Chapter XI: Part 11

The board has completed its labors, and its report, together with a letter of transmittal by the Secretary of War, is herewith transmitted for the information of the Congress. It is to be noted that the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, not heretofore recommended or authorized by Congress, is added to the list of ports in the United States to be defended, with the important reasons therefor clearly stated; that the gun defence proper is well advanced toward completion, and that the greater part of the estimate is for new work of gun defence, for the accessories now so necessary for efficiency, and for an allowance of ammunition which, added to that already on hand, will give the minimum supply that should be kept in reserve to successfully meet any sudden attack. The letter of the Secretary of War contains a comparison of the estimates of the Endicott Board, with the amounts already appropriated for the present defence and the estimates of the new board, from which it appears that a completed defence of our coast, omitting cost of ammunition and sites, can be accomplished for less than the amount estimated by the Endicott Board, even including the additional localities not recommended by it.

In the insular possessions, the great naval bases at Guantanamo, Subig Bay, and Pearl Harbor, the coaling stations at Guam and San Juan, require protection, and, in addition, defences are recommended for Manila Bay and Honolulu, because of the strategic importance of these localities. In the letter of the Secretary of War will be found the sums already appropriated for defences at some of these ports or harbors, and the estimates are for the completion of an adequate defence at each locality.

Defences are recommended for the entrances to the Panama Canal as contemplated by the Act of June 28, 1902 (Spooner Act), and under the terms of this act the cost of such fortifications would probably be paid from appropriations for the construction and defence of the canal.

The necessity for a complete and adequate system of coast defence is greater to-day than twenty years ago, for the increased wealth of the country offers more tempting inducements to attack and a hostile fleet can reach our coast in a much shorter period of time. The fact that we now have a navy does not in any wise diminish the importance of coast defences; on the contrary, that fact emphasizes their value and the necessity for their construction. It is an accepted naval maxim that a navy can be used to strategic advantage only when acting on the offensive, and it can be free to so operate only after our coast defence is reasonably secure and so recognized by the country. It was due to the securely defended condition of the Japanese ports that the Japanese fleet was free to seek out and watch its proper objective—the Russian fleet—without fear of interruption or recall to guard its home ports against raids by the Vladivostok squadron. This one of the most valuable lessons of the late war in the East is worthy of serious consideration by our country, with its extensive coast line, its many important harbors, and its many wealthy manufacturing coast cities.

The security and protection of our interests require the completion of the defences of our coast, and the accompanying plan merits and should receive the generous support of the Congress.

MESSAGE COMMUNICATED TO THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, MARCH 7, 1906

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I have signed the joint resolution “instructing the Interstate Commerce Commission to make examinations into the subject of railroad discriminations and monopolies in coal and oil, and report on the same from time to time.” I have signed it with hesitation because in the form in which it was passed it achieves very little and may achieve nothing; and it is highly undesirable that a resolution of this kind shall become law in such form as to give the impression of insincerity; that is, of pretending to do something which really is not done. But after much hesitation I concluded to sign the resolution because its defects can be remedied by legislation which I hereby ask for; and it must be understood that unless this subsequent legislation is granted the present resolution must be mainly, and may be entirely, inoperative.

Before specifying what this legislation is, I wish to call attention to one or two preliminary facts. In the first place, a part of the investigation requested by the House of Representatives in the resolution adopted February 15, 1905, relating to the oil industry, and a further part having to do with the anthracite coal industry, has been for some time under investigation by the Department of Commerce and Labor. These investigations, I am informed, are approaching completion, and before Congress adjourns I shall submit to you the preliminary reports of these investigations. Until these reports are completed the Interstate Commerce Commission could not endeavor to carry out so much of the resolution of Congress as refers to the ground thus already covered without running the risk of seeing the two investigations conflict, and therefore render each other more or less nugatory. In the second place, I call your attention to the fact that if an investigation of the nature proposed in this joint resolution is thoroughly and effectively conducted, it will result in giving immunity from criminal prosecution to all persons who are called, sworn and constrained by compulsory process of law to testify as witnesses; though of course such immunity from prosecution is not given to those from whom statements or information, merely, in contradistinction to sworn testimony, is obtained. This is not at all to say that such investigations should not be undertaken. Publicity can by itself often accomplish extraordinary results for good; and the court of public judgment may secure such results where the courts of law are powerless. There are many cases where an investigation securing complete publicity about abuses and giving Congress the material on which to proceed in the enactment of laws, is more useful than a criminal prosecution can possibly be. But it should not be provided for by law without a clear understanding that it may be an alternative instead of an additional remedy; that is, that to carry on the investigation may serve as a bar to the successful prosecution of the offences disclosed. The official body directed by Congress to make the investigation must, of course, carry out its direction, and therefore the direction should not be given without full appreciation of what it means.

