Pacific Slope; the Rocky Moun
tain States and the States of the great plains I know
quite as well as I know the Eastern seaboard ; I have
worked with the men, played with them, fought with
them; I know them all through — the thing that
impresses me most as I go through this country and
meet the men and women of the country, is the es
sential unity of all Americans. Down at bottom we

And State Papers 373

are the same people all through. That is not merely
a unity of section, it is a unity of class. For my
good fortune I have been thrown into intimate re
lationship, into intimate personal friendship, with
many men of many different occupations, and my
faith is firm that we shall come unscathed out of all
our difficulties here in America, because I think that
the average American is a decent fellow, and that the
prime thing in getting him to get on well with the
other average American is to have each remember
that the other is a decent fellow, and try to look at
the problems a little from the other's standpoint.

I thank you for coming out here to greet me. I
wish you well with all my heart for the future.

AT SAN BERNARDINO, CAL., MAY 7, 1903

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Governor, and you, my Fellow-
Citizens:

It is half a century since the early pioneers found
ed this place, and while time goes fast in America
anywhere, it has gone fastest here on the Pacific
Slope and in the regions of the Rocky Mountains
directly to the eastward. If you live in the presence
of miracles you gradually get accustomed to them.
So it is difficult for any of us, and it is especially
difficult for those who have themselves been doing
the things, to realize the absolute wonder of the
things that have been done. California and the
region round about have in the past fifty or sixty
years traversed the distance that separates the found-

3/4 Presidential Addresses

ers of the civilization of Mesopotamia and Egypt
from those who enjoy the civilization of to-day.
They have gone further than that. They have seen
this country change from a wilderness into one of
the most highly civilized regions of the world's sur
face. They have seen cities, farms, ranches, rail
roads grow up and transform the very face of nat
ure. The changes have been so stupendous that in
our eyes they have become commonplace. We fail
to realize their immense, their tremendous impor
tance. We fail entirely to realize what they mean.
Only the older among you can remember the
early pioneer days, and yet to-day I have spoken
to man after man yet in his prime who, when he
first came to this country warred against wild
man and wild nature in the way in which that war
fare was waged in the prehistoric days of the old
world. We have spanned in a single lifetime —
in less than the lifetime of any man who reaches
the age limit prescribed by the psalmist — the whole
space from savagery through barbarism, through
semi-civilization, to the civilization that stands two
thousand years ahead of that of Rome and Greece
in the days of their prime.

The old pioneer days have gone, but if we are
to prove ourselves worthy sons of our sires we
can not afford to let the old pioneer virtues lapse.
There is just the same need now that there was in
'49 for the qualities that mark a mighty and mas
terful people. East and west we now face sub
stantially the same problems. No people can ad-

And State Papers 375

vance as far and as fast as we have advanced,
no people can make such progress as we have made,
and expect to escape the penalties that go with such
speed and progress. The growth and complexity
of our civilization, the intensity of the movement
of modern life, have meant that with the benefits
have come certain disadvantages and certain perils.
A great industrial civilization can not be built up
without a certain dislocation, a certain disarrange
ment of the old conditions, and therefore the spring
ing up of new problems. The problems are new,
but the qualities needed to solve them are as old
as history itself, and we shall solve them aright
only on condition that we bring to the solution the
same qualities of head and heart that have been
brought to the solution of similar problems by every
race that has ever conquered for itself a space in
the annals of time.

AT THE BIG TREE GROVE, SANTA CRUZ, CAL.,
MAY n, 1903

Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I want to thank you very much for your courtesy
in receiving me, and to say how much I have
enjoyed being here. This is the first glimpse I
have ever had of the big trees, and I wish to pay
the highest tribute I can to the State of California,
to those private citizens and associations of citizens
who have co-operated with the State in preserving
these wonderful trees for the whole nation, in pre-

376 Presidential Addresses

serving them in whatever part of the State they
may be found. All of us ought to want to see nature
preserved. Take a big tree whose architect has
been the ages — anything that man does toward it
may hurt it and can not help it. Above all, the rash
creature who wishes to leave his name to mar the
beauties of nature should be sternly .discouraged.
Those cards pinned up on that tree give an air of
the ridiculous to this solemn and majestic grove.
To pin those cards up there is as much out of place
as if you tacked so many tin cans up there. I mean
that literally. You should save the people whose
names are there from the reprobation of every one
by taking down the cards at the earliest possible
moment; and do keep these trees, keep all the won
derful scenery of this wonderful State unmarred by
the vandalism or the folly of man. Remember that
we have to contend not merely with knavery, but
with folly; and see to it that you by your actions
create the kind of public opinion which will put a
stop to any destruction of or any marring of the
wonderful and beautiful gifts that you have received
from nature, that you ought to hand on as a pre
cious heritage to your children and your children's
children.

