Chapter III: Part 3

“It is a remarkable circumstance that the same country should have produced in the same age the most wonderful specimens of both extremes of human nature. Even in things indifferent the Scotch Puritan would hear of no compromise; and he was but too ready to consider all who recommended prudence and charity as traitors to the cause of truth. On the other hand, the Scotchmen of that generation who made a figure in Parliament were the most dishonest and unblushing time-servers that the world has ever seen. Perhaps it is natural that the most callous and impudent vice should be found in the near neighborhood of unreasonable and impracticable virtue. Where enthusiasts are ready to destroy or be destroyed for trifles magnified into importance by a squeamish conscience, it is not strange that the very name of conscience should become a byword of contempt to cool and shrewd men of business.”

The men who go out from Harvard into the great world of American life bear a heavy burden of responsibility. The only way they can show their gratitude to their Alma Mater is by doing their full duty to the Nation as a whole; and they can do this full duty only if they combine the high resolve to work for what is best and most ennobling with the no less resolute purpose to do their work in such fashion that when the end of their days comes they shall feel that they have actually achieved results and not merely talked of achieving them.

TO THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION, OCEAN GROVE, N. J.,
JULY 7, 1905

_Mr. Maxwell; Members of the National Educational Association_:

I am glad to have the chance of greeting the National Educational Association; for in all this democratic land there is no more genuinely democratic association than this. It is truly democratic, because here each member meets every other member as his peer without regard to whether he is the president of one of the great universities or the newest recruit to that high and honorable profession which has in its charge the upbringing and training of those boys and girls who in a few short years will themselves be settling the destinies of this Nation. It is not too much to say that the most characteristic work of the Republic is that done by the educators, for whatever our shortcomings as a Nation may be, we have at least firmly grasped the fact that we can not do our part in the difficult and all-important work of self-government, that we can not rule and govern ourselves, unless we approach the task with developed minds and trained characters. You teachers make the whole world your debtor. If you did not do your work well this Republic would not endure beyond the span of the generation. Moreover, as an incident to your avowed work, you render some wellnigh unbelievable services to the country. For instance, you render to the Republic the prime, the vital service of amalgamating into one homogeneous body the children alike of those who are born here and of those who come here from so many different lands abroad. You furnish a common training and common ideals for the children of all the mixed peoples who are here being fused into one nationality. It is in no small degree due to you and your efforts that we are one people instead of a group of jarring peoples.

Moreover, where altogether too much prominence is given to the mere possession of wealth, the country is under heavy obligations to such a body as this, which substitutes for the ideal of accumulating money the infinitely loftier, non-materialistic ideal of devotion to work worth doing simply for that work’s sake. I do not in the least underestimate the need of having material prosperity as the basis of our civilization, but I most earnestly insist that if our civilization does not build a lofty superstructure on this basis, we can never rank among the really great peoples. A certain amount of money is of course a necessary thing, as much for the Nation as for the individual; and there are few movements in which I more thoroughly believe than in the movement to secure better remuneration for our teachers. But, after all, the service you render is incalculable, because of the very fact that by your lives you show that you believe ideals to be worth sacrifice, and that you are splendidly eager to do non-remunerative work if this work is of good to your fellow-men.

To furnish in your lives such a realized high ideal is to do a great service to the country. The chief harm done by the men of swollen fortune to the community is not the harm that the demagogue is apt to depict as springing from their actions, but the fact that their success sets up a false standard, and so serves as a bad example for the rest of us. If we did not ourselves attach an exaggerated importance to the rich man who is distinguished only by his riches, this rich man would have a most insignificant influence over us. It is generally our own fault if he does damage to us, for he damages us chiefly by arousing our envy or by rendering us sour and discontented. In his actual business relations he is much more apt to benefit than harm the rest of us; and though it is eminently right to take whatever steps are necessary in order to prevent the exceptional members of his class from doing harm, it is wicked folly to let ourselves be drawn into any attack upon the man of wealth merely as such. Moreover, such an attack is in itself an exceptionally crooked and ugly tribute to wealth, and therefore the proof of an exceptionally ugly and crooked state of mind in the man making the attack. Venomous envy of wealth is simply another form of the spirit which in one of its manifestations takes the shape of cringing servility toward wealth, and in another the shape of brutal arrogance on the part of certain men of wealth. Each one of these states of mind, whether it be hatred, servility, or arrogance, is in reality closely akin to the other two; for each of them springs from a fantastically twisted and exaggerated idea of the importance of wealth as compared to other things. The clamor of the demagogue against wealth, the snobbery of the social columns of the newspapers which deal with the doings of the wealthy, and the misconduct of those men of wealth who act with brutal disregard of the rights of others, seem superficially to have no fundamental relation; yet in reality they spring from shortcomings which are fundamentally the same; and one of these shortcomings is the failure to have proper ideals.

