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President[ Theodore Roosevelt

         Date[ December 6, 1904

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

The Nation continues to enjoy noteworthy prosperity. Such prosperity is

of course primarily due to the high individual average of our

citizenship, taken together with our great natural resources; but an

important factor therein is the working of our long-continued

governmental policies. The people have emphatically expressed their

approval of the principles underlying these policies, and their desire

that these principles be kept substantially unchanged, although of

course applied in a progressive spirit to meet changing conditions.

The enlargement of scope of the functions of the National Government

required by our development as a nation involves, of course, increase

of expense; and the period of prosperity through which the country is

passing justifies expenditures for permanent improvements far greater

than would be wise in hard times. Battle ships and forts, public

buildings, and improved waterways are investments which should be made

when we have the money; but abundant revenues and a large surplus

always invite extravagance, and constant care should be taken to guard

against unnecessary increase of the ordinary expenses of government.

The cost of doing Government business should be regulated with the same

rigid scrutiny as the cost of doing a private business.

In the vast and complicated mechanism of our modern civilized life the

dominant note is the note of industrialism; and the relations of

capital and labor, and especially of organized capital and organized

labor, to each other and to the public at large come second in

importance only to the intimate questions of family life. Our peculiar

form of government, with its sharp division of authority between the

Nation and the several States, has been on the whole far more

advantageous to our development than a more strongly centralized

government. But it is undoubtedly responsible for much of the

difficulty of meeting with adequate legislation the new problems

presented by the total change in industrial conditions on this

continent during the last half century. In actual practice it has

proved exceedingly difficult, and in many cases impossible, to get

unanimity of wise action among the various States on these subjects.

From the very nature of the case this is especially true of the laws

affecting the employment of capital in huge masses.

With regard to labor the problem is no less important, but it is

simpler. As long as the States retain the primary control of the police

power the circumstances must be altogether extreme which require

interference by the Federal authorities, whether in the way of

safeguarding the rights of labor or in the way of seeing that wrong is

not done by unruly persons who shield themselves behind the name of

labor. If there is resistance to the Federal courts, interference with

the mails, or interstate commerce, or molestation of Federal property,

or if the State authorities in some crisis which they are unable to

face call for help, then the Federal Government may interfere; but

though such interference may be caused by a condition of things arising

out of trouble connected with some question of labor, the interference

itself simply takes the form of restoring order without regard to the

questions which have caused the breach of order--for to keep order is a

primary duty and in a time of disorder and violence all other questions

sink into abeyance until order has been restored. In the District of

Columbia and in the Territories the Federal law covers the entire field

of government; but the labor question is only acute in populous centers

of commerce, manufactures, or mining. Nevertheless, both in the

enactment and in the enforcement of law the Federal Government within

its restricted sphere should set an example to the State governments,

especially in a matter so vital as this affecting labor. I believe that

under modern industrial conditions it is often necessary, and even

where not necessary it is yet often wise, that there should be

organization of labor in order better to secure the rights of the

individual wage-worker. All encouragement should be given to any such

organization so long as it is conducted with a due and decent regard

for the rights of others. There are in this country some labor unions

which have habitually, and other labor unions which have often, been

among the most effective agents in working for good citizenship and for

uplifting the condition of those whose welfare should be closest to our

hearts. But when any labor union seeks improper ends, or seeks to

achieve proper ends by improper means, all good citizens and more

especially all honorable public servants must oppose the wrongdoing as

resolutely as they would oppose the wrongdoing of any great

corporation. Of course any violence, brutality, or corruption, should

not for one moment be tolerated. Wage-workers have an entire right to

organize and by all peaceful and honorable means to endeavor to

persuade their fellows to join with them in organizations. They have a

legal right, which, according to circumstances, may or may not be a

moral right, to refuse to work in company with men who decline to join

their organizations. They have under no circumstances the right to

commit violence upon these, whether capitalists or wage-workers, who

refuse to support their organizations, or who side with those with whom

they are at odds; for mob rule is intolerable in any form.

The wage-workers are peculiarly entitled to the protection and the

encouragement of the law. From the very nature of their occupation

railroad men, for instance, are liable to be maimed in doing the

legitimate work of their profession, unless the railroad companies are

required by law to make ample provision for their safety. The

Administration has been zealous in enforcing the existing law for this

purpose. That law should be amended and strengthened. Wherever the

National Government has power there should be a stringent employer's

liability law, which should apply to the Government itself where the

Government is an employer of labor.

In my Message to the Fifty-seventh Congress, at its second session, I

urged the passage of an employer's liability law for the District of

Columbia. I now renew that recommendation, and further recommend that

the Congress appoint a commission to make a comprehensive study of

employer's liability with the view of extending the provisions of a

great and constitutional law to all employments within the scope of

Federal power.

The Government has recognized heroism upon the water, and bestows

medals of honor upon those persons who by extreme and heroic daring

have endangered their lives in saving, or endeavoring to save, lives

from the perils of the sea in the waters over which the United States

has jurisdiction, or upon an American vessel. This recognition should

be extended to cover cases of conspicuous bravery and self-sacrifice in

the saving of life in private employments under the jurisdiction of the

United States, and particularly in the land commerce of the Nation.

The ever-increasing casualty list upon our railroads is a matter of

grave public concern, and urgently calls for action by the Congress. In

the matter of speed and comfort of railway travel our railroads give at

least as good service as those of any other nation, and there is no

reason why this service should not also be as safe as human ingenuity

can make it. Many of our leading roads have been foremost in the

adoption of the most approved safeguards for the protection of

travelers and employees, yet the list of clearly avoidable accidents

continues unduly large. The passage of a law requiring the adoption of

a block-signal system has been proposed to the Congress. I earnestly

concur in that recommendation, and would also point out to the Congress

the urgent need of legislation in the interest of the public safety

limiting the hours of labor for railroad employees in train service

upon railroads engaged in interstate commerce, and providing that only

trained and experienced persons be employed in positions of

responsibility connected with the operation of trains. Of course

nothing can ever prevent accidents caused by human weakness or

misconduct; and there should be drastic punishment for any railroad

employee, whether officer or man, who by issuance of wrong orders or by

disobedience of orders causes disaster. The law of 1901, requiring

interstate railroads to make monthly reports of all accidents to

passengers and employees on duty, should also be amended so as to

empower the Government to make a personal investigation, through proper

officers, of all accidents involving loss of life which seem to require

investigation, with a requirement that the results of such

investigation be made public.

The safety-appliance law, as amended by the act of March 2, 1903, has

proved beneficial to railway employees, and in order that its

provisions may be properly carried out, the force of inspectors

provided for by appropriation should be largely increased. This service

is analogous to the Steamboat-Inspection Service, and deals with even

more important interests. It has passed the experimental stage and

demonstrated its utility, and should receive generous recognition by

the Congress.

There is no objection to employees of the Government forming or

belonging to unions; but the Government can neither discriminate for

nor discriminate against nonunion men who are in its employment, or who

seek to be employed under it. Moreover, it is a very grave impropriety

for Government employees to band themselves together for the purpose of

extorting improperly high salaries from the Government. Especially is

this true of those within the classified service. The letter carriers,

both municipal and rural, are as a whole an excellent body of public

servants. They should be amply paid. But their payment must be obtained

by arguing their claims fairly and honorably before the Congress, and

not by banding together for the defeat of those Congressmen who refuse

to give promises which they can not in conscience give. The

Administration has already taken steps to prevent and punish abuses of

this nature; but it will be wise for the Congress to supplement this

action by legislation.

Much can be done by the Government in labor matters merely by giving

publicity to certain conditions. The Bureau of Labor has done excellent

work of this kind in many different directions. I shall shortly lay

before you in a special message the full report of the investigation of

the Bureau of Labor into the Colorado mining strike, as this was a

strike in which certain very evil forces, which are more or less at

work everywhere under the conditions of modern industrialism, became

startlingly prominent. It is greatly to be wished that the Department

of Commerce and Labor, through the Labor Bureau, should compile and

arrange for the Congress a list of the labor laws of the various

States, and should be given the means to investigate and report to the

Congress upon the labor conditions in the manufacturing and mining

regions throughout the country, both as to wages, as to hours of labor,

as to the labor of women and children, and as to the effect in the

various labor centers of immigration from abroad. In this investigation

especial attention should be paid to the conditions of child labor and

child-labor legislation in the several States. Such an investigation

must necessarily take into account many of the problems with which this

question of child labor is connected. These problems can be actually

met, in most cases, only by the States themselves; but the lack of

proper legislation in one State in such a matter as child labor often

renders it excessively difficult to establish protective restriction

upon the work in another State having the same industries, so that the

worst tends to drag down the better. For this reason, it would be well

for the Nation at least to endeavor to secure comprehensive information

as to the conditions of labor of children in the different States. Such

investigation and publication by the National Government would tend

toward the securing of approximately uniform legislation of the proper

character among the several States.

When we come to deal with great corporations the need for the

Government to act directly is far greater than in the case of labor,

because great corporations can become such only by engaging in

interstate commerce, and interstate commerce is peculiarly the field of

the General Government. It is an absurdity to expect to eliminate the

abuses in great corporations by State action. It is difficult to be

patient with an argument that such matters should be left to the States

because more than one State pursues the policy of creating on easy

terms corporations which are never operated within that State at all,

but in other States whose laws they ignore. The National Government

alone can deal adequately with these great corporations. To try to deal

with them in an intemperate, destructive, or demagogic spirit would, in

all probability, mean that nothing whatever would be accomplished, and,

with absolute certainty, that if anything were accomplished it would be

of a harmful nature. The American people need to continue to show the

very qualities that they have shown--that is, moderation, good sense,

the earnest desire to avoid doing any damage, and yet the quiet

determination to proceed, step by step, without halt and without hurry,

in eliminating or at least in minimizing whatever of mischief or evil

there is to interstate commerce in the conduct of great corporations.

