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William
Taft Speech - Inaugural address
Anyone who has taken the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy
weight of responsibility. If not, he has no conception of the powers and
duties of the office upon which he is about to enter, or he is lacking in
a proper sense of the obligation which the oath imposes.
The office of an inaugural address is to give a summary outline of the
main policies of the new administration, so far as they can be
anticipated. I have had the honor to be one of the advisers of my
distinguished predecessor, and, as such, to hold up his hands in the
reforms he has initiated. I should be untrue to myself, to my promises,
and to the declarations of the party platform upon which I was elected to
office, if I did not make the maintenance and enforcement of those reforms
a most important feature of my administration. They were directed to the
suppression of the lawlessness and abuses of power of the great
combinations of capital invested in railroads and in industrial
enterprises carrying on interstate commerce. The steps which my
predecessor took and the legislation passed on his recommendation have
accomplished much, have caused a general halt in the vicious policies
which created popular alarm, and have brought about in the business
affected a much higher regard for existing law.
To render the reforms lasting, however, and to secure at the same time
freedom from alarm on the part of those pursuing proper and progressive
business methods, further legislative and executive action are needed.
Relief of the railroads from certain restrictions of the antitrust law
have been urged by my predecessor and will be urged by me. On the other
hand, the administration is pledged to legislation looking to a proper
federal supervision and restriction to prevent excessive issues of bonds
and stock by companies owning and operating interstate commerce railroads.
Then, too, a reorganization of the Department of Justice, of the Bureau of
Corporations in the Department of Commerce and Labor, and of the
Interstate Commerce Commission, looking to effective cooperation of these
agencies, is needed to secure a more rapid and certain enforcement of the
laws affecting interstate railroads and industrial combinations.
I hope to be able to submit at the first regular session of the incoming
Congress, in December next, definite suggestions in respect to the needed
amendments to the antitrust and the interstate commerce law and the
changes required in the executive departments concerned in their
enforcement.
It is believed that with the changes to be recommended American business
can be assured of that measure of stability and certainty in respect to
those things that may be done and those that are prohibited which is
essential to the life and growth of all business. Such a plan must include
the right of the people to avail themselves of those methods of combining
capital and effort deemed necessary to reach the highest degree of
economic efficiency, at the same time differentiating between combinations
based upon legitimate economic reasons and those formed with the intent of
creating monopolies and artificially controlling prices.
The work of formulating into practical shape such changes is creative word
of the highest order, and requires all the deliberation possible in the
interval. I believe that the amendments to be proposed are just as
necessary in the protection of legitimate business as in the clinching of
the reforms which properly bear the name of my predecessor.
A matter of most pressing importance is the revision of the tariff. In
accordance with the promises of the platform upon which I was elected, I
shall call Congress into extra session to meet on the 15th day of March,
in order that consideration may be at once given to a bill revising the
Dingley Act. This should secure an adequate revenue and adjust the duties
in such a manner as to afford to labor and to all industries in this
country, whether of the farm, mine or factory, protection by tariff equal
to the difference between the cost of production abroad and the cost of
production here, and have a provision which shall put into force, upon
executive determination of certain facts, a higher or maximum tariff
against those countries whose trade policy toward us equitably requires
such discrimination. It is thought that there has been such a change in
conditions since the enactment of the Dingley Act, drafted on a similarly
protective principle, that the measure of the tariff above stated will
permit the reduction of rates in certain schedules and will require the
advancement of few, if any.
The proposal to revise the tariff made in such an authoritative way as to
lead the business community to count upon it necessarily halts all those
branches of business directly affected; and as these are most important,
it disturbs the whole business of the country. It is imperatively
necessary, therefore, that a tariff bill be drawn in good faith in
accordance with promises made before the election by the party in power,
and as promptly passed as due consideration will permit. It is not that
the tariff is more important in the long run than the perfecting of the
reforms in respect to antitrust legislation and interstate commerce
regulation, but the need for action when the revision of the tariff has
been determined upon is more immediate to avoid embarrassment of business.
