White House, December 3, 1901
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
The Congress assembles this year under the shadow of a great calamity. On the sixth of
September, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist while attending the Pan-American
Exposition at Buffalo, and died in that city on the fourteenth of that month.
Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third who has been murdered, and the bare recital of
this fact is sufficient to justify grave alarm among all loyal American citizens. Moreover, the
circumstances of this, the third assassination of an American President, have a peculiarly sinister
significance. Both President Lincoln and President Garfield were killed by assassins of types
unfortunately not uncommon in history; President Lincoln falling a victim to the terrible passions
aroused by four years of civil war, and President Garfield to the revengeful vanity of a
disappointed office seeker. President McKinley was killed by an utterly depraved criminal
belonging to that body of criminals who object to all governments, good and bad alike, who are
against any form of popular liberty if it is guaranteed by even the most just and liberal laws, and
who are as hostile to the upright exponent of a free people's sober will as to the tyrannical and
irresponsible despot.
It is not too much to say that at the time of President McKinley's death he was the most widely
loved man in all the United States; while we have never had any public man of his position who
has been so wholly free from the bitter animosities incident to public life. His political opponents
were the first to bear the heartiest and most generous tribute to the broad kindliness of nature, the
sweetness and gentleness of character which so endeared him to his close associates. To a
standard of lofty integrity in public life he united the tender affections and home virtues which are
all important in the makeup of national character. A gallant soldier in the great war for the Union,
he also shone as an example to all our people because of his conduct in the most sacred and
intimate of home relations. There could be no personal hatred of him, for he never acted with
aught but consideration for the welfare of others. No one could fail to respect him who knew him
in public or private life. The defenders of those murderous criminals who seek to excuse their
criminality by asserting that it is exercised for political ends, inveigh against wealth and
irresponsible power. But for this assassination even this base apology cannot be urged.
President McKinley was a man of moderate means, a man whose stock sprang from the sturdy
tillers of the soil, who had himself belonged among the wageworkers, who had entered the Army
as a private soldier. Wealth was not struck at when the President was assassinated, but the honest
toil which is content with moderate gains after a lifetime of unremitting labor, largely in the
service of the public. Still less was power struck at in the sense that power is irresponsible or
centered in the hands of any one individual. The blow was not aimed, at tyranny or wealth. It was
aimed at one of the strongest champions the wageworker has ever had; at one of the most faithful
representatives of the system of public rights and representative government who has ever risen to
public office. President McKinley filled that political office for which the entire people vote and
no President--not even Lincoln himself--was ever more earnestly anxious to represent the
well-thought-out wishes of the people, his one anxiety in every crisis was to keep in closest touch
with the people--to find out what they thought and to endeavor to give expression to their
thought, after having endeavored to guide that thought aright. He had just been reelected to the
Presidency because the majority of our citizens, the majority of our farmers and wageworkers,
believed that he had faithfully upheld their interests for four years. They felt that he represented so
well and so honorably all their ideals and aspirations that they wished him to continue for another
four years to represent them.
And this was the man at whom the assassin struck! That there might be nothing lacking to
complete the Judas-like infamy of his act, he took advantage of an occasion when the President
was meeting the people generally; and advancing as if to take the hand outstretched to him in
kindly and brotherly fellowship he turned the noble and generous confidence of the victim into an
opportunity to strike the fatal blow. There is no baser deed in all the annals of crime.
The shock, the grief of the country are bitter in the minds of all who saw the dark days, while the
President yet hovered between life and death. At last the light was stilled in the kindly eyes and
the breath went from the lips that even in mortal agony uttered no words save of forgiveness to
his murderer, of love for his friends, and of unfaltering trust in the will of the Most High. Such a
death, crowning the glory of such a life, leaves us with infinite sorrow, but with such pride in what
he had accomplished and in his own personal character, that we feel the blow not as struck at him,
but as struck at the nation. We mourn a good and great President who is dead; but while we
mourn we are lifted up by the splendid achievements of his life and the grand heroism with which
he met his death.
When we turn from the man to the nation, the harm done is so great as to excite our gravest
apprehensions and to demand our wisest and most resolute action. This criminal was a professed
anarchist, inflamed by the teachings of professed anarchists, and probably also by the reckless
utterances of those who, on the stump and in the public press, appeal to the dark and evil spirits
of malice and greed, envy and sullen hatred. The wind is sowed by the men who preach such
doctrines, and they cannot escape their share of responsibility for the whirlwind that is reaped.
This applies alike to the deliberate demagogue, to the exploiter of sensationalism, and to the crude
and foolish visionary who, for whatever reason, apologizes for crime or excites aimless
discontent.