They are acting in no spirit of hostility to wealth, either individual

or corporate. They are not against the rich man any more than against

the poor man. On the contrary, they are friendly alike toward rich man

and toward poor man, provided only that each acts in a spirit of

justice and decency toward his fellows. Great corporations are

necessary, and only men of great and singular mental power can manage

such corporations successfully, and such men must have great rewards.

But these corporations should be managed with due regard to the

interest of the public as a whole. Where this can be done under the

present laws it must be done. Where these laws come short others should

be enacted to supplement them.

Yet we must never forget the determining factor in every kind of work,

of head or hand, must be the man's own good sense, courage, and

kindliness. More important than any legislation is the gradual growth

of a feeling of responsibility and forbearance among capitalists, and

wage-workers alike; a feeling of respect on the part of each man for

the rights of others; a feeling of broad community of interest, not

merely of capitalists among themselves, and of wage-workers among

themselves, but of capitalists and wage-workers in their relations to

each other, and of both in their relations to their fellows who with

them make up the body politic. There are many captains of industry,

many labor leaders, who realize this. A recent speech by the president

of one of our great railroad systems to the employees of that system

contains sound common sense. It rims in part as follows:

"It is my belief we can better serve each other, better understand the

man as well as his business, when meeting face to face, exchanging

views, and realizing from personal contact we serve but one interest,

that of our mutual prosperity.

"Serious misunderstandings can not occur where personal good will

exists and opportunity for personal explanation is present.

"In my early business life I had experience with men of affairs of a

character to make me desire to avoid creating a like feeling of

resentment to myself and the interests in my charge, should fortune

ever place me in authority, and I am solicitous of a measure of

confidence on the part of the public and our employees that I shall

hope may be warranted by the fairness and good fellowship I intend

shall prevail in our relationship.

"But do not feel I am disposed to grant unreasonable requests, spend

the money of our company unnecessarily or without value received, nor

expect the days of mistakes are disappearing, or that cause for

complaint will not continually occur; simply to correct such abuses as

may be discovered, to better conditions as fast as reasonably may be

expected, constantly striving, with varying success, for that

improvement we all desire, to convince you there is a force at work in

the right direction, all the time making progress--is the disposition

with which I have come among you, asking your good will and

encouragement.

"The day has gone by when a corporation can be handled successfully in

defiance of the public will, even though that will be unreasonable and

wrong. A public may be led, but not driven, and I prefer to go with it

and shape or modify, in a measure, its opinion, rather than be swept

from my bearings, with loss to myself and the interests in my charge.

"Violent prejudice exists towards corporate activity and capital today,

much of it founded in reason, more in apprehension, and a large measure

is due to the personal traits of arbitrary, unreasonable, incompetent,

and offensive men in positions of authority. The accomplishment of

results by indirection, the endeavor to thwart the intention, if not

the expressed letter of the law (the will of the people), a disregard

of the rights of others, a disposition to withhold what is due, to

force by main strength or inactivity a result not justified, depending

upon the weakness of the claimant and his indisposition to become

involved in litigation, has created a sentiment harmful in the extreme

and a disposition to consider anything fair that gives gain to the

individual at the expense of the company.

"If corporations are to continue to do the world's work, as they are

best fitted to, these qualities in their representatives that have

resulted in the present prejudice against them must be relegated to the

background. The corporations must come out into the open and see and be

seen. They must take the public into their confidence and ask for what

they want, and no more, and be prepared to explain satisfactorily what

advantage will accrue to the public if they are given their desires;

for they are permitted to exist not that they may make money solely,

but that they may effectively serve those from whom they derive their

power.

"Publicity, and not secrecy, will win hereafter, and laws be construed

by their intent and not by their letter, otherwise public utilities

will be owned and operated by the public which created them, even

though the service be less efficient and the result less satisfactory

from a financial standpoint."

The Bureau of Corporations has made careful preliminary investigation

of many important corporations. It will make a special report on the

beef industry.

The policy of the Bureau is to accomplish the purposes of its creation

by co-operation, not antagonism; by making constructive legislation,

not destructive prosecution, the immediate object of its inquiries; by

conservative investigation of law and fact, and by refusal to issue

incomplete and hence necessarily inaccurate reports. Its policy being

thus one of open inquiry into, and not attack upon, business, the

Bureau has been able to gain not only the confidence, but, better

still, the cooperation of men engaged in legitimate business.

The Bureau offers to the Congress the means of getting at the cost of

production of our various great staples of commerce.

Of necessity the careful investigation of special corporations will

afford the Commissioner knowledge of certain business facts, the

publication of which might be an improper infringement of private

rights. The method of making public the results of these investigations

affords, under the law, a means for the protection of private rights.

The Congress will have all facts except such as would give to another

corporation information which would injure the legitimate business of a

competitor and destroy the incentive for individual superiority and

thrift.

The Bureau has also made exhaustive examinations into the legal

condition under which corporate business is carried on in the various

States; into all judicial decisions on the subject; and into the

various systems of corporate taxation in use. I call special attention

to the report of the chief of the Bureau; and I earnestly ask that the

Congress carefully consider the report and recommendations of the

Commissioner on this subject.

The business of insurance vitally affects the great mass of the people

of the United States and is national and not local in its application.

It involves a multitude of transactions among the people of the

different States and between American companies and foreign

governments. I urge that the Congress carefully consider whether the

power of the Bureau of Corporations can not constitutionally be

extended to cover interstate transactions in insurance.

Above all else, we must strive to keep the highways of commerce open to

all on equal terms; and to do this it is necessary to put a complete

stop to all rebates. Whether the shipper or the railroad is to blame

makes no difference; the rebate must be stopped, the abuses of the

private car and private terminal-track and side-track systems must be

stopped, and the legislation of the Fifty-eighth Congress which

declares it to be unlawful for any person or corporation to offer,

grant, give, solicit, accept, or receive any rebate, concession, or

discrimination in respect of the transportation of any property in

interstate or foreign commerce whereby such property shall by any

device whatever be transported at a less rate than that named in the

tariffs published by the carrier must be enforced. For some time after

the enactment of the Act to Regulate Commerce it remained a mooted

question whether that act conferred upon the Interstate Commerce

Commission the power, after it had found a challenged rate to be

unreasonable, to declare what thereafter should, prima facie, be the

reasonable maximum rate for the transportation in dispute. The Supreme

Court finally resolved that question in the negative, so that as the

law now stands the Commission simply possess the bare power to denounce

a particular rate as unreasonable. While I am of the opinion that at

present it would be undesirable, if it were not impracticable, finally

to clothe the Commission with general authority to fix railroad rates,

I do believe that, as a fair security to shippers, the Commission

should be vested with the power, where a given rate has been challenged

and after full hearing found to be unreasonable, to decide, subject to

judicial review, what shall be a reasonable rate to take its place; the

ruling of the Commission to take effect immediately, and to obtain

unless and until it is reversed by the court of review. The Government

must in increasing degree supervise and regulate the workings of the

railways engaged in interstate commerce; and such increased supervision

is the only alternative to an increase of the present evils on the one

hand or a still more radical policy on the other. In my judgment the

most important legislative act now needed as regards the regulation of

corporations is this act to confer on the Interstate Commerce

Commission the power to revise rates and regulations, the revised rate

to at once go into effect, and stay in effect unless and until the

court of review reverses it.

Steamship companies engaged in interstate commerce and protected in our

coastwise trade should be held to a strict observance of the interstate

commerce act.

In pursuing the set plan to make the city of Washington an example to

other American municipalities several points should be kept in mind by

the legislators. In the first place, the people of this country should

clearly understand that no amount of industrial prosperity, and above

all no leadership in international industrial competition, can in any

way atone for the sapping of the vitality of those who are usually

spoken of as the working classes. The farmers, the mechanics, the

skilled and unskilled laborers, the small shop keepers, make up the

bulk of the population of any country; and upon their well-being,

generation after generation, the well-being of the country and the race

depends. Rapid development in wealth and industrial leadership is a

good thing, but only if it goes hand in hand with improvement, and not

deterioration, physical and moral. The over-crowding of cities and the

draining of country districts are unhealthy and even dangerous symptoms

in our modern life. We should not permit overcrowding in cities. In

certain European cities it is provided by law that the population of

towns shall not be allowed to exceed a very limited density for a given

area, so that the increase in density must be continually pushed back

into a broad zone around the center of the town, this zone having great

avenues or parks within it. The death-rate statistics show a terrible

increase in mortality, and especially in infant mortality, in

overcrowded tenements. The poorest families in tenement houses live in

one room, and it appears that in these one-room tenements the average

death rate for a number of given cities at home and abroad is about

twice what it is in a two-room tenement, four times what it is in a

three-room tenement, and eight times what it is in a tenement

consisting of four rooms or over. These figures vary somewhat for

different cities, but they approximate in each city those given above;

and in all cases the increase of mortality, and especially of infant

mortality, with the decrease in the number of rooms used by the family

and with the consequent overcrowding is startling. The slum exacts a

heavy total of death from those who dwell therein; and this is the case

not merely in the great crowded slums of high buildings in New York and

Chicago, but in the alley slums of Washington. In Washington people can

not afford to ignore the harm that this causes. No Christian and

civilized community can afford to show a happy-go-lucky lack of concern

for the youth of to-day; for, if so, the community will have to pay a

terrible penalty of financial burden and social degradation in the

to-morrow. There should be severe child-labor and factory-inspection

laws. It is very desirable that married women should not work in

factories. The prime duty of the man is to work, to be the breadwinner;

the prime duty of the woman is to be the mother, the housewife. All

questions of tariff and finance sink into utter insignificance when

compared with the tremendous, the vital importance of trying to shape

conditions so that these two duties of the man and of the woman can be

fulfilled under reasonably favorable circumstances. If a race does not

have plenty of children, or if the children do not grow up, or if when

they grow up they are unhealthy in body and stunted or vicious in mind,

then that race is decadent, and no heaping up of wealth, no splendor of

momentary material prosperity, can avail in any degree as offsets.  The

Congress has the same power of legislation for the District of Columbia

which the State legislatures have for the various States. The problems

incident to our highly complex modern industrial civilization, with its

manifold and perplexing tendencies both for good and for evil, are far

less sharply accentuated in the city of Washington than in most other

cities. For this very reason it is easier to deal with the various

phases of these problems in Washington, and the District of Columbia

government should be a model for the other municipal governments of the

Nation, in all such matters as supervision of the housing of the poor,

the creation of small parks in the districts inhabited by the poor, in

laws affecting labor, in laws providing for the taking care of the

children, in truant laws, and in providing schools.

