Chapter VIII: Part 8

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, TRANSMITTING A PROTOCOL OF AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, PROVIDING FOR THE COLLECTION AND DISBURSEMENT BY THE UNITED STATES OF THE CUSTOMS REVENUES OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, SIGNED ON FEBRUARY 4, 1905

_To the Senate_:

I submit herewith a protocol concluded between the Dominican Republic and the United States.

The conditions in the Republic of Santo Domingo have been growing steadily worse for many years. There have been many disturbances and revolutions, and debts have been contracted beyond the power of the Republic to pay. Some of these debts were properly contracted and are held by those who have a legitimate right to their money. Others are without question improper or exorbitant, constituting claims which should never be paid in full and perhaps only to the extent of a very small portion of their nominal value.

Certain foreign countries have long felt themselves aggrieved because of the non-payment of debts due their citizens. The only way by which foreign creditors could ever obtain from the Republic itself any guaranty of payment would be either by the acquisition of territory outright or temporarily, or else by taking possession of the custom-houses, which would of course in itself, in effect, be taking possession of a certain amount of territory.

It has for some time been obvious that those who profit by the Monroe Doctrine must accept certain responsibilities along with the rights which it confers; and that the same statement applies to those who uphold the doctrine. It can not be too often and too emphatically asserted that the United States has not the slightest desire for territorial aggrandizement at the expense of any of its southern neighbors, and will not treat the Monroe Doctrine as an excuse for such aggrandizement on its part. We do not propose to take any part of Santo Domingo, or exercise any other control over the island save what is necessary to its financial rehabilitation in connection with the collection of revenue, part of which will be turned over to the Government to meet the necessary expense of running it, and part of which will be distributed pro rata among the creditors of the Republic upon a basis of absolute equity. The justification for the United States taking this burden and incurring this responsibility is to be found in the fact that it is incompatible with international equity for the United States to refuse to allow other powers to take the only means at their disposal of satisfying the claims of their creditors and yet to refuse, itself, to take any such steps.

An aggrieved nation can without interfering with the Monroe Doctrine take what action it sees fit in the adjustment of its disputes with American States, provided that action does not take the shape of interference with their form of government or of the despoilment of their territory under any disguise. But, short of this, when the question is one of a money claim, the only way which remains, finally, to collect it is a blockade, or bombardment, or the seizure of the custom-houses, and this means, as has been said above, what is in effect a possession, even though only a temporary possession, of territory. The United States then becomes a party in interest, because under the Monroe Doctrine it can not see any European power seize and permanently occupy the territory of one of these Republics; and yet such seizure of territory, disguised or undisguised, may eventually offer the only way in which the power in question can collect any debts, unless there is interference on the part of the United States.

One of the difficult and increasingly complicated problems, which often arise in Santo Domingo, grows out of the violations of contracts and concessions, sometimes improvidently granted, with valuable privileges and exemptions stipulated for upon grossly inadequate considerations which were burdensome to the State, and which are not infrequently disregarded and violated by the governing authorities. Citizens of the United States and of other Governments holding these concessions and contracts appeal to their respective Governments for active protection and intervention. Except for arbitrary wrong, done or sanctioned by superior authority, to persons or to vested property rights, the United States Government, following its traditional usage in such cases, aims to go no further than the mere use of its good offices, a measure which frequently proves ineffective. On the other hand, there are Governments which do sometimes take energetic action for the protection of their subjects in the enforcement of merely contractual claims, and thereupon American concessionaries, supported by powerful influences, make loud appeal to the United States Government in similar cases for similar action. They complain that in the actual posture of affairs their valuable properties are practically confiscated, that American enterprise is paralyzed, and that unless they are fully protected even by the enforcement of their merely contractual rights, it means the abandonment to the subjects of other Governments of the interests of American trade and commerce through the sacrifice of their investments by excessive taxes imposed in violation of contract, and by other devices, and the sacrifice of the output of their mines and other industries, and even of their railway and shipping interests, which they have established in connection with the exploitation of their concessions. Thus the attempted solution of the complex problem by the ordinary methods of diplomacy reacts injuriously upon the United States Government itself, and in a measure paralyzes the action of the Executive in the direction of a sound and consistent policy. The United States Government is embarrassed in its efforts to foster American enterprise and the growth of our commerce through the cultivation of friendly relations with Santo Domingo, by the irritating effects on those relations, and the consequent injurious influence upon that commerce, of frequent interventions. As a method of solution of the complicated problem arbitration has become nugatory, inasmuch as, in the condition of its finances, an award against the Republic is worthless unless its payment is secured by the pledge of at least some portion of the customs revenues. This pledge is ineffectual without actual delivery over of the custom-houses to secure the appropriation of the pledged revenues to the payment of the award. This situation again reacts injuriously upon the relations of the United States with other nations. For when an award and such security are thus obtained, as in the case of the Santo Domingo Improvement Company, some foreign Government complains that the award conflicts with its rights, as a creditor, to some portion of these revenues under an alleged prior pledge; and still other Governments complain that an award in any considerable sum, secured by pledges of the customs revenues, is prejudicial to the payment of their equally meritorious claims out of the ordinary revenues; and thus controversies are begotten between the United States and other creditor nations because of the apparent sacrifice of some of their claims, which may be just or may be grossly exaggerated, but which the United States Government can not inquire into without giving grounds of offence to other friendly creditor nations. Still further illustrations might easily be furnished of the hopelessness of the present situation growing out of the social disorders and the bankrupt finances of the Dominican Republic, where for considerable periods during recent years the bonds of civil society have been practically dissolved.

