Part 5

So much for what our opponents openly or covertly advance in the way of an attack on the acts of the Administration. When we come to consider the policies for which they profess to stand we are met with the difficulty always arising when statements of policy are so made that they can be interpreted in different ways. On some of the vital questions that have confronted the American people in the last decade, our opponents take the position that silence is the best possible way to convey their views. They contend that their lukewarm attitude of partial acquiescence in what others have accomplished entitles them to be made the custodians of the financial honor and commercial interests which they have but recently sought to ruin. Being unable to agree among themselves as to whether the gold standard is a curse or a blessing, and as to whether we ought or ought not to have free and unlimited coinage of silver, they have apparently thought it expedient to avoid any committal on these subjects, and individually each to follow his particular bent. Their nearest approach to a majority judgment seems to be that it is now inexpedient to assert their convictions one way or the other, and that the establishment of the gold standard by the Republican party should not be disturbed unless there is an alteration in the relative quantity of production of silver and gold. Men who hold sincere convictions on vital questions can respect equally sincere men with whose views they radically differ; and men may confess a change of faith without compromising their honor or their self-respect. But it is difficult to respect an attitude of mind such as has been fairly described above; and where there is no respect there can be no trust. A policy with so slender a basis of principle would not stand the strain of a single year of business adversity.

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We, on the contrary, believe in the gold standard as fixed by the usage and verdict of the business world, and in a sound monetary system, as matters of principle; as matters not of momentary political expediency, but of permanent organic policy. In 1896 and again in 1900 farsighted men, without regard to their party fealty in the past, joined to work against what they regarded as a debased monetary system. The policies which they championed have been steadfastly adhered to by the Administration; and by the act of March 14, 1900, Congress established the single gold standard as the measure of our monetary value. This act received the support of every Republican in the House, and of every Republican except one in the Senate. Of our opponents, eleven supported it in the House and two in the Senate; and one hundred and fifty opposed it in the House and twenty-eight in the Senate. The record of the last seven years proves that the party now in power can be trusted to take the additional action necessary to improve and strengthen our monetary system, and that our opponents can not be so trusted. The fundamental fact is that in a popular government such as ours no policy is irrevocably settled by law unless the people keep in control of the Government men who believe in that policy as a matter of deep-rooted conviction. Laws can always be revoked; it is the spirit and the purpose of those responsible for their enactment and administration which must be fixed and unchangeable. It is idle to say that the monetary standard of the Nation is irrevocably fixed so long as the party which at the last election cast approximately forty-six per cent of the total vote refuses to put in its platform any statement that the question is settled. A determination to remain silent can not be accepted as equivalent to a recantation. Until our opponents as a party explicitly adopt the views which we hold and upon which we have acted and are acting, in the matter of sound currency, the only real way to keep the question from becoming unsettled is to keep the Republican party in power.

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As for what our opponents say in reference to capital and labor, individual or corporate, here again all we need by way of answer is to point to what we have actually done, and to say that if continued in power we shall continue to carry out the policy we have been pursuing, and to execute the laws as resolutely and fearlessly in the future as we have executed them in the past. In my speech of acceptance I said:

“We recognize the organization of capital and the organization of labor as natural outcomes of our industrial system. Each kind of organization is to be favored so long as it acts in a spirit of justice and of regard for the rights of others. Each is to be granted the full protection of the law, and each in turn is to be held to a strict obedience to the law; for no man is above it and no man below it. The humblest individual is to have his rights safeguarded as scrupulously as those of the strongest organization, for each is to receive justice, no more and no less. The problems with which we have to deal in our modern industrial and social life are manifold; but the spirit in which it is necessary to approach their solution is simply the spirit of honesty, of courage, and of common-sense.”

