wealth, in population, and in power as this nation has seen during the
century and a quarter of its national life is inevitably accompanied by
a like growth in the problems which are ever before every nation that
rises to greatness. Power invariably means both responsibility and
danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We
now face other perils, the very existence of which it was impossible
that they should foresee. Modern life is both complex and intense, and
the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial
development of the last half century are felt in every fiber of our
social and political being. Never before have men tried so vast and
formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a
continent under the forms of a Democratic republic. The conditions
which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have
developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and
individual initiative, have also brought the care and anxiety
inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial
centers. Upon the success of our experiment much depends, not only as
regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we
fail, the cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock
to its foundations, and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to
ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to the generations yet
unborn. There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but
there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding
from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to
approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to
solve them aright.
Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set
before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and
preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be
undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done,
remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is
difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character
as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the
freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith
that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty
past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now
enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able
to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our
children's children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises,
but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical
intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all
the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who
founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the
men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.
***
William Howard Taft
Inaugural Address
Thursday, March 4, 1909
My Fellow-Citizens:
ANYONE who has taken the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy
weight of responsibility. If not, he has no conception of the powers
and duties of the office upon which he is about to enter, or he is
lacking in a proper sense of the obligation which the oath imposes.
The office of an inaugural address is to give a summary outline of the
main policies of the new administration, so far as they can be
anticipated. I have had the honor to be one of the advisers of my
distinguished predecessor, and, as such, to hold up his hands in the
reforms he has initiated. I should be untrue to myself, to my promises,
and to the declarations of the party platform upon which I was elected
to office, if I did not make the maintenance and enforcement of those
reforms a most important feature of my administration. They were
directed to the suppression of the lawlessness and abuses of power of
the great combinations of capital invested in railroads and in
industrial enterprises carrying on interstate commerce. The steps which
my predecessor took and the legislation passed on his recommendation
have accomplished much, have caused a general halt in the vicious
policies which created popular alarm, and have brought about in the
business affected a much higher regard for existing law.
To render the reforms lasting, however, and to secure at the same time
freedom from alarm on the part of those pursuing proper and progressive
business methods, further legislative and executive action are needed.
Relief of the railroads from certain restrictions of the antitrust law
have been urged by my predecessor and will be urged by me. On the other
hand, the administration is pledged to legislation looking to a proper
federal supervision and restriction to prevent excessive issues of
bonds and stock by companies owning and operating interstate commerce
railroads.
Then, too, a reorganization of the Department of Justice, of the Bureau
of Corporations in the Department of Commerce and Labor, and of the
Interstate Commerce Commission, looking to effective cooperation of
these agencies, is needed to secure a more rapid and certain
enforcement of the laws affecting interstate railroads and industrial
combinations.
I hope to be able to submit at the first regular session of the
incoming Congress, in December next, definite suggestions in respect to
the needed amendments to the antitrust and the interstate commerce law
and the changes required in the executive departments concerned in
their enforcement.
It is believed that with the changes to be recommended American
business can be assured of that measure of stability and certainty in
respect to those things that may be done and those that are prohibited
which is essential to the life and growth of all business. Such a plan
must include the right of the people to avail themselves of those
methods of combining capital and effort deemed necessary to reach the
highest degree of economic efficiency, at the same time differentiating
between combinations based upon legitimate economic reasons and those
formed with the intent of creating monopolies and artificially
controlling prices.
The work of formulating into practical shape such changes is creative
word of the highest order, and requires all the deliberation possible
in the interval. I believe that the amendments to be proposed are just
as necessary in the protection of legitimate business as in the
clinching of the reforms which properly bear the name of my predecessor.
A matter of most pressing importance is the revision of the tariff. In
accordance with the promises of the platform upon which I was elected,
I shall call Congress into extra session to meet on the 15th day of
March, in order that consideration may be at once given to a bill
revising the Dingley Act. This should secure an adequate revenue and
adjust the duties in such a manner as to afford to labor and to all
industries in this country, whether of the farm, mine or factory,
protection by tariff equal to the difference between the cost of
production abroad and the cost of production here, and have a provision
which shall put into force, upon executive determination of certain
facts, a higher or maximum tariff against those countries whose trade
policy toward us equitably requires such discrimination. It is thought
that there has been such a change in conditions since the enactment of
the Dingley Act, drafted on a similarly protective principle, that the
measure of the tariff above stated will permit the reduction of rates
in certain schedules and will require the advancement of few, if any.