Under the accepted law of nations foreign Governments are within their right, if they choose to exercise it, when they actively intervene in support of the contractual claims of their subjects. They sometimes exercise this power, and on account of commercial rivalries there is a growing tendency on the part of other Governments more and more to aid diplomatically in the enforcement of the claims of their subjects. In view of the dilemma in which the Government of the United States is thus placed, it must either adhere to its usual attitude of non-intervention in such cases—an attitude proper under normal conditions, but one which in this particular kind of case results to the disadvantage of its citizens in comparison with those of other States—or else it must, in order to be consistent in its policy, actively intervene to protect the contracts and con cessions of its citizens engaged in agriculture, commerce, and transportation in competition with the subjects and citizens of other States. This course would render the United States the insurer of all the speculative risks of its citizens in the public securities and franchises of Santo Domingo.

Under the plan in the protocol herewith submitted to the Senate, ensuring a faithful collection and application of the revenues to the specified objects, we are well assured that this difficult task can be accomplished with the friendly co-operation and goodwill of all the parties concerned, and to the great relief of the Dominican Republic.

The conditions in the Dominican Republic not only constitute a menace to our relations with other foreign nations, but they also concern the prosperity of the people of the island, as well as the security of American interests, and they are intimately associated with the interests of the South Atlantic and Gulf States, the normal expansion of whose commerce lies in that direction. At one time, and that only a year ago, three revolutions were in progress in the island at the same time.

It is impossible to state with anything like approximate accuracy the present population of the Dominican Republic. In the report of the Commission appointed by President Grant in 1871, the population was estimated at not over 150,000 souls, but according to the Statesman’s Yearbook for 1904, the estimated population in 1888 is given as 610,000. The Bureau of the American Republics considers this the best estimate of the present population of the Republic. As shown by the unanimous report of the Grant Commission the public debt of the Dominican Republic, including claims, was $1,565,831.59¼. The total revenues were $772,684.75¼. The public indebtedness of the Dominican Republic, not including all claims, was on September 12 last, as the Department of State is advised, $32,280,000; the estimated revenues under Dominican management of custom-houses were $1,850,000; the proposed budget for current administration was $1,300,000, leaving only $550,000 to pay foreign and liquidated obligations, and payments on these latter will amount during the ensuing year to $1,700,000, besides $900,000 of arrearages of payments overdue, amounting in all to $2,600,000. It is therefore impossible under existing conditions, which are chronic, and with the estimated yearly revenues of the Republic, which during the last decade have averaged approximately $1,600,000, to defray the ordinary expenses of the Government and to meet its obligations.

The Dominican debt owed to European creditors is about $22,000,000, and of this sum over $18,000,000 is more or less formally recognized. The representatives of European Governments have several times approached the Secretary of State setting forth the wrongs and intolerable delays to which they have been subjected at the hands of the successive Governments of Santo Domingo in the collection of their just claims, and intimating that unless the Dominican Government should receive some assistance from the United States in the way of regulating its finances, the creditor Governments in Europe would be forced to resort to more effective measures of compulsion to secure the satisfaction of their claims.

