Chapter IX: Part 9

If we are to succeed as a nation we must have the same spirit in us. We must be absolutely practical, of course, and must face facts as they are. The pioneer preachers of Methodism could not have held their own for a fortnight if they had not shown an intense practicability of spirit, if they had not possessed the broadest and deepest sympathy for, and understanding of, their fellowmen. But in addition to the hard, practical common-sense needed by each of us in life, we must have a lift toward lofty things or we shall be lost, individually and collectively, as a nation. Life is not easy, and least of all is it easy for either the man or the nation that aspires to do great deeds. In the century opening, the play of the infinitely far-reaching forces and tendencies which go to make up our social system bids fair to be even fiercer in its activity than in the century which has just closed. If during this century the men of high and fine moral sense show themselves weaklings; if they possess only that cloistered virtue which shrinks shuddering from contact with the raw facts of actual life; if they dare not go down into the hurly-burly where the men of might contend for the mastery; if they stand aside from the pressure and conflict; then as surely as the sun rises and sets all of our great material progress, all the multiplication of the physical agencies which tend for our comfort and enjoyment, will go for naught and our civilization will become a brutal sham and mockery. If we are to do as I believe we shall and will do, if we are to advance in broad humanity, in kindliness, in the spirit of brotherhood, exactly as we advance in our conquest over the hidden forces of nature, it must be by developing strength in virtue and virtue in strength, by breeding and training men who shall be both good and strong, both gentle and valiant—men who scorn wrongdoing, and who at the same time have both the courage and the strength to strive mightily for the right. Wesley accomplished so much for mankind because he refused to leave the stronger, manlier qualities to be availed of only in the interest of evil. The Church he founded has through its career been a Church for the poor as well as for the rich and has known no distinction of persons. It has been a Church whose members, if true to the teachings of its founder, have sought for no greater privilege than to spend and be spent in the interest of the higher life, who have prided themselves, not on shirking rough duty, but on undertaking it and carrying it to a successful conclusion.

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

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

_Mr. Pinchot, Mr. Secretary, and Gentlemen_:

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

First and foremost, you can never afford to forget for one moment what is the object of the forest policy. Primarily that object is not to preserve forests because they are beautiful—though that is good in itself;—not to preserve them because they are refuges for the wild creatures of the wilderness—though that too is good in itself—but the primary object of the forest policy as of the land policy of the United States, is the making of prosperous homes, is part of the traditional policy of home-making of our country. Every other consideration comes as secondary. The whole effort of the government in dealing with the forests must be directed to this end, keeping in view the fact that it is not only necessary to start the homes as prosperous, but to keep them so. That is the way the forests have need to be kept. You can start a prosperous home by destroying the forest, but you do not keep it. You will be able to make that policy permanently the policy of the country only in so far as you are able to make the people at large, and then all the people concretely, interested in the results in the different localities, appreciative of what it means; give them a full recognition of its value, and make them earnest and zealous adherents of it. Keep that in mind too. In a government such as ours it is out of the question to impose a policy like this upon the people from without. A permanent policy can come only from the intelligent conviction of the people themselves that it is wise, and useful; nay, indispensable. We shall decide in the long run whether we will or will not preserve the forests of the Rocky Mountains accordingly as we are or are not able to make the people of the States around the mountains, in their neighborhood, hearty believers in the policy of forest preservation. This is the only way in which this policy can be made a permanent success. In other words, you must convince the people of the truth—and it is the truth—that the success of home-makers depends in the long run upon the wisdom with which the Nation takes care of its forests. That seems a strong statement. It is none too strong. There are small sections of this country where what is done with the woodlands makes no difference; but over the great extent of the country the ultimate well-being of the home-maker will depend in very large part upon the intelligent use made of the forests. In other words, you, yourselves, must keep this practical object before your mind. You must remember that the forest which contributes nothing to the wealth, progress, or safety of the country is of no interest to the government, and it should be of little to the forester. Your attention should be directed not to the preservation of the forests as an end in itself, but as the means for preserving and increasing the prosperity of the Nation. Forestry is the preservation of forests by wise use. We shall succeed, not by preventing the use, but by making the forests of use to the settler, the rancher, the miner, the man who lives in the neighborhood, and indirectly the man who may live hundreds of miles off, down the course of some great river which has its rise among the forests.

