My
Fellow-Citizens:
Anyone
who has taken the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy
weight of responsibility. If not, he has no conception of
the powers and duties of the office upon which he is about
to enter, or he is lacking in a proper sense of the
obligation which the oath imposes.
The
office of an inaugural address is to give a summary
outline of the main policies of the new administration, so
far as they can be anticipated. I have had the honor to be
one of the advisers of my distinguished predecessor, and,
as such, to hold up his hands in the reforms he has
initiated. I should be untrue to myself, to my promises,
and to the declarations of the party platform upon which I
was elected to office, if I did not make the maintenance
and enforcement of those reforms a most important feature
of my administration. They were directed to the
suppression of the lawlessness and abuses of power of the
great combinations of capital invested in railroads and in
industrial enterprises carrying on interstate commerce.
The steps which my predecessor took and the legislation
passed on his recommendation have accomplished much, have
caused a general halt in the vicious policies which
created popular alarm, and have brought about in the
business affected a much higher regard for existing law.
To
render the reforms lasting, however, and to secure at the
same time freedom from alarm on the part of those pursuing
proper and progressive business methods, further
legislative and executive action are needed. Relief of the
railroads from certain restrictions of the antitrust law
have been urged by my predecessor and will be urged by me.
On the other hand, the administration is pledged to
legislation looking to a proper federal supervision and
restriction to prevent excessive issues of bonds and stock
by companies owning and operating interstate commerce
railroads.
Then,
too, a reorganization of the Department of Justice, of the
Bureau of Corporations in the Department of Commerce and
Labor, and of the Interstate Commerce Commission, looking
to effective cooperation of these agencies, is needed to
secure a more rapid and certain enforcement of the laws
affecting interstate railroads and industrial
combinations.
I
hope to be able to submit at the first regular session of
the incoming Congress, in December next, definite
suggestions in respect to the needed amendments to the
antitrust and the interstate commerce law and the changes
required in the executive departments concerned in their
enforcement.
It
is believed that with the changes to be recommended
American business can be assured of that measure of
stability and certainty in respect to those things that
may be done and those that are prohibited which is
essential to the life and growth of all business. Such a
plan must include the right of the people to avail
themselves of those methods of combining capital and
effort deemed necessary to reach the highest degree of
economic efficiency, at the same time differentiating
between combinations based upon legitimate economic
reasons and those formed with the intent of creating
monopolies and artificially controlling prices.
The
work of formulating into practical shape such changes is
creative word of the highest order, and requires all the
deliberation possible in the interval. I believe that the
amendments to be proposed are just as necessary in the
protection of legitimate business as in the clinching of
the reforms which properly bear the name of my
predecessor.
A
matter of most pressing importance is the revision of the
tariff. In accordance with the promises of the platform
upon which I was elected, I shall call Congress into extra
session to meet on the 15th day of March, in order that
consideration may be at once given to a bill revising the
Dingley Act. This should secure an adequate revenue and
adjust the duties in such a manner as to afford to labor
and to all industries in this country, whether of the
farm, mine or factory, protection by tariff equal to the
difference between the cost of production abroad and the
cost of production here, and have a provision which shall
put into force, upon executive determination of certain
facts, a higher or maximum tariff against those countries
whose trade policy toward us equitably requires such
discrimination. It is thought that there has been such a
change in conditions since the enactment of the Dingley
Act, drafted on a similarly protective principle, that the
measure of the tariff above stated will permit the
reduction of rates in certain schedules and will require
the advancement of few, if any.
The
proposal to revise the tariff made in such an
authoritative way as to lead the business community to
count upon it necessarily halts all those branches of
business directly affected; and as these are most
important, it disturbs the whole business of the country.
It is imperatively necessary, therefore, that a tariff
bill be drawn in good faith in accordance with promises
made before the election by the party in power, and as
promptly passed as due consideration will permit. It is
not that the tariff is more important in the long run than
the perfecting of the reforms in respect to antitrust
legislation and interstate commerce regulation, but the
need for action when the revision of the tariff has been
determined upon is more immediate to avoid embarrassment
of business. To secure the needed speed in the passage of
the tariff bill, it would seem wise to attempt no other
legislation at the extra session. I venture this as a
suggestion only, for the course to be taken by Congress,
upon the call of the Executive, is wholly within its
discretion.