The proposal to revise the tariff made in such an authoritative way as
to lead the business community to count upon it necessarily halts all
those branches of business directly affected; and as these are most
important, it disturbs the whole business of the country. It is
imperatively necessary, therefore, that a tariff bill be drawn in good
faith in accordance with promises made before the election by the party
in power, and as promptly passed as due consideration will permit. It
is not that the tariff is more important in the long run than the
perfecting of the reforms in respect to antitrust legislation and
interstate commerce regulation, but the need for action when the
revision of the tariff has been determined upon is more immediate to
avoid embarrassment of business. To secure the needed speed in the
passage of the tariff bill, it would seem wise to attempt no other
legislation at the extra session. I venture this as a suggestion only,
for the course to be taken by Congress, upon the call of the Executive,
is wholly within its discretion.
In the mailing of a tariff bill the prime motive is taxation and the
securing thereby of a revenue. Due largely to the business depression
which followed the financial panic of 1907, the revenue from customs
and other sources has decreased to such an extent that the expenditures
for the current fiscal year will exceed the receipts by $100,000,000.
It is imperative that such a deficit shall not continue, and the
framers of the tariff bill must, of course, have in mind the total
revenues likely to be produced by it and so arrange the duties as to
secure an adequate income. Should it be impossible to do so by import
duties, new kinds of taxation must be adopted, and among these I
recommend a graduated inheritance tax as correct in principle and as
certain and easy of collection.
The obligation on the part of those responsible for the expenditures
made to carry on the Government, to be as economical as possible, and
to make the burden of taxation as light as possible, is plain, and
should be affirmed in every declaration of government policy. This is
especially true when we are face to face with a heavy deficit. But when
the desire to win the popular approval leads to the cutting off of
expenditures really needed to make the Government effective and to
enable it to accomplish its proper objects, the result is as much to be
condemned as the waste of government funds in unnecessary expenditure.
The scope of a modern government in what it can and ought to accomplish
for its people has been widened far beyond the principles laid down by
the old "laissez faire" school of political writers, and this widening
has met popular approval.
In the Department of Agriculture the use of scientific experiments on a
large scale and the spread of information derived from them for the
improvement of general agriculture must go on.
The importance of supervising business of great railways and industrial
combinations and the necessary investigation and prosecution of
unlawful business methods are another necessary tax upon Government
which did not exist half a century ago.
The putting into force of laws which shall secure the conservation of
our resources, so far as they may be within the jurisdiction of the
Federal Government, including the most important work of saving and
restoring our forests and the great improvement of waterways, are all
proper government functions which must involve large expenditure if
properly performed. While some of them, like the reclamation of arid
lands, are made to pay for themselves, others are of such an indirect
benefit that this cannot be expected of them. A permanent improvement,
like the Panama Canal, should be treated as a distinct enterprise, and
should be paid for by the proceeds of bonds, the issue of which will
distribute its cost between the present and future generations in
accordance with the benefits derived. It may well be submitted to the
serious consideration of Congress whether the deepening and control of
the channel of a great river system, like that of the Ohio or of the
Mississippi, when definite and practical plans for the enterprise have
been approved and determined upon, should not be provided for in the
same way.
Then, too, there are expenditures of Government absolutely necessary if
our country is to maintain its proper place among the nations of the
world, and is to exercise its proper influence in defense of its own
trade interests in the maintenance of traditional American policy
against the colonization of European monarchies in this hemisphere, and
in the promotion of peace and international morality. I refer to the
cost of maintaining a proper army, a proper navy, and suitable
fortifications upon the mainland of the United States and in its
dependencies.
We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable
in time of emergency, in cooperation with the national militia and
under the provisions of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to
expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from
abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in
the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name
of President Monroe.
