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The Commoner
Z2t" 19. NO. 6
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President Wilsons Message to Special
MMB"IIMlteM"aM
Session
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In accordance with tho proclamation of Presi
dent Wilson, Issued Way 7, congress convened
in extra session on May 19. The Presidents
message as transmitted and read to congreso
folio wu:
Gontlomcn of thd Congress: I deeply regret
my inability to be present at thet opening of the
extraordinary session of the congress. It still
sooms to bo ray duty to take part in the coun
sels of tho peace conference and contribute what
I can to tho solution of tho innumerable ques
tions to whoso settlement it has had to address
itsolf: for they are questions which affect tho
peace of tho whole world and from them, there
fore, tho United States cannot stand apart. I
doomed it my duty to call tho congress together
at this time because it was not wise to postpone
longer tho provisions which must bo made for
tho support of tho government. Many of the
appropriations which are absolutely necessary
for tho maintenance of tho government and tho
fulfillment of its varied obligations for tho fiscal -year
1919-20 have not yet been made; tho end
of tho present fiscal year is at hand; and action
upon those appropriations can no longer bo
prudently delayed. It is necessary therefore,
that I should immediately call your attention to
this critical need. It is hardly necessary for mo
to urge that it may receive your prompt atten
tion. I shall take tho 'liberty of addressing you on
my return on the subjects which have most en
grossed our attontion and that attention of the
world during theso last anxious months, since
tho armistico of last November was signed, tho
international settlement which must form tho
subject matter of tho present treaties of peace
and of our national action in tho immediate
future It would bo premature to discuss thorn
or to express a judgment about thom before
they aro brought to their complete formulation
by tho agreements which aro now being sought
at tho table of the conference. I shall hopo to
lay thom boforo you in their many aspects as
soon as arrangements have been reached.
C3NEIIAL TERMS NECESSARY
I hesltato to venture any opinion or press any
recommendation with regard to domestic legis
lation whilo absent from the United States and
out of daily touch with intimate sources of in
formation and counsel. I am conscious that I
nood, after so long an absonce from Washington,
to seek tho advice of those who have remained
in constant contact with domestic probloms and
who havo known them close at hand from day
to day; and I trust that it will very soon be
possible for mo to do so. But there aro several
questions pressing for consideration to which I
feel that I may, and indeed must, oven now
direct your attontion, if only in gonoral terms.
In speaking of them I shall, I dare say, be do
ing littlo more than speak your- own thoughts.
I hopo that I shall speak your own judgment
also.
Tho question which stands at the front of all
others in every country amidst the present great
awakening is th i qacion of labour; and per
haps I can speak of it with as groat advantage
whilo engrossed in tho consideration of interests
which affect all countri 3 alike as I could at
home and amidst the 'interests which naturally
most affect my thought, because thoy aro the
interests of our own people.
By tho question of labour I do not moan tho
question of efficient industrial production, the
question of how labour is to be obtained and
mado offective in the groat process of sustain
ing populations and winning success amidst com
mercial and industrial rivalries. I mean that
much greater and more vital question, how aro
die men and women who do tho daily labour of
thoworld to obtain progressive improvement in
tho conditions of their labour, to bo mado hap
pier "and to bo served bettor by tho communities
and the industries which their labour sustains
and advances? How aro thoy to bo given the'r
right advantage as citizens and human beings?
Wo cannot go any further in our present
direction. Wo havo already gone too far Wo
cannot live our right life as a nation or achieve
our proper success as an industrial community
if capital and labour aro to continue to be an
tagonistic instead of being partners. If they are
to continue to distrust one another and contrive
how thoy can get tho bettor of one another. Or,
what perhaps amounts to the same thing, calcu
late by what form and degree of coercion they
can manage to extort on the ono hand work
enough to make enterprise profitable, on tho
other justice and fair treatment enough to make
life tolerable. That bad road has turned out a
blind alley. It is no thoroughfare to real pros
perity. We must find another, leading in another
direction and to a very different destination. It
must lead not merely to accomodation but also
to a genuine co-operation and partnership based
upon a real community of interest and participa
tion in control. '
COMMUNITY OF INTEREST NEEDED
There is now in fact a real community of
interest between capital and labour, but it has
never been made evident in action. It can be
xmade operative and manifest only in a new
Organization of industry. The genius of our
business men and the sound practical sense of
our workers can certainly work such a partner
ship out when once they realize exactly what it
is that thoy seek and sincerely adopt a common
purpose with regard to it.
Labour legislation lies, of course, chiefly with
tho states; but the new spirit and method of
organization which must be effected aro not to
bo brought about by legislation so much as by
the common counsel and voluntary co-operation
of capitalist, manager, and workman.. Legisla
tion can go only a very little way in command
ing what shall be done. The organization of
industry is a matter of corporate and. individual
initiative aftd of practical business arrangement.
Those who really desire a now relationship be
tween capital and labour can readily find a way
to bring it about; and perhaps federal legis
lation can help more than state legislation could.
