o 
 
 
 c 
 
 
 Cbe n\im\ Bulletin 
 
 Published Monthly by Miami University 
 And Entered at th€ Post-office at Oxford, O., as Second Class Mail Matter. 
 
 Series IV. November, 1905. 
 
 Number 9. 
 
 The Baccalaureate Oration 
 
 Delivered on the Occasion of the 
 
 Eighty-first Annual Commencement 
 of Miami University 
 
 at Oxford, Ohio 
 
The Miami Bulletin 
 
 PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY MIAMI UNIVERSITY AND ENTERED AT THE POST-OFFICE 
 AT OXFORD, OHIO, AS SECOND-CLASS MAIL MATTER. 
 
 Series IV. 
 
 November, 1905. 
 
 Number 9. 
 
 The Baccalaureate Oration 
 
 Delivered on the Occasion of the 
 
 Eighty-first Annual Commencement 
 of Miami University 
 
 at Oxford, Ohio, 
 
 The Fifteenth Day of June, Nineteen Hundred and Five, 
 
 By His Excellency 
 
 The Honorable William Howard Taft, LL.D. 
 Secretary of War. 
 
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 https://archive.org/details/baccalaureateoraOOtaft 
 
The Baccalaureate Oration 
 
 The Hon. William Howard Taft, LL.D. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of Miami University: 
 
 I count it a great honor and opportunity to deliver the Com- 
 mencement Address at this venerable institution of learning. I 
 felicitate myself much also at being able to be present on the sixtieth 
 anniversary of the graduation of the president of your board of 
 trustees, Mr. John W. Herron, whose assocation with this univer- 
 sity as a student, as an alumnus and as a trustee, has been one of the 
 great joys of his long, distinguished and useful life. 
 
 Miami University, growing as it did out of the impulse to edu- 
 cation and higher learning which the Ordinance of 1787 was 
 intended to give, is a type of that class of colleges throughout Ohio 
 and the West which it has been the custom of those who are impa- 
 tient with the day of small things to decry on the ground that if all 
 of their class were united in one great institution of learning it 
 would result in a university of great means, of commanding influ- 
 ence, and of the widest usefulness. To this complaint, it seems to 
 me, Mr. Bryce in his ’’American Commonwealth” makes complete 
 answer when he says : 
 
 “They set learning in a visible form, plain, indeed, 
 and humble, but dignified even in her humility, before the 
 eyes of a rustic people, in whom the love of knowledge, 
 naturally strong, might never break from the bud into the 
 flower, but for the care of some zealous gardener. They 
 give the chance of rising in some intellectual walk of life 
 to many a strong and earnest nature, who might otherwise 
 have remained an artisan or storekeeper, and perhaps failed 
 in those avocations. * * * some of these smaller 
 
 Western colleges one finds today, men of great ability and 
 great attainments, one finds students who are receiving 
 an education quite as thorough, though not always as wide, 
 as the best Eastern universities can give. * * * Q^e 
 
 who recalls the history of the West during the last fifty 
 
 3 
 
years, and bears in mind the tremendous rush of ability 
 and energy towards a purely rrtaterial development, which 
 has marked its people, will feel that this uncontrolled free- 
 dom of teaching, this multiplication of small institutions, 
 have done for the country a work which a few state-regu- 
 lated universities might have failed to do.” 
 
 An historian of Miami University advises us that in the earlier 
 days of its history it was frequently referred to as “The Yale of the 
 West”, because of the high rank it took immediately after its open- 
 ing in 1824 as an institution of learning, and because of the promi- 
 nence reached by its graduates in public life. There is something 
 of an individual and peculiar character in the atmosphere of certain 
 colleges which has an effect upon the lives of those who are edu- 
 cated there, and directs them in a course which leads on to promi- 
 nence and usefulness in political and other walks of life. The four 
 years between eighteen and twenty-two, are four of the most import- 
 ant years in the framing of man’s character and when not only the 
 influence of the faculty but the public opinion of the student com- 
 munity all make for hard work, sincerity of purpose, self-reliance 
 and thoroughness, and the highest ambitions, we can be sure that 
 this does have an effect upon the after life of the boys who make up 
 the community and are subjected to the influence of its ideals. 
 
 The boys who graduated here, were in the beginning set right 
 as to the real things of life and those which go to make up its suc- 
 cesses. They were filled with no hopes that anything could be won 
 except by effort. They were led by no conventional ideas to suppose 
 that there was a royal road in the professions, in business or in poli- 
 tics. They left their Alma Mater with the consciousness that no 
 work which was honorable was beneath them, and that success was 
 impossible without a willingness to accept any burden which circum- 
 stances might cast upon them. The spirit of debate, cultivated as 
 it was in these academic groves, fitted men for political, forensic 
 and pulpit discussion and oratory, and it is no wonder as we look 
 back upon the honor roll of the graduates of this university, that we 
 find three of the distinguished War Governors, Yates, Morton and 
 Dennison, among its graduates, or that we find so many Represen- 
 tatives and Senators in Congress who hail Miami as their Alma 
 Mater and rejoice in expressions of gratitude toward her and her 
 early influences. Benjamin Harrison, President of the United 
 States, a son of Miami and one of the ablest men of the country. 
 
 4 
 
showed in the sturdiness of his character, in his thoroughness, pro- 
 found learning and able reasoning as a lawyer, and in his pure, 
 simple style of speaking and writing, the advantage of an education 
 in a college in which were encouraged force and eloquence and Eng- 
 lish, pure and undefiled. 
 
 I invite your attention this morning to a consideration of some 
 of the important issues of the day presented to the American people. 
 It is not a bad idea every little while, as mariners do upon their 
 course, to take an observation and to look back upon the path we 
 have traveled, and to consider, so far as we may, the obstacles that 
 lie before us. Of course, in the limit of an hour’s address the con- 
 sideration which may be given to each living question, must be most 
 cursory and yet, sometimes, a rapid resume is conducive to a proper 
 sense of proportion. 
 