The forest problem is in many ways the most vital internal problem of the United States. The more closely this statement is examined the more evident its truth becomes. In the arid regions of the West agricultural prosperity depends first of all upon the available water supply. Forest protection alone can maintain the streamflow necessary for irrigation in the West and prevent floods destructive to agriculture and manufactures in the East. The relation between forests and the whole mineral industry is an extremely intimate one, for mines can not be developed without timber, and usually not without timber close at hand. In many regions of the West ore is more abundant than wood, and where the ore is of low grade, transportation of the necessary mine timbers from a distance is out of the question. The use of the mine is strictly limited to the man who has timber available close at hand. The very existence of lumbering, the fourth great industry of the United States, depends upon the success of your work and our work as a Nation in putting practical forestry into effective operation.

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

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

The United States is exhausting its forest supplies far more rapidly than they are being produced. The situation is a grave one, and there is but one remedy. That remedy is the introduction of practical forestry on a large scale, and of course that is impossible without trained men; men trained in the closet and trained by actual field work, under practical conditions. You will have created a new profession; a profession of the highest importance; a profession of the highest usefulness toward the State; and you are in honor bound to yourselves and to the people to make your profession stand as high as the profession of law, as the profession of medicine, as any other profession most intimately connected with our highest and finest development as a nation. You are engaged in pioneer work in a calling whose opportunities for public service are very great. Treat the calling seriously; remember how much it means for the country as a whole; remember that if you do your work in crude fashion, if you only half learn your profession, you discredit it as well as yourselves. Give yourselves every chance by thorough and generous preparation and by acquiring not only a thorough knowledge, but a wide outlook over all the questions on which you have to touch. The profession which you have adopted is one which touches the Republic on almost every side, political, social, industrial, commercial; and to rise to its level you will need a wide acquaintance with the general life of the Nation, and a viewpoint both broad and high. Any profession which makes you deal with your fellowmen at large makes it necessary that, if you are to succeed, you should understand what these fellowmen are, and not merely what they are thought to be by people who live in the closet and the parlor. You must know who the men are with whom you are acting; how they feel; how far you can go; when you have to stop; when it is necessary to push on; you must know all of these things if you are going to do work of the highest value.

I believe that the foresters of the United States will create and apply a more effective system of forestry than we have yet seen. If you don’t, gentlemen, I will feel that you have fallen behind your brethren of other callings; and I don’t believe you will fall behind them. Nowhere else is the development of a country more closely bound up with the creation and execution of a judicious forest policy. This is of course especially true of the West; but it is true of the East also. Fortunately in the West we have been able relatively to the growth of the country to begin at an earlier day; so that we have been able to provide great forest reserves in the Rocky Mountains, instead of waiting and attempting to get Congress to pay a very large sum for their creation, as we are now endeavoring to do in the Southern Appalachians. In the administration of the national forest reserves, the introduction of conservative lumbering on the timber tract of the lumberman and the woodlot of the farmer, in the practical solution of forest problems which affect every industry and every activity of the nation, the members of this society have an unexampled field before them. You have heavy responsibilities—every man that does any work that is worth doing has a heavy responsibility—for upon the quality of your work the development of forestry in the United States and the protection of the industries which depend upon it will largely rest. You have made a good beginning, and I congratulate you upon it. Not only is a sound national forest policy coming rapidly into being, but the lumbermen of the country are proving their interest in forestry by practicing it. Twenty years ago a meeting such as this to-night would have been impossible, and the desires we hear expressed would have been treated as having no possible relation to practical life. I think, Mr. Secretary, that since you first came into Congress here there has been a complete revolution in the attitude of public men toward this question. We have reached a point where American foresters, trained in American forest schools, are attacking American forest problems with success. That is the way to meet the larger work you have before you. It is a work of peculiar difficulty, because precedents are lacking. It will demand training, steadiness, devotion, and above all _esprit de corps_, fealty to the body of which you are members, zeal to keep the practice as well as the ideals of that body high. The more harmoniously you work with each other, the better your work will be. And above all a condition precedent upon your usefulness to the body politic as a whole is the way in which you are able both to instil your own ideals into the mass of your fellowmen with whom you come in contact, and at the same time to show your ability to work in practical fashion with them; to convince them that as a business matter it will pay for them to co-operate with you; to convince the public of that, and then also so to convince the people of the localities, of the neighborhoods in which you work, and especially the lumbermen and all others who make their life trades dealing with the forests.

