Part 23
But the needs of these two classes are often not the same. The tiller of the soil has been of all our citizens the one on the whole the least affected in his ways of life and methods of industry by the giant industrial changes of the last half century. There has been change with him, too, of course. He also can work to best advantage if he keeps in close touch with his fellows; and the success of the national Department of Agriculture has shown how much can be done for him by rational action of the Government. Nor is it only through the Department that the Government can act. One of the greatest and most beneficent measures passed by the last Congress, or indeed by any Congress in recent years, is the Irrigation Act, which will do for the States of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountain region at least as much as ever has been done for the States of the humid region by river and harbor improvements. Few measures that have been put upon the statute books of the Nation have done more for the people than this law will, I firmly believe, directly and indirectly accomplish for the States in question.
The Department of Agriculture devotes its whole energy to working for the welfare of farmers and stock growers. In every section of our country it aids them in their constantly increasing search for a better agricultural education. It helps not only them, but all the nation, in seeing that our exports of meats have clean bills of health, and that there is rigid inspection of all meats that enter into interstate commerce. Thirty-eight million carcasses were inspected during the last fiscal year. Our stock growers sell forty-five million dollars’ worth of live stock annually, and these animals must be kept healthy or else our people will lose their trade. Our export of plant products to foreign countries amounts to over six hundred million dollars a year, and there is no branch of its work to which the Department of Agriculture devotes more care. Thus the Department has been successfully introducing a macaroni wheat from the headwaters of the Volga, which grows successfully in ten inches of rainfall, and by this means wheat growing has been successfully extended westward into the semi-arid region. Two million bushels of this wheat were grown last year; and being suited to dry conditions it can be used for forage as well as for food for man.
The Department of Agriculture has been helping our fruit men to establish markets abroad by studying methods of fruit preservation through refrigeration and through methods of handling and packing. On the Gulf coasts of Louisiana and Texas, thanks to the Department of Agriculture, a rice suitable to the region was imported from the Orient and the rice crop is now practically equal to our needs in this country, whereas a few years ago it supplied but one-fourth of them. The most important of our farm products is the grass crop; and to show what has been done with grasses, I need only allude to the striking change made in the entire West by the extended use of alfalfa.
Moreover, the Department has taken the lead in the effort to prevent the deforestation of the country. Where there are forests we seek to preserve them; and on the once treeless plains and the prairies we are doing our best to foster the habit of tree planting among our people. In my own lifetime I have seen wonderful changes brought about by this tree planting here in your own State and in the States immediately around it.
There are a number of very important questions, such as that of good roads, with which the States alone can deal, and where all that the National Government can do is to co-operate with them. The same is true of the education of the American farmer. A number of the States have themselves started to help in this work and the Department of Agriculture does an immense amount which is in the proper sense of the word educational, and educational in the most practical way.
It is therefore clearly true that a great advance has been made in the direction of finding ways by which the Government can help the farmer to help himself—the only kind of help which a self-respecting man will accept, or, I may add, which will in the end do him any good. Much has been done in these ways, and farm life and farm processes continually change for the better. The farmer himself still retains, because of his surroundings and the nature of his work, to a pre-eminent degree the qualities which we like to think of as distinctly American in considering our early history. The man who tills his own farm, whether on the prairie or in the woodland, the man who grows what we eat and the raw material which is worked up into what we wear, still exists more nearly under the conditions which obtained when the “embattled farmers” of ’76 made this country a nation than is true of any others of our people.
But the wage-workers in our cities, like the capitalists in our cities, face totally changed conditions. The development of machinery and the extraordinary change in business conditions have rendered the employment of capital and of persons in large aggregations not merely profitable but often necessary for success, and have specialized the labor of the wage-worker at the same time that they have brought great aggregations of wage-workers together. More and more in our great industrial centres men have come to realize that they can not live as independently of one another as in the old days was the case everywhere, and as is now the case in the country districts.