In the vital matter of taking care of children, much advantage could be

gained by a careful study of what has been accomplished in such States

as Illinois and Colorado by the juvenile courts. The work of the

juvenile court is really a work of character building. It is now

generally recognized that young boys and young girls who go wrong

should not be treated as criminals, not even necessarily as needing

reformation, but rather as needing to have their characters formed, and

for this end to have them tested and developed by a system of

probation. Much admirable work has been done in many of our

Commonwealths by earnest men and women who have made a special study of

the needs of those classes of children which furnish the greatest

number of juvenile offenders, and therefore the greatest number of

adult offenders; and by their aid, and by profiting by the experiences

of the different States and cities in these matters, it would be easy

to provide a good code for the District of Columbia.

Several considerations suggest the need for a systematic investigation

into and improvement of housing conditions in Washington. The hidden

residential alleys are breeding grounds of vice and disease, and should

be opened into minor streets. For a number of years influential

citizens have joined with the District Commissioners in the vain

endeavor to secure laws permitting the condemnation of insanitary

dwellings. The local death rates, especially from preventable diseases,

are so unduly high as to suggest that the exceptional wholesomeness of

Washington's better sections is offset by bad conditions in her poorer

neighborhoods. A special "Commission on Housing and Health Conditions

in the National Capital" would not only bring about the reformation of

existing evils, but would also formulate an appropriate building code

to protect the city from mammoth brick tenements and other evils which

threaten to develop here as they have in other cities. That the

Nation's Capital should be made a model for other municipalities is an

ideal which appeals to all patriotic citizens everywhere, and such a

special Commission might map out and organize the city's future

development in lines of civic social service, just as Major L'Enfant

and the recent Park Commission planned the arrangement of her streets

and parks.

It is mortifying to remember that Washington has no compulsory school

attendance law and that careful inquiries indicate the habitual absence

from school of some twenty per cent of all children between the ages of

eight and fourteen. It must be evident to all who consider the problems

of neglected child life or the benefits of compulsory education in

other cities that one of the most urgent needs of the National Capital

is a law requiring the school attendance of all children, this law to

be enforced by attendance agents directed by the board of education.

Public play grounds are necessary means for the development of

wholesome citizenship in modern cities. It is important that the work

inaugurated here through voluntary efforts should be taken up and

extended through Congressional appropriation of funds sufficient to

equip and maintain numerous convenient small play grounds upon land

which can be secured without purchase or rental. It is also desirable

that small vacant places be purchased and reserved as small-park play

grounds in densely settled sections of the city which now have no

public open spaces and are destined soon to be built up solidly. All

these needs should be met immediately. To meet them would entail

expenses; but a corresponding saving could be made by stopping the

building of streets and levelling of ground for purposes largely

speculative in outlying parts of the city.

There are certain offenders, whose criminality takes the shape of

brutality and cruelty towards the weak, who need a special type of

punishment. The wife-beater, for example, is inadequately punished by

imprisonment; for imprisonment may often mean nothing to him, while it

may cause hunger and want to the wife and children who have been the

victims of his brutality. Probably some form of corporal punishment

would be the most adequate way of meeting this kind of crime.

The Department of Agriculture has grown into an educational institution

with a faculty of two thousand specialists making research into all the

sciences of production. The Congress appropriates, directly and

indirectly, six millions of dollars annually to carry on this work. It

reaches every State and Territory in the Union and the islands of the

sea lately come under our flag. Co-operation is had with the State

experiment stations, and with many other institutions and individuals.

The world is carefully searched for new varieties of grains, fruits,

grasses, vegetables, trees, and shrubs, suitable to various localities

in our country; and marked benefit to our producers has resulted.

The activities of our age in lines of research have reached the tillers

of the soil and inspired them with ambition to know more of the

principles that govern the forces of nature with which they have to

deal. Nearly half of the people of this country devote their energies

to growing things from the soil. Until a recent date little has been

done to prepare these millions for their life work. In most lines of

human activity college-trained men are the leaders. The farmer had no

opportunity for special training until the Congress made provision for

it forty years ago. During these years progress has been made and

teachers have been prepared. Over five thousand students are in

attendance at our State agricultural colleges. The Federal Government

expends ten millions of dollars annually toward this education and for

research in Washington and in the several States and Territories. The

Department of Agriculture has given facilities for post-graduate work

to five hundred young men during the last seven years, preparing them

for advance lines of work in the Department and in the State

institutions.

The facts concerning meteorology and its relations to plant and animal

life are being systematically inquired into. Temperature and moisture

are controlling factors in all agricultural operations. The seasons of

the cyclones of the Caribbean Sea and their paths are being forecasted

with increasing accuracy. The cold winds that come from the north are

anticipated and their times and intensity told to farmers, gardeners,

and fruiterers in all southern localities.

We sell two hundred and fifty million dollars' worth of animals and

animal products to foreign countries every year, in addition to

supplying our own people more cheaply and abundantly than any other

nation is able to provide for its people. Successful manufacturing

depends primarily on cheap food, which accounts to a considerable

extent for our growth in this direction. The Department of Agriculture,

by careful inspection of meats, guards the health of our people and

gives clean bills of health to deserving exports; it is prepared to

deal promptly with imported diseases of animals, and maintain the

excellence of our flocks and herds in this respect. There should be an

annual census of the live stock of the Nation.

We sell abroad about six hundred million dollars' worth of plants and

their products every year. Strenuous efforts are being made to import

from foreign countries such grains as are suitable to our varying

localities. Seven years ago we bought three-fourths of our rice; by

helping the rice growers on the Gulf coast to secure seeds from the

Orient suited to their conditions, and by giving them adequate

protection, they now supply home demand and export to the islands of

the Caribbean Sea and to other rice-growing countries. Wheat and other

grains have been imported from light-rainfall countries to our lands in

the West and Southwest that have not grown crops because of light

precipitation, resulting in an extensive addition to our cropping area

and our home-making territory that can not be irrigated. Ten million

bushels of first-class macaroni wheat were grown from these

experimental importations last year. Fruits suitable to our soils and

climates are being imported from all the countries of the Old

World--the fig from Turkey, the almond from Spain, the date from

Algeria, the mango from India. We are helping our fruit growers to get

their crops into European markets by studying methods of preservation

through refrigeration, packing, and handling, which have been quite

successful. We are helping our hop growers by importing varieties that

ripen earlier and later than the kinds they have been raising, thereby

lengthening the harvesting season. The cotton crop of the country is

threatened with root rot, the bollworm, and the boll weevil. Our

pathologists will find immune varieties that will resist the root

disease, and the bollworm can be dealt with, but the boll weevil is a

serious menace to the cotton crop. It is a Central American insect that

has become acclimated in Texas and has done great damage. A scientist

of the Department of Agriculture has found the weevil at home in

Guatemala being kept in check by an ant, which has been brought to our

cotton fields for observation. It is hoped that it may serve a good

purpose.

The soils of the country are getting attention from the farmer's

standpoint, and interesting results are following. We have duplicates

of the soils that grow the wrapper tobacco in Sumatra and the filler

tobacco in Cuba. It will be only a question of time when the large

amounts paid to these countries will be paid to our own people. The

reclamation of alkali lands is progressing, to give object lessons to

our people in methods by which worthless lands may be made productive.

The insect friends and enemies of the farmer are getting attention. The

enemy of the San Jose scale was found near the Great Wall of China, and

is now cleaning up all our orchards. The fig-fertilizing insect

imported from Turkey has helped to establish an industry in California

that amounts to from fifty to one hundred tons of dried figs annually,

and is extending over the Pacific coast. A parasitic fly from South

Africa is keeping in subjection the black scale, the worst pest of the

orange and lemon industry in California.

Careful preliminary work is being done towards producing our own silk.

The mulberry is being distributed in large numbers, eggs are being

imported and distributed, improved reels were imported from Europe last

year, and two expert reelers were brought to Washington to reel the

crop of cocoons and teach the art to our own people.

The crop-reporting system of the Department of Agriculture is being

brought closer to accuracy every year. It has two hundred and fifty

thousand reporters selected from people in eight vocations in life. It

has arrangements with most European countries for interchange of

estimates, so that our people may know as nearly as possible with what

they must compete.