Our fortifications are yet in a state of only partial completeness, and
the number of men to man them is insufficient. In a few years however,
the usual annual appropriations for our coast defenses, both on the
mainland and in the dependencies, will make them sufficient to resist
all direct attack, and by that time we may hope that the men to man
them will be provided as a necessary adjunct. The distance of our
shores from Europe and Asia of course reduces the necessity for
maintaining under arms a great army, but it does not take away the
requirement of mere prudence - that we should have an army sufficiently
large and so constituted as to form a nucleus out of which a suitable
force can quickly grow.
What has been said of the army may be affirmed in even a more emphatic
way of the navy. A modern navy can not be improvised. It must be built
and in existence when the emergency arises which calls for its use and
operation. My distinguished predecessor has in many speeches and
messages set out with great force and striking language the necessity
for maintaining a strong navy commensurate with the coast line, the
governmental resources, and the foreign trade of our Nation; and I wish
to reiterate all the reasons which he has presented in favor of the
policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our
peace with other nations, and the best means of securing respect for
the assertion of our rights, the defense of our interests, and the
exercise of our influence in international matters.
Our international policy is always to promote peace. We shall enter
into any war with a full consciousness of the awful consequences that
it always entails, whether successful or not, and we, of course, shall
make every effort consistent with national honor and the highest
national interest to avoid a resort to arms. We favor every
instrumentality, like that of the Hague Tribunal and arbitration
treaties made with a view to its use in all international
controversies, in order to maintain peace and to avoid war. But we
should be blind to existing conditions and should allow ourselves to
become foolish idealists if we did not realize that, with all the
nations of the world armed and prepared for war, we must be ourselves
in a similar condition, in order to prevent other nations from taking
advantage of us and of our inability to defend our interests and assert
our rights with a strong hand.
In the international controversies that are likely to arise in the
Orient growing out of the question of the open door and other issues
the United States can maintain her interests intact and can secure
respect for her just demands. She will not be able to do so, however,
if it is understood that she never intends to back up her assertion of
right and her defense of her interest by anything but mere verbal
protest and diplomatic note. For these reasons the expenses of the army
and navy and of coast defenses should always be considered as something
which the Government must pay for, and they should not be cut off
through mere consideration of economy. Our Government is able to afford
a suitable army and a suitable navy. It may maintain them without the
slightest danger to the Republic or the cause of free institutions, and
fear of additional taxation ought not to change a proper policy in this
regard.
The policy of the United States in the Spanish war and since has given
it a position of influence among the nations that it never had before,
and should be constantly exerted to securing to its bona fide citizens,
whether native or naturalized, respect for them as such in foreign
countries. We should make every effort to prevent humiliating and
degrading prohibition against any of our citizens wishing temporarily
to sojourn in foreign countries because of race or religion.
The admission of Asiatic immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our
population has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in
our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulation
secured by diplomatic negotiation. I sincerely hope that we may
continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration
without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between
self-respecting governments. Meantime we must take every precaution to
prevent, or failing that, to punish outbursts of race feeling among our
people against foreigners of whatever nationality who have by our grant
a treaty right to pursue lawful business here and to be protected
against lawless assault or injury.
This leads me to point out a serious defect in the present federal
jurisdiction, which ought to be remedied at once. Having assured to
other countries by treaty the protection of our laws for such of their
subjects or citizens as we permit to come within our jurisdiction, we
now leave to a state or a city, not under the control of the Federal
Government, the duty of performing our international obligations in
this respect. By proper legislation we may, and ought to, place in the
hands of the Federal Executive the means of enforcing the treaty rights
of such aliens in the courts of the Federal Government. It puts our
Government in a pusillanimous position to make definite engagements to
protect aliens and then to excuse the failure to perform those
engagements by an explanation that the duty to keep them is in States
or cities, not within our control. If we would promise we must put
ourselves in a position to perform our promise. We cannot permit the
possible failure of justice, due to local prejudice in any State or
municipal government, to expose us to the risk of a war which might be
avoided if federal jurisdiction was asserted by suitable legislation by
Congress and carried out by proper proceedings instituted by the
Executive in the courts of the National Government.
