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