The blow was aimed not at this President, but at all Presidents; at every symbol of government.
President McKinley was as emphatically the embodiment of the popular will of the nation
expressed through the forms of law as a New England town meeting is in similar fashion the
embodiment of the law-abiding purpose and practice of the people of the town. On no
conceivable theory could the murder of the President be accepted as due to protest against
"inequalities in the social order," save as the murder of all the freemen engaged in a town meeting
could be accepted as a protest against that social inequality which puts a malefactor in jail.
Anarchy is no more an expression of "social discontent" than picking pockets or wife
beating.
The anarchist, and especially the anarchist in the United States, is merely one type of criminal,
more dangerous than any other because he represents the same depravity in a greater degree. The
man who advocates anarchy directly or indirectly, in any shape or fashion, or the man who
apologizes for anarchists and their deeds, makes himself morally accessory to murder before the
fact. The anarchist is a criminal whose perverted instincts lead him to prefer confusion and chaos
to the most beneficent form of social order. His protest of concern for workingmen is outrageous
in its impudent falsity; for if the political institutions of this country do not afford opportunity to
every honest and intelligent son of toil, then the door of hope is forever closed against him. The
anarchist is everywhere not merely the enemy of system and of progress, but the deadly foe of
liberty. If ever anarchy is triumphant, its triumph will last for but one red moment, to be
succeeded for ages by the gloomy night of despotism.
For the anarchist himself, whether he preaches or practices his doctrines, we need not have one
particle more concern than for any ordinary murderer. He is not the victim of social or political
injustice. There are no wrongs to remedy in his case. The cause of his criminality is to be found in
his own evil passions and in the evil conduct of those who urge him on, not in any failure by
others or by the State to do justice to him or his. He is a malefactor and nothing else. He is in no
sense, in no shape or way, a "product of social conditions," save as a highwayman is "produced"
by the fact that an unarmed man happens to have a purse. It is a travesty upon the great and holy
names of liberty and freedom to permit them to be invoked in such a cause. No man or body of
men preaching anarchistic doctrines should be allowed at large any more than if preaching the
murder of some specified private individual. Anarchistic speeches, writings, and meetings are
essentially seditious and treasonable.
I earnestly recommend to the Congress that in the exercise of its wise discretion it should take
into consideration the coming to this country of anarchists or persons professing principles hostile
to all government and justifying the murder of those placed in authority. Such individuals as those
who not long ago gathered in open meeting to glorify the murder of King Humbert of Italy
perpetrate a crime, and the law should ensure their rigorous punishment. They and those like them
should be kept out of this country; and if found here they should be promptly deported to the
country whence they came; and far-reaching provision should be made for the punishment of
those who stay. No matter calls more urgently for the wisest thought of the Congress.
The Federal courts should be given jurisdiction over any man who kills or attempts to kill the
President or any man who by the Constitution or by law is in line of succession for the Presidency,
while the punishment for an unsuccessful attempt should be proportioned to the enormity of the
offense against our institutions.
Anarchy is a crime against the whole human race; and all mankind should band against the
anarchist. His crime should be made an offense against the law of nations, like piracy and that
form of manstealing known as the slave trade; for it is of far blacker infamy than either. It should
be so declared by treaties among all civilized powers. Such treaties would give to the Federal
Government the power of dealing with the crime.
A grim commentary upon the folly of the anarchist position was afforded by the attitude of the
law toward this very criminal who had just taken the life of the President. The people would have
torn him limb from limb if it had not been that the law he defied was at once invoked in his behalf.
So far from his deed being committed on behalf of the people against the Government, the
Government was obliged at once to exert its full police power to save him from instant death at
the hands of the people. Moreover, his deed worked not the slightest dislocation in our
governmental system, and the danger of a recurrence of such deeds, no matter how great it might
grow, would work only in the direction of strengthening and giving harshness to the forces of
order. No man will ever be restrained from becoming President by any fear as to his personal
safety. If the risk to the President's life became great, it would mean that the office would more
and more come to be filled by men of a spirit which would make them resolute and merciless in
dealing with every friend of disorder. This great country will not fall into anarchy, and if
anarchists should ever become a serious menace to its institutions, they would not merely be
stamped out, but would involve in their own ruin every active or passive sympathizer with their
doctrines. The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it burns
like a consuming flame.