But the direction contained in the joint resolution which I have signed will remain almost inoperative unless money is provided to carry out the investigations in question, and unless the Commission in carrying them out is authorized to administer oaths and compel the attendance of witnesses. As the resolution now is, the Commission, which is very busy with its legitimate work and which has no extra money at its disposal, would be able to make the investigation only in the most partial and unsatisfactory manner; and moreover it is questionable whether it could, under this resolution, administer oaths at all or compel the attendance of witnesses. If this power were disputed by the parties investigated, the investigation would be held up for a year or two until the courts passed upon it, in which case, during the period of waiting, the Commission could only investigate to the extent and in the manner already provided under its organic law; so that the passage of the resolution would have achieved no good result whatever.

I accordingly recommend to Congress the serious consideration of just what they wish the Commission to do, and how far they wish it to go, having in view the possible incompatibility of conducting an investigation like this and of also proceeding criminally in a court of law; and furthermore, that a sufficient sum, say fifty thousand dollars, be at once added to the current appropriation for the Commission so as to enable them to do the work indicated in a thorough and complete manner; while at the same time the power is explicitly conferred upon them to administer oaths and compel the attendance of witnesses in making the investigation in question, which covers work quite apart from their usual duties. It seems unwise to require an investigation by a commission and then not to furnish either the full legal power or the money, both of which are necessary to render the investigation effective.

TO THE CONSULAR REFORM ASSOCIATION, AT THE WHITE HOUSE, MARCH 14, 1906

_Gentlemen_:

I need hardly say that our one chance for getting the consular service put upon a really effective basis lies with just such organizations as this.

We in Washington must rely upon you to make our people, who are pre-eminently a business people—I do not think that is by any means all they either are or ought to be, but I think they must have and ought to have a very strong business side to them—appreciate that the consular service should be in its essence a part of the general scheme of business development of the country. Of course my own view is that that applies to all the affairs of the State Department, and under both Mr. Hay and Mr. Root that Department has been managed and is being managed with an eye single to the good of the country as a whole. I have not, I am sorry to say, been able to persuade people thus to look upon even such a question as the Santo Domingo Treaty, which is a purely non-partisan measure; for if it was treated as it should be, purely on its merits, there would not be one shadow of opposition to or criticism of it. But while we have not yet been successful in getting the work of the Department looked upon quite in the non-partisan spirit that should be our national attitude in foreign affairs, and have not been successful in getting the consular service made by law what we strive to have it made—an absolutely non-partisan service—still we have made a certain amount of progress, and with the help of you and those like you, we shall be able to make a great deal more progress. One point let me dwell upon. You can not expect to get permanently good service when that service is unattractive and ill-paid. We have had a great deal of difficulty with our consular service in China. It came partly because men were appointed for political reasons, with scant regard to their qualifications, partly because men found themselves in remote Eastern ports where there was not much that made life attractive, where there was very little supervision over them, and yet great temptation. Gentlemen, we all know that under such conditions it is necessarily difficult to secure honest and efficient service. We made a pretty thorough clean-up there. But we can not keep the service as high as it should be kept unless we have adequate salaries. There must be a better monetary provision for our consuls. I think that some such scheme as that so admirably advocated by Mr. Loomis, whose experience peculiarly fits him to speak on the subject, of charging a graded fee for invoices would furnish a solution. But in any event, in some way or other, we should provide for better salaries for the consuls, for better facilities for doing their work. Remember that the dearest kind of public servant is a servant who is paid so cheaply that he must render cheap service. Also, I feel most strongly that in the consular service, which stands entirely apart from the diplomatic service proper, entrance should be made by law into the lower grades and that the higher grades should be filled by a gradual process of weeding out and promotion; remembering, gentlemen, that the weeding-out process must not be interfered with. It is not any too easy, at best, to get rid of a kindly-natured elderly incompetent, and if you add to the difficulty by law, he then stays permanently. Make the entrance to the service as far as possible non-partisan and make it at the lower grades, so that desirable positions shall come to those who have rendered good and faithful service in the lower grades, so that those entering the lower grades shall feel that if they do well they have a long and worthy career ahead of them.