Of course, fundamentally each man will yet find that the chief factor in determining his success or failure in life is the sum of his own individual qualities. He can not afford to lose his individual initiative, his individual will and power; but he can best use that power if for certain objects he unites with his fellows. Much can be done by organization, combination, union among the wage-workers; finally something can be done by the direct action of the State. It is not possible empirically to declare when the interference of the State should be deemed legitimate and when illegitimate.
The line of demarcation between unhealthy over-interference and unhealthy lack of regulation is not always well defined, and shifts with the change in our industrial needs. Most certainly we should never invoke the interference of the State or Nation unless it is absolutely necessary; but it is equally true that when confident of its necessity we should not on academic grounds refuse it. Wise factory laws, laws to forbid the employment of child labor and to safeguard the employees against the effects of culpable negligence by the employer, are necessary, not merely in the interest of the wage-worker, but in the interest of the honest and humane employer, who should not be penalized for his honesty and humanity by being exposed to unchecked competition with an unscrupulous rival. It is far more difficult to deal with the greed that works through cunning than with the greed that works through violence. But the effort to deal with it must be steadily made.
Very much of our effort in reference to labor matters should be by every device and expedient to try to secure a constantly better understanding between employer and employee. Everything possible should be done to increase the sympathy and fellow-feeling between them, and every chance taken to allow each to look at all questions, especially at questions in dispute, somewhat through the other’s eyes. If met with a sincere desire to act fairly by one another, and if there is, furthermore, power by each to appreciate the other’s standpoint, the chance for trouble is minimized. I suppose every thinking man rejoices when by mediation or arbitration it proves possible to settle troubles in time to avert the suffering and bitterness caused by strikes. Moreover, a conciliation committee can do best work when the trouble is in its beginning, or at least has not come to a head. When the break has actually occurred, damage has been done, and each side feels sore and angry; and it is difficult to get them together—difficult to make either forget its own wrongs and remember the rights of the other. If possible the effort at conciliation or mediation or arbitration should be made in the earlier stages, and should be marked by the wish on the part of both sides to try to come to a common agreement which each shall think in the interests of the other as well as of itself.
When we deal with such a subject we are fortunate in having before us an admirable object-lesson in the work that has just been closed by the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. This was the Commission which was appointed last fall at the time when the coal strike in the anthracite regions threatened our Nation with a disaster second to none which has befallen us since the days of the Civil War. Their report was made just before the Senate adjourned at the special session; and no Government document of recent years marks a more important piece of work better done, and there is none which teaches sounder social morality to our people. The commission consisted of seven as good men as were to be found in the country, representing the bench, the church, the army, the professions, the employers, and the employed. They acted as a unit, and the report which they unanimously signed is a masterpiece of sound common-sense and of sound doctrine on the very questions with which our people should most deeply concern themselves. The immediate effect of this commission’s appointment and action was of vast and incalculable benefit to the Nation; but the ultimate effect will be even better, if capitalist, wage-worker, and law-maker alike will take to heart and act upon the lessons set forth in the report they have made.
Of course the National Government has but a small field in which it can work in labor matters. Something it can do, however, and that something ought to be done. Among other things I should like to see the District of Columbia, which is completely under the control of the National Government, receive a set of model labor laws. Washington is not a city of very large industries, but still it has some. Wise labor legislation for the city of Washington would be a good thing in itself, and it would be a far better thing, because a standard would thereby be set for the country as a whole.
In the field of general legislation relating to these subjects the action of Congress is necessarily very limited. Still there are certain ways in which we can act. Thus the Secretary of the Navy has recommended, with my cordial and hearty approval, the enactment of a strong employers’-liability law in the navy yards of the Nation. It should be extended to similar branches of the Government work. Again, sometimes such laws can be enacted as an incident to the Nation’s control over interstate commerce. In my last annual Message to Congress I advocated the passage of a law in reference to car couplings—to strengthen the features of the one already on the statute books so as to minimize the exposure to death and maiming of railway employees. Much opposition had to be overcome. In the end an admirable law was passed “to promote the safety of employees and travelers upon railroads by compelling common carriers engaged in interstate commerce to equip their cars with automatic couplers and continuous brakes and their locomotives with driving-wheel brakes.” This law received my signature a couple of days before Congress adjourned. It represents a real and substantial advance in an admirable kind of legislation.