AT CHICAGO, ILL., APRIL 2, 1903

_Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen_:

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

Ever since the time when we definitely extended our boundaries westward to the Pacific and southward to the Gulf, since the time when the old Spanish and Portuguese colonies to the south of us asserted their independence, our Nation has insisted that because of its primacy in strength among the nations of the Western Hemisphere it has certain duties and responsibilities which oblige it to take a leading part thereon. We hold that our interests in this hemisphere are greater than those of any European power possibly can be, and that our duty to ourselves and to the weaker republics who are our neighbors requires us to see that none of the great military powers from across the seas shall encroach upon the territory of the American republics or acquire control thereover.

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

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

It was expressly stipulated, furthermore, that this guaranty of neutrality should not prevent the United States from taking any measures which it found necessary in order to secure by its own forces the defence of the United States and the maintenance of public order. Immediately following this treaty Congress passed a law under which the President was authorized to endeavor to secure a treaty for acquiring the right to finish the construction of, and to operate, the Panama Canal, which had already been begun in the territory of Colombia by a French company. The rights of this company were accordingly obtained and a treaty negotiated with the Republic of Colombia. This treaty has just been ratified by the Senate. It reserves all of Colombia’s rights, while guaranteeing all of our own and those of neutral nations, and specifically permits us to take any and all measures for the defence of the canal, and for the preservation of our interests, whenever in our judgment an exigency may arise which calls for action on our part. In other words, these two treaties, and the legislation to carry them out, have resulted in our obtaining on exactly the terms we desired the rights and privileges which we had so long sought in vain. These treaties are among the most important that we have ever negotiated in their effects upon the future welfare of this country, and mark a memorable triumph of American diplomacy—one of those fortunate triumphs, moreover, which redound to the benefit of the entire world.

About the same time trouble arose in connection with the Republic of Venezuela because of certain wrongs alleged to have been committed, and debts overdue, by this Republic to citizens of various foreign powers, notably England, Germany, and Italy. After failure to reach an agreement these powers began a blockade of the Venezuelan coast and a condition of quasi-war ensued. The concern of our Government was of course not to interfere needlessly in any quarrel so far as it did not touch our interests or our honor, and not to take the attitude of protecting from coercion any power unless we were willing to espouse the quarrel of that power, but to keep an attitude of watchful vigilance and see that there was no infringement of the Monroe Doctrine—no acquirement of territorial rights by a European power at the expense of a weak sister republic—whether this acquisition might take the shape of an outright and avowed seizure of territory or of the exercise of control which would in effect be equivalent to such seizure. This attitude was expressed in the two following published memoranda, the first being the letter addressed by the Secretary of State to the German Ambassador, the second the conversation with the Secretary of State reported by the British Ambassador:

“DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
“WASHINGTON, _December 16, 1901_.

“HIS EXCELLENCY DR. VON HOLLEBEN, etc.:

“_Dear Excellency_: I inclose a memorandum by way of reply to that
which you did me the honor to leave with me on Saturday, and am, as
ever,

“Faithfully yours,
“JOHN HAY.

“_Memorandum._

“The President in his message of the 3d of December, 1901, used the
following language:

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

“The President further said:

“‘This doctrine has nothing to do with the commercial relations of
any American power, save that it in truth allows each of them to
form such as it desires.... We do not guarantee any State against
punishment if it misconducts itself, provided that punishment
does not take the form of the acquisition of territory by any
non-American power.’