TO THE COMMITTEE AND ASSISTANT COMMITTEES ON DEPARTMENT METHODS, AT THE RESIDENCE OF MR. PINCHOT, WASHINGTON, MARCH 20, 1906

_Gentlemen_:

I wish to express my very great appreciation of the work that you are doing. It would be a good thing for certain critics of our Government to realize the amount of hard, disinterested work for the Government represented by this gathering to which I am now speaking—a work which must in the immense majority of cases be its own reward, and therefore an ample reward; for there is nothing pleasanter than the consciousness of having done well a bit of work well worth doing.

A year ago I appointed the Keep Commission, because I had become convinced that the business methods of our Government were by no means abreast of the times. While I think there is comparatively little corruption in the National Governmental service, and while that little I intend to cut out or have cut out through other agencies than yours, it yet remains true that there is a good deal of duplication of work, a good deal of clumsiness of work, and above all, the inevitable tendency toward mere bureaucratic methods against which every Government official should be perpetually on his guard—the tendency to regard not the case, but the papers in the case, as the all-important matter with which to deal, and to feel a proud sense of duty performed if all those papers are appropriately docketed and referred and minutes made about them, and then referred back, without regard to what has become of the real fact at issue.

As you are aware, the Keep Commission sent out questions to those responsible for the actual work in all branches of the Government service. Answers were received, or are now being received, to those questions, and they furnish a useful aid to the study by the commission of Governmental conditions. But inevitably in the great majority of cases these answers are inadequate to form a basis for definite recommendations, and of course that is what I want from this commission. I do not want a diagnosis of the case; I want a recommendation how to reach the case. I do not want merely to know that things are bad; I want to know what is bad and what is to be done to make it better, so that if legislation is necessary I can recommend it, or if, as I hope will be true in the enormous majority of cases, the matter can be reached by executive regulation, I can see that that regulation is issued. I want to say right here, gentlemen, that I shall value the reports that I receive largely in proportion as they do not call for legislation. There is nothing easier, as all of you know, than to draw up an elaborate minute to show how well things would go on if some one else did something different. I want you, so far as is possible, to recommend something that I can do, something that the heads of the departments can do, so that we can ourselves put a stop to much at least of the evil that exists, remedy much at least of the shortcomings that exist.

With this in view, a number of assistant committees were appointed, consisting of you gentlemen here, carefully chosen men from the Government service, who are already largely responsible for the efficiency of the work done in your several departments and bureaus. It was a compliment to choose you, gentlemen; though it is one of those compliments that take the form of imposition of additional labor. If you were not of the type that I know you to be it would not be a compliment that would be appreciated. These committees, you gentlemen, have been at work for about a month, and you are taking up your work within your specific fields through study of the data already collected by the Committee on Department Methods, through bringing before you men whose knowledge is of expert value, and above all by a thorough study on the ground by experts (for that is what you are) of the conditions and needs within the departments themselves. I shall not enumerate the different committees. They are now at work. You compose them, gentlemen, and all told they have a membership of about seventy individuals.