During the two and a half years that have elapsed since the passage of

the reclamation act rapid progress has been made in the surveys and

examinations of the opportunities for reclamation in the thirteen

States and three Territories of the arid West. Construction has already

been begun on the largest and most important of the irrigation works,

and plans are being completed for works which will utilize the funds

now available. The operations are being carried on by the Reclamation

Service, a corps of engineers selected through competitive

civil-service examinations. This corps includes experienced consulting

and constructing engineers as well as various experts in mechanical and

legal matters, and is composed largely of men who have spent most of

their lives in practical affairs connected with irrigation. The larger

problems have been solved and it now remains to execute with care,

economy, and thoroughness the work which has been laid out. All

important details are being carefully considered by boards of

consulting engineers, selected for their thorough knowledge and

practical experience. Each project is taken up on the ground by

competent men and viewed from the standpoint of the creation of

prosperous homes, and of promptly refunding to the Treasury the cost of

construction. The reclamation act has been found to be remarkably

complete and effective, and so broad in its provisions that a wide

range of undertakings has been possible under it. At the same time,

economy is guaranteed by the fact that the funds must ultimately be

returned to be used over again.

It is the cardinal principle of the forest-reserve policy of this

Administration that the reserves are for use. Whatever interferes with

the use of their resources is to be avoided by every possible means.

But these resources must be used in such a way as to make them

permanent.

The forest policy of the Government is just now a subject of vivid

public interest throughout the West and to the people of the United

States in general. The forest reserves themselves are of extreme value

to the present as well as to the future welfare of all the western

public-land States. They powerfully affect the use and disposal of the

public lands. They are of special importance because they preserve the

water supply and the supply of timber for domestic purposes, and so

promote settlement under the reclamation act. Indeed, they are

essential to the welfare of every one of the great interests of the

West.

Forest reserves are created for two principal purposes. The first is to

preserve the water supply. This is their most important use. The

principal users of the water thus preserved are irrigation ranchers and

settlers, cities and towns to whom their municipal water supplies are

of the very first importance, users and furnishers of water power, and

the users of water for domestic, manufacturing, mining, and other

purposes. All these are directly dependent upon the forest reserves.

The second reason for which forest reserves are created is to preserve

the timber supply for various classes of wood users. Among the more

important of these are settlers under the reclamation act and other

acts, for whom a cheap and accessible supply of timber for domestic

uses is absolutely necessary; miners and prospectors, who are in

serious danger of losing their timber supply by fire or through export

by lumber companies when timber lands adjacent to their mines pass into

private ownership; lumbermen, transportation companies, builders, and

commercial interests in general.

Although the wisdom of creating forest reserves is nearly everywhere

heartily recognized, yet in a few localities there has been

misunderstanding and complaint. The following statement is therefore

desirable:

The forest reserve policy can be successful only when it has the full

support of the people of the West. It can not safely, and should not in

any case, be imposed upon them against their will. But neither can we

accept the views of those whose only interest in the forest is

temporary; who are anxious to reap what they have not sown and then

move away, leaving desolation behind them. On the contrary, it is

everywhere and always the interest of the permanent settler and the

permanent business man, the man with a stake in the country, which must

be considered and which must decide.

The making of forest reserves within railroad and wagon-road land-grant

limits will hereafter, as for the past three years, be so managed as to

prevent the issue, under the act of June 4, 1897, of base for exchange

or lieu selection (usually called scrip). In all cases where forest

reserves within areas covered by land grants appear to be essential to

the prosperity of settlers, miners, or others, the Government lands

within such proposed forest reserves will, as in the recent past, be

withdrawn from sale or entry pending the completion of such

negotiations with the owners of the land grants as will prevent the

creation of so-called scrip.

It was formerly the custom to make forest reserves without first

getting definite and detailed information as to the character of land

and timber within their boundaries. This method of action often

resulted in badly chosen boundaries and consequent injustice to

settlers and others. Therefore this Administration adopted the present

method of first withdrawing the land from disposal, followed by careful

examination on the ground and the preparation of detailed maps and

descriptions, before any forest reserve is created.

I have repeatedly called attention to the confusion which exists in

Government forest matters because the work is scattered among three

independent organizations. The United States is the only one of the

great nations in which the forest work of the Government is not

concentrated under one department, in consonance with the plainest

dictates of good administration and common sense. The present

arrangement is bad from every point of view. Merely to mention it is to

prove that it should be terminated at once. As I have repeatedly

recommended, all the forest work of the Government should be

concentrated in the Department of Agriculture, where the larger part of

that work is already done, where practically all of the trained

foresters of the Government are employed, where chiefly in Washington

there is comprehensive first-class knowledge of the problems of the

reserves acquired on the ground, where all problems relating to growth

from the soil are already gathered, and where all the sciences

auxiliary to forestry are at hand for prompt and effective

co-operation. These reasons are decisive in themselves, but it should

be added that the great organizations of citizens whose interests are

affected by the forest-reserves, such as the National Live Stock

Association, the National Wool Growers' Association, the American

Mining Congress, the national Irrigation Congress, and the National

Board of Trade, have uniformly, emphatically, and most of them

repeatedly, expressed themselves in favor of placing all Government

forest work in the Department of Agriculture because of the peculiar

adaptation of that Department for it. It is true, also, that the forest

services of nearly all the great nations of the world are under the

respective departments of agriculture, while in but two of the smaller

nations and in one colony are they under the department of the

interior. This is the result of long and varied experience and it

agrees fully with the requirements of good administration in our own

case.

The creation of a forest service in the Department of Agriculture will

have for its important results:

First. A better handling of all forest work; because it will be under a

single head, and because the vast and indispensable experience of the

Department in all matters pertaining to the forest reserves, to

forestry in general, and to other forms of production from the soil,

will be easily and rapidly accessible.

Second. The reserves themselves, being handled from the point of view

of the man in the field, instead of the man in the office, will be more

easily and more widely useful to the people of the West than has been

the case hitherto.

Third. Within a comparatively short time the reserves will become

self-supporting. This is important, because continually and rapidly

increasing appropriations will be necessary for the proper care of this

exceedingly important interest of the Nation, and they can and should

he offset by returns from the National forests. Under similar

circumstances the forest possessions of other great nations form an

important source of revenue to their governments.

Every administrative officer concerned is convinced of the necessity

for the proposed consolidation of forest work in the Department of

Agriculture, and I myself have urged it more than once in former

messages. Again I commend it to the early and favorable consideration

of the Congress. The interests of the Nation at large and of the West

in particular have suffered greatly because of the delay.

I call the attention of the Congress again to the report and

recommendation of the Commission on the Public Lands forwarded by me to

the second session of the present Congress. The Commission has

prosecuted its investigations actively during the past season, and a

second report is now in an advanced stage of preparation.

In connection with the work of the forest reserves I desire again to

urge upon the Congress the importance of authorizing the President to

set aside certain portions of these reserves or other public lands as

game refuges for the preservation of the bison, the wapiti, and other

large beasts once so abundant in our woods and mountains and on our

great plains, and now tending toward extinction. Every support should

be given to the authorities of the Yellowstone Park in their successful

efforts at preserving the large creatures therein; and at very little

expense portions of the public domain in other regions which are wholly

unsuited to agricultural settlement could be similarly utilized. We owe

it to future generations to keep alive the noble and beautiful

creatures which by their presence add such distinctive character to the

American wilderness. The limits of the Yellowstone Park should be

extended southwards. The Canyon of the Colorado should be made a

national park; and the national-park system should include the Yosemite

and as many as possible of the groves of giant trees in California.

The veterans of the Civil War have a claim upon the Nation such as no

other body of our citizens possess. The Pension Bureau has never in its

history been managed in a more satisfactory manner than is now the

case.

The progress of the Indians toward civilization, though not rapid, is

perhaps all that could be hoped for in view of the circumstances.

Within the past year many tribes have shown, in a degree greater than

ever before, an appreciation of the necessity of work. This changed

attitude is in part due to the policy recently pursued of reducing the

amount of subsistence to the Indians, and thus forcing them, through

sheer necessity, to work for a livelihood. The policy, though severe,

is a useful one, but it is to be exercised only with judgment and with

a full understanding of the conditions which exist in each community

for which it is intended. On or near the Indian reservations there is

usually very little demand for labor, and if the Indians are to earn

their living and when work can not be furnished from outside (which is

always preferable), then it must be furnished by the Government.

Practical instruction of this kind would in a few years result in the

forming of habits of regular industry, which would render the Indian a

producer and would effect a great reduction in the cost of his

maintenance.

It is commonly declared that the slow advance of the Indians is due to

the unsatisfactory character of the men appointed to take immediate

charge of them, and to some extent this is true. While the standard of

the employees in the Indian Service shows great improvement over that

of bygone years, and while actual corruption or flagrant dishonesty is

now the rare exception, it is nevertheless the fact that the salaries

paid Indian agents are not large enough to attract the best men to that

field of work. To achieve satisfactory results the official in charge

of an Indian tribe should possess the high qualifications which are

required in the manager of a large business, but only in exceptional

cases is it possible to secure men of such a type for these positions.

Much better service, however, might be obtained from those now holding

the places were it practicable to get out of them the best that is in

them, and this should be done by bringing them constantly into closer

touch with their superior officers. An agent who has been content to

draw his salary, giving in return the least possible equivalent in

effort and service, may, by proper treatment, by suggestion and

encouragement, or persistent urging, be stimulated to greater effort

and induced to take a more active personal interest in his work.