This failure must be remedied in large part by the actions of you and your fellow-teachers, your fellow-educators throughout this land. By your lives, no less than by your teachings, you show that while you regard wealth as a good thing, you regard other things as still better. It is absolutely necessary to earn a certain amount of money; it is a man’s first duty to those dependent upon him to earn enough for their support; but after a certain point has been reached money-making can never stand on the same plane with other and nobler forms of effort. The roll of American worthies numbers men like Washington and Lincoln, Grant and Farragut, Hawthorne and Poe, Fulton and Morse, St. Gaudens and MacMonnies; it numbers statesmen and soldiers, men of letters, artists, sculptors, men of science, inventors, explorers, roadmakers, bridge builders, philanthropists, moral leaders in great reforms; it numbers men who have deserved well in any one of countless fields of activity; but of rich men it numbers only those who have used their riches aright, who have treated wealth not as an end, but as a means, who have shown good conduct in acquiring it and not merely lavish generosity in disposing of it.

Thrice fortunate are you to whom it is given to lead lives of resolute endeavor for the achievement of lofty ideals, and, furthermore, to instil, both by your lives and by your teachings, these ideals into the minds of those who in the next generation will, as the men and women of that generation, determine the position which this Nation will hold in the history of mankind.

In closing, I want to speak to you of how certain things, some of which have happened, and some of which have been suggested to me by what has happened, in the past week, emphasize what I have said to you as to the importance to this country of having within its limits men who put the realization of high ideals above any form of money-making.

Within a week this country has lost a great statesman, who was also a great man of letters; a man who occupied a peculiar and unique position in our country; a man of whose existence we could each of us be proud; for the United States as a whole was better because John Hay lived. John Hay entered the public service as a young man just come of age, as the secretary of President Lincoln. He served in the war and was a member of the Loyal Legion. He was trusted by and was intimate with Lincoln as hardly any other man was. He then went on rendering service after service; yet always able (this was one of his great advantages and great merits) at any moment to go back to private life unless he could continue in public life on his own terms. As the climax of his career he served as Secretary of State under two successive administrations, and by what he did and by what he was he contributed in no small degree to achieving for this Republic the respect of the nations of mankind. Such service as that could not have been rendered save by a man who had before him ideals as far apart as the poles from those ideals which have in them any taint of what is base or sordid.

Now I wished to secure as John Hay’s successor the man whom I regarded as of all the men in the country that one best fitted to be such successor. In asking him to accept the position of Secretary of State I was asking him to submit to a very great pecuniary sacrifice; and I never even thought of that aspect of the question, for I knew he would not either. I knew that whatever other considerations he had to weigh for and against taking the position, the consideration of how it would affect his personal fortune would not be taken into account by Elihu Root; and he has accepted.

I am not speaking of Hay and Root as solitary exceptions. On the contrary, I am speaking of them as typical of a large class of men in public life. When we hear so much criticism of certain aspects of our public life and of certain of our public servants, criticism which I regret to state is in many cases deserved, it is well for us to remember also the other side of the picture, to remember that here in America we have and always have had at the command of the Nation in any crisis, in any emergency, the very best ability to be found within the Nation; and this ability has been given with the utmost freedom, given lavishly and generously, although at great pecuniary loss to the man giving it.

There is not in my Cabinet a man to whom it is not a financial disadvantage to stay in the Cabinet. There is not in my Cabinet a man who does not have to give up something substantial, often very much that is substantial, sometimes what it is a very real hardship for him to give up, in order that he may continue in the service of the Nation; and the only reward for which he looks or for which he cares is the consciousness of doing service worth rendering. I hope to see more and more throughout this Nation the spirit grow which makes such service possible. I hope more and more to see the sentiment of the country as a whole become such that each man shall feel borne in on him, whether he is in public life or in private life (and, mind you, some of the greatest public services can be best rendered by those who are not in public life), that the chance to do good work is the greatest chance that can come to any man or any woman in our generation or in any other generation. Let each man feel that if such work can be well done it is in itself the amplest reward and the amplest prize.

TO THE LONG ISLAND MEDICAL SOCIETY, AT OYSTER BAY, N. Y., JULY 12, 1905

_Mr. President, Members of the Association, Friends and Neighbors_:

I needed no invitation to come before you to-day. All I needed was permission. As soon as I learned that this association was to meet in our village I felt that I must take advantage of the opportunity to say a word of greeting to you in person.