To secure the needed speed in the passage of the tariff bill, it would
seem wise to attempt no other legislation at the extra session. I venture
this as a suggestion only, for the course to be taken by Congress, upon
the call of the Executive, is wholly within its discretion.
In the mailing of a tariff bill the prime motive is taxation and the
securing thereby of a revenue. Due largely to the business depression
which followed the financial panic of 1907, the revenue from customs and
other sources has decreased to such an extent that the expenditures for
the current fiscal year will exceed the receipts by $100,000,000. It is
imperative that such a deficit shall not continue, and the framers of the
tariff bill must, of course, have in mind the total revenues likely to be
produced by it and so arrange the duties as to secure an adequate income.
Should it be impossible to do so by import duties, new kinds of taxation
must be adopted, and among these I recommend a graduated inheritance tax
as correct in principle and as certain and easy of collection.
The obligation on the part of those responsible for the expenditures made
to carry on the Government, to be as economical as possible, and to make
the burden of taxation as light as possible, is plain, and should be
affirmed in every declaration of government policy. This is especially
true when we are face to face with a heavy deficit. But when the desire to
win the popular approval leads to the cutting off of expenditures really
needed to make the Government effective and to enable it to accomplish its
proper objects, the result is as much to be condemned as the waste of
government funds in unnecessary expenditure. The scope of a modern
government in what it can and ought to accomplish for its people has been
widened far beyond the principles laid down by the old "laissez faire"
school of political writers, and this widening has met popular approval.
In the Department of Agriculture the use of scientific experiments on a
large scale and the spread of information derived from them for the
improvement of general agriculture must go on.
The importance of supervising business of great railways and industrial
combinations and the necessary investigation and prosecution of unlawful
business methods are another necessary tax upon Government which did not
exist half a century ago.
The putting into force of laws which shall secure the conservation of our
resources, so far as they may be within the jurisdiction of the Federal
Government, including the most important work of saving and restoring our
forests and the great improvement of waterways, are all proper government
functions which must involve large expenditure if properly performed.
While some of them, like the reclamation of arid lands, are made to pay
for themselves, others are of such an indirect benefit that this cannot be
expected of them. A permanent improvement, like the Panama Canal, should
be treated as a distinct enterprise, and should be paid for by the
proceeds of bonds, the issue of which will distribute its cost between the
present and future generations in accordance with the benefits derived. It
may well be submitted to the serious consideration of Congress whether the
deepening and control of the channel of a great river system, like that of
the Ohio or of the Mississippi, when definite and practical plans for the
enterprise have been approved and determined upon, should not be provided
for in the same way.
Then, too, there are expenditures of Government absolutely necessary if
our country is to maintain its proper place among the nations of the
world, and is to exercise its proper influence in defense of its own trade
interests in the maintenance of traditional American policy against the
colonization of European monarchies in this hemisphere, and in the
promotion of peace and international morality. I refer to the cost of
maintaining a proper army, a proper navy, and suitable fortifications upon
the mainland of the United States and in its dependencies.
We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in
time of emergency, in cooperation with the national militia and under the
provisions of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a
force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to
furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance
of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President
Monroe.
Our fortifications are yet in a state of only partial completeness, and
the number of men to man them is insufficient. In a few years however, the
usual annual appropriations for our coast defenses, both on the mainland
and in the dependencies, will make them sufficient to resist all direct
attack, and by that time we may hope that the men to man them will be
provided as a necessary adjunct. The distance of our shores from Europe
and Asia of course reduces the necessity for maintaining under arms a
great army, but it does not take away the requirement of mere
prudence--that we should have an army sufficiently large and so
constituted as to form a nucleus out of which a suitable force can quickly
grow.
What has been said of the army may be affirmed in even a more emphatic way
of the navy. A modern navy can not be improvised. It must be built and in
existence when the emergency arises which calls for its use and operation.
