We hope to see the stimulus of that new day draw all 
 America, the republics of both continents, on to a new life 
 and energy and initiative in the great affairs of peace. We 
 are Americans for Big America, and rejoice to look forward 
 to the days in which America shall strive to stir the world 
 without irritating it or drawing it on to new antagonisms, 
 when the nations with which we deal shall at last come to 
 see upon what deep foundations of humanity and justice our 
 passion for peace rests, and when all mankind shall look 
 upon our great people with a new sentiment of admiration, 
 friendly rivalry and real affection, as upon a people who, 
 though keen to succeed, seeks always to be at once generous 
 and just and to whom humanity is dearer than profit or sel¬ 
 fish power. 
 
 Upon this record and in the faith of this purpose we go to 
 the country. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON 
 
 ACCEPTING THE NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT 
 
 BY THE DEMOCRATIC PARWVtffSiTY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 
 TOGETHER WITH ADDRESS OF STC'ri «=a 
 
 NOTIFICATION BY ^ j.317 
 
 SENATOR OLLIE M. JAMES 
 
 OF KENTUCKY 
 
 DELIVERED AT SHADOW LAWN, NEW JERSEY 
 
 SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1916 
 
 59827—16473 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 1916 
 

 
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 <3 
 
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 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 PRESIDENT WILSON, 
 
 AND 
 
 ADDRESS OF SENATOR OLLIE M. JAMES. 
 
 President Woodrow Wilson’s Speech of Acceptance, 1916. 
 
 Senator James, gentlemen of the notification committee, fel¬ 
 low citizens, I can not accept the leadership and responsibility 
 which the national Democratic convention has again, in such 
 generous fashion, asked me to accept without first expressing 
 my profound gratitude to the party for the trust it reposes in 
 me after four years of fiery trial in the midst of affairs of un¬ 
 precedented difficulty, and the keen sense of added responsibility 
 with which this honor fills—I had almost said burdens—me as I 
 think of the great issues of national life and policy involved in 
 the present and immediate future conduct of our Government. I 
 shall seek, as I have always sought, to justify the extraordinary 
 confidence thus reposed in me by striving to purge my heart and 
 purpose of every personal and of every misleading party motive 
 and devoting every energy I have to the service of the Nation 
 as a whole, praying that I may continue to have the counsel and 
 support of all forward-looking men at every turn of the difficult 
 business. 
 
 For l do not doubt that the people of the United States will 
 wish the Democratic Party to continue in control of the Govern¬ 
 ment. They are not in the habit of rejecting those who have 
 r actually served them for those who are making doubtful and 
 £, conjectural promises of service. Least of all are they likely to 
 5= substitute those who promised to render them particular services 
 ~ and proved false to that promise for those who have actually 
 rendered those very services. 
 
 Boasting is always an empty business, which pleases nobody 
 but the boaster, and I have no disposition to boast of what the 
 Democratic Party has accomplished. It has merely done its duty. 
 It has merely fulfilled its explicit promises. But there can be no 
 violation of good taste in calling attention to the manner in 
 which those promises have been carried out or in adverting to 
 the interesting fact that many of the things accomplished were 
 what the opposition party had again and again promised to do but 
 had left undone. Indeed that is manifestly part of the business 
 of this year of reckoning and assessment. There is no means 
 of judging the future except by assessing the past. Constructive 
 action must be weighed against destructive comment and reac¬ 
 tion. The Democrats either have or have not understood the 
 varied interests of the country. The test is contained in the 
 record. 
 
 What is that record? What were the Democrats called into 
 power to do? What things had long waited to be done, and how 
 59827—16473 3 
 
 1181 87C 
 
4 
 
 did the Democrats do them? It is a record of extraordinary 
 length and variety, rich in elements of many kinds, but con¬ 
 sistent in principle throughout and susceptible of brief recital. 
 