 This is a great country. Its material growth in the last 
 forty years, exceeds anything in the history of the world. The 
 development of invention, of manufactories and the organization 
 of tremendous industrial and railroad enterprises are phenomena 
 not before seen. The inventive genius of the American, applied first 
 to mechanics and machinery, was soon after turned to the union and 
 organization of men and capital, all devised for the purpose of 
 reducing the cost of producing the necessitites or the luxuries of 
 modern civilization. The aggregation of capital, and of plants, 
 and of factories under one head, the union of railroads in great 
 trunk lines, spanning the country, were as inevitable developments 
 of this great material progress as the assembling of the parts of a 
 machine for an easier manufacture than that by hand. It has been 
 productive of the greatest good. It has brought comfort into the 
 houses and the lives of the poor and it has made for them what were 
 luxuries, necessities. The general cost of living may have increased, 
 but so has the general ease with which life is lived increased, and 
 in the pursuit of happiness therefore by the whole people, the steps 
 that have been taken in the last fifty years, exceed those of many 
 previous centuries. The enormous expansion of business in every 
 conceivable direction, the gigantic risks assumed in the investments 
 of capital to accomplish results unknown or unforseen save by the 
 daring projectors of new enterprises, have only been possible because 
 of the freedom which the laws of this country have afforded to the 
 individual, and the certainty he has had that he would be able to 
 enjoy unmolested, the rewards of his industry, his integrity and his 
 
 5 
 
business courage. During, however, this rapid increase in capital, 
 there was also a rapid increase in competition, until it has almost 
 seemed that competition instead of being the life ot trade, was likely 
 to kill it. To protect themselves, merchants combined to prevent 
 competition, and through the desire to suppress its evils, have come 
 certain abuses in the industrial world which are comprehended under 
 the term; generally, “unfair trade”. These include secret railway 
 rebates, and discriminations, monopolies in the manufacture and 
 sale of articles of common sale, boycotts, unlawful strikes, and lock' 
 outs, and other unlawful restraints of trade. These evils are really 
 an accompaniment difficult to escape in our enormous business 
 expansion. Many evils, I am convinced, which now seem threaten- 
 ing will cure themselves. Others may need greater governmental 
 restraint than has thus far been given, but whatever action is taken, 
 it should always be moderate in the restriction of individual energy, 
 resourcefulness and thrift. Among the instances of unfair trade I 
 have given, are the evils due to the organization of capital and the 
 evils due to the organization of labor. The millenium is not at 
 hand, and we may expect to have with us all our lives, the friction 
 between labor and capital, which experience seems to show it is 
 impossible wholly to dispense with. All that the public can hope 
 to do is to suppress disorder with an iron hand, and by affording 
 opportunities for voluntary compromise and conciliation, to make 
 the controversies which are suicidal, both for capital and labor, of 
 as little extent and duration as possible. The evils of monopoly, 
 that is of the suppression of competition and the exercise of a cer- 
 tain duress in the matter of prices and in the matter of doing busi- 
 ness, which great corporations are now able to bring to bear upon 
 the wholesale and retail trade, as well as the illegal boycotts by great 
 labor unions, can ultimately be met by statutes drawn to suit the 
 many faced devices for an undue use of the power which accumu- 
 lated wealth and resources on the one hand, or organized numbers 
 on the other, give. I do not intend here to consider these subjects 
 which are of the utmost importance, but which call for such special 
 discussion as to make it impossible to do them justice, in an address 
 like this. 
 
 One phase of this enormous material development and the 
 enriching of many of our fellow citizens, which I hope the next 
 generation will show, is the creation of a class of men not dependent 
 upon their own efforts for their livelihood, who can devote more 
 
 6 
 
and more of their time to public and political matters. Every man 
 who has a competence and who has in the slightest degree a capacity 
 for dealing with public affairs and for influencing his fellow citizens 
 to better things, is charged with a sacred trust of devoting all the 
 time he can to the betterment of the government in which he lives. 
 Now I am sure that class is largely on the increase, and as the 
 great fortunes which have been accumulated by the recent increase 
 in wealth, shall be distributed by the death of their present owners 
 and divided among the heirs, we may expect to find a great number 
 of those thus enriched, free from the feverish desire to accumulate 
 additional wealth, content to live upon what they have, and spurred 
 on to a higher and nobler ambition to aid their fellow men. I 
 would not minimize the importance of a motive for acquisition and 
 accumulation in many members of every community, that expects 
 to progress toward greater material prosperity, and even intellectual 
 development, but there is no present danger that the motive for 
 acquisition will become so weak among our people as to injure this 
 country’s progress. On the contrary, it may well give way in the 
 minds and hearts of many of our well-to-do citizens to a more 
 commendable ambition, to take part in the government of the 
 country and to assist either in the precinct, the ward, the county, the 
 state or the United States, to make the government the ideal demo- 
 cratic government which it was the purpose of our forefathers to 
 found. 
 
 Another encouraging feature of the present increase of wealth, 
 is that a large proportion of this increase has been in the South, a 
 part of our country which heretofore has been largely agricultural 
 and poor. The change in the material conditions in the South, in 
 spite of the political difficulties that certainly are there, is creating 
 a better state of things with reference to the racial question. The 
 work of Booker Washington in teaching his people how to use tools 
 instead of giving them a superficial university education which they 
 cannot use, added to the industrial demand for skilled labor will, I 
 am certain, put the negro population in a better condition materially, 
 and when that is brought about, their spiritual and intellectual uplift- 
 ing is much easier. The Southern states are engaged in adopting 
 constitutions which seem intended to exclude the negro from the 
 ballot, in fact without infringing the fifteenth Amendment so palpa- 
 bly, as to lead to their annulment by the supreme court. I am hop- 
 ing earnestly that experiments of this sort will fail ; but if they will 
 
 7 
 
lead to a result in which the laws shall exclude ignorant whites and 
 blacks equally from the ballot, then no one can quarrel with the 
 procedure which will be square and honest. 
 
 A new set of problems are presenting themselves for solution 
 in our foreign policy. The enormous material expansion of this 
 country, accompanied by the historical and present evidence of its 
 capacity to carry on to successful issue a costly war, and the peculiar 
 position which we hold among the powers of the earth as the one 
 which is not desirous of acquiring additional territory, have 
 given our nation a unique position of influence for good throughout 
 the world. This is due also to its having assumed control of the 
 Philippine Islands, of the Hawaiian Islands and of Porto Rico, and 
 its undertaking to build the Panama Canal. These measures have 
 given it a standing among the nations beyond that which could be 
 accorded by them to one, which had no insular possessions and con- 
 fined itself within the seas. The powerful influence which it has 
 exerted to bring about peace between the Russian and Japanese 
 nations, is itself an evidence. President Roosevelt has felt justified 
 in speaking to the belligerents a message from the world, that the 
 time has come for a settlement by peaceful means of the controver- 
 sies between the two nations and for an ending of the awful loss of 
 life and property and 'of the woeful disturbance of business that a 
 continuance of the war entails. The personality of the president 
 has had much to do with the willingness of the powers to allow him 
 to intervene. Confidence in his impartiality and integrity have 
 doubtless aided our national prestige in securing this end devoutly 
 to be wished. 
 