Of course it is almost needless to say that there is not and can not be any other lay profession the members of which occupy such a dual position, each side of which is of such importance—for the doctor has on the one hand to be the most thoroughly educated man in applied science that there is in the country, and on the other hand, as every layman knows, and as doubtless many a layman in the circle of acquaintance of each of you would gladly testify, the doctor gradually becomes the closest friend to more people than would be possible in any other profession. The feelings that a man has toward the one human being to whom he turns, either in time of sickness for himself, or, what is far more important, in the time of sickness of those closest and dearest to him, can not but be of a peculiar kind. He can not but have a feeling for him such as he has for no other man. The doctor must, therefore, to the greatest degree develop his nature along the two sides of his duties, although in the case of any other man you would call him a mighty good citizen if he developed only on one side. The scientific man who is really a first-class scientific man has a claim upon the gratitude of all the country; and the man who is a first-class neighbor, and is always called in in time of trouble by his neighbors, has an equal claim upon society at large. But the doctor has both claims. Yet in addition to filling both of those functions he may fill many other functions. He may have served in the Civil War; he may have rendered the greatest possible service to the community along any one of a dozen different lines.

Take, for instance, just what is being done in one of the great works of this country at the present time—the digging of the Panama Canal. That is a work that only a big nation could undertake or that a big nation could do, and it is a work for all mankind. The condition precedent upon success in that work is having the proper type of medical work as a preliminary, as a basis. That is the first condition, upon the meeting of which must depend our success in solving the engineering and administrative problems of the work itself. I am happy to say that the work is being admirably done, and I am particularly glad to have this chance of saying it. Now and then some alarmist report will come from Panama. Just a couple of weeks ago there seemed to be a succession of people coming up from Panama, each one of whom had some tale of terror to tell. You will always find in any battle, even if it is a victorious battle, that in the rear you will meet a number of gentlemen who are glad that they are not at the front; who, if they have unfortunately gotten at the front, have come away, and who justify their absence from the front by telling tales of how everything has gone wrong there. Now the people that flee from Panama will carry up here just such stories as the people that flee from the forefront of a battle carry to the rear with them. The people to whom this country owes and will owe much are those who stay down there and do not talk, but do their work, and do it well. Of course, in doing a great work like that in the tropics, in a region which until this Government took hold of it was accounted to be a region exceptionally unhealthy, we are going to have trouble, have some yellow fever, have a good deal of malarial fever, and suffer more from the latter than from the yellow fever, although we will hear nothing like the talk about it. We will have every now and then trouble as regards hygiene, just as we will have trouble in the engineering problems, just as occasionally we will have troubles in the administrative work. Whenever any of those troubles come there will be a large number of excellent but timid men who will at once say what an awful calamity it is, and express the deepest sorrow and concern, and be rather inclined to the belief that the whole thing is a failure. It will not be a failure. It will be a success; and it will be a success because we shall treat every little check, not as a reason for abandoning the work, but as a reason for altering and bettering our plans so as to make it impossible that that particular check shall happen again.

What is being done in Panama is but a sample of the things that this country has done during the last few years, of the things in which your profession has borne so prominent a part. Take what we did in Cuba, where we tried the experiment which had not been tried for four hundred years—of cleaning the cities. One of the most important items of the work done by our Government in Cuba was the work of hygiene, the work of cleaning and disinfecting the cities so as to minimize the chance for yellow fever, so as to do away with as many as possible of the conditions that told for disease. This country has never had done for it better work, that is, work that reflected more honor upon the country, or for humanity at large, than the work done for it in Cuba. And the man who above all others was responsible for doing that work so well was a member of your profession, who when the call to arms came himself went as a soldier to the field—the present Major-General Leonard Wood. Leonard Wood did in Cuba just the kind of work that, for instance, Lord Cromer has done in Egypt. We have not been able to reward Wood in anything like the proportion in which services such as his would have been rewarded in any other country of the first rank; and there have been no meaner and more unpleasant manifestations in all our public history than the feelings of envy and jealousy manifested toward Wood. And the foul assaults and attacks made upon him, gentlemen, were largely because they grudged the fact that this admirable military officer should have been a doctor.

AT WILKESBARRE, PA., AUGUST 10, 1905

I am particularly glad to speak to this audience of miners and their wives and children, and especially to speak under the auspices of this great temperance society. In our country the happiness of all the rest of our people depends most of all upon the welfare of the wage-worker and the welfare of the farmer. If we can secure the welfare of these two classes we can be reasonably certain that the community as a whole will prosper. And we must never forget that the chief factor in securing the welfare alike of wage-worker and of farmer, as of everybody else, must be the man himself.