As I have said, your particular effectiveness lies in the fact that you are dealing at first hand with work with which you are thoroughly familiar. You are not outsiders. You are not engaged in constructing a parlor theory of how the work should be done; you are engaged in recommendations to better the business which you are yourselves to carry through and see made better when those recommendations have been adopted. You have literally an unparalleled opportunity for useful work. As far as I am aware, there has never before been made in this country, or indeed, in any country, such a comprehensive systematic effort to put the country’s housekeeping in order. I need not say to you that it is urgent. A great deal of our Government work has become proverbial for the red tape involved. Of course much of the outside criticism upon red tape is due to forgetfulness of the fact that you and I are responsible to Congress for every dollar we spend, and for every dollar’s worth of work that we do, while the outsider is responsible only to himself or those interested with him, so that we not only have to do what is right and efficient, but have to be able to show that what we have done is right and efficient; and this inevitably means that there must be certain forms observed which the unthinking outsider is apt to stigmatize as red tape. Nevertheless it is true that there is always a tendency in Government work to run to needless red tape. I asked the Keep Commission, for instance, to take up with particular care, through the Assistant Secretaries of War and the Navy, the burden of paper work resting on the officers of the Army and Navy. I remember very well the pride with which a certain high officer in one of the bureaus in the Navy Department, a good many years ago, told me, pointing to a big case of papers, that in that he could find out through the reports of the officers of each battleship how many bottles of violet ink each captain of a battleship was responsible for. I remarked that I did not care a snap of my finger about the number of bottles of violet ink on the ship, that what I wanted to know was whether the men at the guns could shoot; I did not accept the knowledge of the whereabouts of the violet ink as a substitute for shooting. The paper work must be subordinated in the departments and bureaus to the efficiency of the work itself, keeping only enough of it to make a record of what is done.

Of course it is impossible to set any actual time limit to the work you are doing, but it would be a mighty good thing to inaugurate the next fiscal year by adopting the new policies and methods in the departmental business. I want to assure you of one thing, and that is that your mere appointment has already produced a very marked moral effect. The good results of seventy men studying local methods and local needs on the ground, in the departments, does not lie only in the knowledge gained; you render a great service by making the men with whom you come in contact feel that they actually share in this movement.

The most magnificent architecture that our race has ever been able to produce—the great Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages—were made, not by any known architect, not even by any number of architects whose names have ever been recorded. We do not know the name of an architect or builder connected with those great masterpieces. Each was made by a number of men, architects and builders, each of whom felt amply rewarded by the mere fact that he was able to put all the best that there was in him into his work. He did not care to have his name known, he did not desire to be immortalized in connection with the work; he cared only to make the work itself the best that it could possibly be made. There never was an army that amounted to anything in campaign or in battle unless the average soldier had in him the spirit which made him regard the winning of the campaign, the winning of the battle, as in itself the end, and his service, if good enough, as in itself the reward. He might wish other rewards if they happened to come; but if they did not, well and good. The doing the duty is of itself a sufficient reward for any man.

So it has to be if the work of the Government is to be really well done. As Ruskin has said, there are two ways of doing work; to work for the fee, for the payment, and to work for the work’s own sake. The work done simply to get money for having done it will never, under any circumstances, rank with the work done by the man whose sense of self-respect, whose capacity for loyalty to an ideal, makes him discontented unless the work that is at his hand is done with all the skill that heart and hand and brain can bring to it.

Of course, gentlemen, when you come to make your recommendations, you will have to deal with broad principles for the conduct of the Government business; but those broad principles must be supported by definite plans ready to be given immediate effect. I believe in broad principles, but I do not want them so broad that they will not apply to any given case. I want a general scheme, but also a way to make that general scheme effective in each department, each bureau, each section and subdivision touched by your committee. I do not want you in any case to recommend a change simply for the sake of making a change; nothing could be more foolish. But never hesitate for a moment in basing your recommendations upon the conditions actually found and the best way to meet them, no matter how radical may be the departure from established methods required. As I have said before, remember that in the vastly larger number of cases the essential need will not be for new legislation, but for better organization and improved methods under existing law. Now and then you will find where there must be a change in law, but the essential thing will be to change methods so that we can better administer the existing law.

