Chapter VII: Part 7

You must face the fact that only harm will come from a proposition to attack the so-called trusts in a vindictive spirit by measures conceived solely with a desire of hurting them, without regard as to whether or not discrimination should be made between the good and evil in them, and without even any regard as to whether a necessary sequence of the action would be the hurting of other interests. The adoption of such a policy would mean temporary damage to the trusts, because it would mean temporary damage to all of our business interests; but the effect would be only temporary, for exactly as the damage affected all alike, good and bad, so the reaction would affect all alike, good and bad. The necessary supervision and control, in which I firmly believe as the only method of eliminating the real evils of the trusts, must come through wisely and cautiously framed legislation, which shall aim in the first place to give definite control to some sovereign over the great corporations, and which shall be followed, when once this power has been conferred, by a system giving to the Government the full knowledge which is the essential for 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. Our Constitution was framed when the economic conditions were so different that each State could wisely be left to handle the corporations within its limits as it saw fit. Nowadays all the corporations which I am considering do what is really an interstate business, and as the States have proceeded on very different lines in regulating them, at present a corporation will be organized in one State, not because it intends to do business in that State, but because it does not, and therefore that State can give it better privileges, and then it will do business in some other States, and will claim not to be under the control of the States in which it does business; and of course it is not the object of the State creating it to exercise any control over it, as it does not do any business in that State. Such a system can not obtain. There must be some sovereign. It might be better if all the States could agree along the same lines in dealing with these corporations, but I see not the slightest prospect of such an agreement. Therefore, I personally feel that ultimately the nation will have to assume the responsibility of regulating these very large corporations which do an interstate business. The States must combine to meet the way in which capital has combined; and the way in which the States can combine is through the National Government. But I firmly believe that all these obstacles can be met if only we face them, both with the determination to overcome them, and with the further determination to overcome them in ways which shall not do damage to the country as a whole; which on the contrary shall further our industrial development, and shall help instead of hindering all corporations which work out their success by means that are just and fair toward all men.

Without the adoption of a constitutional amendment, my belief is that a good deal can be done by law. It is difficult to say exactly how much, because experience has taught us that in dealing with these subjects, where the lines dividing the rights and duties of the States and of the Nation are in doubt, it has sometimes been difficult for Congress to forecast the action of the courts upon its legislation. 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 governmental 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.

Remember, I advocate the action which the President can only advise, and which he has no power himself to take. Under our present legislative and constitutional limitations the national executive can work only between narrow lines in the field of action concerning great corporations. Between those lines, I assure you that exact and even-handed justice will be dealt, and is being dealt, to all men, without regard to persons.

I wish to repeat with all emphasis that desirable though it is that the nation should have the power I suggest, it is equally desirable that it should be used with wisdom and self-restraint. The mechanism of modern business is tremendous in its size and complexity, and ignorant intermeddling with it would be disastrous. We should not be made timid or daunted by the size of the problem; we should not fear to undertake it; but we should undertake it with ever-present in our minds dread of the sinister spirits of rancor, ignorance, and vanity. We need to keep steadily in mind the fact that besides the tangible property in each corporation there lies behind the spirit which brings it success, and in the case of each very successful corporation this is usually the spirit of some one man or set of men. Under exactly similar conditions one corporation will make a stupendous success where another makes a stupendous failure, simply because one is well managed and the other is not. While making it clear that we do not intend to allow wrongdoing by one of the captains of industry any more than by the humblest private in the industrial ranks, we must also in the interests of all of us avoid cramping a strength which, if beneficently used, will be for the good of all of us. The marvelous prosperity we have been enjoying for the past few years has been due primarily to the high average of honesty, thrift, and business capacity among our people as a whole; but some of it has also been due to the ability of the men who are the industrial leaders of the nation. In securing just and fair dealing by these men let us remember to do them justice in return, and this not only because it is our duty, but because it is our interest; not only for their sakes, but for ours. We are neither the friend of the rich man as such, nor the friend of the poor man as such; we are the friend of the honest man, rich or poor; and we intend that all men, rich and poor alike, shall obey the law alike and receive its protection alike.