In
the mailing of a tariff bill the prime motive is taxation
and the securing thereby of a revenue. Due largely to the
business depression which followed the financial panic of
1907, the revenue from customs and other sources has
decreased to such an extent that the expenditures for the
current fiscal year will exceed the receipts by
$100,000,000. It is imperative that such a deficit shall
not continue, and the framers of the tariff bill must, of
course, have in mind the total revenues likely to be
produced by it and so arrange the duties as to secure an
adequate income. Should it be impossible to do so by
import duties, new kinds of taxation must be adopted, and
among these I recommend a graduated inheritance tax as
correct in principle and as certain and easy of
collection.
The
obligation on the part of those responsible for the
expenditures made to carry on the Government, to be as
economical as possible, and to make the burden of taxation
as light as possible, is plain, and should be affirmed in
every declaration of government policy. This is especially
true when we are face to face with a heavy deficit. But
when the desire to win the popular approval leads to the
cutting off of expenditures really needed to make the
Government effective and to enable it to accomplish its
proper objects, the result is as much to be condemned as
the waste of government funds in unnecessary expenditure.
The scope of a modern government in what it can and ought
to accomplish for its people has been widened far beyond
the principles laid down by the old "laissez
faire" school of political writers, and this widening
has met popular approval.
In
the Department of Agriculture the use of scientific
experiments on a large scale and the spread of information
derived from them for the improvement of general
agriculture must go on.
The
importance of supervising business of great railways and
industrial combinations and the necessary investigation
and prosecution of unlawful business methods are another
necessary tax upon Government which did not exist half a
century ago.
The
putting into force of laws which shall secure the
conservation of our resources, so far as they may be
within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government,
including the most important work of saving and restoring
our forests and the great improvement of waterways, are
all proper government functions which must involve large
expenditure if properly performed. While some of them,
like the reclamation of arid lands, are made to pay for
themselves, others are of such an indirect benefit that
this cannot be expected of them. A permanent improvement,
like the Panama Canal, should be treated as a distinct
enterprise, and should be paid for by the proceeds of
bonds, the issue of which will distribute its cost between
the present and future generations in accordance with the
benefits derived. It may well be submitted to the serious
consideration of Congress whether the deepening and
control of the channel of a great river system, like that
of the Ohio or of the Mississippi, when definite and
practical plans for the enterprise have been approved and
determined upon, should not be provided for in the same
way.
Then,
too, there are expenditures of Government absolutely
necessary if our country is to maintain its proper place
among the nations of the world, and is to exercise its
proper influence in defense of its own trade interests in
the maintenance of traditional American policy against the
colonization of European monarchies in this hemisphere,
and in the promotion of peace and international morality.
I refer to the cost of maintaining a proper army, a proper
navy, and suitable fortifications upon the mainland of the
United States and in its dependencies.
We
should have an army so organized and so officered as to be
capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the
national militia and under the provisions of a proper
national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force
sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and
to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary
in the maintenance of our traditional American policy
which bears the name of President Monroe.
Our
fortifications are yet in a state of only partial
completeness, and the number of men to man them is
insufficient. In a few years however, the usual annual
appropriations for our coast defenses, both on the
mainland and in the dependencies, will make them
sufficient to resist all direct attack, and by that time
we may hope that the men to man them will be provided as a
necessary adjunct. The distance of our shores from Europe
and Asia of course reduces the necessity for maintaining
under arms a great army, but it does not take away the
requirement of mere prudence that we should have an army
sufficiently large and so constituted as to form a nucleus
out of which a suitable force can quickly grow.