My distinguished predecessor has in many speeches and messages set out
with great force and striking language the necessity for maintaining a
strong navy commensurate with the coast line, the governmental resources,
and the foreign trade of our Nation; and I wish to reiterate all the
reasons which he has presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a
strong navy as the best conservator of our peace with other nations, and
the best means of securing respect for the assertion of our rights, the
defense of our interests, and the exercise of our influence in
international matters.
Our international policy is always to promote peace. We shall enter into
any war with a full consciousness of the awful consequences that it always
entails, whether successful or not, and we, of course, shall make every
effort consistent with national honor and the highest national interest to
avoid a resort to arms. We favor every instrumentality, like that of the
Hague Tribunal and arbitration treaties made with a view to its use in all
international controversies, in order to maintain peace and to avoid war.
But we should be blind to existing conditions and should allow ourselves
to become foolish idealists if we did not realize that, with all the
nations of the world armed and prepared for war, we must be ourselves in a
similar condition, in order to prevent other nations from taking advantage
of us and of our inability to defend our interests and assert our rights
with a strong hand.
In the international controversies that are likely to arise in the Orient
growing out of the question of the open door and other issues the United
States can maintain her interests intact and can secure respect for her
just demands. She will not be able to do so, however, if it is understood
that she never intends to back up her assertion of right and her defense
of her interest by anything but mere verbal protest and diplomatic note.
For these reasons the expenses of the army and navy and of coast defenses
should always be considered as something which the Government must pay
for, and they should not be cut off through mere consideration of economy.
Our Government is able to afford a suitable army and a suitable navy. It
may maintain them without the slightest danger to the Republic or the
cause of free institutions, and fear of additional taxation ought not to
change a proper policy in this regard.
The policy of the United States in the Spanish war and since has given it
a position of influence among the nations that it never had before, and
should be constantly exerted to securing to its bona fide citizens,
whether native or naturalized, respect for them as such in foreign
countries. We should make every effort to prevent humiliating and
degrading prohibition against any of our citizens wishing temporarily to
sojourn in foreign countries because of race or religion.
The admission of Asiatic immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our
population has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in our
treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulation secured by
diplomatic negotiation. I sincerely hope that we may continue to minimize
the evils likely to arise from such immigration without unnecessary
friction and by mutual concessions between self-respecting governments.
Meantime we must take every precaution to prevent, or failing that, to
punish outbursts of race feeling among our people against foreigners of
whatever nationality who have by our grant a treaty right to pursue lawful
business here and to be protected against lawless assault or injury.
This leads me to point out a serious defect in the present federal
jurisdiction, which ought to be remedied at once. Having assured to other
countries by treaty the protection of our laws for such of their subjects
or citizens as we permit to come within our jurisdiction, we now leave to
a state or a city, not under the control of the Federal Government, the
duty of performing our international obligations in this respect. By
proper legislation we may, and ought to, place in the hands of the Federal
Executive the means of enforcing the treaty rights of such aliens in the
courts of the Federal Government. It puts our Government in a
pusillanimous position to make definite engagements to protect aliens and
then to excuse the failure to perform those engagements by an explanation
that the duty to keep them is in States or cities, not within our control.
If we would promise we must put ourselves in a position to perform our
promise. We cannot permit the possible failure of justice, due to local
prejudice in any State or municipal government, to expose us to the risk
of a war which might be avoided if federal jurisdiction was asserted by
suitable legislation by Congress and carried out by proper proceedings
instituted by the Executive in the courts of the National Government.
One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is
a change of our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater
elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the
limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a
financial panic. The monetary commission, lately appointed, is giving full
consideration to existing conditions and to all proposed remedies, and
will doubtless suggest one that will meet the requirements of business and
of public interest.
