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M E S S A G E.
In pursuance of my constitutional duty to “give to the Congress information of the state of the Union,” I take the liberty of addressing you on several matters which ought, as it seems to me, particularly to engage the attention of your honourable houses, as of all who study the welfare and progress of the Nation.
I shall take the liberty of departingask your indulgence if I venture to depart in some degree from the usual custom of setting before you, in formal review, the many matters which have chiefly engaged the attention and called for the action of the sevaral departments of the Government or which look to them for early treatment in the future, because the list is long, very long, and would suffer in the abbreviation I should have to attempt. I submit to you to–day the administrative Departments, in which these subjects are set forth in careful detail, and fbeg that they may receive the careful attention of your committees and of all members of the Congress who may have the leisure to study them. A few of these subjects I will ask your permission to mention very briefly, with briefer comment, in the hope that I may thereby the more promptly bring them to your attention and perhaps quicken your interest in them; but the greater number of them I shall leave entirely to your perusal of the reports themselves.[Here mention those of singular interest].You already have under consideration a bill for the systematic reform of our system of banking and currency for which the country waits with impatience, as for something fundamental to its whole business life and necessary to set credit free from arbitrary and artificial restraints; I need not say how earnestly I hope for its early enactment into law. I turn from it to urge upon you the necessity to make special provision also for facilitating the credits needed by the farmers of the country.
The needs and hopes of our agricultural industry.
We lag behind what other countries have done.
How much greater and more fruitful would be the response of our farmers! Report of Commission1What we should do, and how we should do it.—————————————1And there is another service we owe the business of the country: the working out of the Sherman Act into detail.
The situation. (See Brandeis)1Our objects. 2The way of acheiving them.Additional X1These are matters of vital domestic concern. And, besides them, outside this charmed circle of our own national life in which our affections command us as well as our consciences, there stand out our obligations towards our colonial possessions. Here we are trustees. Porto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines are ours, indeed, but not ours to do what we please with. Colonial possessions are no longer to be exploited. They are part of the domain of serviceable and enlightened statesmanship. We must administer them for the people who live in them, and with the same sense of responsibility to them as towards our own people in our own domestic affairs. No doubt we shall easily enough tiebind Porto Rico and the Hawaiian Islands to ourselves by ties of justice and interest and affection, but the performance of our duty toward the Philippines is a more difficult matter. We can satisfy the obligations of generous justice toward the people of pPorto Rico by giving them the ample and familiar rights and privileges accorded our own citizens in our own territories; and our obligations towards the people of Hawaii by perfecting the opportunites for self–government already accorded granted them. But in the Philippines we must go further. We must hold steadily in view their ultimate independence; and we must move towards the time of thattheir independence as rapidly as the way can be cleared and the foundations solidly carefully laid.Steps already taken. The direction in which they point; and what should follow.1(PEACE).
The country, I am happy thankful to say, is at peace with all the world, and many happy manifestations multiply about us of a growing cordiality and sense of community of interest among the nations, foreshadowing an age of settled peace and good–will. More and more willingly each decade do the nations manifest their willingness to bind themselves by solemn treaty to the processes of peace, the processes of frankness and fair concession. So far the United States has stood at the front of such negotiations. She will, I earnestly hope and confidently believe, give fresh proof of her earnest sincere adherence to the cause of international friendship by ratifying the several treaties of arbitration awaiting renewal by the Senate. In addition to these, it has been the privilege of the Department of State, to negotiate with the leading and most enlightened governments of the world treaties by which it is agreed that whenever differences of interest or of policy arise wh. cannot be resolved by the ordinary processes of diplomacy they shall be publicly analzyzed,and discussed and reported upon by a tribunal chosen by the parties, before either nation determines its course of action. There is only one possible standard by which to determine controversies between the United States and other nations, and that is compounded of these two elements: our own honour and our obligations to the peace of the world. A test so compounded ought easily to make be made to govern both the establishment of new treaty obligations and the interpretation of those already assumed.There is but one cloud upon our horizon. That has shown itself to the south of us, and hangs over Mexico. There can be no certain prospect of peace in America until General Huerta has surrendered his usurped