And State Papers 377

AT LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY,
PALO ALTO, CAL., MAY 12, 1903

President Jordan,, and you, my Fellow-Citizens,

and especially ypu, my Fellow -college Men and

Women :

I thank you for your greeting, and I know you
will not grudge my saying, first of all, a special
word of thanks to the men of the Grand Army.
It is a fine thing to have before a body of students
men who by their practice have rendered it unnec
essary that they should preach; for what we have
to teach by precept, you, the men of '61 to '65,
have taught by deed, by action. I am proud as an
American college man myself to have seen the tablet
outside within the court which shows that this
young university sent eighty-five of her sons to
war when the country called for them. I come from
a college which boasts as its proudest building that
which stands to the memory of Harvard's sons who
responded to the call of Lincoln when the hour of
the Nation's danger was at hand. It will be a bad
day for this country and a worse day for all edu
cative institutions in this country if ever such a
call is made, and the men of college training do
not feel it peculiarly incumbent upon them to re
spond.

President Jordan has been kind enough to allude
to me as an old friend. Mr. Jordan is too modest
to say that he has long been not only a friend, but
a man to whom I have turned for advice and help,

378 Presidential Addresses

before and since I became President. I am glad
to have the chance of acknowledging my obligations
to him, and I am also glad that when I ask you
to strive toward productive scholarship, toward pro
ductive citizenship, I can use the president of the
university as an example. Of course, in any of our
American institutions of learning, even more im
portant than the production of scholarship is the
production of citizenship. That is the most im
portant thing that any institution of learning can
produce. There are a great number of students
who can not and should not try, in after life, to
lead a career of scholarship, but no university
can take high rank if it does not aim at the
production of, and succeed in producing, a cer
tain number of deep and thorough scholars — not
scholars whose scholarship is of the barren kind,
but men of productive scholarship, men who do
good work, I trust great work, in the fields of lit
erature, of art, of science, in all their manifold ac
tivities. Here in California this Nation, composite
in its race stocks, speaking an Old World tongue,
and with an inherited Old World culture, has ac
quired an absolutely new domain. I do not mean
new only in the sense of additional territory like
that already possessed, I mean new in the sense of
new surroundings, to use the scientific phrase, of
a new environment. Being new, I think we have
a right to look for a substantial achievement on the
part of your people along new lines. I do not mean
the self-conscious striving after newness, which is

And State Papers 379

only too apt to breed eccentricity, but I mean that
those among you whose bent is toward scholarship
as a career should keep in mind the fact that such
scholarship should be productive, and should there
fore aim at giving to the world some addition to
the world's stock of what is useful or beautiful;
and if you work simply and naturally, taking ad
vantage of your surroundings as you find them,
then in my belief a new mark will be made in
the history of intellectual achievement by our
race. You of this institution are blessed in its
extraordinary physical beauty and appropriateness
of architecture and surroundings, with a sug
gestion of what I might call the Americanized
Greek. Such is your institution, situated on the
shores of this great ocean, built by a race which
has come steadily westward, which has come to
where the Occident looks west to the Orient, a race
whose members here, fresh, vigorous, have the
boundless possibilities of the future brought to their
very doors in a sense that can not be possible for
the members of the race situated further east.
Surely there will be some great outcome in the way
not merely of physical, but of moral and intellectual
work worth doing. I do not want you to turn
out prigs; I do not want you to turn out the self-
conscious. I believe, with all my heart, in play. I
want you to play hard without encroaching on your
work. I do, nevertheless, think you ought to have
at least the consciousness of the serious side of
what all this means, and of the necessity of effort,

380 Presidential Addresses

thrust upon you, so that you may justify by your
deeds in the future your training and the extraor
dinary advantages under which that training has
been obtained.