What
has been said of the army may be affirmed in even a more
emphatic way of the navy. A modern navy can not be
improvised. It must be built and in existence when the
emergency arises which calls for its use and operation. My
distinguished predecessor has in many speeches and
messages set out with great force and striking language
the necessity for maintaining a strong navy commensurate
with the coast line, the governmental resources, and the
foreign trade of our Nation; and I wish to reiterate all
the reasons which he has presented in favor of the policy
of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of
our peace with other nations, and the best means of
securing respect for the assertion of our rights, the
defense of our interests, and the exercise of our
influence in international matters.
Our
international policy is always to promote peace. We shall
enter into any war with a full consciousness of the awful
consequences that it always entails, whether successful or
not, and we, of course, shall make every effort consistent
with national honor and the highest national interest to
avoid a resort to arms. We favor every instrumentality,
like that of the Hague Tribunal and arbitration treaties
made with a view to its use in all international
controversies, in order to maintain peace and to avoid
war. But we should be blind to existing conditions and
should allow ourselves to become foolish idealists if we
did not realize that, with all the nations of the world
armed and prepared for war, we must be ourselves in a
similar condition, in order to prevent other nations from
taking advantage of us and of our inability to defend our
interests and assert our rights with a strong hand.
In
the international controversies that are likely to arise
in the Orient growing out of the question of the open door
and other issues the United States can maintain her
interests intact and can secure respect for her just
demands. She will not be able to do so, however, if it is
understood that she never intends to back up her assertion
of right and her defense of her interest by anything but
mere verbal protest and diplomatic note. For these reasons
the expenses of the army and navy and of coast defenses
should always be considered as something which the
Government must pay for, and they should not be cut off
through mere consideration of economy. Our Government is
able to afford a suitable army and a suitable navy. It may
maintain them without the slightest danger to the Republic
or the cause of free institutions, and fear of additional
taxation ought not to change a proper policy in this
regard.
The
policy of the United States in the Spanish war and since
has given it a position of influence among the nations
that it never had before, and should be constantly exerted
to securing to its bona fide citizens, whether native or
naturalized, respect for them as such in foreign
countries. We should make every effort to prevent
humiliating and degrading prohibition against any of our
citizens wishing temporarily to sojourn in foreign
countries because of race or religion.
The
admission of Asiatic immigrants who cannot be amalgamated
with our population has been made the subject either of
prohibitory clauses in our treaties and statutes or of
strict administrative regulation secured by diplomatic
negotiation. I sincerely hope that we may continue to
minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration
without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions
between self-respecting governments. Meantime we must take
every precaution to prevent, or failing that, to punish
outbursts of race feeling among our people against
foreigners of whatever nationality who have by our grant a
treaty right to pursue lawful business here and to be
protected against lawless assault or injury.
This
leads me to point out a serious defect in the present
federal jurisdiction, which ought to be remedied at once.
Having assured to other countries by treaty the protection
of our laws for such of their subjects or citizens as we
permit to come within our jurisdiction, we now leave to a
state or a city, not under the control of the Federal
Government, the duty of performing our international
obligations in this respect. By proper legislation we may,
and ought to, place in the hands of the Federal Executive
the means of enforcing the treaty rights of such aliens in
the courts of the Federal Government. It puts our
Government in a pusillanimous position to make definite
engagements to protect aliens and then to excuse the
failure to perform those engagements by an explanation
that the duty to keep them is in States or cities, not
within our control. If we would promise we must put
ourselves in a position to perform our promise. We cannot
permit the possible failure of justice, due to local
prejudice in any State or municipal government, to expose
us to the risk of a war which might be avoided if federal
jurisdiction was asserted by suitable legislation by
Congress and carried out by proper proceedings instituted
by the Executive in the courts of the National Government.
One
of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming
administration is a change of our monetary and banking
laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of
currency available for trade and to prevent the
limitations of law from operating to increase the
embarrassment of a financial panic. The monetary
commission, lately appointed, is giving full consideration
to existing conditions and to all proposed remedies, and
will doubtless suggest one that will meet the requirements
of business and of public interest.