There is, however, one fundamental weakness in the Government service which can not be remedied without additional legislation. That weakness lies in the faulty distribution of work among the different departments. It is one of the most serious of all the obstacles to good executive work, to effective work, and to economy in the public service. No matter how well a bureau or division may be organized and directed, you can not get the best work out of it unless it is associated with, and co-operating with, the other bureaus and divisions which are engaged in cognate lines of work and with which it naturally belongs. Good teamwork is as much needed in the executive civil service as it can possibly be anywhere else. And it is the only way to prevent duplication of work. Your own work is most important, but it covers only half of the field. To put the departments on the best and most economical working basis the President, as I have already recommended, should be given power to transfer any part of the work of a department to another department, as was done in the case of the Department of Commerce and Labor.

In closing I wish to say a word of acknowledgment of the public-spirited and most valuable co-operation of the American Association of Public Accountants, which has been promised to the Committee on Department Methods. I wish to thank them, and I wish to thank you, gentlemen, for the invaluable work that you are doing.

TO THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND THE
REPRESENTATIVES OF LABOR ASSOCIATED WITH THEM, AT THE EXECUTIVE
OFFICE, MARCH 21, 1906

_Gentlemen_:

If your body objects to the passage of the proposed anti-injunction bill, I have no question that you can stop it, for there is not a capitalist concerned who simply as capitalist is not against it; though I believe that a goodly number both of capitalists and wage-workers who are concerned primarily as citizens favor it. The law was worked over and substantially whipped into its present shape at a number of conferences between representatives of the railroad organizations, of the Department of Justice, and of the Bureau of Corporations with me. It goes as far as I personally think it should go in limiting the right of injunction; at any rate, no arguments have hitherto been advanced which make me think it should go farther. I do not believe it has any chance of passing, because there has been great criticism in both Houses of Congress against the attitude of the Administration in going so far as we have gone; and if you think it is not far enough, why, you will have no earthly difficulty in killing the bill. Personally, I think the proposed law a most admirable one, and I very sincerely wish it would be put through. As for the right of injunction, it is absolutely necessary to have this power lodged in the courts; though of course any abuse of the power is strongly to be reprobated. During the four and a half years that I have been President I do not remember an instance where the Government has invoked the right of injunction against a combination of laborers. We have invoked it certainly a score of times against combinations of capital; I think possibly oftener. Thus, though we have secured the issuance of injunctions in a number of cases against capitalistic combinations, it has happened that we have never tried to secure an injunction against a combination of labor. But understand me, gentlemen; if I ever thought it necessary, if I thought a combination of laborers were doing wrong, I would apply for an injunction against them just as quick as against so many capitalists.

Now I come to the general subject of your petition. I wish in the first place to state my regret that you did not divorce so much of the petition as refers to the action of the Executive from so much as refers to the action of the legislative branch, because I can not consider any petition that you make that reflects upon the co-ordinate branch of the Government, or that makes any charges whatever against it. I would not even receive it save for the fact that in part it affects the Executive. Therefore in what I have to say I shall limit myself solely to what you assert in reference to the acts of the Executive.

You speak of the eight-hour law. Your criticism, so far as it relates to the Executive, bears upon the signature of the appropriation bill containing the money for expenditure on the Panama Canal, with the proviso that the eight-hour law shall not there apply. If your statement is intended to mean that no opportunity was given for a hearing before me, then the statement is not in accordance with the facts. There was ample opportunity, but not a single request for such a hearing came to me. I received, however, some hundreds of telegrams and letters requesting the veto of the entire appropriation bill because it contained that proviso. Frankly, I found it difficult to believe that you were writing and telegraphing with any kind of knowledge of the conditions in the case. I believe emphatically in the eight-hour law for our own people in our own country. But the conditions of labor, such as we have to work with in the tropics, are so absolutely different that there is no possible analogy between them; and an eight-hour law for the Panama Canal is an absurdity. Every one of you knows that we can not get white labor, can not get labor of the United States, to go down to Panama and work. We are driven to extremities in the effort to get any kind of labor at all. Just at the moment we are working chiefly with negro labor from the West Indies. The usual result in the employment of those men is that Monday and Tuesday they work fairly well, Wednesday and Thursday there is a marked falling off, and by Friday and Saturday not more than a half, sometimes less than a fourth, of the laborers will be at work. The conditions that make the eight-hour law proper here have no possible reference to the conditions that make the eight-hour law entirely improper there. The conditions are so utterly different on the Isthmus, as compared to here, that it is impossible to try to draw conclusions affecting the one from what is true about the other. You hamper me in the effort to get for you what I think you ought to have in connection with the eight-hour law, when you make a request that is indefensible, and to grant which would mean indefinite delay and injury to the work on the Isthmus.

