"ifVt.ir!T5?!
The Commoner
SEPTEMBER, 1916
11
It Is hard doctrine only for those who wish to'
get something for themselves out of Mexico.
Thoro are men, and noble women, too, not a few,
of our own people, thank God! whose fortunes
aro invested in great properties in Mexico who
yet seo the case with true vision and assess its
issues with true American feeling. The rest
can be left for the present out of the reckoning
until this enslaved people has had its day of
struggle towards the light. I have heard no
one who was free from such influences propose
interference by the United States with the in
ternal affairs of Mexico. Certainly no friend of
tho Mexican peoplo has proposed it.
The people of the United States are capable of
great sympathies and a noble pity in dealing
with problems of this kind. As their spokesman
and representative, I have tried to act in the
spirit they would wish me show. The people of
Mexico are striving for the rights that are
fundamental to life and happiness, fifteen
million oppressed men, overburdened women,
and pitiful children in virtual bondage in their
own home of fertile lauds and inexhaustible
treasure! Some of the leaders of the revolution
may often have been mistaken and violent and
selfish, but the revolution itself was inevitable
and is right. The unspeakable Huerta betrayed
tho very comrades ho served, traitorously over
threw the government of which he was a trusted
part, impudently spoke for the very forces that
had driven his people to the rebellion with which
he had pretended to sympathize. The men who
overcame him and drove him out represent at
least the fierce passion of reconstruction which
lies at the very heart of liberty; and so long as
they represent, however imperfectly, such a
struggle for deliverance, I am ready to serve
their ends when I can. So long as the power of
recognition rests with me the government of the
United States will refuse to extend the hand of
welcome to any one who obtains power in a
sister republic by treachery and violence. No
permanency can be given the affairs of any re
public by a title based upon intrigue and assass
ination. I declared that to be the policy of this ad
ministration within three weeks after I assumed
tho presidency. I here again vow it. I am more
interested in the fortunes of oppressed men and
pitiful women and children than in any property
rights whatever. Mistakes I have no doubt made
in this perplexing, business, but not in purpose
or object. "
TEST OF OUR PART AS BIG BROTHER TO
AMERICAN REPUBLICS
More is involved than the immediate destinies
of Mexico and the relations of. the United States
with a distressed and distracted people. All
America looks on. Test is now being made of
us whether we be sincere lovers of popular lib
erty or not and are indeed to be trusted to rer
spect national sovereignty among our weaker
neighbors. We have undertaken these many
years to play big brother to the republics of this
hemisphere. This is the day of our test whether
we mean, or have ever meant, to play that part
for our own benefit wholly or also for theirs. Up
on the outcome of that test (its outcome in their,
minds, not in ours) depends every relationship
of the United States with Latin America, wheth
er in politics'or in commerce and enterprise.
These are great issues and lie at the heart of the
gravest tasks of the future, tasks both economic
and political and very intimately inwrought with
many of the most vital of the new issues of the
politics of the world. The republics of America
have in the last three years been drawing to
gether in a new spirit of accommodation, mu
tual understanding, and cordial co-operation.
Much of the politics of the world in the years to
como will depend upon their relationships with
one another. It is a barren and provincial
statesmanship that loses sight of such things!
The future the immediate future, will bring
us squarely face to face with many great and
exacting problems which will search us through
and through whether we be able and ready to
if nhe part in the world that we mean to play,
it will not bring us into their presence slowly,
gently, with ceremonious introduction, but sud
denly .and at once, the moment the war in Eu
rope is over. They will be qew problems, most
or them; many will be old problems in a new
setting and with new elements which we have
never dealt with or reckoned!, th force and
meaning of before. They wilfj-equire for their
oution new thinking, fresh courage and Re
sourcefulness, and .in someimaiiers radical rV
considerations of policy. wVmust be ready to
mobilize our resources alike I Ft brains and of
niaterjjils. J '
- to nut a ruture to. be afraid of. It is. ra-
dhiniit S St t "tlmulte and excite us to the
display of the best powers that are In us. We
may enter i with confidence when wo are sure
that we understand it, and we have provided
cmrselvea already with tho means of understaud-
Look first at what it will be necessary that
the nations of the world should do to make tho
days to come tolerable and fit to live and work
in; and then look at our part In what is to fol
low and our own duty of preparation. For wo
must be prepared both in resources and in pol-cy
-
AMERICA MUST CONTRIBUTE TO ORGAN
IZATION OP WORLD'S PEACE
There must be a just and settled peace, and
wo here in America must contribute the full
force of our enthusiasm and of our authority as
a nation to the organization of that peace -upon
world-wide foundations that can not easily be
shaken. No nation should bo forced to take
sides in any quarrel in which its own honor and
integrity and the fortunes of its own people aro
not involved; but no nation can any longer re
main neutral as against any wilful disturbance
of the peace of the world. The effects of war
can no longer be confined to tho areas of battle.
No nation stands wholly apart in interest when
the life and interests of all nations are thrown
into confusion and peril. If hopeful and gener
ous enterprise is to be renewed, if the healing
and helpful arts of life are indeed to be revived
when peace comes again, a new atmosphere of
justice and friendship must bo generated by
means tho world has never tried before. The na
tions of the world must unite in joint guarantees
that whatever is done to disturb the whole world's
life must first be tested in tho court of tho wholo
world's opinion before it is attempted. These
are the new foundations the world must build
for itself, and we must play our part in the re
construction, generously and without too much
thought of our separate Interests. We must
make ourselves ready to play it intelligently,
vigorously and well.
One of tho contributions we must make to the
world's peace is this: We must see to it that the
people in our insular possessions are treated in
their own lands as we would treat them here,
and make the rule of the United States mean the
same thing everywhere, the same justice, the
same consideration for the essential rights of
men.