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

_Mr. Mayor, and you, my Comrades, and all of you, my
Fellow-Americans, Men and Women of Detroit_:

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

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

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

AT LOGANSPORT, IND., SEPTEMBER 23, 1902

_Fellow-Citizens_:

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

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

Yet given this high average of individual ability and invention, we must ever keep in mind that it may be nullified by bad legislation, and that it can be given a chance to develop under the most favorable conditions by good legislation. Probably the most important aid which can be contributed by the National Government to the material well-being of the country is to ensure its financial stability. An honest currency is the strongest symbol and expression of honest business life. The business world must exist largely on credit, and to credit confidence is essential. Any tampering with the currency, no matter with what purpose, if fraught with the suspicion of dishonesty, in result is fatal in its effects on business prosperity. Very ignorant and primitive communities are continually obliged to learn the elementary truth that the repudiation of debts is in the end ruinous to the debtors as a class; and when communities have moved somewhat higher in the scale of civilization they also learn that anything in the nature of a debased currency works similar damage. A financial system of assured honesty is the first essential.

Another essential for any community is perseverance in the economic policy which for a course of years is found best fitted to its peculiar needs. The question of combining such fixedness of economic policy as regards the tariff, while at the same time allowing for a necessary and proper readjustment of duties in particular schedules, as such readjustment becomes a matter of pressing importance, is not an easy one. It is perhaps too much to expect that from the discussion of such a question it would be possible wholly to eliminate political partisanship. Yet those who believe, as we all must when we think seriously of the subject, that the proper aim of the party system is after all simply to subserve the public good, can not but hope that where such partisanship on a matter of this kind conflicts with the public good it shall at least be minimized. It is all right and inevitable that we should divide on party lines, but woe to us if we are not Americans first, and party men second. What we really need in this country is to treat the tariff as a business proposition from the standpoint of the interests of the country as a whole, and not from the standpoint of the temporary needs of any political party. It surely ought not to be necessary to dwell upon the extreme unwisdom, from a business standpoint, from the standpoint of national prosperity, of violent and radical changes amounting to the direct upsetting of tariff policies at intervals of every few years. A nation like ours can adjust its business after a fashion to any kind of tariff. But neither our nation nor any other can stand the ruinous policy of readjusting its business to radical changes in the tariff at short intervals. This is more true now than ever it was before, for owing to the immense extent and variety of our products, the tariff schedules of to-day carry rates of duty on more than four thousand articles. Continual sweeping changes in such a tariff, touching so intimately the commercial interests of the nation which stands as one of the two or three greatest in the whole industrial world, can not but be disastrous. Yet on the other hand where the industrial needs of the nation shift as rapidly as they do with us, it is a matter of prime importance that we should be able to readjust our economic policy as rapidly as possible and with as little friction as possible to these needs.

We need a scheme which will enable us to provide a reapplication of the principle to the changed conditions. The problem therefore is to devise some method by which these shifting needs can be recognized and the necessary readjustments of duties provided without forcing the entire business community, and therefore the entire nation, to submit to a violent surgical operation, the mere threat of which, and still more the accomplished fact of which, would probably paralyze for a considerable time all the industries of the country. Such a radical action might very readily reproduce the conditions from which we suffered nine years ago, in 1893. It is on every account most earnestly to be hoped that this problem can be solved in some manner into which partisanship shall enter as a purely secondary consideration, if at all; that is, in some manner which shall provide for an earnest effort by non-partisan inquiry and action to secure any changes the need of which is indicated by the effect found to proceed from a given rate of duty on a given article; its effect, if any, as regards the creation of a substantial monopoly; its effect upon domestic prices, upon the revenue of the government, upon importations from abroad, upon home productions, and upon consumption. In other words, we need to devise some machinery by which, while persevering in the policy of a protective tariff, in which I think the nation as a whole has now generally acquiesced, we would be able to correct the irregularities and remove the incongruities produced by changing conditions, without destroying the whole structure. Such machinery would permit us to continue our definitely settled tariff policy, while providing for the changes in duties upon particular schedules which must inevitably and necessarily take place from time to time as matters of legislative and administrative detail. This would secure the needed stability of economic policy which is a prime factor in our industrial success, while doing away with any tendency to fossilization. It would recognize the fact that, as our needs shift, it may be found advisable to alter rates and schedules, adapting them to the changed conditions and necessities of the whole people; and this would be in no wise incompatible with preserving the principle of protection, for belief in the wisdom of a protective tariff is in no way inconsistent with frankly admitting the desirability of changing a set of schedules, when from any cause such change is in the interests of the nation as a whole—and our tariff policy is designed to favor the interests of the nation as a whole and not those of any particular set of individuals save as an incident to this building up of national well-being. There are two or three different methods by which it will be possible to provide such readjustment without any shock to the business world. My personal preference would be for action which should be taken only after preliminary inquiry by and upon the findings of a body of experts of such high character and ability that they could be trusted to deal with the subject purely from the standpoint of our business and industrial needs; but, of course, Congress would have to determine for itself the exact method to be followed. The Executive has at its command the means for gathering most of the necessary data, and can act whenever it is the desire of Congress that it should act. That the machinery for carrying out the policy above outlined can be provided I am very certain, if only our people will make up their minds that the health of the community will be subserved by treating the whole question primarily from the standpoint of the business interests of the entire country, rather than from the standpoint of the fancied interests of any group of politicians.