. The. object of all reform in this essential
matter must be the genuine democratization of
industry, based upon a full recognition of the
right of those who work, in whatever rank, to
participate in some organic way in every deci
sion which directly affects their welfare or the
part thoy are to play in industry. Some positive
legislation is practicable. The congress has al
ready shown tho way to one reform which should
bo world-wide, by establishing the eight-hour
day as the standard day in every field of labour
over which it can exercise control. It has sought
to find tho way to prevent child labour, and
will, I hope and believe, presently find It. It
has served the whole country by leading the way
in developing the means of preserving and safe
guarding life and health in dangerous indus
tries. It can now help in the difficult task of
giving a now form and spirit to industrial organ
ization by coordinating the several agencies of
conciliation and adjustment which havo been
brought into existence by the difficulties and
miotakon policies of the present management of
industry, and by setting up and developing new
federal agencies of advice and information
which may serve as a clearing house for the
best experiments and the best thought on this
great matter, upon which every thinking man
must bo aware that the future development of
society directly depends. Agencies of interna
tional counsel and suggestion aro presently to
bo created in connection with the league of
nations in this very field; but it is national
action and the lightened policy of individuals
corporations, and societies within each nation
that must bring about the actual reforms Tho
members of the committees on labour in the
two houses will hardly need suggestions from
mo as to what means they shall seek to make
the federal government the agent of the whole
ration in pointing out and, if need be, guiding
the process of reorganization and reform.
PLEA FCIt RETURNING SOLDIERS
' I am sure that it is not necessary for me to
remind you that there is one immediate and
very practical question of labour that we should
meet in the most liberal spirit. We miit See
to it that our returning soldiers are assisted T
every practicable way to find the places for
Which they are fitted in the daily work of til
country. This can be done by devlkmln? am?
maintaining upon an adequate scale the adm?r
able organization created by tho Departm? E
Labor for placing men seeking work; and i? can
also be done, in at least one very eat fieTc
by creating new opportunities for imiivu '.
enterprise. Th Secretary of tho Infl 1 Dal
pointed out the way by which returning 1,
may be helped to find and take un ami
hitherto undeveloped regions of the Jf ?
which the federal government has aLlv
pared or can readily prepare for cultivation X
also on many of the cutover or neglected ?,
which lie within the limits of the olderstaS
and I once more take the liberty of recomZ '
iiig very urgently that his plans shall reS
Mio immofllotn nnrl Biif.nnti.i .. . ''wo
.uuwuu,vw ouuowuuuu support 0t
congress.
the
Peculiar and very stimulating conditions
await our commerce and industrial enterprise!!
the immediate future. Unusual opportunity
will presently present themselves t ... '
chants and producers in foreign markets, and 1
14150 uciuo iui jjiunuiuuj investments will be
opened to our free capital. But it is not only
of that that. I am thinking. Many great indus
tries prostrated by the war wait to be rehabil
itated, in many parts of the world where what
will bo lacking is not brains or willing bands
or organizing capacity or experienced skill, but
machinery and raw materials and capital. I be
lieve that our business men) our merchants, onr
manufacturers, and our capitalists, will have the
vision to see that prosperity in one part of the
world ministers to prosperity everywhere: that
there is in 'a very true sense a solidarity of In
terest throughout the world of enterprise, and
that our dealings with the countries that have
need of our products and our money will teach
them to deem us more than ever friends whose
necessities we seek in the right way to serve.
Our new merchant shipB, which have in some
quarters been feared as destructive rivals, may
provo helpful rivals, rather, and common
servants, very much needed and very welcome.
Our great shipyards, new and old, will be bo
oponed to' the use of the world that they will
prove immensely serviceable to every maritime
people in restoring, much more rapidly than
would otherwise have been possible, tho tonnage
wantonly destroyed in the war. I have only to
suggest that there are many points at which
we can fae'litate American enterprise in foreign
trade by opportune legislation and make it easy
for American merchants to go where they will
bo welcomed as friends rather than as dreaded
antagonists. America has, a great and honorable
service to perform in bringing the commercial
and industrial undertakings of tho world baa
to their old scope and swing again, and putting
a solid structure of credit under them. All our
legislation should be friendly to such plans and
purposes.
' RECONSIDERATION OF FEDERAL TAXES
A..1 credit and enterprise alike will be
quickened by timely and helpful legislation wl
regard to taxation. I hope that the congress jm
find it possible to undertake an early rewn
sideration of federal taxes, in order to maKeou
system of taxation more simple and easy 0
ministration and tho taxes themselves as Jiiuj
burdensome as they can be made and yet sui
to support the government . nd meet aij
gations. The figures to which those ob gallon'
have arisen are very groat indeed, but iwv
not so great as to make it difficult for the
tion 10 meet them, and met them, pertoj
a single generation, by taxes which will n
'crush ror discourage. These are not so e
as they seem, not so great as t e immen
we havo had to borrow, added to ti e 1 iw
sums we have had to raise Uy taxation,
seem to indicate; for a very larf pf,iat tber
of those sums were raised in orue r k
might be loaned to the governments wu
we were associated in the war, and . u u
will, of course, constitute assets, not u
and will not have to be taken care
taxpayers. . nra for I
The main thing we shall have to c r te
that our taxation shall rest as "f ltiy ,try, that
on the productive resources of tne t hal, bJ
its rates shall be stable, V '
constant in its revenue-yielding 1 u
have found the main sources ffom.v"'t lts main
be drawn. I take it for Snte? J"' tax,
stays will henceforth be the Incom e
fixnnss-nrnfHR tax. and the ostate ia- d 5j.
can so bo adjusted to yield &vj a m
equate returns and yot not consul ,
sj&t