We
may hope that the report will embody neither the narrow
dew of those who believe that the sole purpose of the new
system should be to secure a large return on banking
capital or of those who would have greater expansion of
currency with little regard to provisions for its
immediate redemption or ultimate security. There is no
subject of economic discussion so intricate and so likely
to evoke differing views and dogmatic statements as this
one. The commission, in studying the general influence of
currency on business and of business on currency, have
wisely extended their investigations in European banking
and monetary methods. The information that they have
derived from such experts as they have found abroad will
undoubtedly be found helpful in the solution of the
difficult problem they have in hand.
The
incoming Congress should promptly fulfill the promise of
the Republican platform and pass a proper postal savings
bank bill. It will not be unwise or excessive paternalism.
The promise to repay by the Government will furnish an
inducement to savings deposits which private enterprise
can not supply and at such a low rate of interest as not
to withdraw custom from existing banks. It will
substantially increase the funds available for investment
as capital in useful enterprises. It will furnish absolute
security which makes the proposed scheme of government
guaranty of deposits so alluring, without its pernicious
results.
I
sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive,
as it should be, to the importance of our foreign trade
and of encouraging it in every way feasible. The
possibility of increasing this trade in the Orient, in the
Philippines, and in South America are known to everyone
who has given the matter attention. The direct effect of
free trade between this country and the Philippines will
be marked upon our sales of cottons, agricultural
machinery, and other manufactures. The necessity of the
establishment of direct lines of steamers between North
and South America has been brought to the attention of
Congress by my predecessor and by Mr. Root before and
after his noteworthy visit to that continent, and I
sincerely hope that Congress may be induced to see the
wisdom of a tentative effort to establish such lines by
the use of mail subsidies.
The
importance of the part which the Departments of
Agriculture and of Commerce and Labor may play in ridding
the markets of Europe of prohibitions and discriminations
against the importation of our products is fully
understood, and it is hoped that the use of the maximum
and minimum feature of our tariff law to be soon passed
will be effective to remove many of those restrictions.
The
Panama Canal will have a most important bearing upon the
trade between the eastern and far western sections of our
country, and will greatly increase the facilities for
transportation between the eastern and the western
seaboard, and may possibly revolutionize the
transcontinental rates with respect to bulky merchandise.
It will also have a most beneficial effect to increase the
trade between the eastern seaboard of the United States
and the western coast of South America, and, indeed, with
some of the important ports on the east coast of South
America reached by rail from the west coast.
The
work on the canal is making most satisfactory progress.
The type of the canal as a lock canal was fixed by
Congress after a full consideration of the conflicting
reports of the majority and minority of the consulting
board, and after the recommendation of the War Department
and the Executive upon those reports. Recent suggestion
that something had occurred on the Isthmus to make the
lock type of the canal less feasible than it was supposed
to be when the reports were made and the policy determined
on led to a visit to the Isthmus of a board of competent
engineers to examine the Gatun dam and locks, which are
the key of the lock type. The report of that board shows
nothing has occurred in the nature of newly revealed
evidence which should change the views once formed in the
original discussion. The construction will go on under a
most effective organization controlled by Colonel Goethals
and his fellow army engineers associated with him, and
will certainly be completed early in the next
administration, if not before.
Some
type of canal must be constructed. The lock type has been
selected. We are all in favor of having it built as
promptly as possible. We must not now, therefore, keep up
a fire in the rear of the agents whom we have authorized
to do our work on the Isthmus. We must hold up their
hands, and speaking for the incoming administration I wish
to say that I propose to devote all the energy possible
and under my control to pushing of this work on the plans
which have been adopted, and to stand behind the men who
are doing faithful, hard work to bring about the early
completion of this, the greatest constructive enterprise
of modern times.
The
governments of our dependencies in Porto Rico and the
Philippines are progressing as favorably as could be
desired. The prosperity of Porto Rico continues unabated.
