Part 3

There are few problems which so especially concern Washington, Oregon, and California as the problem of forestry. Nothing has been of better augury for the welfare and prosperity of these great States as well as for the other forest States than the way in which those actively engaged in the lumbering business have come of recent years to work hand in hand with those who have made forestry a study in the effort to preserve the forests. The whole question is a business, an economic question; an economic question for the Nation, a business question for the individual. East of your great mountain chains the question of water supply becomes vital and becomes inseparable from that of forestry. Here that question does not enter in. The lumbering interest is the fourth great business interest in point of importance in the United States. There is engaged in it a capital of over six hundred millions of dollars, and every year the wage-workers in that industry receive one hundred millions of dollars. Such an industry so vitally connected with many others in the country can not with wisdom be neglected, the interests depending upon it are too vast. I do not have to say here in Washington that fire is a great enemy of the forests. Here in Washington it is probable that fire has destroyed more than the axe during the decade in which the axe has been at work.

Our aim should be to get the fullest use from the forest to-day, and yet to get that benefit in ways which will keep the forests for our children in the generations to come; so that, for instance, the country adjoining Puget Sound shall have the lumbering industry as a permanent industry. Recently the trade journals of that industry have been dwelling upon the fact that its very existence is actually at stake, and nowhere in the whole country can the question of forestry be handled better than in this region, because nowhere else is it so easy to produce a second crop. You are fortunate in having such climatic conditions, such conditions of soil, that here more than anywhere else the forest renews itself quickly, so as in a comparatively short number of years to be again a great mercantile and industrial asset. The preservation of our forests depends chiefly upon the wisdom with which the practical lumberman, the practical expert in dealing with the lumber industry, works with the men who have studied forestry under all conditions. I am glad indeed that such co-operation is more and more being accepted as a matter of course by both sides.

FROM ADDRESS AT SEATTLE, WASH., MAY 23, 1903

There is no other body of water in the world which confers upon the commonwealth possessing it quite the natural advantages that Puget Sound confers upon your State. There is no other State in the Union, and I include all of them, which has greater natural advantages and a more assured future of greatness than this State of Washington. Phenomenal though your growth has been, it has barely begun; and your growth in the half century now opening will dwarf absolutely even your growth in the immediate past.

I am speaking in the gateway to Alaska. All our people, even those from the locality whence I come, are beginning to appreciate a little of Alaska’s future. The men of my own age whom I am addressing will not be old men before we see Alaska one of the rich and strong States of the Union. I thank fortune that the National Legislature has begun to wake up to the fact that Alaska has interests of vital importance not merely to her but to the entire Union. Alaska contains a territory which will within this century support as large a population as the combined Scandinavian countries of Europe; those countries from which has sprung as wonderful a race as ever imprinted its characteristics upon the history of civilization. Exactly as the Scandinavian peoples have left their mark upon the entire history of Europe, so we shall see Alaska with its mines, its lumber, its fisheries, with its possibilities in agriculture and stock-raising, with its possibilities of commercial command, with the tremendous development that is going on within it even now, produce as hardy and vigorous a people as any portion of North America.

AT SPOKANE, WASH., MAY 26, 1903

_Senator Turner, and you, my Fellow-Americans_:

I am in a city at the eastern gateway of this State with the great railroad systems of the State running through it. On the western edge of this State in Puget Sound I have seen the homing places of the great steamship lines, which, in connection with these great railroads, are doing so much to develop the Oriental trade of this country and this State. Washington will owe no small part of its future greatness, and that greatness will be great indeed, to the fact that it is thus doing its share in acquiring for the United States the dominance of the Pacific. Those railroads, the men and the corporations that have built them, have rendered a very great service to the community. The men who are building, the corporations which are building the great steamship lines have likewise rendered a very great service to the community. Every man who has made wealth or used it in developing great legitimate business enterprises has been of benefit and not harm to the country at large. This city has grown by leaps and bounds only when the railroads came to it, when the railroads came to the State; and if the State were now cut off from its connection by rail and by steamship with the rest of the world its position would of course diminish incalculably. Great good has come from the development of our railroad system; great good has been done by the individuals and corporations that have made that development possible; and in return good is done to them, and not harm, when they are required to obey the law. Ours is a government of liberty by, through and under the law. No man is above it and no man is below it. The crime of cunning, the crime of greed, the crime of violence, are all equally crimes, and against them all alike the law must set its face. This is not and never shall be a government either of a plutocracy or of a mob. It is, it has been, and it will be, a government of the people; including alike the people of great wealth and of moderate wealth, the people who employ others, the people who are employed, the wage-worker, the lawyer, the mechanic, the banker, the farmer; including them all, protecting each and every one if he acts decently and squarely, and discriminating against any one of them, no matter from what class he comes, if he does not act squarely and fairly, if he does not obey the law. While all people are foolish if they violate or rail against the law—wicked as well as foolish, but all foolish—yet the most foolish man in this Republic is the man of wealth who complains because the law is administered with impartial justice against or for him. His folly is greater than the folly of any other man who so complains; for he lives and moves and has his being because the law does in fact protect him and his property.