 The Republican Party was put out of power because of fail¬ 
 ure, practical failure and moral failure; because‘it had served 
 special interests and not the country at large; because, under 
 the leadership of its preferred and established guides, of those 
 who still make its choices, it had lost touch with the thoughts 
 and the needs of the Nation and was living in a past age and 
 under a fixed illusion, the illusion of greatness. It had framed 
 tariff laws based upon a fear of foreign trade, a fundamental 
 doubt as to American skill, enterprise, and capacity, and a very 
 tender regard for the profitable privileges of those who had 
 gained control of domestic markets and domestic credits; and 
 yet had enacted antitrust laws which hampered the very things 
 they meant to foster, which were stiff and inelastic, and in part 
 unintelligible. It had permitted the country throughout the 
 long period of its control to stagger from one financial crisis to 
 another under the operation of a national banking law of its 
 own framing which made stringency and panic certain and the 
 control of the larger business operations of the country by the 
 bankers of a few reserve centers inevitable; had made as if it 
 meant to reform the law, but had faint-heartedly failed in the 
 attempt, because it could not bring itself to do the one thing 
 necessary to make the reform genuine and effectual, namely, 
 break up the control of small groups of bankers. It had been 
 oblivious or indifferent to the fact that the farmers, upon whom 
 the country depends for its food and in the last analysis for 
 its prosperity, were without standing in the matter of com¬ 
 mercial credit, without the protection of standards in their 
 market transactions, and without systematic knowledge of the 
 markets themselves; that the laborers of the country, the great 
 army of men who man the industries it was professing to father 
 and promote, carried their labor as a mere commodity to 
 market, were subject to restraint by novel and drastic process 
 in the courts, were without assurance of compensation for in¬ 
 dustrial accidents, without Federal assistance in accommodat¬ 
 ing labor disputes, and without national aid or advice in finding 
 the places and the industries in which their labor was most 
 needed. The country had no national system of road construc¬ 
 tion and development. Little intelligent attention was paid to 
 the Army, and not enough to the Navy. The other Republics of 
 America distrusted us, because they found that we thought 
 first of the profits of American investors and only as an after¬ 
 thought of impartial justice and helpful friendship. Its policy 
 was provincial in all things; its purposes were out of harmony 
 with the temper and purpose of the people and^the timely de¬ 
 velopment of the Nation’s interests. 
 
 So things stood when the Democratic Party came into power. 
 How do they stand now? Alike in the domestic field and in the 
 wide field of the commerce of the world, American business 
 and life and industry have been set free to move as they never 
 moved before. 
 
 The tariff has been revised, not on^the principle of repelling 
 foreign trade but upon the principle"* of encouraging it, upon 
 something like a footing of equality with our own in respect of 
 59827—16473 
 
5 
 
 the terms of competition, and a Tariff Board has been created 
 whose function it will be to keep the relations of American 
 with foreign business and industry under constant observation, 
 for the guidance alike of our business men and of our Congress. 
 American energies are now directed toward the markets of the 
 world. 
 
 The laws against trusts have been clarified by definition, with 
 a view to making it plain that they were not directed against 
 big business but only against unfair business and the pretense 
 of competition where there was none; and a Trade Commission 
 has been created with powers of guidance and accommodation 
 which have relieved business men of unfounded fears and set 
 them upon the road of hopeful and confident enterprise. 
 
 By the Federal reserve act the supply of currency at the dis¬ 
 posal of active business has been rendered elastic, taking its 
 volume not from a fixed body of investment securities, but from 
 the liquid assets of daily trade; and these assets are assessed 
 and accepted not by distant groups of bankers in control of un¬ 
 available reserves, but? by bankers at the many centers of local 
 exchange who are in touch with local conditions everywhere. 
 
 Effective measures have been taken for the re-creation of an 
 American merchant marine and the revival of the American 
 carrying trade indispensable to our emancipation from the con¬ 
 trol which foreigners have so long exercised over the opportuni¬ 
 ties, the routes, and the methods of our commerce with other 
 countries. 
 
 The Interstate Commerce Commission has been reorganized to 
 enable it to perform its great and important functions more 
 promptly and more efficiently. We have created, extended, and 
 improved the service of the parcel post. 
 
 • So much we have done for business. What other party has 
 understood the task so well or executed it so intelligently and 
 energetically? What other party has attempted it at all? The 
 Republican leaders, apparently, know of no means of assisting 
 business but “ protection.” How to stimulate it and put it upon 
 a new footing of energy and enterprise they have not suggested. 
 
 For the farmers of the country we have virtually created com¬ 
 mercial credit, by means of the Federal reserve act and the 
 rural-credits act. They now have the standing of other busi¬ 
 ness men in the money market. We have successfully regulated 
 speculation in “ futures ” and established standards in the mar¬ 
 keting of grains. By an intelligent warehouse act we have 
 assisted to make the standard crops available as never before, 
 both for systematic marketing and as a security for loans from 
 the banks. We have greatly added to the work of neighborhood 
 demonstration on the farm itself of improved methods of culti¬ 
 vation, and, through the intelligent extension of the functions 
 of the Department of Agriculture, have made it possible for the 
 farmer to learn systematically where his best markets are and 
 how to get at them. 
 
 -The workingmen of America have been given a veritable 
 emancipation by the legal recognition of a man’s labor as part 
 of his life, and not a mere marketable commodity; by exempting 
 labor organizations from processes of the courts, which treated 
 their members like fractional parts of mobs and not like acces¬ 
 sible and responsible individuals; by releasing our seamen from 
 59827—16473 
 
6 
 
 involuntary servitude; by making adequate provision for com¬ 
 pensation for industrial . accidents; by providing suitable ma¬ 
 chinery for mediation and conciliation in industrial disputes; 
 and by putting the Federal Department of Labor at the dis¬ 
 posal of the workingman when in search of work. 
 