“His Excellency the German Ambassador, on his recent return from
Berlin, conveyed personally to the President the assurance of the
German Emperor that His Majesty’s Government had no purpose or
intention to make even the smallest acquisition of territory on the
South American continent or the islands adjacent. This voluntary
and friendly declaration was afterward repeated to the Secretary
of State, and was received by the President and the people of the
United States in the frank and cordial spirit in which it was
offered. In the memorandum of the 11th of December, His Excellency
the German Ambassador repeats these assurances as follows: ‘We
declare especially that under no circumstances do we consider in
our proceedings the acquisition or the permanent occupation of
Venezuelan territory.’

“In the said memorandum of the 11th of December, the German
Government informs that of the United States that it has certain
just claims for money and for damages wrongfully withheld from
German subjects by the Government of Venezuela, and that it proposes
to take certain coercive measures described in the memorandum to
enforce the payment of these just claims.

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

SIR MICHAEL HERBERT TO THE MARQUIS OF
LANSDOWNE.

“WASHINGTON, _November 13, 1902_.

“I communicated to Mr. Hay this morning the substance of Your
Lordship’s telegram of the 11th instant.

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

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

The terms which we have secured as those under which the Isthmian Canal is to be built, and the course of events in the Venezuela matter, have shown not merely the ever growing influence of the United States in the Western Hemisphere, but also, I think I may safely say, have exemplified the firm purpose of the United States that its growth and influence and power shall redound not to the harm but to the benefit of our sister republics whose strength is less. Our growth, therefore, is beneficial to humankind in general. We do not intend to assume any position which can give just offence to our neighbors. Our adherence to the rule of human right is not merely profession. The history of our dealings with Cuba shows that we reduce it to performance.

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

Boasting and blustering are as objectionable among nations as among individuals, and the public men of a great nation owe it to their sense of national self-respect to speak courteously of foreign powers, just as a brave and self-respecting man treats all around him courteously. But though to boast is bad, and causelessly to insult another, worse, yet worse than all is it to be guilty of boasting, even without insult, and when called to the proof to be unable to make such boasting good. There is a homely old adage which runs: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” If the American Nation will speak softly, and yet build, and keep at a pitch of the highest training, a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far. I ask you to think over this. If you do, you will come to the conclusion that it is mere plain common-sense, so obviously sound that only the blind can fail to see its truth and only the weakest and most irresolute can fail to desire to put it into force.

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

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

AT WAUKESHA, WIS., APRIL 3, 1903

_Gentlemen and Ladies; my Fellow-Citizens of Wisconsin_:

You are men and women of Wisconsin, but you are men and women of America first. I am glad of having the chance of saying a few words to you to-day. I believe with all my heart in this Nation playing its part manfully and well. I believe that we are now, at the outset of the twentieth century, face to face with great world problems; that we can not help playing the part of a great world power; that all we can decide is whether we will play it well or ill. I do not want to see us shrink from any least bit of duty. We have not only taken during the past five years a position of even greater importance in this Western Hemisphere than ever before, but we have taken a position of great importance even in the furthest Orient, in that furthest West, which is the immemorial East. We must hold our own. If we show ourselves weaklings we will earn the contempt of mankind, and—what is of far more consequence—our own contempt; but I would like to impress upon every public man, upon every writer in the press, the fact that strength should go hand in hand with courtesy, with scrupulous regard in word and deed, not only for the rights, but for the feelings, of other nations. I want to see a man able to hold his own. I have no respect for the man who will put up with injustice. If a man will not take his part, the part is not worth taking. That is true. On the other hand, I have a hearty contempt for the man who is always walking about wanting to pick a quarrel, and above all, wanting to say something unpleasant about some one else. He is not an agreeable character anywhere; and the fact that he talks loud does not necessarily mean that he fights hard either. Sometimes you will see a man who will talk loud and fight hard; but he does not fight hard because he talks loud, but in spite of it. I want the same thing to be true of us as a nation. I am always sorry whenever I see any reflection that seems to come from America upon any friendly nation. To write or say anything unkind, unjust, or inconsiderate about any foreign nation does not do us any good, and does not help us toward holding our own if ever the need should arise to hold our own. I am sure you will not misunderstand me; I am sure that it is needless for me to say that I do not believe the United States should ever suffer a wrong. I should be the first to ask that we resent a wrong from the strong, just as I should be the first to insist that we do not wrong the weak. As a nation, if we are to be true to our past, we must steadfastly keep these two positions—to submit to no injury by the strong and to inflict no injury on the weak. It is not at all necessary to say disagreeable things about the strong in order to impress them with the fact that we do not intend to submit to injury. Keep our navy up to the highest point of efficiency; have good ships, and enough of them; have the officers and the enlisted men on them trained to handle them, so that in the future the American navy shall rise level, whenever the need comes, to the standard it has set in the past. Keep in our own hearts the rugged, manly virtues, which have made our people formidable as foes, and valuable as friends throughout the century and a quarter of our national life. Do all that; and having done it, remember that it is a sensible thing to speak courteously of others.