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The action of the Attorney-General in enforcing the anti-trust and interstate commerce laws, and the action of the last Congress in enlarging the scope of the interstate commerce law, and in creating the Department of Commerce and Labor, with a Bureau of Corporations, have for the first time opened a chance for the National Government to deal intelligently and adequately with the questions affecting society, whether for good or for evil, because of the accumulation of capital in great corporations, and because of the new relations caused thereby. These laws are now being administered with entire efficiency; and as, in their working, need is shown for amendment or addition to them—whether better to secure the proper publicity, or better to guarantee the rights of shippers, or in any other direction—this need will be met. It is now asserted “that the common law, as developed, affords a complete legal remedy against monopolies.” But there is no common law of the United States. Its rules can be enforced only by the State courts and officers. No Federal court or officer could take any action whatever under them. It was this fact, coupled with the inability of the States to control trusts and monopolies, which led to the passage of the Federal statutes known as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the Interstate Commerce Act; and it is only through the exercise of the powers conferred by these acts, and by the statutes of the last Congress supplementing them, that the National Government acquires any jurisdiction over the subject. To say that action against trusts and monopolies should be limited to the application of the common law is equivalent to saying that the National Government should take no action whatever to regulate them.

Undoubtedly, the multiplication of trusts and their increase in power has been largely due to the “failure of officials charged with the duty of enforcing the law to take the necessary procedure.” Such stricture upon the failure of the officials of the National Government to do their duty in this matter is certainly not wholly undeserved as far as the Administration preceding President McKinley’s is concerned; but it has no application at all to Republican administration. It is also undoubtedly true that what is most needed is “officials having both the disposition and the courage to enforce existing law.” This is precisely the need that has been met by the consistent and steadily continued action of the Department of Justice under the present Administration.

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So far as the rights of the individual wage-worker and the individual capitalist are concerned, both as regards one another, as regards the public, and as regards organized capital and labor, the position of the Administration has been so clear that there is no excuse for misrepresenting it, and no ground for opposing it unless misrepresented. Within the limits defined by the National Constitution the National Administration has sought to secure to each man the full enjoyment of his right to live his life and dispose of his property and his labor as he deems best, so long as he wrongs no one else. It has shown in effective fashion that in endeavoring to make good this guarantee, it treats all men, rich or poor, whatever their creed, their color, or their birthplace, as standing alike before the law. Under our form of government the sphere in which the Nation as distinguished from the State can act is narrowly circumscribed; but within that sphere all that could be done has been done. All thinking men are aware of the restrictions upon the power of action of the National Government in such matters. Being ourselves mindful of them, we have been scrupulously careful on the one hand to be moderate in our promises, and on the other hand to keep these promises in letter and in spirit. Our opponents have been hampered by no such considerations. They have promised, and many of them now promise, action which they could by no possibility take in the exercise of constitutional power, and which, if attempted, would bring business to a standstill; they have used, and often now use, language of wild invective and appeal to all the baser passions which tend to excite one set of Americans against their fellow-Americans; and yet whenever they have had power they have fittingly supplemented this extravagance of promise by absolute nullity in performance.

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This Government is based upon the fundamental idea that each man, no matter what his occupation, his race, or his religious belief, is entitled to be treated on his worth as a man, and neither favored nor discriminated against because of any accident in his position. Even here at home there is painful difficulty in the effort to realize this ideal; and the attempt to secure from other nations acknowledgment of it sometimes encounters obstacles that are wellnigh insuperable; for there are many nations which in the slow procession of the ages have not yet reached that point where the principles which Americans regard as axiomatic obtain any recognition whatever. One of the chief difficulties arises in connection with certain American citizens of foreign birth, or of particular creed, who desire to travel abroad. Russia, for instance, refuses to admit and protect Jews. Turkey refuses to admit and protect certain sects of Christians. This Government has consistently demanded equal protection abroad for all American citizens, whether native or naturalized. On March 27, 1899, Secretary Hay sent a letter of instructions to all the diplomatic and consular officers of the United States, in which he said: “This Department does not discriminate between native-born and naturalized citizens in according them protection while they are abroad, equality of treatment being required by the laws of the United States.” These orders to our agents abroad have been repeated again and again, and are treated as the fundamental rule of conduct laid down for them, proceeding upon the theory “that all naturalized citizens of the United States while in foreign countries are entitled to and shall receive from this Government the same protection of person and property which is accorded to native-born citizens.” In issuing passports the State Department never discriminates, or alludes to any man’s religion; and in granting to every American citizen, native or naturalized, Christian or Jew, the same passport, so far as it has power it insists that all foreign Governments shall accept the passport as prima facie proof that the person therein described is a citizen of the United States and entitled to protection as such. It is a standing order to every American diplomatic and consular officer to protect every American citizen, of whatever faith, from unjust molestation; and our officers abroad have been stringently required to comply with this order.

