,f'
JpHJ,.'
The Gommoner
VOL. 13, NO. 32
'v -ty
Ui,
K.
$
V
Iv
If
'
U .
i
J
h r
ii
,
its dovelopmont. I neod not stop to toll you
how fundamental to tho life of tho nation is the
production of its food. Our thoughts may ordi
narily bo concentrated upon tho cities and the
hivos of industry, upon tho cries of the crowded
market place and tho clangor of tho factory,
but it is from tho quiet interspaces of the open
valleys and tho free hillsides that we draw the
sources of life and of prosperity, from tho farm
and tho ranch, from the forest and tho mine.
Without these every streot would bo silent, every
ofllce deserted, every factory fallen into dis
repair. And yot tho farmer does not stand upon
tho samo footing with the forester and the minor
in the markot of credit. Ho is the servant of
tho soasons. Nature determines how long he
must wait for his crops, and will not bo hurried
in hor processes. IIo may give his note, but
the season of its maturity depends upon tho
season when his crop matures, lies at the gates
of tho market where his products are sold. And
tho security ho gives is of a character not known
in the broker's office or as familiarly as it might
bo on tho counter of the banker.
Tho Agricultural Department of the Govern
ment Is seeking to assist as never before to make
farming an efficient business, of wide cooperative
effort, in quick touch with the markets for food
stuffs. Tho farmers and tho Government will
henceforth work together as real partners In
this field, where we now begin to see aur way
very clearly and whore many intelligent plans
arc already being put into execution. Tho
Treasury of tho United States has, by a timely
and well-considered distribution of its deposits,
facilitated the moving of the crops in the pres
ent season and prevented tho scarcity of avail
able funds too often experienced at such times.
But we must not allow ourselves to depend upon
extraordinary expedients. We must add the
means by which the farmer may make his credit
constantly and easily available and command
when he will tho capital by which to support and
oxpand his business. We lag behind many other
great countries of the modern world in attempt
ing to do this. Systems of rural credit have
been studied and developed on the other side of
tho water while we left our farmers to shift for
themselves In the ordinary money market. You
have but to look about you in any rural district
to see the result, the handicap and embarrass
ment which have been tput upon those who pro
duce our food.
STUDY OP RURAL CREDITS
Conscious of this backwardness and neglect
on our part, tho Congress recently authorized
the creation of a special commission to study
the various systoms of rural credit which have
been put into operation in Europe, and this
commission is already prepared to report. Its
report ought to make it easier for us to deter
mine what methods will bo best suited to our
own farmers. I hope and bolieve that the com
mittees of the Senate and House will address
themselves to this matter with the most fruitful
results, and I believe that the studies and re
cently formed plans of the Department of Agri-.
culture may be made to serve them very 'greatly
in their work of framing appropriate and ade
quate legislation. It would be indiscreet and
presumptuous in anyone to dogmatize upon so
great and many-sided a question, but I feel con
fident that common counsel will produce the re
sults we must all desire.
with regard to their enterprises and investments
and a clear path indicated which they can travel
without anxiety. It is as important that they
should be relieved of embarrassment and set
free to prosper as that private monopoly should
bo destroyed. The ways of action should be
thrown wide open.
FOR LAW AUTHORIZING PRESIDENTIAL
PRIMARIES
I turn to a subject which I hope can be
handled promptly and without serious con
troversy of any kind. I mean tho method of
selecting nominees for the Presidency of the
United States. I feel confident that I do not
misinterpret the wishes or the expectations of
the country when I urge the prompt enactment
of legislation which will provide for primary
elections throughout the country at which the
voters of the several parties may choose their
nominees for tho Presidency without the inter
vention of nominating conventions. I venture
the suggestion that this legislation should pro
vide for tho retention of party conventions, but
only for tho purpose of declaring and accepting
tho verdict of the primaries and formulating
tho platforms of tho parties; and I suggest that
theso conventions should consist not of. dele
gates chosen for this single purpose, but of the
nominees for Congress, the nominees for vacant
seats in the Senate of the United . States, the
Senators whose terms have not yet closed, the ,
national committees, and the candidates for the
Presidency themselves, in order that, platforms .
may be framed by those responsible to the peo- "
pie for carrying them into effect
LEGISLATION NECESSARY TO PREVENT
MONOPOLY
Turn from the farm to the, world of business
which centers in the city and in the factory, and
I think that all thoughtful observers' will agree
that tho immediate service we owe the business
communities of the country is to prevent private
monopoly more effectually than it has yet been
prevented. I think it will be easily agreed that
wo should let the Sherman anti-trust law stand,
unaltered, as it is, with its debatable ground
about it, but that wo should as much as possible
reduce tho area of that debatable ground by
further and more explicit legislation; and should
also supplement that great act by legislation
which will not only clarify it but also facilitate
its administration and make it fairor to all
concerned. No doubt we shall all wish, and
tho country will expect, this to be tho cen-.
tral subject of our deliberations during the
present session; but it is a subjeot so many
sided and jso deserving of careful and dis
r '"ni dis-ussion that I shall take the
liberty of addressing you upon it in a special
message at a later date than this. It is of capital
importance that the business men of this coun
try should be relieved of all uncertainties of law
PORTO RICO, HAWAII AND PHILIPPINE -
ISLANDS
These are all matters of vital domestic con
cern, and besides them, outside the charmed
circle of our own national life in which our af
fections command us as well as our consciences,
there stand out our-obligations- toward our terri
tories over sea. Here we -are trustees. Porto
Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines, are ours, indeed,
but not ours to do what wc( please with. Such,
territories, once regarded as mere possessions,
are "no ' longer to be selfishly exploited; they
are part of the domain of public conscience and
of serviceable and enlightened statesmanship.