AT FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA, APRIL 7, 1903
_My Fellow-Citizens_:
The Northwest, whose sons in the Civil War added such brilliant pages to the honor roll of the Republic, likewise bore a full share in the struggle of which the war with Spain was the beginning; a struggle slight indeed when compared with the gigantic death wrestle which for four years stamped to and fro across the Southern States in the Civil War; but a struggle fraught with consequences to the Nation, and indeed to the world, out of all proportion to the smallness of the effort upon our part.
Three and a half years ago President McKinley spoke in the adjoining State of Minnesota on the occasion of the return of the Thirteenth Minnesota Volunteers from the Philippine Islands, where they had served with your own gallant sons of the North Dakota regiment. After heartily thanking the returned soldiers for their valor and patriotism, and their contemptuous refusal to be daunted or misled by the outcry raised at home by the men of little faith who wished us to abandon the islands, he spoke of the islands themselves as follows:
“That Congress will provide for them a government which will bring them blessings, which will promote their material interests as well as advance their people in the path of civilization and intelligence, I confidently believe. They will not be governed as vassals or serfs or slaves. They will be given a government of liberty, regulated by law, honestly administered, without oppressing exactions, taxation without tyranny, justice without bribe, education without distinction of social condition, freedom of religious worship, and protection in ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’”
What he said then lay in the realm of promise. Now it lies in the realm of positive performance.
It is a good thing to look back upon what has been said and compare it with the record of what has actually been done. If promises are violated, if plighted word is not kept, then those who have failed in their duty should be held up to reprobation. If, on the other hand, the promises have been substantially made good; if the achievement has kept pace and more than kept pace with the prophecy, then they who made the one and are responsible for the other are entitled of just right to claim the credit which attaches to those who serve the Nation well. This credit I claim for the men who have managed so admirably the military and the civil affairs of the Philippine Islands, and for those other men who have so heartily backed them in Congress, and without whose aid and support not one thing could have been accomplished.
When President McKinley spoke, the first duty was the restoration of order; and to this end the use of the Army of the United States—an Army composed of regulars and volunteers alike—was necessary. To put down the insurrection and restore peace to the islands was a duty not only to ourselves but to the islanders also. We could not have abandoned the conflict without shirking this duty, without proving ourselves recreants to the memory of our forefathers. Moreover, if we had abandoned it we would have inflicted upon the Filipinos the most cruel wrong and would have doomed them to a bloody jumble of anarchy and tyranny. It seems strange, looking back, that any of our people should have failed to recognize a duty so obvious; but there was such failure, and the Government at home, the civil authorities in the Philippines, and above all our gallant Army, had to do their work amid a storm of detraction. The Army in especial was attacked in a way which finally did good, for in the end it aroused the hearty resentment of the great body of the American people, not against the Army, but against the Army’s traducers. The circumstances of the war made it one of peculiar difficulty, and our soldiers were exposed to peculiar wrongs from their foes. They fought in dense tropical jungles against enemies who were very treacherous and very cruel, not only toward our own men, but toward the great numbers of friendly natives, the most peaceable and most civilized among whom eagerly welcomed our rule. Under such circumstances, among a hundred thousand hot-blooded and powerful young men serving in small detachments on the other side of the globe, it was impossible that occasional instances of wrongdoing should not occur. The fact that they occurred in retaliation for wellnigh intolerable provocation can not for one moment be admitted in the way of excuse or justification. All good Americans regret and deplore them, and the War Department has taken every step in its power to punish the offenders and to prevent or minimize the chance of repetition of the offence. But these offences were the exception and not the rule. As a whole our troops showed not only signal courage and efficiency, but great humanity and the most sincere desire to promote the welfare and liberties of the islanders. In a series of exceedingly harassing and difficult campaigns they completely overthrew the enemy, reducing them finally to a condition of mere brigandage; and wherever they conquered they conquered only to make way for the rule of the civil government, for the introduction of law, and of liberty under the law. When, by last July, the last vestige of organized insurrection had disappeared, peace and amnesty were proclaimed.