 We have effected the emancipation of the children of the 
 country by releasing them from hurtful labor. We have insti¬ 
 tuted a system of national aid in the building of highroads 
 such as the country has been feeling after for a century. We 
 have sought to equalize taxation by means of an equitable in- 
 coihe tax. We have taken the steps that ought to have been 
 taken at the outset to open up the resources of Alaska. We 
 have provided for national 1 defense upon a scale never before 
 seriously proposed upon the responsibility of an entire political 
 party. We have driven the tariff lobby from cover and obliged 
 it to substitute solid argument for private influence. 
 
 This extraordinary recital must sound like a platform, a list 
 of sanguine promises; but it is not. It is a record of promises 
 made four years ago and now actually redeemed in constructive 
 legislation. 
 
 These things must profoundly disturb the thoughts and con¬ 
 found the plans of those who have made themselves believe that 
 the Democratic Party neither understood nor was ready to 
 assist the business of the country in the great enterprises which 
 it is its evident and inevitable destiny to undertake and carry 
 through. The breaking up of the lobby must especially discon¬ 
 cert them; for it was through the lobby that they sought and 
 were sure they had found the heart of things. The game of 
 privilege can be played successfully by no other means.. 
 
 This record must equally astonish those who feared that the 
 Democratic Party had not opened its heart to comprehend the 
 demands of social justice. We have in four years come very 
 near to carrying out the platform of the Progressive Party as 
 well as our own ; for we also are progressives. 
 
 There is one circumstance connected with this programme 
 which ought to be very plainly stated. It was resisted at every 
 step by the interests which the Republican Party had catered to 
 and fostered at the expense of the country, and these same inter¬ 
 ests are now earnestly praying for a reaction which will save 
 their privileges—for the restoration of their sworn friends to 
 power before it is too late to recover what they have lost. They 
 fought with particular desperation and infinite resourcefulness 
 the reform of the banking and currency system, knowing that 
 to be the citadel of their control; and most anxiously are they 
 hoping and planning for the amendment of the Federal reserve 
 act by the concentration of control in a single bank which the 
 old familiar group of bankers can keep under their eye and 
 direction. But while the “ big men ” who used to write the 
 tariffs and command the assistance of the Treasury have been 
 hostile—all but a few with vision—the average business man 
 knows that he has been delivered, and that the fear that was 
 once every day in his heart, that the men who controlled credit 
 and directed enterprise from the committee rooms of Congress 
 would crush him, is there no more, and will not return, unless 
 the party that consulted only the “big men” should return to 
 59827—16473 
 
T 
 
 power—the party of masterly inactivity and cunning resource¬ 
 fulness in standing pat to resist change. 
 
 The Republican Party is just the party that can not meet the 
 new conditions of a new age. It does not know the way and 
 it does not wish new conditions. It tried to break away from 
 the old leaders and could not. They still select its candidates 
 and dictate its policy, still resist change, still hanker after the 
 old conditions, still know no methods of encouraging business 
 but the old methods. When it changes its leaders and its pur¬ 
 poses and brings its ideas up to date, it will have the right to 
 ask the American people to give it power again; but not until 
 then. A new age, an age of revolutionary change, needs new 
 purposes and new ideas. 
 
 In foreign affairs we have been guided by principles clearly 
 conceived and consistently lived up to. Perhaps they have not 
 been fully comprehended because they have hitherto governed 
 international affairs only in theory, not in practice. They 
 are simple, obvious, easily stated, and fundamental to Ameri¬ 
 can ideals. 
 
 We have been neutral not only because it was the fixed and - 
 traditional policy of the United States to stand aloof from the 
 politics of Europe and because we had had no part either of 
 action or of policy in the influences which brought on the 
 present war, but also because it was manifestly our duty to 
 prevent, if it were possible, the indefinite extension of the 
 fires of hate and desolation kindled by that terrible conflict 
 and seek to serve mankind by reserving our strength and our 
 resources for the anxious and difficult days of restoration and 
 healing which must follow, when peace will have to build its 
 house anew. 
 
 The rights of our own citizens of course became involved ; that 
 was inevitable. Where they did this was our guiding princi¬ 
 ple : that property rights can be vindicated by claims for dam¬ 
 ages when the war is over, and no modern nation can decline 
 to arbitrate such claims; but the fundamental rights of hu¬ 
 manity can not be. The loss of life is irreparable. Neither can 
 direct violations of a nation’s sovereignty await vindication in 
 suits for damages. The nation that violates these essential 
 rights must expect to be checked and called to account by direct 
 challenge and resistance. It at once makes the quarrel in part 
 our own. These are plain principles, and we have never lost 
 sight of them or departed from them, whatever the stress or the 
 perplexity of circumstance or the provocation to hasty resent¬ 
 ment. The record is clear and consistent throughout and stands 
 distinct and definite for anyone to judge who wishes to know the 
 truth about it. 
 