authority in Mexico; until it is understaood on all hands, indeed, that such usurpations will not be countenanced or tolerated with by the Government of the United States. We are the friends of constitutional government in America: we are more than its friends, we are its champions; because in no other way can our neighbors, whom we would serve, work out their own development in peace and liberty. Mexico has no government. The attempt to maintain one at the City of Mexico has broken down, and a mere military despotism has been set up which has hardly more than the semblance of national authority. It originated in the treason of Victoriano Huerta, who, after a prieb attempt to play the part of constitutional president, has at last cast aside even the pretense of legal right and declared himself dictator. As a consequencel a condition of affairs now esits in Mexico which has made it doubtful whether even the most elementary and fundamental rights either of her own people or of the citizens of other countries resident within her territory can long be successfully safeguarded, and which threatens, if long continued, to imperil the interests of peace, order, and toleralble life in the countries immediately to the south of us. Even if the usurper had succeeded in his purposes, in despite of the constitution of the Republic and the rights of its people, he would have set up nothing but a precarious and hateful power which could have lasted but a little while, and whose eventual downfall would have left the country in a more deplorable condition than ever. But he has not succeeded. He has forfeited the respect and the moral support even of those who were at one time willing to see him succeed. Little by little he has been completely isolated. By a little every day his power and prestige are crumbling; and the collapse is not far away. We shall not be obliged to alter our policy of watchful waiting. And then, whn the end comes, we shall hope to be admitted to the exercise of such good offices as will bring peace and the restoration of constitutional order.(ALASKA).A duty faces us with regard to Alaska which seems to me very pressing and very imperative; perhaps I should say a double duty, for it concerns both the political and the material development of the territory. The people of Alaska should be given the full territorial form of government, and Alaska, as a storehouse, should be unlocked. One key to it is a system of railways. These the government should itself build and administer; and the ports and terminals it should itself control in the interest of all who wish to use them for the service and development of the country and its people.But the construction of railways is only the first step, is only thrusting in the key to the storehouse and throwing back the lock and opening the door. How the tempting resources of the country are to be exploited is another matter, to which I shall take the liberty of from time to time calling your attention: for it is a policy which must be worked out by well–considered stages, not upon theory, but upon lines of practical expediency. It is part of our general problem of conservation. We have a freer hand in working out the problem in Alaska than in the States of the Union; and yet the principle and object are the same, wherever we touch it. We must use the resources of the country, not lock them up. There need be no conflict or jealousy as between local state and federal authorities, for there can be no essential difference of purpose between them. The resources in question, must be used but not destroyed or wasted, used but not monopolized upon any narrow idea of individual rights as against the abiding interests of communities. That a policy can be worked out by conference and concession which will release these resources and yet not jeopard or dissipate them I, for one, have no doubt; and it can be done on lines of regulation which need be no less acceptible to the people and governments of the States concerned than to the people and Government of the nation at large, whose heritage these resources are. We must bend our counsels to this end. A common purpose ought to make agreement easy.(Misc. subjects)Three or four matters of special importance and significance I beg that you will permit me to mention in closing. We owe it, in mere justice to the railway employees of the country, to provide for them a fair and effective Employers’ Liability Act; and a law that we can stand by in this matter will be no less to the advantage of those who administer the railroads of the country than to the advantage of those whom they employ. The experience of a large number of the States abundantly proves that.An international congress for the discussion of all questions that affect safety at sea is now sitting in London, at the suggestion of our own Government. So soon as the conclusions of that congress can be learned and considered, we ought to address ourselves among other things to the prompt alleviation of the very unsafe, unjust, and burdensome conditions wh. now surround the employment of sailors and render it extremely difficult to obtain the services of spirited and competent men such as every ship needs if it is to be safely handled and brought to port.Our Bureau of Mines ought than it renders nowto be equipped and empowered to render even more effecutal service than it renders now in improving the conditions of mine labor and making the mines more economically productive as well as more safe. This is an all–important port of the work of conservation; and the conservation of human life and energy lies even nearer to our interest than the preservation from waste of our material resources.1