America, the Republic of the United States, is
of course in a peculiar sense typical of the present
age. We represent the fullest development of the
democratic spirit acting on the extraordinary and
highly complex industrial growth of the last half
century. It behooves us to justify by our acts the
claims made for that political and economic prog
ress. We will never justify the existence of the
Republic by merely talking each Fourth of July
about what the Republic has done. If our homage
is lip loyalty merely, the great deeds of those who
went before us, the great deeds of the times of
Washington and of the times of Lincoln, the great
deeds of the men who won the Revolution and
founded the Nation, and of the men who preserved it,
who made it a Union and a free Republic, will simply
arise to shame us. We can honor our fathers and
our fathers'" fathers only by ourselves striving to rise
level to their standard. There are plenty of ten
dencies for evil in what we see round about us.
Thank heaven, there are an even greater number
of tendencies for good, and one of the things, Mr.
Jordan, which it seems to me give this Nation
cause for hope is the national standard of ambition
which makes it possible to recognize with admira
tion and regard such work as the founding of a
university of this character. It speaks well for our

And State Papers 381

Nation that men and women should desire during
their lives to devote the fortunes which they were
able to acquire or to inherit because of our system
of government, because of our social system, to
objects so entirely worthy and so entirely admirable
as the foundation of a great seat of learning such
as this. All that we outsiders can do is to pay our
tribute of respect to the dead and to the living
who have done such good, and at -least to make
it evident that we appreciate to the full what has
been done.

I have spoken of scholarship; I want to go back
to the question of citizenship, a question affecting
not merely the scholars among you, not merely those
who are hereafter to lead lives devoted to science,
to art, to productivity in literature. And when you
take up science, art, and literature, remember that
one first-class bit of work is better than one thou
sand fairly good bits of work ; that as the years roll
on the man or the woman who has been able to
make a masterpiece with the pen, the brush, the
pencil, in any way, has rendered a service to the
country such as not all his or her compeers who
merely do fairly good second-rate work can ever ac
complish. Only a limited number of us can ever be
come scholars or work successfully along the lines I
have spoken of, but we can all be good citizens. We
can all lead a life of action, a life of endeavor, a life
that is to be judged primarily by the effort, some
what by the result, along the lines of helping the
growth of what is right and decent and generous

382 Presidential Addresses

and lofty in our several communities, in the State,
in the Nation

You men and women who have had the ad
vantages of a college training are not to be ex
cused if you fail to do, not as well as, but more
than the average man outside who has not had
your advantages. Every now and then I meet
(at least I meet him in the East, and I dare
say he is to be found here) the man who, having
gone through college, feels that somehow that con
fers upon him a special distinction which relieves
him from the necessity of showing himself as good
as his fellows. I see you recognize the type. That
man is not only a curse to the community, and in
cidentally to himself, but he is a curse to the cause of
academic education, the college and university train
ing, because by his existence he serves as an excuse
for those who like to denounce such education. Your
education, your training, will not confer on you one
privilege in the way of excusing you from effort
or from work. All it can do and what it should
do, is to make you a little better fitted for such
effort, for such work ; and I do not care whether that
is in business, politics, in no matter what branch
of endeavor, all it can do is by the training you
have received, by the advantages you have received,
to fit you to do a little better than the average man
that you meet. It is incumbent upon you to show
that the training has had that effect. It ought to
enable you to do a little better for yourselves, and
if you have in -you souls capable of a thrilLof gen-

And State Papers 383

erous emotion, souls capable of understanding what
you owe to your training, to your alma mater, to
the past and the present that have given you all
that you have — if you have such souls, it ought
to make you doubly bent upon disinterested work
for the State and the Nation.

Such work can be done along many different
lines. I want to-day, here in California, to make a
special appeal to all of you, and to California as
a whole, for work along a certain line — the line of
preserving your great natural advantages alike from
the standpoint of use and from the standpoint of
beauty. If the students of this institution have not
by the mere fact of their surroundings learned to
appreciate beauty, then the fault is in you and not
in the surroundings. Here in California you have
some of the great wonders of the world. You
have a singularly beautiful landscape, singularly
beautiful and singularly majestic scenery, and it
should certainly be your aim to try to preserve for
those who are to come after you that beauty, to try
to keep unmarred that majesty. Closely entwined
with keeping unmarred the beauty of your scenery,
of your great natural attractions, is the question of
making use of, not for the moment merely, but for
future time, of your great natural products. Yes
terday I saw for the first time a grove of your
great trees, a grove which it has taken the ages
several thousands of years to build up; and I feel
most emphatically that we should not turn into
shingles a tree which was old when the first Egyp-