Of course in making any changes we should have to proceed in accordance with certain fixed and definite principles, and the most important of these is an avowed determination to protect the interests of the American producer, be he business man, wage-worker, or farmer. The one consideration which must never be omitted in a tariff change is the imperative need of preserving the American standard of living for the American workingman. The tariff rate must never fall below that which will protect the American workingman by allowing for the difference between the general labor cost here and abroad, so as at least to equalize the conditions arising from the difference in the standard of labor here and abroad—a difference which it should be our aim to foster in so far as it represents the needs of better educated, better paid, better fed, and better clothed workingmen of a higher type than any to be found in a foreign country. At all hazards, and no matter what else is sought for or accomplished by changes of the tariff, the American workingman must be protected in his standard of wages, that is, in his standard of living, and must be secured the fullest opportunity of employment. Our laws should in no event afford advantage to foreign industries over American industries. They should in no event do less than equalize the difference in conditions at home and abroad. The general tariff policy to which, without regard to changes in detail, I believe this country to be irrevocably committed, is fundamentally based upon ample recognition of the difference in labor cost here and abroad; in other words, the recognition of the need for full development of the intelligence, the comfort, the high standard of civilized living and the inventive genius of the American workingman as compared to the workingman of any other country in the world.

AT THE BANQUET OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, AT NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 11, 1902

_Mr. President, Gentlemen, and you, the Guests, whom we welcome here
this evening_:

I do not wish to speak to you in the language of idle compliment, and yet it is but a bare statement of fact to say that nowhere in our country could there be gathered an audience which would stand as more typically characteristic than this of all those qualities and attributes which have given us of the United States our commanding position in the industrial world. There is no need of my preaching to this gathering the need of combining efficiency with upright dealing, for as an American and as a citizen of New York I am proud to feel that the name of your organization carries with it a guarantee of both; and your practice counts for more than any preaching could possibly count. New York is a city of national importance, because its position toward the Nation is unique, and the Chamber of Commerce of New York must of necessity be an element of weight in the commercial and industrial welfare of the entire people. New York is the great port of entry for our country—the port in which centres the bulk of the foreign commerce of the country—and her welfare is therefore no matter of mere local or municipal, but of national, concern. The conduct of the Government in dealing with all matters affecting the financial and commercial relations of New York must continually take into account this fact; and it must be taken into account in appreciating the importance of the part played by the New York Chamber of Commerce.