 But while we are pluming ourselves on having advanced far 
 towards the ideal of a civilized nation, it is well for us to consider 
 some other issues in respect to which we have taken a position whfch 
 is not only wrong in principle, unjust in operation, but most inexpe- 
 dient and unwise in policy. After years of controversy with the 
 Chinese Empire over the subject, in some of which we cannot escape 
 the charge of having broken a Chinese treaty rights by our legisla- 
 tion, we reached an agreement with the representatives of the Middle 
 Kingdom by which they agreed not to object to our exclusion from 
 this country of the coolie labor of China. It would seem that we 
 may properly object to the introduction into this country of laborers 
 who do not become a part of the real population of the country. 
 
 8 
 
who refuse to amalgamate and to stake their all as citizens of this 
 Republic, and whose habits and views of life are so much at vari- 
 ance with those of our civilization as to make it impossible for them 
 to ever become a useful and intelligent part in this self-governing 
 community. The Chinese Government seems willing to concede 
 this, but the extreme feeling on this subject on the part of some of 
 our people, has led to a severity in the statute and the enforcement 
 of it which the Chinese Government feels, and justly feels, justifies it 
 in asking for a change. It appears that in the effort to catch in the 
 meshes of the law every coolie laborer attempting illegally to enter 
 the country, we necessarily expose to danger of contumely, insult, 
 arrest and discomfort the merchants and students of China, who 
 have a right to come to this country under our treaties, and who 
 come here for the purpose of establishing a bond of commercial 
 union between this country and China, or of taking from this 
 country, familiarity with the best of our institutions to aid the older 
 but retarded civilization of the Chinese Empire. Is it just' that for 
 the purpose of excluding or preventing perhaps one hundred 
 Chinese coolies from slipping into this country against the law, we 
 should subject an equal number of Chinese merchants and students 
 of higher character to an examination of such an inquisitorial, 
 humiliating, insulting, and physically uncomfortable character as 
 to discourage altogether the coming of merchants and students? 
 Ever since the Boxer war, when America was able to show her 
 friendship for China and her disinterestedness and freedom from the 
 land-grabbing spirit of some other nations, China has regarded the 
 United States as her best friend. One of the great commercial 
 prizes of the world is the trade with the four hundred million 
 Chinese. Ought we to throw away the advantage which we have 
 by reason of Chinese natural friendship for us and continue to 
 enforce an unjustly severe law, and thus create in the Chinese mind 
 a disposition to boycott American trade and to drive our merchants 
 from Chinese shores, simply because we are afraid that we may for 
 the time lose the approval of certain unreasonable and extreme pop- 
 ular leaders of California and other coast states? Does the question 
 not answer itself? Is it not the duty of members of Congress and 
 of the executive to disregard the unreasonable demands of a portion 
 of the community deeply prejudiced upon this subject in the far 
 West, and insist on extending justice and courtesy to a people from 
 whom we are deriving and are likely to derive such immense benefit 
 
 9 
 
in the way of international trade? We must continue to keep out 
 the coolies, the laborers ; but we should give the freest possible entry 
 to merchants, travelers and students, and treat them with all cour- 
 tesy and consideration. 
 
 Another issue which is before us and is likely to continue to be 
 before us, is the attitude which we shall occupy with reference to 
 the Monroe Doctrine. That doctrine has been accepted apparently 
 by both parties, and therefore by nearly all the people, as one which 
 we should enforce at the cost even of peace. It is that no European 
 power shall be permitted to colonize, or to overturn the government 
 of, and take possession of, any territory in the Western hemisphere. 
 Now in the Western hemisphere, there are some rather weak repub- 
 lics. They have contracted debts with European powers and with 
 subjects of European powers, and then have repudiated and refused 
 to pay them. Such debts it has not been the habit of the United 
 States to attempt to enforce by war or threats of war against the 
 government owing them, but the European governments have 
 insisted that when all other recourse is gone, they must be given an 
 opportunity by force of arms to give a lesson in honesty to the 
 offending nation and to seize its customs houses and collect their 
 debts. This has been done so frequently as to become a practice, 
 and the question which arises is how far the United States should 
 intervene in forcible proceedings like this, to prevent a mere seizure 
 for temporary purposes from being lengthened out into a more or 
 less permanent occupancy or control which will be a violation of the 
 Monroe Doctrine. Under the influence of the doctrine, the people 
 of the United States have become exceedingly sensitive whenever 
 a European government sends a force to threaten one of the South 
 American or Central American republics, and this Government has 
 always felt called upon to use its good offices to prevent a complete 
 destruction of the existing government. The result has been that 
 the European governments have been disposed to throw upon the 
 United States more or less responsibility for the good behavior of 
 the Central American and South American republics. They have 
 not specifically dissented from the Monroe Doctrine as the United 
 States has a number of times announced it, but they have said that 
 “If you propose to introduce a protectorate over these republics to 
 the extent of preventing our taking them under our control in order 
 to collect a debt, then we must look to you as the guardian or pro- 
 tector of these countries and insist that you shall require these 
 
 lO 
 
republics to keep their houses in order, and shall make provision for 
 the payment of their just debts lawfully contracted by their gov- 
 ernments.” It seems to me that this is not an extension, but a mere 
 corollary of the Monroe Doctrine and involved in the assumption of 
 our pro tanto protectorate over our sisters of Central and Soutl\ 
 America. 
 
 We are just now engaged in lending a helping hand to the 
 Republic of Santo Domingo. That Republic has contracted a large 
 amount of debt which it will not be able to pay for many years. It 
 is quite possible that part of this debt is unjust, and swelled beyond 
 that which would appear just, upon arbitration. If so, it ought 
 to be cut down, and this, whether it is held by Europeans or Ameri- 
 cans. Appeal is made to the United States to act as a receiver of 
 the income of the Island, to turn over enough funds to run the gov- 
 ernment, or forty-five per cent of the total income, and then to dis- 
 burse the remaining fifty-five per cent as the rights of creditors 
 should appear. Provisions of this tenor are contained in the treaty 
 presented to the Senate for confirmation. Discussion in the Senate 
 prevented confirmation at the last term and now the question stands 
 open for decision during the next session of the Senate. In the 
 meantime, in order to preserve the status quo at the time the treaty 
 was made, President Morales has invited President Roosevelt to 
 nominate to him, Americans whom he may safely put in charge of the 
 customs houses, and to name an American bank in which the surplus 
 revenues may be safely deposited to await the action of the Senate, 
 and then to be distributed as either the treaty shall require, or if it 
 be not confirmed, then as Santo Domingo shall require. Some ques- 
 tion has been made of the power of the President in the absence of 
 agreement of the Senate to acquiesce in such an arrangement. The 
 arrangement is not a treaty and cannot be called so. On the part 
 of the United States, it is assuming no obligation to do anything ; it 
 is only rendering assistance to a weaker sister to maintain a status 
 quo, existing at the time of the signing of the treaty, until it shall 
 be determined whether the treaty can be confirmed or not. The 
 United States Government is not made to agree to anything, and 
 it is not itself even a trustee by virtue of what it has done. It has 
 simply nominated certain respectable tax collectors who are bonded 
 tax collectors and agents, not of the United States, not of a syndi- 
 cate of bond-holders, not for the European nations holding bonds, 
 but of the Santo Domingan Government. I do not think that even 
 
the most jealous of the rights and prerogatives of the Senate will 
 be heard to object to this modus vivendi or status quo preserved 
 until the Senate shall have had further time to consider the treaty. 
 
