tegrity in public life he united the tender affections
and home virtues which are all-important in the
make-up of national character. A gallant soldier
in the great war for the Union, he also shone
as an example to all our people because of his
conduct in the most sacred and intimate of
home relations. There could be no personal
hatred of him, for he never acted with aught
but consideration for the welfare of others. No one
could fail to respect him who knew him in public or
private life. The defenders of those murderous
criminals who seek to excuse their criminality by
asserting that it is exercised for political ends, in-
veigh against wealth and irresponsible power. But
for this assassination even this base apology can
not be urged.
President McKinley was a man of moderate
means, a man whose stock sprang from the sturdy
And State Papers 531
tillers of the soil, who had himself belonged among
the wage-workers, who had entered the Army as a
private soldier. Wealth was not struck at when
the President was assassinated, but the honest toil
which is content with moderate gains after a life-
time of unremitting labor, largely in the service of
the public. Still less was power struck at in the
sense that power is irresponsible or centred in the
hands of any one individual. The blow was not
aimed at tyranny or wealth. It was aimed at one
of the strongest champions the wage-worker has
ever had ; at one of the most faithful representatives
of the system of public rights and representative
government who has ever risen to public office.
President McKinley filled that political office for
which the entire people vote, and no President — not
even Lincoln himself — was ever more earnestly anx-
ious to represent the well thought out wishes of the
people ; his one anxiety in every crisis was to keep
in closest touch with the people — to find out what
they thought and to endeavor to give expression to
their thought, after having endeavored to guide
that thought aright. He had just been re-elected
to the Presidency because the majority of our citi-
zens, the majority of our farmers and wage-workers,
believed that he had faithfully upheld their inter-
ests for four years. They felt themselves in close
and intimate touch with him. They felt that he
represented so well and so honorably all their ideals
and aspirations that they wished him to continue
for another four years to represent them.
^2'^ Presidential Addresses
And this was the man at whom the assassin
struck! That there might be nothing lacking to
complete the Judas-Hke infamy of his act, he took
advantage of an occasion when the President was
meeting the people generally; and advancing as if
to take the hand outstretched to him in kindly and
brotherly fellowship, he turned the noble and gen-
erous confidence of. the victim into an opportunity
to strike the fatal blow. There is no baser deed in
all the annals of crime.
The shock, the grief of the country, are bitter in
the minds of all who saw the dark days while the
President yet hovered between life and death. At
last the light was stilled in the kindly eyes and the
breath went from the lips that even in mortal agony
uttered no words save of forgiveness to his mur-
derer, of love for his friends, and of unfaltering
trust in the will of the Most High. Such a death,
crowning the glory of such a life, leaves us with in-
finite sorrow, but with such pride in what he had-
accomplished and in his own personal character, that
we feel the blow not as struck at him, but as struck
at the nation. We mourn a good and great Presi-
dent who is dead ; but while we mourn we are lifted
up by the splendid achievements of his life and the
grand heroism with which he met his death.
When we turn from the man to the nation, the
harm done is so great as to excite our gravest ap-
prehensions and to demand our wisest and most
resolute action. This criminal was a professed
anarchist, inflamed by the teachings of professed an-
And State Papers S33
archists, and probably also by the reckless utterances
of those who, on the stump and in the public press,
appeal to the dark and evil spirits of malice and
greed, envy and sullen hatred. The wind is sowed
by the men who preach such doctrines, and they can
not escape their share of responsibility for the whirl-
wind that is reaped. This applies alike to the delib-
erate demagogue, to the exploiter of sensationalism,
and to the crude and foolish visionary who, for what-
ever reason, apologizes for crime or excites aimless
discontent.
The blow was aimed not at this President, but at
all Presidents; at every symbol of government.
President McKinley was as emphatically the embod-
iment of the popular will of the nation expressed
through the forms of law as a New England town
meeting is in similar fashion the embodiment of the
law-abiding purpose and practice of the people of
the town. On no conceivable theory could the mur-
der of the President be accepted as due to protest
against "inequalities in the social order," save as
the murder of all the freemen engaged in a town
meeting could be accepted as a protest against that
social inequality which puts a malefactor in jail.
Anarchy is no more an expression of "social discon-
tent" than picking pockets or wife-beating.
The anarchist, and especially the anarchist in the
United States, is merely one type of criminal, more
dangerous than any other because he represents the
same depravity in a greater degree. The man who
advocates anarchy directly or indirectly, in any shape
534 Presidential Addresses
or fashion, or the man who apologizes for anarchists
and their deeds, makes himself morally accessory to
murder before the fact. The anarchist is a criminal
whose perverted instincts lead him to prefer confu-
sion and chaos to the most beneficent form of social
order. His protest of concern for working-men is
outrageous in its impudent falsity; for if the political
institutions of this country do not afford opportunity
to every honest and intelligent son of toil, then the
door of hope is forever closed against him. The
anarchist is ever}'where not merely the enemy of
system and of progress, but the deadly foe of liberty.