Under existing conditions an Indian agent in the distant West may be

wholly out of touch with the office of the Indian Bureau. He may very

well feel that no one takes a personal interest in him or his efforts.

Certain routine duties in the way of reports and accounts are required

of him, but there is no one with whom he may intelligently consult on

matters vital to his work, except after long delay. Such a man would be

greatly encouraged and aided by personal contact with some one whose

interest in Indian affairs and whose authority in the Indian Bureau

were greater than his own, and such contact would be certain to arouse

and constantly increase the interest he takes in his work.

The distance which separates the agents--the workers in the field--from

the Indian Office in Washington is a chief obstacle to Indian progress.

Whatever shall more closely unite these two branches of the Indian

Service, and shall enable them to co-operate more heartily and more

effectively, will be for the increased efficiency of the work and the

betterment of the race for whose improvement the Indian Bureau was

established. The appointment of a field assistant to the Commissioner

of Indian Affairs would be certain to insure this good end. Such an

official, if possessed of the requisite energy and deep interest in the

work, would be a most efficient factor in bringing into closer

relationship and a more direct union of effort the Bureau in Washington

and its agents in the field; and with the co-operation of its branches

thus secured the Indian Bureau would, in measure fuller than ever

before, lift up the savage toward that self-help and self-reliance

which constitute the man.

In 1907 there will be held at Hampton Roads the tricentennial

celebration of the settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, with which the

history of what has now become the United States really begins. I

commend this to your favorable consideration. It is an event of prime

historic significance, in which all the people of the United States

should feel, and should show, great and general interest.

In the Post-Office Department the service has increased in efficiency,

and conditions as to revenue and expenditure continue satisfactory. The

increase of revenue during the year was $9,358,181.10, or 6.9 per cent,

the total receipts amounting to $143,382,624.34. The expenditures were

$152,362,116.70, an increase of about 9 per cent over the previous

year, being thus $8,979,492.36 in excess of the current revenue.

Included in these expenditures was a total appropriation of

$152,956,637.35 for the continuation and extension of the rural

free-delivery service, which was an increase of $4,902,237.35 over the

amount expended for this purpose in the preceding fiscal year. Large as

this expenditure has been the beneficent results attained in extending

the free distribution of mails to the residents of rural districts have

justified the wisdom of the outlay. Statistics brought down to the 1st

of October, 1904, show that on that date there were 27,138 rural routes

established, serving approximately 12,000,000 of people in rural

districts remote from post-offices, and that there were pending at that

time 3,859 petitions for the establishment of new rural routes.

Unquestionably some part of the general increase in receipts is due to

the increased postal facilities which the rural service has afforded.

The revenues have also been aided greatly by amendments in the

classification of mail matter, and the curtailment of abuses of the

second-class mailing privilege. The average increase in the volume of

mail matter for the period beginning with 1902 and ending June, 1905

(that portion for 1905 being estimated), is 40.47 per cent, as compared

with 25.46 per cent for the period immediately preceding, and 15.92 for

the four-year period immediately preceding that.

Our consular system needs improvement. Salaries should be substituted

for fees, and the proper classification, grading, and transfer of

consular officers should be provided. I am not prepared to say that a

competitive system of examinations for appointment would work well; but

by law it should be provided that consuls should be familiar, according

to places for which they apply, with the French, German, or Spanish

languages, and should possess acquaintance with the resources of the

United States.

The collection of objects of art contemplated in section 5586 of the

Revised Statutes should be designated and established as a National

Gallery of Art; and the Smithsonian Institution should be authorized to

accept any additions to said collection that may be received by gift,

bequest, or devise.

It is desirable to enact a proper National quarantine law. It is most

undesirable that a State should on its own initiative enforce

quarantine regulations which are in effect a restriction upon

interstate and international commerce. The question should properly be

assumed by the Government alone. The Surgeon-General of the National

Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service has repeatedly and

convincingly set forth the need for such legislation.

I call your attention to the great extravagance in printing and binding

Government publications, and especially to the fact that altogether too

many of these publications are printed. There is a constant tendency to

increase their number and their volume. It is an understatement to say

that no appreciable harm would be caused by, and substantial benefit

would accrue from, decreasing the amount of printing now done by at

least one-half. Probably the great majority of the Government reports

and the like now printed are never read at all, and furthermore the

printing of much of the material contained in many of the remaining

ones serves no useful purpose whatever.

The attention of the Congress should be especially given to the

currency question, and that the standing committees on the matter in

the two Houses charged with the duty, take up the matter of our

currency and see whether it is not possible to secure an agreement in

the business world for bettering the system; the committees should

consider the question of the retirement of the greenbacks and the

problem of securing in our currency such elasticity as is consistent

with safety. Every silver dollar should be made by law redeemable in

gold at the option of the holder.

I especially commend to your immediate attention the encouragement of

our merchant marine by appropriate legislation.

The growing importance of the Orient as a field for American exports

drew from my predecessor, President McKinley, an urgent request for its

special consideration by the Congress. In his message of 1898 he

stated:

"In this relation, as showing the peculiar volume and value of our

trade with China and the peculiarly favorable conditions which exist

for their expansion in the normal course of trade, I refer to the

communication addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives

by the Secretary of the Treasury on the 14th of last June, with its

accompanying letter of the Secretary of State, recommending an

appropriation for a commission to study the industrial and commercial

conditions in the Chinese Empire and to report as to the opportunities

for and the obstacles to the enlargement of markets in China for the

raw products and manufactures of the United States. Action was not

taken thereon during the last session. I cordially urge that the

recommendation receive at your hands the consideration which its

importance and timeliness merit."

In his annual message of 1889 he again called attention to this

recommendation, quoting it, and stated further:

"I now renew this recommendation, as the importance of the subject has

steadily grown since it was first submitted to you, and no time should

be lost in studying for ourselves the resources of this great field for

American trade and enterprise."

The importance of securing proper information and data with a view to

the enlargement of our trade with Asia is undiminished. Our consular

representatives in China have strongly urged a place for permanent

display of American products in some prominent trade center of that

Empire, under Government control and management, as an effective means

of advancing our export trade therein. I call the attention of the

Congress to the desirability of carrying out these suggestions.

In dealing with the questions of immigration and naturalization it is

indispensable to keep certain facts ever before the minds of those who

share in enacting the laws. First and foremost, let us remember that

the question of being a good American has nothing whatever to do with a

man's birthplace any more than it has to do with his creed. In every

generation from the time this Government was founded men of foreign

birth have stood in the very foremost rank of good citizenship, and

that not merely in one but in every field of American activity; while

to try to draw a distinction between the man whose parents came to this

country and the man whose ancestors came to it several generations back

is a mere absurdity. Good Americanism is a matter of heart, of

conscience, of lofty aspiration, of sound common sense, but not of

birthplace or of creed. The medal of honor, the highest prize to be won

by those who serve in the Army and the Navy of the United States

decorates men born here, and it also decorates men born in Great

Britain and Ireland, in Germany, in Scandinavia, in France, and

doubtless in other countries also. In the field of statesmanship, in

the field of business, in the field of philanthropic endeavor, it is

equally true that among the men of whom we are most proud as Americans

no distinction whatever can be drawn between those who themselves or

whose parents came over in sailing ship or steamer from across the

water and those whose ancestors stepped ashore into the wooded

wilderness at Plymouth or at the mouth of the Hudson, the Delaware, or

the James nearly three centuries ago. No fellow-citizen of ours is

entitled to any peculiar regard because of the way in which he worships

his Maker, or because of the birthplace of himself or his parents, nor

should he be in any way discriminated against therefor. Each must stand

on his worth as a man and each is entitled to be judged solely thereby.

There is no danger of having too many immigrants of the right kind. It

makes no difference from what country they come. If they are sound in

body and in mind, and, above all, if they are of good character, so

that we can rest assured that their children and grandchildren will be

worthy fellow-citizens of our children and grandchildren, then we

should welcome them with cordial hospitality.

But the citizenship of this country should not be debased. It is vital

that we should keep high the standard of well-being among our

wage-workers, and therefore we should not admit masses of men whose

standards of living and whose personal customs and habits are such that

they tend to lower the level of the American wage-worker; and above all

we should not admit any man of an unworthy type, any man concerning

whom we can say that he will himself be a bad citizen, or that his

children and grandchildren will detract from instead of adding to the

sum of the good citizenship of the country. Similarly we should take

the greatest care about naturalization. Fraudulent naturalization, the

naturalization of improper persons, is a curse to our Government; and

it is the affair of every honest voter, wherever born, to see that no

fraudulent voting is allowed, that no fraud in connection with

naturalization is permitted.

In the past year the cases of false, fraudulent, and improper

naturalization of aliens coming to the attention of the executive

branches of the Government have increased to an alarming degree.

Extensive sales of forged certificates of naturalization have been

discovered, as well as many cases of naturalization secured by perjury

and fraud; and in addition, instances have accumulated showing that

many courts issue certificates of naturalization carelessly and upon

insufficient evidence.

Under the Constitution it is in the power of the Congress "to establish

a uniform rule of naturalization," and numerous laws have from time to

time been enacted for that purpose, which have been supplemented in a

few States by State laws having special application. The Federal

statutes permit naturalization by any court of record in the United

States having common-law jurisdiction and a seal and clerk, except the

police court of the District of Columbia, and nearly all these courts

exercise this important function. It results that where so many courts

of such varying grades have jurisdiction, there is lack of uniformity

in the rules applied in conferring naturalization. Some courts are

strict and others lax. An alien who may secure naturalization in one

place might be denied it in another, and the intent of the

constitutional provision is in fact defeated. Furthermore, the

certificates of naturalization issued by the courts differ widely in

wording and appearance, and when they are brought into use in foreign

countries, are frequently subject to suspicion.