Under such circumstances, the demand of our opponents that negotiations be begun to secure equal treatment of all Americans from those Governments which do not now accord it, shows either ignorance of the facts or insincerity. No change of policy in the method or manner of negotiation would add effectiveness to what the State Department has done and is doing. The steady pressure which the Department has been keeping up in the past will be continued in the future. This Administration has on all proper occasions given clear expression to the belief of the American people that discrimination and oppression because of religion, wherever practiced, are acts of injustice before God and man; and in making evident to the world the depth of American convictions in this regard we have gone to the very limit of diplomatic usage.

It is a striking evidence of our opponents’ insincerity in this matter that with their demand for radical action by the State Department they couple a demand for a reduction in our small military establishment. Yet they must know that the heed paid to our protests against ill-treatment of our citizens will be exactly proportionate to the belief in our ability to make these protests effective should the need arise.

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Our opponents have now declared themselves in favor of the Civil Service law, the repeal of which they demanded in 1900 and in 1896. If consistent, they should have gone one step further and congratulated the country upon the way in which the Civil Service law is now administered, and the way in which the classified service has been extended. The exceptions from examinations are fewer by far than ever before, and are confined to individual cases, where the application of the rules would be impracticable, unwise, unjust, or unnecessary. The administration of the great body of the classified civil service is free from politics, and appointments and removals have been put upon a business basis. Statistics show that there is little difference between the tenure of the Federal classified employees and that of the employees of private business corporations. Less than one per cent of the classified employees are over seventy years of age, and in the main the service rendered is vigorous and efficient. Where the merit system was of course most needed was in the Philippine Islands; and a civil service law of very advanced type has there been put into operation and scrupulously observed. Without one exception every appointment in the Philippines has been made in accordance with the strictest standard of fitness, and without heed to any other consideration.

Finally, we come to certain matters upon which our opponents do in their platform of principles definitely take issue with us, and where, if they are sincere, their triumph would mean disaster to the country. But exactly as it is impossible to call attention to the present promises and past record of our opponents without seeming offensive, so it is impossible to compare their platform with their other and later official utterances and not create doubt as to their sincerity. In their private or unofficial utterances many of them frankly advance this insincerity as a merit, taking the position that as regards the points on which I am about to speak they have no intention of keeping their promises or of departing from the policies now established, and that therefore they can be trusted not to abuse the power they seek.

When we take up the great question of the tariff we are at once confronted by the doubt as to whether our opponents do or do not mean what they say. They say that “protection is robbery,” and promise to carry themselves accordingly if they are given power. Yet prominent persons among them assert that they do not really mean this and that if they come into power they will adopt our policy as regards the tariff; while others seem anxious to prove that it is safe to give them partial power, because the power would be only partial, and therefore they would not be able to do mischief. The last is certainly a curious plea to advance on behalf of a party seeking to obtain control of the Government.