The only effective way to help anybody is to help him help himself. There are exceptional times when any one of us needs outside help, and then it should be given freely; but normally each one of us must depend upon his own exertions for his own success. Something can be done by wise legislation and by wise and honest administration of the laws; that is, something can be done by our action taken in our collective capacity through the State and the Nation.

Something more can be done by combination and organization among ourselves in our private capacities as citizens, so long as this combination or organization is managed with wisdom and integrity, with insistence upon the rights of those benefited and yet with just regard for the rights of others.

But in the last analysis the factor most influential in determining any man’s success must ever be the sum of that man’s own qualities, of his knowledge, foresight, thrift, and courage. Whatever tends to increase his self-respect, whatever tends to help him overcome the temptations with which all of us are surrounded, is of benefit not only to him, but to the whole community.

No one society can do more to help the wage-worker than such a temperance society as that which I am now addressing. It is of incalculable consequence to the man himself that he should be sober and temperate, and it is of even more consequence to his wife and his children; for it is a hard and cruel fact that in this life of ours the sins of the man are often visited most heavily upon those whose welfare should be his one especial care.

For the drunkard, for the man who loses his job because he can not control or will not control his desire for liquor and for vicious pleasure, we have a feeling of anger and contempt mixed with our pity; but for his unfortunate wife and little ones we feel only pity, and that of the deepest and tenderest kind.

Everything possible should be done to encourage the growth of that spirit of self-respect, self-restraint, self-reliance, which if it only grows enough is certain to make all those in whom it shows itself move steadily upward toward the highest standard of American citizenship. It is a proud and responsible privilege to be citizens of this great self-governing Nation; and each of us needs to keep steadily before his eyes the fact that he is wholly unfit to take part in the work of governing others unless he can first govern himself. He must stand up manfully for his own rights; he must respect the rights of others; he must obey the law, and he must try to live up to those rules of righteousness which are above and behind all laws.

This applies just as much to the man of great wealth as to the man of small means; to the capitalist as to the wage-worker. And as one practical point, let me urge that in the event of any difficulty, especially if it is what is known as a labor trouble, both sides show themselves willing to meet, willing to consult, and anxious each to treat the other reasonably and fairly, each to look at the other’s side of the case and to do the other justice. If only this course could be generally followed, the chance of industrial disaster would be minimized.

Now, my friends, I want to read you an extract from a letter I have just received from a Catholic priest whom I know well and whom I know to be as stanch a friend of the laboring man as there is to be found in this country. Now and then—not too often—it is a good thing for all of us to hear what is not perhaps altogether palatable, provided only that the person who tells the truth is our genuine friend, knows what he is talking about (even though he may not see all sides of the case), and tells us what he has to say, not with a desire to hurt our feelings, but with the transparent purpose to do us good. With this foreword, here is a part of the letter:

“I would humbly recommend that you lend your entire weight to the cause which the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America represents, and especially so in its relation to the working classes of this country, for whom it is doing so much good. You know that the temperance movement is a potent auxiliary to the institutions of our country in building up a better manhood and a truer Christianity among our citizens. It played a very important part in the two coal strikes of 1900 and 1902, respectively, by keeping the men sober, and thus removing the danger of riotous and unbecoming conduct. There is one discouraging feature connected with the upward tendency of the wage scale among the workmen of this country. The higher the wages, the more money they spend in saloons. The shorter the hours, the more they are inclined to absent themselves from home. An apparent disregard for family ties is growing among the poorer classes which will eventually lead to a disregard for the blessings our country affords them. Hence, with an increase of wages a corresponding movement for better manhood, nobler citizenship, and truer Christianity should be set on foot. The dignity of labor should be maintained, which can be done only through the love that a man should have for his work, and through the intelligence which he puts into it. A steady hand and sober mind are necessary for this. Hence, the necessity of the temperance cause and of the efforts which organized abstainers are putting into the movement.”

Now, in what is here written this priest does not mean that the tendency is to grow worse; but he means that with shorter hours and increased wages there is a tendency to go wrong which must be offset by movements such as this great temperance movement and similar efforts for social and civic betterment, or else the increase in leisure and money will prove a curse instead of a blessing. I strive never to tell any one what I do not thoroughly believe, and I shall not say to you that to be honest, and temperate, and hardworking, and thrifty will always bring success.