 The new questions put upon our Government for solution by 
 the acquisition of Spanish territory through the Spanish war, were 
 many and delicate, and we are not in a position now to say with 
 certainty how successful our management of Porto Rico and the 
 Philippines is. It was inevitable that the change from the control 
 by Spanish Government to that of the American Government, 
 would be so radical in every respect, that however wise the new 
 government, and however defective the old, the transition could only 
 be accomplished after much friction between the old methods and the 
 new, and with much disappointment that the new methods did not 
 at once work a miracle of improvement. This, taken with disas- 
 ters which no man could foresee or prevent, has interfered with the 
 immediate success of our colonial policy. In Porto Rico a tornado 
 destroyed the coffee crop, not only of one year but of many years, 
 because by its violence the trees were entirely destroyed. 
 
 In the Philippines by the spread of the rhinderpest, or cattle 
 plague, more than eighty per cent of all the draft cattle of the 
 islands were carried away, and as the cultivation of rice and sugar 
 were especially dependent on the use of cattle, these industries were 
 seriously interfered with and almost a famine was produced 
 throughout the entire archipelago. Both countries are now gradu- 
 ally recovering from these blows for which the American Govern- 
 ment is no more responsible than the Spanish. The political 
 changes which have been wrought by the transfer of sovereignty 
 and the introduction of civil liberty, as it is understood in Anglo- 
 Saxon countries, are gradually impressing themselves upon the 
 people. Civil freedom and the opportunity for free education, 
 which I am glad to say in the Philippines especially is eagerly seized, 
 are certain in the next decade to make a decided change in the char- 
 acter of the people. The island of Porto Rico contains a million 
 inhabitants, is much more thickly settled than the Philippines, and 
 far more advanced in agriculture. The government which has been 
 furnished is the territorial government strictly speaking with an 
 American executive, a majority of Americans in the executive coun- 
 cil and a representative assembly as the second chamber. Porto Rico 
 has been taken within the tariff wall and its sugar industry is now 
 beginning to feel the strong impetus which an immense market like 
 
 12 
 
that of the United States can afford to the sugar planters of this 
 island. While there is in the somewhat mercurial disposition of the 
 Latin-American as we find him in Porto Rico, a disposition to criti- 
 cise the present as compared with the past, and more especially as 
 compared with the past hopes, for the present there is no real or seri- 
 ous disaffection among the people of the island which ought to give 
 us particular concern. The introduction of trial by jury into the code 
 of legal procedure in the island has not been attended with great suc- 
 cess, and this because it has definitely shown that the people of 
 the islands are not prepared to assume the judicial and impartial atti- 
 tude of mind toward an issue presented, which is necessary to make 
 the jury system a success. They have not as yet acquired that sense of 
 responsibility to society and the government of which in theory they 
 are a part, to prevent their feeling any emotion and any bias which 
 the circumstances and the eloquence of counsel may present and en- 
 courage. The giving to them of trial by jury is an instance of a 
 common error of the American people, in supposing that institu- 
 tions of Government which have been found to work well with 
 Americans, and so well as to be preserved by constitutional man- 
 date in the laws of the country, should be put into immediate use 
 among a people whose history is widely different and whose edu- 
 cation in the responsibility of self-government has been entirely lack- 
 ing. Liberty regulated by law conduces most to the pursuit of 
 human happiness, and therefore is, or should be, the object of all 
 government, but the extent of the regulation, the extent of the 
 limitation, upon liberty needed to prevent its degenerating into 
 license, must differ widely with the differing characteristics of the 
 peoples to whom the government is to be applied and to whom the 
 liberty is to be extended. There are different stages in the progress 
 of the people towards self-government. There is a stage when the 
 exercise of self-government at all is impossible and leads only to 
 anarchy. There is a stage after some popular education in which 
 partial self-government is essential at a part of the education leading 
 up to complete self-government. Indeed it is impossible to con- 
 ceive of a people being thrown from complete despotism into com- 
 plete and satisfactory self-government. The process must be grad- 
 ual. Then, too, we must not fail in practice to make the distinction 
 between civil liberty and political self-control. A people who do 
 not exercise self-government and political self-control may never- 
 theless have properly extended to them civil liberty, because the 
 
 13 
 
enjoyment of civil liberty entails much less responsibility upon the 
 person enjoying it than political self-control and government. Civil 
 liberty is the first step in training a people to self-government, but 
 it is far from being the same thing, as loose thinkers and speakers 
 upon political subjects are apt to assume. With us neither women 
 nor children enjoy any political control. They cannot be said to 
 be of the self-governing element of the community, and yet they 
 each one enjoy quite as great civil liberty as a man. So, too, in 
 those communities where there are qualifications for the electors, 
 those who are not qualified electors, enjoy civil liberty none the less, 
 but are denied* the power of political control. It is necessary for 
 us in establishing a government in a new country where the people 
 have not received the historical experience of the Anglo-Saxon race, 
 and have not had hammered into them the sense of responsibility of 
 self-government, that we should carry clearly in mind the distinc- 
 tions that I have been trying to make, in order that we should not 
 force upon people unfitted therefor, political control, with which 
 they cannot improve themselves, but only damage the government 
 of which they are themselves thus made a part. 
 