This body stands for the triumphs of peace both abroad and at home. We have passed that stage of national development when depreciation of other peoples is felt as a tribute to our own. We watch the growth and prosperity of other nations, not with hatred or jealousy, but with sincere and friendly good-will. I think I can say safely that we have shown by our attitude toward Cuba, by our attitude toward China, that as regards weaker powers our desire is that they may be able to stand alone, and that if they will only show themselves willing to deal honestly and fairly with the rest of mankind we on our side will do all we can to help, not to hinder, them. With the great powers of the world we desire no rivalry that is not honorable to both parties. We wish them well. We believe that the trend of the modern spirit is ever stronger toward peace, not war; toward friendship, not hostility, as the normal international attitude. We are glad indeed that we are on good terms with all the other peoples of mankind, and no effort on our part shall be spared to secure a continuance of these relations. And remember, gentlemen, that we shall be a potent factor for peace largely in proportion to the way in which we make it evident that our attitude is due, not to weakness, not to inability to defend ourselves, but to a genuine repugnance to wrongdoing, a genuine desire for self-respecting friendship with our neighbors. The voice of the weakling or the craven counts for nothing when he clamors for peace; but the voice of the just man armed is potent. We need to keep in a condition of preparedness, especially as regards our navy, not because we want war, but because we desire to stand with those whose plea for peace is listened to with respectful attention.

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

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

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

The Chamber of Commerce, it is no idle boast to say, stands in a preëminent degree for those qualities which make the successful merchant, the successful business man, whose success is won in ways honorable to himself and beneficial to his fellows. There are very different kinds of success. There is the success that brings with it the seared soul—the success which is achieved by wolfish greed and vulpine cunning—the success which makes honest men uneasy or indignant in its presence. Then there is the other kind of success—the success which comes as the reward of keen insight, of sagacity, of resolution, of address, combined with unflinching rectitude of behavior, public and private. The first kind of success may, in a sense—and a poor sense at that—benefit the individual, but it is always and necessarily a curse to the community; whereas the man who wins the second kind, as an incident of its winning becomes a beneficiary to the whole commonwealth. Throughout its history the Chamber of Commerce has stood for this second and higher kind of success. It is therefore fitting that I should come on here as the Chief Executive of the Nation to wish you well in your new home; for you belong not merely to the city, not merely to the State, but to all the country, and you stand high among the great factors in building up that marvelous prosperity which the entire country now enjoys. The continuance of this prosperity depends in no small measure upon your sanity and common-sense, upon the way in which you combine energy in action with conservative refusal to take part in the reckless gambling which is so often bred by, and which so inevitably puts an end to, prosperity. You are men of might in the world of American effort; you are men whose names stand high in the esteem of our people; you are spoken of in terms like those used in the long-gone ages when it was said of the Phœnician cities that their merchants were princes. Great is your power and great, therefore, your responsibility. Well and faithfully have you met this responsibility in the past. We look forward with confident hope to what you will do in the future, and it is therefore with sincerity that I bid you Godspeed this evening and wish for you, in the name of the Nation, a career of ever increasing honor and usefulness.

AT THE BANQUET TENDERED GENERAL LUKE E. WRIGHT, AT MEMPHIS, TENN., NOVEMBER 19, 1902

_Mr. Toastmaster, General Wright, and you, my friends, whose
greeting to-night I shall ever remember_:

It is a real and great pleasure to come to this typical city of the southern Mississippi Valley in order to greet a typical American, a citizen of Tennessee, who deserves honor not only from his State, but from the entire country—General Luke E. Wright. We have a right to expect a high standard of manhood from Tennessee. It was one of the first two States created west of the Alleghany Mountains, and it was in this State that the first self-governing community of American freemen was established upon waters flowing into the Gulf. The pioneers of Tennessee were among the earliest in that great westward march which thrust the nation’s border across the continent to the Pacific, and it is eminently fitting that a son of Tennessee should now play so prominent a part in the further movement of expansion beyond the Pacific. There have been Presidents of the United States for but one hundred and thirteen years, and during sixteen of those years Tennesseeans sat in the White House. Hardihood, and daring, and iron resolution are of right to be expected among the sons of a State which nurtured Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston; which sent into the American Navy one of the most famous fighting admirals of all time, Farragut.