 The seas were not broad enough to keep the infection of the 
 conflict out of our own politics. The passions and intrigues of 
 certain active groups and combinations of men amongst us who 
 were born under foreign flags injected the poison of disloyalty 
 into our own most critical affairs, laid violent hands upon 
 many of our industries, and subjected us to the shame of divi¬ 
 sions of sentiment and purpose in which America was contemned 
 and forgotten. It is part of the business of this year of reckon¬ 
 ing and settlement to speak plainly and act with unmistakable 
 purpose in rebuke of these things. In order that they may be for- 
 59827—16473 
 
8 
 
 ever hereafter impossible. I am the candidate of a party, but I 
 am above all things else an American citizen. I neither seek 
 the favor nor fear the displeasure of that small alien element 
 amongst us which puts loyalty to any foreign power before 
 loyalty to the United States. 
 
 While Europe was at war our own continent, one of our own 
 neighbors, was shaken by revolution. In that matter, too, 
 principle was plain and it was imperative that we should live 
 up to it if we were to deserve the tru^t of any real partisan of 
 the right as free men see it. We have professed to believe, and 
 we do believe, that the people of small and weak states have 
 the right to expect to be dealt with exactly as the people of 
 big and . powerful states would be. We have acted upon that 
 principle in dealing with the people of Mexico. 
 
 Our recent pursuit of bandits into Mexican territory was no 
 violation of that principle. We ventured to enter Mexican 
 territory only because there were no military forces in Mexico 
 that could protect our border from hostile attack and our own 
 people from violence, and we have committed there no single 
 act of hostility or interference even with the sovereign au¬ 
 thority of the Republic of Mexico herself. It was a plain case 
 of the violation of our own sovereignty which could not wait 
 to be vindicated by damages and for which there was no other 
 remedy. The authorities of Mexico were powerless to prevent it. 
 
 Many serious wrongs against the property, many irreparable 
 wrongs against the persons, of Americans have been committed 
 within the territory of Mexico herself during this confused 
 revolution, wrongs which could not be effectually checked so 
 long as there was.no constituted power in Mexico which was in 
 a position to check them. We could not act directly in that 
 matter ourselves without denying Mexicans the right to any 
 revolution at all which disturbed us and making the emancipa¬ 
 tion of her own people await our own interest and convenience. 
 
 For it is their emancipation that they are seeking—blindly, it 
 ' may be, and as yet ineffectually, but with profound and pas¬ 
 sionate purpose and within their unquestionable right, apply 
 what true American principle you will—any principle that an 
 American would publicly avow. The people of Mexico have not 
 been suffered to own their own country or direct their own 
 institutions. Outsiders, men out of other nations and with in¬ 
 terests too often alien to their own, have dictated what their 
 privileges and opportunities should be and who should con¬ 
 trol their land, their lives, and their resources—some of them 
 Americans, pressing for things they could never have got in 
 their own country. The Mexican people are entitled to at¬ 
 tempt their liberty from such influences; and so long as I have 
 anything to do with the action of our great Government I shall 
 do everything in my power to prevent anyone standing in their 
 way. I know that this is hard for some persons to understand; 
 but it is not hard for the plain people of the United States to 
 understand. It is hard doctrine only for those who wish to 
 get something for themselves out of Mexico. There are men, 
 and noble women, too, not a few, of our own people, thank God! 
 whose fortunes are invested in great properties in Mexico who 
 yet see the case with true vision and assess its issues with true 
 American feeling. The rest can be left for the present out of 
 59827—16473 
 
the reckoning until this enslaved people has had its day of 
 struggle toward the light. I have heard no one who was free 
 from such influences propose interference by the United States 
 with the internal affairs of Mexico. Certainly no friend of the 
 Mexican people has proposed it. 
 
 The people of the United States are capable of great sym¬ 
 pathies and a noble pity in dealing with problems of this kind. 
 As their spokesman and representative, I have tried to act 
 in the spirit they would wish me show\ The people of Mexico 
 are striving for the rights that are fundamental to life and 
 happiness—15,000,000 oppressed men, overburdened women, and 
 pitiful children in virtual bondage in their own home of fertile 
 lands and inexhaustible treasure 1 Some of the leaders of the 
 revolution may often have been mistaken and violent and 
 selfish, but the revolution itself was inevitable and is right. The 
 unspeakable Huerta betrayed the very comrades he served, trai¬ 
 torously overthrew the government of which he was a trusted 
 part, impudently spoke for the very forces that had driven his 
 people to the rebellion, with which he had pretended to sympa¬ 
 thize. The men w T ho overcame him and drove him out represent 
 at least the fierce passion of reconstruction which lies at the 
 very heart of liberty; and so long as they represent, however 
 imperfectly, such a struggle for deliverance, I am ready to serve 
 their ends when I can. So long as the power of recognition rests 
 with me the Government of the United States will refuse to 
 extend the hand of welcome to anyone who obtains power in a 
 sister republic by treachery and violence. No permanency can 
 be given the affairs of any republic by a title based upon intrigue 
 and assassination. I declared that to be the policy of this ad¬ 
 ministration within three weeks after I assumed the Presidency. 
 I here again vow it. I am more interested in the fortunes of 
 oppressed men and pitiful women and children than in any 
 property rights whatever. Mistakes I have no doubt made in 
 this perplexing business, but not in purpose or object. 
 