384 Presidential Addresses

tian conqueror penetrated to the valley of the Eu
phrates, which it has taken so many thousands of
years to build up, and which can be put to better use.
That, you may say, is not looking at the matter from
the practical standpoint. There is nothing more
practical in the end than the preservation of beauty,
than the preservation of anything that appeals to the
higher emotions in mankind. But, furthermore, I
appeal to you from the standpoint of use. A few big
trees, of unusual size and beauty, should be pre
served for their own sake; but the forests as a whole
should be used for business purposes, only they
should be used in a way that will preserve them as
permanent sources of national wealth. In many
parts of California the whole future welfare of the
State depends upon the way in which you are able to
use your water supply; and the preservation of the
forests and the preservation of the use of the water
are inseparably connected. I believe we are past the
stage of national existence when we could look on
complacently at the individual who skinned the land
and was content for the sake of three years' profit
for himself to leave a desert for the children of those
who were to inherit the soil. I think we have passed
that stage. We should handle, and I think we now
do handle, all problems such as those of forestry
and of the preservation and use of our waters from
the standpoint of the permanent interests of the
home-maker in any region — the man who comes in
not to take what he can out of the soil and leave,
having exploited the country, but who comes to

And State Papers 385

dwell therein, to bring up his children, and to leave
them a heritage in the country not merely unim
paired, but if possible even improved. That is the
sensible view of civic obligation, and the policy of
the State and of the Nation should be shaped in that
direction. It should be shaped in the interest of the
home-maker, the actual resident, the man who is
not only to be benefited himself, but whose children
and children's children are to be benefited by what
he has done. California has for years, I am happy
to say, taken a more sensible, a more intelligent in
terest in forest preservation than any other State.
It early appointed a forest commission ; later on some
of the functions of that commission were replaced
by the Sierra Club, a club which has done much
on the Pacific Coast to perpetuate the spirit of the
explorer and the pioneer. Then I am happy to say
a great business interest showed an intelligent and
farsighted spirit which is of happy augury, for the
Redwood Manufacturers of San Francisco were
first among lumbermen's associations to give as
sistance to the cause of practical forestry. The study
of the redwood which the action of this association
made possible was the pioneer study in the co-opera
tive work which is now being carried out between
lumbermen all over the United States and the Fed
eral Bureau of Forestry. All of this kind of work
is peculiarly the kind of work in which we have a
right to expect not merely hearty co-operation from,
but leadership in college men trained in the uni
versities of this Pacific Coast State; for the forests

386 Presidential Addresses

of this State stand alone in the world. There are
none others like them anywhere. There are no
other trees anywhere like the giant Sequoias; no
where else is there a more beautiful forest than that
which clothes the western slope of the Sierra. Very
early your forests attracted lumbermen from other
States, and by the course of timber land investments
some of the best o>f the big tree groves were threat
ened with destruction. Destruction came upon some
of them, but the women of California rose to the
emergency through the California Club, and later the
Sempervirens Club took vigorous action. But the
Calaveras grove is not yet safe, and there should be
no rest until that safety is secured, by the action of
private individuals, by the action of the State, by the
action of the Nation. The interest of California
in forest protection was shown even more effectively
by the purchase of the Big Basin Redwood Park, a
superb forest property the possession of which should
be a source of just pride to all citizens jealous of
California's good name.

I appeal to you, as I say, to protect these mighty
trees, these wonderful monuments of beauty. I ap
peal to you to- protect them for the sake of their
beauty, but I also make the appeal just as strongly
on economic grounds; as I am well aware that in
dealing with such questions a farsighted economic
policy must be that to which alone in the long run
one can safely appeal. The interests of California
in forests depend directly of course upon the hand
ling of her wood and water supplies and the supply