There should be a comprehensive revision of the naturalization laws.

The courts having power to naturalize should be definitely named by

national authority; the testimony upon which naturalization may be

conferred should be definitely prescribed; publication of impending

naturalization applications should be required in advance of their

hearing in court; the form and wording of all certificates issued

should be uniform throughout the country, and the courts should be

required to make returns to the Secretary of State at stated periods of

all naturalizations conferred.

Not only are the laws relating to naturalization now defective, but

those relating to citizenship of the United States ought also to be

made the subject of scientific inquiry with a view to probable further

legislation. By what acts expatriation may be assumed to have been

accomplished, how long an American citizen may reside abroad and

receive the protection of our passport, whether any degree of

protection should be extended to one who has made the declaration of

intention to become a citizen of the United States but has not secured

naturalization, are questions of serious import, involving personal

rights and often producing friction between this Government and foreign

governments. Yet upon these question our laws are silent. I recommend

that an examination be made into the subjects of citizenship,

expatriation, and protection of Americans abroad, with a view to

appropriate legislation.

The power of the Government to protect the integrity of the elections

of its own officials is inherent and has been recognized and affirmed

by repeated declarations of the Supreme Court. There is no enemy of

free government more dangerous and none so insidious as the corruption

of the electorate. No one defends or excuses corruption, and it would

seem to follow that none would oppose vigorous measures to eradicate

it. I recommend the enactment of a law directed against bribery and

corruption in Federal elections. The details of such a law may be

safely left to the wise discretion of the Congress, but it should go as

far as under the Constitution it is possible to go, and should include

severe penalties against him who gives or receives a bribe intended to

influence his act or opinion as an elector; and provisions for the

publication not only of the expenditures for nominations and elections

of all candidates but also of all contributions received and

expenditures made by political committees.

No subject is better worthy the attention of the Congress than that

portion of the report of the Attorney-General dealing with the long

delays and the great obstruction to justice experienced in the cases of

Beavers, Green and Gaynor, and Benson. Were these isolated and special

cases, I should not call your attention to them; but the difficulties

encountered as regards these men who have been indicted for criminal

practices are not exceptional; they are precisely similar in kind to

what occurs again and again in the case of criminals who have

sufficient means to enable them to take advantage of a system of

procedure which has grown up in the Federal courts and which amounts in

effect to making the law easy of enforcement against the man who has no

money, and difficult of enforcement, even to the point of sometimes

securing immunity, as regards the man who has money. In criminal cases

the writ of the United States should run throughout its borders. The

wheels of justice should not be clogged, as they have been clogged in

the cases above mentioned, where it has proved absolutely impossible to

bring the accused to the place appointed by the Constitution for his

trial. Of recent years there has been grave and increasing complaint of

the difficulty of bringing to justice those criminals whose

criminality, instead of being against one person in the Republic, is

against all persons in the Republic, because it is against the Republic

itself. Under any circumstance and from the very nature of the case it

is often exceedingly difficult to secure proper punishment of those who

have been guilty of wrongdoing against the Government. By the time the

offender can be brought into court the popular wrath against him has

generally subsided; and there is in most instances very slight danger

indeed of any prejudice existing in the minds of the jury against him.

At present the interests of the innocent man are amply safeguarded; but

the interests of the Government, that is, the interests of honest

administration, that is the interests of the people, are not recognized

as they should be. No subject better warrants the attention of the

Congress. Indeed, no subject better warrants the attention of the bench

and the bar throughout the United States.

Alaska, like all our Territorial acquisitions, has proved resourceful

beyond the expectations of those who made the purchase. It has become

the home of many hardy, industrious, and thrifty American citizens.

Towns of a permanent character have been built. The extent of its

wealth in minerals, timber, fisheries, and agriculture, while great, is

probably not comprehended yet in any just measure by our people. We do

know, however, that from a very small beginning its products have grown

until they are a steady and material contribution to the wealth of the

nation. Owing to the immensity of Alaska and its location in the far

north, it is a difficult matter to provide many things essential to its

growth and to the happiness and comfort of its people by private

enterprise alone. It should, therefore, receive reasonable aid from the

Government. The Government has already done excellent work for Alaska

in laying cables and building telegraph lines. This work has been done

in the most economical and efficient way by the Signal Corps of the

Army.

In some respects it has outgrown its present laws, while in others

those laws have been found to be inadequate. In order to obtain

information upon which I could rely I caused an official of the

Department of Justice, in whose judgment I have confidence, to visit

Alaska during the past summer for the purpose of ascertaining how

government is administered there and what legislation is actually

needed at present. A statement of the conditions found to exist,

together with some recommendations and the reasons therefor, in which I

strongly concur, will be found in the annual report of the

Attorney-General. In some instances I feel that the legislation

suggested is so imperatively needed that I am moved briefly to

emphasize the Attorney-General's proposals.

Under the Code of Alaska as it now stands many purely administrative

powers and duties, including by far the most important, devolve upon

the district judges or upon the clerks of the district court acting

under the direction of the judges, while the governor, upon whom these

powers and duties should logically fall, has nothing specific to do

except to make annual reports, issue Thanksgiving Day proclamations,

and appoint Indian policemen and notaries public. I believe it

essential to good government in Alaska, and therefore recommend, that

the Congress divest the district judges and the clerks of their courts

of the administrative or executive functions that they now exercise and

cast them upon the governor. This would not be an innovation; it would

simply conform the government of Alaska to fundamental principles,

making the governorship a real instead of a merely nominal office, and

leaving the judges free to give their entire attention to their

judicial duties and at the same time removing them from a great deal of

the strife that now embarrasses the judicial office in Alaska.

I also recommend that the salaries of the district judges and district

attorneys in Alaska be increased so as to make them equal to those

received by corresponding officers in the United States after deducting

the difference in the cost of living; that the district attorneys

should be prohibited from engaging in private practice; that United

States commissioners be appointed by the governor of the Territory

instead of by the district judges, and that a fixed salary be provided

for them to take the place of the discredited "fee system," which

should be abolished in all offices; that a mounted constabulary be

created to police the territory outside the limits of incorporated

towns--a vast section now wholly without police protection; and that

some provision be made to at least lessen the oppressive delays and

costs that now attend the prosecution of appeals from the district

court of Alaska. There should be a division of the existing judicial

districts, and an increase in the number of judges.

Alaska should have a Delegate in the Congress. Where possible, the

Congress should aid in the construction of needed wagon roads.

Additional light-houses should be provided. In my judgment, it is

especially important to aid in such manner as seems just and feasible

in the construction of a trunk line of railway to connect the Gulf of

Alaska with the Yukon River through American territory. This would be

most beneficial to the development of the resources of the Territory,

and to the comfort and welfare of its people.

Salmon hatcheries should be established in many different streams, so

as to secure the preservation of this valuable food fish. Salmon

fisheries and canneries should be prohibited on certain of the rivers

where the mass of those Indians dwell who live almost exclusively on

fish.

The Alaskan natives are kindly, intelligent, anxious to learn, and

willing to work. Those who have come under the influence of

civilization, even for a limited period, have proved their capability

of becoming self-supporting, self-respecting citizens, and ask only for

the just enforcement of law and intelligent instruction and

supervision. Others, living in more remote regions, primitive, simple

hunters and fisher folk, who know only the life of the woods and the

waters, are daily being confronted with twentieth-century civilization

with all of its complexities. Their country is being overrun by

strangers, the game slaughtered and driven away, the streams depleted

of fish, and hitherto unknown and fatal diseases brought to them, all

of which combine to produce a state of abject poverty and want which

must result in their extinction. Action in their interest is demanded

by every consideration of justice and humanity.

The needs of these people are:

The abolition of the present fee system, whereby the native is

degraded, imposed upon, and taught the injustice of law.

The establishment of hospitals at central points, so that contagious

diseases that are brought to them continually by incoming whites may be

localized and not allowed to become epidemic, to spread death and

destitution over great areas.

The development of the educational system in the form of practical

training in such industries as will assure the Indians self-support

under the changed conditions in which they will have to live.

The duties of the office of the governor should be extended to include

the supervision of Indian affairs, with necessary assistants in

different districts. He should be provided with the means and the power

to protect and advise the native people, to furnish medical treatment

in time of epidemics, and to extend material relief in periods of

famine and extreme destitution.

The Alaskan natives should be given the right to acquire, hold, and

dispose of property upon the same conditions as given other

inhabitants; and the privilege of citizenship should be given to such

as may be able to meet certain definite requirements. In Hawaii

Congress should give the governor power to remove all the officials

appointed under him. The harbor of Honolulu should be dredged. The

Marine-Hospital Service should be empowered to study leprosy in the

islands. I ask special consideration for the report and recommendation

of the governor of Porto Rico.

In treating of our foreign policy and of the attitude that this great

Nation should assume in the world at large, it is absolutely necessary

to consider the Army and the Navy, and the Congress, through which the

thought of the Nation finds its expression, should keep ever vividly in

mind the fundamental fact that it is impossible to treat our foreign

policy, whether this policy takes shape in the effort to secure justice

for others or justice for ourselves, save as conditioned upon the

attitude we are willing to take toward our Army, and especially toward

our Navy. It is not merely unwise, it is contemptible, for a nation, as

for an individual, to use high-sounding language to proclaim its

purposes, or to take positions which are ridiculous if unsupported by

potential force, and then to refuse to provide this force. If there is

no intention of providing and of keeping the force necessary to back up

a strong attitude, then it is far better not to assume such an

attitude.