I believe in the Monroe Doctrine. I shall try to see that this Nation lives up to it; and as long as I am President it will be lived up to. But I do not intend to make the doctrine an excuse or a justification for being unpleasant to other powers, for speaking ill of other powers. We want the friendship of mankind. We want to get on well with the other nations of mankind, with the small nations and with the big nations. We want so to carry ourselves that if (which I think most unlikely) any quarrel should arise, it would be evident that it was not a quarrel of our own seeking, but one that was forced on us. If it is forced on us, I know you too well not to know that you will stand up to it if the need comes; but you will stand up to it all the better if you have not blustered or spoken ill of other nations in advance. We want friendship; we want peace. We wish well to the nations of mankind. We look with joy at any prosperity of theirs; we wish them success, not failure. We rejoice as mankind moves forward over the whole earth. Each nation has its own difficulties. We have difficulties enough at home. Let us improve ourselves, lifting what needs to be lifted here, and let others do their own work; let us attend to our own business; keep our own hearthstone swept and in order. Do not shirk any duty; do not shirk any difficulty that is forced upon us, but do not invite it by foolish language. Do not assume a quarrelsome and unpleasant attitude toward other people. Let the friendly expressions of foreign powers be accepted as tokens of their sincere good will, and reflecting their real sentiments; and let us avoid any language on our part which might tend to turn their good will into ill will. All that is mere common-sense; the kind of common-sense that we apply in our own lives, man to man, neighbor to neighbor; and remember that substantially what is true among nations is true on a small scale among ourselves. The man who is a weakling, who is a coward, we all despise, and we ought to despise him. If a man can not do his own work and take his own part, he does not count; and I have no patience with those who would have the United States unable to take its own part, to do its work in the world. But remember that a loose tongue is just as unfortunate an accompaniment for a nation as for an individual. The man who talks ill of his neighbors, the man who invites trouble for himself and them, is a nuisance. The stronger, the more self-confident the nation is, the more carefully it should guard its speech as well as its action, and should make it a point, in the interest of its own self-respect, to see that it does not say what it can not make good, that it avoids giving needless offence, that it shows genuinely and sincerely its desire for friendship with the rest of mankind, but that it keeps itself in shape to make its weight felt should the need arise.

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

AT MILWAUKEE, WIS., APRIL 3, 1903

_Mr. Toastmaster, Gentlemen_:

To-day I wish to speak to you on the question of the control and regulation of those great corporations which are popularly, although rather vaguely, known as trusts; dealing mostly with what has actually been accomplished in the way of legislation and in the way of enforcement of legislation during the past eighteen months, the period covering the two sessions of the Fifty-seventh Congress. At the outset I shall ask you to remember that I do not approach the subject either from the standpoint of those who speak of themselves as anti-trust or anti-corporation people, nor yet from the standpoint of those who are fond of denying the existence of evils in the trusts, or who apparently proceed upon the assumption that if a corporation is large enough it can do no wrong.