 More is involved than the immediate destinies of Mexico and 
 the relations of the United States with a distressed and dis¬ 
 tracted people. All America looks on. Test is now being made 
 of us whether we be sincere lovers of popular liberty or not and 
 are indeed to be trusted to respect national sovereignty among 
 our weaker neighbors. We have undertaken these many years 
 to play big brother to the republics of this hemisphere. This is 
 the day of our test, wliether we mean, or have ever meant, to 
 play that part for our own benefit wholly or also for theirs. 
 Upon the outcome of that test—its outcome in their minds, not 
 in ours—depends every relationship of the United States with 
 Latin America, whether in politics or in commerce and enter¬ 
 prise. These are great issues and lie at the heart of the gravest 
 tasks of the future, tasks both economic and political, and very 
 intimately inwrought with many of the most vital of the new 
 issues of the politics of the world. The republics of America 
 have in the last three years been drawing together in a new 
 spirit of accommodation, mutual understanding, and cordial 
 cooperation. Much of the politics of the world in the years to 
 come will depend upon their relationships with one another. 
 It is a barren and provincial statesmanship that loses sight of 
 such things!. 
 
 59827—16473 
 
10 
 
 The future, the immediate future, will bring us squarely face 
 to face with many great and exacting problems which will 
 search us through and through whether we be able and ready 
 to play the part in the world that we mean to play. It will not 
 bring us into their presence slowly, gently, with ceremonious in¬ 
 troduction, but suddenly and at oncer the .moment the war in 
 Europe is over. They will be new problems, most of them; 
 many will be old problems in a new setting and with new ele¬ 
 ments which we have never dealt with or reckoned the force 
 and meaning of before. They will require for their solution new 
 thinking, fresh courage and resourcefulness, and in some matters 
 radical reconsiderations of policy. We must be ready to mobilize 
 our resources alike of brains and of materials. 
 
 It is not a future to be afraid of. It is, rather, a future to 
 stimulate and excite us to the display of the best powers that 
 are in us. We may enter it with confidence when we are sure 
 that we understand it—and we have provided ourselves already 
 with the means of understanding it. 
 
 Look first at what it will be necessary that the nations of 
 the world should do to make the days to come tolerable and fit 
 to live and work in; and then look at our part in what is to 
 follow and our own duty of preparation. For we must be pre¬ 
 pared both in resources and in policy. 
 
 There must be a just and settled peace, and we here in 
 America must contribute the full force of our enthusiasm and of 
 our authority as a Nation to the organization of that peace 
 upon world-wide foundations that can not easily be shaken. 
 No nation should be forced to take sides in any quarrel in w r hich 
 its own honor and integrity and the fortunes of its own people 
 are not involved; but no nation can any longer remain neutral 
 as against any willful disturbance of the peace of the world. 
 The effects of war can no longer be confined to the areas of 
 battle. No nation stands wholly apart in interest when the life 
 and interests of all nations are thrown into confusion and peril. 
 If hopeful and generous enterprise is to be renewed, if the 
 healing and helpful arts of life are indeed to be revived when 
 peace comes again, a new atmosphere of justice and friendship 
 must be generated by means the world has never tried before. 
 The nations of the world must unite in joint guaranties that 
 whatever is done to disturb the whole world’s life must first be 
 tested in the court of the whole world’s opinion before it is 
 attempted. 
 
 These are the new foundations the world must build for itself, 
 and we must play our part in the reconstruction, generously and 
 without too much thought of our separate interests. We must 
 make ourselves ready to play it intelligently, vigorously, and 
 well. 
 
 One of the contributions we must make to the world’s peace 
 is this: We must see to it that the people in our insular pos¬ 
 sessions are treated in their own lands as we would treat them 
 here, and make the rule of the United States mean the same 
 thing everywhere—the same justice, the same consideration for 
 the essential rights of men. 
 
 Besides contributing our ungrudging moral and practical sup¬ 
 port to the establishment of peace throughout the world, we 
 must actively and intelligently prepare ourselves to do our full 
 59827—16473 
 

 II 
 
 service in the trade and industry which are to sustain and 
 develop the life of the nations in the days to come. 
 