The business conditions in the Philippines are not all
that we could wish them to be, but with the passage of the
new tariff bill permitting free trade between the United
States and the archipelago, with such limitations on sugar
and tobacco as shall prevent injury to domestic interests
in those products, we can count on an improvement in
business conditions in the Philippines and the development
of a mutually profitable trade between this country and
the islands. Meantime our Government in each dependency is
upholding the traditions of civil liberty and increasing
popular control which might be expected under American
auspices. The work which we are doing there redounds to
our credit as a nation.
I
look forward with hope to increasing the already good
feeling between the South and the other sections of the
country. My chief purpose is not to effect a change in the
electoral vote of the Southern States. That is a secondary
consideration. What I look forward to is an increase in
the tolerance of political views of all kinds and their
advocacy throughout the South, and the existence of a
respectable political opposition in every State; even more
than this, to an increased feeling on the part of all the
people in the South that this Government is their
Government, and that its officers in their states are
their officers.
The
consideration of this question can not, however, be
complete and full without reference to the negro race, its
progress and its present condition. The thirteenth
amendment secured them freedom; the fourteenth amendment
due process of law, protection of property, and the
pursuit of happiness; and the fifteenth amendment
attempted to secure the Negro against any deprivation of
the privilege to vote because he was a Negro. The
thirteenth and fourteenth amendments have been generally
enforced and have secured the objects for which they are
intended. While the fifteenth amendment has not been
generally observed in the past, it ought to be observed,
and the tendency of Southern legislation today is toward
the enactment of electoral qualifications which shall
square with that amendment. Of course, the mere adoption
of a constitutional law is only one step in the right
direction. It must be fairly and justly enforced as well.
In time both will come. Hence it is clear to all that the
domination of an ignorant, irresponsible element can be
prevented by constitutional laws which shall exclude from
voting both Negroes and whites not having education or
other qualifications thought to be necessary for a proper
electorate. The danger of the control of an ignorant
electorate has therefore passed. With this change, the
interest which many of the Southern white citizens take in
the welfare of the Negroes has increased. The colored men
must base their hope on the results of their own industry,
self-restraint, thrift, and business success, as well as
upon the aid and comfort and sympathy which they may
receive from their white neighbors of the South.
There
was a time when Northerners who sympathized with the Negro
in his necessary struggle for better conditions sought to
give him the suffrage as a protection to enforce its
exercise against the prevailing sentiment of the South.
The movement proved to be a failure. What remains is the
fifteenth amendment to the Constitution and the right to
have statutes of States specifying qualifications for
electors subjected to the test of compliance with that
amendment. This is a great protection to the Negro. It
never will be repealed, and it never ought to be repealed.
If it had not passed, it might be difficult now to adopt
it; but with it in our fundamental law, the policy of
Southern legislation must and will tend to obey it, and so
long as the statutes of the States meet the test of this
amendment and are not otherwise in conflict with the
Constitution and laws of the United States, it is not the
disposition or within the province of the Federal
Government to interfere with the regulation by Southern
States of their domestic affairs. There is in the South a
stronger feeling than ever among the intelligent
well-to-do, and influential element in favor of the
industrial education of the Negro and the encouragement of
the race to make themselves useful members of the
community. The progress which the Negro has made in the
last fifty years, from slavery, when its statistics are
reviewed, is marvelous, and it furnishes every reason to
hope that in the next twenty-five years a still greater
improvement in his condition as a productive member of
society, on the farm, and in the shop, and in other
occupations may come.
The
Negroes are now Americans. Their ancestors came here years
ago against their will, and this is their only country and
their only flag. They have shown themselves anxious to
live for it and to die for it. Encountering the race
feeling against them, subjected at times to cruel
injustice growing out of it, they may well have our
profound sympathy and aid in the struggle they are making.
We are charged with the sacred duty of making their path
as smooth and easy as we can. Any recognition of their
distinguished men, any appointment to office from among
their number, is properly taken as an encouragement and an
appreciation of their progress, and this just policy
should be pursued when suitable occasion offers.