Besides contributing our ungrudging moral
and practical support to the establishment of
peace throughout the world we must actively
and intelligently prepare ourselves to do our full
service in the trade and industry which are to
sustain and develop the life of the nations in the
days to come.
We have already been provident in this great
matter and supplied ourselves with the instru
mentalities of prompt adjustment. We have
created, in the federal trade commission, a
means of inquiry and of accommodation in the
field of commerce which ought both to co
ordinate the enterprises of our traders and man
ufacturers and to remove the barriers of mis
understanding and of a too technical interpreta
tion of the law. In the new tariff commission
we have added another instrumentality of ob
servation and adjustment which promises to be
immediately serviceable. The trade commission
substitutes counsel and accommodation for tho
harsher processes of legal restraint, and the
tariff commission ought to substitute facts for
prejudices and theories. Our exporters have
for some time had the advantage of working in
the new light thrown upon foreign markets and
opportunities of trade by tho intelligent in
quiries and activities of the bureau of foreign
and domestic commerce which the democratic
congress so wisely created in 1912. The tariff
commission completes the machinery by which
we shall be enabled to open up our legislative
policy to the facts as the develop.
We can no longer indulge our traditional pro
vincialism. We are to play a leading part in
tho world drama whether we wish it or not. We
shall lend, not borrow; act for ourselves, not
imitate or follow; organize and initiate, not
peep about merely to see where we may get in.
We have already formulated and' agreed up
on a policy of law which will explicitly remove
the ban now supposed to rest upon co-operation
amongst our exporters in seeking and. securing
their proper place in the markets of the world.
The field will be free? the instrumentalities at
hand. It. will only remain for the. masters of
enterpriseamongst us to act in energetic . con
cert, and for the government of the United
States to Insist upon the Maintenance through
out tho world of those conditions of falrneM aa
eyon-handod Justice In the commercial dealings
of tho nation with ono another upon which,
after all, in the last analysis, the pcaco and or
dered life of tho world must ultimately depend
At homo also wo nniBt seo to It that the men
who plan and dovelop and direct our business
enterprises Bhall enjoy doflnito nnd sottlcd con
ditions of law, a policy accommodated to tho
freest progress. Wo have sot tho just and neces
sary Units. Wo havo put all kinds of unfair
competition under the ban and penalty of the
law. Wo havo barred monopoly. Those fatal
and ugly things being excluded, wo must now
quicken action and facilitate enterprise by
every Just means within our choice. Thoro
will bo pcaco in the business world, and, with
peace, revived confidence and iifo.
Wo ought both to husband and develop our
natural resources, our mines, our forests, our
water power. I wish wo could huvo made more
progress than we have mado in this vital mat
ter; and I call once more, with the deepest earn
estness and solicitude, upon tho advocates of a
careful and provident conservation, on tho one
hand, and tho advocates of a freo and inviting
field for private capital, on tho other, to get to
gether in a spirit of genuine accommodation and
agreement and set this great policy forward at
once.
Wo must hearten and quicken tho spirit and
efficiency of labor throughout our whole Indus
trial system by overywhero and In all occupa
tions doing justice to tho laborer, not only by
paying a living wago but also by making all the
conditions that surround labor what thoy ought
to be. And we must do more than justice. We
must safeguard lifo and prombto health and
safety In evory occupation in which thoy are
threatened or imperilled. That is more than
justice, and better, because it is humanity and
economy.
We must coordinate tho railway systems of
tho country for national use, and must facilitate
and promote their development with a view to
that coordination and to their better adaptation
as a whole to tho life and trade and defense ot
the nation. The life and industry of tho coun
try can bo free and unhampered only if these
arteries aro open, efficient, and complete.
Thus shall wo stand ready to meet tho future
as circumstance and International policy effect
their unfolding, whether tho changes como
slowly or como fast and Without preface.
DAY OF "LITTLE AMERICANISM" IS PAST;
ENTERPRISE DAWNS
I havo not spoken explicitly, gentlemen, of
the platform adopted at St. Louis; but It has
been implicit in all that I havo said. I have
sought to interpret its spirit and meaning. Tho
peoplo of tho United States do not need to be
assured nowsthat that platform is a definite
pledge, a practical programme. We have proved
to them that our promises are made to bo kept.
Wo hold very definite ideals. Wo believe that
the energy and Initiative of our people have been
too narrowly coached and superintended; that
they should be set free, as wo havo set them free,
to disperse themselves throughout tho nation;
that they should not bo concentrated in the
hands of a few powerful guides or guardians, as
our opponents have again ami again, In effect if
not in purpose, sought to concentrate them. We
believe, moreover, who that looks about him
now with comprehending eyo can fail to believe?
that the day of Little Americanism, with its
narrow horizons, when methods of "protection"
and industrial nursing were tho chief study of
our provincial statesmen, are past and gone and
that a day of enterprise lias at last dawned for
the United States whose field is the wide world.
Wo hope to see tho stimulus of that new day
draw all America, tho republics of both, con
tinents, on to a new life and energy and initia
tive In the great affairs of peace. We are Amer
icans for Big America, and rejoice to look for
ward to the days in which America shall strive
to stir the world without irritating it or draw
ing it on to new antagonisms, when the nations
with which we deal shall at last come to seo up
on what deep foundations of humanity and jus
tice our passion for peace rests, and when all
mankind shall look upon our great people with
a new sentiment of admiration, friendly rivalry
and real effection, as upon a people who, though
keen to succeed, seeks always, to be at onca gen-
erous and just and to whom humanity Is (fearer
thanprofit or selfish power. J
Upon this record and In the faith of thhf pur
poso wo go to the country.
A