As to the violations of the eight-hour law, Mr. Morrison, you give me no specifications. At your earliest convenience please lay before me in detail any complaints you have of violations of the eight-hour law. Where I have power I will see that the law is obeyed. All I ask is that you give me the cases. I will take them up, and if they prove to be sustained by the facts I shall see that the law is enforced.

Now, about the Chinese exclusion. The number of Chinese now in this country is, if I remember aright, some sixty or seventy thousand. So far from there being a great influx of the Chinese, the fact is that the number has steadily decreased. There are fewer Chinese than there were ten years ago, fewer than there were twenty years ago, fewer than there were thirty years ago. Unquestionably some scores of cases occur each year where Chinese laborers get in either by being smuggled over the Mexican and Canadian borders, or by coming in under false certificates; but the steps that we have taken, the changes in the consuls that have been made within the last few years in the Orient, and the effort to conduct examinations in China before the immigrants are allowed to come here, are materially reducing even the small number of cases that do occur. But even as it is the number of these cases is insignificant. There is no appreciable influx of Chinese laborers, and there is not the slightest or most remote danger of any; the whole scare that has been worked up on the subject is a pure chimera. It is my deep conviction that we must keep out of this country every Chinese laborer, skilled or unskilled—every Chinaman of the coolie class. This is what the proposed law will do; it will be done as effectively as under the present law; and the present law is being handled with the utmost efficiency. But I will do everything in my power to make it easy and desirable for the Chinese of the business and professional classes, the Chinese travelers and students, to come here, and I will do all I can to secure their good treatment when they come; and no laboring man has anything whatever to fear from that policy. I have a right to challenge you as good American citizens to support that policy; and in any event I shall stand unflinchingly for it; and no man can say with sincerity that on this, or indeed on any other point, he has any excuse for misunderstanding my policy.

You have spoken of the immigration laws. I believe not merely that all possible steps should be taken to prevent the importation of laborers under any form, but I believe further that this country ought to make a resolute effort from now on to prevent the coming to the country of men with a standard of living so low that they tend, by entering into unfair competition with, to reduce the standard of living of our own people. Not one of you can go farther than I will go in the effort steadily to raise the status of the American wage-worker, so long as, while doing it, I can retain a clear conscience and the certainty that I am doing what is right. I will do all in my power for the laboring man except to do what is wrong; and I will not do that for him or for any one else.

We must not let our national sentiment for succoring the oppressed and unfortunate of other lands lead us into that warped moral and mental attitude of trying to succor them at the expense of pulling down our own people. Laws should be enacted to keep out all immigrants who do not show that they have the right stuff in them to enter into our life on terms of decent equality with our own citizens. This is needed, first, in the interest of the laboring man, but furthermore in the interests of all of us as American citizens; for, gentlemen, the bonds that unite all good American citizens are stronger by far than the differences, which I think you accentuate altogether too much, between the men who do one kind of labor and the men who do another. As for immigrants, we can not have too many of the right kind; and we should have none at all of the wrong kind; and they are of the right kind if we can be fairly sure that their children and grandchildren can meet on terms of equality our children and grandchildren, so as to try to be decent citizens together and to work together for the uplifting of the Republic.