If ever anarchy is triumphant, its triumph will last
for but one red moment, to be succeeded for ages
by the gloomy night of despotism.
For the anarchist himself, whether he preaches
or practices his doctrines, we need not have one par-
ticle more concern than for any ordinary murderer.
He is not the victim of social or political injustice.
There are no wrongs to remedy in his case. The
cause of his criminality is to be found in his own
evil passions and in the evil conduct of those who
urge him on, not in any failure by others or by the
State to do justice to him or his. He is a malefactor
and nothing else. He is in no sense, in no shape
or way, a "product of social conditions," save as a
highwayman is "produced" by the fact that an un-
armed man happens to have a purse. It is a travesty
upon the great and holy names of liberty and free-
dom to permit them to be invoked in such a cause.
No man or body of men preaching anarchistic doc-
And State Papers S3S
trines should be allowed at large any more than if
preaching the murder of some specified private in-
dividual. Anarchistic speeches, writings, and meet-
ings are essentially seditious and treasonable.
I earnestly recommend to the Congress that in the
exercise of its wise discretion it should take into
consideration the coming to this country of anar-
chists or persons professing principles hostile to all
government and justifying the murder of those
placed in authority. Such individuals as those who
not long ago gathered in open meeting to glorify the
murder of King Humbert of Italy perpetrate a
crime, and the law should ensure their rigorous pun-
ishment. They and those like them should be kept
out of this country; and if found here they should
be promptly deported to the country whence they
came; and far-reaching provisions should be made
for the punishment of those who stay. No matter
calls more urgently for the wisest thought of the
Congress.
The Federal courts should be given jurisdiction
over any man who kills or attempts to kill the
President or any man who by the Constitution or
by law is in line of succession for the Presidency,
while the punishment for an unsuccessful attempt
should be proportioned to the enormity of the of-
fence against our institutions.
Anarchy is a crime against the whole human race ;
and all mankind should band against the anarchist.
His crime should be made an offence against the
law of nations, like piracy and that form of man-
S3^ ' Presidential Addresses
stealing known as the slave trade; for it is of far
blacker infamy than either. It should be so declared
by treaties among all civilized powers. Such treaties
would g'lVQ to the Federal Government the power of
dealing with the crime.
" A grim commentary upon the folly of the anar-
chist position was afforded by the attitude of the law
toward this very criminal who had just taken the life
of the President. The people would have torn him
limb from limb if it had not been that the law he
defied was at once invoked in his behalf. So far
from his deed being committed on behalf of the peo-
ple against the government, the government was
obliged at once to exert its full police power to save
him from instant death at the hands of the people.
Moreover, his deed worked not the slightest dislo-
cation in our governmental system, and the danger
of a recurrence of such deeds, no matter how great
it might grow, would work only in the direction of
strengthening and giving harshness to the forces of
order. No man will ever be restrained from becom-
ing President by any fear as to his personal safety.
If the risk to the President's life became great, it
would mean that the office would more and more
come to be filled by men of a spirit which would
make them resolute and merciless in dealing with
every friend of disorder. This great country will
not fall into anarchy, and if anarchists sho'uld ever
become a serious menace to its institutions, they
would not merely be stamped out, but would involve
in their own ruin every active or passive sympathizer
And State Papers 537
with their doctrines. The American people are slow
to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it
burns like a consuming flame.
During the last five years business confidence has
been restored and the nation is to be congratulated
because of its present abounding prosperity. Such
prosperity can never be created by law alone, al-
though it is easy enough to destroy it by mischievous
laws. If the hand of the Lord is heavy upon any
country, if flood or drought comes, human wisdom
is powerless to avert the calamity. Moreover, no law
can guard us against the consequences of our own
folly. The men who are idle or credulous, the men
who seek gains not by genuine work with head or
hand but by gambling in any form, are always a
source of menace not only to themselves but to
others. If the business world loses its head, it loses
what legislation can not supply. Fundamentally the
welfare of each citizen, and therefore the welfare
of the aggregate of citizens which makes the nation,
must rest upon individual thrift and energy, resolu-
tion and intelligence. Nothing can take the place
of this individual capacity ; but wise legislation and
honest and intelligent administration can give it the
fullest scope, the largest opportunity to work to good
effect.
The tremendous and highly complex industrial de-
velopment which went on with ever accelerated ra-
pidity during the latter half of the nineteenth cen-
tury brings us face to face, at the beginning of the
S3^ Presidential Addresses
twentieth, with very serious social problems. The
old laws, and the old customs which had almost the
binding force of law, were once quite sufficient to
regulate the accumulation and distribution of wealth.