The hand of the Lord is sometimes heavy upon the just as well as upon the unjust, and in the life of labor and effort which we must lead on this earth it is not always possible either by work, by wisdom, or by upright behavior to ward off disaster. But it is most emphatically true that the chance for leading a happy and prosperous life is immensely improved if only the man is decent, sober, industrious, and exercises foresight and judgment. Let him remember above all that the performance of duty is the first essential to right living, and that a good type of average family life is the cornerstone of national happiness and greatness. No man can be a good citizen, can deserve the respect of his fellows, unless first of all he is a good man in his own family, unless he does his duty faithfully by his wife and children.

I strongly believe in trades unions wisely and justly handled, in which the rightful purpose to benefit those connected with them is not accompanied by a desire to do injustice or wrong to others. I believe it the duty of capitalist and wage-worker to try to seek one another out, to understand each the other’s point of view, and to endeavor to show broad and kindly human sympathy one with the other.

I believe in the work of these great temperance organizations, of all kindred movements like the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations, in short in every movement which strives to help a man by teaching him how to help himself. But most of all I believe in the efficacy of the man himself striving continually to increase his own self-respect by the way in which he does his duty to himself and to his neighbor.

AT CHAUTAUQUA, N. Y., AUGUST 11, 1905

To-day I wish to speak to you on one feature of our national foreign policy and one feature of our national domestic policy.

The Monroe Doctrine is not a part of international law. But it is the fundamental feature of our entire foreign policy so far as the Western Hemisphere is concerned, and it has more and more been meeting with recognition abroad. The reason why it is meeting with this recognition is because we have not allowed it to become fossilized, but have adapted our construction of it to meet the growing, changing needs of this hemisphere. Fossilization, of course, means death, whether to an individual, a government, or a doctrine.

It is out of the question to claim a right and yet shirk the responsibility for exercising that right. When we announce a policy such as the Monroe Doctrine we thereby commit ourselves to accepting the consequences of the policy, and these consequences from time to time alter.

Let us look for a moment at what the Monroe Doctrine really is. It forbids the territorial encroachment of non-American powers on American soil. Its purpose is partly to secure this Nation against seeing great military powers obtain new footholds in the Western Hemisphere, and partly to secure to our fellow-republics south of us the chance to develop along their own lines without being oppressed or conquered by non-American powers. As we have grown more and more powerful our advocacy of this doctrine has been received with more and more respect; but what has tended most to give the doctrine standing among the nations is our growing willingness to show that we not only mean what we say and are prepared to back it up, but that we mean to recognize our obligations to foreign peoples no less than to insist upon our own rights.

We can not permanently adhere to the Monroe Doctrine unless we succeed in making it evident in the first place that we do not intend to treat it in any shape or way as an excuse for aggrandizement on our part at the expense of the republics to the south of us; second, that we do not intend to permit it to be used by any of these republics as a shield to protect that republic from the consequences of its own misdeeds against foreign nations; third, that inasmuch as by this doctrine we prevent other nations from interfering on this side of the water, we shall ourselves in good faith try to help those of our sister republics, which need such help, upward toward peace and order.

As regards the first point we must recognize the fact that in some South American countries there has been much suspicion lest we should interpret the Monroe Doctrine in some way inimical to their interests. Now let it be understood once for all that no just and orderly government on this continent has anything to fear from us. There are certain of the republics south of us which have already reached such a point of stability, order, and prosperity that they are themselves, although as yet hardly consciously, among the guarantors of this doctrine. No stable and growing American republic wishes to see some great non-American military power acquire territory in its neighborhood. It is the interest of all of us on this continent that no such event should occur, and in addition to our own Republic there are now already republics in the regions south of us which have reached a point of prosperity and power that enables them to be considerable factors in maintaining this doctrine which is so much to the advantage of all of us. It must be understood that under no circumstances will the United States use the Monroe Doctrine as a cloak for territorial aggression. Should any of our neighbors, no matter how turbulent, how disregardful of our rights, finally get into such a position that the utmost limits of our forbearance are reached, all the people south of us may rest assured that no action will ever be taken save what is absolutely demanded by our self-respect; that this action will not take the form of territorial aggrandizement on our part, and that it will only be taken at all with the most extreme reluctance and not without having exhausted every effort to avert it.

As to the second point, if a republic to the south of us commits a tort against a foreign nation, such, for instance, as wrongful action against the persons of citizens of that nation, then the Monroe Doctrine does not force us to interfere to prevent punishment of the tort, save to see that the punishment does not directly or indirectly assume the form of territorial occupation of the offending country. The case is more difficult when the trouble comes from the failure to meet contractual obligations. Our own Government has always refused to enforce such contractual obligations on behalf of its citizens by the appeal to arms. It is much to be wished that all foreign governments would take the same view. But at present this country would certainly not be willing to go to war to prevent a foreign government from collecting a just debt or to back up some one of our sister republics in a refusal to pay just debts; and the alternative may in any case prove to be that we shall ourselves undertake to bring about some arrangement by which so much as is possible of the just obligations shall be paid. Personally I should always prefer to see this country step in and put through such an arrangement rather than let any foreign country undertake it.