And State Papers 387

of material from the lumber woods and the pro
duction of agricultural products on irrigated farms.
The great valleys which stretch through the State
between the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges
must owe their future development as they owe
their present prosperity to irrigation. Whatever
tends to destroy the water supply of the Sacramento,
the San Gabriel, and the other valleys strikes vitally
at the welfare of California. The welfare of Cali
fornia depends in no small measure upon the pres
ervation of water for the purposes of irrigation in
those beautiful and fertile valleys which can not
grow crops by rainfall alone. The forest cover upon
the drainage basins of streams used for irrigation
purposes is of prime importance to the interests of
the entire State. Now keep in mind that the whole
object of forest protection is, as I have said again and
again, the making and maintaining of prosperous
homes. I am not advocating forest protection from
the aesthetic standpoint only. I do advocate the
keeping of big trees, the great monarchs of the
woods, for the sake of their beauty, but I advocate
the preservation and wise use of the forests be
cause I feel it essential to the interests of the actual
settlers. I am asking that the forests be used wisely
for the sake of the successors of the pioneers, for
the .sake of the settlers who dwell on the land and
by doing so extend the borders of our civilization.
I ask it for the sake of the man who makes his
farm in the woods, or lower down along the sides of
the streams which have their rise in the mountains.

388 Presidential Addresses

Every phase of the land policy of the United States
is, as it by right ought to be, directed to the up
building of the home-maker. The one sure test of
all public land legislation should be : does it help to
make and to keep prosperous homes ? If it does, the
legislation is good. If it does not, the legislation is
bad. Any legislation which has a tendency to give
land in large tracts to people who will lease it out to
tenants is undesirable. We do not want ever to
let our land policy be shaped so as to create a big
class of proprietors who rent to others. We want
to make the smaller men who, under such conditions
would rent, actual proprietors. We must shape our
policy so that these men themselves shall be the
land owners, the makers of homes, the keepers of
homes.

Certain of our land laws, however beneficent their
purposes, have been twisted into an improper use,
so that there have grown up abuses under them by
which they tend to create a class of men who, under
one color and another, obtain large tracts of soil for
speculative purposes, or to rent out to others; and
there should be now a thorough scrutiny of our land
laws with the object of so amending them as to do
away with the possibility of such abuses. If it was
not for the national irrigation act we would be about
past the time when Uncle Sam could give every man
a farm. Comparatively little of our land is left
which is adapted to farming without irrigation. The
home-maker on the public land must hereafter, in the
great majority of cases, have water fon irrigation,

And State Papers 389

or the making of his home will fail. Let us keep
that fact before our minds. Do not misunderstand
me when I have spoken of the defects of our land
laws. Our land laws have served a noble purpose
in the past and have become the models for other
governments. The homestead law has been a nota
ble instrument for good. To establish a family per
manently upon a quarter section of land, or of course
upon a less quantity if it is irrigated land, is the
best use to which it can be put. The first need of
any nation is intelligent and honest citizens. Such
can come only from honest and intelligent homes,
and to get the good citizenship we must get the good
homes. It is absolutely necessary that the remainder
of our public land should be reserved for the home-
maker, and it is necessary in my judgment that
there should be a revision of the land laws and a
cutting out of such provisions from them as in actual
practice under present conditions tend to make pos
sible the acquisition of large tracts for speculative
purposes or for the purpose of leasing to others.

Citizenship is the prime test in the welfare of
the Nation; but we need good laws; and above
all we need good land laws throughout the West.
We want to see the free farmer own his home.
The best of the public lands are already in pri
vate hands, and yet the rate of their disposal is
steadily increasing. More than six million acres
were patented during the first three months of the
present year. It is time for us to see that our re
maining public lands are saved for the home-maker

39° Presidential Addresses

to the utmost limit of his possible use. I say this
to you of this university because we have a right to
expect that the best trained, the best educated men
on the Pacific Slope, the Rocky Mountains and great
plains States will take the lead in the preservation
and right use of the forests, in securing the right
use of the waters, and in seeing to it that our land
policy is not twisted from its original purpose, but is
perpetuated by amendment, by change when such
change is necessary in the line of that purpose, the
purpose being to turn the public domain into farms
each to be the property of the man who actually tills
it and makes his home on it.

Infinite are the possibilities for usefulness that lie
before such a body as that I am addressing. Work ?
Of course you will have to work. I should be sorry
for you if you did not have to work. Of course you
will have to work, and I envy you the fact that before
you, before the graduates of this university, lies the
chance of lives to be spent in hard labor for great
and glorious and useful causes, hard labor for the
uplifting of your States of the Union, of all man
kind.