If the United States Government declines to take action and other foreign Governments resort to action to secure payment of their claims, the latter would be entitled, according to the decision of The Hague tribunal in the Venezuelan cases, to the preferential payment of their claims; and this would absorb all the Dominican revenues and would be a virtual sacrifice of American claims and interests in the island. If moreover, any such action should be taken by them, the only method to enable them to secure the payment of their claims would be to take possession of the custom-houses, and considering the state of the Dominican finances this would mean a definite and very possibly permanent occupation of Dominican territory, for no period could be set to the time which would be necessarily required for the payment of their obligations and unliquidated claims. The United States Government could not interfere to prevent such seizure and occupation of Dominican territory without either itself proposing some feasible alternative in the way of action, or else virtually saying to European Governments that they would not be allowed to collect their claims. This would be an unfortunate attitude for the Government of the United States to be forced to maintain at present. It can not with propriety say that it will protect its own citizens and interests, on the one hand, and yet on the other hand refuse to allow other Governments to protect their citizens and interests.

The actual situation in the Dominican Republic can not, perhaps, be more forcibly stated than by giving a brief account of the case of the Santo Domingo Improvement Company.

From 1869 to 1897 the Dominican Government issued successive series of bonds, the majority of which were in the hands of European holders. Successive issues bore interest at rates ranging from 2¾ to 6 per cent, and what with commissions and other deductions and the heavy discount in the market the Government probably did not receive over 50 to 75 per cent of their nominal value. Other portions of the debt were created by loans, for which the Government received only one-half of the amount it was nominally to repay, and these obligations bore interest at the rate of 1 to 2 per cent a month on their face, some of them compounded monthly.

The improvidence of the Government in its financial management was due to its weakness, to its impaired credit, and to its pecuniary needs occasioned by frequent insurrections and revolutionary changes, and by its inability to collect its revenues.

In 1888 the Government, in order to secure the payment of an issue of bonds, placed the custom-houses and the collection of its customs duties, which are substantially the only revenues of the Republic, in the hands of the Westendorps, bankers of Amsterdam, Holland. But the national debt continued to grow and the Government finally intrusted the collection of its revenues to an American corporation, the Santo Domingo Improvement Company, which was to take over the bonds of the Westendorps. The Dominican Government finally became dissatisfied with this arrangement, and, in 1901, ousted the Improvement Company from its custom-houses and took into its own hands the collection of its revenues. The company thereupon appealed to the United States Government to maintain them in their position, but their request was refused. The Dominican Government then sent its minister of foreign affairs to Washington to negotiate a settlement. He admitted that the Improvement Company had equities which ought not to be disregarded, and the Department of State suggested that the Dominican Government and the Improvement Company should effect, by private negotiation, a satisfactory settlement between them. They accordingly entered into an arrangement for a settlement, which was mutually satisfactory to the parties. A similar arrangement was likewise made between the Dominican Government and the European bondholders. The latter arrangement was carried into execution by the Dominican Government and payments made toward the liquidation of the bonds held by the European holders. The Dominican Congress refused to ratify the similar arrangement made with the Improvement Company, and the Government refused to provide for the payment of the American claimants. In this state of the case it was evident that a continuance of this treatment of the American creditors, and its repetition in other cases, would, if allowed to run its course, result in handing over the island to European creditors, and in time would ripen into serious controversies between the United States and other Governments, unless the United States should deliberately and finally abandon its interests in the island.

The Improvement Company and its allied companies held, besides bonds, certain banking and railway interests in the island. The Dominican Government, desirous to own and possess these properties, agreed with the companies that the value of their bonds and properties was $4,500,000, and they submitted to arbitration the question as to the instalments in which this sum should be paid and the security that should be given. The Hon. George Gray, judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Hon. Manuel de J. Galvan, both named by the Dominican Republic, and the Hon. John G. Carlisle, named by the United States, were the arbitrators, and rendered their award on July 14, 1904. By its terms the Dominican Government was to pay the above-mentioned sum of $4,500,000, with 4 per cent interest per annum, in monthly instalments of $37,500 each during two years and of $41,666.66 each month thereafter, beginning with the month of September, 1904, said award to be secured by the customs revenues and port dues of all the ports on the northern coast of Santo Domingo. The award further provides for the appointment of a financial agent of the United States, who was authorized, in case of failure during any month to receive the sum then due, to enter into possession of the custom-house at Puerto Plata in the first instance and assume charge of the collection of customs duties and port dues, and to fix and determine these duties and dues and secure their payment; in case the sums collected at Puerto Plata should at any time be insufficient for the payment of the amounts due under the award, or in case of any other manifest necessity, or in case the Dominican Government should so request, the financial agent of the United States was authorized to have and exercise at any and all of the other ports above described all the rights and powers vested in him by the award in respect of Puerto Plata. Under the award the financial agent could only apply the revenues collected toward its payment after he had first paid the expenses of collection and certain other obligations styled “aparods,” which constituted prior charges on the revenues assigned. These prior charges are specified in the award. The Dominican Government defaulted in their payments; and in virtue of the award and the authority conferred by the Dominican Government, and at its request, possession was delivered of the custom-house of Puerto Plata to the fiscal agent appointed by the United States to collect the revenues assigned by the arbitrators for the payment of the award; and in virtue of the same authority possession of the custom-house of Monte Cristi has also been handed over. I submit herewith a report of Mr. John B. Moore, agent of the United States in this case, and a copy of the award of the arbitrators.