 What I have said in respect to Porto Rico is, of course, applica- 
 ble to the Philippines, where the government is less advanced toward 
 proper self-government than it is in Porto Rico. The census has 
 now been taken of the Islands. It was published in April, and two 
 years from that date, a popular assembly of all the Christian Filipinos 
 of not less than fifty representatives and not more than one hunrded, 
 will become a co-ordinate branch of the legislature of the islands, 
 with the present commission as the other chamber. The electorate 
 in the Philippine Islands is limited by educational qualifications, so 
 that probably not more than twenty per cent of adult males are 
 entitled to vote. On that basis municipal and provincial govern- 
 ments, partially autonomous, were established in inany provinces. 
 In some few of these provinces, the governments proved failures 
 because the people were not equal to the exercise of the small meas- 
 ure of self-government extended, and had to be governed directly 
 from the central government. In a great majority of cases how- 
 ever, the local governments have proved to be fairly successful 
 and efficient, not, indeed, as efficient as they would be, were they 
 officered by competent Americans, but much more efficient for the 
 education of the people taking part in the government. In other 
 words, it must be borne in mind that in our efforts to give a good 
 
 14 
 
government to the Philippines as well as to our other dependencies, 
 we are charged with the responsibility, not of making a government 
 in a permanent form which will secure good government to the peo- 
 ple over whom it is placed, but we are also charged with the duty 
 of framing a government which is not permanent, but progressive, 
 and progressive in the sense that the people who are governed shall, 
 by the measures taken by that government and its character, become 
 more and more prepared to assume full political self-government. 
 In this respect our experiment in colonial government diflfers 
 entirely from that taken by any other government in the civilized 
 world, in respect of alien and tropical races, and hence it is that the 
 criticisms, which have been heaped upon our experiments in the 
 Philippines and in Porto Rico, are so lacking in the quality of fair^ 
 ness. The critics generally are English, and with insular prejudices 
 as to the high character of the English tropical and Crown colonies. 
 They judge the success of our very short experiments in the Philip- 
 pines by a rigid comparison with the governments established by 
 England in India, in the Strait settlements, in China, and elsewhere, 
 some for hundreds of years, others for fifty years, and all for many 
 years longer than those of the American regime in the Philippine 
 Islands. They compare them, too, from the standpoint of the Eng- 
 lish purpose in making the colony, which is to give it a permanent, 
 good, but arbitrary and non-popular government, and in which there 
 is wholly lacking intention to prepare the people of the country gov- 
 erned to govern themselves. 
 
 I have referred to education. I may say specifically with 
 respect to the Philippine Islands that the establishment of English 
 schools has led to a school system in which today there are three 
 hundred thousand Philippine boys and girls reading, writing and 
 reciting in the English language, and we feel that we could not con- 
 fer a greater benefit upon those islands than to produce nationality 
 and solidarity of the people by giving them a common language, and 
 that language, the business language of the Orient, and the language 
 the world over of freedom and free institutions. The recent Con- 
 gress has given authority to guarantee the interest on bonds issued 
 for the construction of railways, and as I left Washington we had 
 just issued an invitation for bids for franchises, which we hope will 
 lead in the course of five years to the construction of a thousand 
 miles of Philippine railways. If that happens, as we hope it may, 
 there will be a material development and increase in the export 
 
 15 
 
wealth of the islands that will startle even the imaginative Filipinos. 
 The marvel in respect to the islands and the reason why the business 
 in them has been so retarded, is the lack of inter-communication 
 and inter-transportation. In a population of eight millions of peo- 
 ple, with an area of 140,000 square miles, until the Americans 
 reached the islands, the mileage of railway in the islands had not 
 exceeded 120 miles. Even in a tropical country settled by a sim- 
 ple agricultural people, this is a percentage of railway mileage far 
 below any other country in the world similarly situated. 
 
 We have given to the Philippines a currency as stable as gold. 
 We have taken out of the business of the islands the element of 
 gambling, the variations in the value of the silver standard neces- 
 sarily engendered. We are improving the large harbors of the 
 islands with extensive walls and breakwater, and we are doing what 
 we can against the obstacles of torrential rains, and an absence of 
 good material to construct wagon roads between the provinces. We 
 have had to change the systems of taxation, and perhaps by too 
 radical measures, have at times aroused considerable hostility on 
 the part of numbers of the people. But as the years go on, as the 
 benefits of the government gradually manifest themselves, I feel 
 confident that while we may not retain the constant gratitude of 
 the people, for that is an elusive thing, most difficult permanently 
 to hold, we shall make it evident to their reason that we are doing 
 everything possible to promote their prosperity and to teach them 
 the art of self-government. 
 
 These, Porto Rico and the Philippines, are the burdens which 
 we have assumed, due to the Spanish war. I do not for a moment 
 contend that now or for years they will prove anything but a bur- 
 den to the United States. But they have been forced upon us 
 against our will as trusts to be administered and we should be recre- 
 ant to our high duties as a nation if we failed to meet the obligation. 
 It is true that we have often, in times past, enjoyed a bit of Phara- 
 saical pride in pointing out how much better we were than other 
 people because we had a country homogenous throughout, in which 
 all could take part in the government, all share the benefit of con- 
 stitutional liberty and all enjoy the equal opportunities of American 
 citizens, and that thus we were better than the English, better than 
 the French, better than the Germans, who were continually taking 
 over conquered peoples and governing them against their will. This 
 
 16 
 
was a somewhat indefensible and selfish position for us to occupy, 
 because while the happy condition of our own people was as stated, 
 we failed to note that the progress in civilization in the world would 
 have been delayed centuries, without colonization, without the 
 alien government of conquered people and without the institution 
 of government in such colonies of a character far better than that 
 of which the people governed were capable of themselves maintain- 
 ing. In thus priding ourselves upon not having taken any part 
 in the colonization of the world, we were priding ourselves on not 
 having assumed our share of the burden some nations had to 
 assum.e, if we were and are to enjoy the trade and association with 
 these great countries redeemed from barbarism. Is it possible that 
 the world is not and should not be grateful to the powers of Europe 
 now engaged in colonization of the dark continent of Africa? To 
 France for what it has done in Algiers? To England for what it 
 has done in the Soudan ? Is it possible that we should not be grate- 
 ful to England for producing an empire of 300,000,000 of people 
 in which there is peace from one end to the other, and nothing but 
 the cultivation of the arts of peace, of education, art, agriculture 
 and business. Should we swell with pride and say that we are not 
 as other men are because we do not thus colonize? We do enjoy 
 the benefits of the increasing civilization of the world by reason of 
 colonization ; must we decline to assume the burden thereof ? When 
 our time came to take up the burden, the people of the United States 
 declined to look at the situation in this way. They said circum- 
 stances, fate. Providence, what you choose to call it, have forced 
 upon us the duty of being responsible for a good government in 
 Porto Rico and a good government in the Philippines. We believe 
 that ultimately self-government is the best government for all peo- 
 ple, and that all people can be prepared by constant labor and atten- 
 tion, ultimately to enjoy the blessings of civil liberty and of self- 
 government. Hence, when an alien people comes under our control, 
 w€ deem it our duty to try the experiment of educating them to 
 govern themselves, and we should deem ourselves cowards and 
 recreants if we declined to accept the responsibility and thus throw 
 the people back into a chaos of anarchy which could not but result 
 ultimately in self-destruction or despotism. 
 