During the last five years business confidence has been restored, and the nation is to be
congratulated because of its present abounding prosperity. Such prosperity can never be created
by law alone, although it is easy enough to destroy it by mischievous laws. If the hand of the Lord
is heavy upon any country, if flood or drought comes, human wisdom is powerless to avert the
calamity. Moreover, no law can guard us against the consequences of our own folly. The men
who are idle or credulous, the men who seek gains not by genuine work with head or hand but by
gambling in any form, are always a source of menace not only to themselves but to others. If the
business world loses its head, it loses what legislation cannot supply. Fundamentally the welfare of
each citizen, and therefore the welfare of the aggregate of citizens which makes the nation, must
rest upon individual thrift and energy, resolution, and intelligence. Nothing can take the place of
this individual capacity; but wise legislation and honest and intelligent administration can give it
the fullest scope, the largest opportunity to work to good effect.
The tremendous and highly complex industrial development which went on with ever accelerated
rapidity during the latter half of the nineteenth century brings us face to face, at the beginning of
the twentieth, with very serious social problems. The old laws, and the old customs which had
almost the binding force of law, were once quite sufficient to regulate the accumulation and
distribution of wealth. Since the industrial changes which have so enormously increased the
productive power of mankind, they are no longer sufficient.
The growth of cities has gone on beyond comparison faster than the growth of the country, and
the upbuilding of the great industrial centers has meant a startling increase, not merely in the
aggregate of wealth, but in the number of very large individual, and especially of very large
corporate, fortunes. The creation of these great corporate fortunes has not been due to the tariff
nor to any other governmental action, but to natural causes in the business world, operating in
other countries as they operate in our own.
The process has aroused much antagonism, a great part of which is wholly without warrant. It is
not true that as the rich have grown richer the poor have grown poorer. On the contrary, never
before has the average man, the wageworker, the farmer, the small trader, been so well off as in
this country and at the present time. There have been abuses connected with the accumulation of
wealth; yet it remains true that a fortune accumulated in legitimate business can be accumulated
by the person specially benefited only on condition of conferring immense incidental benefits upon
others. Successful enterprise, of the type which benefits all mankind, can only exist if the
conditions are such as to offer great prizes as the rewards of success.
The captains of industry who have driven the railway systems across this continent, who have
built up our commerce, who have developed our manufactures, have on the whole done great
good to our people. Without them the material development of which we are so justly proud
could never have taken place. Moreover, we should recognize the immense importance of this
material development of leaving as unhampered as is compatible with the public good the strong
and forceful men upon whom the success of business operations inevitably rests. The slightest
study of business conditions will satisfy anyone capable of forming a judgment that the personal
equation is the most important factor in a business operation; that the business ability of the man
at the head of any business concern, big or little, is usually the factor which fixes the gulf between
striking success and hopeless failure.
An additional reason for caution in dealing with corporations is to be found in the international
commercial conditions of today. The same business conditions which have produced the great
aggregations of corporate and individual wealth have made them very potent factors in
international commercial competition. Business concerns which have the largest means at their
disposal and are managed by the ablest men are naturally those which take the lead in the strife for
commercial supremacy among the nations of the world. America has only just begun to assume
that commanding position in the international business world which we believe will more and
more be hers. It is of the utmost importance that this position be not jeopardized, especially at a
time when the overflowing abundance of our own natural resources and the skill, business energy,
and mechanical aptitude of our people make foreign markets essential. Under such conditions it
would be most unwise to cramp or to fetter the youthful strength of our nation.
Moreover, it cannot too often be pointed out that to strike with ignorant violence at the interests
of one set of men almost inevitably endangers the interests of all. The fundamental rule in our
national life--the rule which underlies all others--is that, on the whole, and in the long run, we
shall go up or down together. There are exceptions; and in times of prosperity some will prosper
far more, and in times of adversity, some will suffer far more than others; but speaking generally,
a period of good times means that all share more or less in them, and in a period of hard times all
feel the stress to a greater or less degree. It surely ought not to be necessary to enter into any
proof of this statement; the memory of the lean years which began in 1893 is still vivid, and we
can contrast them with the conditions in this very year which is now closing. Disaster to great
business enterprises can never have its effects limited to the men at the top. It spreads throughout,
and while it is bad for everybody, it is worst for those farthest down. The capitalist may be shorn
of his luxuries; but the wageworker may be deprived of even bare necessities.
The mechanism of modern business is so delicate that extreme care must be taken not to interfere
with it in a spirit of rashness or ignorance. Many of those who have made it their vocation to
denounce the great industrial combinations which are popularly, although with technical
inaccuracy, known as "trusts," appeal especially to hatred and fear. These are precisely the two
emotions, particularly when combined with ignorance, which unfit men for the exercise of cool
and steady judgment. In facing new industrial conditions, the whole history of the world shows
that legislation will generally be both unwise and ineffective unless undertaken after calm inquiry
and with sober self-restraint. Much of the legislation directed at the trusts would have been
exceedingly mischievous had it not also been entirely ineffective. In accordance with a
well-known sociological law, the ignorant or reckless agitator has been the really effective friend
of the evils which he has been nominally opposing. In dealing with business interests, for the
Government to undertake by crude and ill-considered legislation to do what may turn out to be
bad, would be to incur the risk of such far-reaching national disaster that it would be preferable to
undertake nothing at all. The men who demand the impossible or the undesirable serve as the
allies of the forces with which they are nominally at war, for they hamper those who would
endeavor to find out in rational fashion what the wrongs really are and to what extent and in what
manner it is practicable to apply remedies.