AT MECHANICS' PAVILION, SAN FRANCISCO,
CAL., MAY 13, 1903

Mr. Chairman, and you, Men and Women of San

Francisco :

Before I came to the Pacific Slope I was an ex
pansionist, and after having been here I fail to un
derstand how any man, convinced of his country's

And State Papers 391

greatness and glad that his country should challenge
with proud confidence its mighty future, can be any
thing but an expansionist. In the century that is
opening the commerce and the command of the Pa
cific will be factors of incalculable moment in the
world's history.

The seat of power ever shifts from land to land,
from sea to sea. The earliest civilizations, those
seated beside the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates,
had little to do with sea traffic. But with the rise
of those people who went down to the sea in ships,
with the rise of the Phoenicians, the men of Tyre and
Sidon, the Mediterranean became the central sea on
whose borders lay the great wealthy and cultivated
powers of antiquity. The war navies and the mer
chant marines of Carthage, Greece, and Rome strove
thereon for military and industrial supremacy. Its
control was the prerequisite to greatness, and the
Roman became lord of the western world only when
his fleet rode unchallenged from the ^Egean to the
Pillars of Hercules. Then Rome fell. But for cen
turies thereafter the wealth and the culture of Eu
rope were centred on its southern shores, and the
control of the Mediterranean was vital in favoring
or checking their growth. It was at this time that
Venice and Genoa flourished in their grandeur and
their might.

But gradually the nations of the north grew be
yond barbarism and developed fleets and commerce
of their own. The North Sea, the Baltic, the Bay
of Biscay, saw trading cities rise to become indepen-
iS-Voi, XIII.

392 Presidential Addresses

dent or else to become props of mighty civilized na
tions. The sea-faring merchants ventured with ever
greater boldness into the Atlantic. The cities of the
Netherlands, the ports of the Hansa, grew and flour
ished as once the Italian cities had grown. Holland
and England, Spain, Portugal, and France sent forth
mercantile adventurers to strive for fame and profit
on the high seas. The Cape of Good Hope was
doubled, America was discovered, and the Atlantic
Ocean became to the greater modern world what the
Mediterranean had been to the lesser world of an
tiquity.

Now, men and women of California, in our own
day, the greatest of all the seas and the last to be
used on a large scale by civilized man bids fair to
become in its turn the first in point of importance.
The empire that shifted from the Mediterranean will
in the lifetime of those now children bid fair to shift
once more westward to the Pacific. When the iQth
century opened the lonely keels of a few whale ships,
a few merchantmen, had begun to furrow the vast
expanse of the Pacific; but as a whole its islands
and its shores were not materially changed from
what they had been in the long past ages when the
Phoenician galleys traded in the purple of Tyre, the
ivory of Libya, the gold of Cyprus. The junks of
the Orient still crept between China and Japan and
Farther India ; and from the woody wilderness which
shrouded the western shores of our own continent
the red lords of the land looked forth upon a waste
of waters which only their own canoes traversed.

And State Papers 393

That was but a century ago ; and now at the opening
of the 20th century the change is so vast that it is
wellnigh impossible for us to estimate its importance.
In the South Seas the great commonwealth of Aus
tralia has sprung into being. Japan, shaking off the
lethargy of centuries, has taken her rank among
civilized, modern powers. European nations have
seated themselves along the eastern coast of Asia,
while China by her misfortunes has given us an
object-lesson in the utter folly of attempting to ex
ist as a nation at all if both rich and defenceless.

Meanwhile our own mighty Republic has stretched
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and now in Cali
fornia, Oregon, and Washington, in Alaska, Hawaii
and the Philippines, holds an extent of coast line
which makes it of necessity a power of the first class
in the Pacific. The extension in the area of our
domain has been immense, the extension in the area
of our influence even greater. America's geographi
cal position on the Pacific is such as to ensure our
peaceful domination of its waters in the future if
only we grasp with sufficient resolution the advan
tages of that position. We are taking long strides
in that direction; witness the cables we are laying
down, the steamship lines we are starting — some of
them already containing steamships larger than any
freight carriers that have previously existed. We
have taken the first steps toward digging an Isth
mian canal, to be under our own control, a canal
which will make our Atlantic and Pacific coast lines
in effect continuous, which will be of incalculable

394 Presidential Addresses

benefit to our mercantile navy, and above all to our
military navy in the event O'f war.