During the past two years the European claimants except the English, whose interests were embraced in those of the American companies, have, with the support of their respective Governments, been growing more and more importunate in pressing their unsatisfied demands. The French and the Belgians, in 1901, had entered into a contract with the Dominican Government, but, after a few payments were made on account, it fell into neglect. Other Governments also obliged the Dominican Government to enter into arrangements of various kinds by which the revenues of the Republic were in large part sequestrated, and under one of the agreements, which was concluded with Italy in 1903, the minister of that Government was empowered directly to collect from the importers and exporters that portion of the customs revenues assigned to him as security. As the result of chronic disorders attended with a constant increase of debt, the state of things in Santo Domingo has become hopeless, unless the United States or some other strong Government shall interpose to bring order out of the chaos. The custom-houses, with the exception of the two in the possession of the financial agent appointed by the United States, have become unproductive for the discharge of indebtedness, except as to persons making emergency loans to the Government or to its enemies for the purpose of carrying on political contests by force. They have, in fact, become the nuclei of the various revolutions. The first effort of revolutionists is to take possession of a custom-house so as to obtain funds, which are then disposed of at the absolute discretion of those who are collecting them. The chronic disorders prevailing in Santo Domingo have, moreover, become exceedingly dangerous to the interests of Americans holding property in that country. Constant complaints have been received of the injuries and inconveniences to which they have been subjected. As an evidence of the increasing aggravation of conditions, the fact may be mentioned that about a year ago the American railway, which had previously been exempt from such attacks, was seized, its tracks torn up, and a station destroyed by revolutionary bands.

The ordinary resources of diplomacy and international arbitration are absolutely impotent to deal wisely and effectively with the situation in the Dominican Republic, which can only be met by organizing its finances on a sound basis and by placing the custom-houses beyond the temptation of insurgent chieftains. Either we must abandon our duty under our traditional policy toward the Dominican people, who aspire to a republican form of government while they are actually drifting into a condition of permanent anarchy, in which case we must permit some other Government to adopt its own measures in order to safeguard its own interests, or else we must ourselves take seasonable and appropriate action.

Again and again has the Dominican Government invoked on its own behalf the aid of the United States. It has repeatedly done so of recent years. In 1899 it sought to enter into treaty relations by which it would be placed under the protection of the United States Government. The request was refused. Again in January, 1904, its minister of foreign affairs visited Washington and besought the help of the United States Government to enable it to escape from its financial and social disorders. Compliance with this request was again declined, for this Government has been most reluctant to interfere in any way, and has finally concluded to take action only because it has become evident that failure to do so may result in a situation fraught with grave danger to the cause of international peace.

In 1903 a representative of a foreign Government proposed to the United States the joint fiscal control of the Dominican Republic by certain creditor nations, and that the latter should take charge of the custom-houses and revenues and give to the Dominican Government a certain percentage and apply the residue to the payment ratably of claims of foreign creditors. The United States Government declined to approve or to enter into such an arrangement. But it has now become evident that decided action of some kind can not be much longer delayed. In view of our past experience and our knowledge of the actual situation of the Dominican Republic, a definite refusal of the United States Government to take any effective action looking to the relief of the Dominican Republic and to the discharge of its own duty under the Monroe Doctrine can only be considered as an acquiescence in some such action by another Government.