I do not want to see any foreign power take possession permanently or temporarily of the custom-houses of an American republic in order to enforce its obligations, and the alternative may at any time be that we shall be forced to do so ourselves.

Finally, and what is in my view really the most important thing of all, it is our duty, so far as we are able, to try to help upward our weaker brothers. Just as there has been a gradual growth of the ethical element in the relations of one individual to another, so that with all the faults of our Christian civilization it yet remains true that we are, no matter how slowly, more and more coming to recognize the duty of bearing one another’s burdens, similarly I believe that the ethical element is by degrees entering into the dealings of one nation with another.

Under strain of emotion caused by sudden disaster this feeling is very evident. A famine or a plague in one country brings much sympathy and some assistance from other countries. Moreover, we are now beginning to recognize that weaker peoples have a claim upon us, even when the appeal is made, not to our emotions by some sudden calamity, but to our consciences by a long-continuing condition of affairs.

I do not mean to say that nations have more than begun to approach the proper relationship one to another, and I fully recognize the folly of proceeding upon the assumption that this ideal condition can now be realized in full—for, in order to proceed upon such an assumption, we would first require some method of forcing recalcitrant nations to do their duty, as well as of seeing that they are protected in their rights.

In the interest of justice, it is as necessary to exercise the police power as to show charity and helpful generosity. But something can even now be done toward the end in view. That something, for instance, this Nation has already done as regards Cuba, and is now trying to do as regards Santo Domingo. There are few things in our history in which we should take more genuine pride than the way in which we liberated Cuba, and then, instead of instantly abandoning it to chaos, stayed in direction of the affairs of the island until we had put it on the right path, and finally gave it freedom and helped it as it started on the life of an independent republic.

Santo Domingo has now made an appeal to us to help it in turn, and not only every principle of wisdom but every generous instinct within us bids us respond to the appeal. The conditions in Santo Domingo have for a number of years grown from bad to worse until recently all society was on the verge of dissolution. Fortunately just at this time a wise ruler sprang up in Santo Domingo, who, with his colleagues, saw the dangers threatening their beloved country, and appealed to the friendship of their great and powerful neighbor to help them. The immediate threat came to them in the shape of foreign intervention. The previous rulers of Santo Domingo had recklessly incurred debts, and owing to her internal disorders she had ceased to be able to provide means of paying the debts. The patience of her foreign creditors had become exhausted, and at least one foreign nation was on the point of intervention and was only prevented from intervening by the unofficial assurance of this Government that it would itself strive to help Santo Domingo in her hour of need. Of the debts incurred some were just, while some were not of a character which really renders it obligatory on, or proper for, Santo Domingo to pay them in full. But she could not pay any of them at all unless some stability was assured.

Accordingly the Executive Department of our Government negotiated a treaty under which we are to try to help the Dominican people to straighten out their finances. This treaty is pending before the Senate, whose consent to it is necessary. In the meantime we have made a temporary arrangement which will last until the Senate has had time to take action upon the treaty. Under this arrangement we see to the honest administration of the custom-houses, collecting the revenues, turning over forty-five per cent to the Government for running expenses and putting the other fifty-five per cent into a safe deposit for equitable division among the various creditors, whether European or American, accordingly as, after investigation, their claims seem just.

The custom-houses offer wellnigh the only sources of revenue in Santo Domingo, and the different revolutions usually have as their real aim the obtaining possession of these custom-houses. The mere fact that we are protecting the custom-houses and collecting the revenue with efficiency and honesty has completely discouraged all revolutionary movement, while it has already produced such an increase in the revenues that the Government is actually getting more from the forty-five per cent that we turn over to it than it got formerly when it took the entire revenue. This is enabling the poor harassed people of Santo Domingo once more to turn their attention to industry and to be free from the curse of interminable revolutionary disturbance. It offers to all bona fide creditors, American and European, the only really good chance to obtain that to which they are justly entitled, while it in return gives to Santo Domingo the only opportunity of defence against claims which it ought not to pay—for now if it meets the views of the Senate we shall ourselves thoroughly examine all these claims, whether American or foreign, and see that none that are improper are paid. Indeed, the only effective opposition to the treaty will probably come from dishonest creditors, foreign and American, and from the professional revolutionists of the island itself. We have already good reason to believe that some of the creditors who do not dare expose their claims to honest scrutiny are endeavoring to stir up sedition in the island, and are also endeavoring to stir up opposition to the treaty both in Santo Domingo and here, trusting that in one place or the other it may be possible to secure either the rejection of the treaty or else its amendment in such fashion as to be tantamount to rejection.