 In the last two years we have assumed a responsibility to the 
 world of building a canal, which shall unite the Atlantic and Pacific 
 Oceans in the middle of the American continents. Several most 
 
 7 
 
important questions remain to be determined in respect to the con- 
 struction of the canal. Shall it be a lock canal, the highest portion 
 of which shall be ninety feet above the level of the two oceans, or 
 sixty feet, or thirty feet? Or shall it be a sea level canal? At 
 mean tide the two oceans are at exactly the same level, but on the 
 Pacific side the distance between low tide and high tide is about 
 twenty feet. On the Atlantic side this distance is not more than 
 five, feet, and it has been thought by many that to avoid too great a 
 current it would be necessary to have a tidal lock at one end of the 
 canal. The issue, whether the canal shall be made sixty feet or a 
 sea level canal, is to be determined by the answer to the question 
 whether the advantages of a sea level canal including speed and 
 economy of operation are worth the additional cost and additional 
 time of construction. Measurements and experiments made by the 
 engineers of the present commission show that previous estimates 
 of cost and time are excessive, and I sincerely hope that it will be 
 found by the commission and the consulting board that the differ- 
 ence in cost and in time of construction will be comparatively 
 so small as to make it eminently wise for us to do a thorough job, 
 and dispense with the interference with quick transportation that 
 locks always offer. The commission presented to Congress last 
 year through the executive, the problem where it should buy its 
 supplies, with the statement that under the law as it was it felt 
 obliged to buy its supplies where they could be purchased most 
 cheaply because the work to be done was not within the tariff 
 wall, was not where the law imposed duties according to the Ameri- 
 can tariff, but in a foreign country in which American citizens would 
 be justified in buying where they could buy the cheapest, and in 
 which, therefore, it seemed that the executive of the government 
 must seize the same opportunity unless expressly forbidden by con- 
 gressional enactment. In other words, an executive charged with 
 the duty of building an immense public work must, in fulfilling his 
 trust, build it as cheaply as possible unless otherwise directed by 
 law. 
 
 The policy of protection to American industries is a policy fav- 
 oring the imposition of taxes upon goods imported into and sold 
 within this country, so that in the competition within this country 
 between home and foreign-made goods, the tax shall give an advan- 
 tage to home-made goods ; but where the goods are to be used not 
 in the country, but in a foreign place, it would seem that the princi- 
 
 i8 
 
pie of protection to home industries has no application. But if it 
 has, then it must be enforced by law and not by the discretion of the 
 commission. 
 
 The President has reorganized the commission originally 
 appointed and placed it upon a more efficient basis. The Panama 
 Railroad Company which was largely owned by the French Panama 
 Canal Company and which thus came into the hands of the United 
 States, has now become the sole property of the United States by 
 the acquisition of the shares, twelve hundred or more, of the out- 
 standing stock of the railroad, and the policy of the commission and 
 of the government is to run this railroad as a link between the com- 
 merce of the two oceans at a flat rate for all persons without dis- 
 crimination. The flat rate should be sufficient to pay the cost of 
 carriage, the interest on the bonded indebtedness, and a fair return 
 for the capital invested by the government. In this way we think 
 we can make the railroad as free to the commerce of the world and 
 as helpful, so far at least as rates are concerned, as if there were 
 substituted for the railroad, the canal which we are building. Of 
 course we acquired the railroad to assist us in the construction of 
 the canal, but we could not acquire it without assuming the obliga- 
 tion of a common carrier between a point on the Atlantic Ocean and 
 a point on the Pacific, and that requires us, therefore, to see to it 
 that the rates on the railroad are reasonable and further, that they 
 are the same for all ships. A visit to the Isthmus, and consideration 
 of the enormous work to be done, and a perception of how it may 
 be done, all form in the breast of one who loves his country and is 
 anxious to see it useful, a feeling of pride that the United States has 
 undertaken this great world work and an honest desire that the time 
 within which the work shall be accomplished shall be short. For cer- 
 tain it is that the beneficial effect upon the commerce between the two 
 Americas, and between Europe and Asia and the two Americas 
 will be so great that future generations will rise to call the nation 
 blessed which put its shoulder to the task and pushed it to comple- 
 tion. 
 
 And now with your permission I should like to turn to a few 
 purely domestic questions, with respect to which the American peo- 
 ple ought to act. They are defects in our present government and 
 they are capable of reform, some in one way and some in another. 
 The first crying evil, and I think the greatest, in our community, is 
 the maladministration of the criminal law. It is a disgrace to our 
 
 19 
 
community. The ratio of the number of those convicted of man- 
 slaughter, murder in the second degree, or murder in the first 
 degree, to the number of homicides in a year the country over, is so 
 small as to be startling. Of course the proportion varies in different 
 states, but the number of those who take the lives of their fellow 
 men and who escape punishment altogether is so great that it is 
 no wonder that a man’s life is held as cheaply as it is 
 in many parts of this country. What is true in respect to homi- 
 cides is true in respect to almost all other crimes, although there 
 are some which awaken the indignation and emotion of the people 
 and so call for prompter punishment. The delays in the law and 
 the escape of so many criminals has led directly and surely to the 
 awful condition which prevails in so many parts of this country, in 
 which cruel lynchings involve whole communities in criminality. I 
 know that there are learned disquisitions on the subject of lynchings 
 which are written to show that they have but little to do with the 
 failure of the law to enforce punishment, and instances are given 
 where, though mobs have known that punishment of crime was cer- 
 tain, they nevertheless have proceeded with their bloody work and 
 hurried their victims to an illegal doom, but these instances only 
 show the illegal and insane character of mobs after they are formed, 
 and do not in the slightest degree tend to prove, that had the admin- 
 istration of the law been efficient in all cases, the temptation and 
 the tendency to form mobs at all would not have arisen. The rea- 
 sons for the present failure efficiently to administer the criminal law 
 are three-fold. 
 