One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration
is a change of our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater
elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent
the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of
a financial panic. The monetary commission, lately appointed, is giving
full consideration to existing conditions and to all proposed remedies,
and will doubtless suggest one that will meet the requirements of
business and of public interest.
We may hope that the report will embody neither the narrow dew of those
who believe that the sole purpose of the new system should be to secure
a large return on banking capital or of those who would have greater
expansion of currency with little regard to provisions for its
immediate redemption or ultimate security. There is no subject of
economic discussion so intricate and so likely to evoke differing views
and dogmatic statements as this one. The commission, in studying the
general influence of currency on business and of business on currency,
have wisely extended their investigations in European banking and
monetary methods. The information that they have derived from such
experts as they have found abroad will undoubtedly be found helpful in
the solution of the difficult problem they have in hand.
The incoming Congress should promptly fulfill the promise of the
Republican platform and pass a proper postal savings bank bill. It will
not be unwise or excessive paternalism. The promise to repay by the
Government will furnish an inducement to savings deposits which private
enterprise can not supply and at such a low rate of interest as not to
withdraw custom from existing banks. It will substantially increase the
funds available for investment as capital in useful enterprises. It
will furnish absolute security which makes the proposed scheme of
government guaranty of deposits so alluring, without its pernicious
results.
I sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive, as it should
be, to the importance of our foreign trade and of encouraging it in
every way feasible. The possibility of increasing this trade in the
Orient, in the Philippines, and in South America are known to everyone
who has given the matter attention. The direct effect of free trade
between this country and the Philippines will be marked upon our sales
of cottons, agricultural machinery, and other manufactures. The
necessity of the establishment of direct lines of steamers between
North and South America has been brought to the attention of Congress
by my predecessor and by Mr. Root before and after his noteworthy visit
to that continent, and I sincerely hope that Congress may be induced to
see the wisdom of a tentative effort to establish such lines by the use
of mail subsidies.
The importance of the part which the Departments of Agriculture and of
Commerce and Labor may play in ridding the markets of Europe of
prohibitions and discriminations against the importation of our
products is fully understood, and it is hoped that the use of the
maximum and minimum feature of our tariff law to be soon passed will be
effective to remove many of those restrictions.
The Panama Canal will have a most important bearing upon the trade
between the eastern and far western sections of our country, and will
greatly increase the facilities for transportation between the eastern
and the western seaboard, and may possibly revolutionize the
transcontinental rates with respect to bulky merchandise. It will also
have a most beneficial effect to increase the trade between the eastern
seaboard of the United States and the western coast of South America,
and, indeed, with some of the important ports on the east coast of
South America reached by rail from the west coast.
The work on the canal is making most satisfactory progress. The type of
the canal as a lock canal was fixed by Congress after a full
consideration of the conflicting reports of the majority and minority
of the consulting board, and after the recommendation of the War
Department and the Executive upon those reports. Recent suggestion that
something had occurred on the Isthmus to make the lock type of the
canal less feasible than it was supposed to be when the reports were
made and the policy determined on led to a visit to the Isthmus of a
board of competent engineers to examine the Gatun dam and locks, which
are the key of the lock type. The report of that board shows nothing
has occurred in the nature of newly revealed evidence which should
change the views once formed in the original discussion. The
construction will go on under a most effective organization controlled
by Colonel Goethals and his fellow army engineers associated with him,
and will certainly be completed early in the next administration, if
not before.
Some type of canal must be constructed. The lock type has been
selected. We are all in favor of having it built as promptly as
possible. We must not now, therefore, keep up a fire in the rear of the
agents whom we have authorized to do our work on the Isthmus. We must
hold up their hands, and speaking for the incoming administration I
wish to say that I propose to devote all the energy possible and under
my control to pushing of this work on the plans which have been
adopted, and to stand behind the men who are doing faithful, hard work
to bring about the early completion of this, the greatest constructive
enterprise of modern times.
The governments of our dependencies in Porto Rico and the Philippines
are progressing as favorably as could be desired. The prosperity of
Porto Rico continues unabated. The business conditions in the
Philippines are not all that we could wish them to be, but with the
passage of the new tariff bill permitting free trade between the United
States and the archipelago, with such limitations on sugar and tobacco