But
it may well admit of doubt whether, in the case of any
race, an appointment of one of their number to a local
office in a community in which the race feeling is so
widespread and acute as to interfere with the ease and
facility with which the local government business can be
done by the appointee is of sufficient benefit by way of
encouragement to the race to outweigh the recurrence and
increase of race feeling which such an appointment is
likely to engender. Therefore the Executive, in
recognizing the Negro race by appointments, must exercise
a careful discretion not thereby to do it more harm than
good. On the other hand, we must be careful not to
encourage the mere pretense of race feeling manufactured
in the interest of individual political ambition.
Personally,
I have not the slightest race prejudice or feeling, and
recognition of its existence only awakens in my heart a
deeper sympathy for those who have to bear it or suffer
from it, and I question the wisdom of a policy which is
likely to increase it. Meantime, if nothing is done to
prevent it, a better feeling between the Negroes and the
whites in the South will continue to grow, and more and
more of the white people will come to realize that the
future of the South is to be much benefited by the
industrial and intellectual progress of the Negro. The
exercise of political franchises by those of this race who
are intelligent and well to do will be acquiesced in, and
the right to vote will be withheld only from the ignorant
and irresponsible of both races.
There
is one other matter to which I shall refer. It was made
the subject of great controversy during the election and
calls for at least a passing reference now. My
distinguished predecessor has given much attention to the
cause of labor, with whose struggle for better things he
has shown the sincerest sympathy. At his instance Congress
has passed the bill fixing the liability of interstate
carriers to their employees for injury sustained in the
course of employment, abolishing the rule of
fellow-servant and the common-law rule as to contributory
negligence, and substituting therefore the so-called rule
of "comparative negligence." It has also passed
a law fixing the compensation of government employees for
injuries sustained in the employ of the Government through
the negligence of the superior. It has also passed a model
child-labor law for the District of Columbia. In previous
administrations an arbitration law for interstate commerce
railroads and their employees, and laws for the
application of safety devices to save the lives and limbs
of employees of interstate railroads had been passed.
Additional legislation of this kind was passed by the
outgoing Congress.
I
wish to say that insofar as I can I hope to promote the
enactment of further legislation of this character. I am
strongly convinced that the Government should make itself
as responsible to employees injured in its employ as an
interstate-railway corporation is made responsible by
federal law to its employees; and I shall be glad,
whenever any additional reasonable safety device can be
invented to reduce the loss of life and limb among railway
employees, to urge Congress to require its adoption by
interstate railways.
Another
labor question has arisen which has awakened the most
excited discussion. That is in respect to the power of the
federal courts to issue injunctions in industrial
disputes. As to that, my convictions are fixed. Take away
from the courts, if it could be taken away, the power to
issue injunctions in labor disputes, and it would create a
privileged class among the laborers and save the lawless
among their number from a most needful remedy available to
all men for the protection of their business against
lawless invasion. The proposition that business is not a
property or pecuniary right which can be protected by
equitable injunction is utterly without foundation in
precedent or reason. The proposition is usually linked
with one to make the secondary boycott lawful. Such a
proposition is at variance with the American instinct, and
will find no support, in my judgment, when submitted to
the American people. The secondary boycott is an
instrument of tyranny, and ought not to be made
legitimate.
The
issue of a temporary restraining order without notice has
in several instances been abused by its inconsiderate
exercise, and to remedy this the platform upon which I was
elected recommends the formulation in a statute of the
conditions under which such a temporary restraining order
ought to issue. A statute can and ought to be framed to
embody the best modern practice, and can bring the subject
so closely to the attention of the court as to make abuses
of the process unlikely in the future. The American
people, if I understand them, insist that the authority of
the courts shall be sustained, and are opposed to any
change in the procedure by which the powers of a court may
be weakened and the fearless and effective administration
of justice be interfered with.
Having
thus reviewed the questions likely to recur during my
administration, and having expressed in a summary way the
position which I expect to take in recommendations to
Congress and in my conduct as an Executive, I invoke the
considerate sympathy and support of my fellow-citizens and
the aid of the Almighty God in the discharge of my
responsible duties.
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