That most wise measure of international statesmanship, the Platt amendment, has provided a method for preventing such difficulties from arising in the new Republic of Cuba. In accordance with the terms of this amendment the Republic of Cuba can not issue any bonds which can be collected from Cuba save as a matter of grace, unless with the consent of the United States, which is at liberty at all times to take measures to prevent the violation of the letter and spirit of the Platt amendment. If a similar plan could now be entered upon by the Dominican Republic, it would undoubtedly be of great advantage to them and to all other peoples, for under such an arrangement no larger debt would be incurred than could be honestly paid, and those who took debts not thus authorized would, by the mere fact of taking them, put themselves in the category of speculators or gamblers, who deserved no consideration and who would be permitted to receive none; so that the honest creditor would on the one hand be safe, while on the other hand the Republic would be safeguarded against molestation in the interest of mere speculators.

But no such plan at present exists; and under existing circumstances, when the condition of affairs becomes such as it has become in Santo Domingo, either we must submit to the likelihood of infringement of the Monroe Doctrine or we must ourselves agree to some such arrangement as that herewith submitted to the Senate. In this case, fortunately, the prudent and far-seeing statesmanship of the Dominican Government has relieved us of all trouble. At their request we have entered into the agreement herewith submitted. Under it the custom-houses will be administered peacefully, honestly, and economically, 45 per cent of the proceeds being turned over to the Dominican Government and the remainder being used by the United States to pay what proportion of the debts it is possible to pay on an equitable basis. The Republic will be secured against over-seas aggression. This in reality entails no new obligation upon us, for the Monroe Doctrine means precisely such a guarantee on our part.

It is perhaps unnecessary to state that no step of any kind has been taken by the Administration under the terms of the protocol which is herewith submitted.

The Republic of Santo Domingo has by this protocol wisely and patriotically accepted the responsibilities as well as the privileges of liberty, and is showing with evident good faith its purpose to pay all that its resources will permit of its obligations. More than this it can not do, and when it has done this we should not permit it to be molested. We on our part are simply performing in peaceful manner, not only with the cordial acquiescence, but in accordance with the earnest request of the Government concerned, part of that international duty which is necessarily involved in the assertion of the Monroe Doctrine. We are bound to show that we perform this duty in good faith and without any intention of aggrandizing ourselves at the expense of our weaker neighbors or of conducting ourselves otherwise than so as to benefit both these weaker neighbors and those European Powers which may be brought into contact with them. It is in the highest degree necessary that we should prove by our action that the world may trust in our good faith and may understand that this international duty will be performed by us within our own sphere, in the interest not merely of ourselves, but of all other nations, and with strict justice toward all. If this is done a general acceptance of the Monroe Doctrine will in the end surely follow; and this will mean an increase of the sphere in which peaceful measures for the settlement of international difficulties gradually displace those of a warlike character.

We can point with just pride to what we have done in Cuba as a guaranty of our good faith. We stayed in Cuba only so long as to start her aright on the road to self-government, which she has since trod with such marked and distinguished success; and upon leaving the island we exacted no conditions save such as would prevent her from ever becoming the prey of the stranger. Our purpose in Santo Domingo is as beneficent. The good that this country got from its action in Cuba was indirect rather than direct. So it is as regards Santo Domingo. The chief material advantage that will come from the action proposed to be taken will be to Santo Domingo itself and to Santo Domingo’s creditors. The advantages that will come to the United States will be indirect, but nevertheless great, for it is supremely to our interest that all the communities immediately south of us should be or become prosperous and stable, and therefore not merely in name but in fact independent and self-governing.

I call attention to the urgent need of prompt action on this matter. We now have a great opportunity to secure peace and stability in the island, without friction or bloodshed, by acting in accordance with the cordial invitation of the governmental authorities themselves. It will be unfortunate from every standpoint if we fail to grasp this opportunity; for such failure will probably mean increasing revolutionary violence in Santo Domingo, and very possibly embarrassing foreign complications in addition. This protocol affords a practical test of the efficiency of the United States Government in maintaining the Monroe Doctrine.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT. WHITE HOUSE, _February 15, 1905_.

ADDRESS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIA, PA., FEB. 22, 1905

_Mr. Provost, Members of the University, and my Fellow-Citizens_:

As a Nation we have had our full share of great men, but the two men of pre-eminent greatness who, as the centuries go on, will surely loom above all others are Washington and Lincoln; and it is peculiarly fitting that their birthdays should be celebrated every year and the meaning of their lives brought home close to us.