The steady aim of this Nation, as of all enlightened nations, should be

to strive to bring ever nearer the day when there shall prevail

throughout the world the peace of justice. There are kinds of peace

which are highly undesirable, which are in the long run as destructive

as any war. Tyrants and oppressors have many times made a wilderness

and called it peace. Many times peoples who were slothful or timid or

shortsighted, who had been enervated by ease or by luxury, or misled by

false teachings, have shrunk in unmanly fashion from doing duty that

was stern and that needed self-sacrifice, and have sought to hide from

their own minds their shortcomings, their ignoble motives, by calling

them love of peace. The peace of tyrannous terror, the peace of craven

weakness, the peace of injustice, all these should be shunned as we

shun unrighteous war. The goal to set before us as a nation, the goal

which should be set before all mankind, is the attainment of the peace

of justice, of the peace which comes when each nation is not merely

safe-guarded in its own rights, but scrupulously recognizes and

performs its duty toward others. Generally peace tells for

righteousness; but if there is conflict between the two, then our

fealty is due-first to the cause of righteousness. Unrighteous wars are

common, and unrighteous peace is rare; but both should be shunned. The

right of freedom and the responsibility for the exercise of that right

can not be divorced. One of our great poets has well and finely said

that freedom is not a gift that tarries long in the hands of cowards.

Neither does it tarry long in the hands of those too slothful, too

dishonest, or too unintelligent to exercise it. The eternal vigilance

which is the price of liberty must be exercised, sometimes to guard

against outside foes; although of course far more often to guard

against our own selfish or thoughtless shortcomings.

If these self-evident truths are kept before us, and only if they are

so kept before us, we shall have a clear idea of what our foreign

policy in its larger aspects should be. It is our duty to remember that

a nation has no more right to do injustice to another nation, strong or

weak, than an individual has to do injustice to another individual;

that the same moral law applies in one case as in the other. But we

must also remember that it is as much the duty of the Nation to guard

its own rights and its own interests as it is the duty of the

individual so to do. Within the Nation the individual has now delegated

this right to the State, that is, to the representative of all the

individuals, and it is a maxim of the law that for every wrong there is

a remedy. But in international law we have not advanced by any means as

far as we have advanced in municipal law. There is as yet no judicial

way of enforcing a right in international law. When one nation wrongs

another or wrongs many others, there is no tribunal before which the

wrongdoer can be brought. Either it is necessary supinely to acquiesce

in the wrong, and thus put a premium upon brutality and aggression, or

else it is necessary for the aggrieved nation valiantly to stand up for

its rights. Until some method is devised by which there shall be a

degree of international control over offending nations, it would be a

wicked thing for the most civilized powers, for those with most sense

of international obligations and with keenest and most generous

appreciation of the difference between right and wrong, to disarm. If

the great civilized nations of the present day should completely

disarm, the result would mean an immediate recrudescence of barbarism

in one form or another. Under any circumstances a sufficient armament

would have to be kept up to serve the purposes of international police;

and until international cohesion and the sense of international duties

and rights are far more advanced than at present, a nation desirous

both of securing respect for itself and of doing good to others must

have a force adequate for the work which it feels is allotted to it as

its part of the general world duty. Therefore it follows that a

self-respecting, just, and far-seeing nation should on the one hand

endeavor by every means to aid in the development of the various

movements which tend to provide substitutes for war, which tend to

render nations in their actions toward one another, and indeed toward

their own peoples, more responsive to the general sentiment of humane

and civilized mankind; and on the other hand that it should keep

prepared, while scrupulously avoiding wrongdoing itself, to repel any

wrong, and in exceptional cases to take action which in a more advanced

stage of international relations would come under the head of the

exercise of the international police. A great free people owes it to

itself and to all mankind not to sink into helplessness before the

powers of evil.

We are in every way endeavoring to help on, with cordial good will,

every movement which will tend to bring us into more friendly relations

with the rest of mankind. In pursuance of this policy I shall shortly

lay before the Senate treaties of arbitration with all powers which are

willing to enter into these treaties with us. It is not possible at

this period of the world's development to agree to arbitrate all

matters, but there are many matters of possible difference between us

and other nations which can be thus arbitrated. Furthermore, at the

request of the Interparliamentary Union, an eminent body composed of

practical statesmen from all countries, I have asked the Powers to join

with this Government in a second Hague conference, at which it is hoped

that the work already so happily begun at The Hague may be carried some

steps further toward completion. This carries out the desire expressed

by the first Hague conference itself.

It is not true that the United States feels any land hunger or

entertains any projects as regards the other nations of the Western

Hemisphere save such as are for their welfare. All that this country

desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and

prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count

upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act

with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters,

if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no

interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an

impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized

society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention

by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence

of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United

States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or

impotence, to the exercise of an international police power. If every

country washed by the Caribbean Sea would show the progress in stable

and just civilization which with the aid of the Platt amendment Cuba

has shown since our troops left the island, and which so many of the

republics in both Americas are constantly and brilliantly showing, all

question of interference by this Nation with their affairs would be at

an end. Our interests and those of our southern neighbors are in

reality identical. They have great natural riches, and if within their

borders the reign of law and justice obtains, prosperity is sure to

come to them. While they thus obey the primary laws of civilized

society they may rest assured that they will be treated by us in a

spirit of cordial and helpful sympathy. We would interfere with them

only in the last resort, and then only if it became evident that their

inability or unwillingness to do justice at home and abroad had

violated the rights of the United States or had invited foreign

aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations. It

is a mere truism to say that every nation, whether in America or

anywhere else, which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence,

must ultimately realize that the right of such independence can not be

separated from the responsibility of making good use of it.

In asserting the Monroe Doctrine, in taking such steps as we have taken

in regard to Cuba, Venezuela, and Panama, and in endeavoring to

circumscribe the theater of war in the Far East, and to secure the open

door in China, we have acted in our own interest as well as in the

interest of humanity at large. There are, however, cases in which,

while our own interests are not greatly involved, strong appeal is made

to our sympathies. Ordinarily it is very much wiser and more useful for

us to concern ourselves with striving for our own moral and material

betterment here at home than to concern ourselves with trying to better

the condition of things in other nations. We have plenty of sins of our

own to war against, and under ordinary circumstances we can do more for

the general uplifting of humanity by striving with heart and soul to

put a stop to civic corruption, to brutal lawlessness and violent race

prejudices here at home than by passing resolutions about wrongdoing

elsewhere. Nevertheless there are occasional crimes committed on so

vast a scale and of such peculiar horror as to make us doubt whether it

is not our manifest duty to endeavor at least to show our disapproval

of the deed and our sympathy with those who have suffered by it. The

cases must be extreme in which such a course is justifiable. There must

be no effort made to remove the mote from our brother's eye if we

refuse to remove the beam from our own. But in extreme cases action may

be justifiable and proper. What form the action shall take must depend

upon the circumstances of the case; that is, upon the degree of the

atrocity and upon our power to remedy it. The cases in which we could

interfere by force of arms as we interfered to put a stop to

intolerable conditions in Cuba are necessarily very few. Yet it is not

to be expected that a people like ours, which in spite of certain very

obvious shortcomings, nevertheless as a whole shows by its consistent

practice its belief in the principles of civil and religious liberty

and of orderly freedom, a people among whom even the worst crime, like

the crime of lynching, is never more than sporadic, so that individuals

and not classes are molested in their fundamental rights--it is

inevitable that such a nation should desire eagerly to give expression

to its horror on an occasion like that of the massacre of the Jews in

Kishenef, or when it witnesses such systematic and long-extended

cruelty and oppression as the cruelty and oppression of which the

Armenians have been the victims, and which have won for them the

indignant pity of the civilized world.

Even where it is not possible to secure in other nations the observance

of the principles which we accept as axiomatic, it is necessary for us

firmly to insist upon the rights of our own citizens without regard to

their creed or race; without regard to whether they were born here or

born abroad. It has proved very difficult to secure from Russia the

right for our Jewish fellow-citizens to receive passports and travel

through Russian territory. Such conduct is not only unjust and

irritating toward us, but it is difficult to see its wisdom from

Russia's standpoint. No conceivable good is accomplished by it. If an

American Jew or an American Christian misbehaves himself in Russia he

can at once be driven out; but the ordinary American Jew, like the

ordinary American Christian, would behave just about as he behaves

here, that is, behave as any good citizen ought to behave; and where

this is the case it is a wrong against which we are entitled to protest

to refuse him his passport without regard to his conduct and character,

merely on racial and religious grounds. In Turkey our difficulties

arise less from the way in which our citizens are sometimes treated

than from the indignation inevitably excited in seeing such fearful

misrule as has been witnessed both in Armenia and Macedonia.

The strong arm of the Government in enforcing respect for its just

rights in international matters is the Navy of the United States. I

most earnestly recommend that there be no halt in the work of

upbuilding the American Navy. There is no more patriotic duty before us

a people than to keep the Navy adequate to the needs of this country's

position. We have undertaken to build the Isthmian Canal. We have

undertaken to secure for ourselves our just share in the trade of the

Orient. We have undertaken to protect our citizens from proper

treatment in foreign lands. We continue steadily to insist on the

application of the Monroe Doctrine to the Western Hemisphere. Unless

our attitude in these and all similar matters is to be a mere boastful

sham we can not afford to abandon our naval programme. Our voice is now

potent for peace, and is so potent because we are not afraid of war.