We may hope that the report will embody neither the narrow dew of those
who believe that the sole purpose of the new system should be to secure a
large return on banking capital or of those who would have greater
expansion of currency with little regard to provisions for its immediate
redemption or ultimate security. There is no subject of economic
discussion so intricate and so likely to evoke differing views and
dogmatic statements as this one. The commission, in studying the general
influence of currency on business and of business on currency, have wisely
extended their investigations in European banking and monetary methods.
The information that they have derived from such experts as they have
found abroad will undoubtedly be found helpful in the solution of the
difficult problem they have in hand.
The incoming Congress should promptly fulfill the promise of the
Republican platform and pass a proper postal savings bank bill. It will
not be unwise or excessive paternalism. The promise to repay by the
Government will furnish an inducement to savings deposits which private
enterprise can not supply and at such a low rate of interest as not to
withdraw custom from existing banks. It will substantially increase the
funds available for investment as capital in useful enterprises. It will
furnish absolute security which makes the proposed scheme of government
guaranty of deposits so alluring, without its pernicious results.
I sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive, as it should
be, to the importance of our foreign trade and of encouraging it in every
way feasible. The possibility of increasing this trade in the Orient, in
the Philippines, and in South America are known to everyone who has given
the matter attention. The direct effect of free trade between this country
and the Philippines will be marked upon our sales of cottons, agricultural
machinery, and other manufactures. The necessity of the establishment of
direct lines of steamers between North and South America has been brought
to the attention of Congress by my predecessor and by Mr. Root before and
after his noteworthy visit to that continent, and I sincerely hope that
Congress may be induced to see the wisdom of a tentative effort to
establish such lines by the use of mail subsidies.
The importance of the part which the Departments of Agriculture and of
Commerce and Labor may play in ridding the markets of Europe of
prohibitions and discriminations against the importation of our products
is fully understood, and it is hoped that the use of the maximum and
minimum feature of our tariff law to be soon passed will be effective to
remove many of those restrictions.
The Panama Canal will have a most important bearing upon the trade between
the eastern and far western sections of our country, and will greatly
increase the facilities for transportation between the eastern and the
western seaboard, and may possibly revolutionize the transcontinental
rates with respect to bulky merchandise. It will also have a most
beneficial effect to increase the trade between the eastern seaboard of
the United States and the western coast of South America, and, indeed,
with some of the important ports on the east coast of South America
reached by rail from the west coast.
The work on the canal is making most satisfactory progress. The type of
the canal as a lock canal was fixed by Congress after a full consideration
of the conflicting reports of the majority and minority of the consulting
board, and after the recommendation of the War Department and the
Executive upon those reports. Recent suggestion that something had
occurred on the Isthmus to make the lock type of the canal less feasible
than it was supposed to be when the reports were made and the policy
determined on led to a visit to the Isthmus of a board of competent
engineers to examine the Gatun dam and locks, which are the key of the
lock type. The report of that board shows nothing has occurred in the
nature of newly revealed evidence which should change the views once
formed in the original discussion. The construction will go on under a
most effective organization controlled by Colonel Goethals and his fellow
army engineers associated with him, and will certainly be completed early
in the next administration, if not before.
Some type of canal must be constructed. The lock type has been selected.
We are all in favor of having it built as promptly as possible. We must
not now, therefore, keep up a fire in the rear of the agents whom we have
authorized to do our work on the Isthmus. We must hold up their hands, and
speaking for the incoming administration I wish to say that I propose to
devote all the energy possible and under my control to pushing of this
work on the plans which have been adopted, and to stand behind the men who
are doing faithful, hard work to bring about the early completion of this,
the greatest constructive enterprise of modern times.
The governments of our dependencies in Porto Rico and the Philippines are
progressing as favorably as could be desired. The prosperity of Porto Rico
continues unabated. The business conditions in the Philippines are not all
that we could wish them to be, but with the passage of the new tariff bill
permitting free trade between the United States and the archipelago, with
such limitations on sugar and tobacco as shall prevent injury to domestic
interests in those products, we can count on an improvement in business
conditions in the Philippines and the development of a mutually profitable
trade between this country and the islands. Meantime our Government in
each dependency is upholding the traditions of civil liberty and
increasing popular control which might be expected under American
auspices. The work which we are doing there redounds to our credit as a
nation.