 First, when the Constitutions of the States and of the United 
 States were framed, the English law of crimes was a bloody code 
 which punished every felony with death and provided capital pun- 
 ishment for a hundred different offenses. This had been so since 
 the time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, and 
 so it was in those dark days of English history that in a characteris- 
 tic manner, to meet the severities of such a code, there arose and 
 were created by the judges at common law, certain technical rules 
 for the protection of the accused, which greatly increased the diffi- 
 culty of proving his guilt, and so materially reduced the number of 
 those who were carried to the gallows to answer for the commission 
 of crimes which it was inhuman to visit with caprtal punishment. 
 The weight of the Crown in the old days against the prisoners at 
 bar, many of whom were political, the abuses which arose from the 
 
power of the Crown to remove judges and appoint others, and the 
 fear of torture to secure confessions, which was a well-founded 
 fear in the early days of the English kings, all tended to make 
 important restrictions for the benefit of the accused in the manner 
 of his trial, and these restrictions came to be embodied in rules of 
 evidence and oftentimes, indeed, in constitutional prohibitions, that 
 last down to the present day and which, but for their historical 
 importance, would probably never have been inserted in a code of 
 criminal law prepared by a modern jurist. In the protection of the 
 individual from unjust conviction and punishment, the Constitution 
 of the United States as now interpreted, at least in my judgment, 
 goes too far and injures the cause and. rights of society at large. 
 The provision that no man shall be compelled to give evidence 
 against himself is one which, when weighed in the light of modern 
 conditions, is of doubtful utility and it has been enlarged and ampli- 
 fied to a point where, in the prosecution of many crimes, it is almost 
 impossible except by a miracle, to secure the evidence tending to 
 convict. This is especially true of that class of cases like violations 
 of the Interstate Commerce law and the Anti-Trust law, where both 
 parties to the offense may avoid giving any evidence by disclosure 
 of books or otherwise of the business in which, and by which, the 
 offense against the law has been committed. 
 
 Constitutional restrictions are difficult to amend, and therefore 
 we can hope to look for no speedy remedy in respect to this cause 
 for the delays and tardy administration of the criminal law. All 
 that we can hope for is that judges will become more sensible of the 
 injury which a wide construction of such restrictions is likely to 
 inflict on the body politic, and may narrow them so that their opera- 
 tion in securing immunity from crime may be made as small as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 Second, we have extended the right of appeal in criminal cases 
 much too far. In England there is no right of appeal in criminal 
 cases except that of an appeal to the Home Secretary, who does not 
 set aside a conviction or grant a pardon unless, upon the merits it 
 ought to be done. With us the rule of law is that if an error be dis- 
 covered in the trial of the convicted person who appeals, and in 
 many cases the trial lasts two or three weeks, the presumption is 
 that, the defendant was prejudiced by that error of law in the ruling 
 of the court, and the verdict must be set aside unless the court can 
 affirmatively find that the error was innocuous and harmless. Now, 
 
 21 
 
even if we cannot entrust the trial of our criminal cases to the 
 courts of first instance, without an appeal, at least it might be pro- 
 vided that in matters of appeal in criminal cases, the court above 
 should not set aside the judgment for any error of law, if, after an 
 examination of the evidence, it finds sufficient evidence to convict 
 and cannot find affirmatively that the error which was committed 
 would have changed the verdict. In this way ninety-nine out of 
 one hundred cases which are appealed and reversed would be 
 affirmed and the obstacle to efficient and prompt administration 
 presented by appeals, at least, would be avoided. 
 
 A third reason for our defective administration of justice, I 
 fear must be found in the temper of our people. They are not as 
 strongly imbued with the necessity for the enforcement of law as 
 are the Teutonic peoples generally. Their nature is somewhat more 
 volatile. They are much more prone to forget and they are more 
 affected by emotion when sitting in the jury box than are English- 
 men. The disposition of the newspapers, especially the “yellow’' 
 journals, to make a hero out of a criminal, to create maudlin senti- 
 ment in favor of a bloody-handed murderer or murderess, especially 
 the latter, all tend to a treatment of the cases presented with a mawk- 
 ish sentimentality that blinds those charged with responsibility of 
 finding the defendant guilty, to their real duty. Another difficulty 
 in the state courts is in our codes of procedure under which the 
 power of the trial judge to confine the case to the issue and to elim- 
 inate from the jury box the effect of false and morbid eloquence, of 
 hypocritical acting by the counsel for the defense is limited and 
 almost prohibited. This makes the trial of every criminal a game 
 in which the counsel for the defense deem themselves justified in 
 doing anything to take the minds of the jury off the facts of the 
 case and to put them in a hypnotized condition in which they vote 
 as jurors for something which they could not approve as men. So 
 the defendant escapes amid the applause of the gaping crowd of 
 unhealthy auditors, and every member of the community who has 
 any sense of propriety blushes at the escape of another bloody- 
 handed criminal. The power that is given to the judge in a federal 
 court and in an English court, to point out to the jury the absurdities 
 of claims of counsel for the defense in the travesty upon justice 
 which they are trying to perpetrate, is a great restraint upon the 
 abuses to which advocacy in criminal cases has, in these latter days, 
 been carried. Amendments to the law can do a great deal of good 
 
 22 
 
and perhaps with such amendments the forgetfulness of a light- 
 hearted people might not be so injurious. 
 
 A second abuse in our body politic is that of the increase in the 
 divorces granted by our courts. Last year there were 612 divorces 
 out of every 10,000 marriages. If this continues to grow what will 
 become of that which is today the foundation of our civilization and 
 our state — the home and the family. Ought there not be some radi- 
 cal measures by which to prevent the looseness with which the mar- 
 riage bond is tied and the ease with which it may be dissolved. 
 There is one radical remedy which I am sure would introduce a 
 change at once and which would largely reduce the evil. The ques- 
 tion of marriage and divorce is a question of status. Now, cer- 
 tainly, we ought not to have a condition of affairs in which a man 
 may be in the condition of a married man in one state and an unmar- 
 ried man in another. His status in that respect ought to be the 
 same for all the states. A variation of it, as he crosses the state 
 line, is apt to give rise not only to his own embarrassment but also 
 to the embarrassment of his children and in respect of property 
 questions, of many more persons than the man himself. When the 
 Constitution was framed the founders of it thought that questions 
 of bankruptcy ought to be determined by the Congress or in federal 
 courts, or at least they left open to Congress an opportunity to estab- 
 lish courts of bankruptcy if it should be deemed wise. That was on 
 exactly the same principle as that upon which marriages and 
 divorces may well be made the subject of federal cognizance, because 
 the declaration of bankruptcy is the declaration of a status. It 
 would not do for a man to be a bankrupt in one state and not in 
 another. It was wise that that status should accompany him 
 whither he went. Now if it were given to Congress to pass uniform 
 laws of marriage and divorce, we could be certain, first, that the 
 majority in the Congress of the Union would see to it that con- 
 servative restrictions upon the law of divorce would be enacted and 
 that for no light reason should there be a separation of those joined 
 together in matrimony under the law ; and secondly, we could be 
 certain that, administered as the divorce law would be, by judges 
 of the federal courts, subject as they all would be to the general 
 supervision of the Supreme Court of the United States, that there 
 would be a uniform administration of the law in the courts. The 
 rules laid down would be rules approving themselves to the con- 
 servative members of the community. With such a restriction I 
 
 23 
 
am sure that the startling statistics, which as compared with other 
 countries the divorces granted in this country show, would be much 
 reduced. 
 