But our protestations upon behalf of peace would neither receive nor

deserve the slightest attention if we were impotent to make them good.

The war which now unfortunately rages in the far East has emphasized in

striking fashion the new possibilities of naval warfare. The lessons

taught are both strategic and tactical, and are political as well as

military. The experiences of the war have shown in conclusive fashion

that while sea-going and sea-keeping torpedo destroyers are

indispensable, and fast lightly armed and armored cruisers very useful,

yet that the main reliance, the main standby, in any navy worthy the

name must be the great battle ships, heavily armored and heavily

gunned. Not a Russian or Japanese battle ship has been sunk by a

torpedo boat, or by gunfire, while among the less protected ships,

cruiser after cruiser has been destroyed whenever the hostile squadrons

have gotten within range of one another's weapons. There will always be

a large field of usefulness for cruisers, especially of the more

formidable type. We need to increase the number of torpedo-boat

destroyers, paying less heed to their having a knot or two extra speed

than to their capacity to keep the seas for weeks, and, if necessary,

for months at a time. It is wise to build submarine torpedo boats, as

under certain circumstances they might be very useful. But most of all

we need to continue building our fleet of battle ships, or ships so

powerfully armed that they can inflict the maximum of damage upon our

opponents, and so well protected that they can suffer a severe

hammering in return without fatal impairment of their ability to fight

and maneuver. Of course ample means must be provided for enabling the

personnel of the Navy to be brought to the highest point of efficiency.

Our great fighting ships and torpedo boats must be ceaselessly trained

and maneuvered in squadrons. The officers and men can only learn their

trade thoroughly by ceaseless practice on the high seas. In the event

of war it would be far better to have no ships at all than to have

ships of a poor and ineffective type, or ships which, however good,

were yet manned by untrained and unskillful crews. The best officers

and men in a poor ship could do nothing against fairly good opponents;

and on the other hand a modern war ship is useless unless the officers

and men aboard her have become adepts in their duties. The marksmanship

in our Navy has improved in an extraordinary degree during the last

three years, and on the whole the types of our battleships are

improving; but much remains to be done. Sooner or later we shall have

to provide for some method by which there will be promotions for merit

as well as for seniority, or else retirement all those who after a

certain age have not advanced beyond a certain grade; while no effort

must be spared to make the service attractive to the enlisted men in

order that they may be kept as long as possible in it. Reservation

public schools should be provided wherever there are navy-yards.

Within the last three years the United States has set an example in

disarmament where disarmament was proper. By law our Army is fixed at a

maximum of one hundred thousand and a minimum of sixty thousand men.

When there was insurrection in the Philippines we kept the Army at the

maximum. Peace came in the Philippines, and now our Army has been

reduced to the minimum at which it is possible to keep it with due

regard to its efficiency. The guns now mounted require twenty-eight

thousand men, if the coast fortifications are to be adequately manned.

Relatively to the Nation, it is not now so large as the police force of

New York or Chicago relatively to the population of either city. We

need more officers; there are not enough to perform the regular army

work. It is very important that the officers of the Army should be

accustomed to handle their men in masses, as it is also important that

the National Guard of the several States should be accustomed to actual

field maneuvering, especially in connection with the regulars. For this

reason we are to be congratulated upon the success of the field

maneuvers at Manassas last fall, maneuvers in which a larger number of

Regulars and National Guard took part than was ever before assembled

together in time of peace. No other civilized nation has, relatively to

its population, such a diminutive Army as ours; and while the Army is

so small we are not to be excused if we fail to keep it at a very high

grade of proficiency. It must be incessantly practiced; the standard

for the enlisted men should be kept very high, while at the same time

the service should be made as attractive as possible; and the standard

for the officers should be kept even higher--which, as regards the

upper ranks, can best be done by introducing some system of selection

and rejection into the promotions. We should be able, in the event of

some sudden emergency, to put into the field one first-class army

corps, which should be, as a whole, at least the equal of any body of

troops of like number belonging to any other nation.

Great progress has been made in protecting our coasts by adequate

fortifications with sufficient guns. We should, however, pay much more

heed than at present to the development of an extensive system of

floating mines for use in all our more important harbors. These mines

have been proved to be a most formidable safeguard against hostile

fleets.

I earnestly call the attention of the Congress to the need of amending

the existing law relating to the award of Congressional medals of honor

in the Navy so as to provide that they may be awarded to commissioned

officers and warrant officers as well as to enlisted men. These justly

prized medals are given in the Army alike to the officers and the

enlisted men, and it is most unjust that the commissioned officers and

warrant officers of the Navy should not in this respect have the same

rights as their brethren in the Army and as the enlisted men of the

Navy.

In the Philippine Islands there has been during the past year a

continuation of the steady progress which has obtained ever since our

troops definitely got the upper hand of the insurgents. The Philippine

people, or, to speak more accurately, the many tribes, and even races,

sundered from one another more or less sharply, who go to make up the

people of the Philippine Islands, contain many elements of good, and

some elements which we have a right to hope stand for progress. At

present they are utterly incapable of existing in independence at all

or of building up a civilization of their own. I firmly believe that we

can help them to rise higher and higher in the scale of civilization

and of capacity for self-government, and I most earnestly hope that in

the end they will be able to stand, if not entirely alone, yet in some

such relation to the United States as Cuba now stands. This end is not

yet in sight, and it may be indefinitely postponed if our people are

foolish enough to turn the attention of the Filipinos away from the

problems of achieving moral and material prosperity, of working for a

stable, orderly, and just government, and toward foolish and dangerous

intrigues for a complete independence for which they are as yet totally

unfit.

On the other hand our people must keep steadily before their minds the

fact that the justification for our stay in the Philippines must

ultimately rest chiefly upon the good we are able to do in the islands.

I do not overlook the fact that in the development of our interests in

the Pacific Ocean and along its coasts, the Philippines have played and

will play an important part; and that our interests have been served in

more than one way by the possession of the islands. But our chief

reason for continuing to hold them must be that we ought in good faith

to try to do our share of the world's work, and this particular piece

of work has been imposed upon us by the results of the war with Spain.

The problem presented to us in the Philippine Islands is akin to, but

not exactly like, the problems presented to the other great civilized

powers which have possessions in the Orient. There are points of

resemblance in our work to the work which is being done by the British

in India and Egypt, by the French in Algiers, by the Dutch in Java, by

the Russians in Turkestan, by the Japanese in Formosa; but more

distinctly than any of these powers we are endeavoring to develop the

natives themselves so that they shall take an ever-increasing share in

their own government, and as far as is prudent we are already admitting

their representatives to a governmental equality with our own. There

are commissioners, judges, and governors in the islands who are

Filipinos and who have exactly the same share in the government of the

islands as have their colleagues who are Americans, while in the lower

ranks, of course, the great majority of the public servants are

Filipinos. Within two years we shall be trying the experiment of an

elective lower house in the Philippine legislature. It may be that the

Filipinos will misuse this legislature, and they certainly will misuse

it if they are misled by foolish persons here at home into starting an

agitation for their own independence or into any factious or improper

action. In such case they will do themselves no good and will stop for

the time being all further effort to advance them and give them a

greater share in their own government. But if they act with wisdom and

self-restraint, if they show that they are capable of electing a

legislature which in its turn is capable of taking a sane and efficient

part in the actual work of government, they can rest assured that a

full and increasing measure of recognition will be given them. Above

all they should remember that their prime needs are moral and

industrial, not political. It is a good thing to try the experiment of

giving them a legislature; but it is a far better thing to give them

schools, good roads, railroads which will enable them to get their

products to market, honest courts, an honest and efficient

constabulary, and all that tends to produce order, peace, fair dealing

as between man and man, and habits of intelligent industry and thrift.

If they are safeguarded against oppression, and if their real wants,

material and spiritual, are studied intelligently and in a spirit of

friendly sympathy, much more good will be done them than by any effort

to give them political power, though this effort may in its own proper

time and place be proper enough.

Meanwhile our own people should remember that there is need for the

highest standard of conduct among the Americans sent to the Philippine

Islands, not only among the public servants but among the private

individuals who go to them. It is because I feel this so deeply that in

the administration of these islands I have positively refused to permit

any discrimination whatsoever for political reasons and have insisted

that in choosing the public servants consideration should be paid

solely to the worth of the men chosen and to the needs of the islands.

There is no higher body of men in our public service than we have in

the Philippine Islands under Governor Wright and his associates. So far

as possible these men should be given a free hand, and their

suggestions should receive the hearty backing both of the Executive and

of the Congress. There is need of a vigilant and disinterested support

of our public servants in the Philippines by good citizens here in the

United States. Unfortunately hitherto those of our people here at home

who have specially claimed to be the champions of the Filipinos have in

reality been their worst enemies. This will continue to be the case as

long as they strive to make the Filipinos independent, and stop all

industrial development of the islands by crying out against the laws

which would bring it on the ground that capitalists must not "exploit"

the islands. Such proceedings are not only unwise, but are most harmful

to the Filipinos, who do not need independence at all, but who do need

good laws, good public servants, and the industrial development that

can only come if the investment, of American and foreign capital in the

islands is favored in all legitimate ways.

Every measure taken concerning the islands should be taken primarily

with a view to their advantage. We should certainly give them lower

tariff rates on their exports to the United States; if this is not done

it will be a wrong to extend our shipping laws to them. I earnestly

hope for the immediate enactment into law of the legislation now

pending to encourage American capital to seek investment in the islands

in railroads, in factories, in plantations, and in lumbering and

mining.

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