The inevitable march of events gave us the con
trol of the Philippine Islands at a time so oppor
tune that it may without irreverence be called Provi
dential. Unless we show ourselves weak, unless we
show ourselves degenerate sons of the sires from
whose loins we sprang, we must go on with the
work we have undertaken. I most earnestly hope
that this work will ever be of a peaceful character.
We infinitely desire peace, and the surest way of
obtaining it is to show that we are not afraid of war.
We should deal in a spirit of justice and fairness
with weaker nations, and we should show to the
strongest that we are able to maintain our rights.
Such showing can not be made by bluster ; for blus
ter merely invites contempt. Let us speak courte
ously, deal fairly, and keep ourselves armed and
ready. If we do these things we can count on the
peace that comes to the just man armed, to the just
man who neither fears nor inflicts wrong. We
must keep on building and maintaining a thoroughly
efficient navy, with plenty of the best and most for
midable ships, with an ample supply of officers and
men, and with those officers and men trained in the
most efficient fashion to perform their duties. Only
thus can we assure our position in the world at large.
It behooves all men of lofty soul fit and proud to
belong to a mighty nation to see to it that we keep
our position in the world ; for our proper place is with
the great expanding peoples, with the peoples that

And State Papers 395

dare to be great, that accept with confidence a place
of leadership in the world. All our people should
take that position, but especially of California, you
of the Pacific Slope, for much of our expansion must
go through the Golden Gate, and inevitably you who
are seated by the Pacific must take the lead in and
must profit by the growth of American influence
along the coasts and among the islands of that
mighty ocean, where east and west finally become
one.

The citizen that counts, the man that counts in
our life, is the man who endeavors not to shirk diffi
culties but to meet and overcome them, is the man
who endeavors not to lead his life in the world's soft
places, not to walk easily and take his comfort, but
the man who goes out to tread the rugged ways that
lead to honor and success, the ways the treading of
which means good work worthily done.

What father or what mother here, if capable of
taking the right view, does not wish to see his or her
children grow up trained, not to flinch but to over
come, trained not to avoid whatever is hard and
rough and difficult, but to go down into the hurly-
burly of actual life and win glory in the arena, heed
less of the dust and the sweat and blood of the con
test?

You men of the West, the older among you, came
here and hewed out your own fates for yourselves.
The younger among you are the heirs of the men
who did this, and you can not, unless you are false
to your blood, desire to see the Nation, which is but

396 Presidential Addresses

the aggregate of the individuals, act otherwise than
in the way which you esteem as honorable for the
individual.

Ouf place as a Nation is and must be with the
nations that have left indelibly their impress on the
centuries. Men will tell you that the great expand
ing nations of antiquity have passed away. So they
have; and so have all others. Those that did not
expand passed away and left not so much as a mem
ory behind them. The Roman expanded, the Roman
passed away, but the Roman has left the print of his
law, of his language, of his masterful ability in ad
ministration, deep in the world's history, deeply im
printed in the character of the races that came after
him. I ask that this people rise level to the great
ness of its opportunities. I do not ask that it seek
for the easiest path.

If our fathers had preferred ease to effort, if they
had been content to say: "Go in peace; we would
prefer that the Union were kept, but we are not
willing to pay the price in blood and effort of keep
ing it ;" if they had done that there is not a man or
woman in this hall who would now walk with head
erect, who would now have the right to feel, as we
have the right to feel, that we challenge equality with
the citizens of the proudest country that the world
has yet seen. I ask that this generation and future
generations strive in the spirit of those who strove to
found the Republic, of those who strove to save and
perpetuate it. I ask that this Nation shape its policy
in a spirit of justice toward all, a spirit of resolute

And State Papers 397

endeavor to accept each duty as the duty comes,
and to rest ill-content until that duty is done. I ask
that we meet the many problems with which we are
confronted from without and from within, not in
the spirit that seeks to purchase present peace by
the certainty of future disaster, but with a wise, a
fearless, and a resolute desire to make of this Nation
in the end, as the centuries go by, the example for
all the nations of the earth, to make of it a nation in
which we shall see the spirit of peace and of justice
incarnate, but in which also we shall see incarnate
the spirit of courage, of hardihood, the spirit which
while refusing to wrong the weak is incapable of
flinching from the strong.