As rapidly as the military rule was extended over the islands by the defeat of the insurgents, just so rapidly was it replaced by the civil government. At the present time the civil government is supreme and the army in the Philippines has been reduced until it is sufficient merely to provide against the recurrence of trouble. In Governor Taft and his associates we sent to the Filipinos as upright, as conscientious, and as able a group of administrators as ever any country has been blessed with having. With them and under them we have associated the best men among the Filipinos, so that the great majority of the officials, including many of the highest rank, are themselves natives of the islands. The administration is incorruptibly honest; justice is as jealously safeguarded as here at home. The government is conducted purely in the interests of the people of the islands; they are protected in their religious and civil rights; they have been given an excellent and well administered school system, and each of them now enjoys rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” such as were never before known in all the history of the islands.
The Congress which has just adjourned has passed legislation of high importance and great wisdom in the interests of the Filipino people. First and foremost, they conferred upon them by law the present admirable civil government; in addition they gave them an excellent currency; they passed a measure allowing the organization of a native constabulary; and they provided, in the interests of the islands, for a reduction of twenty-five per cent in the tariff on Filipino articles brought to this country. I asked that a still further reduction should be made. It was not granted by the last Congress, but I think that in some shape it will be granted by the next. And even without it, the record of legislation in the interests of the Filipinos is one with which we have a right to feel great satisfaction.
Moreover, Congress appropriated three million dollars, following the precedent it set when the people of Porto Rico were afflicted by sudden disaster; this money to be used by the Philippine government in order to meet the distress occasioned primarily by the terrible cattle disease which almost annihilated the carabao or water-buffalo, the chief and most important domestic animal in the islands. Coming as this disaster did upon the heels of the havoc wrought by the insurrectionary war, great suffering has been caused; and this misery, for which this Government is in no way responsible, will doubtless in turn increase the difficulties of the Philippine government for the next year or so. In consequence there will doubtless here and there occur sporadic increases of the armed brigandage to which the islands have been habituated from time immemorial, and here and there for their own purposes the bandits may choose to style themselves patriots or insurrectionists; but these local difficulties will be of little consequence save as they give occasion to a few men here at home again to try to mislead our people. Not only has the military problem in the Philippines been worked out quicker and better than we had dared to expect, but the progress socially and in civil government has likewise exceeded our fondest hopes.
The best thing that can be done in handling such a problem as that in the Philippine Islands, so peculiar, so delicate, so difficult and so remote, is to put the best man possible in charge and then give him the heartiest possible support, and the freest possible hand. This is what has been done with Governor Taft. There is not in this Nation a higher or finer type of public servant than Governor Taft. He has rendered literally inestimable service, not only to the people of the Philippine Islands but also to the people of the United States, by what he has done in those islands. He has been able to do it, because from the beginning he has been given absolute support by the War Department, under Secretary Root. With the cessation of organized resistance the civil government assumed its proper position of headship. The army in the Philippines is now one of the instruments through which Governor Taft does his admirable work. The civil government, of which Governor Taft is the head, is supreme, and will do well in the future as it has in the past, because it will be backed up in the future as it has been in the past.
Remember always that in the Philippines the American Government has tried and is trying to carry out exactly what the greatest genius and most revered patriot ever known in the Philippine Islands—José Rizal—steadfastly advocated. This man shortly before his death, in a message to his countrymen, under date of December 16, 1896, condemned unsparingly the insurrection of Aguinaldo, terminated just before our navy appeared upon the scene, and pointed out the path his people should follow to liberty and enlightenment. Speaking of the insurrection and of the pretence that Filipino independence of a wholesome character could thereby be obtained, he wrote:
“When, in spite of my advice, a movement was begun, I offered of my own accord, not only my services, but my life and even my good name to be used in any way they might believe effective in stifling the rebellion. I thought of the disaster which would follow the success of the revolution, and I deemed myself fortunate if by any sacrifice I could block the progress of such a useless calamity.