We have the right to ask every decent American citizen to rally to the support of the law if it is ever broken against the interest of the rich man; and we have the same right to ask that rich man cheerfully and gladly to acquiesce in the enforcement against his seeming interest of the law, if it is the law. Incidentally, whether he acquiesces or not, the law will be enforced, and this whoever he may be, great or small, and at whichever end of the social scale he may be.

I ask that we see to it in our country that the line of division in the deeper matters of our citizenship be drawn, never between section and section, never between creed and creed, never, thrice never, between class and class; but that the line be drawn on the line of conduct, cutting through sections, cutting through creeds, cutting through classes; the line that divides the honest from the dishonest, the line that divides good citizenship from bad citizenship, the line that declares a man a good citizen only if, and always if, he acts in accordance with the immutable law of righteousness, which has been the same from the beginning of history to the present moment, and which will be the same from now until the end of recorded time.

FROM ADDRESS AT COLUMBIA GARDENS, BUTTE, MONT., MAY 27, 1903

_Mr. Chairman, and you, my Fellow-Citizens_:

It would have been a great pleasure to come to Butte in any event; it is a double pleasure to come here at the invitation of the representatives of the wage-workers of Butte. I do not say merely workingmen, because I hold that every good American who does his duty must be a workingman. There are many different kinds of work to do; but so long as the work is honorable, is necessary, and is well done the man who does it well is entitled to the respect of his fellows.

I have come here to this meeting especially as the invited guest of the wage-workers, and I am happy to be able to say that the kind of speech I will make to you, I would make just in exactly the same language to any group of employers or any set of our citizens in any corner of this Republic. I do not think so far as I know that I have ever promised beforehand anything I did not make a strong effort to make good afterward. It is sometimes very attractive and very pleasant to make any kind of a promise without thinking whether or not you can fulfil it; but in the after event it is always unpleasant when the time for fulfilling comes; for in the long run the most disagreeable truth is a safer companion than the most pleasant falsehood.

To-night I have come hither looking on either hand at the results of the enterprises which have made Butte so great. The man who by the use of his capital develops a great mine, the man who by the use of his capital builds a great railroad, the man who by the use of his capital either individually or joined with others like him does any great legitimate business enterprise, confers a benefit, not a harm, upon the community, and is entitled to be so regarded. He is entitled to the protection of the law, and in return he is to be required himself to obey the law. The law is no respecter of persons. The law is to be administered neither for the rich man as such, nor for the poor man as such. It is to be administered for every man, rich or poor, if he is an honest and law-abiding citizen; and it is to be invoked against any man, rich or poor, who violates it, without regard to which end of the social scale he may stand at, without regard to whether his offence takes the form of greed and cunning, or the form of physical violence; in either case if he violates the law, the law is to be invoked against him; and in so invoking it I have the right to challenge the support of all good citizens and to demand the acquiescence of every good man. I hope I will have it; but once for all I wish it understood that even if I do not have it I shall enforce the law.

The soldiers who fought in the great Civil War fought for liberty under, by, and through the law; and they fought to put a stop once for all to any effort to sunder this country on the lines of sectional hatred; therefore their memory shall be forever precious to our people. We need to keep ever in mind that he is the worst enemy of this country who would strive to separate its people along the lines of section against section, of creed against creed, or of class against class. There are two sides to that. It is a base and an infamous thing for the man of means to act in a spirit of arrogant and brutal disregard of right toward his fellow who has less means; and it is no less infamous, no less base, to act in a spirit of rancor, envy, and hatred against the man of greater means, merely because of his greater means. If we are to preserve this Republic as it was founded, as it was handed down to us by the men of ’61 to ’65, and as it is and will be, we must draw the line never between section and section, never between creed and creed, thrice never between class and class; but along the line of conduct, the line that separates the good citizen wherever he may be found from the bad citizen wherever he may be found. This is not and never shall be a government of a plutocracy; it is not and never shall be a government by a mob. It is as it has been and as it will be, a government in which every honest man, every decent man, be he employer or employed, wage-worker, mechanic, banker, lawyer, farmer, be he who he may, if he acts squarely and fairly, if he does his duty by his neighbor and the State, receives the full protection of the law and is given the amplest chance to exercise the ability that there is within him, alone or in combination with his fellows as he desires. My friends, it is sometimes easier to preach a doctrine under which the millennium will be promised off-hand if you have a particular kind of law, or follow a particular kind of conduct—it is easier, but it is not better. The millennium is not here; it is some thousand years off yet. Meanwhile there must be a good deal of work and struggle, a good deal of injustice; we shall often see the tower of Siloam fall on the just as well as the unjust. We are bound in honor to try to remedy injustice, but if we are wise we will seek to remedy it in practical ways. Above all, remember this: that the most unsafe adviser to follow is the man who would advise us to do wrong in order that we may benefit by it. That man is never a safe man to follow; he is always the most dangerous of guides. The man who seeks to persuade any of us that our advantage comes in wronging or oppressing others can be depended upon, if the opportunity comes, to do wrong to us in his own interest, just as he has endeavored to make us in our supposed interest do wrong to others.