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

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

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

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

“It is probably true that the large majority of the fortunes that now exist in this country have been amassed, not by injuring our people, but as an incident to the conferring of great benefits upon the community, and this no matter what may have been the conscious purpose of those amassing them. There is but the scantiest justification for most of the outcry against the men of wealth _as such_; and it ought to be unnecessary to state that any appeal which directly or indirectly leads to suspicion and hatred among ourselves, which tends to limit opportunity, and therefore to shut the door of success against poor men of talent, and, finally, which entails the possibility of lawlessness and violence, is an attack upon the fundamental properties of American citizenship. Our interests are at bottom common; in the long run we go up or go down together. Yet more and more it is evident that the State, and if necessary the Nation, has got to possess the right of supervision and control as regards the great corporations which are its creatures; particularly as regards the great business combinations which derive a portion of their importance from the existence of some monopolistic tendency. The right should be exercised with caution and self-restraint; but it should exist, so that it may be invoked if the need arises.”

Last fall in speaking at Cincinnati I said:

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

In my Message to Congress for 1901 I said:

“In the interest of the whole people the Nation should, without interfering with the power of the States in the matter, itself also assume power of supervision and regulation over all corporations doing an interstate business.”

The views thus expressed have now received effect by the wise, conservative, and yet far-reaching legislation enacted by Congress at its last session. In its wisdom Congress enacted the very important law providing a Department of Commerce and Labor, and further providing therein under the Secretary of Commerce and Labor for a Commissioner of Corporations, charged with the duty of supervision of and of making intelligent investigation into the organization and conduct of corporations engaged in interstate commerce. His powers to expose illegal or hurtful practices and to obtain all information needful for the purposes of further intelligent legislation seem adequate; and the publicity justifiable and proper for public purposes is satisfactory guaranteed. The law was passed at the very end of the session of Congress. Owing to the lateness of its passage Congress was not able to provide proper equipment for the new Department; and the first few months must necessarily be spent in the work of organization, and the first investigations must necessarily be of a tentative character. The satisfactory development of such a system requires time and great labor. Those who are intrusted with the administration of the new law will assuredly administer it in a spirit of absolute fairness and justice and of entire fearlessness, with the firm purpose not to hurt any corporation doing a legitimate business—on the contrary to help it—and, on the other hand, not to spare any corporation which may be guilty of illegal practices, or the methods of which may make it a menace to the public welfare. Some substantial good will be done in the immediate future; and as the Department gets fairly to work under the law an ever larger vista for good work will be opened along the lines indicated. The enactment of this law is one of the most significant contributions which have been made in our time toward the proper solution of the problem of the relations to the people of the great corporations and corporate combinations.

But much though this is, it is only a part of what has been done in the effort to ascertain and correct improper trust or monopolistic practices. Some eighteen months ago the Industrial Commission, an able and non-partisan body, reported to Congress the result of their investigation of trusts and industrial combinations. One of the most important of their conclusions was that discriminations in freight rates and facilities were granted favored shippers by the railroads and that these discriminations clearly tended toward the control of production and prices in many fields of business by large combinations. That this conclusion was justifiable was shown by the disclosures in the investigation of railroad methods pursued in the fall and winter of 1901-1902. It was then shown that certain trunk lines had entered into unlawful agreements as to the transportation of food products from the West to the Atlantic seaboard, giving a few favored shippers rates much below the tariff charges imposed upon the smaller dealers and the general public. These unjust practices had prevailed to such an extent and for so long a time that many of the smaller shippers had been driven out of business, until practically one buyer of grain on each railway system had been able by his illegal advantages to secure a monopoly on the line with which his secret compact was made; this monopoly enabling him to fix the price to both producer and consumer. Many of the great packing house concerns were shown to be in combination with each other and with most of the great railway lines, whereby they enjoyed large secret concessions in rates and thus obtained a practical monopoly of the fresh and cured meat industry of the country. These fusions, though violative of the statute, had prevailed unchecked for so many years that they had become intrenched in and interwoven with the commercial life of certain large distributing localities; although this was of course at the expense of the vast body of law-abiding merchants, the general public, and particularly of unfavored localities.

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

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

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