Now a word as to the petitioning of employees to Congress. That stands in no shape or way on a par with the petitioning of men not employed by the Government. I can not have and will not have when I can prevent it men who are concerned in the administration of Government affairs going to Congress and asking for increased pay, without the permission of the heads of the departments. Their business is to come through the heads of departments. This applies to postmasters, to Army and Navy officers, to clerks in the Government departments, to laborers; it applies to each and all, and must apply, as a matter of simple discipline.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL PLAYGROUNDS COUNCILS AT THE WHITE HOUSE,
APRIL 12, 1906

_Ladies and Gentlemen_:

I trust that it is not necessary for me to say what a pleasure it is to meet you and how very earnest and hearty my sympathy is with your purpose. I owed my first interest in the playground question, among a great many other things, to Jacob Riis when he spoke of the poor children who were not allowed to play in the streets, but had to play in the streets as they had no other place to play. I have felt very keenly the need of playgrounds, and of course as the children grow older, the need of athletic grounds. In expressing my adherence to what you have said, Dr. Gulick, as to the need of helping adapt the plays, and of course the playgrounds and athletic grounds, to the needs of the citizenship of city life, let me add just one thing, which, I am sure, it is hardly necessary for me to say; and that is to remember that in trying to shape the plays for the children you must previously consult the children’s wishes. You must try to take advantage of their initiative and simply help in shaping it in the proper direction. One of the chief difficulties that all of us have encountered who have tried to help, whether in establishing playgrounds for children, or in establishing hotels for young women, or houses where working girls could live, or clubs, which instead of being saloons should be coffee clubs, for men, has arisen from the fact that philanthropists often establish such excellent but minute and overprecautionary regulations that nobody will inhabit them. As far as possible let the children work out their own salvation in their own way; simply exercise such supervision as to see that they do not do harm. Remember that in the last analysis the play has to suit them and not us.

TO THE GERMAN VETERANS, AT THE WHITE HOUSE, APRIL 12, 1906

I welcome you here, my fellow-Americans; for among the many strains that go to make up our composite race stock in this country, no strain has given us better Americans than those who are of German birth or blood. It is our peculiar pride as a nation that in this Republic we have measurably realized the ideal under which good citizens know no discrimination as between creed and creed, birthplace and birthplace, provided only that whatever the man’s parentage may have been, whatever the way in which he worships his Creator, he strives in good faith to do his duty by himself and by his fellow-men and to show his unflinching loyalty to our common country. In addition to thus greeting you, my fellow-Americans of German birth, I wish also to greet the German citizens present, the members of the German army, belonging to the reserve of that army, and to welcome them here; especially Mr. Ambassador, as they are brought here by you, yourself an old soldier, who have endeared yourself to the American people by your hearty friendship for this country.

The reverence a man preserves for his native land, so far from standing in the way of his loving and doing his full duty by the land of his adoption, should help him toward this love and the performance of this duty. If a man is a good son he is apt to make a good husband; and the quality that makes a man reverence the country of his birth is apt to be the quality that makes him a good citizen in the country of his adoption.

The ties that unite Germany and the United States are many and close, and it must be a prime object of our statesmanship to knit the two nations ever closer together. In no country is there a warmer admiration for Germany and for Germany’s exalted ruler, Emperor William, than here in America.

It is not out of place in closing for me to say a word of congratulation both to the German people and the German Emperor upon the work that has been accomplished in the Algeciras convention which has just closed, a conference held chiefly because of the initiative of Germany. It was not a conference in which we Americans as a nation had much concern, save that it is always our concern to see justice obtained everywhere, and, so far as we properly can, to work for the cause of international peace and good-will. In its outcome this conference has added to the likelihood of the betterment of conditions in Morocco itself, has secured equitable dealing as among the foreign Powers who have commercial relations with Morocco, and has diminished the chance of friction between these Powers. In particular it may not be out of place for me to say that I hope and believe that the conference has resulted and will result in rendering continually more friendly the relations between the mighty Empire of Germany and the mighty Republic of France; for it is my hope and wish, as it must be the hope and wish of every sincere well wisher of humankind, that these friendly relations may not only continue unbroken but may ever grow in strength.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the
text and consultation of external sources.

Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a
predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Pg 453: ‘est’ replaced by ‘lest’.
Pg 549: ‘contribue’ replaced by ‘contribute’.
Pg 584: ‘corrupton’ replaced by ‘corruption’
Pg 634: ‘poiliticians’ replaced by ‘politicians’
Pg 689: ‘Feburary’ replaced by ‘February’
Pg 711: ‘obtain’ replaced by ‘obtained’