Under the course taken, stability and order and all the benefits of peace are at last coming to Santo Domingo, all danger of foreign intervention has ceased, and there is at last a prospect that all creditors will get justice, no more and no less. If the arrangement is terminated, chaos will follow; and if chaos follows, sooner or later this Government may be involved in serious difficulties with foreign governments over the island, or else may be forced itself to intervene in the island in some unpleasant fashion. Under the present arrangement the independence of the island is scrupulously respected, the danger of violation of the Monroe Doctrine by the intervention of foreign powers vanishes, and the interference of our Government is minimized, so that we only act in conjunction with the Santo Domingo authorities to secure the proper administration of the customs, and therefore to secure the payment of just debts and to secure the Santo Dominican Government against demands for unjust debts. The present method prevents there being any need of our establishing any kind of protectorate over the island and gives the people of Santo Domingo the same chance to move onward and upward which we have already given to the people of Cuba. It will be doubly to our discredit as a Nation if we fail to take advantage of this chance; for it will be of damage to ourselves, and, above all, it will be of incalculable damage to Santo Domingo. Every consideration of wise policy, and, above all, every consideration of large generosity, bids us meet the request of Santo Domingo as we are now trying to meet it.

So much for one feature of our foreign policy. Now for one feature of our domestic policy. One of the main features of our national governmental policy should be the effort to secure adequate and effective supervisory and regulatory control over all great corporations doing an interstate business. Much of the legislation aimed to prevent the evils connected with the enormous development of these great corporations has been ineffective, partly because it aimed at doing too much, and partly because it did not confer on the Government a really efficient method of holding any guilty corporation to account. The effort to prevent all restraint of competition, whether harmful or beneficial, has been ill-judged; what is needed is not so much the effort to prevent combination as a vigilant and effective control of the combinations formed, so as to secure just and equitable dealing on their part alike toward the public generally, toward their smaller competitors, and toward the wage-workers in their employ.

Under the present laws we have in the last four years accomplished much that is of substantial value; but the difficulties in the way have been so great as to prove that further legislation is advisable. Many corporations show themselves honorably desirous to obey the law; but, unfortunately, some corporations, and very wealthy ones at that, exhaust every effort which can be suggested by the highest ability, or secured by the most lavish expenditure of money, to defeat the purposes of the laws on the statute books.

Not only the men in control of these corporations, but the business world generally, ought to realize that such conduct is in every way perilous, and constitutes a menace to the Nation generally, and especially to the people of great property.

I earnestly believe that this is true of only a relatively small portion of the very rich men engaged in handling the largest corporations in the country; but the attitude of these comparatively few men does undoubtedly harm the country, and above all harm the men of large means, by the just, but sometimes misguided, popular indignation to which it gives rise. The consolidation, in the form of what are popularly called trusts, of corporate interests of immense value has tended to produce unfair restraints of trade of an oppressive character, and these unfair restraints tend to create great artificial monopolies. The violations of the law known as the anti-trust law, which was meant to meet the conditions thus arising, have more and more become confined to the larger combinations, the very ones against whose policy of monopoly and oppression the policy of the law was chiefly directed. Many of these combinations by secret methods and by protracted litigation are still unwisely seeking to avoid the consequences of their illegal action. The Government has very properly exercised moderation in attempting to enforce the criminal provisions of the statute; but it has become our conviction that in some cases, such as that of at least certain of the beef packers recently indicted in Chicago, it is impossible longer to show leniency. Moreover, if the existing law proves to be inadequate, so that under established rules of evidence clear violations may not be readily proved, defiance of the law must inevitably lead to further legislation. This legislation may be more drastic than I would prefer. If so, it must be distinctly understood that it will be because of the stubborn determination of some of the great combinations in striving to prevent the enforcement of the law as it stands, by every device, legal and illegal. Very many of these men seem to think that the alternative is simply between submitting to the mild kind of governmental control we advocate and the absolute freedom to do whatever they think best. They are greatly in error. Either they will have to submit to reasonable supervision and regulation by the national authorities, or else they will ultimately have to submit to governmental action of a far more drastic type. Personally, I think our people would be most unwise if they let any exasperation due to the acts of certain great corporations drive them into drastic action, and I should oppose such action. But the great corporations are themselves to blame if by their opposition to what is legal and just they foster the popular feeling which calls for such drastic action.