AT THE TABERNACLE, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, MAY 29, 1903

_Mr. Governor, Mr. Mayor, Senator Kearns, and you, my Fellow-Americans_:

I am particularly glad to have the chance to speak to you here in this city, in Utah, this morning, because you have exemplified a doctrine which it seems to me all-essential for our people ever to keep fresh in their minds—the fact that though natural resources can do a good deal, though the law can do a good deal, the fundamental requisite in building up prosperity and civilization is the requisite of individual character in the individual man or woman. Here in this State the pioneers and those who came after them took not the land that would ordinarily be chosen as land that would yield return with little effort. You took territory which at the outset was called after the desert, and you literally—not figuratively—you literally made the wilderness blossom as the rose. The fundamental element in building up Utah has been the work of the citizens of Utah. And you did it because your people entered in to possess the land and to leave it after them to their children and their children’s children. You here whom I am addressing and your predecessors did not come in to exploit the land and then go somewhere else. You came in, as the Governor has said, as home-makers, to make homes for yourselves and those who should come after you; and that is the only way in which a State can be built up, in which the Nation can be built up. You have built up this great community because you came here with the purpose of making this your abiding home, and of leaving to your children not an impoverished, but an enriched heritage; and I ask that all our people from one ocean to the other, but especially the people of the arid and the semi-arid regions, the people of the great plains, the people of the mountains, approach the problem of taking care of the physical resources of the country in the spirit which has made Utah what it is. You have developed your metal wealth wonderfully; and your growth is not a boom growth—it is a thoroughly healthy, normal growth. During the past decade the population has doubled and the wealth quadrupled; and labor is employed at as high a compensation as is paid elsewhere in the world. Although you are not essentially a mining State, in the last year you marketed thirty millions’ worth of ore; and again you showed your good sense in the way you handled it; for you paid five millions in dividends and you invested the balance in labor and surplus. The effort to make a big showing in dividends is not always healthy for the future. Here you have shown your wonderful capacity to develop the earth so as to make both irrigated agriculture and stock-raising in all its forms two great industries. When you deal with a mine you take the ore out of the earth and take it away, and in the end exhaust the mine. The time may be very long in coming before it is exhausted, or it may be a short time; but in any event, mining means the exhaustion of the mine. But that is exactly what agriculture does not and must not mean.

So far from agriculture properly exhausting the land, it is always the sign of a vicious system of agriculture if the land is rendered poorer by it. The direct contrary should be the fact. After the farmer has had the farm for his life he should be able to hand it to his children as a better farm than it was when he had it.

In these regions, in the Rocky Mountain regions, it is especially incumbent upon us to treat the question of the natural pasturage, the question of the forests, and the question of the use of the waters, all from the one standpoint—the standpoint of the far-seeing statesman, of the far-seeing citizen, who wishes to preserve and not to exhaust the resources of the country, who wishes to see those resources come into the hands not of a few men of great wealth, least of all into the hands of a few men who will speculate in them; but be distributed among many men, each of whom intends to make his home in the land.

This whole so-called arid and semi-arid region is by nature the stock range of the Nation. One of the questions which are rising to confront us is how this range may be made to produce the greatest number and best quality of horses, cattle, and sheep, not only this year, not only next year, but for this generation and the next generation. The old system of grazing the ranges so closely as to injure the whole crop of grass was a serious detriment to the development of the West, a serious detriment to the development of our people. The ranges must be treated as a great invested capital; and that old system tended to dissipate and partially to destroy that capital. That is something that we can not as a Nation of home-makers permit. The wise man, the wise industry, the wise nation, maintains such capital unimpaired and tries to increase it; and more and more the range lands will be used in conjunction with the small irrigable areas which they include; so that the industry can take on a more stable character than ever before. It is impossible permanently, although it may be advisable for the time being, to move stock in a body from summer to winter ranges across country which can be made into homesteads, because when the country can itself be taken by actual settlers, in the long run it will only be possible to move the stock through hundreds of miles of dusty lanes where they can not graze, where they can not live. Our aim must be steadily to help develop the settler, the man who lives in the land and in growing up with it and raising his children to own it after him. More and more hereafter the stock owners will have the necessity forced upon them of providing green summer pasturage within the limits of their own ranges; and so the question of irrigation is wellnigh as important to the stockmen as to the agriculturist proper.