AT THE CEREMONIES INCIDENT TO THE
BREAKING OF SOD FOR THE ERECTION OF
A MONUMENT IN MEMORY OF THE LATE
PRESIDENT McKINLEY, SAN FRANCISCO,
CAL., MAY 13, 1903

Friends and Fellow- Americans:

It is a befitting thing that the first sod turned to
prepare for the monument to commemorate Presi
dent McKinley should be turned in the presence of
his old comrades of the great war, and in the pres
ence of the men who in a lesser war strove to show
that they were not wholly unworthy of those who in
the dark years from '61 to '65 proved their truth by
their endeavor, and with their blood cemented the
foundation of the American Republic. It is a
solemn thing to speak in memory of a man who

Presidential Addresses

when young went to war for the honor and the life
of the Nation, who for four years did his part in the
camp, on the march, in battle, rising steadily up
ward from the ranks, and to whom it was given in
after life to show himself exemplary in public and
in private conduct, to become the ideal of the Nation
in peace as he had been a typical representative of
the Nation's young sons in war.

It is not too much to say that no man since Lin
coln was as widely and as universally beloved in
this country as was President McKinley ; for it was
given to him not only to rise to the most exalted
station but to typify in his character and conduct
those virtues which any citizen worthy of the name
likes to regard as typically American; to typify the
virtues of cleanly and upright living in all relations
private and public, in the most intimate family re
lations, in the relations of business, in relations
with his neighbors, and finally in his conduct of the
great affairs of state. And exactly as it was given
to him to do his part in settling aright the greatest
problem which it has ever befallen this Nation to
settle since it became a Nation — the problem of the
preservation of the Union and the abolition of slav
ery — exactly as it was his good fortune to do his
part as a man should in his youth in settling that
great problem, so it was his good fortune, when he
became in fact and in name the Nation's chief, to
settle the problems springing out of the Spanish
War ; problems less important only than those which
were dealt with by the men who under the lead of

And State Papers 399

Washington founded our government and the men
who, upholding the statesmanship of Lincoln and
following the sword of Grant, or Sherman, or
Thomas, or Sheridan, saved and perpetuated the
Republic.

When 1898 came and the war which President
McKinley in all honesty and in all sincerity sought to
avoid became inevitable and was pressed upon him
he met it as he and you had met the crisis of 1861.
He did his best to prevent the war coming; once it
became evident that it had to come then he did his
best to see that it was ended as quickly and as
thoroughly as possible. It is a good lesson for na
tions and individuals tt» learn never to hit if it can be
helped and then never to hit softly. I think it is
getting to be fairly understood that that is our for
eign policy. We do not want to threaten ; certainly
we do not desire to wrong any man ; we are going
to keep out of trouble if we possibly can keep out;
and if it becomes necessary for our honor and our
interest to assert a given position we shall assert it
with every intention of making the assertion good.

The Spanish War came. As its aftermath came
trouble in the Philippines, and it was natural that
this State, within whose borders live and have lived
so many of the men who fought in the great war,
should find its sons eagerly volunteering for the
chance to prove their truth in the war that came in
their days; and it was to be expected that Califor
nia's sons should do well, as they did do well, in the
Philippines in the new contest.

400 Presidential Addresses

And now it is eminently fitting that the men of
the great war and the men of the lesser war claiming
not only to have been good soldiers but to be good
citizens should come here to assist at laying the
foundation of the monument to him who typified
in his career the virtues of the soldier and exem
plified in his high office our ideals of good citizen
ship. I am glad that such a monument should have
been erected here in this wonderful State on the
shores of the Pacific; in this city with a great past
and with a future so great that the most sanguine
among us can not properly estimate it; this city of
the Occident which looks west to the Orient across
the Pacific, westward to the west that is the hoary
east; this city situated upon that giant ocean which
will in a not distant future be commercially the most
important body of water in the entire world.

I thank you for coming here and for giving me the
privilege of joining with you to-day in these solemn
ceremonies of commemoration, the ceremonies of
laying the foundation of a monument which is to
keep green in mind the memory of McKinley as a
lesson in war and a lesson in peace, as a lesson to
all Americans of what can be done by the American
who in good faith strives to do his whole duty by the
mighty Republic.

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