Some great corporations resort to every technical expedient to render enforcement of the law impossible, and their obstructive tactics and refusal to acquiesce in the policy of the law have taxed to the utmost the machinery of the Department of Justice. In my judgment Congress may well inquire whether it should not seek other means for carrying into effect the law. I believe that all corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be under the supervision of the National Government. I do not believe in taking steps hastily or rashly, and it may be that all that is necessary in the immediate future is to pass an interstate commerce bill conferring upon some branch of the executive government the power of effective action to remedy the abuses in connection with railway transportation. But in the end, and in my judgment at a time not very far off, we shall have to, or at least we shall find that we ought to, take further action as regards all corporations doing interstate business. The enormous increase in interstate trade, resulting from the industrial development of the last quarter of a century, makes it proper that the Federal Government should, so far as may be necessary to carry into effect its national policy, assume a degree of administrative control of these great corporations.

It may well be that we shall find that the only effective way of exercising this supervision is to require all corporations engaged in interstate commerce to produce proof satisfactory, say, to the Department of Commerce, that they are not parties to any contract or combination or engaged in any monopoly in interstate trade in violation of the anti-trust law, and that their conduct on certain other specified points is proper; and, moreover, that these corporations shall agree, with a penalty of forfeiture of their right to engage in such commerce, to furnish any evidence of any kind as to their trade between the States whenever so required by the Department of Commerce.

It is the almost universal policy of the several States, provided by statute, that foreign corporations may lawfully conduct business within their boundaries only when they produce certificates that they have complied with the requirements of their respective States; in other words, that corporations shall not enjoy the privileges and immunities afforded by the State governments without first complying with the policy of their laws. Now the benefits which corporations engaged in interstate trade enjoy under the United States Government are incalculable; and in respect of such trade the jurisdiction of the Federal Government is supreme when it chooses to exercise it.

When, as is now the case, many of the great corporations consistently strain the last resources of legal technicality to avoid obedience to a law for the reasonable regulation of their business, the only way effectively to meet this attitude on their part is to give to the Executive Department of the Government a more direct and therefore more efficient supervision and control of their management.

In speaking against the abuses committed by certain very wealthy corporations or individuals, and of the necessity of seeking so far as it can safely be done to remedy these abuses, there is always danger lest what is said may be misinterpreted as an attack upon men of means generally. Now it can not too often be repeated in a Republic like ours that the only way by which it is possible permanently to benefit the condition of the less able and less fortunate is so to shape our policy that all industrious and efficient people who act decently may be benefited; and this means, of course, that the benefit will come even more to the more able and more fortunate. If, under such circumstances, the less fortunate man is moved by envy of his more fortunate brother to strike at the conditions under which they have both, though unequally, prospered, he may rest assured that while the result may be damaging to the other man, it will be even more damaging to himself. Of course, I am now speaking of prosperity that comes under normal and proper conditions.

In our industrial and social system the interests of all men are so closely intertwined that in the immense majority of cases the straight-dealing man who by ingenuity and industry benefits himself must also benefit others. The man of great productive capacity who gets rich through guiding the labor of hundreds or thousands of other men does so, as a rule, by enabling their labor to produce more than it would without his guidance, and both he and they share in the benefit, so that even if the share be unequal it must never be forgotten that they too are really benefited by his success.

A vital factor in the success of any enterprise is the guiding intelligence of the man at the top, and there is need in the interest of all of us to encourage rather than to discourage the activity of the exceptional men who guide average men so that their labor may result in increased production of the kind which is demanded at the time. Normally we help the wage-worker, we help the man of small means, by making conditions such that the man of exceptional business ability receives an exceptional reward for that ability.

But while insisting with all emphasis upon this, it is also true that experience has shown that when there is no governmental restraint or supervision, some of the exceptional men use their energies, not in ways that are for the common good, but in ways which tell against this common good; and that by so doing they not only wrong smaller and less able men—whether wage-workers or small producers and traders—but force other men of exceptional abilities themselves to do what is wrong under penalty of falling behind in the keen race for success. There is need of legislation to strive to meet such abuses. At one time or in one place this legislation may take the form of factory laws and employers’ liability laws. Under other conditions it may take the form of dealing with the franchises which derive their value from the grant of the representatives of the people. It may be aimed at the manifold abuses, far-reaching in their effects, which spring from overcapitalization. Or it may be necessary to meet such conditions as those with which I am now dealing and to strive to procure proper supervision and regulation by the National Government of all great corporations engaged in interstate commerce or doing an interstate business.