 We have already been provident in this great matter and sup¬ 
 plied ourselves with the instrumentalities of prompt adjust¬ 
 ment. We have created, in the Federal Trade Commission, a 
 means of inquiry and of accommodation in the field of commerce 
 which ought both to coordinate the enterprises of our traders 
 and manufacturers and to remove the barriers of misunder¬ 
 standing ami of a too technical interpretation of the law. In 
 the new Tariff Commission we have added another instrumen¬ 
 tality of observation and adjustment which promises to be im¬ 
 mediately serviceable. The Trade Commission substitutes 
 counsel and accommodation for the harsher processes of legal 
 restraint, and the Tariff Commission ought to> substitute facts 
 for prejudices and theories. Our exporters have for some time 
 had the advantage of working in the new light thrown upon 
 foreign markets and opportunities of trade by the intelligent 
 inquiries and activities of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic 
 Commerce which the Democratic Congress so wisely created in 
 1912. The Tariff Commission completes the machinery by which 
 we shall be enabled to open up our legislative policy to the facts 
 as they develop. 
 
 We can no longer indulge our traditional provincialism. We 
 are to play a leading part in the world drama whether we wish 
 it or not. We shall lend,, not borrow; act for ourselves, not 
 imitate or follow; organise and initiate, not peep about merely 
 to see where we may get in. 
 
 We have already formulated and agreed upon a policy of law 
 which will explicitly remove the ban now supposed to rest upon 
 cooperation amongst our exporters in seeking and securing tlieir 
 proper place in the markets of the world. The field will be 
 free, the instrumentalities at hand. It will only remain for 
 the masters of enterprise amongst us to act in energetic concert, 
 and for the Government of the United States to insist upon the 
 maintenance throughout the. worLd of those conditions of fair¬ 
 ness and of even-handed justice in the commercial dealings of 
 the nations with one another upon which, after all, in the last 
 analysis, the peace and ordered life of the world must ultimately 
 depend. 
 
 At home also we must see to It that the men who plan and 
 develop and direct our business enterprises shall enjoy definite 
 and settled conditions of law, a policy accommodated to the » 
 freest progress. We have set the just and necessary limits. 
 We have put all kinds of unfair competition under the ban and 
 penalty of the law. We have barred monopoly. These fatal 
 and ugly things being excluded, we must now quicken action and 
 facilitate enterprise by every just means within our choice. 
 There will be peace in the business world, and, with peace, re¬ 
 vived confidence and life. 
 
 We ought both to- husband! and to develop our natural re¬ 
 sources, our mines, our forests, our water power. I wish we 
 could have made more progress than we have made in this 
 vital matter; and I call once more, with the deepest earnestness 
 and solicitude, upon the advocates of a careful and provident 
 conservation, on the one hand, and the advocates of a free 
 59827—1G473 
 
12 
 
 and inviting field for private capital, on the other, to get to¬ 
 gether in a spirit of genuine accommodation and agreement and 
 set this great policy forward at once. 
 
 We must hearten and quicken the spirit and efficiency of labor 
 throughout our whole industrial system by everywhere and in all 
 occupations doing justice to the laborer, not only by paying a 
 living wage but also by making all the conditions that surround 
 labor what they ought to be. And we must do more than justice. 
 We must safeguard life and promote health and safety in every 
 occupation in which they are threatened or imperiled. That is 
 more than justice, and better, because it is humanity and 
 economy. 
 
 We must coordinate the railway systems of the country for 
 national use, and must facilitate and promote their development 
 with a view to that coordination and to their better adaptation 
 as a whole to the life and trade and defense of the Nation. The 
 life and industry of the country can be free and unhampered 
 only if these arteries are open, efficient, and complete. 
 
 Thus shall we stand ready to meet the future as circumstance 
 and international policy effect their unfolding, whether the 
 changes come slowly or come fast and without preface. 
 
 I have not spoken explicitly, gentlemen, of the platform 
 adopted at St. Louis; but it has been implicit in all that I have 
 said. I have sought to interpret its spirit and meaning. The 
 people of the United States do not need to be assured now that 
 that platform is a definite pledge, a practical program. We 
 have proved to them that our promises are made to be kept. 
 
 We hold very definite ideals. We believe that the energy and 
 initiative of our people have been too narrowly coached and 
 superintended; that they should be set free, as we have set them 
 free, to disperse themselves throughout the Nation; that they 
 should not be concentrated in the hands of a few powerful guides 
 and guardians, as our opponents have again and again, in effect 
 if not in purpose, sought to concentrate them. We believe, 
 moreover—who that looks about him now with comprehending 
 eye can fail to believe—that the day of little Americanism, 
 with its narrow horizons, when methods of “ protection ” m and 
 industrial nursing were the chief study of our provincial states¬ 
 men, are past and gone and that a day of enterprise has at last 
 dawned for the United States whose field is the wide world. 
 