All this is true; and yet it is also true that there are real and grave evils, one of the chief being
over-capitalization because of its many baleful consequences; and a resolute and practical effort
must be made to correct these evils.
There is a widespread conviction in the minds of the American people that the great corporations
known as trusts are in certain of their features and tendencies hurtful to the general welfare. This
springs from no spirit of envy or uncharitableness, nor lack of pride in the great industrial
achievements that have placed this country at the head of the nations struggling for commercial
supremacy. It does not rest upon a lack of intelligent appreciation of the necessity of meeting
changing and changed conditions of trade with new methods, nor upon ignorance of the fact that
combination of capital in the effort to accomplish great things is necessary when the world's
progress demands that great things be done. It is based upon sincere conviction that combination
and concentration should be, not prohibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits
controlled; and in my judgment this conviction is right.
It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to require that when men receive
from government the privilege of doing business under corporate form, which frees them from
individual responsibility, and enables them to call into their enterprises the capital of the public,
they shall to so upon absolutely truthful representations as to the value of the property in which
the capital is to be invested. Corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be regulated if
they are found to exercise a license working to the public injury. It should be as much the aim of
those who seek for social betterment to rid the business world of crimes of cunning as to rid the
entire body politic of crimes of violence. Great corporations exist only because they are created
and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they
work in harmony with these institutions.
The first essential in determining how to deal with the great industrial combinations is knowledge
of the facts--publicity. In the interest of the public, the government should have the right to
inspect and examine the workings of the great corporations engaged in interstate business.
Publicity is the only sure remedy which we can now invoke. What further remedies are needed in
the way of governmental regulation, or taxation, can only be determined after publicity has been
obtained, by process of law, and in the course of administration. The first requisite is knowledge,
full and complete--knowledge which may be made public to the world.
Artificial bodies, such as corporations and joint stock or other associations, depending upon any
statutory law for their existence or privileges, should be subject to proper governmental
supervision, and full and accurate information as to their operations should be made public
regularly at reasonable intervals.
The large corporations, commonly called trusts, though organized in one state, always do business
in many states, often doing very little business in the state where they are incorporated. There is
utter lack of uniformity in the state laws about them; and as no state has any exclusive interest in
or power over their acts, it has in practice proved impossible to get adequate regulation through
state action. Therefore, in the interest of the whole people, the nation should, without interfering
with the power of the states in the matter itself, also assume power of supervision and regulation
over all corporations doing an interstate business. This is especially true where the corporation
derives a portion of its wealth from the existence of some monopolistic element or tendency in its
business. There would be no hardship in such supervision; banks are subject to it, and in their case
it is now accepted as a simple matter of course. Indeed, it is probable that supervision of
corporations by the national government need not go so far as is now the case with the
supervision exercised over them by so conservative a state as Massachusetts, in order to produce
excellent results.
When the Constitution was adopted, at the end of the eighteenth century, no human wisdom
could foretell the sweeping changes, alike in industrial and political conditions, which were to take
place by the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time it was accepted as a matter of course
that the several states were the proper authorities to regulate, so far as was then necessary, the
comparatively insignificant and strictly localized corporate bodies of the day. The conditions are
now wholly different and wholly different action is called for. I believe that a law can be framed
which will enable the national government to exercise control along the lines above indicated;
profiting by the experience gained through the passage and administration of the
Interstate-Commerce Act. If, however, the judgment of the Congress is that it lacks the
constitutional power to pass such an act, then a constitutional amendment should be submitted to
confer the power.
There should be created a Cabinet officer, to be known as Secretary of Commerce and Industries,
as provided in the bill introduced at the last session of the Congress It should be his province to
deal with commerce in its broadest sense; including among many other things whatever concerns
labor and all matters affecting the great business corporations and our merchant marine.
The course proposed is one phase of what should be a comprehensive and far-reaching scheme of
constructive statesmanship for the purpose of broadening our markets, securing our business
interests on a safe basis, and making firm our new position in the international industrial world;
while scrupulously safeguarding the rights of wageworker and capitalist, of investor and private
citizen, so as to secure equity as between man and man in this Republic...
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