There is another reason why our country should be glad that it was General Wright who rendered this service. General Wright fought with distinguished gallantry among the gallant men who served in the armies of the Confederacy during the Civil War. We need no proof of the completeness of our reunion as a people. When the war with Spain came the sons of the men who wore the blue and the sons of the men who wore the gray vied with one another in the effort to get into the ranks and face a foreign foe under the old flag that had been carried in triumph under Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor and Andrew Jackson. It was my own good fortune to serve under that fearless fighter, old Joe Wheeler, a memory of which I shall always be proud. But if we needed any proof of the unity of our interests it would have been afforded this very year by General Wright, the ex-Confederate, in his administration as Acting Governor of the Philippine Islands. Upon him during the months of summer rested a heavier burden of responsibility than upon any other public servant at that particular time; and not the least of his titles to our regard is the way in which he was able to work on terms of cordial good-will with the head of the army, himself a man who had honored the blue uniform as Wright had honored the gray.

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

The American flag stands for orderly liberty, and it stands for it abroad as it stands for it at home. The task of our soldiers was to restore and maintain order in the islands. The army had the task to do, and it did it well and thoroughly. The fullest and heartiest praise belongs to our soldiers who in the Philippines brought to a triumphant conclusion a war, small indeed compared to the gigantic struggle in which the older men whom I am addressing took part in the early sixties, but inconceivably harassing and difficult, because it was waged amid the pathless jungles of great tropic islands and against a foe very elusive, very treacherous, and often inconceivably cruel both toward our men and toward the great numbers of peace-loving Filipinos who gladly welcomed our advent. The soldiers included both regulars and volunteers, men from the North, the South, the East, and the West, men from Pennsylvania and from Tennessee, no less than men from the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Slope—and to all alike we give honor, for they acted as American soldiers should. Cruelties were committed here and there. The fact that they were committed under wellnigh intolerable provocation affords no excuse for such cruelties, nor can we admit as justification that they were retaliatory in kind. Every effort has been made to detect and punish the wrongdoers and the wrongdoing itself has been completely stopped. But these misdeeds were exceptional, and their occurrence in no wise alters the fact that the American army in the Philippines showed as a whole not only splendid soldierly qualities but a high order of humanity in dealing with their foes. A hundred thousand of our troops went to the Philippines. Among them were some who offended against the right. Well, are we altogether immaculate at home? I think not. I ask for no special consideration to be shown our friends and kinsmen, our sons and brothers, who during three years so well upheld the national honor in the Philippines. I ask merely that we do the same equal justice to the soldier who went abroad and faced death and lived hard as we show to his fellow who stayed at home and lived easily and in comfort; and if we show that equal justice we will doff our hats to the man who has put the whole country under obligations by the victory he helped to win in the Philippines.

But the soldier’s work as a soldier was not the larger part of what he did. When once the outbreak was over in any place, then began the work of establishing civil administration. Here, too, the soldier did his part, for the work of preparing for the civil authority was often done by the officers and men of the regular army, and well done, too. Then the real work of building up a system of self-government for the people who had become our wards was begun, under the auspices of the Philippine Commission, Judge Taft being made Governor, and I having had the honor myself to appoint General Wright as Vice-Governor. During the critical period when the insurrection was ending and the time was one of transition between a state of war and a state of peace, at the time that I issued a proclamation declaring that the state of war was over and that the civil government was now in complete command, General Wright served as Governor of the archipelago. The progress of the islands both in material well-being and as regards order and justice under the administration of Governor Wright and his colleagues has been astounding.

There is no question as to our not having gone far enough and fast enough in granting self-government to the Filipinos; the only possible danger has been lest we should go faster and further than was in the interest of the Filipinos themselves. Each Filipino at the present day is guaranteed his life, his liberty, and the chance to pursue happiness as he wishes, so long as he does not harm his fellows, in a way which the islands have never known before during all their recorded history. There are bands of ladrones, of brigands, still in existence. Now and then they may show sporadic increase. This will be due occasionally to disaffection with some of the things that our government does which are best—for example, the effort to quarantine against the plague and to enforce necessary sanitary precautions, gently and tactfully though it was made, produced violent hostility among some of the more ignorant natives. Again, a disease like the cattle plague may cause in some given province such want that a part of the inhabitants revert to their ancient habit of brigandage. But the islands have never been as orderly, as peaceful, or as prosperous as now; and in no other Oriental country, whether ruled by Asiatics or Europeans, is there anything approaching to the amount of individual liberty and of self-government which our rule has brought to the Filipinos. The Nation owes a great debt to the people through whom this splendid work for civilization has been achieved, and therefore on behalf of the Nation I have come here to-night to thank in your presence your fellow-townsman, because he has helped us materially to add a new page to the honor roll of American history. General Wright, I greet you, I thank you, and I wish you well.