At the outset it is worth while to say a word as to the attempt to identify the question of tariff revision or tariff reduction with a solution of the trust question. This is always a sign of desire to avoid any real effort to deal adequately with the trust question. In speaking on this point at Minneapolis, on April 4, 1903, I said:

“The question of tariff revision, speaking broadly, stands wholly apart from the question of dealing with the trusts. No change in tariff duties can have any substantial effect in solving the so-called trust problem. Certain great trusts or great corporations are wholly unaffected by the tariff. Almost all the others that are of any importance have as a matter of fact numbers of smaller American competitors; and of course a change in the tariff which would work injury to the large corporation would work not merely injury but destruction to its smaller competitors; and equally of course such a change would mean disaster to all the wage-workers connected with either the large or the small corporations. From the standpoint of those interested in the solution of the trust problem such a change would therefore merely mean that the trust was relieved of the competition of its weaker American competitors, and thrown only into competition with foreign competitors; and that the first effort to meet this new competition would be made by cutting down wages, and would therefore be primarily at the cost of labor. In the case of some of our greatest trusts such a change might confer upon them a positive benefit. Speaking broadly, it is evident that the changes in the tariff will affect the trusts for weal or for woe simply as they affect the whole country. The tariff affects trusts only as it affects all other interests. It makes all these interests, large or small, profitable; and its benefits can be taken from the large only under penalty of taking them from the small also.”

There is little for me to add to this. It is but ten years since the last attempt was made, by means of lowering the tariff, to prevent some people from prospering too much. The attempt was entirely successful. The tariff law of that year was among the causes which in that year and for some time afterward effectually prevented anybody from prospering too much, and labor from prospering at all. Undoubtedly it would be possible at the present time to prevent any of the trusts from remaining prosperous by the simple expedient of making such a sweeping change in the tariff as to paralyze the industries of the country. The trusts would cease to prosper; but their smaller competitors would be ruined, and the wage-workers would starve, while it would not pay the farmer to haul his produce to market. The evils connected with the trusts can be reached only by rational effort, step by step, along the lines taken by Congress and the Executive during the past three years. If a tariff law is passed under which the country prospers, as the country has prospered under the present tariff law, then all classes will share in the prosperity. If a tariff law is passed aimed at preventing the prosperity of some of our people, it is as certain as anything can be that this aim will be achieved only by cutting down the prosperity of all of our people.

Of course, if our opponents are not sincere in their proposal to abolish the system of a protective tariff, there is no use in arguing the matter at all, save by pointing out again that if on one great issue they do not mean what they say, it is hardly safe to trust them on any other issue. But if they are sincere in this matter, then their advent to power would mean domestic misfortune and misery as widespread and far-reaching as that which we saw ten years ago. When they speak of protection as “robbery,” they of course must mean that it is immoral to enact a tariff designed (as is the present protective tariff) to secure to the American wage-worker the benefit of the high standard of living which we desire to see kept up in this country. Now to speak of the tariff in this sense as “robbery,” thereby giving it a moral relation, is not merely rhetorical; it is on its face false. The question of what tariff is best for our people is primarily one of expediency, to be determined not on abstract academic grounds, but in the light of experience. It is a matter of business; for fundamentally ours is a business people—manufacturers, merchants, farmers, wage-workers, professional men, all alike. Our experience as a people in the past has certainly not shown us that we could afford in this matter to follow those professional counselors who have confined themselves to study in the closet; for the actual working of the tariff has emphatically contradicted their theories. From time to time schedules must undoubtedly be rearranged and readjusted to meet the shifting needs of the country; but this can with safety be done only by those who are committed to the cause of the protective system. To uproot and destroy that system would be to ensure the prostration of business, the closing of factories, the impoverishment of the farmer, the ruin of the capitalist, and the starvation of the wage-worker. Yet, if protection is indeed “robbery,” and if our opponents really believe what they say, then it is precisely to the destruction and uprooting of the tariff, and therefore of our business and industry, that they are pledged. When our opponents last obtained power it was on a platform declaring a protective tariff “unconstitutional”; and the effort to put this declaration into practice was one of the causes of the general national prostration lasting from 1893 to 1897. If a protective tariff is either “unconstitutional” or “robbery,” then it is just as unconstitutional, just as much robbery, to revise it down, still leaving it protective, as it would be to enact it. In other words, our opponents have committed themselves to the destruction of the protective principle in the tariff, using words which if honestly used forbid them from permitting this principle to obtain in even the smallest degree.

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