I look forward with hope to increasing the already good feeling between
the South and the other sections of the country. My chief purpose is not
to effect a change in the electoral vote of the Southern States. That is a
secondary consideration. What I look forward to is an increase in the
tolerance of political views of all kinds and their advocacy throughout
the South, and the existence of a respectable political opposition in
every State; even more than this, to an increased feeling on the part of
all the people in the South that this Government is their Government, and
that its officers in their states are their officers.
The consideration of this question can not, however, be complete and full
without reference to the negro race, its progress and its present
condition. The thirteenth amendment secured them freedom; the fourteenth
amendment due process of law, protection of property, and the pursuit of
happiness; and the fifteenth amendment attempted to secure the negro
against any deprivation of the privilege to vote because he was a negro.
The thirteenth and fourteenth amendments have been generally enforced and
have secured the objects for which they are intended. While the fifteenth
amendment has not been generally observed in the past, it ought to be
observed, and the tendency of Southern legislation today is toward the
enactment of electoral qualifications which shall square with that
amendment. Of course, the mere adoption of a constitutional law is only
one step in the right direction. It must be fairly and justly enforced as
well. In time both will come. Hence it is clear to all that the domination
of an ignorant, irresponsible element can be prevented by constitutional
laws which shall exclude from voting both negroes and whites not having
education or other qualifications thought to be necessary for a proper
electorate. The danger of the control of an ignorant electorate has
therefore passed. With this change, the interest which many of the
Southern white citizens take in the welfare of the negroes has increased.
The colored men must base their hope on the results of their own industry,
self-restraint, thrift, and business success, as well as upon the aid and
comfort and sympathy which they may receive from their white neighbors of
the South.
There was a time when Northerners who sympathized with the negro in his
necessary struggle for better conditions sought to give him the suffrage
as a protection to enforce its exercise against the prevailing sentiment
of the South. The movement proved to be a failure. What remains is the
fifteenth amendment to the Constitution and the right to have statutes of
States specifying qualifications for electors subjected to the test of
compliance with that amendment. This is a great protection to the negro.
It never will be repealed, and it never ought to be repealed. If it had
not passed, it might be difficult now to adopt it; but with it in our
fundamental law, the policy of Southern legislation must and will tend to
obey it, and so long as the statutes of the States meet the test of this
amendment and are not otherwise in conflict with the Constitution and laws
of the United States, it is not the disposition or within the province of
the Federal Government to interfere with the regulation by Southern States
of their domestic affairs. There is in the South a stronger feeling than
ever among the intelligent well-to-do, and influential element in favor of
the industrial education of the negro and the encouragement of the race to
make themselves useful members of the community. The progress which the
negro has made in the last fifty years, from slavery, when its statistics
are reviewed, is marvelous, and it furnishes every reason to hope that in
the next twenty-five years a still greater improvement in his condition as
a productive member of society, on the farm, and in the shop, and in other
occupations may come.
The negroes are now Americans. Their ancestors came here years ago against
their will, and this is their only country and their only flag. They have
shown themselves anxious to live for it and to die for it. Encountering
the race feeling against them, subjected at times to cruel injustice
growing out of it, they may well have our profound sympathy and aid in the
struggle they are making. We are charged with the sacred duty of making
their path as smooth and easy as we can. Any recognition of their
distinguished men, any appointment to office from among their number, is
properly taken as an encouragement and an appreciation of their progress,
and this just policy should be pursued when suitable occasion offers.