No other city in the country is so closely identified with Washington’s career as Philadelphia. He served here in 1775 in the Continental Congress. He was here as commander of the Army at the time of the battles of Brandywine and Germantown; and it was near here that with that army he faced the desolate winter at Valley Forge, the winter which marked the turning point of the Revolutionary War. Here he came again as President of the Convention which framed the Constitution, and then as President of the United States, and finally as Lieutenant-General of the Army after he had retired from the Presidency.

One hundred and eight years ago, just before he left the Presidency, he issued his farewell address, and in it he laid down certain principles which he believed should guide the citizens of this Republic for all time to come, his own words being “which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people.”

Washington, though in some ways an even greater man than Lincoln, did not have Lincoln’s wonderful gift of expression—that gift which makes certain speeches of the rail-splitter from Illinois read like the inspired utterances of the great Hebrew seers and prophets. But he had all of Lincoln’s sound common-sense, farsightedness, and devotion to a lofty ideal. Like Lincoln he sought after the noblest objects, and like Lincoln he sought after them by thoroughly practical methods. These two greatest Americans can fairly be called the best among the great men of the world, and greatest among the good men of the world. Each showed in actual practice his capacity to secure under our system the priceless union of individual liberty with governmental strength. Each was as free from the vices of the tyrant as from the vices of the demagogue. To each the empty futility of the mere doctrinaire was as alien as the baseness of the merely self-seeking politician. Each was incapable alike of the wickedness which seeks by force of arms to wrong others and of the no less criminal weakness which fails to provide effectively against being wronged by others.

Among Washington’s maxims which he bequeathed to his countrymen were the two following: “Observe good faith and justice toward all nations,” and “To be prepared for war is the most effective means to promote peace.” These two principles taken together should form the basis of our whole foreign policy. Neither is sufficient taken by itself. It is not merely an idle dream, but a most mischievous dream, to believe that mere refraining from wrongdoing will ensure us against being wronged. Yet, on the other hand, a nation prepared for war is a menace to mankind unless the national purpose is to treat other nations with good faith and justice. In any community it is neither the conscientious man who is a craven at heart, nor yet the bold and strong man without the moral sense, who is of real use to the community; it is the man who to strength and courage adds a realizing sense of the moral obligation resting upon him, the man who has not only the desire but the power to do his full duty by his neighbor and by the State. So, in the world at large, the nation which is of use in the progress of mankind is that nation which combines strength of character, force of character, and insistence upon its own rights, with a full acknowledgment of its own duties toward others. Just at present the best way in which we can show that our loyalty to the teachings of Washington is a loyalty of the heart and not of the lips only is to see to it that the work of building up our Navy goes steadily on, and that at the same time our stand for international righteousness is clear and emphatic.

Never since the beginning of our country’s history has the Navy been used in an unjust war. Never has it failed to render great and sometimes vital service to the Republic. It has not been too strong for our good, though often not strong enough to do all the good it should have done. Our possession of the Philippines, our interest in the trade of the Orient, our building the Isthmian Canal, our insistence upon the Monroe Doctrine, all demand that our Navy shall be of adequate size and for its size of unsurpassed efficiency. If it is strong enough I believe it will minimize the chance of our being drawn into foreign war. If we let it run down it is as certain as the day that sooner or later we shall have to choose between a probably disastrous foreign war or a peace kept on terms that imply national humiliation. Our Navy is the surest guaranty of peace and the cheapest insurance against war, and those who, in whatever capacity, have helped to build it up during the past twenty years have been in good faith observing and living up to one of the most important of the principles which Washington laid down for the guidance of his countrymen. Nor was Washington the only one of our great Presidents who showed farsighted patriotism by support of the Navy. When Andrew Jackson was in Congress he voted for the first warships we ever built as part of our regular Navy; and he voted against the grant of money to pay our humiliating tribute to the pirates of the Barbary States. Old Hickory was a patriot through and through, and there was not an ounce of timidity in his nature, and of course he felt only indignant contempt for a policy which purchased an ignoble peace by cowardice instead of exacting a just peace by showing we were as little willing to submit to as to inflict aggression. Had a majority of Jackson’s colleagues and successors felt as he did about the Navy, had it been built up instead of being brought to a standstill, it would probably never have been necessary to fight the War of 1812.