 Finally, may I speak of another defect in the policy of our gov- 
 ernment, which it seems to me calls for change and remedy. This 
 is the policy of paying its most important officials salaries which 
 are totally inadequate. I omit reference to the salary of the Presi- 
 dent, because that is more nearly adequate than any of the others in 
 the State, and yet that might properly be increased. But take the 
 salary of the Vice President. The Vice President succeeds to the 
 presidency in case of the death, disability or resignation of the 
 President. He ought therefore to be of the same class of men, 
 with the same high ability and broad statesmanship as the President 
 himself. The duties of the Vice President are confined to presiding 
 over the Senate. He is prevented by custom at any rate, if not by 
 law, from engaging in any profession or occupation. He is the 
 second officer of the State. It is evident that he should live as the 
 second officer of the State during the term for which he is elected. 
 Tt is true that he does not discharge functions which involve great 
 labor, but he is where he may be called at any moment to discharge 
 such functions. “They also serve who only stand and wait.” Is 
 it meet, is it proper, that the Vice President of a nation of eighty 
 millions of people should be compelled to give up all means of liveli- 
 hood, all means of properly maintaining an establishment fitting for 
 the second officer of the State, and receive only the small salary of 
 $8,000? The enormous material growth of business and increase 
 of wealth has so increased the scale of living as largely to increase 
 the living wage for an official occupying a prominent position under 
 the Government. So great has this increase become that it is now 
 practically impossible for a Congressman or a Senator having a 
 family to keep house in Washngton on the scale of living which 
 he ought to maintain, for less than double his salary. The judges 
 of the Supreme Court of the United States, a court which we like to 
 call and, believe to be the greatest tribunal in the world, receive 
 $12,500, and the Chief Justice, $13,000. Now, I speak whereof I 
 know when I say that every one of those judges finds it to be of the 
 utmost difficulty to live in Washington at the rate and upon the 
 scale that a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States ought 
 to live upon, with the salary which is paid him. Many of them are 
 unable to have horses and carriage and none of them who maintain 
 
 24 
 
any sort of an establishment are able to live within their income. 
 Now, certainly, this ought not to be. Even in the State of New 
 York they pay a judge of First Instance, called the “Supreme Court” 
 judges, but they are like our Common Pleas judges, $17,500. In 
 England they pay the Lord Chancellor $50,000, the Lord Chief 
 justice $40,000 and their ordinary judges $25,000. Why is it that 
 a country richer than England, with a court that certainly stands 
 as high as any in England, should begrudge to its greatest jurists 
 and lawyers a sum sufficient to enable them to live decently? Con- 
 sider that these judges dispose each year of 400 cases, and that in a 
 number of those cases counsel who do not stand as high at the bar 
 and have not the knowledge of the law which the judges on the 
 bench have, receive more in a single case as a fee than each judge 
 receives for his entire annual salary. Then take our ambassadors 
 and ministers abroad. The highest salary paid to any one of them 
 is $17,500. In many instances they cannot rent houses for the sal- 
 aries which are paid them, and all. the other expenses of living in 
 representation of this government must be paid out of the pockets of 
 the ambassadors,for the privilege of holding the office. Every civil- 
 ized nation except the United States, of any standing whatever, 
 furnishes in all the large countries to which its ambassadors and 
 ministers are accredited, handsome houses where the extra terri- 
 torial hospitality of the nation may be fittingly and suitably dis- 
 pensed. Not only are ambassadors of England, Germany, France 
 and Russia paid from $30,000 to $50,000 a year, but they are all given 
 houses completely equipped, with a large entertainment fund, which 
 enables them when they retire from office to feel that they have not 
 spent a fortune in the service of their government. And then I 
 could give you out of my personal experience the lot of a cabinet 
 officer. It is absolutely impossible for a cabinet officer to live in any 
 kind of a house in Washington and maintain himself respectably 
 upon a salary of $8,000, which is paid him. When I was Governor 
 of the Philippine Islands I received a salary of $20,000 a year. 
 That was because it was fixed by President McKinley and not by 
 Congress. When the question came up of the fundamental law of 
 the Philippine Islands, the only method by which that salary was 
 continued at $20,000 was not to mention the salary in the act at 
 all, and so it continued just as it had been. Out of $20,000 I was 
 able to save perhaps $1,000 a year although I was allowed a house 
 to live in without rent. I do not exaggerate when I say it costs 
 
 25 
 
every cabinet officer double and sometimes treble the salary which 
 the United States pays him. Now ought this to be so? Of course 
 the flippant and the easy answer is “If you do not like your position 
 you may resign.” But is that an answer? It may be for the indi- 
 vidual and it may be that for certain individuals in office any salary 
 is more than they earn. But we are a rich nation, and are entitled 
 to attract to the public service as able and competent men as the 
 richest corporations of this country and the richest governments of 
 Europe. We are a democracy. We proceed on the theory that 
 every respectable citizen, qualified by ability and learning to fill a 
 national office, may fill it, but if you are going to pay salaries which 
 do not defer one-half of the expense of living while the office is being 
 filled, then you limit those who are eligible to the higher offices 
 in your republic to the wealthy men. Could anything be more 
 absurd for a republic than to pursue a policy which shall deprive all 
 the poor men, or men of moderate means, of any chance for public 
 office or of any desire to fill them? Is it not the irony of inconsis- 
 tency that we who are engaged in praising the purity and the sim- 
 plicity of the democracy should adopt a policy by which only mil- 
 lionaires can govern us? It is the theory that the people favor low 
 salaries. I think it is ^ theory not well founded, and that when the 
 proposition is explained to the people, the people will favor the 
 proposition that the laborer is worthy of his hire and that his hire 
 ought to be a salary equal to that which will maintain him decently 
 and respectably in the position which he is expected to fill. 
 
 I have imposed upon your patience by reviewing a number 
 of the important issues of the day. There are others which I should 
 like to dwell upon, but which time does not permit me even to touch. 
 All in closing that I feel justified in saying is, that we have a great 
 country, with wonderful opportunities for doing good the world 
 over, and that the greater our opportunities the greater our respon- 
 sibilities. I can never conceive of a time when the American spirit 
 will not welcome additional opportunities and will not rise to meet 
 additional responsibilites. 
 
 26