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

_Mr. Chairman, and you, my Fellow-Americans_:

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

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

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

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

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

My fellow-Americans, we can not afford to have the honor of the Nation in any way smirched in connection with our dependencies. We can not afford to have it smirched anywhere; but if we wrong ourselves here at home we are to blame and we pay the penalty, while if we allow wrong in connection with the islands not only the islands suffer, but an indelible stigma of shame comes to the American name. I am earnestly desirous that the administration of the Philippine Islands shall be put and kept upon such a plane of patriotic efficiency that no change will be made in it owing to any change of party here at home. Party feeling should of course stop at the water-line. The inestimable service rendered by Governor Wright in the Philippine Islands has been because he has so conducted the government of those islands as to make it not only of signal benefit to them, but of signal honor to every citizen of our country; that he has so handled the administration of affairs as to make us feel a justifiable confidence that hereafter the storms of party politics in the United States shall never touch the government of the Philippine Islands, and that whatever changes of administration there are here in the Union, there shall not be a ripple of change in the course of conduct in the Philippines marked out by Governor Wright and his associates. The man of whom that can be truthfully said is a man entitled to honor from his fellow-countrymen; and of Governor Wright it can be truthfully said.

AT THE FOUNDERS’ DAY BANQUET OF THE UNION LEAGUE, PHILADELPHIA, PA., NOVEMBER 22, 1902

_Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Union League_:

Forty years ago this club was founded, in the dark days of the Civil War, to uphold the hands of Abraham Lincoln and give aid to those who battled for the Union and for human liberty. Two years ago President McKinley came here as your guest to thank you, and through you all those far-sighted and loyal men who had supported him in his successful effort to keep untarnished the national good faith at home and the national honor abroad, and to bring back to this country the material well-being which we now so abundantly enjoy. It was no accident which made the men of this club who stood as in a peculiar sense the champions and upholders of the principles of Lincoln in the early sixties stand no less stoutly for those typified in the person of McKinley during the closing years of the century. The qualities apt to make men respond to the call of duty in one crisis are also apt to make them respond to a similar call in a crisis of a different character. The traits which enabled our people to pass unscathed through the fiery ordeal of the Civil War were the traits upon which we had to rely in the less serious, but yet serious, dangers by which we were menaced in 1896, 1898, and 1900.

From the very beginning our people have markedly combined practical capacity for affairs with power of devotion to an ideal. The lack of either quality would have rendered the possession of the other of small value. Mere ability to achieve success in things concerning the body would not have atoned for the failure to live the life of high endeavor; and, on the other hand, without a foundation of those qualities which bring material prosperity there would be nothing on which the higher life could be built. The men of the Revolution would have failed if they had not possessed alike devotion to liberty and ability (once liberty had been achieved) to show common-sense and self-restraint in its use. The men of the great Civil War would have failed had they not possessed the business capacity which developed and organized their resources in addition to the stern resolution to expend these resources as freely as they expended their blood in furtherance of the great cause for which their hearts leaped. It is this combination of qualities that has made our people succeed. Other peoples have been as devoted to liberty, and yet, because of lack of hard-headed common-sense and of ability to show restraint and subordinate individual passions for the general good, have failed so signally in the struggle of life as to become a byword among the nations. Yet other peoples, again, have possessed all possible thrift and business capacity, but have been trampled under foot, or have played a sordid and ignoble part in the world, because their business capacity was unaccompanied by any of the lift toward nobler things which marks a great and generous nation. The stern but just rule of judgment for humanity is that each nation shall be known by its fruits; and if there are no fruits, if the nation has failed, it matters but little whether it has failed through meanness of soul or through lack of robustness of character. We must judge a nation by the net result of its life and activity. And so we must judge the policies of those who at any time control the destinies of a nation.