Again Washington said: “Give to mankind the example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.” This feeling can be shown alike by our dealings within and without our own borders. Taft and Wright in the Philippines and Wood in Cuba have shown us exactly how to practice this justice and benevolence in dealing with other peoples—a justice and benevolence which can be shown, not by shirking our duty and abandoning to self-destruction those unfit to govern themselves, but by doing our duty by staying with them and teaching them how to govern themselves, by uplifting them spiritually and materially. Here at home we are obeying this maxim of Washington’s just so far as we help in every movement, whether undertaken by the Government, or as is, and should be, more often the case, by voluntary action among private citizens, for the betterment of our own people. Observe that Washington speaks both of justice and benevolence, and that he puts justice first. We must be generous, we must help our poorer brother, but above all, we must remember to be just; and the first step toward securing justice is to treat every man on his worth as a man, showing him no special favor, but so far as may be holding open for him the door of opportunity so that reward may wait upon honest and intelligent endeavor.

Again Washington said: “Cherish public credit.” Just at the moment there is no attack on public credit, but if ever the temptation arises again let our people at the outset remember that the worst because the most insidious form of the appeal that would make a man a dishonest debtor is that which would persuade him that it is anything but dishonest for him to repudiate his debts.

Finally, it is peculiarly appropriate, when I have come to this city as the guest of the University of Pennsylvania, to quote another of Washington’s maxims: “Promote, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” Education may not make a man a good citizen, but most certainly ignorance tends to prevent his being a good citizen. Washington was far too much of a patriot, had far too much love for his fellow-citizens, to try to teach them that they could govern themselves unless they could develop a sound and enlightened public opinion. No nation can permanently retain free government unless it can retain a high average of citizenship; and there can be no such high average of citizenship without a high average of education, using the word in its broadest and truest sense to include the things of the soul as well as the things of the mind. School education can never supplant or take the place of self-education, still less can it in any way take the place of those rugged and manly qualities which we group together under the name of character; but it can be of enormous use in supplementing both. It is a source of just pride to every American that our people have so consistently acted in accordance with Washington’s principle of promoting institutions for the diffusion of knowledge. There is nothing dearer to our hearts than our public school system, by which free primary education is provided for every one within our borders. The higher education, such as is provided by the University of Pennsylvania and kindred bodies, not only confers great benefits to those able to take advantage of it, but entails upon them corresponding duties.

The men who founded this Nation had to deal with theories of government and the fundamental principles of free institutions. We are now concerned with a different set of questions, for the Republic has been firmly established, its principles thoroughly tested and fully approved. To merely political issues have succeeded those of grave social and economic importance, the solution of which demands the best efforts of the best men. We have a right to expect that a wise and leading part in the effort to attain this solution will be taken by those who have been exceptionally blessed in the matter of obtaining an education. That college graduate is but a poor creature who does not feel when he has left college that he has received something for which he owes a return. What he thus owes he can, as a rule, only pay by the way he bears himself throughout life. It is but occasionally that a college graduate can do much outright for his alma mater; he can best repay her by living a life that will reflect credit upon her, by so carrying himself as a citizen that men shall see that the years spent in training him have not been wasted. The educated man is entitled to no special privilege, save the inestimable privilege of trying to show that his education enables him to take the lead in striving to guide his fellows aright in the difficult task which is set to us of the twentieth century. The problems before us to-day are very complex, and are widely different from those which the men of Washington’s generation had to face; but we can overcome them surely, and we can overcome them only, if we approach them in the spirit which Washington and Washington’s great supporters brought to bear upon the problems of their day—the spirit of sanity and of courage, the spirit which combines hard common-sense with the loftiest idealism.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1905

_My Fellow-Citizens:_

No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good, who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and of happiness. To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our national life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race; and yet our life has called for the vigor and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away. Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed; and the success which we have had in the past, the success which we confidently believe the future will bring, should cause in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep and abiding realization of all which life has offered us; a full acknowledgment of the responsibility which is ours, and a fixed determination to show that under a free government a mighty people can thrive best, alike as regards the things of the body and the things of the soul.

Much has been given to us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great Nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth; and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words but in our deeds that we are earnestly desirous of securing their goodwill by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wronging others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.