 We hope to see the stimulus of that new day draw all America, 
 the Republics of both continents, on to a new life and energy 
 and initiative in the great affairs of peace. We are Americans 
 for big America, and rejoice to look forward to the days in which 
 America shall strive to stir the world without irritating it or 
 drawing it on to new antagonisms, when the nations with which 
 we deal shall at last come to see upon what deep foundations 
 of humanity and justice our passion for peace rests, and when 
 all mankind shall look upon our great people with a new senti¬ 
 ment of admiration, friendly rivalry, and real affection, as upon 
 a people who, though keen to succeed, seeks always to be at 
 once generous and just and to whom humanity is dearer than 
 profit or selfish power. 
 
 Upon this record and in the faith of this purpose we go to the 
 country. 
 
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13 
 
 Address of Hon. Ollie M. James. 
 
 Mr. President, the Democracy of the Republic assembled in 
 national convention at St. Louis, Mo., June 14, 1916, was genu¬ 
 inely representative of the true spirit of America—its ideals 
 of justice and of patriotism. 
 
 These representatives of the purest democracy in the world, 
 after three and a half years of trial of your service to the people 
 of the country, with a Nation to choose from to fill the greatest 
 office in the world, instinctively and enthusiastically turned to 
 you. By this they not only registered their own will and desire, 
 but also the will and wish of the people back home, whose 
 trusted and honored spokesmen they were. With an enthu¬ 
 siasm, unanimity, and earnestness never surpassed in the po¬ 
 litical life of America, they have summoned you again to lead 
 the hosts of peace, prosperity, and American righteousness. 
 
 They do not mhke this call upon you for the purpose of hon¬ 
 oring you, for you have already had bestowed upon you by 
 your countrymen the greatest honor within their gift. They call 
 you for service to America and mankind; a service you have 
 so amply proved to be of the highest type known to just gov¬ 
 ernments among men; a service that has given justice to all 
 men upon free and equal terms; a service that has restored 
 taxation to its historic and constitutional function; a service 
 that has freed trade to individual and honest endeavor; a serv¬ 
 ice that has lifted from the tables and homes of the plain people 
 of America a burden of taxation which they have unjustly 
 borne for more than a half century and placed it upon the 
 wealth and fortunes of the land; a service that has driven mo¬ 
 nopoly from its rendezvous of taxation; a service that has 
 denied to the trusts of Republican creation a hiding place in 
 our economic life; a service to the toilers of America that lifted 
 them from the despised level of a commodity to the high plane 
 of a human unit in our industrial life; a service that has dig¬ 
 nified them—the great army of workers of the field, factory, and 
 mine; a service that opened the courts to all men upon equal 
 terms of justice and constitutional liberty; a service that freed 
 the money of a nation from the control of a “ money oligarchy ” 
 and lodged it in the hands of the Government; a service that 
 at once destroyed two trusts, a Money Trust and a Panic Trust, 
 where the business can not be oppressed or destroyed by ma¬ 
 nipulation of the money market, nor legislation controlled, in¬ 
 timidated, or suppressed by the Panic Trust. These two trusts 
 that your service and matchless leadership destroyed live only 
 in memory, as contemporary with the malodorous rule of the 
 boss-ridden and monopoly-controlled stand-pat Republican Party. 
 
 It is a service which has prepared the Nation for its defense; 
 a service to fair and equal treatment to all men by destroying 
 a subsidy fed to an American monopoly; a service to the 
 farmers of our country who yearn for a home and fireside to 
 call their own by enacting into law a Federal rural credits 
 system that makes credit and home building easy to the tillers 
 of the soil; a service that in the stormiest hours of America’s 
 life and the bloodiest days of the life of the world, you have 
 kept our people at peace with all the earth; a service that has 
 kept homes happy, family circles unbroken, while the Old 
 World staggers beneath its weight of sorrow, mourning, and 
 59827—10473 
 
14 
 
 death; a service whose victories for the freedom of the sea a, 
 the rights of neutral life, the protection of American citizens 
 and American rights stands resplendent in the world’s inter¬ 
 national law and in the earth’s diplomacy. This great triumph 
 which you achieved for America and the world gave protection 
 to noncombatants and neutrals that war-mad countries must 
 respect, and this diplomatic achievement will be the guiding, 
 protecting precedent to millions of lives of the innocent and un¬ 
 offending long after you are gone. This triumph of yours will 
 not be told in history by a great war debt, a mammoth pension 
 roll, vacant chairs at unhappy firesides, and Decoration Day 
 services to place flowers upon the mounds of those who achieved 
 it, but it will be told in the victory of matchless diplomacy 
 and of irresistible logic, presenting in an unequaled manner the 
 everlasting principle of justice. 
 