We must administer them for the people who
live in them and with the same sense 'of re
sponsibility to them as toward our own people
in. our domestic affairs. No doubt we shall suc
cessfully enough bind 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 and dobatable matter. We can satisfy
tho obligations of generous justice toward the
people of Porto Rico by giving them the ample
and familiar rights and privileges accorded our
own citizens in our own territories and our obli
rfiops toward tho people of Hawaii by perfect
ing the provisions for self-government already
granted them, but in the Philippines wo must go
further. We must hold steadily in view their
ultimate independence, and we must move
toward the time of that independence as steadily
as the way can be cleared and the foundations
thoughtfully and permanently laid.
TESTING FILIPINO CAPACITY
Acting under the authority conferred upon
the President by Congress, I have already ac
corded the people of the islands a majority in
both houses of their legislative body by appoint
ing five instead of four native citizens to the
membership of tho cbmmission. I believe that
in this way wo shall make "proof of their capacity
in counsel and their sense of responsibility in
tho exercise of political power, and that the suc
cess of this step will be sure to clear our view
for the steps which are to follow. Step by step
we should extend and perfect the system of self
government in the islands, making test of them
and modifying them as experience discloses their
successes and their failures; that we should
more and more put under 'the control of the
native citizens of the archipelago the essential
instruments of their life, their local instrumen
talities of govornment, their schools, all the
common interests of their communities, and so
by counsel and experience set up a government
which all tho world will see to be suitable to a
people whose affairs are under their own control.
At last, I hope and believe, wo are beginning to
gain the confidence of the Filipino peoples. By
their counsel and experience, rather than by oUr
own, we shall learn how best to serve them and
how soon it will be possible and wise to with-,
draw our supervision. Let us once find the nath
and set out with firm and confident tread unon
it and we shall not wander from it or linear
upon it. t . nger
URGES FULL TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT
FOR ALASKA
A duty iaces us with regard to Alaska which
seems to me very pressing and very imperative
perhaps I should say a double duty, for it con
cerns both the political -and the material develop
ment of the Territory. The people of Alaska
should be, given the full Territorial form of gov
ernment, and Alaska, as a storehouse, should be
unlocked. One key to it is a system of railways.
These the Government should .itself build ami
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 tho 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 but by well-considered
stages, not upon theory but upon lines
of practical, expediency. It js, part of our gen
eral problem pf 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 gf the country, not
lock them up. There need be no conflict or
jealousy as between State and Federal authori
ties, for there can be no essential difference of
purpose between them. The resources in ques
tion must be used,. but not destroyed or wasted;
used, but not monopolized upon any narrow idea
of individual rights as against the abiding in
terests 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 acceptable to the people' and govern-
ments 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.
MINE LIABILITY ACT AND RELTEF OF
THE SAILORS
Three or four matters of' special importance
and significance I beg that you. will permit me
to mention in closing.
Our Bureau of Mines ought to be equipped and
empowered to render even more effectual service
than it renders now in improving the conditions
of mine labor and making .the mines more eco
nomically productive as well as more safe. This
is an all-important part of the work of conserva
tion; and the conservation pf .human life ana
energy lies even,' nearer to our interest than tlie
preservation" from waste o,f our niaterial re
sources. We owe it, in mere justice to the railway em
ployees 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 wi l ue
no loss to the advantage Of those who administer
the railroads of the country, than to the advan
tage of those whom they employ. The ex
perience of a large number .of the States abun
dantly proves that. .
We ought to devote ourselves to meetiab
pressing demands of plain justice, like this as
earnestly as to the accomplishment of pouncdt
and economic reforms. Social justice cornea
first. Law is the machinery fpr Rs realization
and is vital only as it expresses and embodies u.
An international congress for the disc.us"
of all questions that affect safety at sea is now
sitting, in London at thq suggestion of our owu
Government. So soon as the conclusions of tiw
congress can be learned and considered we ouo
to address ourselves, amoLg other things, ioi
prompt alleviation of the very unsafe, unj
and burdensome conditions which . ow surrou"
the employment of sailors and Tender n
tremely difficult to obtain the services of sP,lLIf
and competent men such as every ship neeub
it is to be safely handled and brought to pori.
May I not express the very real Pjeaf"
have experienced in cooperating with 11S J
gress and sharing" with it the labors of comni
service to which it has devoted itfleU so J
servedly during the past seven montns w.
At;
t'lfUj. 5 js,,.
' 2