Our relations with the other Powers of the world are important; but still more important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population, and in power as this Nation has seen during the century and a quarter of its national life is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in the problems which are ever before every nation that rises to greatness. Power invariably means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now face other perils the very existence of which it was impossible that they should foresee. Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the last half century are felt in every fibre of our social and political being. Never before have men tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a continent under the forms of a democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, have also brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial centres. Upon the success of our experiment much depends; not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock to its foundations; and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to the generations yet unborn. There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.

Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children’s children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.

WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON
_March 6, 1905_

_To the Senate:_

I wish to call the attention of the Senate at this executive session to the treaty with Santo Domingo. I feel that I ought to state to the Senate that the condition of affairs in Santo Domingo is such that it is very much for the interest of that Republic that action on the treaty should be had at as early a moment as the Senate, after giving the matter full consideration, may find practicable.

I call attention to the following facts:

1. This treaty was entered into at the earnest request of Santo Domingo itself, and is designed to afford Santo Domingo relief and assistance. Its primary benefit will be to Santo Domingo. It offers the method most likely to secure peace and to prevent war in the island.

2. The benefit to the United States will consist chiefly in the tendency under the treaty to secure stability, order, and prosperity in Santo Domingo, and the removal of the apprehension lest foreign powers make aggressions on Santo Domingo in the course of collecting claims due their citizens; for it is greatly to our interest that all the islands in the Caribbean Sea should enjoy peace and prosperity and feel goodwill toward this country. The benefit to honest creditors will come from the fact that for the first time under this treaty a practicable method of attempting to settle the debts due them will be inaugurated.

3. Many of the debts alleged to be due from Santo Domingo to outside creditors unquestionably on their face represent far more money than ever was actually given Santo Domingo. The proposed treaty provides for a process by which impartial experts will determine what debts are valid and what are in whole or in part invalid, and will apportion accordingly the surplus revenue available for the payment of the debts. This treaty offers the only method for preventing the collection of fraudulent debts, whether owed to Americans or to citizens of other nations.

4. This treaty affords the most practicable means of obtaining payment for the just claims of American citizens.

5. If the treaty is ratified creditors belonging to other nations will have exactly as good treatment as creditors who are citizens of the United States, and at the same time Santo Domingo will be protected against unjust and exorbitant claims. If it is not ratified the chances are that American creditors will fare ill as compared with those of other nations; for foreign nations, being denied the opportunity to get what is rightfully due their citizens under the proposed arrangement, will be left to collect debts due their citizens as they see fit, provided, of course, there is not permanent occupancy of Dominican territory. As in such case the United States will have nothing to say as to what debts should or should not be collected, and as Santo Domingo will be left without aid, assistance, or protection, it is impossible to state that the sums collected from it will not be improper in amount. In such event, whatever is collected by means of forcible intervention will be applied to the creditors of foreign nations in preference to creditors who are citizens of the United States.

6. The correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Minister of Haiti, submitted to the Senate several days ago, shows that our position is explicitly and unreservedly that under no circumstances do we intend to acquire territory in or possession of either Haiti or Santo Domingo; it being stated in these letters that even if the two republics desired to become a part of the United States the United States would certainly refuse its assent.

7. Santo Domingo grievously needs the aid of a powerful and friendly nation. This aid we are able, and I trust that we are willing, to bestow. She has asked for this aid, and the expressions of friendship repeatedly sanctioned by the people and the Government of the United States warrant her in believing that it will not be withheld in the hour of her need.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

ADDRESS AT THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, AT GRACE REFORMED CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 12, 1905

_Mr. Justice, Dr. Schick, and you, my Fellow-Members of this
Congregation, and our Guests who are with us to-day_:

I am glad, on behalf of this church, to say amen to the appeal that has been made by Dr. Swift on behalf of the great society to the account of whose work you have been listening. Mr. Justice, you quoted the advice of a poet “to be doers rather than dreamers.” In the Book of all books there is a sentence to the same effect, “Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only.” Let us show ourselves to-day doers of the word, upholders in fact of what has been preached to us by Dr. Swift.

He has set forth the needs of the society, and he has set forth the great field over which it works. I wish to touch only on a small portion of that field, but, after all, the portion that most concerns us—the need here at home, here in this country, of furthering in every way the work of the society, the work of all kindred societies, both among the native-born and among the thousands who come to these shores from abroad. And there is a peculiar propriety in such an appeal being made to this church, for, as I have said here before, this church more than most others should ever keep before it as part of its duty, as one of the chief parts of its duty, that of caring in all ways, but especially in spiritual ways, for the people who come to us from abroad.