 Under your unrivaled and fearless leadership you have 
 rescued the little children of America—the future fathers and 
 mothers of our race—from the grinding slavery of the sweat¬ 
 shop and the factory. No dividends or fortunes in the future 
 will bear the stain of their toil and tears; their youthful days 
 will be spent in the fresh air of growing life and in the school¬ 
 rooms of the land, where they will be properly prepared in 
 strength and mind to become the future citizens of a great, 
 humane, and free Republic. 
 
 You behold your country after three and a half years of your 
 administration more prosperous than ever in its history. The 
 earning of the laborers of America exceed by $3,000,000,000 
 their earnings under four years of the administration of your 
 predecessor; the savings of the people deposited in the banks of 
 our country amout to $6,000,000,000 more than was deposited 
 under the four years of the administration of Mr. Taft. 
 
 Our exports for the first time in our history lead the world; 
 our farmers are more prosperous than ever; business is free; 
 individual endeavor is no longer denied its reward. The in¬ 
 crease in the business of the commercial world is so great that 
 it almost staggers the mind to contemplate it, notwithstanding a 
 world’s war has called for legislation to stay the process of the 
 courts in debt collections in all the neutral countries of the 
 world except here, where plenty blesses and prospers our peo¬ 
 ple. Your beloved country marches forward to a presperity 
 never dreamed of. Your opponents are unwillingly forced to 
 admit this happy condition of our people, which they say is not 
 permanent, but they shall be no more regarded as prophets now 
 than they were when they said it could not come. 
 
 Four years ago in accepting the nomination of the Democratic 
 Party for the Presidency you stated that you would seek advice 
 and counsel wherever you could obtain it upon free terms; this 
 you have done. You uncovered and drove a mighty lobby out 
 of the Capitol and invited Americans of all stations to come and 
 counsel with you. The laborer with his grimy hand, the farmer 
 with the tan of the blazing sun upon his face, the railroad men 
 who hold the throttle, swing the lantern, and direct the rolling 
 w r heels of commerce, the toiler from the damp and darkness of 
 mine, from the shop, the mill, and the factory; the business men 
 from their offices, the clerk from the counter, the banker, the 
 artisan, the lawyer, and the doctor, have come and found wel- 
 50827—16473 
 
15 
 
 come and scared counsel with you. They knew you were free 
 to serve, that you were unbossed, unowned, and unafraid. They 
 knew you only sought the truth, and when you found it you 
 were ready to challenge all of its adversaries to any conflict. 
 
 When peace shall spread her white wings over a charred and 
 bloody world, in the quiet of the chamber of the just historian, 
 when the din and roar of political antagonism shall have ceased, 
 when the prejudice and passion of partisanship shall have died 
 away, when principle shall actuate men and parties rather than 
 appetite, when ambition shall no longer lure men and parties to 
 unjust attack, the historian will accord to you and your adminis¬ 
 tration a foremost place in the Republic’s life. 
 
 Americans are not ungrateful; the people are not unpatriotic; 
 they recognize the thousands of difficulties that no man could 
 foresee which you have encountered and mastered. Their ver¬ 
 dict is already written; it has been agreed upon at the firesides 
 of the land and has been molded in the schoolhouses, the places 
 of worship, and wherever Americans meet to talk over the af¬ 
 fairs and good of their country. That verdict leaps forth from 
 almost every American heart in undying gratitude to you for 
 the service you have rendered,' for the peace, prosperity, and 
 happiness your leadership has given, and I but voice this day 
 the overwhelming wish of Americans everywhere for your tri¬ 
 umphant reelection. 
 
 This great convention which nominated you was neither con¬ 
 trolled nor intimidated by any un-American or foreign influence. 
 It had the heart beat and spoke the true sentiment of our 
 
 country. 
 
 A committee composed of the p&rmanpnt chairman of the con¬ 
 vention and one delegate from each State and Territory was 
 appointed to inform you of your selection as the nominee of the 
 Democratic Party for President of the United States and to re¬ 
 quest you to accept it, and the convention did me the honor to 
 make me chairman of this committee charged with such a happy 
 mission. 
 
 Therefore, in compliance with the command of that conven¬ 
 tion, this committee performs that pleasing duty, and, as the 
 appointed agent of that great national Democratic convention, I 
 hand you this formal letter of notification, signed by the mem¬ 
 bers of the committee, accompanied by a copy of the platform 
 adopted by the convention, and upon that platform I have the 
 honor to request your acceptance of the tendered nomination. 
 And, on behalf of the Democrats of the whole Republic, who are 
 proud of your great administration, we pledge you their enthu¬ 
 siastic and united support, and our prayer is that God, who 
 blesses the peacemaker, may guide you to a glorious victory in 
 November. 
 
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