Since the industrial changes which have so enor-
mously increased the productive power of mankind,
they are no longer sufficient.
The growth of cities has gone on beyond compari-
son faster than the growth of the country, and the
upbuilding of the great industrial centres has meant
a startling increase, not merely in the aggregate of
wealth, but in the number of very large individual,
and especially of very large corporate, fortunes. The
creation of these great corporate fortunes has not
been due tO' the tariff nor to any other governmental
action, but to natural causes in the business world,
operating in other countries as they operate in our
own.
The process has aroused much antagonism, a great
part of which is wholly without warrant. It is not
true that as the rich have grown richer the poor have
grown poorer. On the contrary, never before has
the average man, the wage-worker, the farmer, the
small trader, been so well off as in this country and
at the present time. There have been abuses con-
nected with the accumulation of wealth ; yet it re-
mains true that a fortune accumulated in legitimate
business can be accumulated by the person specially
benefited only on condition of conferring immense
incidental benefits upon others. Successful enter-
prise, of the type which benefits all mankind, can
And State Papers 539
only exist if the conditions are such as to offer great
prizes as the rewards of success.
The captains of industry who have driven the
raihvay systems across this continent, who have
built up our commerce, who have developed our man-
ufactures, have on the whole done great good to
our people. Without them the material develop-
ment of which we are so justly proud could never
have taken place. Moreover, we should recognize
the immense importance to this material develop-
ment of leaving as unhampered as is compatible with
the public good the strong and forceful men upon
w^iom the success of business operations inevitably
rests. The slightest study of business conditions
will satisfy any one capable of forming a judgment
that the personal equation is the most important fac-
tor in a business operation ; that the business ability
of the man at the head of any business concern, big
or little, is usually the factor which fixes the gulf
between striking success and hopeless failure.
An additional reason for caution in dealing with
corporations is to be found in the international com-
mercial conditions of to-day. The same business
conditions which have produced the great aggrega-
tions of corporate and individual wealth have made
them very potent factors in international commer-
cial competition. Business concerns which have the
largest means at their disposal and are managed by
the ablest men are naturally those which take the lead
in the strife for commercial supremacy among the
nations of the world. America has only just be-
540 Presidential Addresses
gun to assume that commanding position in the in-
ternational business world which we believe will
more and more be hers. It is of the utmost impor- .
tance that this position be not jeoparded, especially
at a time when the overflowing abundance of our
own natural resources and the skill, business energ}%
and mechanical aptitude of our people make foreign
markets essential. Under such conditions it would
be most unwise to cramp or to fetter the youthful
strength of our nation.
Moreover, it can not too often be pointed out that
to strike with ignorant violence at the interests of
one set of men almost inevitably endangers the in-
terests of all. The fundamental rule in our national
life — the rule which underlies all others — is that,
on the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up
or down together. There are exceptions; and in
times of prosperity some will prosper far more, and
in times of adversity some will suffer far more, than
others; but speaking generally, a period of good
times means that all share more or less in them, and
in a period of hard times all feel the stress to a
greater or less degree. It surely ought not to be
necessary to enter into any proof of this statement ;
the memory of the lean years which began in 1893
is still vivid, and we can contrast them with the
conditions in this very year which is now closing.
Disaster to great business enterprises can never have
its effects limited to the men at the top. It spreads
throughout, and while it is bad for everybody, it is
worst for those furthest down. The capitalist may
And State Papers 541
be shorn of his luxuries ; but the wage-worker may
be deprived of even bare necessities.
The mechanism of modern business is sO' deHcate
that extreme care must be taken not to interfere
with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance. Many
of those who have made it their vocation to de-
nounce the great industrial combinations which are
popularly, although wnth technical inaccuracy,
known as "trusts," appeal especially to hatred and
fear. These are precisely the two emotions, par-
ticularly when combined with ignorance, which unfit
men for the exercise of cool- and steady judgment.
In facing new industrial conditions, the whole his-
tory of the world shows that legislation will -gen-
erally be both unwise and inef¥ective unless under-
taken after calm inquiry and with sober self-re-
straint. Much of the legislation directed at the trusts
would have been exceedingly mischievous had it
not also been entirely ineffective. In accordance
with a well-known sociological law, the ignorant or
reckless agitator has been the really effective friend
of the evils which he has been nominally opposing.
In dealing wdth business interests, for the govern-
ment to undertake by crude and ill-considered legis-
lation to do what may turn out to be bad, would be
to incur the risk of such far-reaching national dis-
aster that it would be preferable to undertake noth-
ing at all. The men who demand the impossible or
the undesirable serve as the allies of the forces with
which they are nominally at war, for they hamper
those who would endeavor to find out in rational
542 Presidential Addresses
fashion what the wrongs really are and to what ex-
tent and in what manner it is practicable to apply
remedies.