But it may well admit of doubt whether, in the case of any race, an
appointment of one of their number to a local office in a community in
which the race feeling is so widespread and acute as to interfere with the
ease and facility with which the local government business can be done by
the appointee is of sufficient benefit by way of encouragement to the race
to outweigh the recurrence and increase of race feeling which such an
appointment is likely to engender. Therefore the Executive, in recognizing
the negro race by appointments, must exercise a careful discretion not
thereby to do it more harm than good. On the other hand, we must be
careful not to encourage the mere pretense of race feeling manufactured in
the interest of individual political ambition.
Personally, I have not the slightest race prejudice or feeling, and
recognition of its existence only awakens in my heart a deeper sympathy
for those who have to bear it or suffer from it, and I question the wisdom
of a policy which is likely to increase it. Meantime, if nothing is done
to prevent it, a better feeling between the negroes and the whites in the
South will continue to grow, and more and more of the white people will
come to realize that the future of the South is to be much benefited by
the industrial and intellectual progress of the negro. The exercise of
political franchises by those of this race who are intelligent and well to
do will be acquiesced in, and the right to vote will be withheld only from
the ignorant and irresponsible of both races.
There is one other matter to which I shall refer. It was made the subject
of great controversy during the election and calls for at least a passing
reference now. My distinguished predecessor has given much attention to
the cause of labor, with whose struggle for better things he has shown the
sincerest sympathy. At his instance Congress has passed the bill fixing
the liability of interstate carriers to their employees for injury
sustained in the course of employment, abolishing the rule of
fellow-servant and the common-law rule as to contributory negligence, and
substituting therefor the so-called rule of "comparative negligence." It
has also passed a law fixing the compensation of government employees for
injuries sustained in the employ of the Government through the negligence
of the superior. It has also passed a model child-labor law for the
District of Columbia. In previous administrations an arbitration law for
interstate commerce railroads and their employees, and laws for the
application of safety devices to save the lives and limbs of employees of
interstate railroads had been passed. Additional legislation of this kind
was passed by the outgoing Congress.
I wish to say that insofar as I can I hope to promote the enactment of
further legislation of this character. I am strongly convinced that the
Government should make itself as responsible to employees injured in its
employ as an interstate-railway corporation is made responsible by federal
law to its employees; and I shall be glad, whenever any additional
reasonable safety device can be invented to reduce the loss of life and
limb among railway employees, to urge Congress to require its adoption by
interstate railways.
Another labor question has arisen which has awakened the most excited
discussion. That is in respect to the power of the federal courts to issue
injunctions in industrial disputes. As to that, my convictions are fixed.
Take away from the courts, if it could be taken away, the power to issue
injunctions in labor disputes, and it would create a privileged class
among the laborers and save the lawless among their number from a most
needful remedy available to all men for the protection of their business
against lawless invasion. The proposition that business is not a property
or pecuniary right which can be protected by equitable injunction is
utterly without foundation in precedent or reason. The proposition is
usually linked with one to make the secondary boycott lawful. Such a
proposition is at variance with the American instinct, and will find no
support, in my judgment, when submitted to the American people. The
secondary boycott is an instrument of tyranny, and ought not to be made
legitimate.
The issue of a temporary restraining order without notice has in several
instances been abused by its inconsiderate exercise, and to remedy this
the platform upon which I was elected recommends the formulation in a
statute of the conditions under which such a temporary restraining order
ought to issue. A statute can and ought to be framed to embody the best
modern practice, and can bring the subject so closely to the attention of
the court as to make abuses of the process unlikely in the future. The
American people, if I understand them, insist that the authority of the
courts shall be sustained, and are opposed to any change in the procedure
by which the powers of a court may be weakened and the fearless and
effective administration of justice be interfered with.
Having thus reviewed the questions likely to recur during my
administration, and having expressed in a summary way the position which I
expect to take in recommendations to Congress and in my conduct as an
Executive, I invoke the considerate sympathy and support of my
fellow-citizens and the aid of the Almighty God in the discharge of my
responsible duties.
William Taft
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