All this is true; and yet it is also true that there
are real and grave evils, one of the chief being over-
capitalization because of its many baleful conse-
quences ; and a resolute and practical effort must be
made to correct these evils.
There is widespread conviction in the minds of
the American people that the great corporations
known as trusts are in certain of their features and
tendencies hurtful to the general welfare. This
springs from no spirit of envy or uncharitableness,
nor lack of pride in the great industrial achievements
that have placed this country at the head of the na-
tions struggling for commercial supremacy. It does
not rest upon a lack of intelligent appreciation of
the necessity of meeting changing and changed con-
ditions of trade with new methods, nor upon igno-
rance of the fact that combination of capital in the
effort to accomplish great things is necessary when
the world's progress demands that great things be
done. It is based upon sincere conviction that com-
bination and concentration should be, not prohibited,
but supervised and within reasonable limits con-
trolled; and in my judgment this conviction is right.
It is no limitation upon property rights or free-
dom of contract to require that when men receive
from government the privilege of doing business
under corporate form, which frees them from indi-
vidual responsibihty, and enables them to call into
And State Papers 543
their enterprises the capital of the pnbhc, they shall
do so upon absolutely truthful representations as to
the value of the property in which the capital is to
be invested. Corporations engaged in interstate
commerce should be regulated if they are found to
exercise a license working to the public injury. It
should be as much the aim of those who seek for
social betterment to rid the business world of crimes
of cunning as to rid the entire body politic of crimes
of violence. Great corporations exist only because
they are created and safe-guarded by our institu-
tions ; and it is therefore our right and our duty to
see that they work in harmony with these insti-
tutions.
The first essential in determining how to deal
with the great industrial combinations is knowledge
of the facts — publicity. In the interest of the public,
the government should have the right to inspect
and examine the workings of the great corporations
engaged in interstate business. Publicity is the
only sure remedy which we can now invoke. What
further remedies are needed in the way of govern-
mental regulation, or taxation, can only be deter-
mined after publicity has been obtained, by process
of law, and in the course of administration. The
first requisite is knowledge, full and complete —
knowledge which may be made public to the world.
Artificial bodies, such as corporations and joint
stock or other associations, depending upon any
statutory law for their existence or privileges, should
be subject to proper governmental supervision, and
544 Presidential Addresses
full and accurate information as to their operations
should be made public regularly at reasonable in-
tervals.
The large corporations, commonly called trusts,
though organized in one State, always do business
in many States, often doing very little business in
the State where they are incorporated. There is
utter lack of uniformity in the State laws about
them; and as no State has any exclusive interest in
or power over their acts, it has in practice proved
impossible to get adequate regulation through State
action. Therefore, in the interest of the whole peo-
ple, the Nation should, without interfering with the
power of the States in the matter itself, also assume
power of supervision and regulation over all corpo-
rations doing an interstate business. This is es-
pecially true where the corporation derives a portion
of its wealth from the existence of some monopolistic
element or tendency in its business. There would
be no hardship in such supervision; banks are sub-
ject to it, and in their case it is now accepted as a
simple matter of course. Indeed, it is probable that
supervision of corporations by the National Govern-
ment need not go so far as is now the case with the
supervision exercised over them by so conservative
a State as Massachusetts, in order to produce ex-
cellent results.
When the Constitution was adopted, at the end
of the eighteenth century, no human wisdom could
foretell the sweeping changes, alike in industrial
and political conditions, which were to take place
And State Papers 545
by the beginning of the twentieth century. At that
time it was accepted as a matter of course that the
several States were the proper authorities to regu-
late, so far as was then necessary, the comparatively
insignificant and strictly localized corporate bodies
of the day. The conditions are now wholly different
and wholly different action is called for. I believe
that a law can be framed which will enable the Na-
tional Government to exercise control along the lines
above indicated, profiting by the experience gained
through the passage and administration of the In-
terstate Commerce Act. If, however, the judg-
ment of the Congress is that it lacks the constitu-
tional power to pass such an act, then a constitu-
tional amendment should be submitted to confer the
power.
There should be created a Cabinet officer, to be
known as Secretary of Commerce and Industries,
as provided in the bill introduced at the last session
of the Congress. It should be his province to deal
with commerce in its broadest sense; including
among many other things whatever concerns labor
and all matters affecting the great business corpora-
tions and our merchant marine.
The course proposed is one phase of what should
be a comprehensive and far-reaching scheme of con-
structive statesmanship for the purpose of broaden-
ing our markets, securing our business interests on
a safe basis, and making firm our new position in
the international" industrial world, while scrupulously
safeguarding the rights of wage-worker and cap-
7— Vol. XIV
546 Presidential Addresses
italist, of investor and private citizen, so as to secure
equity as between man and man in this Republic.
With the sole exception of the farming interest,